I need help finding investigation software.

[TexasComputerDude]

hey yall, I am looking for some software that can help organize an investigation. It needs to keep track of names families and friends and where they work and show the connections in between in a simple and easy to read manner. It should also keep track of links, documents, and other information.

I was thinking about getting a big whiteboard and drawing all of it out, but it needs to be dynamic.

basically if you were looking for a serial killer, what software would you use to keep track of everything you've learned.

[SCone]

Microsoft Visio will let you build anything you want

[TexasComputerDude]

oh cool, thanks, I googled and googled but visio never came up lol.

[Skiprr]

There are some expensive, specialty products out there targeted specifically to law enforcement; Google police "case management".

If you want something that could simulate that big whiteboard, you might want to take a look at MindManager Pro: http://www.mindjet.com/. I've used it for several years as a brainstorming and "thought organization" tool. It's pretty darned flexible, and includes the ability to export your mind map to MS Office products if you need to distribute the output to others.

[Excaliber]

hey yall, I am looking for some software that can help organize an investigation. It needs to keep track of names families and friends and where they work and show the connections in between in a simple and easy to read manner. It should also keep track of links, documents, and other information.

You might find something like FreeMind, which is designed to support the organization of scattered thoughts into a cohesive whole, closer to what you have in mind than a flowcharting tool like Visio. Its concept is similar to that of MindManager Pro suggested by Skiprr. Here's a link to get you started:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download

The software is free.

[TexasComputerDude]

free??? thats got my name written all over it.

thanks alot to all who responded.