Interested in Getting Things Done

I've always been interested in task management apps. I have way to many requests and demands on my time to easily remember things. Its also important to say that it's not that these tasks and requess are not important, but more like I'm in data overload.

Using the Outlook task manager was okay, but it also tied my to my laptop, which I don't always want to carry with me. When I had the MotoQ is was a litle better, but still somewhat clunky.

After I got my 1G iPhone, I was really bummed out, because there was zero task management available. But with 2.0 that was the first type of application I started looking for.

Enter OmniFocus. I ponied up with my 20 bucks. I felt that it was slow but robust. Some of the features and workflow was a little hard to figure out. But I was introduced to something that I was not familiar with... GTD (Getting Things Done). You can learn more about it from David Allen It's a methodology for becoming more productive and effective.

Since that time, I've been looking for an easy implementation to integrate into my life via my iPhone. I heard about desktop and iPhone application called "Things." The desktop version in available as a free preview. It's surprisingly impressive and feature rich for an alpha version. There is a really cool video demo on screencast.

Connecting both the desktop and my iPhone literally took about 30 seconds. That's no exaggeration. The iPhone app is guick and effective. It certainly doesn't feel as bloated at the Omnifocus and it's half the price (9.99).

The only drawbacks that I have found is that it does not have the "tags" like in the desktop version, but that's an easy fix. The other drawback is there is no "search" function. Those two things are kind of minor and it really is an outstanding app. And if you ask what my criteria was, in judging that, it's simple. I'm "getting things done."

~ Jaye

Get ready for a fire sale

Circuit City just got a de-listing notice from the NYSE. They have fallen below the "criteria to be on the exchange and have 30 days to get it above 1.01 as an average. That's pretty big. You can read more at CNET.com. Personally, I hope they survive. They have a lot of employees that will be out of work and I do like them better than bestBuy.

Jaye

Thinking About Microsoft

Beating up on Microsoft and picking them apart is nothing new. It's a religious right on any given day. I am primarily a Mac user, so I'm not one to drink the "Microsoft Kool-Aid." But there are some important to remind and encourage people about with certain products. Specifically, I'm talking about Microsoft Office.

MS Office is something that Microsoft does very right, especially Excel. I like to think of Excel as the "Swiss Army" knife of software. The application in and of itself is awesome. You can easily use it in a variety of ways. The obvious it calculations and formulas. The other is as a flat file database. You can do some really cool stuff that on the surface seems simple, but in reality can be a little mind bending. I can't tell you how many times I've used it to create and manage and been data through CSV files. I love that stuff. We don't talk enough about it.

As a matter of fact, people in tech world are famous for talking about how deep Adobe Photoshop is. But the truth be told, so is Excel. If you want to go in that direction, it's impressively deep in scope. I've seen some mind-blowing stuff that would meet the needs and demands of any serious business person. Unfortunately most people only use about 10 of the available feature set.

Word is Word. I've had friends write anything form novels to training manuals to automated forms. There are some interesting tools inside. You can do a heck of a lot more than design certificates with MS Word. The forms tool is pretty interesting to play with.

I'm not going to go into each application, but by now you have a feel for the direction I'm going in and what I'm talking about. The bottom line it that MS Office is something that the boys and girls at Redmond got right. If you look into it, you can find some cool stuff. Apple has a famous phrase. "Think Different." It would not be a false thing to apply towards the suite.

Let us know your thoughts. Happy computing!

Jaye

Productivity 2.0

There is a great article on "Zen Habits," on Productivity 2.0. The article does a terrific job in contrasting old (usually ineffectual thinking) vs. New School (high quality employee output. Give it a read. There are some really excellent points in there.

Jaye

Styles Change, Style Doesn't

Gotta love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Enjoy.



// Jaye

A Little Disappointment in Life

Recently I got a hold of a string of applications from the iTunes Apps store that just plain stink. From my perspective it wouldn't be so bad if they where free, but that's not the case.

A great example of sucking badly is TextGuru. It should be called Text-AntiTech-Counter-intuitive-Piece-of-Crap. First the reviews in the kindness light where miss-informed on the "ease of use factor," and at worst flat-out lies. It did not work as advertised which brings back my argument for trial-ware. It can certainly be done and I have no idea why it's not.

Text-Guru is supposed to allow you to "seamlessly" allow you to connect with your iPhone and move, share and edit basically any file format. Wrong. I still to this day have not been able to get the file transfer to work, despite being a pretty darn good geek, and in existing word documents you lose cut and paste functionality. The only documents that you can actually cut and paste are text files. That blows. They left out that little invaluable tidbit of information. There are a bunch of other clumsy things about the app and I'm not very happy. Why? Because if it happened once, I'd say okay, but it's happened multiple times.

Several other "Apps That Suck?" Ummmmm Chef, Pick & Choose Groceries, ATT Yellow Pages, What's On, Where and a few others but as I write, I'm just getting more upset. It's just too mind bending.

So to keep this from being a full on rant, Apple needs to do something about the process. As I said above, allow for trial-ware for goodness sake. Show little demo's movies, something. Come on this is the tech age. You can make our lives easier.

Jaye

Thank Gawd

The Microsoft ads featuring Seinfeld and Gates have been officially cancelled. Thank goodness. Now if Gates could get some of that 10 million back from Seinfeld for sucking so bad and fire the marketing staff for lack of message focus. It's okaybto be cute, judy make sure that you are selling product. People are looking for reasons to buy. But ads like these Micosoft one's leave people confused and skeptical.

Jaye

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Posted with LifeCast