Random MomBlog

I like my (first generation) iPod touch, but tempered by what I wish it could do. On the one hand, being able to surf the web while sitting up with a baby at night helps me stay sane. On the other hand, it could be so much more useful, you know, at times when I’m not locked in the nursing station.

Inspired by CrunchGear’s iPhone 3.0 Scorecard, I thought I’d track my own issues.

The first release made me want additional software features, some of which are creeping in, making each update worth the price so far.

I would love if my iPod touch were a laptop killer for short trips! My biggest wish on my iPod touch/iPhone wish list is a hardware change to support a Bluetooth keyboard! Although it’s the change I most want, it’s hardware so I know it won’t happen with a software upgrade, so I didn’t put it on the list. Particularly with the pinch-zoom, I can deal with the screen size for a short while, but I just can’t type as fast on the “soft” (on-screen) keyboard as on a “hard” (physical) keyboard. If I have to type for a while on a handheld, I use my Treo. Yeah, the heavier bulkier older device with the lesser screen! That’s a large part of the reason why I still use my Treo (has been 3G for years! EV-DO rocks! has always synced multiple calendars!), and I’m not tempted by the iPhone. (When Sharif returned his iPhone to go back to his Treo, he gave a list of reasons that sounded a lot like this. So I’ll take his lesson.)

My two “must-have” applications for work have free versions for both Palm and iPod touch/iPhone. I need ssh and VNC (although X-Windows would be better). On my Treo, I have used pssh and PalmVNC; on my iPod touch, I have downloaded but not yet used TouchTerm and VNC. The downloaded applications I use the most on on the iPod are TwitterFon, Stanza, and AirSharing. I guess that points out how I use it: I read twitter updates, ebooks, and documents I’ve sent over with AirSharing. Not too glamorous, but it passes the time while nursing someone else to sleep without falling asleep (yet) myself.

I did try MagicPad for its internal copy-and-paste, which is pretty cool. Innovation rocks! I notice there is a Print app (too bad I have a Canon wireless printer, not an HP). And maybe I just need Thunderbird on my iPod for the IMAP tagging and message filtering (a.k.a. smart folders).

I looked at the new MonkeyGTD last night, and I was initially sucked by the ways I could slice and dice. I liked looking at everything, or filtering between Work and Personal realms. In addition to regular tags and Realm, there’s Context, Contact, and Area as well as the GTD standards of Project and Action, and action states of Next, Waiting for, and Future. Oh, and Tickler and Reference. Ginsu!

But after pounding on it, I decided to stick with d-cubed GTD after all. I did have to add Category to it (like Area in MGTD), but I did and it wasn’t too hard to do. The reason why is a very simple time-saver: GTD3 knows what to promote to “Next Action” when I’ve completed the previous Next Action in a Project. Looks like I have to manage those states (Next, Waiting, Future) manually in MGTD.

I should test TeamTasks too, at least its live demo, with that need for transparent next-ing fresh on my mind.

UPDATE 10:50PM: TeamTasks has Scope (MGTD Realm), Users (MGTD Contacts), Priority, and Status (from Planning to Complete). No Next/Waiting/Future. No easy-peasy auto-magic next action in TeamTasks either. I really like the pop-up menu interface to pick scope and friends, but I know myself and to stay on track, I need next actions to become next on their own (as long as I check off what I’ve done). I’m sure I can figure out how to add the pop-up picks by editing the tiddler that controls what task tiddler editing looks like.

I like TiddlyWiki, and I like the d3 version for GTD, but it wasn’t fitting how I wanted to organize tasks at work. The main problem, of course, is that my job doesn’t fit GTD that well. Mainly that Done part. I always need to upgrade software to the latest version, and to fix something, and whatever: I have many eternal projects and loose tasks.

The real problem was that I was using Projects in d3 as Categories. So where do projects go? And so almost every action in some projects was floating, and that breaks down the utility of the powerful Next Action concept.

Well, it’s just JavaScript and I ain’t afraid of no new programming language. So I created Categories for myself, just above Projects, as well as a way to look up uncategorized projects. It’s not difficult.

First I edited the GTDMenu tiddler, adding this line at the very top:
+++(gtdCategoriesSliderState)[Categories]< >===
That line is just like the following line for Projects, except with Categories.

Then I created a tiddler titled CategoryList tagged gtd with these lines:

*<<list tagged \"category -someday\" all>>
*+++(gtdUncategorizedSliderState)[Uncategorized Projects:] <<list tagged \"project -Category1 -Category2 -Category3\" all>>===

Fill in your actual categories instead of those CategoryN placeholders, and you’re set. (Or, if you’re better at JavaScript, list the tiddlers that are tagged project that aren’t tagged with a tiddler tagged category.)

Now make yourself some category tiddlers! Remember to use the category tag to make them show up in the menu on the left.

I guess Thunderbird is getting closer to the center of everything. And it’s true, even when I don’t have a web browser running, I still usually have an email client running. Lately that’s been Thunderbird, so the Remember The Milk Extension for Thunderbird caught my eye. Now to see if I use it there, or stick to Fousa on my iPod touch.

Like everyone else, I ran across bfish’s post on putting GCal in Thunderbird. I don’t always have my calendar (pick iCal, iGoogle, or GCal) up, but I always have Thunderbird running. So I had to try it. It works as advertised!

Two comments. You can use the ICAL link for your Google Calendar, not just the XML link as noted in these directions; I used ICAL. The first calendar I created had the correct Google account filled in automagically, but the subsequent calendars did not (as noted in the comments).

And don’t forget GCALDaemon if all you want is two-way synchronization between iCal (Sunbird, Lightning, Rainlendar, Evolution) and Google Calendar. It works for me, it gets new features all the time, and it is the best-documented version 1.0 F/OSS I’ve ever seen. And it worries my geek side a whole lot less than using Plaxo (with its spam history), also suggested.

GTD, Macintosh, Tips, Unix

Holy foldy, batman! I’m usually pretty handy at paper folding, but I had to watch the video for PocketMod four times before I could do it! Yowzah!

GTD

The beauty of an application with a plug-in architecture is that you can add features that you want. Mail redirect (or bounce) can be added to Thunderbird with the Mail Redirect add-on. Cool! Read the comments for a URL to a version that works with Thunderbird 2, or for the way to fix it yourself (it works, but you have to tell the maxVersion check). Now I have an easy way to bounce messages to Gmail for search archiving.

So that just leaves Growl telling me about new messages in Thunderbird. I found three ways to do that. The first, yamb + growlNotify.sh, is what I’ve been using since I started using Thunderbird 2.0b1 (I was an early adopter because I love IMAP mail tags). I don’t like it because Thunderbird is always bouncing in my dock to tell me that a folder (who knows which one) is being processed and can’t be accessed right now. I don’t care, but the bounces are distracting, so while Growl fits GTD, the extraneous bounces don’t. The good news is that what I was using before, Growl New Message Notification, now works with Thunderbird 2! This is the best route in my mind. It’s one add-on (not an add-on and a shell script) (although you do need to install growlnotify, one of the optional Growl Extras installs), it’s very configurable (so are shell scripts, but not as easily), and it doesn’t give me the error messages that YAMB does. However, if you want another choice, there’s also Growl Notifications for Firefox (completed downloads) and Thunderbird (new messages) in the sandbox. I prefer the extension not in the sandbox because it has options, but they both work.

Tags are good. Plug-ins are good.

Macintosh, Software, Tips

I love the tags in Thunderbird 2.0, but I miss the Growl New Message Notification. That add-on really streamlined my workflow, keeping email in the background unless it’s important.

So I went back to Neil’s World on Growl and Thunderbird, and used that approach instead. The good news is that it works with Thunderbird 2.0 (although it isn’t as simple as the one-step add-on). If you want tags and Growl, go the YAMB route.

Macintosh, Tips

After reading this post on email management, I changed the five default tags in Thunderbird 1. I use Do It (sub-5-minute tasks after the email sprint), Delegate It, Follow Thread (so my email archives aren’t cluttered, I prefer the smallest spanning set of messages from any thread), Defer It (longer tasks), and Delete It Later (like shipping information, I’ll delete it after the package arrives safely).

I’m loving the unlimited number of tags and more powerful and more flexible search folders in Thunderbird 2 beta! I had to restore the original five tags back to what I use (now you know why it’s on my mind), but I am ready to throw tags everywhere!

GTD, Tips