geeky tutorials, tips, guides and reviews
Looking for a minimalistic way to keep track of what you need to get done? Wunderlist is a great application for the job. I have tried many of the to-do list mangers out there and Wunderlist is by far the best looking, and possibly one of the most functional I have used.
We all have web sites we keep checking back on day after day, while we browse the Web. Maybe you are checking for news in Google Reader? Perhaps you are checking your mail in Gmail? You could be following your favorite forum too. The App Tabs add-on for Firefox will let you shrink your favorite web site applications to a favicon-sized tab, so it can be there handy when you need it.
Want a new place to store your virtual notes to yourself? Listhings looks to be your personal dashboard for storing notes. The service is very easy to use and understand. Click “Add” to add new notes and… yeah, that is about it.
Here is a little more about the web site application from the developers:
Back in the days, people used fridges to stick notes to. Nowadays, people are green and don’t waste paper on notes. Instead, they use Listhings – the free online tool for storing notes. You can use Listhings to store ToDo’s, titles of great songs, phone numbers, shopping lists, you-name-it. It’s very simple and straightforward. Everyone should be able to use it from any web browser.
It is a neat idea, and I am looking forward to seeing what they do with the project in the future. If your looking for a place to store your notes, give Listhings a shot.
Looking for a minimalist to-do list? I have been a big fan in the past of to-do list web sites and anything that helps me manage my time better. Patio is yet another time organization tool, that keeps things very simple.
Get More Done!
You have a daily to-do list to create after signing up. As you type in things you need to do, they are added to the list. Anything you haven’t gotten done for one day is automatically moved to the next day. You can also re-arrange tasks like this by taking advantage of the “shift” command. This will let you put something off till the next day.
Here is a screen shot of Patio in action:
The best thing about using Patio, or any other online to-do list manager is that you don’t have to remember to jot it down somewhere, or hurry up and find a pen and paper to write yourself a note. You have it all online, which makes it even easier to access and organize your daily tasks.
I always love to try out new to-do list applications and web sites, because I am a ‘bit of an organizational nut. With that in mind, I recently started checking out ForcedDo and I am pretty happy with the results.
ForceDo is much more than just your common to-do list. The thing that is special here is that you set mini deadlines in minutes for yourself. Once you hit the “play” button for a to do list item, your clock starts and you see how much time you have left right there on the screen. You can kind of think of it as forcing yourself to become more productive.
Here is a little more information about how to get started from the ForceDo web site:
The key is to split a BIG task into smaller tasks + set priorities + set the (estimated) duration of a task. Lets say, you have a task "Write a blog article". You may have all the plan and ideas in your head about the article, you simply start writing. Thats OK, but if you are a perfectionist you may write the article for 5 hours or never get ready.
Need to organize your time better? Check out ForceDo.com and get yourself motivated to get some things done.
Short of taking a chainsaw to your monitor, all Evil Dead like, there aren’t a lot of good ways to split it up into multiple regions to make working an organized experience. Thanks to Ryan over at Cybernetnews.com I can put my chainsaw away, and get to using MaxTo. MaxTo will help you split your current monitor into virtual regions, that can serve as a constraint when maximizing windows.
Once you install it, the setup is pretty easy to understand. You just setup how you want you desktop to be split, hit the OK button and it is done. If you find yourself overwhelmed by having too many programs or windows floating around your desktop – give MaxTo a shot. Previously I had been doing this same type of desktop reorganization on my own, but MaxTo does it for me – and in turn saves me a lot of tweaking time.
Working on any large team, it can be difficult to keep your ideas, questions and answers all organized and in one place. Co-op, a new web service out there looks to bring all of that together for you.
From the default interface, you will think, “oh, this looks like Twitter”, but I promise that there is more under the hood than that. Think of it along the same lines though, a social stream of co-workers all posting together. The team can then post updates, ask questions, share links all in real time.
You can also quickly share the daily job or agenda with your team. This way you don’t have to bother trying to get everybody together so you can go over the job that needs to be done. You can always go back in time and check on members’ contributions and search through the transcripts. So it is an ever growing database of knowledge too.
I like organization, especially if it helps me get things done, and Co-op is a very useful combination of those two goals.
Remember a few posts past, when I asked if anybody had a solution for Windows Vista color coded folders? I had this on Windows XP with the help of programs like Folderico. That is when I decided it might be better off creating my own colorful Vista folder icon pack so I could just do this myself – no extra program needed!
Download the Vista Colorful Folder Pack! (.zip)
All of the icons are in the .ico format, and supports the following sizes:
256 x 256, 128 x 128, 64 x 64, 48 x 48, 32 x 32, 24 x 24, 16 x 16
Why color code your folders? Having color coded folders for certain documents is more than just about “making things pretty”. It is also very helpful when it comes to getting things done. Let’s say you use the green folder for your bills, green is the color of money – hence it makes you jump right to it instead of having to hunt through all those yellow folders.
Depending on how popular these are, I might release more colored folders in the future. Feel free to use them however you like. If you pass it around to a friend, might also mention where you got it and ask them to subscribe to my RSS feed for more!
I really love AutoHotkey but some people are still confused as to how you can get it to work for you. After my article about it in the recent issue of Ping! Zine I have had a few questions so I thought I would touch on the basics here for all to see. Here are the basics you need once you get it installed.
Right click on the desktop, select “New” and then “AutoHotkey Script”.
On the desktop icon created for the script, I want you to right-click on it and select “Edit Script”. This should open up a Notepad window with your empty script inside. Go to the Notepad window, hit enter twice so you are on a new line. Next I want you to type in the following:
c:testscript::
Now this is telling your script that the word “testscript” is your keyword to type to get your longer response to launch. Next add some text to the end of that – such as…
Now that you got that text typed into there I want you to go to “File” and then “Save” to save your script. Now lets go back to the desktop where you created your quick response, and double click the icon created on your desktop to launch it. You should see the green box with the “H” in it in your taskbar now.
Now go into any text field, e-mail, search box, anything and type in testscript then hit enter after typing it in. Presto – you just saved yourself a few more seconds in your day. You can now quickly type out phrases you use multiple times in the day and save your keyboard (and fingers) from all that extra work.
Having a hard time remembering certain things that you don’t really have time to write down? Well, if you are one of those people who live in their e-mail inbox IWantSandy.com might be the service for you.
Using this service could not get any easier. You get you own e-mail to contact Sandy at and she will then remember or remind you of certain things. For an example if you send her an e-mail saying, “Remind me to post about Sandy on Mitchelaneous in 15 minutes” then in 15 minutes you will get an e-mail back reminding you of the task you need to do.
The service (trying my best to stop calling the service “she” and “her”) knows the words remember and remind the best. Here is a little more information.
When you signed up, I sent you a “Welcome” message containing your own personal Sandy email address. You send me stuff by writing to me at that address, either directly or by Cc’ing me on a message to someone else. You can write to me in the subject line or the body of an email message — I pay attention to both.
More details about the service can be found on the official web site.
All in all I think this is a neat service, and I am currently trying to find reasons to use it more and more. If you need a little help getting your projects (and/or life) in order you might want Sandy too.
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Mitch Keeler is nothing more than your average Joe trying to leave his mark on the world though both his professional work and his online projects, articles, podcasts and more.
