3 Stations East

Organizational Smackdown: Calendars

2007-12-21T12:56:51Z

Gee whiz, calendaring is a mess. But maybe it doesn't need to be.

The simple fact of the matter is this: I don't use calendars very often. I mostly use them for events I know are coming but are a week to a month (or more) down the road. And if I were to analyze it I'd probably just classify everything as something that needs a reminder instead, and there you go - problem solved.

I currently use Google Calendar. I used to use iCal for events but found the lack of on-the-go support frustrating. GCal is a natural fit for me: it's available online and thus anywhere, it's easy to use, and it's AJAXrific. The only limitation I have right now is that it's not available offline.

I investigated my options for bringing GCal into the real world. They're slim.

The first option is a piece of software, Spanning Sync. This $25/yr or $65/lifetime software acts as a conduit between iCal and GCal. That's it. I've been using it for a couple of days but, honestly, I haven't used my calendar in a couple of days! It seems to work, runs in the background, etc. This is a tough one to choose for a couple of reasons: 1, I don't use iCal often anymore and find it a little bulky (in 10.4); 2, it costs money and for what it does, it shouldn't.

Some people at 43folders suggested Plaxo as a free alternative to Spanning Sync. I signed up but was turned off by various blog posts stating that they would spam one's address book and the like. No thank you.

Another out-there option is .Mac from a little company called Apple. It's pretty much overkill but I brought it into consideration: $99/year for calendar syncing (and a bunch of other stuff). But it's not worth it to me and besides, I'm already paying for hosting space. At that price, .Mac is redundant.

So as I said, Spanning Sync is where I'm at right now. I'm going to let the trial run out and then, honestly, I'll probably delete it from the MacBook, forget about it, and go back to using Google Calendar exclusively - offline be-damned. I do think the bigger mental shift for me is to think of these big events as to-dos with reminders... then I could pop them into Sandy or Remember the Milk (but most likely Sandy.)

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Organizational Smackdown: Quick Reminders

2007-12-20T12:49:38Z

Something essential to getting organized, for me, is the quick reminder. It's an email, IM, or text message that comes at a particular time. Given my not-so-perfect memory this has been an absolute godsend to have around with Backpack. I've used Backpack's built-in reminders every now and then but generally forget about them.

So I signed up for I Want Sandy earlier this week and started trying that, and really liked it. The reason is clear: it understands plain English. As a bonus (a hindrance to some), it works primarily over email. For example I just sent Sandy an email: "Remind me to take my backpack tomorrow at 8am." I get a confirmation email back, done. That's it.

I also signed up for Remember the Milk, which I'm planning to use as my to-do list system (more on that in a later post.) It too has reminders available: anything with a due date can be set as a reminder. "Great," I thought, "Let's see how it works with email."

The answer? Logical from a programmer's perspective but mildly frustrating from a user's. It's in English, sure, but obviously there's not a lot of super-smart parsing going on here. This is my first big disappointment with RTM and is a place where Sandy shines.

It's funny: three days ago I didn't care about setting reminders over email; now I feel like it's essential. That's part of the reason Backpack's reminders have fallen out of favor with me - they can only be set on the web. Eh.

Even though I don't want to have an "island" of data out there, it feels like Sandy is the winner. The super duper added bonus is that thanks to QuickSilver, I essentially have a command line reminder system!

Sandy and QuickSilver

Of course this isn't "integrated" with QuickSilver; I just set Sandy up as a contact in Address Book and QS took care of the rest. Nice and simple. Love it.

I may need to evaluate Sandy for other tasks (somewhat in place of Remember the Milk) but for now, it's the winner for quick reminders.

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Organizational Smackdown: RSS

2007-12-20T12:38:17Z

Welcome to the first in a series of Organizational Smackdowns.

As you know, the sole content of this blog for a week or so (when there is content) has been devoted to organizational tools. I've felt that I have too many things in too many places, and/or some of the stuff I'm using is inconvenient.

Yesterday I charted out all of the stuff I wanted to organize (online stuff - not actual, real stuff) and am starting to try new things out. First up? RSS.

Ever since I got turned on to RSS I've been using a standalone newsreader. I dabbled with Google Reader for a while but never got into it until I started finding it a simple way to keep up to date with stuff on a PC. Now I use it at work to check in on things but, of course, it's out of sync with my standalone newsreader.

I had a few options. First was to continue to use a standalone newsreader and Google Reader, as I do today. But that's not fun. Second? Standalone with some sort of sync. This basically means NetNewsWire. And third, go solely with Google Reader.

I chose option three. And I will admit, it's a little weird not having a dock icon with "283" or some ridiculous number of unread RSS articles in it. But QuickSilver brings up GReader quickly enough and then, it's reading bliss.

The giant, giant caveat with this method is that there's no way to read things offline - or rather, no convenient way for me. See, I use OmniWeb. And Google Reader does support Google Gears for offline reading but... only on Firefox. And I don't think I want to keep Firefox, a known memory hog, around just for the purpose of RSSing (but I was tempted to do so!) Still, this is a true limitation and one with no good workaround that I'm aware of just yet.

Other than that, so far so good. I don't feel like I'm missing too too much by not keeping Vienna, my newsreader, around.

Update #1: It's been a few days since I switched to GReader exclusively. I find it a little weird to not have that dock icon handy and ready to go. I also think subscribing to RSS feeds is a chore with it; I can't just click the newspaper icon in OmniWeb. Instead I have to copy & paste the URL into GReader. Blah.

I was writing a blog post a few days ago elsewhere and wanted to base it on a post I'd read in GReader. In Vienna, I'd just keep the window open and switch between it and the editor. So I opened up GReader, clicked the folder the post should've been in and... it's not there! Only the newest ones, even with "all items" selected. I freaked. "I just read that! WTF! Vienna! HELP!" I searched the settings ("Don't delete things I wanted to keep around, jerk") and found nothing. I then just decided to try... search. And it worked. Found the article. But I have no idea where it "lived". That was really disconcerting.

So, mixed bag. I like that it's in sync but it definitely doesn't feel like I'm reading things in RSS with it - strange how the software makes it part of the appeal for me.

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Follow-Up: Organization/Junk Drawer Software

2007-12-12T17:09:40Z

Not long ago I posted about my unorganized software dilemma. I needed "junk drawer" and/or organization software at both home and work. I wanted to share my progress thus far.

At work, OmniFocus is absolutely the way to go for me. I was able to organize all of my projects and upcoming to-dos easily. I can flag them as "waiting", set start and end dates, and add notes. That's about all I need. I wish I could drag links to emails and files into it. (That works, technically, but OmniFocus renders the text and/or PDF and/or file right there - and that's awkward.) This is a pretty good app for an alpha. Still needs some help but, on balance, this is functioning as my dashboard at work. And that's great.

At home, I've been using Yojimbo but am not that impressed. On one hand I'm glad all of my odds-and-ends are in one place. On the other hand, it feels like a cul-de-sac to me. To do lists? Great! But I can't put dates on them. I can't get reminders sent to my email or my phone. They're just... a list. That's too bad. The software is pleasant enough but I clearly need something that will poke and prod me when I need that. Yojimbo isn't quite what I need.

I'm thinking about trying out SOHO Notes or Journler, both poorly-named. (Actually, Yojimbo is a lousy name too.) All I really need is Yojimbo + due dates + reminders, and I'd rather not have to hack up some AppleScripts to make it happen. But if I must....

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Click Click Click Click

2007-12-06T16:07:36Z

I was sitting at the laundromat last night, reading a book, when I heard a familiar song over one of the TVs. A nice little acoustic guitar intro... and yeah I recognized it almost right away: Bishop Allen's "Click Click Click Click".

It was on a camera commercial. Which, really, seemed a natural for the song (lyrics: "Take another picture with your click click click click camera.") It was a Sony commercial to be precise. And wow, talk about exposure: here they were on an ABC commercial break in primetime.

I'm now at the point in my life where I don't see this as selling out - same goes for Tay Zonday and Dr Pepper. Rather I hope that they take the money they got and put it to good use, and/or see it as a way to further their craft. Really!

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Completely Silent

2007-12-02T13:47:01Z

Yesterday morning Wally needed to go outside at 5am. No biggie. I got out of bed slowly, opened his crate, put on my jacket and hat, and collared him up.

As I closed the front door I noticed that it was completely silent outside. This doesn't happen much here. But there was not a single sound. No airplanes overhead. No trains. No cars. No people. No wind. Nothing at all.

It was a lovely moment.

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