Posts with tag productivity
Posted Oct 11th 2007 3:00PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Design, Developer, Fun, Internet, Blogging, Productivity, Web services, Search, web 2.0
You wouldn't normally think to take notes using a social application as Twitter, but it is possible.
Twitternotes is an online application that uses the Twitter API to basically, take notes. This tool is a little more complicated than scratching something down in a notebook, using Outlook Notes, or one of the
many other online note tools but if you have Twitter open throughout the day, this might come in handy.
Users log into the system using their Twitter account information, and add TwitterNotes as a follower. Notes can be added to your account privately or open for all users to see using special characters and combinations in your Twitter entry. Notes can then be picked up when logged into your TwitterNotes account, which is a bit frustrating because it would be nice to be able to simply check these notes out in Twitter itself under Direct Messages. Nonetheless, it's just another way to try and stay organized and on top of your to-dos.
Posted Sep 17th 2007 8:00AM by Dolores Parker
Filed under: Fun, Internet, Productivity, Social Software, web 2.0
Stixy, just out of private beta, is yet another online collaboration tool where you can create virtual bulletin boards online, share with your friends as co-collaborators or just have them view. Stixy allows users to create tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes, and bookmarks on their Stixyboards.
The beauty of Stixy is that it is super easy to get started and its interface is clean, fun and appealing. You can get a Stixyboard up and running in about um - two minutes. It has the same appeal as
Mixbook, although Mixbook is an online photo album, whereas Stixy adds other features like sticky notes, documents, to do list and agenda.
Online collaboration tools run the gamut in price, features, and complexity. If you're looking for something that's so simple you can start using it immediately, Stixy would be an excellent choice. If on the other hand, you want to access your own calendar, rather than create one on Stixy, and you want your friends/colleagues to be able to edit documents online, (Stixy does not offer a web-based word processor) then you probably need a different, more robust application.
Stixy, with offices in San Francisco and Sweden, was founded by Jonas Höglund and Anders Ottoson.
Posted Sep 15th 2007 4:00PM by Dolores Parker
Filed under: Productivity, Mozilla, Search, web 2.0
We luv our Firefox extensions and here's another one -
Deligoo. (Yes, it is a perplexing name but it's a mash of Google Custom Search and Delicious). Deligoo searches your del.icio.us bookmarks and with its help you can find the necessary page according to any phrase or word which it contains.
This is the perfect solution to those frustrating searches where you know you bookmarked an incredibly interesting and useful web page, but you can't recall the page itself. Now, all you have to do is reference what the page was about (if you remember) and Deligoo will search it out for you. Another nice touch, is you can search other del.icio.us users' tags, and possibly get way more information than you need.
Patience is a virtue and you will need patience when using Deligoo as it takes - a - long - time - to - load - your - search because it has to recreate your search engine every time you use it. When you download Deligoo and restart Firefox or Internet Explorer, a button appears on your toolbar, which when clicked, takes you back to the search page. If you're real particular about your screen's real estate and not a die-hard del.icio.us user, than bookmarking Deligoo would work just as well.
Posted Sep 13th 2007 12:07PM by Dolores Parker
Filed under: Internet, Productivity
It's so easy to enter your search term in Google and see what shakes out. It's also a serious time waster and when you want results without culling though the spam links, it's better to go hunting with a rifle and get exactly what you want. Here are some reference sites
Scholastici.us put together to help you be a sharpshooter and get the job done, hopefully a lot faster.
Bartleby - find fabulous quotes fast. Also contains poetry for easy reference.
Scholarpedia - articles written by experts and peer reviewed.
Citzendium - Still in beta, a wiki whose authors use their real names.
Wikiseek - a fast way to search Wikipedia.
Encyclopedia Brittanica - an oldie but still goodie. Authoritative texts you can rely on.
Fed Stats - full range of official statistical information produced by the Federal Government without having to know in advance which Federal agency produces which particular statistic.
Geo Hive - a statistic website filled mostly with population statistics of regions, countries, provinces and cities.
Book Rags - a compendium of literature summaries, ebooks, biographies, literary criticism, and essays, sourced from 20 education databases.
Math World - all things mathematics - billed as the web's most extensive math resource.
These should get you started on your journey to getting what you want fast, without wasting all your time in search mode. If you have other favorite resources, please share them with us in the comments section.
Posted Sep 3rd 2007 12:30PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Internet, Text, Utilities, E-mail, Office, Productivity, Web services, Apple, Google, Social Software, web 2.0
As the shift towards online applications grows strong, so do the conferences and events that promote working online.
The
Office 2.0 conference is just around the corner in San Francisco, September 5-7th 2007. The event is aimed at the discovery of future online productivity and collaboration efforts brings together leaders and visionaries in the field to discuss innovative online services, and ways to get things done both at home, and in the office.
Speaker's sessions include: The Future of work, mobile productivity, death of the app., and GTD with Office 2.0.
A very cool part of the event is that conference attendees will get an Apple
iPhone, or PS3 running on Firefox with Linux, to play with and connect during the event. The iPhone experiment will allow conference go ers a way to easily check out the conference schedule, map the area, utilize the facilities WiFi and to lookup conference speakers and biographies. Of course the device is built in to the $1695 registration fee, and users are responsible for activating the iPhone with an AT&T plan. Nonetheless a very intuitive idea from conference organizers.
There is also word that Google could be announcing Google Presentation, and Google Wiki at this event.
Posted Aug 13th 2007 4:30PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Fun, Productivity, Web services
Think coffee helps you stay productive through the day while you bang away at your keyboard? Ok, so it does. But how would you feel if you knew the exact amounts of coffee or caffeine it would take in order to stop your heart?
The online "
death by caffeine" tool calculates your weight with your beverage of choice and serves up some stats on how many cups it will take in order for you to drop dead.
They have also put together a
caffeine database chart that compares how many MG's of caffeine are in a drink. Ok, enough writing, its time for my 4th cup of Starbucks. 30.86 more to go.
Posted Aug 13th 2007 1:00PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Internet, E-mail, Productivity
Google's Gmail has been around and open to the public for a little while now, and I'm sure many users have racked up a few thousand messages, and used a few hundred megs of their over 2GB limit. But what happens when there is a little overwhelming feeling when we open up our accounts to find a giant list of unread emails every single day?
WebWorkerDaily has a few tips on setting up filters that could help in the sorting of important emails from the lower priority emails. In his post, Leo lists off the
Firefox Gmail Filter Assistant script, and talks about stamping certain emails with labels to direct them to Gmail labeled "folders" to keep them out of your inbox.
And if this doesn't help, and you still are bombarded with emails, take a look at some
email productivity tips about staying ahead of the curve.
Posted Jul 27th 2007 7:30AM by Grant Robertson
Filed under: E-mail, Productivity
King of productivity Merlin Mann gave a talk on email management to Google employees and, lucky for us mere mortals, now it's available to watch in the comfort of your office chair.
It's an hour long, but it could save weeks off your life. One things for sure, the man knows how to stay on top of his inbox.
Posted Jul 25th 2007 12:59AM by David Chartier
Filed under: Design, Internet, Text, Features, Productivity, Web services, Social Software, Analysis, web 2.0
After
all that
teasing, 37signals has flipped the switch on a major upgrade to
Backpack, their incredibly popular web-based PIM service that can store and organize lists, notes, pictures and files. As if features like sharing / collaboration and mobile phone access weren't cool enough, this major release takes Backpack productivity to entirely new heights.
One of the most interesting on the
list of new changes is a much-updated UI, from a movement of the toolbar to the top of the pages (pictured) to the much-requested ability to drag and drop any list, note, pictures or file from one page to another. While the toolbar's new location initially feels like a good move, we find ourselves missing the authority of the previous design, as the buttons to create new lists and notes stood out a bit better.
Almost as drool-worthy as drag and drop abilities, users can now also search across all their Backpack pages. A new searchbox mounted in the upper right (directly underneath the 'Make a new page' button) should satisfy most users who use Backpack for more than a few tidbits of info. Searching seems pretty zippy, and your search term is highlighted among the listed results.
Continuing the healthy
list of changes are other welcome new features, such as multiple photo galleries per page and RSS feeds for shared pages so you can keep an eye on changes made by everyone else. Altogether, this is a great update and we're very satisfied with the new features. With accounts ranging in price from 'free' up to $14/month, we recommend Backpack more than ever for anyone from casual users who need a simple web-based locker for storing bits and pieces of their daily adventures, to power users with a serious case of
GTD or project management on their back.
Posted Jul 19th 2007 8:30PM by Grant Robertson
Filed under: Windows, Productivity
In a mouse driven world we often forget just how much you can accomplish using only a keyboard. Keyboard shortcuts are a quick and easy way to up your PC productivity, and memorizing a slew of them can be incredibly helpful.
Smashing Magazine has compiled a monster list of
200 keyboard shortcuts for some very popular applications and the Windows OS itself. Worth printing out and saving for posterity.
You'll speed up your work, impress your co-workers and meet incredibly hot women*.
*Incredibly hot women may not be met. Posted Jul 17th 2007 11:00PM by Grant Robertson
Filed under: Business, Productivity
If you're a fan of 37signals productivity tools, as the DLS crew is, you may appreciate a newly added feature from the clever kids with the funny name.
Basecamp and Highrise now offer a single sign-on that allows you to eliminate one of those constantly open tabs we all live with, saving you precious RAM and system resources that can be put to better use. If they'd only add Campfire to the single sign-on party, we'd be ecstatic.
Posted Jul 14th 2007 7:45PM by Jason Clarke
Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Web services, Freeware
We f
irst looked at SimpleGTD back in June, and concluded that although it had a lot going for it, it lacked of the ability to view your action items by the Project they're assigned to. That one missing feature was the only thing that prevented us from recommending it wholeheartedly, since there really is a lot to like about SimpleGTD.
Fast-forward a month and a half, and we're in the pleasant situation of being able to revisit
SimpleGTD for the purpose of testing out its newest feature: the tasks by project view!
Happily, the tasks by project view completes the feature set of an otherwise top-notch online Getting Things Done tool. SimpeGTD remains a very fast and easy-to-use tool that will allow you to get your GTD groove on with a minimum of fuss and muss.
Posted Jul 3rd 2007 12:30PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Developer, Fun, Internet, Office, Productivity, Web services
Developers are jumping on the new Facebook API, creating sometimes 'useless' add-ons for the social network. Zoho has stepped in and added the ability to GTD while peddling through Facebook.
Zoho tries its best to stay on top of wherever their users might be, they were the first online office productivity toolset to announce they had an iPhone compatible application ready to go for Apple's newest users, and now users of Facebook are able to see the light. Facebook can get a little distracting at times, whether it's at school or work, so why not build in the ability to create and work on documents directly through the application that you spend the most time on throughout the day. 30% of Zoho's users are students so it's a perfect fit, chat with friends and get work done at the same time.
Zoho's
new integration to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations directly from Facebook accounts is a simple add on
available here. Creating a new document or viewing one opens up another browser tab, or window, allowing you to do your Facebook thing while working in another tab.
Posted Jul 2nd 2007 1:00PM by Lisa Hoover
Filed under: E-mail, Productivity
Some people are great at processing email as fast as it comes in. Others? Not so much. For proof, just take a look at this screenshot of a Gmail inbox with over 21,000 unread messages in it.
It's possible to slog through a few dozen old emails, and even dealing with a few hundred is theoretically manageable, but what happens when your burgeoning inbox reaches epic proportions? Does staring into the jaws of an overflowing inbox induce a panic attack? Take heart, dear readers, all is not lost. Search is your friend, email bankruptcy is your band-aid, and filters are your lifeline.
Continue reading Staying ahead of the email crush: Mission Impossible?
Posted Jun 28th 2007 1:42PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Utilities, E-mail, Office, Productivity, Web services
Zoho, the makers of the powerful set of online office productivity tools has just announced iZoho, a version of their software that has been optimized for the iPhone's touch screen.
ZoHo are the makers behind the web based productivity tool set that includes Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show, Zoho Notebook, and Zoho Mail. Their new
iZoho is accessible through http://www.izoho.com, and can be played with in a regular browser window. However resizing seems to get a little mucky. If this application actually does manage to work with Apple's new iPhone (the developers unfortunately didn't have one for testing), I'm sure that many users of other online office applications will be thinking about switching over quickly. As it stands now Zoho has been the only company to come forward and say their online office productivity sets work with Apple's iPhone.
[via
webware]
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