Category: Productivity

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Making the tablet jump…

My wife and I made the jump this weekend to iPads as our primary computers. We have an iMac at home and that will serve as our main computer, but most of our work will be done on the iPads.

I have an older MacBook Pro, but that will now be relegated to working with my wife’s craft paper cutter. It is an older one and was starting to bog down some, though Yosemite did improve the speed.

The reasoning is that all the things I needed from a computer I could do with an iPad. The same with my wife. We didn’t need the extra $500 to $1000 on a laptop. The iMac will be the hub and with cloud apps and iCloud it will be an extension of the iPads. 

Looking forward to the next chapter and will see how it works out.

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Just wow BART

I’m headed into San Francisco today to attend Macworld/iWorld and I decided to take BART. I just didn’t want to mess with parking and traffic in San Francisco plus have to pay bridge tolls. 

But who would have known that I would have had so many problems finding a spot to park at the Dublin/Pleasanton station. The fee parking was full as was most of the permit parking. I was lucky the permit parking opens to everyone at 10 a.m.  I think I got the last one.  

A reasonable entrepreneur may take more advantage of it and put another garage or lot in to satisfy the demand. I’m sure BART could make more money than $1 – $2 daily for the spot also. 

Just at a heads up if you want to use BART and park at the Dublin/Pleasanton station, it fills up early. 

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Evernote 5.0 Issue

I would like to use apps I get from the Apple App Store, but I wouldn’t recommend using Evernote from that store at this time until they get a bug fixed.
The bug I’m referring to is the Save PDF to Evernote function in the Apple Print Menu dialog is not working. It acts like it is saving the document to Evernote, but nothing gets saved.

The one work around I have found is that you need to remove the version of Evernote you downloaded from the App Store and then download and install Evernote from their website. Then reboot your Mac and it works just fine.

Its kinda frustrating and I hope Evernote fixes it quickly.

One note, I am really liking Evernote 5.0. It is definitely worth it.

Check out the following video.

 

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Enleiten works, just not for me

I am a floater. I move around from one web application to another trying to come up with something to help me manage my time.
My latest adventure was Enleiten.

It is a GTD web application that keeps track of your tasks and allows you to prioritize your next steps for all your projects.

For me, I have so much going on I think it is about the process, not the web application. But I need to work that out.

One of the things that have made me upset about Enleiten is that I can’t change the primary email. Once I used it to sign up, it was set. No changes.

Well I had a problem. The email I was using was not going to be around for much longer. Not good.

Also, when I was leaving I couldn’t blast my account. It looks like the information will remain there for ever.

I think this is a good alternative for the GTD users out there, it just didn’t work for me. Plus they have some work to do to give the user more control over their information.

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What is up with Vitalist?

I have been a user of Vitalist for quite some time and have found it quite useful. I have tried other systems, including RTM, and have kept coming back.
But, it has not changed in quite some time and a promised update for last winter has not materialized. It is quite frustrating when you are a subscriber and it feels that nothing is happening.

Why do I like Vitalist?
Vitalist does a good job at keeping track of the items that I need to do. It does what it is supposed to do and I can really adjust my to do’s based upon my priorities for the day.

It is also a really good capture program. It is great just to email my to and it is captured in the system. Or even better, I just use Jott and it is there.

What my hope is
My hope is that Vitalist will continue to develop and I am looking forward to their beta being opened up more and I hope that it is deployed pretty soon. If I am a subscriber I am looking for things to develop and keep moving forward.

Vitalist is a good product, I can’t wait for the new version to come out. But I can’t wait that long.

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New app coming to Backpack, In/Out looks promising

There is a new app coming to Backpack and I am looking forward to it.  They are calling In/Out and provides a way to update your status and keep track of your accomplishments for the day.
This new application was built out of the internal workings of 37Signals and they further expanded it into Backpack where they are testing it.  So what is In/Out, I will let Jason Fried explain,

In/Out let everyone set their current status (“Working on the Affiliate Program” or “Preparing for my presentation on Friday”), plus In/Out allowed you to make journal entries for the things you’ve finished (“Updated book proposal” or “Modernized list reordering” or “Deployed Backpack calendar reminders”). People were encouraged to be as specific as they wanted to be.

I think that this is quite promising and a good addition to Backpack.  It will provide me an opportunity to keep my status up for my co-workers and let them know what I am doing.  I look forward to this deploying soon to Backpack.

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Evernote Upgrade Coming

I have tried Evernote a couple of times, but because they do not have a way to sync without hauling a USB key around. It was just too hard to try and use at work, at home, or on the road.
Well they now have a version that will allow you to use the web and other devices that you may use to take notes and use. To me, that is a good step in the right direction and I look forward to the upgrade.

Check out the video from Evernote: