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Things 1.0rc now available
Cultured Code has issued the 1.0 release candidate for Things, its popular GTD application, a little more than a week ahead of its official launch on January 6.Things 1.0rc has a huge list of changes including new icons, the ability to reorder to-dos in the Today list across project and area boundaries, the ability to edit titles and reorder projects in the sidebar (my biggest pet peeve prior to this), fixes to syncing and compatibility issues with the iPhone version of Things, and numerous big fixes. A complete list can be found here via MacUpdate due to site difficulties with Cultured Code. An official mirror detailing the release notes can also be found here.Things 1.0rc is available at the mirror of the Cultured Code website, since the main site is either being sluggish or not responding at all due to demand. An alternate download location can be found through MacUpdate, along with the complete list of changes. Full price for a Things license is $49USD, but a coupon for 20% off can be used until January 15 - even if you missed out signing up for the newsletter. That code is THINGSPRESALE20.Things requires OS X 10.4 or later. It is also recommended for those who own the iPhone version to update to version 1.3 once it becomes available through the App Store.
Things (finally) adds global search
Things, one of the top contenders in the Mac GTD application lineup, has updated to 0.9.6 on their way to a planned 1.0 release at the Macworld Expo. The update includes some interface polish, but the biggest news is the addition of global search.It's been one of the most requested features, and I've seen plenty of comments here at TUAW bemoaning the absence of this capability. The newly added feature allows searching through all projects while still being able to confine the query to various scopes, including Title, Notes or Tags. This, of course, makes the tagging system in Things even more useful, allowing all tasks with a given tag or tag combination to be listed. Personally, I'd say this is the most important new feature added to (the desktop version of) Things since iCal sync. I'm betting we'll see more of these highly-requested features implemented as the development pace amps up to meet the Macworld deadline.A blog post at Cultured Code details all of the new features. You can download a free trial at the Cultured Code website, and a license can be had for $39USD ... if you sign up for the newsletter before the January 6th launch (after which the price will be $49USD).
ActionGear, simple yet powerful task management
ActionGear has been out for a while, but I think it deserves a mention as a potentially great task-management app, falling somewhere between iCal or a bare bones outliner such as TaskPaper, and the robust end of the scale where Things and OmniFocus are duking it out. Within ActionGear's simple interface, you'll find a sidebar with your Inbox, (nestable) Groups, and Smart Groups. The main focus of the interface is a task list in which tasks can be nested within their groups (folders). Each task can have flags, notes and attachments, and there's a tagging system which allows Things-like flexibility. You can use it as a basic to-do list, or make the Groups into projects and tags into contexts and go all GTD with it. The Smart Groups can emulate, to some extent, the Perspectives you'd find in OmniFocus. Overall it seems like a good solution for those who need a little more structure and power in their task management than what can be done with iCal, but don't really need all of the extra features of OmniFocus. If that's you, give ActionGear a shot with the free trial. If you dig it, it's $29USD for a license.
GTD: Real-life experience with Things
I'll admit it -- I'm a notorious procrastinator.Give me something to do and no deadline, and I'll put it off until everyone forgets about it. Give me a deadline and I'll wait until the deadline is looming before I'll get things going. This not only happens in my professional life, but my personal life as well. For example, my wife is still patiently waiting for me to complete some painting in our newly renovated laundry room. Hey, it's only been a month since I started the work!If there's anyone who needs to follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, it's me. In the past, my To-Do list consisted of Post-It Notes scattered on my desk with lists of things to complete. A couple of months ago I thought it would work better if I organized my notes into one place, so I bought a hard-cover Moleskine and started writing listing things to do in that book. Nice, but I was out of luck when I didn't have the Moleskine with me. I always have my iPhone with me, so it made sense for me to start using it to help add some semblance of order to my life. That's where Things, the task manager from Cultured Code, helped me out.
Dejumble 1.1.1 provides another way to get things done
Yeah, it seems like YAGTDA (Yet Another Getting Things Done App), but Dejumble actually caught my attention. Thinking Code recently created this Leopard-only application as an unobtrusive way to keep track of your to-do list, and the latest released version does the job very well. Dejumble lives in the Menu bar as an extra, so a quick click of the icon brings up a clean, organized window for entering those things that you must get done.The 1.1.1 update includes a pile 'o new features, including: Ability to view daily events from iCal Hotkey access to the application Additional filter and sorting options Dejumble window themes (three of 'em, including the black theme in the screenshot) URLs in tasks Colorize groups Redesigned settings window Extended free trial period from 5 to 30 days Thinking Code notes that they are working on iPhone and BlackBerry versions of Dejumble, both of which will sync with the Mac version. This may be a "keeper" for me. I like the fact that Dejumble is out of the way and easy to get to, simple to add new tasks to, and that it will soon work with my iPhone. Download the 30-day free trial, and then post your comments about your favorite GTD app. If that favorite app is Dejumble, it's available for just $19.[via prMac]
In search of a GTD solution
An application called Today was released recently by the developers of PocketTweets. It's a $15 application that integrates with iCal to display tasks and events, offering a complete interface for entering new tasks and events without opening iCal. It came at a time when I was furiously trying to make a homebrew task management system come to fruition using iCal and Mail, but ultimately left me in a not-much-better place than I started. I appreciate the simplicity of the app, but it doesn't provide much power beyond just using iCal to begin with. Anxiety, which is free (and features a HUD interface which somehow always earns points in my book), provides similar integration -- at least for tasks -- as do several other great little applications. But none of them allow for the task sorting, flagging, etc. that would make them truly useful to me. So I tried to make my own way...
Nozbe: GTD for web, iPhone and Dashboard
If you're in the market for a web-based GTD solution, Nozbe is one worth checking out. It provides a solid project management solution with contexts, projects, tasks, optional due dates and next actions, and it does it without a cluttered interface. So why am I blogging about a GTD website on TUAW? Well, mostly because of iNozbe. iNozbe provides full access to your tasks on your iPhone. A recent blog post by the developer details how the same interface can make a great dashboard widget. The only drawback I've found to the widget version is that the rare event that requires an alert dialog -- deleting tasks being the only one I've noticed -- doesn't work in Dashboard. But with iNozbe on my Dashboard and as GTD-to-go, it makes a great portable solution that can be accessed from anywhere. iNozbe makes use of a very complete API provided by Nozbe which can also be put to use in scripts and 3rd party apps for things like speedy task entry and getting your next actions in whatever form you want to process them as. Given the lack of Mail and iCal integration a web-only task manager provides, it's not yet my ultimate solution; I'm still working on that. But, with an API which can update/export your projects and tasks, it can be worked into a system with applications like OmniFocus which provide AppleScript interfaces for task manipulation. Remember The Milk and others also provide such APIs, and the array of choices for both desktop and web tends to have me spending more time working on my "ultimate solution" for task and project management than actually getting anything done. Nozbe has a free account with 5 projects available. Plans start at $2.45/month and stretch up to business accounts (starting at $24/month) which allow for group projects and task delegation. If you're in need of a new task management solution, have a look.
Things gets recurring tasks
The GTD app scene has been pretty quiet for a while now. Only OmniFocus seems to be regularly showing signs of development at a pace that offers some real hope for the new generation of task managers. But Things has updated to version 0.9, and offers a couple of new features that fill some major holes. Most notably, the addition of recurring tasks is an answer to a primary criticism of the software. A lot of people love the simplicity of the Things philosophy. I count myself among those people from a conceptual standpoint, but the "simplicity" approach only goes so far when I find myself in need of some heavy-duty organization. I still find the lack of integration with applications like Mail and the lack of scriptability to be major impediments to incorporating Things into my workflow. In my time testing Things, I was able to create some AppleScripts for adding Mail messages and importing from OmniFocus using some brute-force "System Events" tactics. It's certainly not ideal, though. I'm hoping the development pace of Things picks back up as it has the potential to be an ideal system, at least for users like myself. In the meantime, you can download the trial and/or get in on the pre-release discount of 20% off the $49 price. For more information on the 0.9 release, check out the release notes.
GTD with the Mac and a cool custom setup
Leo Babauta at Zen Habits has posted a nice overview of Getting Things Done on the Mac, including many of the applications you'd expect, like iGTD Kinkless GTD OmniFocus Things Midnight Inbox We've written about all of these applications before. What's interesting is the custom solution that Leo describes. He's created four simple text files -- today, ideas, errands and todo -- which he updates with Quicksilver's "append text" command. Finally, he uses GeekTool to display his files on the desktop.That's pretty nice; simple and effective (I use Backpack myself). Part of the fun of being a geek is learning how other geeks do things.
iGTD2 showing promise
You may recall iGTD, which we covered last year. Up until some Leopard difficulties forced me to start flailing between not-quite-ready GTD applications, I was a loyal user. And yes, those Leopard difficulties could have been solved, but the author had his hands full with reincarnating iGTD -- as iGTD2. iGTD2 is in alpha right now, and not what I'd consider to be trustworthy for daily use, but it provides a peek into the thoughts behind the revamp. Whereas the original iGTD started out fairly simple and grew increasingly complex in response to user requests, iGTD2 is starting out quite robust and tries to get a grasp on what people really want out of their task managers. But, like the original, flexibility is built into the system. This time around, the authors developed a set of "principles" to guide development and make a simpler task of creating a new UI. Some of the principles are quite simple: a need for tabs, a hatred of inspector palettes, and the need for more mouse-friendliness. Some of the ideas, though, are a little more rebellious against the standards of GTD and delve into new ways of approaching task organization and, well, getting things done. Tags, focuses, nesting tasks and other UI developments allow for flexibility beyond what you'd expect from a GTD app. This kind of flexibility might be annoyingly overwhelming for new users. If you're looking for a simple UI and straightforward task manager, this probably won't be it. But if you've ever craved the ability to archive links and notes and then attach whole groups of them to projects and tasks, iGTD2 is moving in the right direction. As of this writing, the iGTD2 alpha is on its 9th build, with major changes happening almost every day. This one is worth keeping an eye on, especially as a donationware offering that will likely rival the power of some of the commercial applications in the field. The alpha is available for download and there's a forum for user input. If you're curious, check it out!
OmniFocus goes 1.0
OmniFocus 1.0 represents a long-awaited addition to the GTD offerings on the Mac. It's a GTD-compatible task manager that has been in beta (or vaportrail, as they call it) for a while now and has gained an active community of users. Today's release puts Omni ahead of several other developers, which may help make up the minds of the more impatient GTDers who have been watching the options grow more varied and the spread of features get more convoluted. Omni nailed a few things in this application, including a very powerful means of managing how tasks are viewed (focuses), recurring tasks and OS X integration that includes Spotlight indexing of tasks. The interface is unfamiliar to new users, but relatively intuitive. And, unlike some of the other up-and-comers, Omni made GTD standards a high priority. Whether that is a selling point depends entirely on the individual user's taste. OmniFocus has updated almost every day since I got my invitation to the beta some months back. If you like applications that have a quick and responsive development team, you'll enjoy the development pace. It's retailing at $79.95 now that the pre-order discount is finished. Visit the website for more information.
3 ways to get things done with your iPhone
Getting Things Done is David Allen's system of personal productivity; a deceptively simple process of collecting information, deciding what it is, identifying what needs to be done and then doing it (we've written about GTD quite a bit).Geeks like me love it because the hardware and/or software used to achieve these goals can be whatever we like. The most important thing is what David calls the "ubiquitous capture tool," or "a way to write things down." You've got your iPhone with you where ever you go, so why not use it?This post explores 3 ways to get things done with your iPhone, namely, iNozbe, iDo and Backpack.
Things public preview released
Things, the up-and-coming darling of the über-productive, due-date-defying, thing-doing GTD crowd has released a public preview today. And I, as your hyphen-wielding blogger, am duly excited. A few of us here at TUAW have been playing with the private alpha of Things for a while. Things provides a unique and flexible way to handle tasks that can be refreshing for those who didn't quite get the whole GTD thing the first time around. Of course, you can adhere to strict GTD principles with it, but you can also forge a system that works for you using its tagging system and flexible project management tools. It even has some delegation capabilities that other GTD apps are lacking right now. Plus, it's downright pretty. What Things is noticeably lacking at this point is a really great means of integrating with Mail and AppleScript support. Of course, if there were AppleScript support, Mail support would be a cinch. You can pop up the quick entry window with a hotkey and drag a Mail 3.1 message onto the notes section to create a link to that email; I'd just like to be able to incorporate Mail-Act-On or any faster means of getting my email-based tasks into my task manager. Overall, this release from Cultured Code is very buzzworthy, both in the GTD community and for those on the periphery. If you're feeling like being productive, take it for a spin.
Gamer Interrupted: Playtime Management Workshop
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Gamer Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with MMOs.Despite my chosen screenshot, I do not believe that money is the root of all evil. Nor do I believe that about video games. But if you're reading this blog, you are probably wishing you could spend more time playing video games and less time worrying about money and the other necessities of life.Unless you are fabulously wealthy with no job, family or significant other and with servants to do all of your chores, you probably wish you had more time on your hands. Most of us have work and school or work and family or work and dating and not so much time to just play around doing whatever we like. While it is not a good idea to bring the stresses of work home with you, it is a very good idea to apply some of the skills and techniques you use at your job in your non-working life as well.I'm not saying you should hold morning meetings with your family, write up your children when they misbehave or insist on the appropriate cover sheet for their TPS reports. I do think that using some basic project management techniques to help you balance your MMO playtime with the rest of your life may be very helpful if you are having trouble juggling it all.
WidgetWatch: DoBeDo ready for Leopard
I don't know what it is-- in all my computing life, I have never once found a ToDo app that's kept me ToDo-ing. I'll decide to get organized, find a system and learn it, and a few weeks later, I'll have about 15 things to do that I never remembered to put on my ToDo list.But maybe DoBeDo can finally break that pattern. It's not actually an app-- it's just a freeware widget, but according to our commenters, it's the best ToDo app/widget/whatever out there. And it's got an amazing amount of functionality for a widget-- it'll sync right up with iCal, and do everything you'd ever want to do with your tasks with just a keystroke. And as of a few days go, it is now updated for Leopard and ready for 10.5 users to "ToDo" as well.Unfortunately, as nice as it is, I doubt it'll break my anti-productivity cycle. But until Apple creates an iWillpower that I can buy and install on my Mac, this will have ToDo.Thanks, BJ!
Yojimbo updated to 1.5
If your note-taking, data-collecting app doesn't agree with you, you've got plenty of options out there; as for me, I'm happy with Yojimbo, and happier now that 1.5 is out. The new version adds images as a full-fledged data type (meaning you can sync pictures via .Mac, although you're warned not to try and replace iPhoto or Aperture) and improves search performance. There's also now an auto-update feature, at long last! You can get the 10.4 MB download here. Note that the update requires a change to your database structure, so it will back up your existing files before it runs.Thanks, Dirk.
OmniFocus public beta released
The Mac platform has an embarrasment of riches with regards to Getting Things Done applications, but the grand-daddy of GTD on the Mac is Ethan Schoonover's Kinkless GTD, a set of AppleScripts built on top of Omni Software's OmniOutliner Pro. Omni finally seemed to realize the significance of this and sought out help from Ethan and other GTD-folk like Merlin Mann in developing their new GTD application OmniFocus. Now, a year later, they've actually hired Ethan. After an extended private beta and lots of teasing glimpses, Omni has finally announced the initial public beta and introductory pricing.You can download the public beta now and if you like what you see you can pre-purchase it for 50% off the release price. So if you buy it before January 8, 2008 it's $39.95, afterwards it's $79.95. Given the many (cheaper) GTD applications out there it will be interesting to see how well received OmniFocus is. But given its pedigree, one would expect it to be a leading contender out of the box. If you want an introduction to OmniFocus they also have a 15 minute quick start video available on their main page.
Seven cool features of Leopard that might get stubborn friends to upgrade
There are dozens of little niceties in Leopard: like how Front Row now lives on my iBook (sans remote) and allows me to operate the thing as a sort of thin-client media jukebox (courtesy a Mac mini server). Or how Font Book now prints books of your fonts (especially nice for those non-techies). With the 300+ new features, I still have yet to fully explore this thing, but I'm certainly starting to believe this is the Mac OS Apple really wanted to deliver a few years back. There's no doubt in my mind this is a big turning point for the platform, and I really believe user adoption in 2008 will be unprecedented as a result.Following is a list of features and specific "cool things" I think you can point out if you are trying to explain to a friend why they should upgrade. For the record, I installed Leopard on a 1.24 GHz iBook G4, and it runs beautifully, which in itself is a selling point.1. Finally, a Record button for your actions Automator now has a UI recorder. Anyone who remembers the good old days of macro recorders before OS 8 will look at this and sigh, but I, for one, welcome my new robot overlord. Automator is finally useful for mortals with UI recording. Oh sure, it isn't perfect, but it really beats trying to explain just the concept of Automator to the average human. Never mind the metaphors and the workflow within Automator itself -- eyes will glaze over. UI recording is absolute heaven when you do a lot of drudge work, like contracts, filling, prepping photos, etc.2. Mail gets GTD fever If power users turn up their noses at Stationary in Mail, point out how they can now put their notes, to-do's and RSS into Mail. I haven't really set all this up as I'd like yet (the iBook isn't my primary work machine), but my unfettered hatred of Mail.app is somewhat lessened now by the fact that it is starting to behave like a "real" email client. The notes and to-do's are icing on the cake, but also very important if you like to get things done and stay organized. A few smart folders and you have a truly powerful system. Still, it is disappointing to see Apple take half a decade to figure out the whole "archive mailbox" thing, but pobody's nerfect I guess.3. Web clipping makes Dashboard relevant again My wife quit using Dashboard long ago. It simply served no purpose for her. But web clipping, baked right in to Safari? That had her mildly interested. Tracking the top 3 Twitters, or whatever the top story on Perez or TMZ happens to be with a keystroke is a selling point for folks who aren't using RSS. The only downside is that you need a pretty big screen if you want more than a couple of pages to appear.4. Shared drives finally "just work" and Shared Screens work with other OS'esGranted, there have been issues with networking in Leopard, but seeing shared Macs in my sidebar? That's pretty sweet. In previous versions of OS X you had to click on Network, now it just shows up. Is a few clicks a big deal? Well, for the average user, yes, this is a big deal. The average user doesn't like to explore. They can be timid, and frankly, don't necessarily know (or care) what the Network thing even is. Displaying networked components directly in Finder will greatly increase the probability that users will at least see everything. It has already saved me time when trying to reconnect and move things around my home LAN. For me, the real fun was seeing how VNC "just worked" when I was able to access my Mac mini (which was already running as a VNC server) via Screen Sharing. Even though the mini runs Tiger, and despite a slightly wonky connection, overall it was super easy to set-up. Think about it another way: average users don't want to run a third-party application like Chicken of the VNC. Average users don't necessarily trust those apps (thank you, Bonzi Buddy) and it is a lot easier to remotely control a machine if the functionality is built into the OS. Oh, and did I mention you can share screens with Linux? I finally have a use for that old Dell laptop and my Ubuntu CD!
TaskPaper 1.0, a review
I am known for many things amongst my circle of friends: my rapier-like wit, my roguish good-looks, and my humility. The one thing that I am assuredly not known for is being organized. I lose things all the time; I forget people's birthdays and I can never seem to recall what I need to do on a given day. Good thing there is a whole cottage industry developing around the concept of "Getting Things Done." The idea behind GTD (as the Getting Things Done wonks call it) is to create a framework around your tasks which enables you to succeed in getting those things done. Sadly, it just doesn't work for me. I get so lost in the details of creating the "System" that will supposedly let me accomplish my goals, that I never spend any time actually doing anything, other than figuring out what I have to do. That's why, time after time, I return to the age old method: a handwritten To Do list. It works like a charm every time, and creating one (which I do in a hierarchical fashion with several To Do's each having multiple tiers of sub-To Do's under them) is simple enough that it takes mere minutes to set up, and is flexible enough that one can track any small to medium scale project with it (assuming, of course, that the project doesn't involve too many folks). There have been a slew of GTD-focused apps introduced on the Mac in the last few years. I've looked at each with the hope that they would free me from my disorganized shackles, supplanting my paper for something more technologically advanced. Each has failed me. That's not to say they are bad apps, they are just too complicated for my rather simple needs. I thought all hope was lost, and that's when I met TaskPaper. TaskPaper, from Hog Bay Software, is my favorite new app of 2007 (Skitch is also high up there, but it is still in beta. Shipping has its privileges). TaskPaper, as the name suggests, offers itself up as a replacement for pen and paper in your organizational world. Shockingly, it has convinced me to give up my paper based list once and for all. Read on to find out why.
GTD with Launchbar and scripts
Saul Rosenbaum sent us the tip on this one, and he points out that we're a little "Quicksilver centric" around here at TUAW. He's right, we do love Quicksilver, but it's not the only launcher on the block. Launchbar is another good one (and actually, I've been playing with Sapiens a lot lately, so look for a post on that one soon, too).If replacing Finder with Quicksilver isn't your thing, maybe running GTD apps with Launchbar is more up your alley. Saul has a short writeup on how to get Launchbar running a trigger (he uses "TD") that you can throw short notes into to work with the GTD system. It's a simple process-- since Launchbar already supports shell scripts, you can create a script, hook Lauchbar up to it, and pretty soon you're taking down tasks and notes at a moment's notice.
