sfp101: Stress-Free Productivity

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30 Days of Netbook Nirvana

Published June 14th, 2009 in Email, Productivity, Technology and Uncategorized. Comments

When I first started seeing folks use the small laptops know as Netbooks, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want one. I thought– after all, being so small and inexpensive they cant be good for much of anything. Yet owners of these devices continued to shower them with praise; even those who also owned very nice laptops. I was also getting tired of dragging my expensive and somewhat heavy Macbook Pro around to less than ideal locations.

So, I figured what the hay—may as well give one a try. I settled on the HP Mini with 1gb of memory and 16gb of SD storage– since this was going to be a truly mobile device I wanted as few moving parts as possible.

I tried several operating systems (XP, Linux, Windows 7) and settled on Windows 7; ya, that was a much of a surprise to me as anyone. I found out very quickly that the name Netbook kind of says it all. These little guys are great for email, social media, surfing, and even watching video. Web and cloud computing are where these bad boys are at. A word of warning, don’t expect them to replace a full scale laptop—leave the heavy lifting to the big boys.

There has been a gap in computing between the iTouch/iPhone and full size notebooks. The Touch or iPhone is great for quick emails, slick little apps, and media but, they are not great for larger volumes of text or processing. Notebooks can do it all, but are a little to large, and loosing or damaging one can set you back a pile of cash.

This is the Netbook niche. The hardware is cheep enough you wont cry yourself to sleep if you loose or damage it, yet the Atom processor is peppy enough for most basic tasks. I have found that a hand full of applications allow me to be ‘king of the road”:

Safari: 99% of my web tasks
- Meebo: IM
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Mobile Me: File sharing, email, address book, syncing bookmarks
- Gmail
- Photoshop.com: Image editing
- Acrobat Connect: Online meetings and presentations
IE 8: Outlook web mail
OpenOffice: Create and View office documents
Windows Live Writer: Post to my blogs
Evernote: All my online, personal, and business notes accessible from all my computers
Hulu Desktop: Video Media
MS Project: View project plans

That’s about it. with this small group of apps I can work from just about anywhere. If WIFI is available, great—if not I simply tether to my cell phone for 3g connectivity.

I have found that I really love the little machine. It is a great productivity boost being able to drop the little computer in a bag, head out, and do much of my work from any location. In the office I use it as my primary note taking device. Its compact size makes it ideal for moving from one office or conference room to the next.

If you need to add some mobility to your computing, give one of these little guys a shot. Prices range from around $200 for the Asus line to $900 for Sony VAIO models.

New GTD Gun In Town- The Hit List

Published January 18th, 2009 in Computers, GTD, Goals, Productivity, Project Management, Reviews, Technology and Thoughts. Comments

With the new year, also comes a new contender in the GTD segment. In spite of this segment being already over crowded, The Hit List has floated to the surface with a public beta. The application has obvious potential and is well thought out, but is not the OmniFocus slayer that some are proposing; at least not yet.

OmniFocus and THL are kind of at opposite poles of task management philosophy. The folks at OmniFocus take more of a project management approach– aiming at power users. THL is simple and easy to use, and more suited for folks with a limited number of projects and tasks.

I like the UI a lot– good color scheme, very usable layout, and sensible use of screen real estate. Most users can be screaming down the path of productivity in no time at all. Creating new projects and tasks is a pretty intuitive process and accurately follows the GTD process.

A glaring gap is the availability of an iPhone or Smartphone client. This is understandable since the core product is in beta, but without such clients the product faces serious limitations. If you need only the core functionality and have a limited number of projects to manage, then you may find the tool worth implementing. For those users who are looking for a more fully baked application, you are better off waiting for later generations. There are still many features missing such as:

Remote synchronization
Quick filters that can be saved
Complex queries
Task notes
Quick entry screen
Customer formatting

One of the problems with jumping into a crowded product segment is that you really need to have your act together fast. Switching GTD tools mid stream can be quite a daunting affaire. With Things and OmniFocus already at very mature points in their product life cycles, THL will have a challenging road ahead. As I stated in the beginning of this post the product does have a lot of potential, and I wish them luck. Solid competition is good for all the products in the category.

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Friday Hot Links 12-19-08

Published December 19th, 2008 in Computers, Email, GTD, Links, Notes, Productivity, Project Management, Reviews, Technology and Thoughts. Comments

A autumn hike through the Ridge Trail at Breakheart Reservation

Saugus/Wakefield, MA

Stikkit going offline

at close of business (5pm Pacific Time) on Friday, December 19th, 2008.

Until then, the Stikkit service will be working as usual to allow you time to make the transition, find alternative services, and download any data you wish to take with you.

Here’s the full announcement: http://bit.ly/KoIT

Its a shame to see Stikkit go. I found the site to be very useful for taking quick notes that I could view and edit from anywhere.

Announcing the New Dimdim 4.5!

We’re super excited to announce that we have exited our beta phase and released our brand new Dimdim 4.5. Since we launched in April, Dimdim has been used in 185 countries by over 1 million people.

See my previous post on dimdim for background on the product

This Weeks Links

Death to the “Reply All” Button- insurancetech
- The new economy is upon us and this difficult business environment demands that we streamline our processes and focus everything we do on competitive advantage. It is time to look at simplifying our daily work lives and eliminate unproductive tasks, processes and work. E-mail, a very useful and powerful tool, has become a major productivity drag on firms due to misuse and abuse.
Get Ready To Remember the Task- 82123
- Windows/Mac/Linux: Remember the Task simply puts web task manager Remember the Milk’s familiar gadget interface into a stand-alone Adobe AIR window, but maybe that’s just what you need.
HOW TO: Use Google Reader Like A Rockstar- mashable
- Knowing that new users are signing up and veterans are looking for some ideas to make their experience even better, we have put together a quick how-to that should offer something for everyone.
GMail Does Tasks! Why?- Regular Geek
- People use Gmail to get stuff done, so we’ve added a lightweight way to keep track of what you need to do, right from within Gmail.
And you think Email interruptions aren’t costly?- Inbox Detox
- Interruptions consume 2.1 hours a day or 28% of the workday and cost American economy $588 billion a year, a 2005 survey showed.

Have a Great Christmas

by joshunter

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Get Back A Little Quiet Time With Callzap 2.2

Published December 10th, 2008 in Computers, GTD, Productivity, Reviews and Technology. Comments

Folks commonly complain that email, text messaging, instant messaging, and browsing all are detrimental to productivity. But you know, I find these distractions to be much less disruptive than the good old telephone.

On any given day people are bombarded with calls from telemarketers, wrong numbers, non profit organizations, poll takers, stalkers, freaks, and yes, even people you want to talk to. Just checking the caller id is a distraction.

The telephone companies (cellular and landline) only do the bare minimum to protect their users. The good old *77 and Blocked Call Lists only block telemarketers and private calls. They do not block the truly annoying callers who use prepaid phones or calling cards.

Callers who use prepaid services do not have any caller id information associated with them and thus are not blocked by the lame telephone companies. The landline phone companies seem to prefer collecting additional charges from users for unlisted numbers instead of blocking the calls.

One simple solution for landline users is to install call filtering software on an old PC. The software samples the CID for incoming calls using a standard modem. Intercepted calls are acted upon based on the schema setup by the user. Depending on the software, blocked calls can be dropped, rerouted, or sent a recorded message.

I have found one such program– CallZap 2.2 from Softwarevolution to be extremely useful. This is one of the least complex implementations I have found. Simply select blocking of private and unknown callers and add any specific numbers or names to a blocked call list, and you are in business.

When a blocked call comes in it rings once and is disconnected- simple, clean, and easy.

Even with the National Do-Not-Call list, telemarketers are still finding ways to call our homes. Now you can block these annoying callers using CallZap and your computer’s modem. CallZap lets you block unwanted calls by name or phone number. To block calls, CallZap uses your caller-id compatible modem to intercept the call. If the caller is on the block list, CallZap will terminate the call immediately. CallZap also lets you block unknown (out-of-area) and private calls too.

CallZap makes a great caller-id box even if you don’t want to block calls. CallZap can display each call as it comes in using a sliding pop-up window in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen.

CallZap is extremely easy to use. It runs quietly in the background screening your calls for you. In most cases it will automatically recognize your modem and begins to monitor and block unwanted calls right away.

All of the incoming calls dropped or not are logged for review. If repeat offenders are found in the logs, their numbers can be added to the blocked call list.

PS– feel free to call the number associated with Leboeuf, this is one of our recent stalkers…

For only $14.95 this thing is golden. Download a 15 day trial and check it out yourself.

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Hot Links for 12-5-08

Published December 5th, 2008 in Computers, Email, GTD, Goals, Links, Plans, Productivity and Project Management. Comments

Too much of a slacker to enter your own Google search string…

Click on image to try

Enjoy a fall visit to Historical Battle Road in Lexington, MA

Click on video to watch Battle Road 2008
Uploaded by mnassal

Very funny video of kid freaking out at puppet show.

This kid is likely to have some issues….

This Weeks Links

MiniTask: A Lightweight To-Do Tracker
- MiniTask is a free, fast and easy-to-use task management application that helps you with organising your daily todos more efficiently.
Best Beer Ever- gtdsex
- The Worlds Greatest Beer
Productivity Tip Trip Report: Close Your Email
- I’ve been field testing some methods to improve my personal productivity.
My Letter to Mr. Email- bradgarland
- Our relationship has been going on for almost 15 years now and I feel like you have done an amazing job of slowly becoming an integral part of my life for both my business and personal affairs. We spend so much time together that some would consider it cheating.

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Friday Hot Links 11-21-08

Published November 22nd, 2008 in Computers, Email, GTD, Links, Productivity, Project Management, Technology and Thoughts. Comments

The Money Hole– Funny, yet realistically scary

Phantom Gourmet Beer & Food Phest 11/8
Uploaded by mnassal

This Weeks Links

Evernote and GTD– This, That, and the Other Thing
- First off I want to say that I’ve been a GTDer for about three years. I’ve used paper based GTD, electronic based GTD, and a combination of the two.
OmniFocus 1.5 expands Mac to iPhone sync– macworld
- OmniFocus is designed to help people get things done using David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” management method.
Social networking, Collaboration and Knowledge Management– Synergise IT
- Many people do not think that Enterprise 2.0 is the next Knowledge Management buzzword and I am one of them.
Taking productivity lessons from open source– Open Source Programming
- Even if your organization doesn’t produce software or work with open source development, you can still take some lessons from open source communities - in particular, how to get work done with fewer meetings and less real-time.
New Paper-Based System for GTD– Keener Living
- For those who prefer to use paper planners to implement Getting Things Done, the David Allen is now providing some specially designed planners for you.
Is Social Software Really Different From Email?– Gartner
- Of course it is, and I am sure we all agree that it opens whole new possibilities for collaboration, cooperative problem solving, participation, crowdsourcing and so forth.
46 Tips for the Business iPhone User–Inside CRM
- It’s official: The Apple iPhone just passed the Motorola RAZR to become the top handset in the United States, according to NPD Group Inc.

Friday Hot Links 11-7-8

Published November 8th, 2008 in Uncategorized. Comments

Another amazing video created with the new Canon 5D Mark II

This is some amazing HD video taken with a digital SLR–

You have to see it to believe it

This Weeks Links

SoCal 0.5+
- SoCal… Get Things Done the natural, unobstrusive way!
Best & Worst Practices of Process-Simply GTD
- This is part two in a five part series on the best & worst practices of GTD: Mastering Workflow.
5 Ways to Take the Stress Out of Long-Haul Flights– Lifehack
- Flying long distances can be a great source of tiredness - if you’re only going somewhere for a week, you don’t want two or three days of that week to be spent recovering from that experience. Here are some handy pointers to make sure you hit the ground running after that marathon flight
Get productive… go on vacation-productivity - getting more done
- If you want to really accelerate your productivity, set yourself a deadline and work like crazy to make it happen.
Task management & project management are not the same thing– intervals
- Project management can mean many things to many people. Just take a look at how many hosted project management tools there are to choose from. Small business workflow has been interpreted differently with each online app, but the underlying concepts of project management are usually left intact.
How to get your email inbox to zero every day-Whats best Next
- It is possible to get your email in-box to zero every day, even if you get 100 emails a day.

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Quick And Easy GTD With Task Writer

Published November 6th, 2008 in GTD, OSX, Productivity, Project Management, Reviews and Technology. Comments

If speed and simplicity are your key requirements for a GTD tool, then Task Writer may be just what you are looking for. Taskwriter.com is a fairly new project currently in public beta. In a heavily crowded segment you really need to provide something special to make it, and ease of use is always a good start. The browser interface is simple enough that a GTD newbie can jump right in, yet feature rich enough for guru’s.

Its amazingly simple to create new tasks or view lists of existing tasks associated with contexts or projects. Most of navigational controls are in the left panel of the screen, leaving the balance for display of data. Tasks can be viewed in a list format or in a calendar.

My first impression was that of being under whelmed. I have become so used to an abundance of useless frills and layers in this product segment, that simplicity took a little getting used to. But, I have to tell you once I started playing with it and understanding the flow, I became a believer. The reality is that the product has all the basic functionality required to create and manage your GTD tasks with very little effort.

The product is still very new, so there aren’t many bells and whistles yet, but they are on the way. The team is currently working on creating interactive tutorials and user guides which will assist new adopters.

One area that is glaringly absent is a mobile product. As you would expect TW is already working on an HTML interface for mobile phones and SMS notification, which they hope to have out by the first quarter. A dedicated iPhone client is also in the works for early next year.

A few other feature that will be coming are:

- iCal integration

- Offline management of tasks

- Printable report

Free, no limit on the number of tasks, quick, easy, a number of new features on the way- this product is really worth looking at. Surf over to taskwriter.com and see for yourself.

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Friday Hot Links 10-31-08

Published October 31st, 2008 in Uncategorized. Comments

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.4 Update

MS has released the fix for the calendar issues brought on by the 12.1.4 update

This update fixes a calendar issue in versions of Microsoft Entourage that were updated with the Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.3 Update. The issue prevents Exchange accounts in Entourage from sending meeting invitations and responses. This issue can occur when an Entourage identity is configured with more than one mail account. We strongly recommend that all Entourage users who installed Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.3 Update install this update.

The patch can be downloaded directly from Microsoft, or you can wait for the auto updater to kick in.

For history on this issue see my previous post.

Mikogo 2.0 Released Today

New features in 2.0:

Meeting Scheduler
One-Click Invitation Emails
Meeting Waiting Room
Session Recording
Whiteboard
Back Monitor
Voice Conferencing Service
Copy/Paste Meeting Info
Instant Screen Build-Up

The new version can be downloaded from the product website.

See my review of Mikogo 1.x

SlideRocket Beta Completed

GENERAL AVAILABILITY
We’re announcing the general availability of SlideRocket for individuals and organizations which ends our incredibly successful beta and means we’re officially open for business.

PRICING
We’ve announced three tiers of pricing, Free, Individual, and Business. For all the details and value offered in each tier please visit the pricing page of our web site. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

For more details on SlideRocket see my review

This Weeks Links

10 ideas to help focus and produce– lucho a lucha
- In my last post I wrote about the difficulty of staying focused and being productive, and decided to find solutions.
A student’s GTD #3a: Organise (RTM)– Hopelessly Optimistic
- After experimenting and reading a lot, I’ve come closer to finding something that works for me. So, without further ado, a 5-part outline of my system in relation to GTD.
BlackBerry® Dictation Boosts Mobile Productivity– PR Web
- Leading Minnesota law firm Lind, Jensen, Sullivan & Peterson P.A. has today reported a significant boost to productivity, and associated cost savings, through their use of BigHand Mobile (BlackBerry® Edition).

So much for Acorns legally required bipartisanship….

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Office 2008 12.1.3 Entourage Issue Update

Published October 28th, 2008 in Uncategorized. Comments

Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and identified the root cause according to a post at the MS newsgroup on 10/24. They have not published a date for release of the fix, but are addressing it as a high priority. The post also states that is will be delivered through the auto update mechanism.

For more info see resent post on the Entourage Help Blog

If you missed my original post on the issue click here

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