Month: September 2010

Bookmark Syncing Service Xmarks Closing

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The Xmarks blog:

By Spring 2010, with money running tight and options fading, we started searching for potential buyers of the company. Over the past three months, we have been remarkably close to striking a deal, only to have the potential buyer get cold feet. We also considered refocusing Xmarks as a freemium sync business, but the prospects there are grim too: with the emergence of competent sync features built in to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, it’s hard to see users paying for a service that they can now get for free. For four years we have offered the synchronization service for no charge, predicated on the hypothesis that a business model would emerge to support the free service. With that investment thesis thwarted, there is no way to pay expenses, primarily salary and hosting costs. Without the resources to keep the service going, we must shut it down. Our plan is to keep the service running for another 90+ days, after which the plug will be pulled.

As a Safari user with two Macs, the service made my life just a little bit easier. I will miss it.

Update: The ever-wonderful Dropbox can sync Safari data. See how to set this up here.

New Healthcare Changes in Effect

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Ben Popken for The Consumerist:

Another aspect that kicked in on Sep 23 was that health care companies can’t deny insurance to children with preexisting conditions. Major players in the health care industry responded to this one by instead of denying insurance, it would opt to stop selling child-only health insurance policies entirely. It remains to be seen what other inventive ideas the health care industry will come up with as it adjusts to the new regulations.

Life-time coverage limits are starting to get phased out. These were limits that said after you exceeded a certain level, the insurance company wouldn’t pay anymore – financially devastating for seriously ill patients with chronic conditions.

This is great news for families like mine with chronically ill children, offset by this terrible strategy from the insurance companies.

PlayBook: The Blackberry Tablet

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Joshua Topolsky:

Today at Research In Motion’s developer event, Mike Lazaridis introduced the company’s new tablet — the PlayBook. The device will sport a Cortex A9, 1GHz dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 7-inch display, webOS-like app switching, an e-reader component, full document editing, and pairing with BlackBerry phones. The device will be capable of 1080p HDMI video and will have HDMI and USB ports, a front and rear HD camera configuration, and will be 9.7mm thick. The PlayBook is based on a platform designed by QNX, just as we’d heard previously.

The PlayBook will have full OpenGL and POSIX support, and RIM seems to have its eye set firmly on capturing a gamer market. Lazaridis called it “the first professional tablet,” and “an amplified view of what’s already on your BlackBerry.” The device will connect via Bluetooth to BlackBerry devices, though the content is cached only temporarily on the PlayBook.

On MarsEdit

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Lisa Schmeiser for Macworld:

The biggest selling point for the new version: an improved WYSIWYG interface for post composition. You now have the option to compose posts in either Rich Text or HTML format, and as you type, a separate preview pane pops up and lets you see how your post is going to look. It would be nice if you could edit in the preview pane—for example, in one test post, a subject-verb disagreement eluded me in the composition window but popped into plain relief in the preview window, and it would have been easier to correct it the minute I saw it—but this feature is not a vital must-have.

Almost every word I publish on ForkBombr goes through MarsEdit.

The Quest for Simple Task Management

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Two days ago, I wrote this in response to a piece by Joshua Schnell on managing tasks:

Getting too wrapped up in how I manage my tasks doesn’t leave me any time to actually do my tasks.

My buddy (and former boss at our college’s newspaper) Trey Heath wrote this, concerning the same topic:

I am a huge fan of GTD and since I started following the methodology four years ago, I can say without a doubt that GTD has made me 100% LESS productive.

[…]

But I believe this is a widespread problem. I am an extremely unproductive productivity geek and I’m pretty sure there are thousands of people out there like me. I am fascinated by people’s work flows and the search for the best technique to help me get through it all every day. Using those ideas effectively however is another story.

Johnny Canuck has shared his frustration on the topic as well:

So what do we do when we can’t seem to juggle our Superman proportion of new tasks? Most of us try a new tool. If this shovel doesn’t get rid of this pile of dirt fast enough, maybe this back-hoe will? I’m the first one to jump on board of that train on thought. In the last year, I’ve abandoned MS Project for OmniOutliner when I moved to the MacBook Pro then I flirted with Basecamp before coming back to a TextMate .txt page and then finding OmniPlan which I am still testing. For my day to day tasks, life got even more crazy.

[…]

So to run down the list I’ve used in no particular order: Text page, OmniOutliner, RememberTheMilk, OmniFocus, Milpon, Google Tasks, our office whiteboard and in a fit of desperation pad of paper (not even a Moleskin).

It’s clear there has to be a better way of getting things done. GTD is getting in the way.

At the heart of all of this frustration is the desire for simplicity.

We have captured the holy grail of simple writing. The Simplenote + Notational Velocity + Dropbox solution for notes is the easiest, simplest way to keep up with notes across multiple devices.

Minimalist writing environments are all the rage these days. For example, the new iPad app Writer, while attractive, has led to several jokes about the need for a simple writing solution.

But we aren’t there yet when it comes to simple task management.

I’m in no place to review all of the major GTD apps available for the Mac and iOS. I am by no means an expert on David Allen’s GTD system. All I know is that I’ve tried a bunch of different ways to manage my tasks, and more often than not, the management of tasks gets in the way of me completing the tasks themselves.

At the end of the day, I don’t give a crap about categorizing tasks due to location, topic, tags or what color shirt I’m wearing. All I need is a convenient way to list tasks and their deadlines. Nothing more; nothing less.

Shockingly simple, I know.

For me and my simple needs, Things and OmniFocus are overkill. With systems like this, I spend more time entering tasks than doing them. When I was using Things, by the time I was done going over the day’s to-do list, it was time for lunch. OmniFocus just gives me seizures.

For years, I’ve used Remember the Milk to get things done. It is a relatively flexible system, but I’ve been growing more and more unhappy with it. I think the very option to use of priorities, tags and contexts makes me nervous.

On the analog end of things, I have found that keeping a physical, paper notebook full of tasks to be frustrating. Not only is it another item to carry around everywhere, editing tasks and deadlines on paper is too messy for my tastes.

Starting earlier this week, I’ve been using TeuxDeux for task management. And I love it. It has no lists, no tags and no notes. Just task names, due dates and a place to keep “someday” tasks.

I don’t have to squeeze my tasks into any complex parameters so the “system” works.

All I do to distinguish work tasks is adding an asterisk to the end of them. If something needs additional notes, that information lives in the Simplenote universe. When I complete an item, I cross it out. If I don’t get to it, it gets moved to the next day. That’s it.

I think I’ve found the Simplenote for task management. Tasks and due dates. Why does anyone need more?

‘Just Plain Wrong’

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Ben Brooks, on seven inch tablets:

This small size sounds great if you think about it, surely it will be lighter and more portable. Seven inches is a huge difference though, you lose almost 3 inches off the iPad size and for what? Well you get a smaller device that still doesn’t fit in your pocket and doesn’t have the screen real estate to be really great.

The problem isn’t that tap zones become much smaller, the problem is the onscreen keyboards get much smaller.

Why don’t other companies think about this stuff? The iPad is what it is because Apple poured years into it. (Remember when people were complaining about the bezel on the iPad? Turns out, you need a place to put your thumbs.) So often, other devices just feel illogical and rushed. Sad.

‘Social Media Guru’ Jobs Plentiful

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Newsweek:

For years now, studies and news articles have talked about the value of using social networks to make potential employment contacts. Today it turns out social networking is the job—or at least part of it. The proliferation of sites like Twitter and Facebook as marketing tools has led to a boom in social-media positions at just about any company with a Web presence. In response, colleges are adding related courses and even entire M.B.A. programs to prepare students who are interested in turning an otherwise amusing hobby into their profession.

Sigh.

On the RIM Tablet

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Jared Newman over at PCWorld has posted a piece titled “4 Ways a RIM Tablet Could Smoke the iPad, Galaxy Tab.”

Obviously, a loaded headline. Let’s take a look at this:

1. Blackberry Messenger

One feature that both the iPad and the Galaxy Tab lack is a quick and simple way to communicate with others. Messenger could be a cornerstone of the BlackPad, allowing people to stay in touch with Blackberry phone users. Businesses who use Blackberry would love it.

True — people who use Blackberrys get to use this app. I know people who love it, but I don’t miss having something like that on my iPad or Droid.

2. Cool Software

RIM should use this as an opportunity to bundle some really great software with the device, and not just the standard e-book reader, calendar and maps that the iPad and Galaxy Tab include.

While Apple’s built-in apps only cover the basics, the App Store offers thousands and thousands of apps to choose from. The same thing goes for Android. RIM may have to bundle more apps because they don’t have any developers to create the variety they need.

I’d really like to see an advanced notetaking app that brings together text, images, video and audio and syncs them to the cloud.

As much as I hate it, Evernote can do most, if not all, of this. I for one, don’t want all my junk on RIM’s cloud.

3. Cheapness

Pardon the obvious point, but all signs point to an expensive Galaxy Tab. And while the iPad seems reasonable at $500, the price hits $700 if you want the most possible storage, and $829 if you want 3G coverage.

I’ll give him this — the iPad is pricey, but this is just a rehash of the “Macs are more expensive” discussion. You get what you pay for. A cheap tablet will look, feel and perform like a cheap tablet.

4. A Kickstand — No, Seriously

Is it really too much to ask that tablet makers include a built-in, simple way to prop the device upright? Sure, you can buy external stands for the iPad, but then you’ve got to carry them around, marring the device’s portability. Apple also sells the iPad sleeve that becomes a stand, but it’s a floppy, sloppy mess.

While I don’t use a case on any phone, I do on my iPad. Most iPads I see have cases on them. Having an integrated kickstand would be rendered useless by most cases anyways.

And yes, the Apple case isn’t great, but there are hundreds of other options out there that are.

Conclusion

Will RIM smoke the iPad? No. Will it smoke the Galaxy Tab? Probably not. While it may be a hit in the business world — and that’s a big maybe — I don’t see it going mainstream.

The iPhone marginalized RIM in many markets, and I don’t think a tablet can change that.