Microsoft courting webOS developers with free phones

AppleInsider | Microsoft courting webOS developers with free phones

Fantastic idea Microsoft:

"To Any Published WebOS Devs: We'll give you what you need to be successful on #WindowsPhone, incl.free phones, dev tools, and training, etc.," Watson wrote on Twitter.

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Please leave comments below.

Ray Ozzie leaving post as Microsoft's chief software architect

Ray Ozzie is the gentleman that took Bill Gates's place after he retired from his day to day duties at Microsoft, and unfortunately, this kinda makes me feel more confident in the opinion I had when that event took place.

Microsoft is losing their spirit.

Let's face it, it's quite obvious now that Bill Gates was the driver behind the Microsoft brand and direction.  This is the third notable post that is being vacated since Bill Gates left (the first being the designer behind the Zune interface Robbie Bach, second being CFO Chris Liddell), and yet, somehow Ballmer stays in charge.

Don't get me wrong, Ballmer knows how to make money.  Which is why he's a good CEO, but in my opinion, it doesn't feel like he is ushering in a strong "direction" for the company.  But maybe I'm being a little critical, trying not to compare him to Steve Jobs, but hate him or love him, Steve Jobs is a great CEO.

It just feels to me that Microsoft is playing the catchup game.  Saying "me too" to everything that is coming out.  Windows Mobile Phone 7, (which was started a long time ago, but not until the iPhone came out was serious pressure put on this), the Xbox360 (which is probably Microsoft's best product), the Zune copied after the iPod, Windows's constant comparison to OSX, chasing after Google with Bing, and chasing after the iPad now with whatever-the-heck tablets (slate) they come out with.

Sad part is, Microsoft almost invented the tablet business.  They pretty much pioneered it.  However, they tried to shoe horn a Desktop OS into a tablet PC and wrote enough software to be able to use a pen.  Well, it doesn't appear to have caught on en-masse.  They didn't go back to the drawing board (like they did with Windows Mobile Phone 7) and design a new user interface, even if they copied the WMP7 interface from the Zune HD.  Their current tablet offering does not bode well for touch, and it's unclear where their future direction is going as far as touch is concerned, but it doesn't look good right now.  It still looks like they are trying to shoehorn Windows 7, the desktop operating system, into the tablet.  It's not going to work!  You tried that once, and it failed.  So I refer to the current class of computing devices (the iPad, and all the competitors that are trying to come out now as "slate" devices.)

Ray Ozzie, as it states in the below linked article, is best known for creating Lotus Notes.  Which really doesn't speak volumes to quality, but it does speak to success.  Even a totally awful program can make tons of money.  But Mr. Ozzie didn't seem to provide the direction that Gates did.  Face it, Gates was the genius behind the Microsoft brand.  Even if his tactic was to copy everything he saw, which I'm not saying he did, but even if his tactic was that, it was genius and it worked well.

I am not a Microsoft Shareholder, heck, I'm not even an Apple shareholder anymore,  but I'd wonder why Ballmer was still in power considering the stock price hasn't moved much in over 10 years.

Ray Ozzie leaving post as Microsofts chief software architect.

Microsoft opens source code to Russian secret service

Microsoft opens source code to Russian secret service | Security | ZDNet UK.

The above is a link to ZDNet on the fact that Microsoft has signed a deal with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) access to Windows Server 2008 R2, Office 2010, SQL Server, and Windows 7.

The thing to remember about this deal is, this is nothing new...  from the article:

"The agreement is an extension to a deal Microsoft struck with the Russian government in 2002 to share source code for Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2000, said Vedomosti."

I'm not even sure that the United States Government has access to Microsoft's Source Code, although it stands to reason... If the Russians have it, the US has it too.

Google ditches Windows on security concerns

Trying not to bash Windows here, as I personally think that Windows 7 is a much better operating system than it's predecessors.  However, I think this is interesting.  I've seen this happen at several companies lately.  While Google has been very Mac centric for awhile now, according to friends I have in the company, a conscience effort to move everyone off the platform in such a big company is an interesting effort.

FT.com / Technology - Google ditches Windows on security concerns.

Twitter / Microsoft: Steve Ballmer not speaking ...

From Microsoft's official Twitter feed.

Told you so.

Twitter / Microsoft: Steve Ballmer not speaking ....

Internet Explorer web browser use drops below 60%

Now remember, that these aren't specifically browsers, these are representations of rendering engines.  IE's rendering engine is called Trident, Firefox's is called Gecko, etc.  So it's interesting that IE is falling, yes it's still built into every Windows Machine, but the alternative browsers are gaining market in there as well.  Look at Firefox, it's up a bit, but the one that is the biggest uptick is Webkit.  Webkit is the rendering engine behind Safari (Mac's browser), Chrome (Google's browser), Android's browser, the iPhone browser, and the iPad browser.

Now, I don't know if they counted mobile browsers in this mix (iPhone, iPod, and iPad) but it's an interesting graph none-the-less.

AppleInsider | Internet Explorer web browser use drops below 60%.

Day Two: No One Even Attempts Hacking Chrome at Pwn2Own Competition

Day Two: No One Even Attempts Hacking Chrome at Pwn2Own Competition - Google Chrome - Lifehacker.

Found this interesting.  I didn't make it to CanSecWest this year, but several of my friends did go to this event/competition.  While I did see that every other major browser was cracked on day one, (IE8, Firefox, and Safari) Chrome didn't even get  tried, apparently.

While Chrome does use the Webkit (safari) engine, Chrome starts each browser tab in a separate process which is in a 'sandbox'.

On the usability side, I've been using Chrome on the Mac since they opened up the dev channel for it, and I really like it.

Hey Microsoft, Don't F*ck Up Windows Phone 7

Hey Microsoft, Don't F*ck Up Windows Phone 7 - Windows phone 7 - Gizmodo.

A funny post over on Gizmodo detailing how, apparently, Microsoft has put out a couple changes to Windows Phone Mobile 7. (What is it with Microsoft and the number 7 all of the sudden?  Unified messaging?)

Apparently Microsoft is going to do two things wrong..

1. No multitasking


2. No Copy and Paste

As for Multitasking, the iPhone doesn't have it "ish".  (Mail and various other "Apple only" apps can run in the background).   However, the rumor is that iPhone 4.0 will have multitasking.  So Microsoft, instead of trying to get ahead of the curve, you are going to be at least 3 years behind in copying Apple?  Seriously?  Way to step up the innovation there guys.

Copy and Paste..  Well, the iPhone didn't have it until iPhone 3.0, and a shitton of people bought iPhones too.  Not that many will buy Windows Mobile 7 devices, but still...

How can you not put copy and paste in it, when (as the author of the Gizmodo article says) the phone you are trying to compete with (the iPhone) already has it!?

Steller Microsoft, way to win.  Whatever, I wouldn't buy it anyway.

VRT: The New Disclosure Debate and the Evil Mr. Moore

VRT: The New Disclosure Debate and the Evil Mr. Moore.

I am not trying to get into the business of reblogging Sourcefire VRT's blog entries, but I blog things that I think are interesting, or that I think my readers will find interesting and hopefully debate.  I think this is yet, ANOTHER insanely great article by Mr. Matt Olney.  Please click the link above and read it!

Sourcefire VRT Labs: MS to SID mappings

Sourcefire VRT Labs.

For those of you that are using Sourcefire VRT rules to protect your network with your Snort IDS/IPS installation, (as you should!).  There are mappings from MS vulnerability number to SID number, in the past, you either had to be a Sourcefire customer (we make this super easy in the Policy Editor GUI) or you had to be very patient and grep your way through the rules.

However, VRT put these mappings in a super easy to use interface at the link above.  Check it out.

Update:

Nigel corrected me, these mappings have always been on Snort.org, VRT just moved the hosting.  Duh.

Usability participants needed for Outlook:Mac

go ahead, mac my day : usability participants needed for Outlook:Mac study in March.

Blog entry from one of the developers that works on the Office:Mac suite at Redmond, asking for usability testing volunteers to test Outlook for the Mac.  (To be released this year IIRC.

If you are in or near Mountain View, California, and you wish to participate, you need to be eligible by:

• use a Mac for work purposes


• connect your Mac to an Exchange server


• use mail and calendar on your Exchange server several times per week

Google to kill off IE6 support in 2010

In a big move by Google I just received an email letting me know that Google will be phasing out support for IE6 in Google Apps in 2010.

"In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 ​as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers."

I think this is a phenominal move by a company as big as Google to say "not anymore". I wish other companies would take such a firm stance against my other pet peeves. You know, ActiveX, Flash, and Silverlight.

Flash, time for you to die

I've been reading a lot of hubbub about the new Apple iPad not having the capability of displaying Flash.  Of course!  It stands to reason that it can't, it has the same OS as the iPhone, which, also can't display Flash.  Which leads me to think, why do we need flash?

Answer is, we don't.  Not anymore.  90% of Flash usage is for audio or video on the Internet and HTML5 can handle <audio> and <video> tags.  It can do Canvas. (Oh and a TON more, I'm just illustrating a point.)  Some of the major browsers have adapted most of these technologies.  Webkit (Invented by Apple, powers Safari, Webkit, and Google Chrome [amongst others], and Presto (The rendering engine that powers Opera) have supported more than the other two majors (Gecko -- The engine that powers Firefox and all of it's kin), and Trident (The engine that powers Internet Explorer).  The last being the worst adopter.  Surprisingly.

I read somewhere (I can't find it now), about most browser crashes come from plugins.  Flash, Java, etc.  Why can't we eliminate these plugins and go with the native protocols?  That's what HTML5 is attempting to do for the most part, and I, for one, am glad for it.

Apple has always been about killing off technologies and moving onto what is on the horizon (killing off serial, going for USB, killing of Diskettes, going to CD, Killing off CD's (Macbook Air), moving more wireless (Airport), Killing off displayport, hdmi, dvi, vga, going with Mini Displayport).  They have never been afraid to just "move on" to the new thing.

I believe they said to Flash, die, HTML5 is here.  Then they turned to web developers and said "fix your stuff".  How did they do that?  Rolled out the iPhone, which has become the largest mobile browsing platform on the planet now.  Slowly and surely, what's happening?  Websites are changing away from Flash.

Unless, you know, of course, you are a band or a restaurant.  (Seriously?  What is with bands and restaurants and your use of Flash?)

I don't even need to get into the security issues of Adobe's Flash.  Look, there is one small part of Adobe working on Flash.  The entire internet is working on HTML5.

Flash (and Silverlight) is dead.  Get over it.

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100% of the statistics in this post are made up.  ;)

Tungle Makes Cross-Calendar Scheduling Simple

This is a great idea.

Tungle Makes Cross-Calendar Scheduling Simple [Calendars]

via Lifehacker by Jason Fitzpatrick on 9/30/09

If you're looking for a web-based application for scheduling meetings, you'll find no shortage. Want that application to sync to common calendar applications like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal? Prior to Tungle you were out of luck.
Tungle combines the best features of a variety of calendar syncing and meeting scheduling tools and rolls them all into one. With Tungle you can quickly jump from your existing calendar application to sending invites to your team members, checking their calendars even if you all use different applications, and optimizing everyone's schedule for the best meeting times. Check out the demonstration video below to see Tungle in action:



Tungle is a free service and is accessible by the Tungle site, an iPhone app, a Firefox plugin for Google Calendar, and a variety of apps for various social calendars.

Tungle [via Mashable]

Tungle Makes Cross-Calendar Scheduling Simple

This is a great idea.

Tungle Makes Cross-Calendar Scheduling Simple [Calendars]

via Lifehacker by Jason Fitzpatrick on 9/30/09

If you're looking for a web-based application for scheduling meetings, you'll find no shortage. Want that application to sync to common calendar applications like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal? Prior to Tungle you were out of luck.
Tungle combines the best features of a variety of calendar syncing and meeting scheduling tools and rolls them all into one. With Tungle you can quickly jump from your existing calendar application to sending invites to your team members, checking their calendars even if you all use different applications, and optimizing everyone's schedule for the best meeting times. Check out the demonstration video below to see Tungle in action:



Tungle is a free service and is accessible by the Tungle site, an iPhone app, a Firefox plugin for Google Calendar, and a variety of apps for various social calendars.

Tungle [via Mashable]

Snow Leopard is coming..

In case you've been living under a rock for the past couple days, as plastered all over Twitter and every computer related gadget site, Snow Leopard, the next release of OSX is coming out on Friday.
This release is mostly enhancements to the Leopard operating system, not really any new "features" per say (even though there are a ton), but mostly bug fixes.

However, today, there has been some news circulated around about an anti-malware solution within Snow Leopard. There have been screenshots all over Gizmodo and Engadget today with this little blurb about OSX Leopard alerting you to the presence of a new piece of malware on OSX.

Now, in the past Apple hasn't taken a proactive stance against any type of malware, running ads claiming that Macs are not prone to viruses and trojans like the Windows platform.

We all know this not to be 100% true. While Apple does have it's own share of DNS Changing trojans and things like that, they are very very few and far between, and even harder to get onto an Apple system than their PC counterparts.
Some trojans and malware requiring you to perform actions like typing in your admin password and things like that. So this "anti-malware" solution is in a new territory.
Turns out there is some details starting to emerge about this anti-malware solution, apparently right now, it's in a Preferences file called "XProtect.plist", and as of right now, it appears that it only checks for two known OSX Trojans.

In addition to that, it only checks the files if they were downloaded through iChat, Safari, Entourage, and several other applications.

Files that are on a CD, Thumbdrive, etc, are not checked against this plist file. Presumably, the things that this XProtect file checks for are all "downloaded" trojans. Attack vectors that appear over iChat, like those that have come out in the past.

I find it interesting that this is taking place. Will Apple keep this file up to date with System Update? Will they enable greater functionality within the system for this file? Scan files?
Right now OSX Server uses ClamAV to check incoming SMTP email messages arriving through the software against known malware, whose to say that Apple doesn't take this solution a step further and make it simple to use?

I can't imagine that OSX as an attack platform will stay isolated for long, but we'll see, with the new security improvements that have been made within OSX, like improved address randomization and things like that, we'll see how much of a successful attack platforms these "next gen" OSes turn out to be.

Rambling on Productivity and Email (Part Three)

The Calendar

The essential part of any productivity system is the calendar. Managing your time for your projects is probably one of the most vital portions to getting anything done. Without disruptions, without the cruft of the day, you can focus on your problem.

The essential problem with any environment is poorly set expectations. If you think you are going to be able to have your coworkers and boss read your mind, you are grossly mistaken. They don't know that you may be behind on a certain project, they don't know that you may need more time with whatever it is you are working on. They know what you tell them. In most big corporate environments, one of the ways they can find this out is by looking at your calendar.

I use Google calendar for my organizational skills, because that's what I have integrated into my system, its what our company uses, and it works. However, these ideas should work perfectly for your Microsoft Exchange calendaring system (or whatever calendaring system you happen to use).

Set aside some time

Begin by setting aside some time, usually Monday and Friday, to yourself. This is your time to be able to get things in the proper order and organize your thoughts into a coherent structure. I like Monday and Friday because Monday allows me to plan for the week, Friday allows me to review any last minute details that MUST be done this week, cannot wait for Monday, and gives me time to knock them out.

Obviously the times to do this on Monday are first thing in the morning. On Friday I like to set aside the hour of 3-4. I call this "Review Time". There are no meetings scheduled during this time. This is your sacred time to balance your thoughts. As David Allen says in his seminars on GTD, anything that goes on your calendar is a contract, a hard bet, a commitment. The calendar is sacred. Don't put things on your calendar you "might" do. Put things on your calendar that you are going to do. If you aren't going to do it, make it a "Todo", file it under "someday", and take a look at it in your daily review time.

Right now, go to your calendar on Monday and Friday and block off an hour to yourself, go ahead, we'll wait here.

During this time on those days, you do exactly what I stated above, and see if it helps. I find it useful to set aside, just a half hour, right after lunch to see where I was at for the day, review my To-do list, and then accomplish everything that needed to be accomplished for that day.

Do your best to schedule

You will be surprised how well this works. I ask people, even my wife, to her greater annoyance, anything that I need to be at or participate in, needs to go on my calendar. I need to remember it, and I need to be there. My calendar is how I schedule things and is my organizational tool. My Google Calendar is synced between my desktop and my iPhone, and the web (so my wife can get it). If it's not on my calendar, either I don't know about it, or I can't be there (I've declined). Make sure it's on my calendar and we'll be good. Force your coworkers to be the same way. Stick to the time limits.

Scenario: Some guy comes to your desk.

Them: "Hey Bob -(you)-, Do you have a few minutes to talk about project x?"

You: "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm in the middle of something right now, let's set aside a few minutes to talk about that this afternoon (tomorrow, friday). Can you send me an invite for that at 3?"

Bam. Interruption gone, scheduled time to talk about project x, and you move on with what you were talking about. This isn't perfect. Sometimes you'll have to deal with little interruptions.

Wow. Talk about a perfect example. Seriously. Right after I finished the previous paragraph I received a phone call. Wanting to schedule a furniture delivery. Now, had I not answered the phone, it would have went to voicemail and I then I could have called them back at my convenience, scheduling the furniture delivery time at on my terms.

However, when it comes to furniture delivery, the sooner you book the delivery date, the faster you will get your stuff. So I took the call. I sat down in front of my Google calendar, blocked off the date that my furniture will be delivered. They say they are going to call the day before with the exact 3-hour window of delivery time, which is slightly annoying, but I'll deal with it. Now I know on that furniture delivery day, I will be available.

Back on topic, even though that really wasn't a deviation. Wife just called. Of course I had to take that call.

Scheduling YOUR time is on YOUR terms. Sometimes you can't help it and you have to work around other people's schedules, so you have to be flexible. But don't be flexible once you put things on the calendar. People are expecting to meet with you, you are important enough to have a meeting with and talk about a dedicated subject. Don't disrespect another persons time by saying you'll be at a meeting and then not showing up. If you have a conflict, decline the meeting.

The tricky part is the "maybe" response to a meeting invite. If have to respond with Maybe, and I try very hard not to, I write an email and explain why I replied with maybe. If the person can possibly reschedule for a more convenient time for both parties, then that is fine, however, give the person you are responding to the common courtesy o understand why you replied with Maybe. Then, maybe, then can move the meeting to a mutually beneficial time.

Example: I have a meeting at 1pm that usually runs over. If you send me a meeting invite at 2pm, I'll respond with "Maybe" -- by the way, Outlook calls this "Tentative". Then I'll write you an email saying something like this:

"Dear Bob,

I apologize for having to respond to your meeting invite with "Maybe". I have a meeting at 1pm that sometimes runs over time. If there is another time you'd like to push the meeting to, say, 2:30 or 3pm that same day, that would be good with me as well. I have an opening on my calendar at that time.

Thanks in advance,

Me"

Meetings that run over time are evil. If the time is going to run over, schedule a followup. Or ask the meeting attendees if they can stay, or need to go. If anyone needs to go, let them go. Don't disrespect their time. They didn't disrespect yours by attending your meeting.

Out of Office

I personally am not a fan of the "Out of Office" message. It's a bad security practice. Especially for the security and network personnel. It allows someone sending you an email to know that you are not in the office right now, and right now would be an excellent time to attack the network. Instead, I like to use the calendar for this. Block the time you are going to be Out of the Office out as "Out of Office". I believe in Outlook, they color the "Out of Office" time differently, purple I think. Of course this only works for people in your domain, (exchange wise), or people that have access to your calendar, (say, Google Calendar). But, I believe this to be a more secure and more polite way of handling your Out of Office. If it's important, someone will schedule a call, talk, or meeting, but you have to train your coworkers to do this. If it's not important, you'll get back to the email when you get back. Besides, if it's THAT important, they should just pick up the phone and call you.

I write these articles to give you a broad overview of what works and how to structure it. You have to apply it to your own life and situation. This method doesn't work for everyone, but it sure does work for me.

I just want to echo something that Merlin Mann has said. I hate that the default meeting time in an hour. I wish you could change that in some way. In Google Calendar, iCal, and in Outlook, the default meeting time is an hour long. I want to be able to say the default meeting time is 30 minutes. If I want to expand it, I can. But blocking a whole hour of my time? Working approx 8 hours a day, that's not very much time. Anyway, sorry, pet peeve.

Please leave comments below.

Rambling on Productivity and Email (Part Two)

Managing To-Dos

As I promised a follow up post to my previous blog post here.

I stated, I try to manage things through Todo lists. When I read an email that I need to take action on, I make a ToDo out of it. Simple to complex, I make a ToDo out of it. Not just emails either. If I am in a meeting and I hear an "action item" for me, I knock that out. If I get a shopping list from my wife, I put that in my Todo list as well.

There are several tools that I have evaluated and used over the years, let me go over a few of these and see if any of them help you. The one that works for me is not the one that may work for you. You have to figure it out for yourself. Make the ToDo list work for you, not you working for your ToDo list. If you find yourself spending most of your time in your ToDo list "managing it" (prioritizing, categorizing, contexting... You are doing it wrong. Managing your ToDo's should not be a ToDo within itself.)

1) Google Tasks

Google Tasks is a built in Task manager into the Gmail interface. It is accessible on the left hand side of your Gmail interface near the labels. (Look for the obvious word "Tasks"). I like this method, it's keyboard accessible, works great, and is accessible from the web.

However, There are two reasons I don't use Google Tasks. First is templates. If I want to make a standard "Group" of tasks. Say, 10 things that I must do with each client, I want to be able to template these 10 things, copy the template and use it over and over for each client. The second reason is, for some reason, right now, Google for Domains doesn't support an iPhone version of tasks. This sucks. It works in the regular Gmail, but not in Google for domains, yet. If you have the luxury of using Gmail for your primary email, I'd suggest checking out Google Tasks. Learn the keyboard shortcuts for it, and you'll whiz through it. Best feature? Being able to create a ToDo related to an email (So you can go to the ToDo and get back to the exact email). Shift-t.

2) Remember the Milk, GTDAgenda, Backpack

All three of these are web based services that you can use for ToDos. I tried several of these, however, most of these require an extra step, or an extra website to log in to and maintain. To me, that's not reducing the amount of work I have to do, that's increasing it. I shouldn't have to increase the amount of things I have to do in order to manage a ToDo list. Each of these has their own merits. I think Remember the Milk is the most extensible. (Meaning it has an iPhone app as well.) GTDAgenda was fairly nice. In the interest of Full Disclosure, I was asked to evaluate GTDAgenda and received a free account. I used it very little because of the above reasons. Backpack is overkill. It's like a Wiki, on crack.

3) Omnifocus

Or OmniOutliner.

This is what I use, it's an OSX only application, but it allows several things that I find vital. The only thing that I don't like about it is that it's a separate app on my system (As opposed to Gmail Tasks, which is built in.) If I have an email (or damn near anything on my computer) I can highlight it with my mouse, and mash a keyboard shortcut (which is customizable) and Omnifocus takes what I have highlighted and makes it a Todo. This is the best.

I am able to assign contexts and projects to everything, assign due dates, make reoccurring tasks... etc.

It also allows me to use templates, as I discussed in Number 1. I can set up a series of tasks, then copy the series of tasks by right clicking and saying "Duplicate".

It allows me to Sync between my computer and my iPhone. Now, the way this takes place is, Omnifocus takes it's DB and puts it up on MobileMe's iDisk. The iPhone, with it's accompanying app then syncs with the DB up on the iDisk. Not a big deal, but it can be a pain to have to keep two in sync. I'd rather just use Google Tasks.

Pain in the butt part? It's expensive. Stupid expensive. It's 79 dollars for the OSX app, and it's another 19.99 for the iPhone app. I think this is bull.

4) Things

This is another program similar to Omnifocus. Simpler to use. (Less complex of an interface), but also, it's 49.95 for the App, plus another 9.99 for the iPhone version. It syncs, but not with MobileMe. Your computer that has the app on the desktop must be on the same Wifi network in order to Sync. That's fairly annoying.

5) ToDo.txt

This is a shell script, basically, that allows you to simply manage ToDos in a simple fashion from the command line. You can barely do contexts and project tagging, but you can't do subordinate projects or anything like that. It's a pretty cool little tool if you are one of those people that likes to manage everything you possible can in a command line. I have several friends like that, and I like to be like that too, but this program just doesn't have enough of the features I need to be able to manage it.

6) Tasks in your email client

Outlook, Thunderbird (with addons), and Mail each have their own ToDo system.

A) Outlooks works like this. You can drag an email over to the right pane (in Office 2007), you can also drag an email down to the "tasks" icon in the left pane at the bottom of the screen. Problem with either one of these solutions is, if you move the mail out of the inbox and into a PST, poof. The ToDo is gone. Seems counter intuitive to me. Anyway...

B) Thunderbird has various plugins for Managing Todos. I didn't put many man hours into investigating the use of the ToDo system within Thunderbird, because I didn't use Thunderbird for more than about five minutes.

C) Mail.app -- This is the only Mail program on OSX that has a ToDo system worth a crap. But even it has it's own problems.

You can create a todo based off an email, highlight the text you want and tap the "Todo" button. Mail will create a Todo based on the email. This Todo is stored in a central db that is shared between Mail.app and iCal. Problem is, as of right now, there is no way to get those ToDos on your iPhone. Come on Apple. Plus Mail.app is dog slow when dealing with 200,000 emails. (And gmails imap implementation sucks)

So, currently I am using Omnifocus until the second best (Google Tasks) comes along. At which point I will probably abandon Omnifocus, even if Google Tasks doesn't allow me to template, I will gladly ditch Omnifocus for a less "sync-y" built in, Cloud managed Task manager. I paid the full retail price for both of the Omnifocus apps (basically totaling about 100 dollars for two apps... to manage Todos. (Seriously Omni Group. The Pricing?)) It's a good pair of programs, but it's a bit overweight and expensive for what its use is.

After my Todos get into my Omnifocus program, I arrange them in two methods.

1) Project

2) Context

If the Todo is work related, I put it under "Work". If the Todo is home related (ex. Get new lightbulb for Microwave), I put it under home. Context is the "Where" portion of the todo.

So if I need to email Dave about that thing we were working on, the Project will be "Work" but the Context will be "Email".

That way, if I have a few minutes, I can take a look at my Todo list under the context "Email" or "Phone" or something, and knock a few of them out. This allows me to fit in ToDos that I have time for. Which will bring me to my next post on productivity, using my Calendar. But that's for another day.

Please leave comments below.

A friend and his Evernote installation

Evernote. The thing that has saved my sanity, and countless trees around the world to prevent things from being printed out. The ubiquitous capture tool. Anything you want to remember, on the computer, in voice, in pictures, darn near everything you can put into a digital device can be recorded into this tool.

I use it for many things. I keep track of projects in them. Information for a hotel that I need to stay at? In Evernote. Webpage I need to remember? In Evernote. Notes that I take on the back of a napkin? Evernote. Pictures of things I need to remember? Yup.

Friend of mine Jim recently blogged about all the goodness that helps him in Evernote, and he posted it on his blog. Be sure and read his post too.

Now, Evernote seems like one of those tools that you download, use a couple times and forget about. But, let me encourage you. You use it. Use it to remember one certain project or something. Put all your notes for that project into Evernote, and you'll realize that you want to start using it more. Then more, then more.

Eventually you'll get to the point where it becomes a part of your everyday life. It becomes your filing cabinet, your todo system..

It's free. You start off using it to remember things about projects, saving webpages to it, saving PDFs inside the program. Using your Evernote client to push all your information you need to remember to one location. One location you can access on your Blackberry, the iPhone, the Web, your Desktop... Then you wind up wanting to put EVERYTHING in there, as I do. Word Documents, Xcel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations..

I recently did a project that spanned several months, I had to write a big paper and a presentation. I had to coordinate across Sourcefire in several departments, and had to take a bunch of notes. Evernote allowed me to keep it all in one place, simply.

http://www.evernote.com/

Please leave comments below.

Microsoft does something unoriginal

Blatantly stolen from TUAW.

“Microsoft's announcement that the company will open stores near the locations of existing Apple retail outlets came as no surprise to many people. After all, why not try to get a little overflow traffic from Apple Stores and sell a few Zunes in the process? Perhaps they'll have charming and pleasant retail employees like Lauren or Sheila from the "laptop hunter" ads...

TechFlash is reporting that the company has hired George Blankenship, former Apple real estate chief, to consult on securing prime locations for the Microsoft stores. Blankenship moved to Apple from The Gap, and he joins former Wal-Mart executive David Porter, who is now Microsoft's corporate VP of retail stores.

By consulting for Microsoft rather than being a direct hire, Blankenship can skirt many of the issues brought on by the NCA (non-competitive agreement) that all Apple executives sign. The demographic information that Blankenship might use to pinpoint Microsoft store locations is available publicly, and the techniques used by Apple to successfully open retail locations have been widely discussed since the first Apple Store opened in 2001.

While the locations, products carried, and general look and feel of the Microsoft retail outlets are still under wraps, the first stores are expected to open prior to the October 22nd launch date for Windows 7.”

Commentary:

Okay, Microsoft, seriously? Can you honestly think of absolutely nothing original in your strategy? Ever? You hire Apple’s guy to set up your stores. Oh, and from the slides that have been leaked your stores are going to be exactly laid out just like an Apple Store, in fact, you use pictures from an Apple Store for reference on how you are going to do it. Genius Bar = Guru Bar? Come on!!

Seriously? I am highly disappointed in you, and so will everyone that comes in your store. Especially if you put them close to Apple Stores. The public is not that stupid. You can try and trick them into thinking that you invented the GUI, or Spotlight, or this that and the other thing that you copied from Apple, but let me tell you what. When a consumer is standing in a Mall, and the Mall has an Apple store and a Windows store near each other, and they look exactly the same, they are going to know you are a bunch of cheap rip off douchebags.

Please, just do SOMETHING original? You know, like push Office 2010 to the web! You know, like no one has ever done that before!