Nothing to say

One thing I’ve not yet read about, but just accidentally discovered, is that you can scroll your tabs (left and right) in Firefox 3.  I’m using a MacBook with OS X 10.5 (Leopard), and have no idea how well it would work on other platforms, but using the two-finger scroll gesture on the trackpad when hovering the tabs causes them to slide left and right.

Obviously you need several tabs open before this will work…. or be useful for that matter.  But I’m going through the W3’s list of CSS Learning resources and opening a bunch of sites in new tabs so I can go through them without getting lost in the list.

I recently watched the lynda.com series Learning XHTML.  It is good for people who are interested in learning XHTML 1.0 Transitional.  I prefer to use the Strict implementation, and learned very little from the series.

I’m now doing the Learning CSS 2 series.  I don’t expect to learn much, if anything from it, but I do figure it is a good place to start on reminding myself of all the great resources I’d found over the last several years.  The above link included.

I’m applying for a web design job tomorrow.  How crazy is that?  I know that my professional experience won’t help me out much with it.  Nor will my lack of an online portfolio.  But given my personal experience, I know I would be amazing for the job.

I have determined that I need to use software to manage my projects. As mentioned in a previous post, the 105 GTD Software Apps comparison page is a pretty handy resource. At last it’s broken out by OS, so it beats the other lists I’ve seen. My investigation is specific to GTD apps on the Mac. It is also relevant to note that I’m running Leopard 10.5.2. Now let’s get to it.

Check Off

Ok, this was my original solution, and I was really fond of its simplicity. It turns out, however, that it is simply TOO simple. I need a little more. Ciao!

Chandler

Holy crap is this confusing. Maybe I’ll come back to it later when everything sucks, but for now… Pass!

Shadow Plan

Call me shallow, but the website is so inelegant that I’m betting the software is as well. I didn’t bother to download it.

Frictionless

This one seems far more promising. The website isn’t amazing, but it’s quite clear in how it’s laid out. Best of all, the developer seems seriously committed to the project. I’ll skip the few details I have on the setup process, and cut straight to the worst of all. Worst of all, it crashed on me. Twice. One of the times, I was simply removing the “work” context from the context list. Unacceptable. Sayonara.

iGTD

This one easily has the best website of those listed so far. But holy cow is it complicated. It was actually the first thing I installed today, but I just gave up and went for something simpler. Also, I got it to crash a couple of times, though I forget what I was doing to cause it. Oh, I know, I imported the text data from Check Off, and was promoting one of the tasks to a project. Apparently, that was a bad idea. Three times in a row. That’s why I gave up on it. I’ll go back to it and see how things go. Now if it’s crashing on manipulating the data from another program, well, that could be acceptable, as it isn’t a part of normal functionality for me. And there’s not enough stuff in Check Off that I can’t just retype it.

Anyway, the interface is the prettiest of the batch so far. I want to like it and use it, if that counts for anything.

Ok, wtf. Neverming. I CANNOT ADD PROJECTS! Baleeted.

Chandler

Didn’t I say I’d be back? Ok, so the app is complicated, but the site is so well laid out. There are even videos and a very thorough Getting Started guide! How handy is that? Let me answer for you. Very handy. Good answer! So how easy is it to setup?

The answer to that apparently depends on your existing system. Their Get Started guide has a wealth of info on importing calendars, tasks, emails, notes, and data from all sorts of sources. That’s tremendous. If, on the other hand, you’re a disorganized slob like me, well, you can’t very well import from the pieces of paper you’ve just written, so you’re essentially on your own. I was unable to find documentation for the quick entry bar, and there’s no advertised shortcut to access that blank anyhow.

At least it hasn’t crashed yet.

[time passes]

Chandler does not have projects.  Furthermore, it lacks any possibility for creating sub-tasks.   What it does have are Collections, which are displayed vertically in the left-most pane.  The defaults are already created for you: Work, Home, Fun.

If my life consisted solely of single things that needed to be done, and none of my tasks involved more than one or two steps to complete, this would be BRILLIANT.  Just for one example, though, I need to update my contacts.  This is a fairly simple, straightforward process that determines taking all of my contacts, updating them to contain current info, and then collecting them all into one place and propagating that information back to any other sources that need it.

How do I enter this in Chandler?  Do I create one item that says “update contacts” and then put notes in it that say “Sync phone contacts via bluetooth.  Sync Palm contacts via USB.  Export Gmail contacts.  Clean up data and import individually into existing contacts spreadsheet.  Remove duplication.  Sort through emails for any updates.  Contact friends individually if I know there is more current info… oh wait, you’re bored reading this.

No, that’s not going to work.  What other options are there?  Decide all the next actions and enter them as separate Notes in chandler?  No, because there’s no structure or order to that.  So I do instead just enter the Very next action, and then when that’s finished, determine what the next Next action is and add that?  You know what?

BALEETED.

Conclusion: If you want a good GTD solution, don’t be such a cheapskate!

Note: I haven’t tried ThinkingRock because I absolutely abhor java apps, so it’s automatically excluded.  I have read that it’s brilliant.  Nothing personal.  Cheers, mate.

This is kind of a simultaneous vent session and cry for help. I will gladly accept input from anyone who has some advice. I just asked one person via email and hope he’s got a good answer. If so, I’ll follow up here.

Ok, for any new readers, let’s preface this with some facts:

1. I’m a geek
2. I have a lot of computers
3. I grew up on MS Windows
4. My relationship with windows ends with XP
5. I tried converting to Ubuntu a couple times, but FAIL
6. I tried converting to Mac a few times, and finally SUCCEEDED
7. Citrix (to connect to a client) works best on XP
8. I need to keep my XP machine, but I prever my Mac

Ok, there’s your background. Now here’s my dilemma. I have three external USB drives, and I need to organize the files on the lot of them. It would be INFINITELY convenient if I could format them each as one partition that worked with both XP and MacOS. I have 10.5 Leopard if that’s relevant. All the drives are formatted as NTFS right now, but I can shuttle files around enough to clear them and reformat them one at a time. What file system should I use, though?

• NTFS is perfect for XP, but Mac can only read it. I need read/write.
• Fat32 works great for both systems, but I’m not breaking my 500GB drive into 15 32GB partitions.
• Mac’s default is, what, HFS+? XP can’t read that natively.

The fourth option, the one I need, is either a file system that works with both operating systems, or a utility for one that allows it to read the others’.

Suggestions?

I got sick of all the issues with my existing computers (iBook doesn’t work, Toshiba laptop is getting lines on the screen, and the sound hasn’t worked in nearly a year; and the PC is loud and slow) an got a MacBook Pro.

I’m just barely getting used to the keyboard, but there are unfortunately plenty of things I haven’t yet figured out how to do with the keyboard. The upside is that I LOVE the trackpad, which is more than twice the size of the one on the Toshiba, and the gestures for it are super efficient. I’ve very quickly become accustomed to that. The only downside is that the actual button for the trackpad is tough to hold down while dragging an item from one window to another.

I may do one or more posts on the transition from PC to Mac, too. There are a lot of resources for finding great software setups, but nobody’s opinion is more important to me than my own. ;)