Around June last year, 3 friends and I got ourselves interested in this new open source platform called Android. Back then, we only have Astrid as the main to do list.

Over at iOS we have very competitive alternatives to choose from and we felt can offer something competitive over at the Android platform.

This week we release WAToDo! Android To Do List on the Android Market.

For Agile and Simple task management

WAToDo! aims to be the to do list to help users to Collect, Plan, Execute and Monitor tasks on their Android Smartphones and in the future Android tablets.

It aims to not just follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done to make sense of task management (For a primer on this, read my Getting Things Done Series), but also to be malleable for users from all walks of life to bend WAToDo! to fit their personal task management system.

Community Driven Development

For this to work, we decided to offer what we feel are the most basic functionality and seek users support and feed backs through our community forum to build subsequent features or workflows into it.

Apply Getting Things Done to manage task the right way

WAToDo! was created very much with the GTD methodology in mind, but really what it hopes to achieve is to make you the user more effective.

Here is a modified workflow diagram from my Getting Things Done Series. Why GTD works is because it make sense of the aggregation of ideas, thoughts, frustrations, finds a way to process them and teaches you how to execute and monitor them in a systematic manner.

In the following sections, I will guide everyone through how GTD can be carried out with WAToDo!

Collecting your thoughts, ideas, frustrations and things encounter

What makes the smartphone such a great device is that we always have our cell phone with us, when we have an idea or something that we just thought of that needs to be done, we want to lock in that idea immediately and not forget about it.

With WAToDo! your thoughts and ideas can be entered into your smartphone Inbox. Just like a mail inbox, this will be information in the most raw form.

The cross in each Task List brings you to the task creation section. Be sure to use actionable key words to describe your task. The more clearly define your task, the more likely it gets done.

Our interface is coherent in the sense that for most decision and entries area there is a Save and Cancel button on the top action bar.

Upon Save, task will be created. You will be brought to the detail manage task section

WAToDo! provides numerous parameters to tag to each task.

1. Make Task into a Project
2. Due date for task
3. Assign Priority to task
4. Change status easily between uncompleted, completed or next action
5. Assign multiple tags to task
6. Assign which Task List or Project the task belongs to
7. Recur task upon completion
8. Tag Notes to task

We recommend assigning due date to task that are constraint to finish within a certain day and tags to better describe how this task should be handled. We will go into Tags, Task Lists and Projects later.

Better Monthly Calendar Date Selector

One of the thing I find lacking about the Android platform was the date selector. While on the iOS we have a calendar selector that we can at one glance see where Today falls upon, how far we want the due date to be.

At WAToDo! we provide one step further by providing some commonly used date entries like “Today”, “2 Weeks from now” or “3 Months from now” simply because most of the time this is how our cognitive minds think about setting due dates.

Setting Task to Next Action

Why do we enable you to toggle a task to “Next Action” ? Simply because while reviewing your task it makes it easy for you to select a task to do immediately and highlight it as Next to do.

Attach Multiple Tags

WAToDo! thinks Tags is one of the most important aspect of a to do list, so much so that you need to be able to create your own tags and choose multiple tags to tag to your task. We will later see why this is important.

Repeating Task

Some people see value in repeating task. We do as well as some tasks you will do it every day, every 2 weeks or every 30th of the month.

At WAToDo! you can easily specify this.

Planning with Task Lists and Projects

Once you have collect the task it is time to organize them so that they make sense.

WAToDo! provides 2 kinds of task containers: Task Lists and Projects. What is the difference between the 2? When do you use each type?

Each Task List can contain Projects. And Each Projects can contain more Projects. Nested Projects is a feature of the Full Paid version.

For a better tutorial on this read Organizing Lists and Tasks with WAToDo! >>

Task List

We would recommend using Task List to group your 1 year goals or your areas of responsibilities.

Some examples are

• Personal (Family Man) – for all things done to be a good father or mother or spouse.
• Project Manager Duties (Work) – to be objective in your focus to be a good planner/manager at work
• Project Armada – all tasks and projects to ensure the success and completion of Project Armada
• Project Waterloo – another project but its another key performance indicator and better to be kept seperate.
• Investor & Money – to be focus in your pursuit for good wealth and capital appreciation

Project

Readers would be aware that a task can be toggle to be a project. A task can be explicitly define as a project when its likely make up of multiple actionable tasks to fulfill an objective.

A good example is this:

• draft out documents required for the audit coming up
• check with the QA personnel what is required for the upcoming audit
• get my subordinates to validate the existing documents for audit again

These tasks belong to a common theme. They are not so much of an area of responsibility or focus to create a custom list for them, but you cannot group them under a task called "To prepare for audit".

This task is too big and if you define it as just "To prepare for audit" you will procrastinate and not fulfill it.

A better definition will be a task project.

Easily move tasks between Inbox, Lists and Projects

WAToDo! makes it easy for you to move tasks

Doing the Tasks

Each individual have a different way of doing their task. They either:

1. Go by date
2. Go to a specific List or Project and do it

What we recommend based on Getting Things Done is to really Tag tasks well and execute them by filtering the Tags.

We believe that tasks fall within 3 dimensions:

1. Location Specific – Tasks can only and only be carried out in this specific location. e.g. Site A, Office, Home, Errands, Commuting
2. Person/Group Specific – Tasks that are related to a person. Agendas with a certain person or group of people. e.g. Team A, Boss, Best Friend
3. Time Intensity – An estimate of how much time it requires to carry this out. Normally broken up into Low, Medium and High Intensity or Long/Short, 1 hour/half a day/1 day or more.

Either way, with WAToDo! you can easily create tags flexibly based on these 3 categories of contexts

Notice that next to each tag, you will be able to see the overdue in red and uncompleted tasks in blue.

So how do you do the tasks based on these tags? We have provide you with a workflow as follows:

WAToDo! enables you to filter by ANY or ALL tags selected to carry out the workflow above

More Tutorials at WAToDo! Guides

We can’t cover everything because there are just so much you can do with WAToDo!

At WAToDo! we provide these guides:

• Defining and collecting tasks with WAToDo!
• Organizing lists and projects with WAToDo!
• Reviewing and executing tasks with WAToDo!

In addition, we continue to add more guides to the site to help users make sense of task management.

Value Pricing

There will be 2 version of WAToDo!

1. The LITE Version will be Ad-Supported. Although it is termed LITE, it is fully functional and we are not limiting the duration you can use it or number of task input. You can download and install it here >>
2. The FULL Version is priced at USD 1.50. We believe this is less or around the cost of a burger in US. In UK its even lower than that. You can purchase and install it here >>

Conclusion

We humbly don’t think we have gotten everything right currently, but we made a commitment to continue to improve upon WAToDo!

The great thing is that Android is a great platform for us to see how we can take leverage on.

We continue to explore features that would benefit our users. A list of what we are exploring can be found here.

So why not download a FREE copy of LITE version and experience WAToDo! first hand today

This is written by a guy with loads of experience in consulting for systems implementation and project management. Something that I am far far away from.

But essentially, here he shows you a personal GTD system that is basically free. It makes use of free Google Apps

Getting Things Done (GTD) , heard of it? Chances are you have and are probably using it to some extent. GTD is a extremely popular organizational method created by David Allen.It has been described as the productivity cult of the new info age.Over the years there have been many variations of this method, but the essence has remained same.The popularity of the system is evident from the number of systems that have become avilable that support. They range from simple papaer based systems to automated software systems. The post however is not about what GTD is , but about creating a GTD system using Google Apps.I will try to keep the information on what GTD is to the bare minimum, if you need more information or help on GTD. Just try Google search. There are a lot of excellent sources out there.(A comparison of the most popular GTD apps)

The Set-up

So why use Google Apps? Firstly It is free.All the Google applications used to set-up this system are free. Secondly it is accessible everywhere i.e You are not bound by system, hardware or software. You can access your system from anywhere as long as you are connected to Internet. You can even access it on your smart phones, both iOS,Android or Blackberry.However the most compelling reason for me is that I am yet to come across a application or a product which has all the components of a GTD system i.e. mail,to -do lists,calendar and a filing system.

Before jumping to the set-up details, lets quickly summarize the elements  of a basic GTD system

• The Inbox (Or the Capture System) – Dumping everything for later processing (Gmail,Google Tasks, Chrome Plug-ins)
• Next Action Lists – Storing your next actions (Google Tasks)
• Projects Lists – For storing your projects and associated tasks (Google Tasks)
• Waiting Lists – For your waiting and delegated tasks (Google Tasks)
• Calendar – For your scheduled events and tasks (Google Calendar)
• Reference Filing System – Storing for reference (Google Docs)

[Read the full article here @ around the CHAOS >>]

That is why its refreshing to see Outline Tracker for WebOS. I did not give this a spin since i do not have a Palm Pre or Pixi to try it out.

How much does it cost?

There is a free version on the App Catalog that limits you to 50 tasks but the full version costs USD23.50.

What version of WebOS is it compatible with?

You will need webOS 1.3.5

What are its main functionalities?

• Organize tasks and sub-tasks as many layers deep as you need
• Keep track of where you can work on a task and who’s responsible
• The dynamic to-do list shows only the tasks you can work on here and now
• Color-coding shows at a glance who’s responsible for a task — you, your organization, or no one
• The dynamic waiting list shows tasks that are waiting for action by someone else — a single tap takes you to their entry in the webOS Contacts application
• Items with a due date appear in the webOS Calendar and the project outline, and tasks appear in the dynamic to-do list as well
• Coordinate with others using Basecamp from 37signals (useable through any web browser, with custom apps available for many kinds of smartphone)
• Basecamp items are cached locally, so Basecamp projects can be edited without a network connection. Changes will be uploaded when the network connection is available.
• Supports David Allen’s Getting Things Done® methodology
• Also functions as a general-purpose outliner, exporting to (and importing from) the modern XOXO format, easily integrated into web pages

GTD – Able to Organize in tree structure

with this you can essentially create Tasks and Sub-Tasks or Sub-Projects

GTD – Able to filter by Contexts/Places

if you are to perform GTD you will need to be able to filter your tasks by places or agendas. This one does it but not sure if it can achieve the sophistication of Appigo ToDos context filtering. [context/places intro and tutorial >>]

GTD – Waiting for looks good!

You can review your waiting for list according to the people. Outline Tracker allows you to go to the Palm’s contacts when you click on the person’s name.

Very useful.

GTD – comprehensive task view and integration with webOS Calendar

This is a good move that i don’t see on alot of mobile apps on iPhone since you will need a fair bit of work to achieve this on the iPhone OS platform.

essentially, your items need not be tasks and need not have dates. this gives it flexibility, but also increases the developer’s complexity.

also, note seems to be missing if you want to add additionaly details.

the kicker is that those items with due date specified will go into your webOS calendar. some folks definitely love to have this in their GTD system.

Final Thoughts

i thought its abit expensive at $23 bucks but really not sure if all App Catalog application are priced at that range. I hope we come accross more apps like this to compete and come up with good GTD apps for the webOS.

At the iPhone App Store competition have kept the incumbents at the top of their game and we do hope to see more of these on the webOS.

[Outline tracker for Palm Pre and Pixi >>]

I didn’t manage to give it a try but it does look very sophisticated, on the level of Mind Manager by Mindjet.

How much it cost?

its not free and the price might turn off a few people. it cost like USD197.

Who is it for?

Probably for people who have a windows desktop or laptop as their main GTD planning and collection center. Definitely not for me since i seldom have access to my personal computer.

What are its main functionality?

You would have to check out a very very detail walkthrough at Information Management Tool’s website. There it will show you how to Collect, Process, Organize and Review using their software

• flexible structure helps you to merge individual to-do lists, projects, articles into a strategic plan
• use the program for online research, journaling, to-do lists, note taking, document archiving, GTD and more.
• break down large projects into smaller parts using as many tree-levels as you need to keep everything in one place and under control
• use Wiki-hyperlinks to tasks, web pages, notes, to-do lists etc.
• capture web pages directly from the integrated Gecko Web Browser by Mozilla
• drag-and-drop notes, hyperlinks, files in appropriate place in the free-form database, reorganize your projects and tasks at any time
• reorganize your projects, to-do lists, ideas and tasks at any time you want
• find what you need when you need it using fast search
• create your own structure of GTD Trusted System, capture, organize and manage all your projects and tasks in the free-form central database
• real-time immediate save of all added information to the database
• fully customizable interface: more than 300 icons, custom colors and font formats to help you focus on what is most important
• capture any ideas, notes and edit them using full-featured Rich Text Editor
• recall items quickly with tagging
• align your time, effort and energy with your highest priorities so you can focus on what really matters most to you
• browse local files and forlders using integrated Folder Explorer
• work with multiple projects without feeling overwhelmed
• save any web pages in HTML, edit them in the integrated HTML Editor and preview them
• integrated tools needed to create your own structure of a logical and trusted system outside of your head
• display only the tasks, notes, to-do lists etc. you want to see at the moment by expanding them

Final Thoughts

It does look more polish than alot of the free desktop apps that i see, but its steep at USD 197 and i wonder with the coming of the mobile internet you should be paying that much for a standalone desktop app.

[Take a look @ Information Management Tool >>]

iPhone and iPod Touch have access to 100,000 application and the strength of this platform makes applications developed to be very user friendly and effective.

In this page, I will list out applications and how-to guides that will help a mobile worker increase his productivity and make life easier with his iPhone or iPod Touch

On the Go Reading/Reviewing/References

How to Read PDF books/references/magazines on your iPhone or iPod touch with [GoodReader]

For me by far the best thing to do on the go using an iPod Touch or iPhone have been reading and GoodReader is a cheap and very enjoyable way to read your favorite books. Endorsed by Productive Organizer.

Fast PDF Reader for your iPhone and iPod Touch [Fast PDF]

Here is an alternative to good reader that makes browsing PDF a breeze.

Reading Mobipocket,PDF,LIT,EPUB, DRM free Kindle books for free on your iphone or iPod with [STANZA]

The best reader on the App Store. FREE and enables you to read all your existing books. Endorsed by Productive Organizer.

Wordprocessing, Spreadsheet and Presentation

Office Word and Excel on the iPhone:[QuickOffice]

If you are looking for a Word processing and spreadsheet application then perhaps QuickOffice suite is for you.

Note Taking

Note Taking Software that Syncs to your Desktop OneNote Application: [MobileNoter]

If you are a die hard OneNote user and would like to have an application that syncs with your desktop OneNote Notebooks, and access it offline, then you should give this a try.

To Do List

[Appigo ToDo] Getting Things Done To Do List Review

By far one of the more expensive to do list software but its well worth the money you paid for this. Syncs with Remember the Milk or Toodledo, or Mac Desktop and follows David Allen’s Getting Things Done methods. Endorsed by Productive Organizer.

Simple Cheap GTD To Do List: [eToDo] Review

If Appigo ToDo is too complex or expensive for you, you can always go for the cheaper option eToDo. Just as good and great workout for a Getting Things Done beginner.

Nested GTD To Do List: [Action Lists] Review

A good competitor to Appigo ToDo. This does NESTED Subprojecting, Contexts and sync to ToodleDo.

Smart Calendar GTD To Do List: [2Do] Review

Here is an alternative to Appigo Todo for the iPhone and iPod Touch. What is great about it is that the Smart Calendars make executing tasks daily a breeze.

Others

Turn your iPhone /iPod Touch into a wireless keyboard mouse with [Touch Mouse]

Want to control your pc away from it through your iPhone and iPod Touch? Install this app. its FREE!

Keeping Passwords,logins and Key Information securely with [SplashID]

SplashID have been securing your vital information for a long time and here is a review on it.

Are you looking for a software that enables you to access Microsoft OneNote on your iPhone? If you are then, MobileNoter is probably what you are looking for.

I think alot of folks out there really like to use Microsoft OneNote for note taking. For folks that want to keep research materials, or information pertaining to a project or a business object that they are working on, OneNote is the closes software you get to a real note book.

I personally think its one of the best products release by Microsoft and it should be bought as a stand alone application.

Best thing next to a physical note book

If you currently already have much information stored in OneNote and would like to access them from your iPhone or iPod Touch, MobileNoter can do the job.

Pricing

This is a subscription based service. The desktop and iphone application is FREE. But monthly subscription comes up to USD 1.25 per month.

iPhone Version reviewed

1.0

What does it do

MobileNoter is bascially a service that, for a small fee per month, allows you to sync selected notes to MobileNoter Server and enables 2 way sync with your iPhone Mobile Noter Software.

How to setup and how MobileNoter looks like after the break

How to get it set up

1. Register for Account

You will first need to register an account with MobileNoter.com first. This is a subscription based service and it will cost you roughly USD 1.25 per month (which really is less than the cost of one meal per day)

Once you have your Username and Password. You can then download the windows sync client. This sync client will sync your one note with the Mobile Noter server.

2. Install Windows Desktop Sync Client

Downloading more stuff

The installation of this sync client is quite fast, but do note that you require .Net Framework 3.5 SP1.

3. Enter Username and Password

The Sync Client:Enter Username and PW

The client is small but it does what it is suppose to do well and looks very presentable. validate your Username and Password and you are good to go

4. Select the Notebooks you would like to sync

Selecting the notebooks to sync

In this example i chose 2 notebooks, the one note tutorial guide and an Application Research note book

5. Configure Sync and Start Syncing

You can choose the period between each sync, depending on your working pattern. I suggest to use the default, since you don’t want to over work the bandwidth or the processing of your computer. Once configured you can click Run Sync to do a first sync with the MobileNoter server. My 2 notebooks take roughly 2 mins to sync.

Once this is done we can go check in with our iPhone Client

The iPhone Application

The Configuration

Link the acct and other settings

The first thing to do is to link your created MobileNoter account to your iPhone software. You have other configurations such as  setting  a password and combining sections as well.

Syncing and View of Notebook

You can then start your Sync by touching the sync button at the bottom. Here in this pic, you will see that the 2 notebooks that i selected previously were sync and also shows how many sections and pages there are.

Inside each Notebook

You will see that the layout of the Sections and Pages are in 2 layers of list. The Pink outer list indicates Sections. Touching the Notes brings you to the actual note

I think what many will be sorely dissappointed would be that MobileNoter’s sync notes are only readonly. You cannot edit them, but view them like how you would view Safari Webpages.

Still if you are look for an app that enables you to view all your OneNotes and reference them without always being connected to the internet, it is still good enough.

Quick Notes

Of course you can enter notes on your iPhone, if not it will only be a reference application. MobileNoter enables you to enter quick notes and these notes can be sync to your server and access via your desktop.

What it does is that a MobileNoter Note book will be created and your notes will be as pages in these note book.

How the notes look like on your desktop

This would be great if you can then cut and paste these sections of notes to your other note books.

I try to play around with it and just drag a picture into the desktop oneNote and sync it, hoping that it would be reflected on the iPhone app, but it doesn’t so that is abit disappointing.

What you can look forward to in later versions

I spoke to  Vitaly, the lead man for MobileNoter and he mentions that in the upcoming versions, we would be expecting Tag Summary to be incorporated into the iphone application.

Conclusion

This cloud application is not too expensive and its really  targeting a niche market. in fact, OneNote and crowd favorite Evernote desktop is already quite different and this would be great for the fans of OneNote, who have alot of notebooks to sync.

One thing to note though, my 1 year subscription account allows me to sync 100MB worth of data, so if you have vast amounts of data do select which one you would like to sync. As a gauge,my 2 notebooks with pics comes up to 4.3 MB so I think its difficult for you to burst this limit.

I am sure the developers would be working to value add this product and since the iPhone application is free, why not download and see how it evolves?

Best iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

I gotta give a shout out to Dominique from CalenGoo for facilitating this review. I would say out of all the intriguing software on the app store CalenGoo interest me the most.

I am big on planning and scheduling in a Getting Things Done kind of way and i make use of Google Calendar as my main calendar so it is natural that i would make it a criteria in choosing my GTD device.

In this review i would break down why this would rock more than the native Google Calendar sync and where it will not be that good in.

Why you would want to sync your calendar to google

Ubiquitous Calendar Assess

A good reason other than Appigo ToDo that sways me to the iPod Touch 2G was due to its ability to sync google calendars and contacts via exchange protocol from Google  to my iPod Touch.This means that you can assess to your events and schedule offline, you don’t need  a constant internet connection.

What this means also is that you make your google calendar your base where you house your events and schedule. If you are using an iPhone your calendar synchronize with it. If you are using an Android phone your Android phone calendar gets synchronize with it.

When you get home or in the office and want a better view of your calendar, you can view the same events and schedule from your desktop internet browser.

Auto-Backup of Calendar via web synchronization aka Offline Mode

Remember those windows mobile days where you need to put your windows mobile phone into a cradle and sync your contacts and calendars to your desktop through ActiveSync? Well in web 2.0 you don’t have to rely on that any more.

Offline mode for iPhone,Android and Adobe Air for desktop allows you to assess your calendars when you do not have an internet connection and automatically or manually synchronize your events and schedules when you have one.

In each device the application will make use of the local database in your iPhone. If there is an internet connection, the application will invoke a sync request to sync your data with the web database. What this means is that should you lose your phone, you will still have assess to your data as it is last sync this morning to the web.

Thus for this concept to work well your software must periodically poll to see if you have an internet connection, if it has, it will sync it.

Through iPhone Exchange services you are able to sync your calendar to google and will periodically update. It works very well and i am satisfied with it.

Continue after the break for review of CalenGoo with screenshots

Why would you consider an alternative to this?

The stock calendar software in iPhone is pretty nifty and it integrates well with Google Calendar. however it does have its flaws and thats where third party applications comes in.

If you take a look at the Month view you will realise that there is much waste of space. If there are events on that day then it will be represented by a dot. you need to click on the day to see the events for that day below. And most of the time you can only view at most 2 events then you got to start scrolling.

Day View

The solution is to proceed to the Day view. The day view as compared to Calengoo later is pretty much spaced out. If you are reviewing events that day you want to see more for that limited spaace. This is where Calengoo will excel as you will  observe later.

Calengoo as a Mobile Calendar

Pricing

CalenGoo is the cheaper solution on the App Store that synchornize with Google Calendar. It will cost you USD 6.99

You will need a Google Account

Its a given that if you want to assess google calendar you will need to sign up for a google account thereby giving you assess to google calendar. Creating the account is free (Which is why we use it!)

Google Web Calendar

[Sign up for Google Calendar here >>]

Link your Google Calendar Acct to CalenGoo

Sign in to your google acct

On first installation and use of CalenGoo you will be asked to sign into your google account.

The First Sync is pretty long

CalenGoo will then prompt how u want to download your events. Will u download future events only or all the events. I chose all the events

If your calendars are pretty big, and if you choose to download the full calendar, then do expect a very long first synchronization. You can’t run away from this. I have probably 8 calendars:

• Work
• Money&Finance
• Personal
• Reminders
• Secret Milestones
• Work-not-involved
• Singapore Holiday 2008

The biggest chunks are the Work and Reminders and together these 8 calendars took 7 mins to sync.

Sync in progress

When it is syncing you will be able to see a spinner and which calendar it is trying to sync currently. The usage will be slow while this is happening and should be understandable.

Subsequent Sync More Pleasurable

Toggling AutoLogin AutoSync and Remove Login Screen

The developer told me that you should be advise to turn off Show Login and Auto Sync for subsequent use. I am agreeable with the former but as a user of Appigo ToDo, I can tell you that you will frequently forget or just not sync manually, so it is best to turn it on.

Alot of people u see in the review at App Store complain that it is slow. I think there is no way around this really if the developer uses an api unless he has assess to something even lower level to help him optimise better.

Sync softwares like this will need to parse the data to and from the server, and that takes up processing. And if you are not an understanding user and just expects to have it auto sync yet expect it to be fast then i would suggest you get an iPhone 3GS cause there is really performance improvement in this area according to the developer.

The rule of thumb for me is that, regular syncing of minor delta difference means smaller chunks of sync time compare to one big delta and one big sync time with a bigger probability that your calendar will get screwed up!

And since this is a major point why we use the native calendar with google, which is to backup, not backing up or having latest data to be work with will be a minus point for this software.

The presentation of the Calendars

ah this is what we are probably most interested in. CalenGoo like alot of good PIMs in the past (Pocket Informant for Windows Mobile for example) provides a Day view,Week View, Month View and Agenda View.

The Day View

The developer did a splendid job working with the limited screen real estate. All day events are housed to the right of the date.

You will notice that compare to the stock calendar software, he managed to squeeze almost the whole working hours into one glance! Thats almost 16 hours! Which means u only need like 2-3 swipes to view the full day and normally you don’t plan stuff when you are sleeping right!

Swiping left and right brings you to the previous and next day. The whole day view is a canvas in itself that loads on the fly.

You will notice that when you swipe left and right, the next day will roll up and down if there are tasks that takes place out of view. A very good idea there.

One negative thing about squeezing is that it does make touching and editing a task very difficult sometimes. you have to touch at a very accurate spot. This is for small events like the Stock Research Chunk up there.

The Week View

The week view is something additional. Its good to finally have this and its well presented

The month view

The month view is a present change from the stock software. You can view every thing in a glance. Of course you will complain that you can’t see shit as the words are too small. Fret not. This is iphone. And in iphone you can always zoom in on that section by squeezing your 2 fingers together.

Zooming into Month view

Creating new event

Creating a new Event

You can pretty much do what you can do on the stock calendar software here on Calengoo. What i like about it is that when you click the + to create a new event, it immediately brings u to input the event title because it is something necessary. saves alot of effort to navigate one more step to that.

The color of your calendar will depend on what you set in your online google account, so if you want to change change there.

Some would wonder why SMS is not working. You will need to set your handphone no on the online google account in order for it to work. Likewise for email.

One really good function is the ability to duplicate this event to create a new one.

Customized settings

I shall not mention much here cause there are a ton of things you can mess with for the layout of your calendar views! Including fonts and font sizes. Its gonna take me some time to figure this out.  but i have attached a view of the configuration in one glance after my conclusion. (I have a reason why i need to put it after the conclusion. Its freaking long!)

Conclusion

All in all, this is a very well thought out application and the as far as i have explored other than Saisuke at 9.99 this is the only good solution to sync google calendar to iphone. But its got so much upside that at USD 6.99 its definately worth a purchase if you are into productivity and have limited cash to spend.

To know more about Calengoo do go to its site FAQ here to find out more.

Best iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

The GTD Series is a series of articles where i share about how i carried out GTD to help me function in daily work.

Part 1 here talks about my plan and overview of my GTD system

Part 2 here talks about why i eventually chose iPod Touch 2G as my main to do list console

Part 3 here talks about why i choose Appigo ToDo for iPhone as my main task manager

Part 4 here talks about how to plan for big projects and smaller projects

Part 5 here talks about how to make use of Contexts, Tags to Execute your tasks

Part 6 here discuss about how you can review projects better using iThoughts mind mapping software

In this article, i will talk more about making use of mind mapping softwares such as iThoughts to plan projects and take notes.

Viewing things from an overall perspective

One of the flaws that i realise for using Appigo ToDo as my main GTD application is that if you want to get a holistic view about things, its difficult.

Why is this so?

Project Planning

In the first part of the series, i highlighted that should you have a new multi step action collected or an action that belongs in an existing project, you should flow back to your Appigo ToDo to perform your project planning assessing what is the actionable task that you should be doing.

Dependencies and Bottlenecks

To me, with my ipod touch on my side all the time, collection is great and dropping it into sub projects. However, certain difficult projects, you would want to see what u have done in chronological order, or an order that shows u dependency. This can’t be done well with most GTD software on the market.

Many folks that use Microsoft project would have realise the importance of dependencies in milestones and tasks and would like to have this flexibility.

For further example we go back to our buying a bicycle example i illustrated in planning for projects and big projects:

1. Ask Son what kind of bicycle he likes
2. Find out how much your family have to pay for the bike (budgeting)
3. Research on where to buy the cheapest bike on the internet
4. Give son a look at the bike see if he likes it
5. Find out what to look out for if it is the first time you are buying a bike
6. Go down and buy the bike
7. Wait for the bike to be delivered to you

In the example here, there are certain things that have no dependency and some that  you have to execute it in a chrono logical order. Example u need to research where to buy the cheapest bike if u are tight on your budget. If you haven’t done that, you can’t carried out the rest of the other actions.

The there are some such as get the son’s approval which, depending on what kind of parent you are you might not care about that and would most likely proceed to action 5 or do it concurrently.

Those actions that do not generate a bottleneck or have dependency are easier to settle. You use your Context management of where you are at such as @Home, @Errands to help u do it fast.

Difficulties in Weekly Review or Daily Review of Project

Those that do, its difficult to use Appigo Todo to view that.

A sub project plan

Here we have 3 tasks. If we go by my plan. I would most likely be scheduling my day to solving this client problem. Then i can see what is my next action in office and resolve them. Suppose the bottle neck or the dependency is under @Waiting For or @Contact, then i need to do that first in order to start my actions in @Office.

You can’t see that link in such a GTD application.

If that is the case, what we need to fall back on is to our Weekly Review, Daily Review or Project Review, where we identify what is really the next action.

However, the thing about all these to do list is that, unless you use the desktop ones, you get to see in an order which task you have done and what is left to do.

In Appigo ToDo if you done with the task, it automatically removes it and puts it at the bottom should you chose to show it.

Competed Tasks go below, breaking the order that is required for review

The solution to this is that you should be looking for a mobile task management software that is THAT flexible. But if that is the case, you are looking at something ah la Microsoft Project + Context filtering on iPhone. Do we have that? The answer is i have failed to locate such an application.

iThoughts as a solution

The discovery of mind mapping software such as MindJet and iThoughts have brought about a possible solution to this.

I am still experimenting with it but so far its been a complicated planning process. I don’t want to make it overly complicated so its purely to test out how good iThoughts is as a GTD planning tool.

As a primer to what iThoughts can do, please review this article that shows how powerful this would make your iphone and ipod touch.

Viewing the Vision,Goals and Areas of Responsibility

The thing about iThoughts is that you can bring your map from your favorite desktop mind mapping software Freemind or Mind Manager to this app and vice versa.

So it means that if iThoughts close shop on you, you are not screwed.

So back to topic. You can actually create a vision map to enable u to plan and review your goals and what you hope to achieve.

There are numerous templates out there on the web, and the good thing about iThoughts is that you can always have a template map and duplicate that map so that you can reuse and reuse a map template again.

Goals and Areas of Responsibility

Here is an example of a map illustrating your goals for the year or 3 years and what are the area’s of responsibility to bring you to that. The great thing about this mind mapping tool is that it can take a large area so u can literally go on to plan your projects here as well. But for me i just find it very clustered if i go on further. I would rather plan sub projects in a seperate map.

iThoughts enable you to show progress as well.so that means you can do quarterly review of these maps to see how far you are from achieve these goals and whether for example you need to redefine your big projects( your big projects will be those Area of Responsibilities, which are equivalent to large lists in Appigo ToDo)

Planning projects in detail

By setting a Project Planning Mind Map Template, you can easily duplicate this template and start planning your projects.

Duplicate Templates

A note is that, it would be best to plan really extensive projects that are more complex here in iThoughts. For simple stuff like buying a bicycle, i would recommend software like Things or Appigo ToDo. It makes life easier. Different software have their strengths and weakness and GTD to-do list excel in quick collection and filtering based on contexts.

Mind Mapping software like iThoughts do not do filtering that well.

Complex Project Planning

The goal of project planning is that you have an idea about

1. Why you are doing this (Purpose)
2. Where you are at
3. Where do you want to be (Outcome)
4. What are my constraints? (time? resources? other complexity?)
5. What do i have to do (Milestones)

And in a template such as this, things become very clear at one glance. This is an example about buying an insurance policy. So the purpose and  outcome and constraints are spelt out clearly whenever you review and plan.

You will also be able to see your progress of each milestones clearly plus how much time you have left or whether a milestone is overdue (denoted by the red clock in “REquest advice from advisor”)

Drill down to tasks

Here we drill down from the milestones to tasks. The conflict that i have is that you can’t really filter your tasks by context. But really if you are someone who wants a once glance review and plan ahead, such a task management mind map will be great.

Here you see that a target icon marks my next action and what i should be focusing on. This would work, if you schedule a time to carry out such a sub project. If you don’t schedule it on your calendar then if you keep so many sub projects map you end up checking here check there to see what you should be doing.

This is where you really give and take and really appreciate Appigo ToDo. You can view all your sub projects and which is your next actions easily but not iThoughts.

I would suggest that for someone who is using a task management application like Things or Appigo ToDo, put your tasks necessary in your Appigo Todo, don’t double entry. it wastes time.

Use iThoughts purely as a review and planning from a higher perspective.

1. Review your iThoughts Milestones
2. Move to your Appigo ToDo check if its completed
3. If it is and all the tasks in the milestones are completed move the progress to the appropriate level.
4. Re-evaluate milestones and brainstorm if there are tasks that needs to be added into any of the milestones.
5. Review if you can still meet your deadline.

Conclusion

This is by no means a good solution. But iThoughts is such a flexible software that it can weave into this purpose of reviewing and keeping track of your 50000 – 20000 feet stuff.

That way you don’t lose track of what is the overall objective.

Introduction

In one of my previous post, i did a brief overview on Mindjet, a mind mapping software that is available for your ipod touch or iphone. Mindjet is also the company that brought you mind manager, a state of the art mind mapping software that is pretty expensive for most of us.

Digital vs Analog Mind Mapping

I used Mind Manager before and really its a great software to mind map on your laptop or desktop. But my good friend Melvin made a comment, that if he were to mind map, he would rather use a piece of paper.

I find that digital mind mapping have advantages, particularly, you can:

• re-arrange the nodes so that you can structure your thoughts
• you can easily archive and reference them next time for notes
• you can translate them into project plans or tasks list
• you can link them to your word,excel and web documents

Perhaps the problem with a desktop or laptop is that for Kinetic people they need to scribble down things instead of clicking and typing and looking at a screen.

For me though, I find it difficult to collect my thoughts or do planning facing a digital mind map. I am a kinetic person, which means i remember things better if i scribble it down. But really, the problem for me is that i tend to misplaced by maps all over the place. So i like something digital, but also enables me to mind map wherever i can, not bounded to any desktop or laptop. The best option is that if i were to be able to find something good on the Apple iPhone app store it will be good!

Requirements of my mind mapping software

In my exploration of apps on the Apple iPhone App Store, i found a few softwares that does mind mapping. Some of them are great like Mind Meister, which touts that their app for the iphone can sync real time with their online maps.However, as part of my needs to keep notes offline and away from the web, i need better solution. Specifically:

• Maps must be sophisticated compare to desktop mind mapping tool
• Maps must be able to view both on iPhone and desktop
• Maps must be portable
• Pricing must be affordable

So i stumble upon Mindjet and iThoughts.

iThoughts Overview

iThoughts was released first before Mindjet. And the similarities between the 2 applications are very very similar. I got a feeling the folks at Mindjet copied what the folks at iThoughts did to come up with theirs (don’t sue me! everyone will think the same way after looking at the comparison here!)

The problem of them being so similar is that for the same price which one should i go for?In the end i took my plunge with iThoughts instead of MindJet and i have not regretted since.

Pricing

Both iThoughts and Mindjet cost USD6.99. Its not cheap, but its not that expensive compare to GTD apps that i bought such as Appigo ToDo. The cost is nothing if it brings improve productivity to my life. Hey, some of my dinner cost like USD15, so i believe i am not paying an expensive price for an independent application.

Version

Version reviewing is version 2.1.

Why is it good?

Basically, most of the basic things you are able to do on your desktop mind map software such as Nova Mind and Mind Manager you can do it here

Able to handle large maps

iThoughts uses a canvas to paint the topics and they tout that you can go greater than 1000x the screen area which is more than enough for me.

You can zoom in zoom out of maps to get a better vantage view after you have rearrange or finish composing

Zoom Out

Zoom In view

Very good performance

What i really like about this application is that not only does it have a lot of good functionality, those that i expect to be in it, but on the iPod Touch 2G it does it with a very good performance.

• Double tapping immediately brings out the Topic input screen
• Not much lag on scrolling around canvas to review Map
• Organization of the above map neatly is fast

Very friendly Topic input mechanism

Topic Input

Entering a new topic or nodes is a breeze! All you need to do is touch on a parent topic once to select that topic. You can enter a new topic by touching the top buttons to either enter a child or sibling topic.

Additionally, the fast way is to double tap an area to insert a child topic.

(More screenshots and functionality explanation after the break)

Double Tap topic to view details or edit details

Detail Topic Information

Double tapping on topic will bring up the detail entry form for the topic.

Ability to enter Note and Large Topic Text (2000+ words)

iThoughts is touting that they are able to enter large amount of topic notes. I think this is very important for note taking. But a better way is to use the Note section to attach notes to topics

Edit and Enter new note details

Notes can be viewed when topic is selected and when note exist

Note can be viewed in main map canvas

Attach Icons to Topics

Icons give more meaning to your topic, whether it is something important, alert or that you should make a decision on it. And iThoughts provide it.

Attach 2 icons to a Topic

Select from an assortment of icons

Change color of topics

Pick a color

Update:Create Relationships between topic

Note the red linkage there showing the relationship

New updates to the software now allows you to specify relationship as well.

Assign Start Date and End Date for Task Topics and Monitor the Progress of the Task Topic

Many folks would like the topic to double up as a todo task and iThoughts allows you to visualise it that way.

Configure start/end date and progress

You would then be able to see a symbol represent that dates were set and that progress were set.

Progress and Start/End date

In Progress Task

Folding (collapsible) topics (to a specified depth of 1, 2 or all)

You can show and hide topics as and where you want. Clicking on the cross opens and hides the topics.

Expanded Topics

By touching on the + / – signs you can bring up the following manual where you can hide the topics

Hide or show 1,2 levels or show all

Details hidden

Duplicate Maps from Templates

You can easily edit, rename and duplicate existing maps which is very useful if you create a GTD Template for planning big projects. All you need to do is to duplicate these maps

Touch Duplicate map to make a copy of this map

Copy,Cut and Paste Topics and Sub Topics to another map

This feature is damn useful. Leveraging on iPhone’s cut and paste functionality, you can cut or copy topics and its child topics from one map into another map.

Copy or Cut a branch of topic from the source map

Go to your destination map and click where u want to paste the branch of child topics

Topic successfully moved to another map

Configurable topic shapes (rectangle, oval etc.)

You can fully configure the shapes. Although this is its weak point. Currently version 2.1 there are only 3 shapes but perhaps future versions will have more shapes.

Choose your shape!

Auto align and arrange branches and entire maps – in a single operation.

Chances are you start entering data by touching one topic and double touching an empty space. in time, your topics will be all over the place.

Organize your topics by iThoughts

Fear not. Touching the +/- button will invoke the menu asking you to show how many levels. you will then be asked if you want iThoughts to auto arrange the topics for you.

It is very very useful for maps that gets really big.

Auto Manage the Arranging of Maps

Update: With the current iteration of iThoughts, once the Keep Organized is checked, the application will auto format for you! saves alot of trouble.

Support Numerous Format

• Freemind (0.8 and 0.9 – Windows and Mac)
• OPML (supported by OminOutliner)
• MindManager (6, 7 and 8 – Windows and Mac)
• Novamind (v4 – Windows and Mac)
• Update:Now support iMindMap!

I personally use Mind Manager so i do know you can open mmap format of maps backedup from iphone to desktop.

Easy Transfer and Download via WIFI

Like GoodReader, importing and exporting your maps are easy. By using WebDAV server, you are able to upload and download maps in various formats via WIFI.

You can choose to download or upload maps via WIFI

webDAV server started. for desktop to connect via the ip address

Here i key in the address http://192.168.1.1:44444 into my firefox browser to access my ipod touch. Then i can upload or download versions of the document.

Download or upload files from desktop

Email Outline and Multiple formats to designated Email Address

You can send your outline to a colleague or a friend and they will be able to share the fruit of your hard work. Great for meeting notes when you use your iPod Touch with iThoughts to take notes.

Compose Outline and Different Map formats to your colleague

Overall Assessment

I would like to say this is a very polish product. I really enjoy planning with this and Appigo ToDo. You would expect these functionalities to belong to a desktop application but the folks at iThoughts really did such a good job that i enjoy forming ideas and planning on the go with iThoughts that i seldom use the desktop application now.

I urge business managers or professional workers to give this product a try, especially those big on Getting Things Done (GTD)

Here is a video on iThoughts!

Upcoming version 2.2 looks to add auto arrange! which is damn good

We know how slick the Google Reader, Gmail and Calendar client is on iPhone and Android. They seem to be like a regular application rather than a browser. Its no disappointment that one of the biggest highlights this month which is Google Wave is now like the great Gmail web client. Techcrunch Noticed something special about bookmarking the Wave page though:

Just like with any Web page on the iPhone, you can save a bookmark on your Home screen, and it creates a little icon which launches mobile Safari to that page. When you save the Wave bookmark to your Home screen, however, something different happens. You go to Wave, but without the Safari wrapper which allows you to navigate to another page or search the Web. Instead, it looks more like a regular app and there is no way to navigate away from it. Everything else works the same as in the mobile browser version.

I haven’t gotten a Wave Account, but i hope someone would be kind enough to give me an invite for this! can’t wait to try it.