The Productive Organizer

WebOS is an OS that i have least experience in and a search on softwares that tailors to Getting Things Done yields very little results other than our dear Evernote.

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 >>]

Backups are only good if they are seamless and validated. If your backup data gets corrupted, it gives you a false sense of assurance that the world is beautiful. That is what many Palm folks found out.

We at PreCentral receive a lot of tips throughout the day, but more and more over the past few weeks our inbox has been flooding with stories of users having just reset or replaced their webOS phones only to find that their Palm Profile did not back up all their data as promised. If you haven’t experienced this issue you’re in the lucky majority, but it seems the rate of the backup failures is accelerating and spreading.

We do feel your pain – one of our own staff members was hit by this bug and lost all of his contacts, calendar events, memos, and tasks. The only thing that was saved were his apps, which is a small consolation when you’ve just lost hundreds of phone numbers and email addresses accumulated over the years.

While we’re waiting for a third-party backup solution to land, we did some investigating. It turns out that the problem stems from corrupted backups, which is nothing new in the backup industry. Corrupted data happens all the time, but there are always safeguards to ensure that it doesn’t corrupt the system. Usually, that’s a prior backup. The issue is that the Palm Profile doesn’t keep anything other than the most recent backup, corrupted or not. Since your phone doesn’t provide any feedback on backups, even when they end up as corrupted, webOS users have no idea whether or not their backup was successfully completed. That is, until you reset your phone and realize that everything is lost

Sounds to me like another case of corrupted data. Palm doesn’t keep versions of backups but the most current so you can’t roll back to an older data backup. The better solution could be to rely on Google Sync to sync your Google Calendar,Contacts and Gmail to your smartphone.

Here in my OS comparison guide, you will see that almost all smartphone in the market support Google Sync, which is like a poor man’s Exchange Calendar,Contacts and Mail sync.

Even then, it is useful to backup/export your contacts to a local harddrive at a comfortable interval.

I put my Google CSV Backup in a Dropbox folder and thus i am really backing up my contacts to 2 sets of Cloud Computing Data Servers that have redundancy. The chances of both failing at the same time would be perhaps a serious powerdown in the whole of US or a serious nuclear attack.

The most important i feel are your Contacts that you use to call. It is a fucking hassle to restore that. It would be a good idea to back them up.

Billshrink gave us a comparison of how much it will cost you in total if you chose to buy the Droid over the Palm Pre and iPhone. Well it turned out that the comparison actually showed them to be pretty much the same!

Edited. Found the solution for Palm Pre!

I guess its about time some one comes up with application like these. Granted you might wonder, why would you want to turn your 3G phone into a wireless router?

Why do you need this?

1. You own an iPod Touch. its applications are far superior to your Android applications and you would rather surf web on the go on it ( why i am interested in this!)
2. Checking email on the bus/commuting. You have a laptop and would like to pass time by checking the internet for cool stuff. You want something that can connect without the hassle of bring too much devices with you
3. You have a PMP player like Archos or Creative device that is big on multimedia usage and screen size but it doesn’t have a 3G connection BUT it has WIFI!

Whats the draw back?

1. Software like these normally are very intense on the battery life of the device. you are essentially broadcasting wifi and 3G at once. your battery life can’t last long. this is not a long term solution. It is only a solution for at most an hour.
2. The connection might be quite flaky depending on how good the software is
3. In the case of Windows Mobile, the solution is quite expensive!
4. Do watch your data usage as it might burst your phone bill!

The solution for Android – Android WIFI Tether

The software solution enables tethering (via wifi and bluetooth) for “rooted” handsets running android (such as the Android DevPhone 1). Clients (your laptop for example) can connect via wifi (ad-hoc mode) or bluetooth and get access to the internet using the 3G, 2G mobile connection or (in case you are using bluetooth) the wifi connection which is established by the handset.

The Cost: Free for now

[android-wifi-tether site to download application  >>]

The solution for Symbian – JoikuSpot

The solution for symbian nokia phones is JoikuSpot Light. FREE limited edition of JoikuSpot that connects your laptop to internet via Wifi using your mobile phone’s 3G.

There are essentially 2 solutions: the Free and the Premium. I have not tried the premium but the free one is quite good. It enables me to surf the web on safari on my iPod Touch but not connect to the App Store.

Premium Edition comes with all internet protocols. You can also secure your connection with Premium and use VPN to access secured corporate intrawebs. Premium supports email protocols so you can use email clients like Outlook and Gmail. All settings (like WiFi network naming and default access point) are adjustable in Premium. There is no forced default landing page in Premium Edition. Premium has best performance and connection quality, and auto-reconnects to 3G if the connection is dropped to e.g. 2G temporarily.

Here is a video of Joikuspot working with iPod Touch!

The Cost: Free or EUR 6 for Premium

[JoikuSpot Site to download application >>]

The solution for Windows Mobile – WMWIFIROUTER

WMWifiRouter instantly turns your wifi enabled smartphone* into a wireless internet hotspot. Now you can use your laptop and any other device with wifi to get online and surf, email, instant message, and anything else you normally use the internet for!

This is an expensive software but do download and try it for 14 days you will know why you pay so much for it because it is so robust. I personally tested it. its good!

Here is a video on how it is used:

The Cost: EUR 19.99 (!!!!)

Edit: Refer to post here. There might be a way to use an earlier WMWIFIRouter version when it was free.

[WMWIFIROUTER homepage for more info >>]

Alternative solution:HTC WIFI TETHER Software

HTC is developing their own version of WMWIFIRouter and we are excited as this would likely be free if you know where to look (XDA!)

The Cost: FREE

The solution for Palm Pre – My Tether

* Allows sharing your Sprint EVDO from your Pre to your computer or iPod Touch.
* WiFi network name & WEP key customization options
* Makes Palm Pre into a MiFi-like hotspot at your convenience to share your 3G connection.
* Converts Palm Pre into a Wireless Network adapter by letting you share the WiFi connection on the Pre instead of EVDO when tethering over Bluetooth or USB.
* Option to disable sleep mode on Palm Pre
* Ability to turn off the LCD only, doesn’t put the device into sleep.
* Convenience features such as restoring the old WiFi connection when tethering is disabled, prompts to take care of pre-requesties to tethering, remembering settings and last tether options, restoring modifications to settings back to original value upon exit, and many more to list.

Cost: FREE (Do Donate if you find that its worth it!)

[My Tether download site >>]

The solution if you don’t have a phone – Novatel MIFI Wireless Router

If you do not own the above devices, the solution is to buy a MIFI Wireless Router explained here in my previous post.

Here is a video on it in action:

The Cost:USD 299 without plan

Summary

Right now what i am missing is the solution for creating a wireless modem out of iPhone and Blackberry. I believe that it can be useful to invest in such a software. If you have an alternative to these or cheaper solutions (especially for Windows Mobile) do let me know!