I am continuing on the theme of Getting Organized with these applications.
Actiontastic:
Good for GTD, and syncing up with the ipod and ical also works with Quicksilver
Not quite as blingy as Inbox but it gets the job done
Spanning Sync:
.mac is quickly becoming obsolete. Spanning sync gives you the ability to synchronize your google calendar with your ical calendar.
Often times I get asked "Could you recomend a good free FTP program". I look in a number of different sites. But far and large the 3 best sites for finding decent software out there (that I have found) are:
Version Tracker
Mac Update
I Use This
All of these are fairly similar, it all depends on personal taste. Lately I have been leaning toward macupdate, but versiontracker always has good things. I Use This is the new kid on the block and definitely has the social networking going for it. Anyway in case you are looking for that one program that does that one thing. Here is a good place to start looking.
Just a quick post about Applejack. Applejack does a number of various tasks, including Repairing Permissions, Reparing Virtual Memory, Deleting Corrupt Permissions as well as removing old cache files. I've read about the program on other sites, and I finally tried it today. It's safe to say that I successfully recovered almost 10 GB off of my hard drive. I can't believe how much stuff gets cached. Anyway everything is running a bit smoother now.
It's free. It's snappy.
Applejack
Another recent discovery I am trying out is MailTags. Truly a great program that allows you to "tag" your mail messages and add keywords to them. Great concept, however I am just now testing it out, and time will tell if I stick to this idea or not. It would be nice to start using them on a fresh project, and as I am in the middle of a few projects right now makes it somewhat difficult to go back and organize. Supposedly it works with Blacktree's Quicksilver (I haven't tried yet) as well as Smart folders within Mail.app (I have tried and is very cool). It also integrates with iCal, which is a nice addition. A nicety to consider for version 2.0 would be to be able to specify which calendar they show up on, as I have different calendars for different projects within iCal. Anyway if you are looking for an easy way within mail to start organizing your projects, this one might be for you.
After many freelance projects, wedding stuff to get ready for, class teachings, and a full time job that is suddenly overwhelming, I decided to get organized. I should say that I have never claimed to be great at organization. So now that I am 28, I decided, maybe I should start working with a system.
I'm a big user of sticky notes, whether I doodle something or write some meaningfull content on them they have always enjoyed them. I was even using the digital stickies for a while. The problem with stickies though is the difficulty managing them. So I found a nifty little program called Sidenote: Stickies on steroids.Pardon the tagline, as I added that. It's pretty slick, as it captures the stickies spirit in a multidocument, scrolling, easy to manage, conveniently stored away manner. It pops out of either the left or the right of the screen, and has many hotkey features. It also works well with dual monitors.
I tried Sidenote a few months ago, but hadn't put it to full use until I recently started reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, you should at least give it a quick look through. Or check out Merlin Mann's site: 43 Folders. He has a podcast, and numerous other tips and tricks to get you going on get things done. So far I feel more organized. I made different "Next Actions" notes, Project notes, and a Tickler file. It has helped me push it out of my mind and onto something tangible in a convenient easy to manage way. The important thing is following through with your list of items and reducing the amount of "clutter" in your bucket. These two items working together has worked surprisingly well thus far. I'm hoping to stick with it, no pun intended, okay maybe a slight one.
