Organising myself.
I suck when it come to organisation – I always have. I’m trying to remedy that, though, and there’s a suite of online tools I’m finding kinda helpful. They’re from 37signals, a bunch of talented and visionary people. I see these tools as being part of the Web 2.0 revolution – the web as platform, not just content.
- Ta-Da List: Simple to-do lists, well-implemented and easy to use.
- Backpack: A web-based PIM/organiser intended for individuals and small business.
- Basecamp: A full project-management tool.
Ta-Da List is totally free, and Backpack and Basecamp have some free access (with Backpack it’s five free pages; with Basecamp it’s one free project).
All three are incredibly cool tools. I’m already using Ta-Da list for various lists of stuff, as you can see from the pic. I was always going to take to it like a duck to cocaine anyway; I’m a compulsive list-maker. When I happened across Basecamp I set myself up my free project and started using it to manage my entire life – it’s a bit of a kludge, but it works.
But then Backpack happened, and the cognoscenti are leaping aboard the bandwagon, which leaves me with something of a dilemma. Basecamp has some really swish features – publishable iCal calendars, templates for frequently-used lists, and so on – which Backpack doesn’t have. But Backpack is the popular kid, and it’s going to have the better third-party support and extensions. (It’s already got a public web services API, and 37signals are running a contest to develop Backpack widgets for OS X 10.4 Tiger.
So, I’m still trying to decide between Backpack and Basecamp, a decision not made any easier by the fact that data’s not currently portable between one service and the other. Yesterday I was leaning towards Basecamp; today it’s Backpack. Decisions, decisions.
Technorati Tags: tada+list, backpack, basecamp, 37signals, pim, gtd
June 1st, 2005 at 2:42 am
Careful. Data is really not portable. And once you start bringing collaborators on board you are really stuck.
I wouldn’t count on the free services either. At any point (according to the terms of service), 37signals could decide to cut them off (say you get three month free trial at which point you need to move to a pay plan).
At that point you would have bought into it for life.
If you’re on a Mac, could I suggest CircusPonies Notebook for a really great to-list maker (with good html export if you want to share the list with somebody else).
Otherwise you could set up a private weblog of your own with * ta-da * Wordpress and post to it with Ecto (just $20 and absolutely fantastic). If you want it private, just password protect it. Wordpress also allows posting via email as well.
June 1st, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Yeah, the lack of portability is a stinker. One of the best reasons to go with Backpack rather than Basecamp is largely that you can export in XML format – so even if I decide to wash my hands of the whole thing, I can still take my data with me. But yeah, I’d think long and hard about it before I used the services for collaborative projects.
Thanks for the link to CircusPonies Notebook, by the way – I’ll check it out. Ecto looks good, but I’m already using MarsEdit, which I’m very happy with. A private blog for personal organisation purposes is a damn good idea, though.
June 1st, 2005 at 11:16 pm
I use Netnewswire which is very good so I imagine so is MarsEdit. Do take a close look at the CircusPonies Notebook. I only use it now for to-do lists as I use Hog Bay Notebook for a free form database/scrapbook.
The difficulty with the data export in Basecamp and probably Backpack is that it only includes the messages and is basically in an unuseable form without some work. It’s not a supported format anywhere at the moment.
Hosted software is a lot like cellphone companies before number portability. If they change the terms/price, you’re pretty much stuck.