Review – TaDaList.com

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At work I manage many different projects and have a very good system for keeping track of what needs to get done. I’m using the OmniFocus beta and very pleased with it. There are two weaknesses with this systems however: Capture and simple lists. By “capture”, I’m talking about getting tasks from your brain into your system and by “simple lists”, I’m talking about that day to day flotsom and jetsom. Those little lists that remind me to pick up a certain book at the library, or spicy carrots at Trader Joe’s. It would help if the iPhone had a task list manager but frankly, I’m not sure I want my spicy carrots getting mixed in with all of my work tasks. Anyway, I stumbled upon a great little web 2.0 app solves both of these problems, www.tadalist.com.
This web application from 37 Signals is a simple to do list with a very clean interface. Each list is just a name (like “Trader Joe’s”) and a group of items (like “Carrots”) They have an Edge-friendly iPhone interface and you can both add new items and check off items from anywhere. It also has a memory for items you have already checked off so the next time I need more carrots, I can simply uncheck rather than create a new entry.
While these tools are great for shopping, I also use them for other recurring lists. I’ve got the business trip list, the “giving a presentation” list, the beach list, and a variety of others. The nice thing is I can change, delete, add, check, and uncheck items from any computer plugged into the internet, including the iPhone in my pocket.
For capturing tasks on the go I have a list called OmniFocus. If I think of something that needs to be tracked and I’m not near my Mac I put it in the OmniFocus Tada list and code it into OmniFocus later.
This is not the high powered stuff you are going to get from iGTD or the soon to be released OmniFocus. Neither is it robust as the feature set found at todoist.com as recently reviewed by Darren Rolfe. However, for a system to keep simple repeating lists and capture tasks while on the go, it really scratches the itch.

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More on the 1Passwd – iPhone Sync

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I corresponded a little more the 1Passwd folks concerning security of the 1Passwd bookmarklet after it synchronizes to your iPhone. He explained they use 448 Bit blowfish encryption. There is more. Here is an excerpt from Dave Teare’s explanation.

“Re: your questions about security and hackability, all your confidential information is encrypted. On your Mac, it is stored in Apple’s Keychain, which uses Triple-DES encryption to secure your confidential data. On the iPhone, we did not have access to the keychain, so we used Blowfish to encrypt your data using 448 bits, and we do other cool things like using Cipher-Block-Chaining and randomized Salt to keep your data extra secure. We use OpenSSL to perform the Blowfish algorithm. OpenSSL is open source and is installed on hundreds of millions of machines worldwide.”


I’ve been playing more with the 1Passwd data file on my iPhone and had no problems at all. The developers explain it in more detail at their blog.

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1Passwd Gets Secure Data on iPhone with No Hack

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I’ve been corresponding with some of the folks over at AgileWebSolutions and I am really excited about the public beta of their latest version of 1Passwd (version 2.5) They’ve added a function that allows you to create a password protected bookmarklet that contains all of your secure 1Passwd data. It then syncs into mobile safari as a bookmark. When you click it you get a screen that looks something like this.

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Once you put your password in you get access to all of your 1Passwd data in your pocket.

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This is huge for me. On my Treo I used a program called SplashID to keep important data in my pocket. 1Passwd figured a way to do this on the iPhone.
There are some limitations. It doesn’t take the data and “go and fill”. For instance if you click on a password in the bookmarklet, it doesn’t open the web site and fill it in for you. Also you can not edit the data on the phone. The developers are working on the “go and fill” feature. The text also isn’t always formatted perfectly and sometimes it runs lines together.
Regardless, this is extremely useful. I have all my insurance/medical/financial data available to me and still securely locked down. It doesn’t rely on any hacks and, since it is Safari, you can even flip your phone on its side to make the data larger.

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Dashboard Watch – Dashquit 2.0

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I know some of you are against the dashboard with nothing short of a religious fervor. I actually like it. I don’t use it often but I find a few widgets very helpful including iStat, the Birthday Reminder, and (of course) Chuck Norris Facts. There are others I like but I’ll save that for another post.
Anyway, if you are really worried about the Dashboard taking too much of your system memory there is a widget called Dashquit 2.0 which gives you a quick percentage of exactly how much memory you are using with your widgets and by pushing one little button on the widget it closes down dashboard and dumps them from memory. If you are about to dive deep into GarageBand or do something else memory intensive, you can free up that memory with one click. Below is a screenshot taken of my Dashquit at the the time of posting.

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Path Finder Gets an Update

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A free update was released today for Pathfinder. Version 4.8’s big additions are the Leopard-esque interface redesign and per-folder settings. This allows you to keep preferences for picture folders different from those of document folders (among other things). I’m fairly proficient with the basic finder and yet I still find myself going to Path Finder pretty often. Check it out.

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50mm of Convergence

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I’ve been trying to improve my photography skills. As part of this, I’ve been thinking about putting a better lens on my Canon than the one that came with it. I read an article about a month ago about the merits of a fixed 50mm lens and started thinking about picking one up. Then, in just the last few days, I have been bombarded with 50mm propoganda. Merlin Mann bragged about his on MacBreak Weekly and I stumbled upon this excellent article by Gary Voth. Well I sort of fell into a good deal for a 50mm lens and while I’ve only played with it a bit, I really like it. Very sharp and that open aperture makes the flash almost superfluous. Once I get a few presentable photos, I’ll post them.

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Music – Panonica

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Monk’s “Panonica” is one of my very favorite melodies. For some reason I always visualize myself pushing my daughters on the swing (when they were younger .. around 3) when I play this song. Monk actually wrote it for Baroness Panonica Der Konigsweiller (sp?) or “Nica” for short, who was a active patron of the arts, and lasting friend of his. I once heard a recording of him explaining Panonica as a butterfly that nobody could catch.
Now having evoked touching imagry, the recording is nothing spectactular. I just recorded begining to end and made no post recording “fixes”. I really did not do the song justice but it is passable, if not a little heavy handed. One of these days I will do it again.
Enjoy my Panonica
**Download Note**
For some reason downloads of the music files with Safari Beta 3 are sometimes wonky. If you are having a problem. Try with Safari or Camino.

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