The problem is that most home users of moderate means can’t usually afford the Office package that includes Microsoft Project. The majority of home computer users will have the standard office package, such as the 2007 Home and Student edition which has Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote.

However, at home I also have a number of involved and complicated projects that I’m trying to manage, as does my wife and if you have any teenage kids at home – project management software could help them tremendously with managing their time between homework, school projects, sport events and everything else life dishes out upon a vibrant and busy family. I am very pleased to present a shockingly free and very creative online project management tool called Gantter.

Free Creative Project Management Software Just By Typing a URL

Here’s what blew me away. I’m accustomed to testing dozens of free applications every month, and most of the time you need to at least provide an email address or some other way to identify yourself. Surprisingly, when you first visit the Gantter website, you’ll see yourself instantly staring at what looks like Microsoft Project. The website itself is the application, and once you visit it, you can instantly start creating your own project management file.

For me, such a creative way to use a project management application is like a dream come true. You can create a Microsoft Project compatible file for any project that you’ve got going on. This application lets you save those files (or even PDF exports) onto your USB flash drive. Later, when you want to make changes to your project, just go to any computer, pop in your USB drive and visit Gantter, where you can open that file and modify it however you wish.

It doesn’t matter whether the computer you’re using has MS Project or not. And if you already use MS Project at work? Even better – now you can take your work anywhere with you and edit those MS Project files remotely, whether you’re working on a computer at an Internet Cafe, a library or anywhere else.

I decided that I would finally start writing that novel that I’ve always wanted to get started on but couldn’t because these MakeUseOf article deadlines keep getting in the way – so why not work on my novel while I’m working on a MakeUseOf article? 

My first step was to create my task list for the novel project.

Creating the task list is fast and easy, but the real power of this online application is where you set the predecessors (the work you need to get done before you can start on that task). Just like in MS Project, Gantter automatically schedules out all of your work based on what you need to do and when you need to do it. All you need to think about is one task at a time.

For example, here I’ve clicked on setting up the predecessor for writing the second chapter, which I can start doing the moment the first chapter is done (I don’t need to finish revising the first before I get started on the second.)

Also, on this screen you can add additional notes for this task, as well as assign resources that you’ve configured in the “resources” section of the application. Gantter takes all of this information that you feed it and generates a nice, clear schedule (Gantt chart) for you off to the right side of the screen.

Exploring the software a bit, it’s apparent that this isn’t some cheap, fly-by-night web app – this is a well thought out and very well programmed online application that works fast and efficiently throughout my testing on Firefox and Internet Explorer. The features are many, as you can see from my drilling through the menus.

Saving and Accessing Your Projects

So, what do you do when you’re done planning out your project and you want to save the file? Obviously, you can’t store the data in your account, because you don’t have an account. If you pretend that this application is just like any other desktop application you use, then the answer is simple – just click save!

That’s the beauty of Gantter – it’s like you’re using a desktop application even though you’re using your Internet browser. You can either save the file or export it to MS Project. Saving downloads your file as a “project.xml” file, which you can access later from this same website.

Copy the XML file to your USB drive, and later when you come back to the website (no matter where you are in the world), just click File -> Open and you’ll be able to browse to your USB drive and open up your saved XML file.

Simple. Easy. Convenient. Those are the three words I think about when I use this online application. No sign-up required, no download required and no money required. The application was written by Volodymyr Mazepa, a Ukraine-based IT project manager – one IT manager who clearly knows his stuff. I encourage anyone who uses this application to click on Help -> About and send Volodymyr a hearty thank-you for his excellent work and for offering us this high-quality online application at no cost, a very rare act of kindness these days.

Do you have any online project management apps that you prefer? What do you think of Gantter? Share your opinions in the comments section below.

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I try to organize myself by using to-do lists but planning only brings me one step closer to finishing my work. Persistence and determination are the key to getting things done. Unfortunately, I have very little of those. I was born that way, I’m afraid.

While writing the first two paragraphs, I checked my mail several times, fired up Safari, updated my Twitter and browsed Facebook. See, I told you I was a multi-tasker.

But deadlines are deadlines. If you have a project due Tuesday — then there’s no choice but to complete it by Tuesday. Sure, you can try to push the deadline but there’s still one!

To help with the situation and motivate me to clear the work that are currently pending, I’ve come up with 6 great (and free!) tools, categorized into 3 groups.

Distraction busters

Yup, that’s right. Productivity’s number one enemy is distraction. The enemy is sly and cunning. It is a master of disguise and sneaks up on you when you least expect it — in the form of an email, an IM message or beeps and alerts from other applications.

To deal with distraction, I’ve come up with not one, not two but three applications. These apps will only allow you to work on one app at a time and hide the rest. Out of sight, out of mind.

The first one probably needs no introduction. It’s Think by Freeverse. This simple little app helps you concentrate by providing an overlay that blocks out everything but the active application. If the opacity of the overlay isn’t set to the maximum, the underlying apps are still in view but can’t be clicked on.

To switch between applications, Think provides an illumination panel which displays a list of programs that are currently active — just click on any to bring that to focus.

The next distraction buster is Isolator. Isolator is pretty similar to Think but it’s much more configurable. In addition to an overlay, you can choose from several different effects — blur, bloom, crystals and desaturate. Unlike Think, you can also easily switch between apps by clicking through the overlay. Isolator will automatically re-render the overlay so that the topmost application is unaffected.

While using Isolator and Think, I found that the Dock was still in view and a little distracting. To hide the Dock, press Command + Option + D.

Finally, the last weapon in my arsenal to deal with distraction is Spirited Away. This app has been around for a while and most Mac users will have already heard of it. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make it any less useful. On the contrary, Spirited Away complements Isolator and Think!

What Spirited Away does is very simple — it hides inactive applications after a certain period of time. This minimizes clutter and removes distracting windows from view. It also provides you with an Exclude list; in case you want to always keep certain applications in view.

Distraction — busted!

Pomodoro Timers

What the heck is a pomodoro timer, you ask. Literally translated, pomodoro means tomato but no, they’re not what you think.

The “pomodoro technique” is a time management strategy. In a nutshell, it involves working for 25 minutes and taking a 5 minute break — that’s one “pomodoro”. There’s a whole website dedicated to teaching the technique as well as an ebook which you can download for free. Once you master the pomodoro technique, you’ll notice that your tasks get done pretty quickly. The golden rule when working with pomodoros — don’t break it. Once you start a session, make damn sure that you complete it.

In order to provide some assistance while you’re adapting the pomodoro technique, I have the pleasure of introducing two fantastic apps.

The first is Focus Booster. It’s an Adobe AIR app that looks sleek and awesome. Focus Booster places itself above all windows so you will be able to view it even though Isolator or Think is running. You might want to add it to Spirited Away’s exclude list to keep it in view all the time.

Each time Focus Booster starts, it will run as long as one pomodoro i.e. a 25-minute work session followed by a 5-minute break. You’ll have to manually initiate a new session if required.

The second app to help you work with the pomodoro technique is well, Pomodoro. This menu bar app is simple yet at the same time, powerful. Start a session and it will ask you what you’re aiming to achieve. I entered “Finish Article” and the timer started with a Growl notification.

When I said that Pomodoro was powerful, I wasn’t joking. It can automatically restart the timer, display a Growl notification when a preset interval has passed, integrate your Twitter account and automatically tweet your pomodoro sessions, and run a script whenever a session starts, ends or anytime in between.

I find that having a work timer displayed on my screen provides me with a rather good representation of the amount of time I’ve spent on a particular task. Knowing that, I can speed up or slow down my work accordingly.

Self Control

If you’re addicted to the internet, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks; there’s nothing to stop you from constantly launching the browser and surfing. “Just 5 minutes,” that’s what you keep telling yourself. Before you know it, over an hour has passed and you still haven’t gotten any work done. In these situations, only Self Control can prevent you from straying.

Self Control is a Mac application (doesn’t that clear up a lot of confusion?) that will block the internet access to any sites in its blacklist for a preset period of time.

Once it has been started, nothing can circumvent the blocked access. Restarting your Mac will not help, neither will deleting the application. You will just have to wait for the timer to run out. I’ve painted a rather bleak picture with the last two sentences, Self Control is actually all for your benefit. It forces you to concentrate on work. Even if you wanted to stray, you can’t!

So there we go. Six apps that can work in tandem to complement each other, helping you to focus on work and eliminate distraction. Here they are once again:

Think – Link
Isolator – Link
Spirited Away - Link
Focus Booster – Link
Pomodoro – Link
Self Control – Link

Do you use any of these “focus” apps? Has it made a difference in your workflow? Did you know what the Pomodoro Technique was? If you use other apps that has helped you focus on the task at hand, please do share them with us in the comments.

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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I was looking at Google Analytics reports and have noticed a lot of people searching around for a simple cross-platform, free Online alarm clock that they could use to wake themselves up. This would be something that is not installed but runs through a web browser giving it the cross platform ability. When looking for a free Online Alarm Clock, I needed a few features.

First and foremost, obviously, is the ability to wake me up. It should allow me to choose a tone and pop up a website so I can check the weather before I get dressed. It looks like I found the program I was looking for on the first try.

In addition to those meager features I was looking for it also threw this tip at me – forgo the alarm noise and wake yourself up to a youTube video – this is awesome!

Let’s take a look at MetaClock. Let’s navigate on over to their website and see what it is all about.

To set your alarm, first you need to tell MetaClock what time you want to wake up.

Next up you will need to select a tune to play – if you are going to utilize a YouTube video to wake you up you can uncheck the check box next to the “With the tune” drop down box.

Here is where I get to put in my weather website as well as a youTube video. You do NEED to make sure pop-ups are enabled for this web site and if you are having problems with that simply click the “How?” link next to ‘Make sure your browser supports pop-ups’. Then list your urls in the standard www.site.com format one on each line.

You can also choose to show random did you know facts, today in history and a countdown on your browser letting you know how much time is left until your alarm is activated and your websites are popped open.

The count down timer looks like this:

If you are using FireFox you will need to leave this countdown window on top of all your windows. It needs to have focus to launch the alarm music or spawn your pop up windows. So if you are using FireFox make sure you do this or your wake up will be converted into an epic fail…

You can see the YouTube video I choose to wake me up… Just for a good laugh

How do you wake up in the morning? Do you use a standard alarm clock? Do you have a geeky free, online alarm clock or some out of this world method for getting your lazy ass out of bed? If you do we would love to hear about it from you – simply leave a comment in the space provided below and we will be sure to add our witty banter to your comments!

And if you missed that url it is www.MetaClock.com.

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My problem is the very reason I constantly look for new calendar applications – my mind is so filled with things to remember that I forget to check the calendar applications that I’ve installed. So it’s on to the next app, in hopes that it does a better job of reminding me to remember things. Alas, I believe I’ve finally found the solution, a very cool and free, transparent desktop calendar called iCalendar Lite.

Why do I love it? There are several reasons. First, it’s highly customizable. Second, it’s transparent (depending on how you configure it) so you can have it always in front of you no matter what you’re currently working on. Third, I really, really like how cool it looks.

Setting Up iCalendar Lite – A Free Transparent Desktop Calendar

iCalendar Lite doesn’t originally install as a very transparent application that’s always “on top” of all of your other open apps. In some ways this is good, because many people don’t appreciate an application that insists on staying in the foreground. However, for our purposes, this is exactly what we want the calendar to do. This is how the calendar first shows up at the upper right corner of your screen after you install it.

As you can see, with the default skin and transparency settings, it isn’t transparent at all. Also, by default the application is set up to remain in the background when you click on any other application. To set it up so that it’s more transparent and on top of your current applications, you’ll need to change the settings. In your system tray, you’ll find the calendar app appears as a calendar icon. Right click on that icon and then click on “Settings“.

Once you do that, the following window appears where you should make sure that the calendar is set up to run when you boot your PC, and also select whether or not you want the Event and To-Do windows to show up underneath the calendar itself.

Next, click on the “Appearance” to get to the screen where you can configure both the transparency and make the app remain on top of all other applications. Personally, I like the glass skin with 40% transparency, which makes the calendar look like a ghost. However, 100% transparency with the “Glass” skin also reveals the application underneath it and looks pretty cool too (see the bottom of this article).

With the new settings, the calendar application shows up like a faint mist on top of the application that you’re currently working with. For me, this is a perfect calendar setup, because it’s always there…but not really. It lingers on the edge of the screen as a constant reminder that you’re on a schedule, and you have deadlines. The next article due date is coming up fast and if you don’t complete it, you better believe that the editor is going to be all up in your face… OK, moving on.

As you can see, the calendar, event and to-do windows are unobtrusive and only slightly display on top of your application window, but not so much that they block the view or distract from what you’re working on.

Making Use Of iCalendar

When you want to add an item to the to-do list or the event alarm list, just right click the window and do so.

The to-do and event scheduling is pretty standard and has most of the features you expect in a decent calendar application, including delay time to an alarm, an alarm popup window, and notification sounds (configured in the general settings described above).

New Software – Needs A Few Bug Fixes

To show how much you can change the transparency, I’ve modified it to 100% with the “glass” skin in the display below.  However, aside from all of the “cool” factor of this app, it is clearly still new and in need of a few fixes.

Throughout the application you’ll find occasional spelling errors – fairly minor. However, a significant bug in my mind is the fact that when you configure the calendar to remain “on top,” only the to-do and event windows actually remain on top of your applications. The calendar itself has a tendency to slip behind until you click on either the event or to-do windows, or enter the settings screen. Another bug I found was that if you enter the settings window, and then right click the icon and enter the settings window a second time, you can produce an assortment of application errors.

For my purposes, these bugs are minor and not a nuisance. For the most part the application is in the forefront as a constant reminder, and you can even sync the calendar with your Google calendar account – a cool feature if you’re like me and you’ve tried dozens of calendar apps, at least you don’t have to re-enter all of those birthdays again!

Have you been in search of a free transparent desktop calendar? Does iCalendar suit your needs? Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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• esyPlanner – Manage Your Day With This Easy Scheduler & Daily Task Manager (7)
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We all have our favorites. A browse through this website will throw up many a calendar and to-do app. Schedulers and daily task managers occupy one quadrant of GTD apps. Thinking of which, we also have the option of keeping our time planning offline or taking it online.

I won’t take sides here; I am sure there are takers for both. What I will do is introduce you to a freeware which by the colorful looks of it could find its own legion of fans.

esyPlanner is a Windows only (Windows 2K / XP / Vista) utility which is a calendar based planner for keeping track of your events/tasks. More than that it also allows you to post notes, register your day-to-day experiences in a diary and also  manage your passwords.

The esyPlanner (ver.2.0.09) installer is 2.2 MB in size and can be downloaded from its website.

The first thing you will note is the distinctive desktop-like modeling of the webpage, down to a power button. The site and the software support two languages – Italian and English.

So let’s do a walkthrough of the daily task manager software by looking at the different areas of the program.

The software itself has a colorful, responsive interface. The interface has three panels – the main panel on the left, the centered tab area and the narrow toolbar on the right. The toolbar can be undocked and moved. The buttons are large and fairly intuitive. The balloon tips on a mouseover the buttons makes it easy to know what it is about.

A planner works around events or tasks and follows a calendar. Other features merely support the other information needs of day to day planning. So it is with esyPlanner.

Events in esyPlanner can be set up around categories. Each category has a name and a color which labels it. All categories which are set up get listed under the categories section on the left panel.

Multiple calendars can be setup in esyPlanner, each with a description that identifies it. Calendars can be modified and deleted but one calendar is the required minimum. All calendars are listed on the left panel.

Notes are text files for bits of information. They can be grouped in folders within the Notes panel. They can be arranged via drag and drops from one folder to the other. They can also be ordered by date or title.

All notes in esyPlanner have a calendar linked to it. Other information like category, status, due dates, recurrence, attachments and URL links can be also inputed to further enrich a note. An included screenshots tool can be also used to capture images. An event, a popup alert and even an email can be created from any note from a single click using the toolbar.

The Password area serves as a container for storing different user passwords. A master password is required to open the locked database.

The Settings panel has all the customization options for startup, views and color changes. Using the settings panel, the calendar views can be customized according to the starting hour for the day and the first day of the week.

Planner – A container for all events

Planner is where all the action will take place. All events get reflected in the centrally displayed Planner tab.

The Planner has two views – A weekly view with color coded events (according to the category colors) of the current week and the next. The colored rectangles for the events can be dragged and dropped to new locations. Each shift gets updated in both the monthly and weekly views.

A month view which shows the events spanning over the entire month. A mouseover the color boxes details the events in a balloon tip. The events are grouped in rows with each row corresponding to a category.

A small Diary tab can be used to keep a record of events for the day.

The tracking and monitoring systems

What good would a planner be if it doesn’t serve timely reminders about scheduled events? esyPlanner prods through the pop-ups which appear on cue. Pop-ups can be created from events and notes, hidden or deleted. Choosing Daily Popup from the menu opens a popup window with all the warnings and events of the day. This can put on auto each time the applications starts.

Popup warnings can also be set for individual notes from the Notes panel. The warning can be from a certain date, on that date, on each recurrence or can be switched off.

All warnings set can be glanced through on the Warnings tab of the central panel.

Some first impressions

In my opinion, a planner and scheduler application needs to be simple enough to jump in and use but it should also have enough flexible features that make planning (and changing) tasks a one click process. Essentially, the daily task manager application should be designed around our schedules rather than the other way round. On that score esyPlanner does not disappoint.

• Events can be set up for each unit of time and they can be made to recur as we want it to.
• Events can be dragged and dropped from one date to the other.
• Impromptu notes can be converted to events on the fly.
• Multiple calendars lets us separate work and personal events.
• Alerts are simple through popups.
• The attachment inclusion and screen grabbing utility are a definite plus. Though, the password storage is a bit out of place.

All of this is a nice package of customizable colors and fonts. The software is also not perplexing with the easy to understand balloon tipped buttons and a compact help file.

But a task management application is only as good as the way we exploit it for our productivity. So is it good enough for you? Only you can let us know.

Link: esyPlanner

Image Credit: cmcbrown

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• iCalendar Lite- A Free Transparent Desktop Calendar (Windows) (12)
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Hamster is available as an applet for the Gnome desktop environment and you can install it using your distributions package manager. It is most likely in there (or else you can install from source). Ubuntu users may sudo apt-get install hamster-applet. Once installed, you can add it to any of your panels by right-clicking on the panel choosing Add to Panel and then look for Time Tracker (not Hamster).

Hamster will appear as “No Activity 00:00″ in your panel. Click on it, key in what you are doing and it gets down to the mundane work of counting how much time you spent in that activity. It also displays how much time you have spent in the current activity in the current session while inconspicuously adding them all together in the background to create reports for you.

Hamster lets you categorize and add description to your activities. This is especially useful if for instance, you want to view how much time you are spending on a “Complete Project” which itself is made up of sub-tasks or sub-projects. You just have to include @ when letting Hamster know what you are doing and it will automatically create a category and file your task under it!

Letting a program know what you are doing every time you are about to switch an activity might seem like too much burden if you are not into time tracking. So Hamster provides you a leeway, allowing you to enter activities that you’ve done in the past. Why would you want to do that? You will realize in a minute when we move to the reports.

Click on the applet, expand “Today” and you will see what you have been up to on that day. Click on Show Overview and you will be greeted by pretty graphs and detailed statistics of what you have been doing this week, this month or this day. You can then click the “Generate Report” button and up pops your browser with a detailed report of your activities for the said period.

Overall, Hamster is an easy-to-use and intuitive time tracking application. Everything is just in place in the interface just as you might expect it to be. It is all the more useful if you are disciplined in its use or else, you can always go back in time and make entries (for a change). Did I mention the “Stop Tracking” button, just in case you feel the need!

If you’re new on MakeUseOf, make sure to download our hugely popular productivity manual. Nothing comlicated, only the simple tips that are easy to follow and actually work.

Do you use any time tracking applications? Which software or web applications do you prefer?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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The application is called Edison. Edison allows you to conserve energy by modifying the powers settings of your computer. A nice little app you can download and install free from here. Edison requires .NET framework 2.0 so if you don’t already have it make sure you download the 27MB file. Once installed you are required to register for a free account on developer’s website which I found a bit annoying.

Edison basically manages Windows power settings and allow you to apply different power settings depending upon your needs. However its a bit more than just powers settings. Edison allows you to define the timings during which you generally use your computer then you can have two different sets of power settings for “work time” and “non-work time”. This would allow you to get more aggressive with saving power. If on the other hand you can completely switch off your computer during the “non-work time” then, well nothing like it!

To customize the schedule just hop over to the “Schedule” Tab and enter in the required details to define the work time. As for the actual power savings you can simply move the slider to adjust the power settings. As you move the slider you can see the settings change below the slider. If you are looking for something else you can click on custom button and then key in your values.

Edison also displays your savings by using the current settings. You can customize the rate it uses to calculate the savings by clicking on the underlined rate per kwh and enter your custom rate to display the savings according to the rate in your area.

Overall Edison is a nice little app that gives you greater control over power management and thus would allow you to save some energy and go green. Do you know of some similar apps? How do you do your bit to save energy?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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If you use Linux, there is an excellent tool that gives you loads of information about your computer’s power consumption as well as the software that is causing your battery to drain. Its called PowerTop.

PowerTop was originally developed by Intel and it lets you measure and explain your computer’s power consumption.

Installation

As always, check your distribution’s package manager for a package named ‘powertop’. If you cannot find it listed there, head over to the PowerTop website and download the tar ball which you can compile and run.

Be sure to run PowerTop with root privileges. It takes about 5 seconds to collect data and it then presents its findings for your consideration. The output can be overwhelming for the uninitiated so lets go through it briefly:

The first part represents the C-States. C-States are the operating modes of the CPU and are usually represented in the form of “Cx” where x is a number. The higher this number, the less power will be used by the CPU in that state. So in this first part you will see the amount of time the CPU has been in each of these states.

P-states shows the frequency the processor is currently running on. In its idle state it will be running at the lowest supported frequency.

The next part represents “Wakeups per second” and means how many times the CPU has been woken from an idle state. Of course, the smaller the value of this number, the better your computer is performing in terms of power consumption.

The next part shows the battery information if you are using a laptop or no information if you are on a desktop.

Then it lists the top reasons for wakeups. This is the most interesting part as it shows which of the software is causing the CPU to wake from an idle state and thus consume power. The PowerTop website also offers patches for many software which are reported to be reasons for unnecessary power consumption.

Lastly the program lists some suggestions you can follow to decrease the power consumption of your computer.

So once you have the output and you’ve read it, what should you then do about it? Well a couple of straight forward steps that you can follow:

• Look for the top causes for wakeups and see if you can disable some of them. It may be bluetooth or wi-fi when you don’t need them or something else. If you don’t need them then disable them.
• Check out the most common known reasons for wakeup and how to tackle them.
• Look for software patches on the PowerTop website and apply them (make sure to check versions, as some of them may be outdated). They tend to take care of bugs (or provide workarounds) to code that causes the CPU to wake up constantly.
• Follow the suggestions PowerTop has to offer. You might want to Google the message it gives you if it seems to be a bit too geeky for you. Chances are you will find a step by step guide to achieve the same.
• Read Saikat’s article on conserving battery power. Although not directly related to the analysis method which we just followed, he provides some pretty nifty tips in general that you must check out.

PowerTop not only monitors the power consumption but also provides you with detailed information on how you can minimize the consumption. An indispensable tool for laptop users especially. After tweaking for some days I really got the battery power back up and I am still not convinced I have the perfect setup (working on it).

How do you minimize your laptop’s power consumption? Turning off Wi-Fi or turning down the screen brightness or something else? We would really like to hear about them in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Two Replacements For The Windows Laptop Battery Meter (14)
• Extend Your Laptop Battery Life With BatteryCare (Windows) (9)
• 8 Useful Adobe AIR Applications That Work In Linux (51)
• 20 Ways To Increase Laptop’s Battery Life (83)
• What’s This “Linux” Thing and Why Should I Try It? (125)

“Our brain is designed for short-term problem solving.” That’s what my GTD-obsessed friend always says, “To get things done, free your head from clutter and put it into a “reliable” system to be processed.”

Many GTD-ish applications – both in the Windows and Mac world – popped up here and there claiming to be the ultimate life management software. Some managed to stand out among the noise, but most are disappearing quietly and have never been heard from again.

The Basic Requirements

The reason why most applications failed can be explained using only one word : useless. They are either too simple that it seemed ridiculous to use it instead of a simple text editor (or maybe a piece of scrap paper), or too complicated that the learning process scared most users and forced them back into using a simple text editor.

So in order not to be ineffective, there are requirements for these apps to fulfill:

• Simple enough to be understood and used in one go.
• Advanced enough to provide convenience for the users.
• Could be accessed quickly.
• Could accept instant input anytime and anywhere.

The closest thing to GTD perfection – in my humble opinion – is Things. But since the app went out of beta (and turned into paidware), I started to look for an alternative. Tried iGTD for a while but it’s too complicated for a simple guy like me.

I just need something that a little bit better than pen and paper.

How To Get Rid Of The Anxiety

Meet Anxiety – a lightweight to-do management for Mac. It’s not perfect, but I’ll survive.

The feature I like most about Anxiety is the ability to synchronize with iCal and Mail. And since iCal can be synchronized with my mobile phone using iSync, I can easily open and add tasks on the go.

The first thing is to adjust the preferences. Open it by going to Anxiety → Preferences menu (or Command+Comma).

There are several adjustments that can be made via the “General” preferences,

and “Appearance” preferences.

Then I think about several “conditions” – to be translated into calendars on iCal – to classify my tasks into manageable chunks. For example, the task of “Research for Anxiety” could only be done with an internet connection, so I will put this task under “Internet” as the condition.

Now I’m ready to empty my brain. Anytime I remember any tasks to be done, I will just focus on Anxiety, hit “Return”, and:

• Type away at the task
• Choose one of the iCal calendar in the “Add to” options.

• If there’s no calendar that fits the condition of the task, just add a new iCal calendar by clicking the small dark icon next to “Add to”. My friend advised me to add “@” sign in front of the customized calendar. Something like “@internet”.

Whenever I finish a task, I will then put a check in the box and the task will go away. Yay!

Despite a few drawbacks, like the inability to show the due date or the absence of system-wide shortcut keys, I found Anxiety to be very useful to me.

What about you?  What is your favorite GTD application?  Please share using the comments below!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• esyPlanner – Manage Your Day With This Easy Scheduler & Daily Task Manager (7)
• Things – ‘Getting Things Done’ simplified [Mac Only] (11)
• iCalendar Lite- A Free Transparent Desktop Calendar (Windows) (12)
• Focus On Quality By Doing Less On Your Mac (10)
• 6 Apps To Help You Focus & Be Productive [Mac] (41)

While everyone has their own favorite system, such as Tina’s list of great free online time management tools, my own favorite is Yahoo Calendar.

The following article outlines all of the cool tips and tricks that will turn Yahoo Calendar into your very own personal and professional assistant.

How to Successfully Organize Your Life

About a year ago, I realized that I was spending so much time trying to finish projects simply in order to make money to pay the bills, that I wasn’t doing anything to achieve any sort of ultimate success.  Without goals, you never elevate your success to higher levels. Instead, you can end up spending your entire life running at full speed in different directions, but never getting anywhere.

Once I realized I needed direction and focus, I turned to Yahoo Calendar, mostly because I already use Yahoo email so I knew about it and it integrates nicely with all of the other Yahoo services.

Create a List of Short-Term Tasks

Yahoo Calendar helps you focus the direction of your daily efforts by providing you with the ability to list your short and long term tasks.  The best way to use this feature is to make a general list of tasks that you want to successfully achieve within the next one to three months.

Obviously, your monthly tasks will include the short term “work” that you need to accomplish, but many of the longer term tasks should be focused on your ultimate dreams and goals.

For example, if you want to become a published author, it’s a good idea to establish a reputation as a writer through blogs, or by submitting your work to writer’s organizations and contests.  Your task list will ultimately organize your goals into bite sized pieces that you can realistically accomplish.

Keep Organized Using Yahoo Calendar Events

The heart of Yahoo Calendar is the “event.”  Whether it’s a project, a birthday or a meeting, events are the small daily tasks that tend to get lost when your list of responsibilities gets too long.

By entering your daily tasks into Yahoo Calendar, you’ll instantly have your own virtual personal assistant that will keep track of what you have to do and when you have to do it.  It will even remind you through email or mobile phone (more on this feature below).

Entering an event is very easy, and it’s a powerful tool with a number of useful features.

The best way to keep organized with this feature is by entering an event the moment you learn about it. This way, you can rest assured that you won’t forget. For someone like me, the less that I have to remember, the better off everyone will be.

Entering an event is very simple – you can simply enter a title, event type (there’s a list of about 27 types), and the date and time. Don’t forget to make it repeat if it’s something that takes place on the same day every month or every year.

Event Reminders – Your Own Virtual Personal Assistant

Or course, my favorite feature included in the “add events” tool is the ability to send invitations to people via email, and the option to enable reminders.

These two features add tremendous functionality to Yahoo Calendar.  No longer must you remember to check your calendar every single day. You can set up this web app to either email you, send you a message in Yahoo Messenger or even send a text message or email to your mobile phone to remind you of your scheduled event.

Are you prone to forgetting dentist or doctor appointments or even birthdays and anniversaries (I am!) – this feature alone will help you keep organized and on time for every single appointment in your hectic schedule.

The other very useful feature is the “invitations” tool. By simply listing email addresses, you can remind family, friends, or co-workers of important events. If you’re working on a project with colleagues and you’ve all agreed to meet somewhere to go over work, you can use this feature to have Yahoo Calendar send everyone in the group an email invitation to the meeting. The Yahoo Mobile feature that’s integrated into the online calendar is very easy to set up.

Just complete the simple “create alerts” wizard to integrate Yahoo Calendar with your mobile phone. This is a feature that I use constantly in order to keep organized and on time – I couldn’t live without it!

Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly Calendar Views

Yahoo Calendar provides four view formats for your calendar. The daily view gives you an hour-by-hour view of your daily schedule. My favorite view is the weekly view, because it provides just enough of an overview so you can plan ahead, while also offering enough specifics so you know exactly what you should be working on this very moment.

Another nice overview is the yearly view, which provides bold dates for those days where events are scheduled.

When you really need to organize your schedule, these four views really offer the perfect solution. You can choose what level of organization you need, and then use just the features that you need to stay organized in your particular situation.

Work Collaboratively in Groups with Yahoo Calendar Sharing

Of course, another powerful feature of Yahoo Calendar is its ability to share events within your calendar, either publicly or just to a select few.

The cool thing about the “sharing” feature is that it’s so easy to customize. If you have a private calendar, but you want family and friends to have the ability to view your schedule, you can create a “friends list” of people you would like to grant access to.  You can even create “special friends” who have rights to modify your calendar.

Organizing Your Life With Online Calendars

There are a number of great online calendars available to help you organize your time and energy. Wendy’s article, “4 Online Calendars To Help You Get Organized” lists four of the most popular online calendars. The smartest approach is to test drive each of them for a week or two to determine which one fits your own style and organizational approach. Once you choose one and use it every day, you’ll notice your productivity and accomplishments skyrocket tremendously.

Do you use an online calendar to keep organized? Share your favorites in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Tracks – An Advanced “Getting Things Done” Application (11)
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We are seeing new project management applications popping up all over the web today. This, in order for workplaces to monitor what their employees are doing throughout the day and to make sure that they are using their time more efficiently.

Tools like these can not only be used in the workplace, but also can be used at home in the same manner to track your time better and monitor how your kids spend time on the PC. I’m here today to talk about one of the nicer products that does this in a very nice graphical interface. It’s called Manictime.

Manictime is simply defined as ‘Personal time management software to easily log and track work hours’. It sits in the background of your PC and monitors application activity and how much each application is being utilized.

I’m guessing most users will have the application launch at start-up and run throughout their work day. As soon as the Manictime launches into your system tray, it begins logging your PC activity, much more accurately then any application as seen before, such as Wakoopa.

As Manictime sits idle in the background eating up no process and not much memory, it will track each and every program you have open at any given time. How long you’ve had them open, what times you’ve had them open, and also how frequently. Along with that you get in-depth logging, which tells your each and every event.

The end of day displays the real power of Manictime. Here is an example screenshot of the application, after a full day of use.

Along with many different sections in list form, there are also a few different graph options to choose from.

The product not only clocks all of your working hours for the current day, you can also go back and track as many days as you set your preferences to. This can be handy if you’d like reports for the previous work week or month. With some additional knowledge, you could even add the ability to hide the Manictime icon from users and they’ll never even know that they are being monitored.

Manictime is another great time tracking product in a long line of others. It gets the job done with a simple to use interface with easy to read graphs and charts. Download it, and try it out at work or at home. You’ll have some fun with it for sure.

Manictime is great for monitoring usage times for different programs. If you would like to find out what websites you use most and where do you spend time online check out 5 Tools to Track How Much Time you Waste while Online.

Do you have any other great time management products you use to track your time? What do you think of Manictime? Do you think it has any adverse privacy implications if someone secretly places this on someone else’s computer? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Hamster – Time Your Tasks & Track Your PC Hours [Linux] (3)
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While we have previously covered some of the cool AIR applications, most of them are meant for the Windows/Mac platform. For Linux users who are constantly looking for AIR applications, here is a list of 8 useful AIR applications that we have tested and found them to be working in Linux.

1. TweetDeck

TweetDeck is an interesting Twitter client that allows you to organize your tweets into more manageable levels. It enables the user to split their main feed into topics or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets.

There are several useful features in TweetDeck. One of them is the auto-updating of the Twitter status so that you know when Twitter is down. The next feature is that you can continue to send tweets even when you are offline (or when Twitter is down). Tweets and direct messages are queued and then sent automatically when you are back online.

2. WebKut

WebKut allows you to take a screenshot of any Web page easily. It loads the page in its own viewer and you can screen-capture the page the way you like it. This is so far the easiest and simplest screen capture tool that I have come across.

3. Snackr

Snackr is a RSS ticker that pulls random items from your feeds and scrolls them across your desktop in an unobstructive way. It is easy to hide/deactivate it when you find it annoying and when you see a title that looks interesting, you can simply click on it to pop up the item in a window.

4. Xdrive Desktop Lite

Xdrive is an online storage service provided by AOL. It’s free and you get a whopping 5GB of online storage space to backup all your data, video and music. The AIR application Xdrive Desktop Lite is to allow its users to easily transfer and backup their local files to Xdrive online storage.

5. AirTube Video Downloader

Using the AirTube Video downloader, you can easily download YouTube videos to your desktop simply by dragging or pasting the video’s URL. After the downloading is completed, the application will playback the video in its viewer. A useful tool for someone who downloads videos very often.

6. Destroy Flickr

There is already a full review on DestroyFlickr, so I shall not say anymore about it. But it is definitely a good thing that a great app like this works on Linux too.

7. Klok

Klok is a time management application that allows you to monitor the time you have spent on projects, tasks and any other stuff. You can view the timeline in Weekly view, Project view or get it to generate a report and display in pie-chart format. There are some very well-thought features such as setting up a template for new projects, creating sub-projects, drop-down calendar and a zoom in/out function for the timeline. If you are looking for a good time management application, Klok is definitely the one I would recommend.

8. UVLayer

If you have watched the movie ‘Minority Report’, then you will find the interface of UVLayer very similar to that in the movie. When you search for a video via the search bar, UVLayer will instantly fetch a list of videos from YouTube and Truveo and display them in a big window. You can then drag the video onto anywhere in the canvas. It is also integrated with Google Talk, Facebook and AIM so that you can share the videos with your friends easily.

Are there any more Air applications for Linux that you want to add?

(By) Damien Oh is an all-out technology geek who loves to tweak and hack various operating systems to make life easier. Check out his blog at Make Tech Easier where he shares all the tips, tricks and tutorials.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Here are four neat Firefox extensions and 1 desktop app that help you track the time you spend online. They even give you reports so you can watch out and make efficient use of your time by cutting down on wandering around sites that are of no use.

LeechBlock

LeechBlock can be set to block websites from loading in Firefox.

You can create up to six ‘block sets’ – each set can contain a number of sites that should be blocked only during a specific time interval.

For example, you can create a block set and put all the social networking sites in it – and block all those sites together for a set period of time (instance, 9AM-4PM). Then you can create another block set – containing another bunch of time-consuming sites and block them all together for a specified time period. That’s how block sets work. Wildcards can be used to block specific subdomains/parts of a bigger site.

Download LeechBlock

Time Tracker

Simple yet effective tool that tracks the amount of time you’ve been browsing around. The display on the status bar indicates the amount of time you’ve been surfing around inside Firefox.

As you can see in the options above, you can set the status bar display of TimeTracker to show only the time you’ve spent today/last reset/since installing Time Tracker. In the time-out option, you can specify when the addon should pause counting the time. You can use the filter list to add websites that will not be time-tracked.

If you want to continue tracking the time even when the new windows are opened then leave the last checkbox unchecked.

Download TimeTracker

8aWeek

Same as the first extension, but it has more powerful options and provides graphs that display the various activities versus the time you’ve spent on them.

Once installed, you’ll see a toolbar that has around four options. You’ll also be taken to a registration page. You could register if you want the reports to be saved for the long term. Else, you can skip it and continue using 8aweek.

It provides interesting charts like the one below that lists the amount of time I’ve spent on each site:

You can set it to limit the time you spend on useless sites. For example, you could set it to make Facebook available to you for no more than 10 minutes per day. Additionally, you can also save the reports for later viewing. For more details check out our directory listing on 8aWeek.

Download 8aweek

MeeTimer

MeeTimer is a plain and light activity tracker. It keeps track of the visited websites in any given day, records total time, and groups them into purpose-based categories (e.g. Myspace/Facebook = procrastination, Gmail = communication, etc.). At the end of the day you get a clear picture of your daily activity.

Download MeeTimer

RescueTime

Unlike the above, RescueTime is a desktop program. Same goal here, understand how and where you spend your time while browsing web or working on PC. Find out what programs and websites take most of your time (Digg, Wikipedia, Word, Google, Dreamweaver …). Cool thing about this app is that it’s completely automated and requires almost no effort on your behalf. The only thing you have to do is assign different programs and sites to certain tags.

Get Rescuetime here

Do you know of any other good tools for managing your time on the internet? Let us know in the comments!

(By) Shankar Ganesh, a 16 year old Blogger and Freelance Writer from India. He writes about computers and software at Killer Tech Tips

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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