Just wondering if there are any good programs for Macs out there. I've been using all the Mac programs (iCal, Mail, omnioutliner) but given that they are not integrated, I just feel like confused half the time. everything is so dispersed across different programs that i just dont bother. does anyone use palm desktop without as a stand alone without a PDA? just curious.

Just wondering if there are any good programs for Macs out there. I've been using all the Mac programs (iCal, Mail, omnioutliner) but given that they are not integrated, I just feel like confused half the time. everything is so dispersed across different programs that i just dont bother. does anyone use palm desktop without as a stand alone without a PDA? just curious.

Are you looking for general PIM software? Formation (http://www.mekanica.com/) is pretty spiffy - altho I can't figure out if it has any type of audible reminders *grr*

I'm in the process of looking for a To-Do List proggie to help me keep track at work. Everything I'm finding is either too complicated or too simple *arg* I want something that will remind me of due dates, keep notes on each task, and let me print out a checklist. Is that too much to ask?

"I want something that will remind me of due dates, keep notes on each task, and let me print out a checklist. Is that too much to ask?"

NOT AT ALL!! I am looking for the same thing (plus even more lol) cause like bandapart i can't stand using multiple programs to "organize me" cause that is just too much hassle. and i keep reading in organization tips etc that having more than one calendar, or planner, or wahtever, is definitely going to doom you!

I just got an ibook and am in the process of learning about macs and finding good programs for them since i only owned PCs prior to this, so banapart I will let you know if I find a good program! Right now, I am using a program called Life Balance which seems to be to be a very good program. It is available in desktop editions for Mac, PC Windows, and a mobile edition for Palm OS and you can sync the Palm and desktop programs together, but I dont know specifically about that since I don't have one. I am just using it on the desktop.

I am afraid it's really expensive. I actually don't know. I downloaded a free 30 day trial. The trial has all hte functions you get with the licensed program so it's a good way to try it out. I hope it's not a lot because now I am hooked and really want to buy it! It's been awesome for me.

How it's set up is everything is built with this master "outline" that you can list your goals and tasks on, and basically anything you want. like for example, i have some major categories/goals set up on mine, such as "Schoolwork" and "Mental Health" and 'Physical Health" and "Entertainment and enjoyment", and "Organize my life" and a few others. Right now what's at the top of my outline (by the way, it's very easy to drag and drop task to move where they are on the outline) is to "organize and downsize my room" because i have to move my bedroom soon to a much smaller space! ugg. anyway, so under that task/goal, i have a LOT of subtasks (like "garage sale" which then has more subtasks, like sorting clothes to see what i need to sell, for example. you can have just a task and not set up subtasks, as well. but the subtasks are really helpful to break huge things that seem unmanageble into very small tasks, if that's what helps you (definitely what i need)!! Kelly, you can easily add lots of notes for each task/subtask you type up - when you click on a task all the details are shown to the right in another box where you can edit them. you can set a task thru the details -- importance, place, schedule, effort and notes.

for example, i started out assigning a due date to my task of organizing and downsizing my room, which has to happen at the beginning of oct. but in the subtasks, instead of keeping those with the same due date, i chose to make them "by calendar" and so i set them up as recurring everyday, or once a week, or whatever, depending on how much reminding i was going to need. -- it's helping me to have things displayed in the daily calendar like "sort school papers" rather than just on the big outline. also what i like is how you can expand or unexpand tasks so that you can view, for example, just all your major tasks, and not the subtasks, or you could view SOME major tasks as one line, and others as fully-expanded tasks (with lots of levels of subtasks, which i think you can have 8 levels for each task, which is a lot!). so again, to use mine as an example, the way i view my outline most of the time is by having the first task, about my room, fully expanded to show about 5 subtasks, and each of those 5 subtasks has at least one other subtask, usually more (again, i need "bite sized pieces"!! lol).

i also find the way the "priorities" work to be very helpful and unique of other programs. i am not sure how to explain it so i will copy from their FAQ online:
"In many traditional time/task management systems, you make a (non binding) contract with yourself to tackle tasks within a certain timeframe. Everything goes into a notebook or file, from which you manually pull tasks. Periodically, you review this list and schedule target dates for some of them. You might have several lists to cover the next few months ("goals"), then a more detailed one for this month ("plan"), and a more specific one for this week ("schedule"), then usually try to squeeze some of those onto your list for the day. Then at the end of the day, you have to copy those tasks forward, or throw your hands up in defeat when the situation around you changes suddenly. Life Balance takes a different view of these things. Life Balance does not put artificial dates on things, and we never require you to do the quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily breakdown.

If something is truly important to you, then presumably you want to push that project ahead as your energy allows.

Your Life Balance to do list allows you to focus your energy on the things that are important to you, and those things will float toward the top of the to do list view as conditions are favorable (stores open, right place, right time) etc."

The details of the task has enables you to set where the task needs to take place, and it doesn't have to be an actual "place" like you'd think of traditionally. my "places" could be things like mental health, or family, or entertainment. or you could get specific like "grocery store" to set up a task of going to the store, and notes on what you need.

i could just go on and on rambling here!! there is so much to explain it's impossible for me to write it all down. but i don't mean that it's a complicated program -- not at all. very simple and easy which i think is key. if this sounds like something you would like, i'd encourage you to try the 30 day trial since it's free and then you can see if you like it. also go to their website cause there is TONS to read on the program and there is a forum too where people talk about things and you can even download free 'exchange files" which basically inserts an outline made by someone else into your window so you can get an example (even use it for yourself, and change all the details) of what to do -- i experienced a sort of "writer's block" about what to put in there when i first got it.

anyways tons more to explain but i'll shut up for now since whoever reads this may have decided it's not what they need anyway ;) just go to these links to learn more:

Mac "walk-through" (info, glossary, etc)
http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/macintosh/index.htm (http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/windows/index.html)l

Windows "walk-through" (info, glossary, etc)
http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/windows/index.html
(http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/windows/index.html)
Palm
http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/palm/index.html (http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/windows/index.html)

The FAQs:
http://www.llamagraphics.com/LB/faq/contents.php

Thanks for the suggestion, wasted.

I tried the demo of Life Balance - it WAS pretty nice, altho the "places" and "balance" button didn't really seem that relevent to my needs.

Our office just got Office 2004 - so for now I'm using Entourage. Biggest downside is that it's Microsoft (Ick). I like how, in 2004, I can make "Projects" for all my boss's travel and assign certain tasks to those projects. I can also link files to tasks. I think I can make this work :)

This site has some helpful stuff too for anyone using Entourage - http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/category.php?cat=54 It has shareware scripts (so they're usually cheap, around $20) that you can download to help coordinate different programs on a mac - for example, there's one that lets you sync iCal with Entourage (2004 only) or sync the address book with Entourage.

There might be other scripts that would also be useful (all the ones on the site are for Macs), but I haven't really looked into them. If you click on the Category List at the to on the right, you can find all the scripts for different programs. I did notice that there are ones for Palm desktop too.

I just found this great (so far) organizational software called Notebook. And best of all, it's only made for Macs, there's no PC version at all, and it's only about $50 (or $30 if you can get an academic discount)! Plus there's a 30-day free trial that you can download from their website - http://www.circusponies.com/pages.aspx?page=downloads - and if you go to the Support page and then the Discussion Forums, there's a thread for people to share templates of their Notebooks. I downloaded the Daily Planner one (free!) and it has almost everything I need, but it's also extremely customizable.

I'd say the best things about it are the layout - it's very visually organized, and I'm a very visual person. And since it's designed like a binder with section tabs, it made it a lot easier for me to figure out how to organize things. Plus, its possible to link sections together so it's easier to get to - for example, I have a page for each week with what things I need to do under each day. One of my big To Dos for today was to work on parts of this database project I'm doing. So I can link the "Work on database project" line in my weekly To Do list with the page in the database project section I need to work on. And it's possible to do this with pretty much anything - other files, websites, email addresses, etc. Plus, it's possible to send a notebook to someone who doesn't have the software by saving it as a website. Which might be good for someone who wants to keep their boss up to date with exactly what they're doing and what goals their meeting (the template I downloaded has a section for Progress Reports).

But the very best is the clipping feature. Its possible to add a clipping service to any page in the notebook. Then when if I'm doing something in another program and I see something I want to save or that's relevant to a project I'm working on, I can just highlight it and control-click on it or go to Services under the program menu and I see Notebook listed. Then I just pick which page I want to copy what I've highlighted to, and it does it. The notebook application doesn't even have to be open.

There are some cons, of course. So far I don't know of any way to do notifications of things I need to do - other than putting in the due date, which turns red when it's overdue. But nothing that beeps or flashes at me. I know there's a way to put a calendar, like from iCal or Entourage, into a notebook page, but I don't know if that would still do the reminders, or if I'd still have to have the calendar program open.

And the help included, at least with the free trial, could be more extensive. Though I think part of the problem for me is that there are a few things that aren't very intuitive to me, so I kept searching for how to do them in the completely wrong place. But the online disucssion forum solved my problem very easily. Oh, and for some reason the clipping feature, which I obviously love, doesn't work with Internet Explorer, though it does with Safari. Haven't tried it with Netscape.

Anyway, if anyone's interested, I'll give an update once I've used it a little more.

A good program for contact management is daylite it's contact management, sales, to do list reminders very good. it's more of a business program but very intuitive free demo.

marketcircle is the company that makes it

you can also try now up to date and contact

or visit shareware dot com and look under macintosh and organizers and try a few

Pete

You might also try Ta-Da List. Try Google for "tadalist" and you'll find it. I'd post a link, but I got a warning last time. :)

Anyway, it's web-based. No software to install. Very responsive. Very SIMPLE.

Mac users .. you gotta see this. The first guy that I worked for in Canada is major mac geek and he showed me this amazing screen shot and image sharing program called Skitch. It is now in a free beta stage .. dont know how long that will remain like this .. go check it out!
http://skitch.com/#demo

The second thing that he came up with is Quicksilver, also free.
http://docs.blacktree.com/quicksilver/what_is_quicksilver

When opened, it will create a catalog of applications and some frequently used folders and documents. Activate it, and you can search for and open anything in its catalog instantly. The search is adaptive, so Quicksilver will recognize which items you are searching for based on previous experience. It also supports abbreviations, so you can type entire words, or just fragments of each. When not in use, Quicksilver vanishes, waiting for the next time you summon it.

it is hard to explain and I have not figured it out yet .. am on the move .. but what I have seen it is pretty amazing too. IT is like if you are on an image that you want to send to someone .. just type the hotkey and start typing "mail this to Tracy" -- and it will actually DO that for you. It learns .. (albeit not like the Borg lol)

heya L...I'm loving skitch :) all I need is to set it up to email properly :)QS is downloading now:)

good luck with your move

amazing eh! Making this screenshot AND putting the arrows on it AND uploading it AND getting the URL to it took half a minute!

too bad I cant post images in here, but this is the link (http://img.skitch.com/20080504-8bm73fty4yyu89jab5ebb178xq.jpg)