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March 1, 2012

An Organizer program that Just works

A To-Do program I can use – at last…

girl arm up200 An Organizer program that Just works

So much to organize!

I really need a great organizer! I manage a lot of projects. Each has many levels, criteria, priorities, ideas, gathered intelligence, data to track, etc., etc., etc.  And that’s just my business stuff!

It’s hell to try to handle all that on paper and not much better using typical office software. I built my first personal computer in 1976 (soldering iron and the hacking of surplus equipment required).

imsai 8080 325 An Organizer program that Just works     asr33 An Organizer program that Just works

Since then, I’ve tried out a dozen different organizing programs, or GTD (Get Things Done) programs, as some call them. They all had one downside or another that eventually made them too much bother. I even tried to write my own, by programming the Microsoft Access Database Manager. But that didn’t nail it either.

At Last – the MLO Organizer!

Over a year ago, I discovered “MyLifeOrganized”. This organizer quickly turned my skepticism into enthusiasm. MLO is:

  • Quick and easy to use
  • Expands in complexity as needed
  • Has many project management tools and features
  • Presents your tasks any way you need
  • Has an excellent mobile app for just about any smart phone
  • Syncs with Microsoft Outlook Tasks
  • …and just behaves as your intuition expects – no muss, no fuss.

Unlike all the other task management software I’ve tried to use, MLO doesn’t get unwieldy or slow as the number of new and completed tasks grows.

I still keep each day’s to-do’s on paper, but anything not requiring action this very day goes into MLO for review every day.

What a relief not to have to wade through a big pile of paper to stay on track! And managing all the edits to that pile of papers was much harder than keeping MLO up to date.

MLO – How it Works (links to MLO website):

mlo 1 650 An Organizer program that Just works

Image from MLO website

Not a CRM:

The only complaint I have with MLO is that is doesn’t have specific Customer Relationship Management features. Of course you can save tasks under a customer’s name and do all the usual task manager stuff, but I don’t think you can track a customer’s contact history, make appointments, autodial them, interface to calendars, etc.

Perhaps I’m foolish to expect a company to do “just a little” CRM, since CRM is such a large, complex and specialized set of tasks.

Features:

Too many to detail here, but their site has all the details and a video or two.

Basically, you:

  1. Enter tasks or sub-tasks, in an organized hierarchy
  2. Set their Categories and “Contexts” (easily customizable on-the-fly)
  3. Set their priorities, time frames and relationships to other task’s priorities
  4. Report them out in various ways
  5. Quickly get to work doing, instead of administering

Price (Windows version):

Free or a Full Version  for $45.95

MLO Website:

http://www.mylifeorganized.net/

http://www.mylifeorganized.net/products/my-life-organized/how-it-works.htm

MLO Blog:

http://blog.mylifeorganized.net/

_________________________________________

      _Jim coe

Filed Under: best free Windows products, best paid Windows products, mobile computing Tagged With: , Leave a Comment
February 18, 2012

Easy email while you travel

Ever had problems sending email on the road?

smtp travellers Easy email while you travel
If you’ve used an email program on your mobile computer, such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird,  chances are you could receive email, but not send email on the road.

Why? Because standard Internet email protocols (e.g. POP3) use a password protected (to stop spammers) “SMTP” (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) web server to send out your messages. And that SMTP server belongs to your own ISP (Internet Service Provider).

Your hotel, airport, or other travel location, almost certainly uses  a different ISP and SMTP password. Your outgoing messages can’t reach your own ISP’s SMTP server because it’s blocked by theirs. When you try to send email on the road the outgoing email settings in your email program are still set for your ISP and are wrong for theirs.

Of course you could try to discover the SMTP server name for every travel location you use and change the settings in your email account for each one (good luck!). Or you could use a web-based email program like Google Gmail.

This problem happened to a Windows computer client of mine. That’s when I discovered and recommend the SMTP2Go solution below. Incidentally, this is the first product I’ve recommended that I don’t own or use myself. I don’t travel much.

Now a smart company, called SMTP2Go has developed a portable world email tool that takes your SMTP connection with you, so you never have to change your Outlook, Thunderbird or other standard email program settings to match your travel locations.

That means you also don’t have to use a web-based email program, like Google’s Gmail. So you no longer have to bounce back and forth between web email and your regular email program, just because you’re out-of-town or need hotel email.

And the cost for this world email tool is as low as $1.99 per month! Theirs a free trial (no credit card needed) and a 60 Day 100% money back guarantee, so no financial risk.

If you travel and email, I recommend trying out SMTP2Go here…

Until next time…
_jim coe

Filed Under: best paid Windows products, emails, first aid, mobile computing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
October 21, 2010

Mobile computing breakthrough

flashdrive400 Mobile computing breakthrough

Carry your whole computer in your pocket? Yes! (well everything you really need)

It’s now possible to put almost everything you use every day, including your Microsoft Office and other programs, onto a USB flash drive you can carry in your pocket!

How do they do that?
The secret is an inexpensive flash drive operating system. It’s called Ceedo and it uses the resources of any Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer, which it happens to be plugged into, to create a toolbar with all your stuff from  your own desktop back on your own computer. But it doesn’t  modify the computer it’s plugged into in any way (unless you want to save some work there or such). So now you can take the equivalent of your own computer with you in a shirt pocket, and run your own favorite applications and use your own data on any Windows computer anywhere.

Ceedo works on any USB device (USB 2.0 recommended for faster operation – as usual). So, you can also use it on USB portable hard drives.

Ceedo Personal works great for me!
Ceedo is good looking and reliable, can be password protected – and it’s smart. For example (after asking) it automatically updates to the latest version when you plug it in.

I stumbled onto Ceedo after I had wiped a flash drive and went looking for a new operating system to put on it. Now I’ve used Ceedo on a flash drive for several months and I love it. It’s perfect when I visit the offices of one of my computer consulting or web development and marketing services clients. And I even figured out a quick and easy way to update my flash drive with all the latest stuff from my own PC whenever I plug in my Ceedo flash drive.

Is Ceedo secure?
Of course I have my anti-virus program automatically scan my Ceedo flash drive whenever I plug it into my own computer. I don’t take chances on picking up malware from an infected PC. But as far as I can tell, Ceedo is no security risk.

Does it really have ALL your stuff?
Ceedo Personal comes equipped to support all the applications you’d expect, such as Microsoft office, a good file manager (like Windows Explorer), email and much more. But “out of the box” it won’t let you run every application you might have.

But they have a fix for that. For an additional$19.95 they offer their “Argo Application Installer“. It lets you easily convert a great many programs into mobile versions, which will then run on your Ceedo flash drive. When I bought Ceedo Personal, the Argo tool came as a free bonus and it’s worked great for me.

What’s the cost?
Ceedo Personal costs just $39. Both Ceedo Personal and Argo have free trials too, so there’s really no risk in testing them out. With the cost of  flash drives (at newegg.com) down to $25 for 16 GB or under $60 for 32 GB, all this computer mobility is quite inexpensive.

Until next time – happy mobile computing!
_jim coe

Filed Under: best paid Windows products, mobile computing Tagged With: , Leave a Comment
December 9, 2009

Laptop mobile computing

Finally had my first PC consulting client who needed to go mobile. He needed a new laptop for his business and needed to work online from his vehicle, just about anywhere in our urban metro area.

I researched and recommended a high-value laptop and set it up. Then came the Mobile Computing step. Mobile Computing (Verizon calls it “Mobile Broadband”) means that you buy a small USB radio device (a tiny cell phone/modem) to plug into your laptop and a contract from your cellular phone service. Then you use their cell phone technology to let you connect to the Internet from anywhere that you can use your cell phone.

Costs vary, depending on your cellular provider and various discounts, such as for buying online. The device costs $30 to $100. The monthly connection charge adds about $60 to your cell phone bill, if you buy a plan with enough bandwidth (that’s right the charges are not for connection time, but for the amount of stuff you move over your connection) for a business – especially one that deals in transmitting large sized files, like images.

The most expensive laptops come with a mobile computing modem built-in. But I recommend computers based on value (most bang-for-the-buck). In this case, a Gateway (makers of eMachines computers) laptop was best.

This laptop is highly rated by its users and has been great so far, but has no built-in mobile computing modem. I expect these will become standard soon, like most new technology does. For example, this laptop has a built-in digital camera – something you wouldn’t have seen a year or two ago.

By the way, I installed the Verizon Vista software for mobile computing (right at their local store) and it installed and connected flawlessly, though I did have to ask the sales person one question about an option. It’s friendly, well-designed, easy to understand and keeps you notified of your current charges and how close you are to your monthly max (after which more charges apply).

Many people use Wi-Fi connection “hot spots” at coffee shops, and the like, to go online. I work at home and go to coffee shops to escape my computer – so was unfamiliar with the details of Wi-Fi use. We tried out the new laptop’s Wi-Fi connection at the local coffee shop. The high cost of my local coffee shop’s charges for connection time was surprising to me. The $60 per month charge for full mobile computing didn’t look so bad after that. And as a cost of doing business, I suppose one can charge at least some of that cost off to your projects and maybe even get some tax deduction as well.

Please feel free to comment below…

‘Til next time – happy computing and hope your Windows is well…
_jim coe

Filed Under: mobile computing Tagged With: , Leave a Comment