Around the Web

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Bruce Keener

Just sharing a few links with you:

  • If you are a Star Trek junkie like me, you’ll appreciate that CBS now has the Original Star Trek episodes online for free viewing.
  • On a more productive note, Leo has an interesting post on some Mac apps for implementing GTD.
  • Additionally, for Windows users, Google has released a tool for syncing Google Calendar with Outlook. Many of the existing products for doing this do not do it very well, so hopefully Google has nailed how to do it right.
  • MacWorld will be covering today’s announcement of Apple’s release of an SDK for iPhone and the iPod Touch. I look forward to watching this.
  • Finally, back to Mac: there is a new freeware mindmapping application that you may want to try out: MindNode. I have not tried it out, because I have MindManager and am not interested in trying out any new mindmapping software. However, it could be something you would be interested in.

I am personally starting to get away from using Outlook. Regular readers know that I have been using it, even on my Mac, by running Windows on my Mac using VMware Fusion. But, I have decided to get away from using Outlook. For now I am using iCal on the Mac instead. I’ve imported all of my calendar and task items into it from Outlook.

In time I will be using Google Calendar, because I really want something that is machine-independent. Right now there are some problems syncing between iCal and Google Calendar (due to some problems with iCal, which I expect will be fixed in the near future). Once those are ironed out, I will sync with Google Calendar and then primarily use it.

As far as task management goes, I am getting back toward using plain old paper: 3×5 cards and sheets of printed task lists. This just works best for me in my situation. I will probably talk a bit more about this in another post at some later date.

My final transition away from Outlook will come when I export all of the saved emails to Gmail. I have a ton of saved emails in a variety of topical areas: numerous ones where I carried on conversations with theologians and afterlife researchers after Vickie passed away, registration confirmations for a ton of software, various project-related emails, and so on. I’ll probably begin moving all those emails into Gmail over the weekend.

Anyhoo, I hope you find the links of interest. Take care. By the way, tomorrow, or possibly later today, I plan to do a writeup on my impressions of my new iPod Touch.

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  • Thomas R. Hall

    Do you think that the iPhone 2.0 software announcement (syncing with Exchange server) would change your mind on this at all? Just curious. I’m trying to determine if I want to keep Outlook/Exchange and use Google tools, or just use one or the other.

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce

    You raise a good question Thomas. I am still inclined, I think, to go ahead and try to migrate all of my Outlook-stored emails to Gmail, so I have a backup, even though I do have backup *.pst files too.

    Maybe I do need to rethink canning Outlook entirely, though. My basic thought is that I just want to get away from having my data located where I cannot access it from anything but Windows. I want to be able to get at my data, regardless of the OS I am using at the time. I still have some tinkering to with Ubuntu, for example. Lance told me today that the new alpha release of it is looking mighty fine. And, of course I love my Mac, and it will stay my primary machine, but I don’t want to have to be at it to get to my data.

    So, that’s my thinking. It is hard to give up a tool you have used for years, though.