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Handling Elaborate projects using Worketc template sub-projects

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:35:00 -0500

We all have specialties in what we do, and this results in similar projects, or projects with similar steps. For example, I implement Content Management Systems using Drupal. For each CMS implementation project, there are sub-projects …..

Read the full entry at idonny.com

Latest iPhone OS Update sticky? problematic? -

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:41:00 -0500

I updated to the latest iPhone OS (3G) and for the past few days, the phone has been behaving in a way that is uncharacteristic of an Apple device… often,

I get to a field and the keyboard refuses to appear
If I have a native audio application active (phone, recorder etc), closing it does not happen without issues. The recorder sometimes remains active and prevents other apps from functioning properly for a few minutes before it closes down
OmniFocus has been made unstable

I am attributing this to the OS cause since multi-tasking is not possible on the iPhone (except with Apple apps - phone, ipod, recorder), the issue must be in the OS since there is no one secondary app that could be running in the background in all the above situations except an Apple App

Naturally, the most common remedy for me is to shut down and restart the phone - a pain if you depend on the a dependable device !!

Products, Services, Solutions, what could be the difference?

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:59:03 -0500

Things sold to customers for money are often listed as one of the above. It is relatively easy to distinguish products from services:

Here is an attempt to define the terms in context: http://idonny.com/analysis/definition-products-services-solutions

Drush! Beautiful in a geeky kind of way

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:46:00 -0500

Most of use welcomed the GUI/Graphical User Interface kind of life when it because the norm… OK, remember the first time you used Windows (after using MS-DOS or PC-DOS or worse, Unix Shell)? that is the relief that I am talking about.

Here is the complete idea: http://idonny.com/analysis/drush-drupal-shell

Worketc.com providing responsive and sensible support to improve their application -

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:51:06 -0500

I have been using Worketc.com for all manner of business management functions and I can say with some conviction that the support they provide is unique. Granted, there are quite a number of features and flow issues in the application, but it does what it claims to do. The focus of this article is on the fact that the company can be described as agile and responsive to customers’ needs, comments, and other feedback.

For instance, I most recently explained that their activity calendar needs to use visual aids (mini-icons) to identify various types of entries (tasks, timesheet entries, events, tickets etc). The support was not only swift and relevant, but I did not have to deal with a long chain of approval back & forth decisions. This being a common-sense recommendation, the recommendation was taken into account and implemented within three (3) days.

Bravo!!

Majoring in procrastination, and really studying it -

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:27:00 -0500

I have been putting more and more conscious interest in procrastination as a context of productivity. Consciously I say to make it clear that I am not procrastinating (at least not admitting it), but actually examining why I procrastinate to enable me to know how to cure the problem. I decided to listen to the recently updates podcast from this Canadian professor in the farm “iProcrastinate” and I am liking what I hear - a deeply academic and psychological review of procrastination, why we do it, and what we can do to prevent it from handicapping us.

Combining GTD and ZTD for some relaxed and targeted doing ...

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:14:52 -0500

I have been using GTD as much as possible for the past 10-12 months, and I must say that it did/has done a great deal to rid me of the cloud in my head and provide me with a way to chart my tasks. I have however gotten to the point where some tasks just stay on my to-do list for ever since I say to myself (as someone related to davidallenco.com said) “You do not have to do them, just knowing what you need to do and choosing not to do it is good enough”.

Recently, I stumbled upon ZTD and decided the book/audio-book: The Power of Less by Leo Babauta. I have begun seeing things in a new way. I often listed to the “GTD Studygroup” podcast (where Leo was interviewed and I thus stumbled upon his work), and they have always talked about mind-mapping, lists etc. But by reading Leo’s book, I now see the sense of making that mind-map. I can actually determine what projects and actions add to my life-goals, and which ones are just busy-stuff that I can cut out for a simpler life.

After listening to the book, and actually while listening to it for the third time this morning, I was able to stop putting off some unpleasant activities and get to them. I cleaned a ladder that has been laying on the porch, moved some logs into a shed for curing (that will enable the family to sit around a fire and share some good time). I hope that I am just not excited about the ideas, and will carry them on for the long-haul and improve the way I do things.

By the way, this is in line with Leo’s recommendation to select MITs (Most Important Tasks) for each day and make sure those are done. I will talk about how I select MITs for my work and home projects in another post

Some usability compromised in the latest Omnifocus for iPhone release

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:33:00 -0500

When marking items as “done” the older format was easier to use before the latest (1.6). Now that items disappear immediately and the list moves, sometimes I end up completing the wrong items because of the list reorganisation. Also, if I complete something and then want to undo the “don”’ status, I now have to go find it under projects or stop what I am doing and do a text search….

At least if they had given the action a 5 or 10 second delay, that would be working better

The Now Habit - Considered buying, but reviews say the audio is boring/monotone, will hold off -

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:02:00 -0500

I am considering buying this book/audiobook by Neil Fiore, but I have decided not to because most of the reviews on iTunes say that the narration leaves quite a lot to be desired and is generally boring. I tend to pick Audio-books because I am not a fast reader and cannot sit still (unless I am captive in a waiting room) enough to read a long book.

Needless to say, I am working on fixing my procrastination and finally getting stuff completed promptly. This is an issue with my home tasks as I tend to find more interesting things to do until the last minute.

I will keep looking for a similar book with better narration, or hold off until the audio-book is re-recorded…. I also see a number of reviewers complaining about a missing PDF and referring to it being available at “Audible”. It is surprising to me that Apple does not vet audio-books on sale on iTunes as much as it fusses over iPhone Apps.

Just bought and listening to: The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:10:22 -0500

After implementing GTD and discovery that I am overcommitted, and maybe too ambitious, I am now working on simplifying my life to only do what I need to do. Yes, there are some nice projects, some of them now realistically in “Someday Maybe” and “Stalled”, but maybe these items should be thrown-out all together.

Amazon music - MP3 download quality is mediocre, will stick with iTunes -

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:30:44 -0500

Maybe is is just a coincidence that the music I was buying is old and was probably transferred from CD, but I made my first Amazon MP3 purchase yesterday and I could hear compression skips and other signs of low audio quality. I have always been a skeptic and only recently started to buy iTunes music as opposed to buying CDs and ripping them into my iPhone (for mobile listening - I prefer studio-quality listening at home). I now consider the $8.99 I paid for the music to be just the price of convenience… I will still try and find the physical CD and buy it, thus paying twice for the same album.

hostingforhaiti.com - Glad that the hosting companies I use have a heart...

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:00:37 -0500

I just learned that either by coincidence, or because I seem to be subconsciously picking companies that have a good heart, Site5/ThePlanet, Rackspace and others are teaming up to raise some money for the Red Cross for the effort in Haiti.

Start co-working or just stay in my isolated and selfish office?

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:49:00 -0500

I have been torn between moving out of my comfy 800 ft. sq. office space in the lower level of my house to a rented space in town just to get to interact with more people than I currently do… should I admit that I am kinda missing having to go to the office? YES!

What I do not miss is having to work for someone else (I do work for my clients now, but I can phase them out) or rather, having to work for the same company/person every day.

I am therefore considering setting up a co-working environment in Leominster Massachuseets, and carefully renting the workspaces to people with skills that can have a symbiotic relationship with the kind of work I do - and to be a little shallow, I am already thinking of the nice things that the office will have to make people want to come to work: good coffee, tea, printers that work, sofas, free Wi-fi, shared receptionist etc…

If you are a freelancer that needs a place to work in Leominster, contact me and I will let you know what the cost and terms will be - Click on the logo to go to idonny.com and contact me from there.

Dropbox - powerful, effortless, just works!

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:18:00 -0500

This application/service has been so good to me and the many users it has out there that I even for got that it was there, hence this comment that is about a year overdue. I use dropbox all the time… especially when I need to quickly move files to my PC to print on a printer that does not have Mac drivers, or when I need to quickly refer to something that is on one of my machines, in the hope that it is in my dropbox folder. With a new and native iPhone application, it is going to become a backbone application.

Hey, I just noticed that you can take photos right into Dropbox from the iPhone… no more tethered sync necessary to safeguard those —- good riddance for the mandatory USB ball & chain from apple :))

idonny.com - currently troubleshooting Drupal imagecache issues

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:25:16 -0500

I am currently troubleshooting imagecache issues and also working on migrating iDonny.com to the new dedicated sevrer. I will blog more about the imagecache issue especially after I find out why it is not generating images in the correct directories. I have played around with CHMOD settings, and I think that the cause might be permissions or conflict with another module since fresh install seems to work.

Since I have too much content and would like to get to the bottom of the issue, I will not content myself with side-stepping the cause by just creating a new install of the CMS

Site5 Support is strangely responsive and reliable -

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:14:07 -0500

I have been using Site5 servers for 4 years, and I recently decided to buy more servers from them (dedicated). I must note that they are responsive and reliable in a way that is beyond expectation for any service costing under $200.

If feels like they works for me because as I setup web services for my clients, if I run into any issue with the leased infrastructure, all I have to do is to create a ticket and they normally respond within a few minutes…. just as if I had my own IT department - mind-you, today is a Saturday, but they are still on the ball regardless

idonny.com - offline for DNS/Hardware/IP migration

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:52:00 -0500

The company site - idonny.com has been offline for a few hours now. This is because I am currently migrating the domain and applications to a bigger, and better dedicated server. The ETA for service to resume is about 1-2 hours from now (around noon EST). I will post an update as soon as there is new information -

12h45 EST

idonny.com DNS is up, but propagating - Sorry for the intermittent service, will stabilize soon

Omnifocus Perspectives for iPhone …. It’s about...

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:16:00 -0500

Omnifocus Perspectives for iPhone …. It’s about time!!

Finally, after some months of rumours and promises, OmniFocus for iPhone now supports “Perspectives” along with some conveniences and eye-candy. I have just made the iPhone update and I cannot wait to go to my Mac and create some Perspectives that I know will work well for on-the-road situations.

The Omni-people made it clear that this is an experimental feature (unless they are becoming like Google which has everything in perpetual beta). It is good that it is in beta because I would like to see the feature built-upon a little more… talk about giving me a yard and I want a mile :))

I started a media temple (mt) grid hosting account on Friday and...

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:51:47 -0500

I started a media temple (mt) grid hosting account on Friday and I now notice that support over the weekend is kinda sluggish… and they seem to live upto the 20 hour delay on tickets (not too good). Most of the companies I have tested tend to provide an estimate that they can beat - you know the branding rule (setting expectations) that recommends setting expectations you can beat and impress

Rackspace Cloud Control Panel is Offline & Buggy

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:36:29 -0500

I have been a bog fan of Rackspace and its cloud offerings… the problem however is that their control panel seems to be regularly unstable and buggy. Many a time, I have tried to carry out and operation and I get the dreaded red message. I just expereinced it at a new level when it refused to log me in, and after struggling for some time and getting through, it brought the same error message for each attempted command.

;( I see the beginning of a breakup. I cannot stay around with a server that I am not sure to access