Zenbe Lists | Todo lists on your iPhone and your browser

By Matthew Guay on December 9, 2010 in iOS Apps

Would you like to keep up with all of your tasks in orderly lists? Today we’re going to look at Zenbe Lists, a simple to-do list app that lets you keep up with your tasks without the fuss of more complicated apps, and then keep everything backed up online with the free Zenbe Lists webapp. Let’s dive in and see if this is the ideal to-do list app for you.

Staying Organized With Zenbe Lists

Zenbe Lists sports a clean and easy to use interface. When you first open the app, you’ll be greeted with little popup messages that help you learn your way around the app. This task manager is built around lists with tasks, so you can tap the top to add some lists for things you need to keep up with. You do it all right there on the front screen; no jumping between screens required.

Entering tasks is just as easy. Just tap the list name to see the contents, then press the top to add a new task. One feature I really liked is the ability to add tasks without going to a different screen; everything’s entered and checked off right there on the same screen.

Once you’ve entered tasks, tap them to edit the task, prioritize it, or add a due date. Or, back in the list view, press Edit to rearrange the notes or bulk check them off. While you can rearrange tasks in the same list, the app currently doesn’t let you move tasks to a different list. Thankfully, Zenbe just announced that this feature is coming in a update that should be in the App Store soon. This will make it much easier to manage all of your tasks and get them in the lists you need.

If you have an iPad, Zenbe Lists works just as good on it. Actually, you’ll have even less switching back and forth since everything’s right there on the same page. And if you add online sync as we’ll see below, you’ll be able to keep your tasks synced between all of your iOS devices. Zenbe Lists is a universal app, so you get all of this for the same price!

Syncing and Sharing Tasks Online

One of Zenbe Lists best features is that you can sync your lists and tasks online for free with Zenbe List’s webapp. Press the Sync button from any list to sign in with your Zenbe ID, or tap Signup to create a new account for free. Once you’ve created the account, go back to Zenbe Lists and sign in. Seconds later, your lists and tasks will be synced between the cloud and your device.

Now, you can sign in at lists.zenbe.com and access all of your lists and tasks online. This is a great way to quickly enter a ton of tasks from a full sized keyboard. Actually, if you’d like to use Zenbe Lists but don’t have an iOS device, you can signup for a free account online. You can take advantage of almost all the same features, and can even collaborate with others on list all from your desktop. The webapp even looks much like the iPhone app and’s just as easy to use. Then if you ever get an iPhone, you’ll be ready to move your tasks over in only a couple taps.

Conclusion

Zenbe Lists actually offers much more than you’d think on the surface. It’s a very simple task list app, but that also makes it very easy to use. With support for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad in the same app, as well as a free webapp that runs on any desktop browser, Zenbe Lists is great way to keep up with everything you need to do no matter where you are. If you like keeping all of your tasks in organized lists with just the most essential info, this app is a great one to check out. It includes less features than more advanced task managers like Things, but that also makes it simpler and easier to get used to.

There’s to-do list apps for every style of task management, so stay tuned for the rest of our reviews and a final roundup!

Our Rating: 8/10

Download Zenbe List for iPhone from the App Store | $2.99

Zenbe Lists Online

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Things | Advanced Task Management on Your iPhone

By Matthew Guay on December 2, 2010 in Featured, Reviews

You’ve got tons of things to do today, next week, and on projects that you’re not sure when you’ll get around to them. Sometimes simple to-do lists won’t cut it, and you’ll want a more powerful tool to take on your tasks and organize them into something you can really accomplish. Today we’re going to look at Things, a popular task manager for Macs and iOS devices, and see how the Things for iPhone app can keep you productive, even if you’re a PC user and only use Things on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Getting Started with Things

When it comes to to-do lists on the iPhone or iPod Touch, there are two main varieties: simple to-do lists that are quick and easy to use, and more advanced task managers that help you manage your full life and work load. Things is firmly in the second camp, but is still almost as simple to use as a basic to-do list app. Things began life as a Mac app in 2009, and has since become one of the most popular task managers on OS X. It’s now available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and brings the same award winning simplicity to task management on iOS.

When you first launch Things, you’ll be greeted with several lists that will be familiar to anyone used to GTD apps: Inbox, Today, Next, and more. The Inbox is where all of your to-dos will go by default, and you could actually only use it and still get a lot of use out of Things.

First, though, you need to add some tasks. Press the plus button on the bottom left to add a to-do item. Just enter the item and press Save to save it to your Inbox. Alternately,press Show Details to add tags, notes, and a due date to your task. Tagging notes is a great way to organize them as you need, and you can add as many tags as you need to keep everything organized. If you’ve just got a second, just jot the task down and then you can come back and add more info later if you need.

You’ll quickly start filling up your Inbox this way. Press the arrow on the right to view extra info you’ve added to a note. You’ll see a tag icon on tasks that were tagged, as well as the due date on those you’ve added dates to. If you want to get your tasks in the order you want, press the Edit button and rearrange them as you need. Once you’ve completed a task, press the checkmark to mark it as finished.

As you may have noticed on the first Things screen, you can also organize your notes into Projects. These work like folders that you can move notes to so all of your tasks stay grouped with other tasks that go along with them. Actually, though, the projects themselves are to-do items, so you can check of individual tasks in a project, or check of a whole project when it’s finished. Once you’ve added projects, you can choose to add a new task to the project when you create it.

The only problem is, with tasks in the Inbox, projects, and more, how do you keep up with what you need to do Today? Things includes a great way to get everything you need to do today moved to the Today list. Simply press the star button in any folder or the Inbox, select all of the items you want to do today, and press Done when you’re finished. These items will now show up in the Today list, and you’ll see a badge on the list showing the number of items you need to do in blue and the number of overdue items in red. Even if you’re not using Things, you can still easily see how many tasks are left today by the icon badge on your iPhone home screen.

Once you’ve finished a task, it’ll be automatically moved to the Logbook at the end of the day. You’ll be able to review all the things you’ve done here, so hopefully you’ll be able to see how much more productive you’ve been with Things!

What’s Missing?

The best thing is, Things is not a static product that’s not getting any new features. On the contrary, Cultured Code has several new features in the pipeline for Things on all supported platforms. These include support for repeating tasks on Things for iPhone and support for Cloud sync, both of which are currently in development and planed for updates in the near future. We currently don’t know what the cloud sync will offer; will it include a Things webapp, or just be a syncing option between the versions versions of Things? I personally a Things webapp is in the works, but either which way, these updates will add welcome new features to Things’ already rich feature set. If you’d like to see what else Cultured Code has up their sleeve, check their Status Board which shows upcoming features and products like an arrival board at an airport.

What About PC Users?

Many iPhone and iPod Touch users like myself use our iOS devices along with Windows PCs. For the most part, this works great, but with apps like Things, you miss out on the included support for Mac apps. However, in this case I don’t find this to be a major problem. I’d love to use Things on Windows 7, and will be very excited if it is ever released for Windows, but for now, managing my tasks on iOS only works great. All of your to-do list data is backed up to your PC whenever you sync with iTunes, so your data is still safe. As long as you’re wanting to manage tasks only on iOS, this is still a great tool and you won’t be missing out on too much.

Conclusion

Things is a very powerful and versatile task manager that makes it easy to organize all of your tasks and still stay on schedule with them. It’s amazingly simple to use considering how much power it offers. I have been using Things as my primary to-do list and project manager for the past weeks, and it’s definitely helped me stay on track and kept me from forgetting important assignments. I’m looking forward to seeing what the Cloud Sync solutions turns out like, and will review it when it’s out. Even as it is now, though, Things is a great tool for keeping up with everything you need to do. It’s more expansive than most other to-do list apps, but it’s also much more powerful. If you’re curious but not yet sure, check out the Things website and watch the video of it in action to get a better feel if it’s the task manager you need to stay sane, on track, and organized!

Our Rating: 9/10

Download Things for iPhone from the App Store | $9.99

Things for iPhone and iPod Touch

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Review: The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun

By Matthew Guay on December 1, 2010 in Books

Have you ever wondered what the famous inventers had that made them different than you? Are the technological marvels of our days something greater than we, ordinary humans we are, could ever be capable of producing? The Myths of Innovation is a fascinating book by Scott Berkun that digs through the history of invention and brings out the common misconceptions about the process of innovation.

After first reminding us that the word Innovation means “significant positive change” and is thus not something that ordinary services or products display, Berkun then shows you how many of the “innovations” of today are simply the result of centuries of smaller advances. He uncovers the myths behind many famous creative moments, and shows us that there’s no magical trick to invention. Rather, the inventive and creative people that we eulogize simply worked and worked, putting their best effort with the cumulative advances of civilization into something we’d use today.

I found this book to be a very enjoyable history of the major milestones of invention throughout history. History is the best tool for teaching us from other’s mistakes and progresses, and this book helps expose where our folktales often stray from the true way breakthroughs were discovered. After arming them with this knowledge, Berkun inspires readers to go and keep striving instead of waiting around for the mythical creative spark. Whether you’re simply curious about the process behind invention and true innovation, or want to be inspired to go out and create something yourself, this is an entertaining and educational book you’ll enjoy.

Our Rating: 10/10

Purchase The Myths of Innovation from O’Reilly Press [$14.99 eBook/$17.99 print]

Purchase The Myths of Innovation from Amazon.com [$9.99 Kindle eBook/$11.00 print]

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Window Clippings 3 | Aero Screenshots the Way They’re Meant to be

By Matthew Guay on November 29, 2010 in Featured, PC Software

So you want to show off the latest app on your blog or help your sibling figure out what menu they’re supposed to be opening on a program. The handy Prt Scr key should be your answer, but unfortunately, it doesn’t take very good shots of the Aero interface in Windows 7 or Vista. Today let’s look at the latest version of Window Clippings that was just released today and see how easy it can be to make your screenshots look professional and modern.

Window Clippings was one of the first screenshot apps that was designed to capture the full Aero glass and shadows interface in screenshots. You can use it to capture shots of windows, menus, or even a free-form selection quickly and easily.

Getting Started

Window Clippings is simple to install and use. Just run the installer and accept the license as normal.

Launch Window Clippings after it’s installed, select the About tab, then enter your license key. If you don’t have a license yet, you can run it as a trial but all of your shots will include a watermark on the bottom.

Now you can tweak your settings to make Window Clippings work just like you like. The UI has been fully updated in Window Clippings 3, so if you’ve already used a previous version you’ll be pleased how nice and easy to use the new settings dialog is. From the Actions window, you can choose what you want Window Clippings to do after you take a screenshot. It can automatically save shots to disk, copy them to the clipboard, send them to OneNote or Paint.NET or more.

You can also choose from capture options that let you include your mouse pointer, remove font smoothing, and more.

Taking Great Screenshots

To take a screenshot with Window Clippings, just press your Prt Scr key or click the Create Screenshot button in the Window Clippings window. Your desktop will fade out similar to the way it did when opening the Shutdown dialog in XP. Now click on the windows you want to capture, or just click and drag to draw a rectangle selection. To capture multiple windows, hold down the Ctrl key while selecting windows.

Or, if you want to capture a free-form area, hold down the Alt key while drawing with your mouse. Once you’ve satisfied with your selection, press Enter to save your capture.

If you already know which window you need to capture, you can simply select its name from the Window Clippings app and snap it directly.

For the truly geeky, you can even capture screenshots directly from the command prompt with a variety of parameters. Check out the Window Clippings blog post on Command line capture for more info.

The Results:

No matter what you need to capture, Window Clippings makes your shots look just like they did on your screen when you shot them. This shot was taken with a background image set and windows right against the taskbar, but Window Clippings still captured the full transparency and shadows of the aero preview and tooltip.

Just to demonstrate how flexible these screenshots are, here’s the same shot on top of two background images in Paint.NET. Notice the beautiful transparency makes it look like the preview was running on this background!

No need to layer your screenshots in an image editor afterwards, though; Window Clippings can capture all the windows you select at once if you wish.

It works great for freeform screenshot too. Notice that freeform and rectangle clips won’t include drop shadows, as Window Clippings only includes the Aero shadows on windows and menus. No matter what shape you capture, it’ll look great with PNG transparency and smoothing on the curved areas.

Window Clippings works great for capturing menus; just hold the Ctrl key down while selecting all the elements you want to appear in your shots. However, we did have some trouble with menus closing after pressing Enter but before the shot was saved. To alleviate this problem, you may want to enable delayed capture. Then, if your menu closes, re-open it before the time’s up and your screenshot is fully captured.

If you ever need to change your settings again, just right-click the tray icon and select Open Window Clippings. Alternately, double-click on the tray icon to take a quick screenshot.

Conclusion

Window Clippings runs on Windows 7 and Vista, and is available for download for $35 per user. If you still need to take screenshots in XP, you’ll also receive a license for Window Clippings 2.1 which works similar but will also run on Windows XP. Also, if you’ve bought a Window Clippings 2 license previously, you’ll be receiving a free upgrade key for Window Clippings 3 soon.

This app is cheaper than many competing screenshot tools such as SnagIt, and captures screenshots of modern apps better than most other apps we’ve tried. I did experience a few issues in testing, such as screenshots that included the edge of another app on the bottom, but in general it did this less than most alternate screenshot tools. It’s also extremely lightweight, using less than 2Mb of ram when running in the taskbar, so you won’t need to worry about keeping it running.

Window Clippings 3 is definitely one of the best screenshot tools in my opinion, and the only thing that SnagIt still does better is that you can edit and catalog your screenshots directly in the app. But when you can auto-save and directly edit screenshots in Paint.NET with Window Clippings, there’s not much to miss. Give the trial a shot, and then get a license if you’re needing a great way to take high quality Aero screenshots.

Our Rating: 9/10

Download and Purchase Window Clippings 3

Get Started with Window Clippings 3 Tutorials

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TaskForce | All of Your Todos on One Page on Your iPhone

By Matthew Guay on November 23, 2010 in iOS Apps

You’ve got things to do, you need to remember them, and you don’t want to have to fiddle with 3 dozen settings to get them saved on your iOS device. Ever had this situation? Today we’re going to look at TaskForce, a new, simple to-do list app that lets you jot down your tasks, mark them off when done, and get on with your life.

Clean & Quick

TaskForce is a simple and elegant app that lets you focus on your to-dos without worrying about extras. It uses a stylish paper on wood interface and simple controls that make it easy to get things done.

Entering a task is quick and easy. Just press the plus button in the right corner and start typing in your task. If you need to edit an existing task, just tap on the task’s words and start editing. No extra settings, tags, or folders to mess with … just your tasks. As your list fills up, you can drag the paper section to scroll up or down and see all of your tasks.

Tap the circle on a task or swipe to the right over it to mark it off as finished. Alternately, swipe to the left to delete a task. Do note that TaskForce doesn’t automatically remove your completed tasks, so you may prefer to simply swipe the the left and delete finished tasks if you don’t need to be reminded about them.

The Edit button on the top lets you quickly delete several of your tasks or rearrange them to the order you want. And that’s it … TaskForce gives you your tasks and the basic tools you need to use with them in a simple and elegant interface.

Conclusion

I found TaskForce to be a refreshing change from the competition: it’s a to-do list that just does to-dos, perfectly. TaskForce is also much cheaper than many competing apps, and at just $0.99 it’s a great companion app to help you stay on track of your most pressing to-dos. If you’ve been overwhelmed with the features and tools in other to-do list apps, you’ll find TaskForce refreshingly simple. Or, even if you use a more advanced to-do list too, you may find TaskForce helpful as a simple to-do list for quick tasks you don’t need to schedule. After all, if you’re spending all of your time organizing your tasks, you’ll never actually do them!