Need a lightweight, easy to use tool to keep up with all the things you need to do each day? Although dozens of apps we use daily can be great for storing tasks we need to do, sometimes a dedicated app that just shows what you need to do is best. One app that does this really well is GeeTeeDee, a new to-do list app for Windows. Let’s take a look at how you can use GeeTeeDee to stay on top of what you need to do.
Getting Started
First, you’ll need to setup GeeTeeDee on your computer. You can download it either as an installable app or a portable app. If you want to only use it on one computer, simply select the Desktop Installer and install as normal. Otherwise, if you’d like to keep up with your tasks on multiple Windows computers, download GeeTeeDee Portable. Then, extract the files and save them to your flash drive or in your Dropbox so your tasks will automatically sync between your computer. I actually have an Apps folder in Dropbox just to save portable applications so they can sync between my desktop and netbook.
When you first start GeeTeeDee, you’ll be presented with a blank Inbox to store your tasks. You can click the link on the front page to add some default tasks, or just click New at the bottom to start adding a new task.
You can add a name, notes, and a due date to tasks. Once you’re done adding a task, click elsewhere and it will be condensed to just the title. Double-click a task to view or edit the due date or notes, or double-click in any blank area to add a new task.
If you’d like an even more streamlined interface, click the Compact button on the bottom. This will give you just a list of your tasks without the sidebar on the left. As you finish tasks, just check them off to show their completed. You can then click Cleanup to remove finished tasks from the list.
Organizing Tasks
Whether you’re trying to follow a plan such as Getting Things Done or you’re simply wanting to keep up with your tasks in an orderly manner, you’ll want to organize your tasks into groups. GeeTeeDee starts with a default Inbox, but you can double-click or right-click and select Add group on the left sidebar to add a new group to organize your tasks.
Select an icon for your group, then enter a name and click Ok to add the new group..
Now you can create new tasks in the group, or move existing tasks from your inbox into your new group. And, of course, you can make as many groups as you need to keep up with everything you need to do.
One complaint I’ve had with many to-do list programs is that you can’t move your task around easily. GeeTeeDee makes it very simple to move your tasks; simply click and drag a task to reorder them. You can drag them to the position you want in your task list, or drag them to a different group. This makes it easy to simply create all your new tasks in the Inbox, then sort them later when you have time. Now you can easily keep track of all your tasks in an orderly, efficient, and elegant manner.
Pros and Cons
Does GeeTeeDee include all the features you need right now? Here’s a quick overview of where it’s great and where it still needs work, though hopefully we’ll see new features added soon in upcoming updates:
No webapp or mobile device support (though mobile apps are planned)
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Conclusion
Could you just use your favorite note app like Evernote, or the task list built into Outlook or Gmail? Sure you could. But with a dedicated task management tool, you’ll be sure to not miss anything important, while keeping yourself focused on what needs done. GeeTeeDee lets you do this in an elegant and simple way, and we’re excited to see such a solid competitor to Things or OmniFocus on Windows. Sometimes an app comes along, and you wonder how you got along without it before: for me, GeeTeeDee was one of those apps. It’s my favorite new Windows app, and has helped me stay on top of all of my work and college tasks. Hopefully future updates and mobile apps will fill in the current gaps, but until then, it’s still a great simple way to manage the things you need to do from your PCs.
Are you looking for a great theme for your new site or blog, but can’t quite decide on which one? Here’s how you can try out any WooThemes WordPress theme for free to see how it works before you purchase it for your site.
WooThemes is one of the most popular WordPress theme developers, and they have themes that cover almost any use. From a simple and stylish blog theme to a customized frontpage for your new app to a full-blown real estate site, WooThemes has nearly 100 themes that you can choose from, including some very nice free themes. Actually, the problem usually isn’t finding a theme that will work great for your site; the problem is deciding which one will work best for your site. Most WordPress themes let you preview them before your purchase or download, but this doesn’t let you see how easy or difficult they will be to use and customize.
WooThemes takes this to the next level, and lets you try out all of their WordPress themes on your own temporary blog for free before you purchase a theme. Let’s get started and see how you can play with WooThemes for free.
The WooThemes Playground
To testdrive any WooTheme for free, you’ll need to register for the WooThemes Playground. You can signup at this link, or from the link on the Try Before You Buy link on any theme’s page.
Before you can get started, you’ll need to make a new account. Simply enter the username of your choice and your email address, and click Sign up.
Now, enter a name and title for your test site, and click Signup. This will create a temporary blog for you that will run for 24 hours, but the great thing is, it includes every WooTheme available so you can try them out on this test site.
Moments later you’ll receive an email with a link to activate your test blog, so click the link to activate it.
Once it’s activated, you’ll receive a new email with the password for your site and a link to login. Click the link, then login with your username and the password you received in the email.
Once you login, you’ll be greeted with the default WordPress dashboard. The only difference is, this WordPress install includes every WooTheme available. To get started trying out themes, click the Appearance button on the left sidebar.
Trying Out WooThemes
Your test site’s Appearance page will include every available WooTheme for you to try. Just click the Activate link under the theme you want to try to see how it looks.
Once the theme is activated, it will automatically open the theme’s preferences page. Alternately, you can click the new Woo button with your theme’s name on the left sidebar to open it. Now you can try for yourself and see how easy WooThemes are to customize.
Some of the themes will have tons of options. Here you see the theme options for Estate, WooTheme’s real estate site theme, which lets you easily list properties, agents, maps, and more.
You can even try out Canvas, WooTheme’s increasingly popular framework theme that lets you design your own unique theme without messing with code. Canvas is an especially good theme to try out in the WooThemes playground, as it’s hard to know if you’ll really like it until you can try tweaking it yourself.
Take Your Customizations To Your Own Blog
Once you’ve tweaked a theme to perfection, click your test site’s name on the top of the dashboard to preview your work.
If you like your customizations, you can save them and import them to your site once you’ve purchased your WooTheme. Go back to your test site’s WordPress dashboard, and click Framework Options under your theme’s name.
Select the Export Options tab in the WooThemes panel that opened, and copy the code in the textbox. Now save this code in a safe place, as you’ll need it to import your settings on your site.
Now, head back to WooTheme’s main site, purchase and download the theme you were trying out (make sure you purchase the same theme you were using), and then install it on your own WordPress site. Then, open the Framework Settings page on your own site as before, and this time select the Import Options tab. Paste the code you copied from your test site into the Import box, click Save, and your customizations will be live on your own site. Now That’s a great way to try out and then use a theme!
The WooThemes Playground is a great resource, and I was very impressed with their backend features after trying them out this way. It’s a great way to see what their themes offer before you make a purchase, so give it a try and let us know which WooTheme is your favorite. Clinch and Canvas are my personal favorites at the moment ;) .
AutoCAD 2011 includes a beautiful UI with a very nicely customized Office 2010 style ribbon. Everyone’s not a fan of the ribbon interface, though, so here’s how you can switch AutoCAD back to a traditional File menu without loosing any AutoCAD 2011 functionality.
The AutoCAD Ribbon Interface
By default, when you first run AutoCAD 2011, you’ll notice a prominent Office 2010 style ribbon interface, complete with an A button to access AutoCAD options and more.
In fact, AutoCAD improves on the default Office ribbon style with very helpful tooltips that explain features and functions when you mouse-over an element and wait a few moments.
The AutoCAD menu also includes some unique features, including a search box that makes it quick to find any function in the ribbon. These features are all helpful at getting new users used to the ribbon interface.
Switch Back to the File Menu
If you still can’t get used to the new ribbon interface, don’t despair. You can easily re-activate the traditional file menu interface so you know where everything is as before. To do this, click the drop-down menu on the top left beside the AutoCAD button and select AutoCAD Classic (or AutoCAD LT Classic if you’re using AutoCAD LT as we are).
Moments later, your ribbon will change to the traditional file menu and toolbar setup, including toolbars on the sides and pop-out palettes as before.
Menus and toolbars work just as you would expect from previous versions.
Even with the File menu classic UI, you’ll still have the new AutoCAD button so you can take advantage of the search box to find functions without wasting time looking through menus.
The File menu interface also looks great if you’re still using XP or are using the Windows Classic theme on Vista or 7.
This tip should help you stay productive, no matter which edition of AutoCAD you’re using. Once you’re used to AutoCAD 2011, you just might want to spend a little time with the newer ribbon interface, as I think it can help you work faster and be more productive than before. Either which way, it’s great that you can switch back to the File menu interface if you want; in Office 2010, you’re stuck with the Ribbon interface unless you install a 3rd party tool like UBitMenu. That said, if you’d like to get the file menu back in Office 2010, that’s a great tool to try out, too. That way, you can use the latest software with the interfaces you’re used to!
Whether you're looking for a way to make friends, find the current time anywhere on earth, create documents, entertain yourself or your kids, or almost anything else, there's likely a webapp for it. Mobile devices and apps get most of the attention in the tech press today, but webapps are an equally exciting field. From 37signals to Google to independent developers you've never heard of, there are thousands of new webapps avilable online for you to try out. There's tons of great ones, but unfortunately there's also quite a few that aren't very nice.
If you'd like to quickly find out about the greatest new webapps that are stylish, functional, and fun to use, then check out GreatWebApps.com. Great Web Apps is a new site from Haloweb and Techinch that showcases a new webapp each weekday. We've recently featured apps to help you learn to program in Ruby, read books to your kids, chat with your colleagues, login to all your online accounts easily, convert icons, and more. And it's all presented on an easy to read page that lets you quickly scan the latest webapps and find ones that interest you.
Be sure to check out GreatWebApps.com, subscribe to its RSS feed, or follow @gr8webapps to keep up with the latest and greatest webapps. If you have a favorite webapp, be sure to submit it as well and we might feature it in a future post. And, as usual, I'll keep writing tutorials here at Techinch to help you get the most out of these webapps and other tech tools. Enjoy!
Whether you’re running a small, personal blog or a major news site, WordPress is a great platform to build your website from. It currently powers over 8% of all sites across the ‘net, including Techinch.com, HowtoGeek.com, and many other sites you likely regularly read. You can run WordPress on your own server or hosting account, or get started with a free blog on WordPress.com, which is a very popular way to get started blogging. Microsoft announced recently that Windows Live Spaces is shutting down and that all Spaces blogs will be migrated over to WordPress.com. If you have a Spaces blog and are nervous about the transition, or are just wanting to start a new blog and aren’t sure where to start, here’s some articles I’ve written on HowtoGeek that should make the transition smooth and seemless for you.
You’ll want to make sure your readers can easily find and remember your blog, and a custom domain name is one of the best ways to do this. Plus, if you ever move your blog, you can always easily move your domain name … after all, Techinch.com started out as a WordPress.com blog, and I was able to easily move my content to a new hosting account and redirect my old blog’s address here with this trick.
Whether you’re using WordPress.com or have WordPress installed on your own hosting account, here’s how you can easily post quality content to your blog from anywhere
WordPress.com doesn’t just have to be about blogs … the P2 theme (which you can use for free) lets you setup a message board or chat-style site to keep your group in touch
And if you need more help getting started with WordPress or moving your old blog, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to help. Or, if you recently moved your Spaces blog to WordPress.com, feel free to leave your blog’s address in a comment so we can check it out.
Did you just notice that the Administrative Tools folder is missing from your Start Menu, or can you not find crucial tools such as Event Viewer, Performance Monitor, or the Advance Firewall quickly from your start menu search? Here’s how to add it back in 10 seconds.
[box type="info"]This demo was done on Windows 7 Professional, but it works the exact same in all versions of Vista and Windows 7, and is almost the exact same in Windows XP.
Get your Administrative Tools
Right click on your start menu, and select Properties.
Alternately, you can click any empty area of the start menu itself, and select Properties.
Now, select the Start Menu tab, and click Customize.
Scroll down to the System administrative tools section, and choose whether you want to display it on the All Programs menu or on the front of the Start Menu as well. I personally keep it in the All Programs menu, but the choice is yours! Click Ok to save your settings.
Now, when you open the All Programs part of your Start Menu, you’ll see the Administrative Tools folder you were looking for, with all of your missing tools! You can also now quickly find anything in this folder from the Start Menu search.
Alternately, if you chose to add it to your Start Menu directly, here’s how it will look.
Now you’ve got quick access to your administrative tools back in your Start Menu where it belongs. This should be the default setting in Windows, especially in the Professional and Ultimate editions, but for some reason, it’s hidden by default. At any rate, it’s easy to get it back the way it should be. Enjoy!
Have you ever tried to use an Outlook plugin, and received a cryptic error message that you couldn’t resolve? Chances are, your PST file may be corrupt. Recently I was testing out Boomerang for Outlook, and couldn’t get it to work without crashing. Finally after some time of removing other addins, I was able to quickly solve the problem by just repairing my PST file. Here’s how you can do it so you can get back to Outlook quicker and keep all your data intact.
First, exit Outlook, then open the Run command (press the Windows key plus R on your keyboard) and enter the following, depending on which version of Outlook you have installed:
Outlook 2010:
32-bit version of Windows: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\scanpst.exe
64-bit version of Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\scanpst.exe
Outlook 2007 and earlier:
Enter the same, substituting Office 14 with Office 12 for Outlook 2007, or Office 11 for Outlook 2003.
This will open the Microsoft Outlook Inbox Repair Tool. Make sure it has your correct Outlook file listed, then click Start.
Moments later, the tool will inform you if it found errors. If it did, click Repair to fix the file. It is likely a good idea to let it make a backup of your file first, as well.
This may take a few minutes, and the application may appear to not be responding, but just wait and it should be fine.
Once it’s finished, you’ll see a Repair complete notification. Click Ok to close it, and then run Outlook as before.
This time, Outlook should run faster and your addins should quit having errors. If they’re still having problems, now it’s time to start investigating which one of your addins has gone rouge!
Got any great Outlook tips? Share them with us below!
It’s been an exciting year for Techinch.com, going from a brand-new blog in January to having over 10,000 in a little over 8 months. We’ve outgrown our first hosting plan, tweaked the theme, joined a new ad network, and more! Here’s some of our recent changes:
New Hosting
Web hosting can be an infinitely frustrating thing to get figured out. There are thousands of hosting service, and for every one you can find reviews that say they’re the best service in the world and even more that say they’re the worst service in the world. This makes it almost impossible to find out if a hosting service will be really good.
Techinch.com experienced outages, often for several hours a week, almost ever since it was launched, so when I received an email from our old host saying that the site was using too much system resources on a shared account, I knew it was time to look for a new hosting service. I considered several, all of which were personally recommended to me by collegues and friends, including Media Temple, Rackspace, and DreamHost, as well as several hosted services such as Page.ly and Squarespace. In the end, I ended up going with DreamHost, and it has worked out great so far. Their support has been first-rate, we’ve had almost no downtime, and the site is loading faster as well. I plan to review DreamHost’s service soon, but if you’re looking for webhosting, go ahead and give them a try. During my search for a webhost, though, the support was great from many of the companies, and Media Temple especially does an awesome job at Twitter support. If I ever need a more advanced virtual server, and can afford it, I definitely would give Media Temple a try.
New Ad Network
Ever since I started Techinch.com, I wanted to be able to run ads on it that were useful, stylish, and still paid. I was inspired by The Deck ads, which I’d noticed on FeedDemon, 37signals’ Signal vs. Noise blog, and Daring Fireball, among other apps and sites, and wanted to do something similar on my sites.
I was thus very excited that Techinch was accepted in the Yoggrt ad network in August. You’ll notice the Yoggrt ads on the top right corner of Techinch’s sidebar … just a rectangle image ad, with a text description underneath. The ads look very nice, and are often for services and products you’ll find interesting. I find myself looking at the ads to see what new awesome products are being advertised, which is so much better than Adsense which left you wondering what old, stale junk was being advertised. We’re proud to be part of the Yoggrt ad network, and hope to grow together.
By the way, if you happen to be looking for a great way to advertise your new webapp or stylish, modern PC app, Yoggrt would be a great network to run your ads on. It currently gets over 1 million impressions per month across the entire network, which includes a variety of sites including T3chH3lp, another awesome tech site you should check out if you haven’t already.
New Site Features
Although the site itself hasn’t changed much over the past few months, I’m constantly making little tweaks to the site that should make it more fun and useful. Some of the changes include:
WordPress 3.0 … Techinch started out with WordPress 2.9.whatever, and changing over to WP 3.0 was a breeze. WordPress is still the best CMS available in my opinion, and 3.0 just made it even better.
Awesome new buttons and content boxes, with more to come, all thanks to Elegant Themes’ new Shortcodes integration. They’re easy to work with, and only another reason I think Elegant Themes is one of the best WordPress and Tumblr theme subscriptions available. You can see the buttons and content boxes in action on the Digging into WordPress 3 review.
Social media integration. You can Like or Tweet any post from the Facebook and Twitter buttons on the bottom of every post, or remember the post with Evernote. If you have a favorite social network you’d like to have a quick share button for, let me know.
Disqus comments, which is the best comment systems I've used. Leave a comment on this post and test it out ;)
There’s more to come, too. Stay tuned for more awesome content, tips, reviews, and giveaways from Techinch over the upcoming months! And thanks for reading; you’re the reason this site exists, and I never forget that. If there’s anything you’d like to see reviewed more or need to learn how to use, please mail and let me know or send me a tweet or DM, and I’ll try to get it covered.
Have you ever read an article online that you’d like to make sure you remember? Several months ago I wrote about how the Evernote Chrome addon with Site Memory had entirely changed how I use Evernote. In fact, now I use Evernote as the primary way I bookmark sites, since I can tag the bookmarks, include clips from the page, and easily find all my favorite pages in one site. The only problem is, the Chrome web clipper only works in Chrome, so if you’re browsing the ‘net on friend’s computer or at a library you might not be able to use it.
Last week, Evernote made it easier again to clip content from the internet with the new Evernote Site Memory button. This is a new button that web publishers can add to their pages to let readers easily clip their content. Techinch was one of the first sites to integrate the new Evernote button, so now you can easily save any article you read here to your Evernote notebook.
Here’s how it works. Say you read our article on student discounts on Office 2010, and wanted to make sure to not lose the info. So, scroll to the bottom of the article, and click the Remember button with the elephant icon.
This will open the Evernote web clipper in a smaller popup window. If you’re not already signed into Evernote, enter your username and password, and click Sign in. Alternately, if you’ve never used Evernote before, click Sign up now and create a new account.
Now, you can edit the title of the note, add tags, select the notebook you wish to store this note in, and add a text note of your own.
When adding tags to web clips, you’ll be able to quickly select from tags you’ve already used as you start typing.
Once you’re finished adding the info you want, click Clip. Evernote will then prepare the note, which may take a few moments, depending on the size of the page you clipped.
You’ll then see a small preview of the note in the window. You can now just close the window and go back to browsing, or you can choose to view the note in Evernote online. Your note will automatically be synced to any devices you use Evernote on, so you could alternately check your favorite Evernote app.
Here’s the note in Evernote web. Note that it included all the content from the article, including images and links, so you can now find the info you needed quicker than ever. You can also click Go to source to look the page back up.
Now, let’s say you came across our review of Evernote Essentials, and wanted to save it as well. Just click the Remember button as before. This time, you’ll notice a button on the bottom of the web clipper that says Clips from Techinch.com.
Click this to see all the notes you’ve clipped from Techinch. Now you can easily go to the other pages you’ve clipped, or open the notes about them in Evernote.
You’ll see the same Site Memory in the Chrome Web clipper, so this will keep all of your notes and clips available whether you’re at home or in an internet café on the other side of the globe, using your laptop, a public computer, or your smartphone!
If you’re running your own website and would like to integrate Evernote into your articles, check out the Evernote button builder as well as their detailed instructions for integrating the button with WordPress and Tumblr sites. If you run into a problem adding it to your site, leave a comment below and I’ll try to help you get it working! Or, if you’ve already added it to your site, leave the link below so we can check it out!
And don’t forget … whenever you want to remember an article you read on Techinch, click the Remember button at the bottom. Feel free to tweet or Like the article on Facebook, too!
Regular readers may have noticed that I haven't posted my HowtoGeek.com articles on Techinch lately. This isn't for lack of articles; I wrote more article than ever last month, though I'm doing less during the semester. Actually, I simply haven't posted them because I haven't found the time. So, if you'd like to keep up with all my HowtoGeek.com writing, be sure to follow me on Twitter ... I retweet all the article I write, so you shouldn't miss anything.
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