SJ Cuthbertson » google

Contact management

Stuart — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:05:29 +0000

I’m looking into a decent way of looking after contacts (ideally, combining phone numbers, addresses (where present) and email, plus the ability for multiples of above, notes, etc). I need to be able to access it from anywhere – either on a computer, or via the Palm address book on my PDA (i.e. in that case it needs to sync to Palm Desktop). In all cases I want a fair degree of openness (at least CSV import and export, or other “open” standards). Current possibilities are:

Google Spreadsheet
Google Mail contacts
Flexadex
AirSet with Palm Desktop
A TiddlyWiki with Twab, possibly on my PDA if I can get a free PalmOS browser.

I haven’t yet tried any of these properly, save GMail contacts (sort-of). AirSet seems to be the best option so far – my PDA is generally the most failsafe method of “having stuff with me whenever I need it”. This is mainly a note to myself, but if anybody has other suggestions, info on the above ideas, or wants to test one of the systems for me, do please go ahead, and leave an appropriate comment. I just don’t have time to sort out a new contact system at the moment, but I’ll come back to it…

In other news, SeeqPod is really cool. So is the related Songerize.

Notes on gOS

Stuart — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:22:44 +0000

I got around to downloading the ISO of gOS the other day, and had a look. It started up AOK, and reasonably quickly for a liveCD (especially given I’m still running on just ~~512kB~~ 512MB RAM), which is reassuring given that it’s basically just Ubuntu under the hood. I wasn’t massively enamoured of the look-n-feel, partly because I suspect the graphics were not one of the things on the to-do list for their first release (well, that’s probably a good thing!). But it was also my first encounter with Enlightenment desktop – although difficult to place, it didn’t really feel as nice as KWin, Compiz or Beryl; but the OS X-like app-launcher bar at the bottom was something I might try to replicate in my Kubuntu installation. I think it might have been due to the GNOMEyness as well. Basically, it works and feels OK, IF you’re more used to Ubuntu than Kubuntu

Of course, what’s really interesting about gOS as an OS (rather than simply as a component of the now-famous $200 Wal-Mart system) is it’s total reliance on web applications, specifically Google ones. I was a bit disappointed, to be honest, with how little they’ve integrated these into the experience – the icons that relate to web rather than hard-drive based apps (all except for media player and config utils, IIRC) simply open a bog-standard Firefox window at that page, rather than integrating as if it were a desktop app. Anybody could do this – sure, it’d take a little tweaking in places, but for me, it’s far easier to have one FF window open right from the start of my session, with all the apps/pages I use the most in a bookmarks toolbar, and just go from there. Being Linux, all the other aspects of it could be fairly easily recreated by apt-get downloading the relevant things, so gOS is certainly not going to be replacing my Kubuntu partition any time soon. It’s a brilliant concept, and just right for a dirt-cheap PC bundle that should, hopefully, increase mainstream awareness of Linux in the US – but poorly executed.

One thing I will say for it – Firefox sure loads fast. Possibly just because it has no extensions – but I think it loads even faster than a clean install would on my machine. Anybody know what they’ve tweaked?

gOS + Puppy Linux = ?

Stuart — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 17:59:24 +0000

If you’ve not heard, gOS is an Ubuntu-based linux distro tailored to integrate the Google web applications we all know and love into a desktop experience – the nearest thing to a Google OS so far (though, despite the similarity of names, gOS is not affliated with Google to the best of my knowledge). They’ve also brought out a gOS-powered $200 PC to Walmarts all across the US, which is a Good Thing. Of course, since the OS relies on web-based applications for most day-to-day tasks, it’s quite lightweight – though still a full CD’s worth.

Puppy Linux is a very lightweight linux distro designed to be run from USB memory sticks. It still currently uses traditional desktop applications, though.

I have acquired a (free) 512Mb memory stick, of a pretty decent build-quality and a very keychain-able size (more on how and when will be explained in a future post, once I have a bit more to add to it), and want something to do with it. I already have a similar-sized one which I use for general carrying of files between home, the department, etc, and running a few Portable Apps such as a customised Firefox, when I’m out and about. I need to read up on how exactly to make one’s own USB-bootable flash-stored OS, but I think I see a holiday project here

Brief update on GTD/organisation stuff/Gmail

Stuart — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:42:10 +0000

To claim I’ve sorted all my organisational issues when batch-posting at 2.30am would be slightly, erm, silly. But, further to my various mentions of GTD over the summer, I have been trying to implement a GTD-based system on my PDA using just the in-built apps, and it basically works. My to-do list has context-based categories (@email, @pc, @pet [peterhouse], etc etc) as well as a “wait” category which I set any “waiting on” things to, with a date by which I should have followed it up. Someday/maybe things go into a list in the memos, which also has a few context categories (e.g., @blog, where the idea for this post was lurking for the last few days) and a “lists” category, including shopping, items for agendas/email lists I manage, money I’m owed…etc etc. Most other notes are deliberately temporary, and get transfered to textfiles or otherwise on my PC if I need them for longer-term reference.

I’ve stopped using Gmail specifically as a GTD tool, and rely solely on my PDA as “trusted system”. I am just starting to star emails that contain action items, mainly things that would just get an @email context anyway, so I can look through my emails without getting out the PDA, and still accomplish things. This kinda-sorta goes against the bucket-philosophy of GTD, but it works for me. I have really gotten on top of the InboxZero strategy: once I’ve got used to starring, I will always be able to process my inbox to empty every time I check. As it is, I normally leave one or two emails in the inbox that don’t fit into one of my vaguely project-esque labels, but they never stay there for more than a few days.

An interesting development that the geekier among my readers will have heard of is that Gmail has now released IMAP support on all accounts, including Apps. I debated for a while switching back to Thunderbird, which can be customised into a very nice Gmail client; I initially moved to Gmail because I needed a long-term email solution, and because of that, I waved goodbye (with a tear in my eye) to TB. However, now I’ve got used to The Gmail Way, and their web interface, I can’t see any reason to bother with TB: it’s just another application to have open, and my desktop only has so much RAM (even more of a concern on my ancient ubuntu/fluxbox-based laptop, which I struggled to read mail on via TB all summer). I don’t want to know every 5 seconds if I have a new message or not, so having to consciously browse to my Apps account is a good thing; and I get the exact-same interface here (my room) or on one of the departmental computers, or indeed anywhere else, which means I can productively check email away from my desk. This helps in many other ways – on a shared computer I have much fewer distractions, so concentrate on processing all my mail, and then actually getting on with tasks.