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Picking a New Time Tracker

The time tracker I've used for two years is going out of business. The publishers of Log My Task — at that link, at least for the time being — are suspending the product. So I've been in the hunt for a new method to track my time.

I find that even when I don't need to report my time to a colleague or a client, it's still helpful for me to log my time and note what I've been doing. Sometimes, I return to the data to analyze it. But the real motivation is getting me focused on a productive task by forcing me to list what I'm doing. (Anyone who's been part of Weight Watchers knows the zen of tracking consumption of food.)

To cut to the chase, I've chosen Yast as my new time-tracking tool. Before I explain why, here's a quick list of the others I tried during the past three or four weeks since receiving notice about the imminent demise of Log My Task.

• Harvest is a time-tracking and invoicing tool promoted in partnership with Shoeboxed, a receipt-tracking tool I already use a lot (partially because it's based in Durham, North Carolina, and was founded by some Duke University alums). I found Harvest to be hard to use, and strangely unable to record the time of day when I did tasks. The workflow of recording work in Harvest didn't comport with my personal workflow. It made me feel out of phase with myself.
• JumboTask is a promising all-in-one small business tool. It offers time tracking, small business accounting, sales funnel tracking, and more. Right now, it has a spartan interface, but its functionality is robust. For the SOHO market (small office/home office), JumboTask offers real possibilities. My concern is that I thought I caught JumboTask in a launch or pre-launch phase, judging by the paucity of reviews on the web. My personal review is that JumboTask is a comer. But I'm concerned that if it doesn't get off the ground, my entire operation (such as it is) is wrapped up in a beta software experiment. I didn't want to be a guinea pig.
• I almost settled for LessTimeSpent. It worked well for me, but also made it hard to note the actual time of day I worked on a task. However, it is published in conjunction with a sister product, LessAccounting, and I liked the look and feel of both of them.

What did it for Yast? The winning touch for me was the timeline ribbon across the top of the interface. It gives me the ability to see at a glance what (and for whom) I've been working on. I color-code my clients, including my in-house administration time and my business development time. Yast also has good reports built in. I've found I can slice and dice my time however I like, and if I dig around, Yast has the means to report and analyze time however I want.

Yast works on PCs and Macs, and it has mobile apps for the iOS (iPhone and iPad) as well as Android platforms.

One day, I might even find out what the name means.

By the way, I'm a Mac user, and I recommend putting online tools like these (the term, I think, is "SAAS" — meaning "software as a service") into the Fluid browser, which is designed to run one service at a time on Macs in a customizable environment. Fluid makes a website behave like a desktop application.

 

Game-changer in communications isn't Apple slate or Google phone. It's Skype on TV.

To me, the big news these days isn't the announcement of the new Google phone, or the hubbub over Apple's impending announcement, perhaps, of the iSlate.

Yes, the rise of the mobile screen is news, but also old news. What's interesting is also the rise of the big screen because of the announcement this week that Skype is going to be incorporated into new television sets.

The introduction of streaming video from the Internet onto television sets has already changed my house. I now stream Netflix movies onto my laptop, and even more importantly, via my blu-ray disc player onto an HD monitor.

Yesterday, I read in the New York Times that Skype is working to bring streaming video calls onto televisions from Panasonic and LG, with the minor additions of webcams and microphones suitable for the living room.

Remember the Western Electric Picturephones from the 1964-65 Worlds Fair in Queens, N.Y., or the videophone from 2001? (Refresh your memories here and here.) Skype is finally bringing it home — more specifically, to my home.

That's a communication change.

I'm a Mac, and Here's Why: 'It's All One Product'

Just before Christmas, the Boston Globe ran a story ["Where old-fashioned customer service meets edgy technology," Dec. 20, 2009, by D.C. Denison] that might be considered a puff piece for the bright, white, and translucent Apple Stores. But I found some insight in the article for why Apple technology tools have become a big part of my life.

The story recounts the development of Apple Stores. I've been a fan of the stores since visiting my first, in Indianapolis, about a year before I switched from PCs to Macs in 2006. The stores are an embodiment of the John Naesbitt "high tech/high touch" futurist call for successful businesses, which is also pretty much also the point of the Globe headline. Apple Stores are full of interesting people (and by this, I mean the staff, not the customers) who seemingly just want to help. They are empowered to give answers or get answers. They know their stuff.

When I visit Apple Stores for purchases, for browsing, for training, and especially for in-person technical support from the "geniuses" at the "Genius Bar," I feel like people give me credit for knowing a thing or two. I don't feel as if I'm being put down, and I don't feel as if the staff is so undertrained — as is often the case at other stores — that they are operating several rungs below me.

I also like making reservations for a Genius Bar time slot from my computer at home or inside the Apple Store.

But the true reason why I am an Apple Mac and iPhone fan, including hardware and software, comes at the end of the Globe's piece. It's all one system, one experience.

[A]t the Genius Bar, ... architect Dave Schatzle sat down for a session he was hoping would pay off short-term, as in immediately.

"It's a long story," Schatzle said as he presented his iPhone to Apple "genius" Nick Foh, "but let's just say that a cup of coffee fell off a shelf and splashed all over it."

A faint constellation of tiny, brown speckles gleamed from inside the display. The main controller was no longer responsive, Schatzle said.

Foh took the unit to a backroom workshop.

"It's in pretty bad shape on the inside," he said when he returned a few minutes later.

That was the bad news. The good news was that the information of his coffee-crippled phone could be transferred to a new unit, and since the phone was less than 3 months old, the store would replace it at no charge.

Schatzle looked surprised and relieved.

"The iPhone is cool, but this is really cool," he said, waving an arm in the direction of the Genius Bar.

"If this store wasn't here," Schatzle added, "then this iPhone wouldn't be that good. When you think about it, it's all one product."

I've had a dozen experiences just like this — without a newspaper reporter around. I think architect Dave Schatzle has it right: "It's all one product." And a good one at that.

Tools I Use: TweetDeck for iPhone

I don't Twitter or Facebook enough. But I know from posts like this on a blog I trust -- namely, TUAW.com -- that as I use these services more, TweetDeck for iPhone and for TweetDeck for Mac are the right tools for me to use to best read the traffic.

Below, the developer's video for the newest version of TweetDeck for iPhone:

UPDATE, just after posting: Another useful post is on Mashable.

Making Thoughts Apparent Globally is Obama's Internet Touch

UPDATED 11:30 a.m. 4 June 2009 -- I also liked receiving an email from David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, with a link to video of the speech. The White House is pushing this content out beautifully.

ORIGINAL POST:

It is thrilling to see how fluid President Obama and his team have become at making his thoughts and policies apparent to as many people as possible globally using the Internet. The latest piece of evidence comes from the White House's buildup to the Cairo speech today.

According to a New York Times report, "In a bid to make sure that Mr. Obama’s message will be heard, particularly among young people, the White House has mounted an unusually aggressive campaign, including a Web site created in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and English where people outside the United States can sign up to receive the speech via text message. The State Department is to translate the speech into at least 13 languages."

This is a great commitment. I like the idea of people worldwide debating the speech in its original text, even in a U.S.-disseminated official translation text, on their own phones or laptops today. Great move!

New Yorker Cover by iPhone 'Brushes' App Yet Another New Frontier for Publications

We used to mock the idea of painting by numbers.

But when an artist can paint a cover for one of the nation's premier magazines using a telephone handset, well, painting by numbers seems high tech. Even knowing the handset is a smartphone, and an iPhone at that, doesn't make the notion seem any less fantastic.

It also seems crass, but somehow the execution isn't. As explained in a New Yorker blog post, this week's cover was created by artist Jorge Columbo in an iPhone application called "Brushes."

I am surprised by the elegance, evocativeness, and artistry of the outcome.

Query: Looking for Archive of Front-Page Headlines

A friend is looking for a website that displays major news stories (or just headlines) from any day in the recent past. Surprisingly, I'm finding it hard to locate anything that does what I want. I liked the New York Times' front-page archive at its online store. But I found it hard to display the date I wanted. Newseum looked like it had a good archive. Alas, not searchable. Matthew Somerville of Dracos in the U.K., is putting together an archive of the BBC News home page. But it doesn't seem to have enough horsepower vis-a-vis depth of archives yet. But to solve my friend's need, it holds the most promise of anything I found this afternoon. Suppose I wanted to see the headlines from, oh, Sunday, November 18, 2007? Where should I go to find what was in the news that day? (I suspect the answer to this is going to be obvious and sort of a V-8 moment for me.)

LIFE Photo Archives on Google

Anyone who is of a certain age will get a thrill from the announcement that Google and Time Inc. are making photographs from Life Magazine's photo archive available on the web. This includes photos never published. But only photos owned by Time Inc. PaidContent.org reports on the economics of the Time-Google deal.

How to Make Microsite and Blog Domain Names Attractive and Snappy

I've noticed something about great domain names for microsites, including custom URLs for blogs.

1. They have a call to action, or
2. They say something about the user.

Those seem to be two tricks to devising a snappy and compelling URL.

Two articles from a recent issue of PRWeek illustrate this.

Online PR Featured in New Issue of Canright Communicates

Introducing: Canright Communicates for November-December, 2007.

We feature Barbara Rozgonyi, founder of CoryWest Media and blogger at Wired PR Works, who I introduced earlier. And a how-to piece on putting more interactivity into PDFs. Our milestones include showing off an ad for Blackman Killick atop the new Crain's Chicago Business list of largest accounting firms.

There's also a "web-only" piece -- as the MSM say -- that expands the discussion with Barbara Rozgonyi into blogging itself, as opposed to the wider topic of Online PR.

And no issue would be complete without the ever-popular Canright team's reading/watching/listening/viewing suggestions.