I’ve been using ThinkFree Premium as an online office organizer, I put all the docs related to a project in there, even if TFP doesn’t open them (like images or music).  Why?  Because they will be synced.  I can jump to another computer and get to them.  And if I don’t have TF or MS Office or eve OpenOffice on that machine…no problem, I have the U3 version for my flash drive.  Before I get to the "good stuff" read these excerpts from TJ Kang CEO of ThinkFree’s post on their blog:

…But it was also a serious wake-up call for all of us in the Office 2.0 realm. The reality is that all of us, even the most well-connected, sometimes find ourselves in a disconnected space, a place where there simply is no network we can access. While there’s great freedom in having your docs in the cloud and being able to access them from anywhere and share them with others, if you can’t get into the cloud you’re sunk. No, it’s worse than that; it’s more like being deprived of air. You expect it to be there; you depend on it; and when that connectivity is not there you’re drowning.

[snip]

So this year, while others were talking about form factors of various hardware devices and whether this size screen or that particular screen orientation was more conducive to the mobile worker, I felt obliged to point out that none of that really matters if you can’t get to your files. You need to make it easy for mobile workers to get to their files at any time ― and that means even when disconnected from the network. That means developing software that can elegantly and effortlessly keep whatever device you’re working on synchronized with the files in the cloud ― so that when you wander into those corridors of disconnectivity, whether it’s a hotel room where the WiFi is down or on a plane or wherever, you’ve still got access to your files. You’ve still got that oxygen with you, and nothing will stop you from getting your work done.

[snip]

In the end, though, you really have to experience the elegance of ThinkFree Premium to appreciate it. Ismael Ghalimi, who runs the O2Con show and is the single greatest evangelist for O2.0 gave me a chance to share that experience towards the conclusion of the conference. I stood up before the audience and started presenting on the big screen. I showed the files I had up on the ThinkFree storage site, showed how easy it was to edit them online.

And then I pulled the plug and disconnected my laptop from the network. This year, though, instead of having another Bill Gates moment, I just opened the synchronized copy of the presentation I had been working on, right there on my laptop, and continued presenting to the audience. You could feel everyone else gulping for air on my behalf, but I had my oxygen right there and I just kept on working. Source: ThinkFree Blog » We have Seen the Future, and it is Moving . . . .

This is my presentation done in ThinkFree Show and embedded here with ThinkFree Docs:

You ready to give it a shot?  I have 100 invites into the private beta of ThinkFree Premium.  TF Premium combines TF Online with a downloaded Java client (Windows, Mac and Linux).  Frankly, it’s awesome.  It is light, use it on battery and it doesn’t drain you flat.  It works, and it syncs the files.  Yes, there are more tweaks and features needs…it’s beta…but it is solid enough for everyday work.

If you want in, and I know you do, just e-mail me at tris AT b5media DOT com subject: ThinkFree Invite and I’ll hook you up.

Post from: EveryJoe

I’ve talked about ThinkFree: Now You Can Try It For Yourself

Potentially, atomic-level storage or switching could result in incredibly tiny computers. With atomic storage, you could fit a 1,000 trillion bits of information in an iPod, according to IBM estimates. (Editors’ note: This article originally had an incorrect figure for the number of bits–we were off by several zeros. The correct number is indeed 1,000 trillion.) Source: Can data be stored on single atoms? | Tech news blog – CNET News.com

Yeah that’s a lot.  Is it impossible?  No.  Impractical?  Yes.  But remember so was electricity and computers at one point in time.  The first step is the dream, the second is showing it can be done.  Now we just have to work on really doing it.

Post from: EveryJoe

Atomic-Level Data Storage and Switching Demonstrated

Mac user and GTDer Julian Schrader turns email messages into tasks with a keystroke, using the iGTD software:

I use iGTD to store and organize my tasks — it is an amazing application and provided for free. I recommend it to any Mac user — I just hit F6 in Mail and it copies the active e-mail over into a new task created in iGTDs Inbox, a link back to the original e-mail included.

Source: GTD With Email: Turn Mail.app Messages into Tasks with iGTD – Lifehacker

Okay, you know I’m not a Mac user, but Julian’s 9 Tips For Better E-Mail Productivity work for everyone.  Good filters, organizations, knowing when to answer and when to wait.  All good stuff.  One thing though, why is the default e-mail client on OSX Mail.app … come on couldn’t it be just a tad more interesting?  Yes, I know in UNIX mail is the name of the mail program … folks I’ve had an e-mail address 1988 (technically I had one when school started in 1987, but I don’t think I activated tchussey@colby.edu until the spring) and I learned e-mail using mail and vi for Pete’s sake.  Come on Apple, step up to the plate … iMovie, iTunes, iLife, iPhone …. Mail.app (is it technically just “Mail”).  Not spiffy.

Post from: EveryJoe

iGTD and Mail.app Together For E-mail to Tasks

Everyone has their own way of handling the laptop question when running a meeting. When it’s me, I may sometimes glance over people’s shoulders to see if their screens look topic-related. Or if I see people buried in their laptops, I may ask for their opinions to see if they’re engaged.

Some speakers start a meeting with “Laptops off, please.” Others might chirp, “Excuse me, we’re having a meeting here,” if people are making more eye contact with their screens than with the speaker. Once, one of my bosses slammed the lid of my PC down in a fury because he thought I wasn’t paying attention.

Tablet PCs — the kind that sit flat on your lap and are used with a stylus instead of a keyboard — seem to be more socially acceptable. Maybe it’s because there isn’t a big dark rectangular barrier that you’re putting up between yourself and the speaker. Maybe it’s because we all grew up taking notes with paper and pen, so it’s more familiar. In any case, you can still do your e-mail, get an I.M. about dinner plans, pay your bills or surf. Source: Minding the Meeting, or Your Computer? – New York Times

I was hard pressed to pick out a nice juicy quote (as you know that is my style after all) … it is a thought-provoking article.  How present are we in class, a meeting, a conference session when we’re madly typing notes or live blogging?  This doesn’t even get into tuning out to listen to the back channel.

There isn’t an easy answer here.  I will state here that it is all in how you use the tool.  I’ve taken wicked good notes in MindManager that became something the team used for a long time later as the core of later strategy documents.  I’ve also frittered away time in boring meetings chatting with friends or reading feeds.  Now, am I making good use of my time or being rude?

Live blogging at conferences, which is something I do a lot of, something that is really hard to do.  So hard in fact that when I’m at Office 2.0 next week, I’m going to try not to.  I’m going to take notes (probably in OneNote) and blog later.  Might might take longer to get posts up, but maybe they will be better.

As kids today become used to using computers in class, I see whole dynamics evolving around how to use laptops well.  Of course back in the day during a boring class I’d spend time doodling in the margins of my paper … so I guess some things never change.

Post from: EveryJoe

Laptops in Meetings and Classes–It’s About Attention and Application

Was is U3?  Pretty much it’s a Windows-only application that lets you run modified versions of several apps from the flash drive itself.  At first I thought, you know this seems like a useless thing.  Well maybe not.

Marc Orchant told be about the MS Office alternative ThinkFree and I saw that in addition to their other offerings, they had a U3 version.  Hmm, interesting.  Knowing I had this U3-capable drive, I figured I would get it set up.

After downloading the U3 software from SanDisk, it took me a couple tries to get it all installed.  Once I did I thought about the things I might like to have on a portable office.  I loaded Firefox, Skype, a text editor, FTP client, and ThinkFree.  Pretty much with those tools I could post to all my blogs, edit and update templates, and work on documents.  I also loaded an app called CruiserSync which let me sync up copies of e-mails, contacts, documents, and bookmarks … all encrypted.  So really, with this drive I have everything I need.

The question is, then, why don’t more people take advantage of these portable apps more?  Even before U3 there were portable apps projects for Firefox, OpenOffice (which is also available U3), and others.

Sure I have my computer with me all the time, but it would be nice to be able to travel with just the flash drive and get things done.

Back in the day…my friends all had their 800K Mac floppies with Word, a System Folder and space for several docs.  That was a portable office.  We’ve strayed from that…looks like technology might be coming back to it.

Post from: EveryJoe

Taking Another Look at U3 Flash Drives

Like the Lifehacker article says, if you haven’t started using Foxit Reader well you should, but if you must you Acrobat sounds like this tip is for you:

Granted, most of us left Adobe Reader long ago in favor of Foxit Reader, or even the keyboard-navigator Sumatra, but for those of you who need Adobe Reader for whatever reason, Adobe Reader SpeedUp should go a long way toward a faster Reader. You can either choose one of SpeedUp’s suggested tweaks (like Fast or Turbo) or do some experimentation on your part as to what you can and can’t disable. Adobe Reader SpeedUp is freeware, Windows only. Source: Featured Windows Download: Speed Up Adobe Reader with Adobe Reader SpeedUp – Lifehacker

Okay, tell me this though.  Why, pray tell, has Adobe still not made Acrobat better, faster, lighter.  Heck I have Foxit Reader on my U3 flash drive and it loads almost instantly on my old P4 machine!  Come on Adobe, you’ve gotten us all addicted to PDF (I love PDF btw and use it all the time for proposals and invoices) … why can’t you make the basic reader better?  Sheesh.

Post from: EveryJoe

If you have to use Adobe Acrobat–this will speed things up for you

Zoho announced early this morning that they’ve taken the first steps toward making Zoho Writer available as an offline app using the Google Gears tool. Initially the docs saved offline will be read only but full offline functionality is planned. Source: Zoho takes the first step towards offline apps | Office Evolution | ZDNet.com

Call me a skeptic, but I don’t think this is the best way to do the online-offline bit.  I’ve been playing with Zoho Notebook recently and it is by far a better product than Google’s Notebook (more on this in another post) and also installed the apps that put Zoho Writer, Sheet, and Show “on the desktop”.  These desktop versions are really just little browser windows.  Nice actually they give you the feel of an office app, well as long as your connected to the Net that is.

Okay back to the offline capabilities of Writer.  See, I just don’t think Google Gears is the right solution.  It’s still stuck in a browser.  And a web browser wasn’t designed for this.  Heck HTML and such wasn’t designed for this.  We’re just cobbling a lot of heavy JavaScript and other techs to make this all work.  Well, maybe we can do this now because we all have faster connections, faster computers, and more RAM, but that doesn’t make it a good choice.

On the other hand ThinkFree has a Java-based and AJAX-based solution and for the online offline connection, it’s Java.  I think in the long run this is going to be the better decision.

Post from: EveryJoe

Zoho Moves Offline, But Was It the Right Move?

From a practical standpoint you have several people’s logins to manage (like Gmail, Hotmail, etc), documents to keep straight, bookmarks, even just colour preferences of windows.  All of this can be handled with each user having their own login.

What about shared documents?  Simple, I know Windows has cross-account shared areas and since Mac-o-philes say OS X is so much better than Windows, then it must too.

Here at home on the desktop computer, there are separate logins for each of my kids, me, and one for Sims (it has to run as admin … and I don’t want the kids in my account).  All of us have our own private files and bookmarks, desktop backgrounds, and files.  Shared stuff … easy there is a globally shared drive in addition to the Shared Documents folder.

Very simple and my kids really enjoy picking their own desktop pictures (my son has Yoda at the moment).

This week I set up a friend’s computer for her kids.  Each has their own iPod and very distinct musical tastes.  They are also stepping onto each others’ virtual toes with e-mails and files and songs and desktop patterns … again simple solution.

Yeah, well, how does this apply to work?  Well I know from experience sometimes there are shared computers.  Maybe day shift – night shift.  Maybe just a common computer for file transfers or scanning.  Regardless of the use, setting up separate user accounts reduces the problem of files being delete accidentally or maybe a private e-mail becoming public.

Yes, in all these solutions there needs to be at least one admin user who can reset passwords, or lock people out, or just plain get to files as needed.

Take two minutes, set up an account for each user.  You’ll be much happier.   Trust me.

Post from: EveryJoe

Create Separate User Accounts on Shared Computers

• The 80/20 Rule.
• The power of Brand You.
• Making productivity a habit.
• Visualizing success.

Okay, maybe not for me.  I try a bunch of these things, sometimes, but really what it comes down to is I just need to manage my e-mail, remember to do stuff (I’m not so good at that), read RSS, and write.  Yeah the remembering to do stuff is the tough one.   Maybe I’ll try to use GryoQ more with MindManager…

Anyway, Dustin doesn’t get mind mapping …

Mind mapping. I wanted so badly to believe this one! As an academic, I’m always looking for ways to simplify and strengthen the organization and use of information, tools that would help me to see connections among seemingly disparate ideas. What a disappointment it was to sit down with Tony Buzan’s books and find almost nothing there – a way to make beautiful pictures that seems to offer nothing in the way of actual productivity. I simply can’t see why a handful of colored pencils and an hour of sketching little drawings and cutesy arrows (hey, let’s make this line look like a staircase, because it’s about “moving up” in the world!) should be considered an improvement over ten minutes of list-making. All Buzan offers to support any of this is his insistence that this is how the brain works. And if it isn’t…? Source: Five Productivity Ideas I’m Not Buying (Yet?) – lifehack.org

That’s okay Dustin … as much as I love mind mapping, it isn’t how everyone’s brain works.  Some people just don’t get it.  It doesn’t work for them.

Remember the ultimate work pimp: do what works for you!

Post from: EveryJoe

Guess what, you don’t have to buy into all the fads to be productive

Watch the video:

How To Remove CD Scratches With A Banana – video powered by Metacafe

 Source: MacGyver Tip: Clean a scratched CD or DVD with a banana – Lifehacker

Is that amazing or what?  Since I have kids I have several games and DVDs to try this out on.  Love to hear your DVD/CD rescue stories.

Post from: EveryJoe

Use your lunch to save your data