iPhone ToDo app and why my reviews are better than the rest

I bought Appigo's ToDo.app ($10) for my iPhone (currently I think of my phone as iTease). (BTW, Appigo has a Google Group for this app.)

I've been using it with Toodledo. I'd considered a switch switch to Remember the Milk but Toodledo tech support helped me with my major concern -- the ability to apply operations to sets of items. The combined cost of ToDo.app ($10) and Toodledo ($17) together is $27 - a good fraction of MobileMe. Too bad Apple hates us.

Here's what conventional, good, reviewers will tell you about ToDo.app

Macworld | iPhone Central | Review: Todo 1.1.1 for iPhone and iPod touch

... it’s in creating and organizing tasks that Todo really shines, offering many more features than Zenbe Lists or any of the basic to-do apps I covered a few weeks ago.

As with other apps, you can create multiple lists of tasks; you add new lists and tasks using the plus (+) button at the top of the main lists screen or any individual list screen, respectively. When viewing a list, tapping on a task’s circle marks the task as complete; depending on your settings, completed tasks disappear completely or are moved to a Completed section at the bottom of the current list..

... Creating a new task demonstrates Todo’s best attribute: offering many options and features while keeping the interface simple and easy to use. In addition to naming a new task, you can specify a due date, a repeating schedule, and a priority (1, 2, 3, or none); you can also include a text note...

This is what you only get from me:

1. If you try to switch services, say from ToodleDo to RTM, every item on your list is deleted. So you can't decide to use one service, then switch. [Update: Appigo consciously decided to do this for the initial release, they will probably make this configurable in a future release.]
   
2. Tasks can belong to only one list/category/tag. (Very much like Palm -- in fact ToDo.app is pretty much a functional clone of the original Palm To Do app).
3. There are no alerts or alarms on tasks.
4. There's no search. I really need search. Of course this is a problem across the entire iPhone. [Update: Appigo expects to deliver search in a near term release]
   
5. It's crashed once in light use.

Update 9/22/08: I'm a regular Appigo ToDo.app customer. It's a great product, but there's a scary specter looming.

ScribeFire: so many updates, so little progress

Ive been intermittently using the ScribeFire: a Firefox extension blog editor for about a year.

The "release fast and often" strategy is fashionable now, but ScribeFire is a good counter-example.

It still only shows recently used "labels"/"categories" from blogger. It still doesn't handle blogger's line wrapping correctly.

These aren't subtle things, and they aren't new. They've been present from day one.

Windows Live Writer is proof that, given sufficient genius, these problems are solvable [1]. Release often is not a panacea.

[1] WLW is also proof that there's life at Microsoft. Nobody has released anything comparable for OS X.

The hidden curse of spam blogs - collateral damage

I've noticed an unhappy correlation.

Periodically spam blogs (splogs) will start harvesting my posts.

When they do that, email from kateva.org begins to be filtered into Gmail's spam folders, my Google PageRank falls, and the site is indexed less often.

When the splogs move on to another victim, things reverse.

I'm just collateral damage.

Ouch.

What hurts the most, really, is the decreased indexing. I like being able to search my memory collection.

Palm tasks moved to iPhone ToDo - sort of

The battle was every bit as nasty as I expected.

I knew the ailing Palm E2 would not go softly into the night. It did not disappoint.

I was trying to move about 300 tasks into Toodledo. I first tried using Toodledo Sync (I don't care for the "toodle" name), but after an hour or two of meaningless error messages I gave up [1]. Toodledo Sync is very raw.

The tasks are in Outlook and the Palm, so I figured I'd use the Outlook CSV option. I knew that would mess up the notes however - CSV can't handle embedded paragraph returns.

Then I read this option:

Toodledo :: Import To-Do List: "Synchronize Toodledo with your Palm OS based PDA. Be sure to read the step by step instructions before you begin."

You have to export as a "To Do" archive, not the more modern Task archive. So I figured I'd switch sync from Outlook to the Palm Desktop and then export from Palm.

That was a nasty mess. The Palm world is pretty decrepit. Turns out I read the wrong help file, Palm Desktop 4.1.4E allows switching between Outlook and Palm -- though it's poorly documented. Anyway, I downloaded, tried to do a repair, ran into problems, etc, etc. Two hours, eight reboots and removing several old bits of software trash I completely uninstalled Palm Desktop and reinstalled.

That worked. So now I synched the Palm to a completely fresh Palm Desktop data file.

I exported as a "To Do" (not Task) archive and loaded into Toodledo.

Miraculously it seemed to work. The notes seem to be intact. The Palm categories become ToodleDo folders. ToodleDo's priorities are reversed from Outlook/Palm, so 1 becomes low and 3 becomes high (weird).

Unfortunately To Dos without a date were assigned a 2031 date. I don't know if this is a Palm bug or a ToodleDo bug, but it's very annoying. The ToodleDo interface is very Web 1.0, I don't see a quick way to fix the date attributes. I'm also disappointed by what appears to be an inability to filter by folder, but I really haven't worked with it enough yet. (This looks like an intractable problem, so it might be a killer. It's hard to give up on Outlook's task management power.)

The priority settings on ToDo.app are yet different -- more like Outlook I think. I'm not sure I've got this quite right; I'm getting a headache!

Ok, this is really hard ...

[1] See this Apple discussion thread:

Error initializing connections...Could not initialize Outlook proxy
Log:
SynchLib:synchronizeTasks() method called
SyncApp.exe Error: 0 : Error during synchronization SyncTool not initialized at SynchLib.SyncTool.synchronizeTasks()
at SyncApp.frmOptions.backgroundWorker1_DoWork(Object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)

Chapura KeyTasks: Sync Outlook Tasks with iPhone

I'm trying to move my Outlook tasks into Toodledo, and finding a meaningless "proxy error" (my XP firewall is off) when I try to use the Toodledo Sync Application to get my tasks to Toodledo, and thence to the iPhone ToDo.app.

This is way too cutting edge for my sleep needs.

IN the midst of the fray I find a link to an old friend/nemesis - Chapura. They're threatening to release a web service iPhone app combo "any time now" ...

Synchronize Outlook Tasks with iPhone.

Using 11 years of Microsoft Outlook synchronization experience, KeyTasks provides the most reliable wireless Outlook Tasks synchronization available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The KeyTasks synchronization is provided through your MyChapura Account. A MyChapura account is included with your yearly subscription of KeyTasks. MyChapura is an online service that provides "cloud" synchronization of Microsoft Outlook Tasks and KeyTasks on the iPhone or iPod touch.

MyChapura stores your information on our Web servers. This is commonly referred to as the "cloud." When you make a change in Outlook or on your device and synchronize, that change is sent up to the cloud. Your iPhone or iPod touch will receive this change when you synchronize and your PC can be configured to manually or automatically synchronize. This allows you to keep your information current in multiple places no matter where you are.

We keep your information protected with a secure transfer process and encryption in your MyChapura Account. Your information is encrypted using your MyChapura Account password. Because of this, only your password can decrypt your information...

I'm getting a dawning sense of horror.

I've spent about 10 years fighting with Palm/Outlook synchronization.. It's been a greater battle than hacking WordPerfect hex files to make my printer work, or futzing with obscure Hayes commands to get my 2400 bps error-correction enabled.

I've learned a lot about synchronization from Chapura, and it's all been painful.

I must admit though, that while their Palm KeySuite is dumb and ugly, the current version does work. I regularly sync my decrepit Palm to Outlook 2003 and it hardly ever blows up.

So I can believe that Chapura might get the Outlook to iPhone connection working better than Apple, Google or anyone else. Unfortunately I'm also confident that their corresponding iPhone task app will be very ugly.

Which brings me to the sense of horror. If Chapura follows past practices, they'll create a suite of apps for the iPhone that will mirror those on Outlook. They'll be ugly but reliable. I might end up replicating what I do now on my Palm. Sync from home to native iPhone apps, and from work to Chapura's future suite.

Kafkaesque.

Qwest is not spying on me? Huh?

I was sure they’d be on the bad-guy spy list, but they’re not ..

Think Your Internet Provider Might Be Spying On You? Just Check Our List

Little or no tracking at all:

• Bright House Networks
• CBeyond
• Covad
• Frontier
• Insight
• Level3
• PAETEC
• QWest
• RCN
• Suddenlink
• TDS Telecom
• TW Telecom
• Windstream Corp.

Wow. What are they waiting for?

Scanning prints - inexpensively

I have negatives for the thousands of prints sitting in a waterproof box in a protected closet in an upstairs bedroom.

At the current rate of scanning we'll scan them all by 2140.

I think I'm going to use this service Pogue reviewed (he warns of a hideous web site) ...

State of the Art - Your Photos, Off the Shelf at Last - NYTimes.com:

... ScanMyPhotos.com ... says it will professionally scan 1,000 photos for you, the same day it receives them, and put them on a DVD for $50.

So what’s the catch?

Actually, no catch, but lots of fine print.

ScanMyPhotos relies on a certain commercial Kodak scanning machine, which processes hundreds of photos a minute. There’s no reason other companies couldn’t buy the same machine and set up similar services. Indeed, some have, although most charge 12 to 16 cents a photo, compared with the 5-cent ScanMyPhotos rate.

Because it must feed your photos through this machine, ScanMyPhotos has set some rules. Photo sizes can range from 3 by 3 inches (Polaroids) to 11 by 14.

The photos must be put into similar-size bundles (4-by-6 prints together, for example) with rubber bands. The only way to label the batches is to write on [same sized - jf] index cards, which are scanned along with the photos like title cards. If you want the bundles scanned in a certain sequence, you can number the index cards...

There is also, however, the terror of sending away your valuable photographs. ScanMyPhotos asserts that it has scanned more than eight million customer photos, and has never lost or damaged a single one. But there’s always a first time; consider the fate of DigMyPics.com, a rival company. In May, a fire burned its headquarters to the ground, destroying almost everything inside — including some customers’ original photos.

Yet there’s a risk of doing nothing, too. Photos kept in a dry, cool and dark place don’t deteriorate nearly as quickly as audiotape, videotape and film reels. In fact, properly stored, they can last a century or more. But because photos are still susceptible to a wide variety of destructive or negligent forces, the ScanMyPhotos service could turn out to be the best $50, plus shipping and optional services, you’ll ever spend...

If my prints are lost, I can scan the negs.