Use Search Feeds and Netvibes to Organize Current News on your Company or Brand

If you're like me and subscribe via RSS to Google News and Blogsearch search results to track recent blog posts and news items regarding topics, companies or brands, more than likely you have lots of feeds to aggregate in a reader. And even more likely, you'll never have time to read them all. And even more likely, you're not the only one who wants to read them.

Enter Netvibes. Netvibes has been around for a while. It's a kick-ass start page service that lets you fully customize all things web oriented on one page for your browser home page pleasure. If you don't use it as a start page, you should. You can add content like RSS feeds super fast, and via drag and drop placement, arrange boxes and tabs however you'd like them to be displayed. But Netvibe's start page service is not what this post is about.

Netvibes has a public facing page that is fully customizable, just like their regular start page. This site is a perfect alternative to a paid company start page. For instance, it can be used to aggregate Google News and Blogsearch feeds and organize them by brand, or topic. In addition you can have constant YouTube searches, embed some HTML, or countless other things.

I find organizations tend to hate most feed aggregators out there, so giving them a start page that contains all of this information can be priceless, especially since there's little to no maintenance involved- one time set up and you're good to go.

Check out the video tutorial.

The great thing about this is that it's a one time set-up process and you're done, as it's all just search feeds. In addition, to get branding or customization out of this, use the HTML or Image widgets to pop in your company's logo. Just remember though, that this is all public information that gets indexed by Google, so keep the information you put on it to content that anyone can access.

Here's the one I created for Appify.

How else would you use Netvibes' public pages for your company?

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Ten Free Web Apps to Increase Productivity at the Office

Anyone who has worked in an office environment (especially larger ones) knows that it's a miracle anything gets done on time or even at all. Here's 10 free web apps you can start using immediately to increase productivity, improve collaboration, get things done, and slay the Rancor- all in a day's work.

1. Drop.io - Simple file hosting

Have email file size restrictions? Create "drops" with semi-custom domain names and send them out. Bonus features include password protection, date when the drop will be deleted, unique drop email address, phone numbers for voice mails that get stored on the drop, conference calls, the list goes on. Check out my review of drop.io here.

2. Zenbe Lists - Take Your To-do List to the Web

Create multiple to-do lists with the speed of a mongoose. Add tasks, set dates, get it done. Plus there's a free iPhone app that syncs with your account, direct link to download here.

3. 24im - Enterprise-wide Group Chat

Decent alternative to Campfire. Separates chat rooms out by department, allows for guest chat and includes 1GB of file storage as well.

4. Twiddla - An Online Meeting Playground

If your business does international work, or you have many offices across the country, or even if you can never get anyone in the same meeting room at the same time, Twiddla solves those problems by providing a place to chat, draw, and show web pages to show others. No sign up required. Video walkthrough and review here.

5. Posti.ca - Digitize Your Sticky Notes

If your desk (or desktop) looks like it's been peppered with a Post-it note shotgun, give Posti.ca a try. Review and walkthrough here.

6. Google Presentations - Quit Screwing Around with Decks

Highly under utilized is the presentation capability that Google Docs has. If you're in an organization that has many people who all have to have their say on what to put into a deck or Powerpoint, don't email it around and create a version tracking nightmare- just share it with everyone on Google Docs. When you have the content nailed down, export it as a Powerpoint file and then make it look pretty.

7. Backboard - Get Quick Feedback and Approval

Another thing that can blow a deadline is just simply getting approval from the right people. Backboard allows you to collect and track feedback and get approval on images, web sites and text. Review and walkthrough here.

8. Gliffy - Create and Share Charts

When a bunch of people all need to be able to see the latest version of a flow or org chart, don't bother sending it around to everyone, only having to change it and send it around again. Make your chart in Gliffy. It's not as robust as some offline programs like OmniGraffle, but it's hard to beat free.

9. HitMeLater - A Snooze Button for your Email

There's no way you're going to remember every damn email that gets sent to you during the day, especially if you don't even have time to check your emails. Just forward an email to "10min@hitmelater.com" or even "wednesday@hitmelater.com" and you'll get that same email resent to you at your designated time. Review and walkthrough here.

10. Privnote - When You Don't Want A Papertrail

Let's face it, sometimes things need to get communicated, but you can't have them being read more than once, or by the wrong person. Privnote allows you to send private notes that self-destruct after reading. Review and walkthrough here.

Got any others apps that are useful at the office?

Chew on the Appify RSS to catch future tips on productivity with web apps.

Lifetick: New Features

Lifetick, the app that tracks your personal life goals like a ninja, recently upgraded their app to include free access from your iPhone as well as iCalendar/Google Calendar integration. Screenshots of Lifetick on the iPhone below:

Login here: http://www.lifetick.com/iPhone

Lifetick: Accomplish your goals

There is so much emphasis in many web apps placed upon business productivity that often personal productivity and life goals get pushed aside. Lifetick.com is very refreshing. Lifetick is an incredibly well thought out and nicely designed application that allows its users to create, maintain and complete their personal life goals.

After a quick verification email (cough), users are instructed to designate their "core values" or whatever things they hold highest, such as "Happiness" or "Career" or "Finances". There is a pretty tight word limit on this, which was a bit annoying, but I can see why they want to keep this to one or two short words. A pie chart then segments out each value as you add it, which is a neat visualization.

Once core values are set, specific goals can then be created and tied into each core value. This is where Lifetick shines. You remember back in kindergarten, or at some random point in your youth when your teachers sat you down and you wrote down goals? That was simple and easy...but you then later learned in high school that goals didn't mean crap if they weren't specific, had dates, we're reasonably able to be accomplished, and all that business? We'll that's what Lifetick does, it puts your goals into perspective in such an efficient way that a goal as daunting as "Get out of $100,000,000 debt" would seem simple. Oh, and you can set email reminders so you don't miss a thing. You really do get a warm and fuzzy feeling that you get after you have put all of your ideas that you dream about under one clean interface.

There's two other features that I didn't get a chance to test because they were blocked off by a "You need to pay to use this" pop-up: Status and Journal. I find it interesting (and quite silly) that these two features require a subscription ($20/yr), as they aren't a crux of the app. The Status section gives reports on when things were completed, etc...and the Journal is a log of all your activity on Lifetick (ie: Log-in times/goal creation dates). You still get all of the functionality you need just by using the free version.

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	9
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	10
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	8
How re-usable is the app?	10
Overall	9.25

Overall, Lifetick is great. It executes goal setting and lays out goal completion in a really simple way, regardless of the size of the goal. I won't pay to use their "premium" features, but I'll probably use it to plan out the next few years of my life- if I can only find the time to put in all of my goals.

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UPDATE // 9.4.08 @ 8:24pm: Lifetick has new features, post here.

Posti.ca: Online sticky notes

Posti.ca is an online sticky note app that allows for minimal collaboration, and enables all around organization. I am a gigantic fan of Post-its, and I firmly believe they are the best invention in over 100 years- screw the CPU or the Internet. Furthermore, sticky notes have been in the digital world ever since computers could display colors...and people use them. I've used them, I know many people who rely on them to keep themselves organized.

But the essence of a sticky note is one of mobility, easy accessibility and rapid organization. For some, this idea translates quite nicely onto a PC, and it is for those people that I would recommend the use of Posti.ca- a place to create and house online sticky notes.

Sign-up is quick, no verification required. When you login, you're presented with the opportunity to create your first sticky. There's a 140 character max to any note, which makes me smile, because personally I believe that notes and tasks, should be short and concise. There's also a standard color selector, and a bonus of uploading a little file. Then the collaborative aspects are brought into view by typing in a person's email address to share the note with.

After creation, you see a visual representation of the note, which you can -in proper Web 2.0 AJAX fashion- move and place anywhere within the massive amount of whitespace on the Posti.ca homepage.

A nifty little feature for those who tweet is the ability to send messages to "Postica" on twitter and have it post as a new note directly onto your dashboard of notes in Posti.ca. It's really easy to set up- just enter in your Twitter username in the Posti.ca settings and then find the Twitter user "Postica" and send them a message and presto- the note appears on your Posti.ca dashboard with all of your other glorious stickies.

Now, how useful is that? Unless you have the message page book marked, or have the clip set up as a dashboard widget in Leopard, I think this feature is an extra step that tries too hard (and kind of fails) at getting added functionality.

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	7
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	8
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	5
How re-usable is the app?	6
Overall	6.5

I see room to improve in this app. There's lots of semi-great functionality that allows Twitterers to update from virtually anywhere, but in order for Posti.ca to meet the same functionality of a pad of Post-its, they need to expand the number of ways that you can post stickies even more. I don't see myself using this in the near future, as I have explained before in previous posts that I am rather analog when it comes to to-do lists and task maintenance. But for people who use the Mac program Stickies or whatever the Windows equivalent is, seriously consider converting those to Posti.ca, it'll make you're life just a tad bit easier.

Remember The Milk: An Online To-Do List

RememberTheMilk.com is an online based task management utility. Sign up, create different to-do lists, and mark them as complete when you're done. More or less, it's that simple. However, you've probably seen (or heard) of apps like Basecamp that are simple project management utilities, but Remember The Milk is a bit different. It's not so much project oriented as it's just task oriented. But, the team who developed RTM truly did push the limits of what it means to manage a to-do list.

Features like task tagging, which is similar to tagging on del.icio.us or a blog post, enables easy sorting of tasks. Users can also separate out their to-do lists into different lists, such as Work and Personal. In addition, tasks can be assigned due dates, designated as repeating tasks, given time estimates, locations and even be associated with a URL.

What makes the application great though is it's ability to be accessible from the iPhone. At its heart, a to-do list is something that needs to be portable, and go everywhere you go. Granted, some people may work at a laptop all day, but regardless, everyone has to leave their screens and take a break at some point or another and it's often during those hiatuses (bathroom, eating, etc...) that the mind is allowed to wonder and think about all things non-computer related. It's during those moments of mental sauntering that one remembers other things that perhaps they hadn't whilst their hands were glued to their keyboard. But, upon returning to their work, their mind shifts back to what they were doing, leaving that wonderful nugget that they had remembered on the side of the curb, depressed and alone, as you drive off without it.

RTM can link up with your Google Calendar (and iCal as well), providing a much needed tasking function that gCalendar lacks. An additional function I would like to see is the "Quick Add" function that is similar to the one in Google Calendar. So for instance if I typed "Mail letter to Rachel at 10am tomorrow", it should add a task called "Mail Letter to Rachel" and the due date as 10am tomorrow. iPhone functionality is available, but you have to pay. It's only $25 for the year, so that's not too bad. But if you're like me, and even your electronic bank accounts have moth's in them, then it's hard to beat free.

Does the app fulfill its intended purpose?	8
How clean and simplistic is the UI?	8
Is the app forward thinking and innovative?	9
How re-usable is the app?	6
Overall	7.75

Personally, for to-do lists, I use the "Hipster PDA": a stack of 3x5 index cards and a binder clip. I carry it around everywhere and schedule my day based on whatever's on that card. I go through a card a day, and carry over incomplete tasks to the next card. I also designed a snazzy PDF that prints out a template onto the back of the cards. But because I like to hold a physical and portable object that displays my to-do's, the fact that I couldn't have this to-do list on my iPod Touch, but on my computer only, was what made me stop using this app.

However, a stack of index cards is about $4, and I go through a stack a month. So, overtime, I'll end up spending more on cards than I would have on a RTM subscription... so maybe I will buy it. Overall, the verdict on Remember The Milk is this: it's the most in depth to-do list app I've seen to date. But until I pony up the cash for the Pro version, I'm sticking with my index cards.