Getting your desktop situated "just so" following a reboot can be a hassle. As with so many other Windows annoyances, there's a handy little application which can help.

Cache My Work was created to tackle the task of restoring your windows following a restart. Launch the app and a list of your cacheable programs is displayed - you also have the option of re-opening all your open Explorer windows. Check off what you want restored, click save, and reboot.

Once Windows is up and running again, Cache My Work's preparations make your programs reappear. It's a simple but effective little app - all it really does is zap a few lines into your registry under the Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce key.

You'll still need to re-open your files -- except, of course, in apps like Firefox where you have the option to restore your previous session automatically.

While the project hasn't seen an update in just over a year, it still works nicely - even on WIndows 7 (both 32 and 64-bit builds).

We've already mentioned other ways to power up Google Chrome. Before extensions arrived on the developer channel, Userscripts and bookmarklets were your only options. Both are still great ways to add some kick-ass functionality to Chrome. If you're running the stable or beta builds, you may want to stick to them for now.

• 10 handy Userscripts for Google Chrome users
• 15+ handy bookmarklets for Google Chrome (and other browsers, too!)

Now, onto the extensions!

If you have a favorite that I left off, feel free to share it in the comments!
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I noticed this function a while ago when I upgraded to Photoshop CS4 -- I never dared use it, but I did notice it!

Now there's a handy little video from Adobe that shows you exactly how to enable the free screen sharing available to you in their latest suite of tools.

You're probably thinking: Neat! But what can I actually do with it? The first thing that comes to my mind is for businesses that are using an external graphic designer -- want to see their current progress on some work? Want to make sure they're sticking to the draft? Use the screen sharing!

You could also use it for collaboration -- there is chat and video conferencing functionality included. You could suggest changes and watch them occur in real time. I can just see it now... 'No, no, move it a bit to the left. That's it! Up a bit! How about if you make it luminous pink? And the font slightly more interesting... how about Comic Sans?'

Todoist has been around for a while. In fact, Download Squad first wrote about this web-based to-do app back in 2007. It's come a long way since then, though, and the latest feature addition, Todoist Anywhere, lets you turn webpages and Gmail messages into to-do items. With one click, you can view your Todoist tasks and take advantage of Gmail integration.

Access Todoist at any time using a convenient bookmarklet - you can even sign up for a new account from there - and then you're good to go. Todoist anywhere supports multiple lists and recurring dates, and there's even a convenient mini-calendar included. In terms of Gmail-specific features, Todoist lets you click on a message in your inbox and add it as a task that links back to the original email.

[via Lifehacker]

As I mentioned last time, don't choose a tool that doesn't fit your flow. What does that mean? Here's an example: I thought I'd be clever and create a separate flow for home and work. Since I work at home, the thinking was that I'd further separate my two worlds with two systems. In one corner I had The Hit List syncing to iCal which in turn was syncing with Todo on my iPhone. In the other corner: Toodledoo in my browser (or standalone in Fluid) and on my iPhone. Guess what happened?

I wound up preferring one system over another. In this case, Toodledo (a service I'll dissect in a later post). Todo and The Hit List and even lowly iCal are great, but since the majority of my inbox items fly at me in a work context, I simply wound up using Toodledo more often. That simple cognitive shift of changing to another system wound up enough of a barrier to me to discontinue my hacked-together system. Oh, and it didn't help that my hacked system didn't work right.

The Hit List is a very powerful tool, and iCal works great with my MobileMe account. The hack to sync the two with Todo, also a terrific piece of software, only works so well. My second piece of advice this week: avoid hacked solutions unless you can fix them easily. This goes back to truly learning your system. If you can code your own apps and craft your own workflow, more power to you. If you can't, admit that you won't be able to fix things and look for a total solution elsewhere.

Case in point: so-called Kinkless GTD. Remember this one? I loved it. Add items via QuickSilver into a special, fragile OmniOutliner Pro document and all sorts of magical things happened. Unfortunately, the system was fragile as a glass kitten. Once it blew up on me once, I never got it working again, and had to unlearn a number of methods for capturing and completing tasks. That is not the way to get things done. But the toolset was beyond my capacity to fix it. So take a lesson from Star Trek and don't become dependent upon a tool you can't fathom. Or, at the least, find something with support documentation.

Next I'll show you some questions to ask when evaluating tools.

Because I work almost exclusively in remote-based teams, I'm always looking for new tools and services that can help me manage my daily tasks and effectively collaborate with my team members. One of the biggest problems I have with some collaboration systems is that they require everyone to login and collaborate using the web app itself. This is great if you are always in one place or in a more traditional office environment, but it becomes less problematic if you are on the go frequently and already have tools and practices in place to try to manage your life.

This is why I think that WizeHive has real potential. WizeHive was launched in late 2008 after its founders, who were unsatisfied with the current crop of web-based collaboration and task management tools, decided to scratch their own itch and launch their own service. Over the last six months, WizeHive has rolled out additional features and today, WizeHive is releasing a bevy of new features and enhancements with the aim of bring WizeHive to the masses.

I talked to WizeHive's co-founder, Mike Levinson on Monday about the product and its development and what the new release brings to the table. I was most impressed that Mike and his team use WizeHive internally to manage various projects and activities not just including WizeHive's development, but for other business tasks as well.

After playing with WizeHive a bit, I think the best way to describe the service would be that it is Basecamp meets Backpack, with a dash of Yammer on the side. Unlike some collaboration solutions like Box.net, which really do an excellent job of replicating or replacing SharePoint, WizeHive is a more streamlined way to share files and communicate details back and forth, or to keep track of task management.

After creating a WizeHive account, you can create a different workspace for various teams or projects you might be working on. Within that workspace, you can choose who you invite to collaborate in that space. Once you have invited someone to your space, they can share documents with you, make comments, assign or complete tasks, etc.

You can also create pages within a workspace to further drill down your focus. In my DLS (for DownloadSquad) workspace for instance, I can have pages for Posts, Features and Ideas. Each page can contain its own task and its own set of comments.

The thing I like best about WizeHive is how easily it integrates with other services. You can create a new task (or even a new page) using e-mail, but you can also send messages, tasks and reminders using Twitter. By sending a direct message to @wizehive, after your account is verified, you can communicate directly with your workspace and the people in your group will get notifications and can reply by e-mail, Twitter or using the web site.

Here are some of the new features WizeHive has introduced with this release:

• improved UI for tracking and managing a large numbers of shared files
• enhanced file management and version control
• an increase in the number of files that can be uploaded at one time to 50
• bump in the maximum uploaded file size to 100 MB
• embedded image viewer
• streamlined collaborative editing of documents and spreadsheets

Although you can create and edit documents using ZoHo (it is integrated) and you can save revisions, the real focus of WizeHive seems to be on tasks and communication.

WizeHive is still in beta, so you can sign-up for a free account with unlimited users. You're limited to 50MB of storage space (an additional 3GB is $8US a month), but you get every other feature and you can use the service at least until the end of 2009. Personal accounts, limited to 3 users and 50MB of space are also free. Teams or Small Businesses can get an account with support for 10 users and 3GB of storage for $39 a month.

I'm going to give WizeHive a try and see how well I can integrate it into my life.

Let me be totally honest here: I am not the world's leading expert on GTD. Nor have I completely settled on a true, universal solution -- because I don't think one really exists. Like most complex problems, there are many approaches, and very few true solutions. Plus, everyone has a different workflow and circumstance, so there's no way to prescribe something for everyone. That said, you will find patterns in GTD implementations (which is kind of the point, especially if you're adhering to a particular type of system -- Behance's Action Method or Zen to Done or whatever).

The point of GTD is pretty simple: get things accomplished effectively and efficiently. How you do that is by 1) making sure you are collecting everything you need to do, 2) managing the lists of to-do's and supporting materials, 3) acting upon the items on the lists in an efficient way. Simple in concept, and devilishly complex in action. It's that big, gray fuzzy area people have so much trouble with, since GTD is a process with a set of tools, not a paint-by-numbers exercise. Over the coming months I'll keep tweaking my workflow and reporting what I've found. We'll take a look at some popular systems, and ways to craft your own in different configurations.

As I said, everyone works a certain way, and there's no one-size-fits-all approach. I'll try to take into account the various approaches to GTD. Contexts, for example, are a variable for many people. Contexts in GTD refer to the "where" you're likely to do something. You don't need to see your "buy milk" to do at work, do you? Contexts help keep lists separate. Some people like a broad set of contexts, like @work and @home and perhaps a couple more. Other folks are meticulous with contexts and creating numerous sub-tasks with proper tags within each.

This week I'll lay out some ground rules for those of you looking to get started with GTD quickly, and what you can expect when choosing a set of tools. But most importantly, what are the things you need to do to ensure you'll actually use whatever system you choose?

Google wants to help you become a Gmail ninja, and has created a site called Gmail Tips for the purpose. What is a Gmail ninja? It's someone who knows all the ins and outs of the productivity tools that Gmail offers, and can process their email very quickly and efficiently.

Rather than just asking Gmail's team for a list of all of the features Gmail has, the Google Tips page is made up of tips from Google employees working in all different parts of the company. It's a hit list of the best email productivity ideas from the bright minds at Google.

The page is divided up into four sections: White belt, Green belt, Black belt, and Gmail master. Each of these sections describes a level of productivity tip, White belt being the most basic, and Gmail master being the guru-level tips.

Helpfully, the Gmail Tips page also includes a handy printable PDF that gives you one double-sided page full of all of the tips listed on the page.

Now, to be fair, none of the tips are going to be much of a surprise to heavy Gmail users, even the Gmail master level tips. But it's a great resource to point friends and co-workers to if they are struggling to really get the most out of Gmail, or if you're looking for a way to convince someone that Gmail is probably a better solution for them than what they are currently using.

SelfControl is a Mac app aimed at stopping you from indulging in online distractions while you're trying to get your work done. The way it goes about that is pretty extreme: it disables access to distracting sites of your choice, and all email servers, for a period of time you specify. Even restarting won't remove the block; you'll just have to wait for the time to run out.

You can still use other websites while SelfControl is active, so it doesn't stop you from using the web for work. The only problem with this concept is that you have to have self-control to use SelfControl. I've downloaded the app, but I can't bring myself to push the button. What if I spend the entire time finding more distractions? If you're ready to admit you have a Twitter/Facebook/email/whatever problem, definitely give this app a try. As for me, I can quit whenever I want ...

We're bonkers about our email. We sort it, we massage it, we organize it. Or, really.. we don't. We'd like to, but who has the time? OtherInbox, a service we've written about in the past, is live and open for business.

I caught up with Joshua Baer to talk about what makes OtherInbox so useful, and why I'm so excited to ditch my filters and find email bliss.

It's been almost 17 months to the day since Apple last made significant (paid) updates to their flagship iWork productivity suite, but the company has announced that iWork 09 is now available.

All three iWork applications have seen updates, and Apple has also announced an iWork.com Public Beta allowing users to view and comment on iWork documents.

Among the changes to the desktop applications, Keynote allows you to animate objects automatically, whilst the Smart Move option allows you to slickly animate objects between slides. Pages, the iWork word processor, now ships with a built in 'Full Screen' mode for full-focus writing, and outline mode for project organization. There's also another 40 templates for your documents in this new version. The Numbers spreadsheet application allows you to categorize data far more quickly than in previous versions, includes an enhanced function browser and a formula list to quickly jump around your documents.

iWork '09 is available for $79 from the Apple Store.

Slife - a brilliant activity analysis program - has been available to Mac users for ages. For the past five months, however, their development team has been working almost exclusively on releasing a Windows version of the app.

At last, the waiting is over and PC users can get their hands on version 2.0.

What makes it worth a download? Install Slife, and it runs in the background, unobtrusively monitoring your application use. Create activity groups to track applications by purpose - for example, blogging, coding, or photo editing. Doing so allows you to keep tabs on time spent performing a single task with multiple programs.

Set goals for yourself, and see how you measure up with Slife's charts. You can view analysis by day, application, or group. It's a fantastic way for teleworkers (or anyone that uses a PC for business purposes) to keep tabs on where time is being spent.

There's also a team tracking service that enables group usage analysis. Your first 30 days are free (no credit card required), and it's $10 per team member after that.

Slife is a free download for both Mac and Windows.

If you don't already use a timer to boost your productivity you are missing out. Pretty much every productivity book, blog and web site out there suggests a timer to help you get things done.

Some of you might be going old school and using a kitchen timer. But, if you've had enough of that once cute ticking chicken, check out cool timer.

It's quick and easy to download and equally simple to use. You can set it up to be an alarm clock, a count down timer or a stopwatch. When the designated time arrives, cool timer can play a preset sound or an MP3 file from your personal library.

I like to set a timer for a certain amount of time when doing chores like cleaning the kitchen or working on tasks I don't enjoy as much. That way, I know I only have to do it for a certain amount of time. The added bonus with cool timer is that I can play some tunes I enjoy at the end of the task. Right now I'm enjoying "Sweet Home Chicago" from the Blues Brothers soundtrack every time my cool timer goes off.

[Via Lifehacker]

This gives you a running list of what you have accomplished, it provides charts of daily accomplishment, what you have done the most work on according to your tags and a graph of overall performance.

You can also use the feedback button to email your manager your recent progress and get comments from him or her. It's very simple to use and free to sign up. I think it will be a great place to keep track of my blog posts and time spent on other writing projects I am doing.

And, the most useful part if you are working in a team, you can add feeds to your teammates ididwork accounts. For example, if Brad, Lee and I are working on a joint feature post and I need to wait for Brad to be finished with his portion before I can complete mine, if we link up, I can tell as soon as he is done. Then Lee can see when we are both finished and work on his portion.

You can also use the feature as a manager or supervisor and keep track of what your team has completed.

The best part? Since it's on the web you can use it from any computer you are at and if IT decides to "fix" your computer overnight, you won't lose all your data.

[Via The Golden Pencil]

Vyew My PC is a flash-based instant desktop sharing product with a lot of fun features.

Basically, go to the Vyew My PC web page and click start sharing my desktop. You will be given a unique, unguessable URL. You can then share that URL with anyone you'd like to share your desktop with. There are some features you need an account to use, but the basics are usable by anyone.

You can upload files to be shown on the Vyew My PC desktop, use the whiteboard features, chat and with registration, use audio/video features. You cannot however, view anything outside the Vyew My PC desktop area. So, if you want to switch to a new window and show a web page you are viewing, it's not going to show up unless you take screenshots and present those.

It moves smoothly and all the features seem to work. Now, I didn't go in and have a full-fledged sales presentation to a CEO or anything but I did show a powerpoint to two of my friends who logged in from two seperate locations.

My main concern was about security. Showing a powerpoint to my friends is quite a bit different than important company information. So, this is what I found out; the packet data for your session is not encrypted but the URLs seem to be unique enough that someone wouldn't just stumble into your meeting without being invited. SSL encryption is not offered publicly but could be a possibility for some clients.