Four years after the service opened to the public, popular web-based task manager Remember The Milk is finally out of beta. What does that mean? Nothing really.

The company isn't going to start charging for access to its core services. And the developers aren't done adding and refining features. It's just that after four years, the Remember The Milk team decided the product was probably robust enough to remove the beta label... you know, kind of like Google did with Gmail not too long ago.

Of course, companies like Google and Remember the Milk have stretched the meaning of the beta label beyond any semblance of recognition. Once upon a time, if you were using a beta product you knew it was a pre-release version that hadn't been extensively tested and which may be unstable. These days, alpha is kind of the new beta, although some companies still release public and private beta versions of software that are still untested and unstable. Since there's no regulator tasked with enforcing alpha, beta, and other labeling rules, the words have kind of lost their meaning.

Still, congratulations to the Remember the Milk team on reaching four years!

Remember The Milk have released their new client for Android devices in the Android Market.

Available as a free download, the client does require the user to have a 'Pro' account, which is priced at $25 per year. This puts the official client at odds with the popular (and excellent) third party solution Astrid, which can be used with free accounts.

The official application does bring a host of features that make the $25 outlay tempting - as well as looking great it is feature packed, and one-ups the iPhone client with full background sync functionality.

RTM for Android includes a number of other features that make the most of your mobile device. Our favourites include location awareness - tasks can be assigned to a place and the application will generate a notification when you near that location, full landscape support, a homescreen widget and swipe gesture support. Most importantly, there seems to be nothing you can do on the website that you can't do on your device!

Head on over to the Android page at the Remember The Milk website for more details or fire up the Android Market to download.

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.

Google is fleshing out its personal information management offerings. First, the company announce that Gmail Tasks has graduated from Gmail labs and is now available to every Gmail user whether they want the feature or not. And now Google has also added an experimental "labs" feature to Google Calendar.

At launch, there are just 6 experimental features for Google Calendar users. You can:

1. Add a background image
2. Attach Google Docs to a calendar appointment
3. Display a World Clock
4. Jump to a date int he past or future using a drop-down menu
5. See when your next meeting is
6. Show which of your contacts with shared calendars are free or busy right now
   

More features are reportedly on the way.

Keep in mind, these are experimental features, which means that Google may change or remove some of the options in the future. But some may eventually graduate to full fledged Google Calendar features.

Over the past few months, storage and collaboration service Box.net has really ramped up its focus on adding tools and services that can help small and large businesses be more productive. With full-text search, enhanced collaboration tools, and a web-based document creation, the service is a really slick way for a business or group of collaborators to work together, regardless of physical location. Today, Box.net is adding a few more features, including tasks, the ability to create global folders and enhanced custom branding.

The new tasks feature lets you create a task for a new or existing file and then assign that task to a member of your group or to yourself. So if you have a document that needs a bunch of iterations done before it is submitted for final approval, you can create tasks for what needs to be accomplished and then assign them to various members of your team. You'll get an e-mail notification when you are assigned a task, and tasks also appear in the info bar on the right side of your Box.net page.

Global folders is a really, really cool new feature that lets you turn any folder into a web page with a static address that anyone can access and view. I created this page for my test in about two seconds. Every additional file I upload to that Box.net folder is added to the page, which is then viewable by anyone. If you have a lot of non-sensitive information that you want to share with a group, this is a really cool way to do it, because the people who access the information don't even need to be logged into Box.net to access or download the files.

For Business edition users, there are now custom branding tools, so that you can change the Box.net UI to include your company logo, colors and other information. This makes it really easy to use Box.net as a white-label type of solution, with the added benefit of being able to interact with other Box.net users from across the globe.

The tasks and global folders features are available to all Box.net users, including the free Lite plan. If you want custom branding, you need to be a Business edition subscriber.

Ubiquity is a Firefox extension that pops up a command-line interface that lets users quickly execute common tasks, like searching or emailing something to yourself. It's like an in-browser version of Quicksilver (on a Mac) or Launchy (for Windows). Ubiquity is so useful and powerful that Mozilla is planning to integrate it into a future version of Firefox, in a project called Taskfox.

Taskfox is off to a great start with its list of goals and non-goals. It's going to try to be as natural a part of your workflow as possible, and never interrupt you -- in other words, it will make things easier to do, but it won't be that infernal paperclip from MS Word. Making it a seamless part of the Firefox experience is on the goals list, too, and I think that's the most important part. I don't think of Quicksilver as separate from the OS on my Mac anymore, and I don't see why a really good version of Ubiquity shouldn't be the same way in Firefox. On the non-goals list, Taskfox isn't making any attempt to be a separate platform, although it will have an API so you can code extensions for it, in typical Firefox style.

[via MozillaLinks]

The gCalTasks gadget is a slick desktop timer that integrates with your Google Calendars. Enter your credential and choose the calendar to track your times on - I decided to set up a brand new one specifically for tracking.

Enter a tag line for your task, click start, and then click stop when you're done. Information is automatically sent to your calendar, where the agenda view provides a nice recap of your activities. It's a simple, low-resource way to keep tabs on your time.

Thanks, Ricardo!

It's only been two months since tasks first appeared on GMail, but the team wasn't content to stop there.

Last night, Google rolled out a new mobile version of Tasks designed to allow users of the iPod Touch/iPhone and Android devices to manage their tasks on the go.

The interface is elegantly simple, allowing you to quickly add tasks and notes, and mark items complete.

While tasks you indent from your desktop in GMail display correctly, there's no way to indent a task from your handset just yet.

As an added bonus, you can also now view your task list from any cell phone, as long as it sports an XHTML-compliant web browser.

Don't bother checking gmail.com/tasks from your desktop browser unless you're just after more information - you'll be redirected to the "Tasks in Labs" page.

[ via Official GMail blog ]

Google has a an online calendar, email service, and even an office suite. But for some reason, the company hasn't offered a to do list application to round out its suite of Microsoft Outlook-like services -- until now.

If you check out the Labs section of your Gmail preferences today you may notice a new option called Tasks. Once you enable this feature, you'll be able to add any email message to your task list either by selecting "Add to Tasks" under the More Actions menu or by hitting Shift+T if you have keyboard shortcuts enabled.

Once the to do list is open, you can also add tasks using keyboard shortcuts or by hitting the plus button. Or you can mark off completed items, rearrange your list, or perform all sorts of other functions.

You can also bring up the to do list by hitting the Tasks link that shows up below Contacts in Gmail's left hand navigation.

If you're looking for a way to add a task list to Gmail that's always visible from the sidebar, you can also add a widget from third party task manager Remember the Milk.

[via TechCrunch]

If you prefer to keep your GTD application on the desktop instead of using a web app like Remember the Milk, WinWorkBar is worth giving a try.

It's less than a 600kb download and packs a ton of functionality into a tidy sidebar. Features include a time and date display, calendar, task list, and notepad.

Tasks can be created as a one time occurrence or repeating event and can span multiple days. You can also specify percentage complete, not just whether or not a task is finished. The task view can be filtered a number of different ways, including progress, category, priority, or date (creation, change, etc.).

Notes can also be assigned to a range of dates - helpful if you've got an important event coming up and want to be reminded repeatedly as it approaches.

Hotkeys are supported for task and note creation and to show or hide the sidebar.

By default the sidebar autohides, though it's perfectly suited to full-time display on a widescreen monitor. A quick click on the menu button can turn off hiding. WinWorkBar also places an icon in the system tray at startup which provides right-click access to creating new notes and tasks.

WinWorkBar is a free application for Windows only.

Jay recently reviewed MiniTask, an ultra- simple to-do list application built on the Adobe Air platform. If you're like me and would prefer to avoid installing yet another oversized Adobe product on your Windows PC, take a look at To-Do Desklist.

Like MiniTask, you can add an alarm to an item and hotkeys are supported for adding new tasks and showing your to-do items. Desklist also allows you to assign priority and add extended notes to tasks.

Alerts can be displayed in any corner of your screen, and they're fully skinnable. The program comes with light, dark, and sky themes built in, but you're free to set your own background color or image and change the display font. You can also tweak opacity settings for the alerts.

The full task window allows you to filter items by priority. When your list gets lengthy, it's a helpful way to make sure you're focusing on critical tasks.

I'd like to have option to hide alerts (like MiniTask) or collapse task items, but for simple lists, Desklist is still a good option. It's freeware for Windows only.

Google offers a ton of web-based services that replace desktop applications. There's Google Docs for anyone who doesn't need a full fledged version of Microsoft Office. And there's Gmail and Google Calendar for folks who don't want to be tied to Microsoft Outlook. But there's one thing that Google has yet to offer: a task management application.

Now there's a way to add a task manager to Gmail. It just doesn't come from Google. It comes from online task list company Remember The Milk.

Here's how it works. First thing you have to do is check the box next to "add any gadget by URL" in Gmail labs. Then go to your Gmail settings tab and click on gadgets. Next, you enter the URL for the Remember The Milk gadget.

Once you're done, you just need to login to your Remember The Milk account and you should see a list of upcoming tasks in your Gmail sidebar. If you're new to Remember The Milk, you can create new tasks from Gmail or you can visit the Remember The Milk homepage.

Remember The Milk also has a Firefox addon that lets you schedule and check off tasks from your browser. But the Gmail gadget offers a few major advantages. First, it will work with any web browser that supports Gmail. And second, you don't need to install a utility on every browser you use. Just login to your GMail account and your task list will be available.

[via VentureBeat]

Smart To Do List is a simple Windows utility for keeping track of your tasks. You can set up multiple projects for things like household chores, work projects, or vacation planning. Then you enter a list of tasks you need to accomplish for each project. Just check them off one at a time as you complete them.

The program also includes some nice features like the ability to mark tasks as high, medium, or low priority and to add tags that make it easy to filter your tasks. You can save lists as templates to use again later. And you can install Smart To Do Lists to a flash drive to run on any computer.

The program is available for $14.95. Or you can run the trial version which has all the same features as the full version but only lets you manage 2 projects at a time.

[via Web Worker Daily]