Web-based list-creation service Blist has made a couple of changes recently, and the biggest one is "less a feature and more a philosophy." Because Blist is easier to demonstrate than it is to explain, you can now try Blist without an account. You can play with all the features, browser other people's Blists and even make your own -- you just can't save it.
At the same time, they've introduced social features, similar to the ones you're familiar with from places like Digg and Google Reader. You can add contacts and share Blists with others via your contact list. Previously, you could only share via email (that feature is still available.) We love to see intelligent uses of social features like Blist's. It looks like they've added something that people will actually use, without going overboard with elaborate profiles.
If there's one thing that users of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) system suffer from, it's typically the temptation to mess with their system. Nothing feels better than having all of your stuff under control, except maybe having all of your stuff under control in a sexy new system.
So if you've been rocking the same GTD application for too long and feel it's time to mix things up a little, check out this amazing survey of the GTD application landscape at About This Particular Mac.
While it originates at a Mac-centric site, the list should be of interest to any GTD practitioner since many (if not most) of the listed applications are web apps, with the occasional cross-platform app thrown in.
For good measure, here are our favorite GTD apps based on platfrom:
Microsoft Live Labs has launched a public beta (or "tech preview") of a new web-based application for creating, managing, and sharing lists. Listas offers a WYSIWYG editor for creating lists, tools for tagging lists so you can find them again later, and the ability to make the lists private or public.
Lista is a bit wiki-like in that you can grant other users permission to edit your lists. Say you want to create a grocery list with your spouse while you're both at work. Just start writing up your list and let your sweety know when you're out of ideas. They can then login and start crossing out all the chocolate-flavored cereal on your list and replace it with raisin bran.
You can also discover public lists that have been created by other users. Lists can include anything from bookmarks to notes on Steve Jobs Steve Ballmer's latest speech. You can check out a video with Live Labs' Raj Jain at Microsoft's On 10.
Lists of top [anything] are a big hit across the interwebs. They pack a lot of information into a neat list that's easy to comb for exactly what you need. As WordPress keeps gaining momentum and popularity, more and more bloggers are posting lists of their favorite plugins that help them stay on top of their game. Instead of posting a top X list, however, DLS reader Staska decided to aggregate. By using the power of community and this listof top WordPress plugin posts from bloggers around the world, Staska created a Top 30 WordPress Plugins list by tallying each plugin's mention from all those bloggers.
That's a lot of lists, and a lot of aggregating.
The result is a great success, with a strong list that should have something for everyone, and commentary from Staska on the wide array of WordPress plugins that keep the blogosphere runing.
While many other task management applications have found ways to incorporate the ideas put forth by the Getting Things Done methodology that David Allen developed, it seems that very few have been built from the ground up as GTD applications. There are certainly a few web applications that can make that claim, but in terms of "offline" applications, the pickings are pretty slim.
One such application, however, is ThinkingRock. Written in Java, ThinkingRock boasts versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
In ThinkingRock, you work in specific modes that relate to the various levels of the GTD workflow. For example, rather than entering a task and setting the project it relates to and the context at that moment, you can simply use a collection view to do a brain dump of all of the tasks and ideas that are bouncing around in your mind.
Mailing lists are an essential community and support tool, and I myself participate in a good handful ranging from beta tests to individual app support and even simple enthusiast chatting on one topic or another. In my experience, I've found that a number of things do and don't work from both a management and participant side, and I thought it would be helpful to start a discussion about these best practices to see if I'm on the mark, or if you readers have other ideas that should make the cut.
Following are two sets of mailing list etiquette that I've put together. One for those creating and managing lists, and another for those participating on them. If we can all agree on at least a few, may they be written in digital stone for future generations to benefit from.
Synapse is an online life manager. As of yet, there is no information as to whether this is a free web based application or not. Synapse is working up to their October 2006 release date, and it looks like it has some nice potential. The Synapse website lists off the main features that it will help users to manage their lives with. These include:
People - personal contact manager
Calendar - calendar and appointment tracker
Broadcast - send out email blasts to contact lists
Lists - daily to-do's
Ledger - financial tracker
Feeds - RSS feed reader
Favorites - bookmark list that is accessible from anywhere
Tags - easily find your favorite items and feeds
I personally can't wait to check out the release of Synapse. All of your most important daily items bundled together in one powerful tool.
Though Victor mentioned Listible in passing a few weeks back, I've been meaning for
awhile to shine the spotlight on it a bit more. What is Listible? Well, it's kind of like Digg (if I had a nickel for
every time I wrote that...) but for lists of stuff instead of tech news. Looking for a free game to play? Listible
lists 26 of them. Looking for Lost fan sites? Listible has
22 links. Web 2.0 links? 20 of them. You get the idea. And of course you can
vote any link up or down, add your own links to any list, or create your own lists, though that'll require a user
account.
Web-based list-creation service Blist has made a couple of changes recently, and the biggest one is "less a feature and more a philosophy." Because Blist is easier to demonstrate than it is to explain, you can now try Blist without an account. You can play with all the features, browser other people's Blists and even make your own -- you just can't save it.
If there's one thing that users of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) system suffer from, it's typically the temptation to mess with their system. Nothing feels better than having all of your stuff under control, except maybe having all of your stuff under control in a sexy new system.
Lists of top [anything] are a big hit across the interwebs. They pack a lot of information into a neat list that's easy to comb for exactly what you need. As WordPress keeps gaining momentum and popularity, more and more bloggers are posting lists of their favorite plugins that help them stay on top of their game. Instead of posting a top X list, however, DLS reader Staska decided to aggregate. By using the power of community and 
Mailing lists are an essential community and support tool, and I myself participate in a good handful ranging from beta tests to individual app support and even simple enthusiast chatting on one topic or another. In my experience, I've found that a number of things do and don't work from both a management and participant side, and I thought it would be helpful to start a discussion about these best practices to see if I'm on the mark, or if you readers have other ideas that should make the cut.
