I've fixed the wp-mail file for blogging-by-email. You can get the latest under the "Blog By Mail With Categories" page.

In other news, I finally got my poster from the '07 IA Summit online. Check it out here: Nucleus poster

Yesterday I read that the coming Outlook doesn't support a lot of best practices in HTML design for emails. Today, I see that Google has a pretty nifty tool as a demo which looks like it's not too far from what I'd seen of Ximian's Evolution before Novell bought it. How much longer before Google announces it's Outlook killer?

I checked out my situation in March and it does look like I'll be able to attend the IA Summit.

In my quest to find an online replacement for MS Outlook, I've found AirSet which can be integrated with BaseCamp for project management as well as sync'ed with Outlook and my Palm via a downloadable component. I guess you have to throw RemoteCalenders in there too.

I finally bit the bullet and bought a license for Taskline.  I like it a lot.  I learned about Taskline after reading this guy's blog and let me just say, I thought I knew a thing or two about time management but I can't hold a candle to his system.  I wonder how much time he spends maintaining the entire construction but nonetheless, he did draw my attention to Taskline.

I'm one to have a lot of ideas and I'm prone to write them done.  Things like "oh yeah, I definitely have to do that!!!" which then make their way into my PDA and onto my to do list (e.g. tasklist in Outlook.)

 

I'm always frustrated that I never get to everything and that's where Taskline is coming in useful.  Now I can graphically see just how much time I really have.  I love the visualization aspect of the tool:  that I can guesstimate how long my tasks are going to take and then see if they realistically slot in to the time I have available.  This has humbled me a great deal. 

While taking a look at other peoples' Flickr streams, I thought the following:  "Given a photo in your photo stream, the probability that someone will browse the other photos in your photo stream is inversely proportional to the number of photos you have posted."

I recently downloaded the trial version of PlanPlus for Outlook.  I had been a die-hard Franklin Planner addict before moving to Europe but then had to ween myself off of it because, well, quite simply there aren't any Franklin Planner stores in Vienna. 

So, I felt comfortable with the Covey methodology because I had been using it for years and I was armed with Outlook so I thought "Alright, well, I'll re-create my Franklin Planner electronically using only the basic functionality of Outlook."

In so doing, I've gotten to know the functionality of Outlook pretty well and even came up with a tweak or two to make Outlook "Covey-friendly."  Even still, I recently decided to give PlanPlus for Outlook a try. 

It's only been two days and the jury's still out as to whether I'm going to buy the full version but I'm generally pleased.  The thing I like the most so far is that the interface forces me to follow the methodology.  Even though I did a pretty good job of adapting Outlook for my needs, it still wasn't the same as having a box to constrain my way of interacting with the information (i.e. full-on compact Franklin Planner.)

Among the pieces of advice my father's passed on to me, I've probably been most influenced by this one: "Plan your work and work your plan." One of the reasons I started started carrying a day planner 13 years ago was that I figured to achieve more, I would have to be more efficient.  To be more efficient, I would have to habe better control of my time.  To have better control of my time, I would need a day planner.  There have been many changes in the tool but I still use a day planner pretty fervently with the intent of getting the most out of the day. My current system for achieving through doing is a Palm Zire 72 synced with MS Outlook 2003 both at work and at home.  As I explore how to integrate my current set of day planning data islands with 43 Things to take advantage of a world of like-minded people looking to learn and do new things, it's interesting to see to which level of detail people refine their goals.  I don't know if some people have heard of SMART* goals.   I try to make all my goals as explicit as possible with a given time frame.  That can be a bit of overkill sometimes, I know, but "Exercise more" is just pie-in-the-sky until you make it "Lose five pounds in the next three months with a plan of aerobic activity three times a week." That's my two cents on goal setting... for now anyway... *Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Tangible

Long before I had heard of 43 Things, I knew Ryan. Long before I knew Ryan, I had a PDA. Well, after I got to know Ryan, he told me that his mother kept a list of 50 goals of what she wanted to do in her life and whenever she would finish one, she would cross it off the list and add another. That way, she would always have a challenge and stay motivated to accomplish new things. I was rather impressed by the system and took it to heart creating a category called "50Goals" in my PDA and in Outlook (for synchronization of course.) Since then, that's where I keep my list of things I'd like to do someday. Skip ahead several years when I heard about 43 Things. "Well" I said to myself "the advantage here is two fold. Once you tell somebody about your goal, you're that much more bound to it because of the face-saving factor. Also, having a community of others interested in your success is another positive motivator." That's when I set about to figure a way to sync my "50Goals" category with 43 Things to enjoy having my goals on my PDA as well as enjoying the benefits of a global community. I almost have a solution. Check back here again soon for 43 Things integration with Microsoft Outlook... Aug. 28th, 2006 UPDATE:  I just noticed that I have 113 tasks with the "50Goals" label.  Maybe I should have called the category "100+Goals."

This morning we went to the office which handles marriages for our district. We were up at 6:45 to make sure that we would make it by 8:00 in order to be the first in line. Visda had all of her papers, I had all of mine. Or so we thought. We were called in (we were indeed the first in line!) and asked to present our papers. I handed over mine; Visda hers. The person handling us then asked Visda "Where's your original birth certificate?" We didn't have it with us but we did have the notarized (from both the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Iranian embassy) translation which was attached to a copy of her birth certificate. Not enough. They had to see the original document: the original birth certificate which is in Farsi, of course. Now, in this age of all sorts of digital authentication possibilities, you might wonder why they would need to actually see the original hardcopy birth certificate when they had a translated, notarized version right in front of them. You aren't the only one because we sat there and lisented incredulously as they explained that we'd have to come back again and next time, we'd need to bring the original. On a lighter note, the highlight of the morning came from a gentlemen who's been there a while and knows how frustrated couples can get when dealing with the paperwork.  I think that he could see the disappointment in both our faces and is to be commended for saying "yes, but don't forget that you're lucky to have found each other. Some people would love to have these kinds of problems if only they could find the right partner." So true.