iPhone by Steve

When it comes to making notes, many of us in our increasingly paperless society have eschewed pen and paper in favor of the electronic gadgets we carry in our pockets, namely our cell phones. What’s more, taking notes electronically means that you’ll always have them for quick and easy reference. Beats a pocket full of paper scraps, doesn’t it?

The iPhone has it’s own built-in Notes app, but curiously, notes can’t be synchronized or backed up in an easy way. I’m pretty certain that the new iPhone 2.0 will fix this problem and it’s likely that somebody will develop an application to handle this soon, but for the millions of you out there who are stuck with your first generation iPhone, you’ll probably want a better note taking app than the original.

But better doesn’t always mean more complicated. Sometimes, the KISS method (”keep it simple, stupid”) is the best way to go, and for sheer usability and simplicity, you won’t need to look any farther than PogoNotes.

PogoNotes is a web-based note taking app that covers all the basics in easy-to-use fashion. It works in Firefox so you can use it on your computer, and there is also a very nice iPhone interface.

I found the iPhone interface very easy to look at and use. The screens are iPhone friendly and look very much like the email screens or your contacts screen—all type is large, well organized and easy to read. It’s very easy to compose a new note or to edit an existing one, and, because the software is web-based, your notes will be available to you from any computer with an Internet connection or from your iPhone, no synchronization necessary.

PogoNotes has a feature that lets you share notes with others, so if limited collaboration is important to you, you’ll be able to get the job done with PogoNotes. You an share your notes with groups and can password protect them, as well as search by zip code.

PogoNotes covers everything you’d expect from a simple note taking app, and it does so with ease and style. So what good, if any, is the iPhone’s built-in Notes app? Well, actually, I still use it, but only for notes that I don’t intend to keep for very long. I use Notes for grocery lists, use it to collect things I want to buy the next time I run errands, and that sort of thing. It works great for that, but for notes that I intend to keep permanently, I go with PogoNotes.

In a future post, I’ll detail Evernote, a more full-featured and innovative note taking app. But if your main goal is to take and save text based notes, you’ll find the PogoNotes interface to be easy and pleasant to use on your totally cool iPhone.

Although it has recently been reported that the iPhone is currently unavailable at Apple’s website, several sites, including The Unofficial Apple Weblog, are reporting that AT&T has some great deals on refurb iPhones.

This could be your chance to get your hands on an iPhone at a great price, but keep in mind that the 3G version of the iPhone is just around the corner.

Here’s a quick tip for faster text messaging.  Your iPhone contacts list is good for more than just making phone calls.

Touch any contact in your list and you’ll see a convenient button to press to initiate an SMS (Text) message for that contact.

This works with contacts on your favorites list and also in your recents list, too.

So, no need to go to the SMS application to start a text message.  Do it right from your contacts list.

Most people want to get phone calls connected as quickly as possible.    On the iphone, there is currently no search function for contacts, something which I must admit I miss from my old Windows Mobile phone.

But I think I read a statistic somewhere that for most people, 90% of the calls they make come from a list of less than 5 contacts.  This suits the iPhone just fine because you can put your most frequently called contacts on your “favorites” list.

So, to make most of your calls quickly, you need to access your favorites list as quickly as possible.

What’s the easiest way to get to your favorites list on the iPhone?  Press the HOME key twice!

Apple’s smartphone isn’t so smart when it comes to task management. In fact, the iPhone does not have a built-in task and to-do application. I’ll chide the folks over at One Infinite Loop for that, because to me it’s unthinkable that the brainiacs on the Apple Campus aren’t into task management in one way or another.

I, personally, have got to have some sort of task manager on my phone. I have a desk, but I don’t really work at it. I’m out and about all day long, and I use my phone to quickly jot down tasks as they arise. I like the ability to manage tasks on the fly, no matter where I am.

Of course, on those occasions when I am sitting at my computer, I’d like the ability to manage tasks there, too. And not just on my office computer, mind you. I want to be able to pull up my task list on any computer—at the office, my laptop at home, or anywhere I might be where I can get my hands on a keyboard and mouse.

That’s why I’ve long since ditched Microsoft Outlook for a task management program called Remember the Milk. Remember the Milk, or RTM for short, is a wonderfully flexible task manager that runs in your web browser and also on your mobile phone. On my computer, it runs best in Firefox as opposed to Internet Explorer. I’ve been using RTM for a while now on my phone, as well. The mobile version ran great on my Treo, and I’m now using the iPhone version, and that works great, too.

Remember the Milk has some excellent features that, in my opinion, make it even more flexible than Outlook for keeping your task list.

Tasks can be tagged with keywords and sorted into lists. You can also set priorities and add due dates to keep yourself completely organized. You can share tasks with contacts, and you can set locations with Google Maps as well. For your computer, RTM offers add-ons so that it can be used inside of Gmail and inside Google Calendar, but, now that tabbed browing has become commonplace, I find it easier to keep Firefox open all the time with one tab open to Remember the Milk. That way I’ve always got instant access to my task list. After you’ve done this for a while, you’ll find that it isn’t much different than keeping Outlook open on your desktop. The point is that you want quick access to your information, so leaving the program open at all times works very well.

You can set up repeating tasks as well. For example, you might set up a task to clean up your desk every Friday. This task will repeat each and every Friday until you decide otherwise. Or, you can set up a task to repeat after it has been completed. For example, you might set up a task to change the filters in your furnace and tell RTM that you want the task to repeat “after one month.” If, for some reason, you are two weeks late in getting your furnace filters changed, RTM will be smart enough to know that you now want to wait a full month from the date you actually got the job done.

You can set reminders for tasks, either through email or by SMS text message. Just tell RTM when you want to be reminded of a task, and you get a text message. It’s simple and effective.

If you manage tasks on both your computer and your phone, you’ll never have to worry about syncing your phone with your computer. Since RTM is a web application, your tasks will always be synchronized. And, if you want to work on your computer offline, there is an add-on that lets you use RTM with Google Gears.

My favorite RTM feature is “smart lists.” This feature lets you search your tasks using any set of custom terms you desire. You can then name this list and save it to use over and over without having to recreate your search. If you’re familiar with boolean logic, then you’ll be right at home creating your searches, but even if you aren’t, it’s not difficult at all.

As an example, I use a smart search for my main task list, which I have named “Current.” Here is my search: I ask RTM to find every task that is either overdue or due today and to ignore tasks due in the future, and also to include tasks that have no due date at all. RTM finds these tasks for me with ease.

I have several other smart lists set up as well, one that tags all tasks from a certain supplier I deal with, another to catch my random ideas, and still another smart list that prioritizes tasks I expect to start in the future.

The best part about the smart list feature is that it allows you complete flexibility to set up RTM exactly as you want it, regardless of what your philosophy happens to be regarding task management. For example, maybe you’re a disciple of David Allen’s very popular “Getting Things Done” approach. In fact, there are several iPhone web apps that are devoted to GTD, if you want to use one of them, but here’s the problem with them: These GTD applications are often rigid adapations of the GTD system, yet just about everyone likes to add their own special modifications or variations. Remember the Milk, while not set up specifically for GTD, can accommodate the discipline nicely—just set up your smart lists according to your needs and you’ll be ready to go.

Remember the Milk has a free mobile version and also an iPhone version, but if you want to use the latter, then you need to sign up for a “pro” RTM account.

You can try it for free. For me, at least, it’s been worth the money.

For more on Remember the Milk, visit their website or check out this excellent post at Lifehacker.com.

I’ve never been bashful about how much I love Gmail and like using it on the iPhone. But I’ve been remiss in giving tips on using Gmail on the desktop, or even converting to Gmail from whatever mail system you use now.

If you’re like most people, then you’ve got several years of email messages and other data, and maybe you’ve thought about converting to Gmail but the thought of moving all that data is just too daunting. How, you might be wondering, do I get started?

The easiest way is probably to sign up for Gmail and just leave your old email account alone (but set it to forward new messages into Gmail).

When I first made the move to break away from Microsoft Outlook, I signed up with Yahoo! Mail. It worked fine and I was happy with it—that is until Gmail came along. As you might remember, you couldn’t just sign up for Gmail, you had to be “invited.” Well, I pulled out all the stops, hitting up all my friends for an invite, which was actually pointless because none of them had that kind of influence. When I finally did wrangle an invite, I made the switch and I’ve never looked back.

In my own case, I just left my Yahoo account active and set it to forward any future mail to my Gmail account. I didn’t bother to try to move all of the messages into Gmail (this was before IMAP), and to this day all of my data is still sitting in my Yahoo account (I’ve made sure that a few messages are still delivered to that account just to keep it active).

From time to time, I go back into Yahoo Mail and search for a message, but, I’ve found, I really don’t need to do that very often—rarely, in fact.

If you are still an Outlook user, you can move your data into Gmail. Vinny Lingham just wrote an excellent article on getting the job done. I came across it this morning, and I’m excited because I’ve got a new blog to add to those I read on a regular basis. Vinny has got some quality content that’s worth a look.

At any rate, with the advent of the iPhone and many other smartphones, there has never been a better time to break free from Microsoft Outlook, or from whatever program is keeping you chained to your computer. Now, more than ever, it’s very realistic to move your data into cyberspace and to live happily ever after.

After seeing a few reports today, I checked Apple’s online store and, sure enough, both models of the iPhone are listed as “currently unavailable.”

Does this mean that the new version of the phone is coming sooner than anyone thought?

This You Tube video is the best I’ve seen for getting your iPhone to work with Gmail IMAP. Just watch, learn, and do!

One thing I love my iPhone for is that it is a great tool to steal a few moments of productivity here and there. Maybe you’re waiting to pick the kids up from soccer practice, or maybe you’re in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, or whatever. Whenever you’ve got a few moments, it’s fun to fire up Safari on the iPhone and browse, but did you know you can draft email on the iPhone and send it later?

This is a great tip for those times when you’ve only got a few minutes and want to get a start on some email.

Here’s how it works:

1. Start up the Mail application on the iPhone and begin composing an email message.
2. If you don’t have time to finish the message, just press the “cancel” button. Counterintuitive? Yes, it is, but trust me. Just press the “cancel” button.
3. When you press cancel, you’ll get a prompt asking whether or not you want to save your message. If you press the “save” button, then the iPhone will save a copy of your message in your drafts folder. You’ll be able to find this message later when you have time to finish it and send it.

I suggest you go ahead and try this with a test message. You’ll find that it works quite well, although sometimes it takes a minute or two before the message shows up in your drafts folder. Later, you’ll be able to finish the message on your iPhone or on your computer.

For the past decade or so, Microsoft Outlook has been the standard in personal information management. As a Windows Mobile user, I also used Outlook Mobile on my Treo 700wx. Actually, in combination, the desktop version and the mobile version of Outlook work pretty well, but there were a few quirks that bugged me.

Whenever I synced using Activesync, phantom alarms would appear. Sometimes I’d get undesired alarms in tasks, and these alarms would sound at the most inopportune times. I’d change my settings or fiddle with the defaults, but to no avail. I don’t know if this is a common Outlook problem, but I could never solve it. In general, I had problems getting tasks to sync exactly as I wanted them to. I also didn’t like the mobile interface. Too many steps necessary to make tasks and appointments for my taste. Finally, I’ve never liked being tethered to my desk with Outlook. If you use the desktop version and a mobile phone, then you’ve got to sync them by plugging the phone into the computer. In today’s wireless world, it just seems to me that over-the-air syncing is a better way. When I owned my Windows phone, I used Goosync to handle wireless calendar syncing for me, that still left tasks and notes to be synced at the desktop.

What is the solution to all of this? For me, it is to use web-based programs that can be accessed both from your desktop web browser (I use Firefox), and also from your mobile phone (in my case it’s now an iPhone). By using a few different applications, the iPhone can become your personal information nerve center.

Here is my “almost” solution:

For contacts and mail, I use Gmail. Check out this post and also this post for my views on this subject. Gmail works great for me because I own a small business and we don’t have an exchange server. If you are a corporate type, you might want to check with your IT department on this one.

For appointments, I use Google Calendar. The main limitation here is that only one Google Calendar can be used (can’t use several calendars with fancy color-coding). I hope this will be addressed by Apple, Google, or by an independent developer. But I go this route because I’m confident that the Gcal and the iPhone will just keep getting better.

For notes, I use PogoNotes. There are several iPhone web apps for note taking, but I like the interface of this one the best, and it’s free. Of course, the iPhone has its own notes application built in, but at present it can’t be synced to your computer and that limits its usefulness for me.

For tasks and to-do’s (and mine are pretty extensive), I use Remember the Milk. Again, if you google, you’ll find several applications that work, but RTM is my favorite, and they have an iPhone version for a fee.

I like my “almost” solution for a few reasons:

1. The combination of these programs replaces everything that I ever used in Microsoft Outlook. I haven’t used Outlook for months and don’t miss it at all.
2. Calendar and task sharing is very easy with Google Calendar and Remember the Milk. My wife and work colleagues stay on the same page pretty well with this set-up.
3. The programs I’ve chosen are all very easy to use. I like the interfaces and I like how they work on the iPhone.
4. All of these programs are web based, so synchronization between my computer and my iPhone isn’t necessary—it’s automatic. If I use one of the programs from my computer, I know I’ll see my work on the iPhone, too. I don’t have to synchronize anything (almost).

Almost? Why do I keep using the word “almost”? Well, because Gmail contact sync is not quite ready. Both Spanning Sync and BusySync are working on it, though, and it should be here soon. Finally because there is still no way to sync contacts over-the-air with the iPhone, my system can’t be called a total solution. If Google would put together an iPhone contacts app, ala Funambol, then I’d be all set. (Google, are you listening?)

It’s going to take a third party developer to work out the over-the-air syncing issue, if in fact the iPhone hardware is even capable of it. That issue is for a blog more technical than this one. Regardless, I’m willing to put up with manual contacts syncing because my solution gives me everything else.

If you’re ready to break away from Microsoft Outlook, you can give this a try even if you don’t use the iPhone. Your Windows Mobile phone can do it, too, but since this is an iPhone blog, I dare say that I think my iPhone does it with a lot more style.

In future posts I’ll go into more detail about Remember the Milk, PogoNotes, etc., but for now, I just want to say a big thanks to you for stopping by at iPhone by Steve. See ya around the Net!