Integrated Life Management (by alaric)

I used to keep a todo list in OmniOutliner, with the help of an AppleScript that sucked up completed tasks into monthly archives, so I could easily tally the Time Spent column to generate invoices/timesheets for hourly-rate work.

However, then one client set up their own task management and timesheeting app, so suddenly I had to juggle their system for that client's tasks, and my own system for tasks relating to other clients, my internal projects, and personal tasks. Without one integrated list, it was then hard to produce a single prioritised list of what I should do next.

However, there was trouble even before then; lots of little requests to do work come in by email. I either do them there and then, reply with a reason why not (such as asking for more details), forward the message to delegate it - or flag it as a todo and come back to it later. However, those flagged todos tend to get lost amongst the drifts of spam and old emails. I really wanted a button in my mail client to turn an email message into a todo item. Most ideally, I'd want a RT instance, to manage correspondance relating to a task. But again, that would not be integrated with my todo system.

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NEON (by alaric)

NEON is the user interface system for ARGON. I've not designed what the UI will "look like", since I think that would be a stupid thing to do - different people need different UIs, especially when they have differing hardware (think mobile devices, wearable computers, and interaction devices for the blind, in particular). But what I have been designing is the UI architecture, by which applications will expose their interface in such a way that different UIs can map them to their available hardware.

Anyway, I've had some pretty similar ideas to Tuomo Valkonen - who has an idea called VIS. So I finally dropped him an email detailling my thoughts, focussing on how they differ from VIS: Read more »

Applications versus Documents (by alaric)

Applications suck.

Many individual applications suck, yeah, but the concept of applications as they're implemented these days inherently sucks.

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mew :( (by sarah)

Came down to reassemble/hoover the fireplace and lo! yet another kitten egg has appeared during the night 🙁 - obviously they aren't as house trained as we thought :'(

Is that the Baby? (by sarah)

At dinner today I kept hearing a sound that could have been the baby whimpering (she was already tucked up in bed) or something like an owl hooting outside - after making Als life a misery and a checkup on the baby it was discovered that the noise was infact the sound air makes going through Als nose when he breaths!

He says that when there is a sleeping baby you'd better be quiet around me - not becuase you'll wake the baby but becuase I will panic!

Feeling a tad silly now - I should have just checked on the baby monitor in hindsight - oh well.