One of the many myths of GTD and todo software is that they all require feature X, Y and usually Z. Hell, throw all of them in.

More features makes for better software, right?

Like a few people I'm sure, I've chopped and changed my todo software as I've realised something wasn’t working for me. I've used both web and mac applications, it just didn’t work out.

More recently, I realised that I was a total tightass when I decided I didn’t want to pay $50USD for Cultured Code’s ‘Things’ app. I'd nabbed a copy for my iPhone, now I need to grab a desktop client licence. Lame.

Actually it was more that Things didn’t map to my mind very well. I'd also checked Omni’s ‘Focus’, but $24.00 for an iPhone app (~$80 for the desktop client) that I might only use once or twice. (Where is app trialing, apple?).

Anyway, the point of this article was that I realised that I once successfully used OmniOutliner, while working at an agency. Better yet, I already owned a licence.

This setup is perfect. I can adapt the workspace to fit with my needs. Not how someone else envisaged it to work in their software design wet dream. It keeps out of my way and I can style anything to my liking.

• When I type a time, like “Next week” or “Tomorrow” its automagically converted to a calendar date.
• I can indent items or leave notes using TAB or Return
• Other than folding “Next” or “Upcoming” up, I can simply view only the items that I'm focusing on.

In summary, I think the most productive thing that you can use is the thing that works with your brain, not what Merlin Mann prescribes. (Nothing against Merlin, I needed an example).

Back to work, slacker!

Looking back, my representation on the web has always been pretty half assed. In January, Tim Lucas pulled together a shiny new site and boosted his article quality dramatically. I thought “he’s doing it right”, I really wanted to get my action together.

Shiny object syndrome

That was January, here I sit the day before August staring into textmate typing the first article I've written in almost 2 years, I haven’t even bothered to move those old posts. It wasn’t worth it.

This year I've made more open source releases and contributions than ever before, I've lapped up various technologies and concepts, wrote my first DSL with ruby and felt like I was pushing through to another level, mentally anyway.

Its not hard to say that leaving my salary paying job and moving to consulting was one of the best things I've done. It felt selfish to leave the team for a reason none other than “I needed time away”. That was a year ago. Since then I've had more time to reflect on life and importantly, development.

Juicy details

You might notice that the new site has a bunch of links to various web services. I'm pulling my “about the author” image from twitter, “upcoming events” from upcoming, “projects” from github, “presentations” from slideshare, “links” from delicious and recent images from flickr – all using Smoke, not only that, but I do so using only about 45 lines of source code.

I was inspired by Yahoo’s “Pipes” but frustrated with the strange act of dragging elements around the screen. While knowing what I wanted to do, I found that I could probably write a custom parser faster. A vast majority of the research or ‘learning’ projects that I've put together consume web services. Now, with Smoke I can pull services together, mash them up, cut them to pieces and re-interpret the web the way I feel it should be.

The article facet of this site is pinched straight from Tim Lucas' site, I dropped it in, it worked, I drank beer.

I typed a series of commands (maybe, 5?) and my site was running on Heroku. Job done. I’ll probably leave the beer alone tonight though. What an awesome experience that was, I'm a fan of doing it yourself, but this quick win felt so good.

For now, I'm going to run without comments, if you've got something to stay ensure that you drop me a line, I'd love to hear about it.

The markup used on the site is HTML5, thanks to Lachlan Hardy it even displays pretty well in IE6. No hacks are used, perhaps a few CSS methods that don’t appear in older browsers, however the fallback is indeed graceful.

I'm responsible for the design of the site. Anthony gave me moral support, slapped some layout tips and rules on me when I asked for them. I think he found it really hard to watch me go through the process of putting the site together. Generally, when we work together he is the design part of our voltron machine. In future I’ll leave our client design work up to him.

In closing

A web site is never “done”, I hope to evolve this site and keep it as fresh as I can for as long as I can (using technology, of course). Perhaps I’ll end up writing better… God, I failed english in high school because I preferred to skip it to eat chinese and play pool with my friends. If it doesn’t kill me it’ll only make me stronger, right?

I booked everything only 3 days before. Rushed around to shutdown the office for a couple of weeks and get everything in order. I woke up the day I was to depart feeling like I was getting a cold. I avoided packing until an hour and a half before I left for the airport.

As the plane descended into Narita I felt a throbbing pain in my ear that felt like the side of my head was going to explode like an ACME bomb on a roadrunner cartoon.

That lasted for at least two days, I had managed to take a full jar of echinaccia by the third day. Appropriately, I shook the bug before it settled in – Anyway, this was the most disorientating feeling I’ve ever had. I was partially deaf, that is; I had to turn my head to my right ear to understand conversation with (english speaking) people.

What a contrast from the Melbourne winter! (max 14ºc) Tokyo was 33ºc and around 90% humidity. If Tokyo wasn’t already disorientating enough with the bright (like daylight) city lights of Shinjuku, the visual noise of the subway maps and the sheer volume of people everywhere.

During the week of the RubyKaigi, we managed to have dinner and drinks in a michelin star rated restaurant, hang in an awesome japanese metal / rock bar, attempt to go to the fish market (straight from the awesome bar) and scream “ruby ruby ruby” along with the kaiser chiefs most nights (at least once in an ‘all you can drink’ karaoke bar)

The visual impact of Tokyo streets blew me away. As did the friendliness and acceptance of the japanese people – even with the 5 or 6 japanese words that I poorly executed to get my way around.

Although I was the invader, I found many japanese locals to know far more english than I did japanese.

On my first night in Tokyo, while running late to dinner the manager of a small connivence store walked me from one end of a massive train station to the other, where I needed to be to catch a specific line. He also taught me how to fish, rather than just showing me where it was. I thanked him, he bowed and trundled back to his store.

Where is this going anyway?

Not really anywhere, it was a long way home from Tokyo and I thought this post during a warm embrace with my headphones and iPhone.

Come to Railscamp in Melbourne this November

Theres plenty to read about past railscamps, including one in the us only this last gone week. I’m one of the organisers for railscamp 6, situated an hour out of Melbourne.

Some common excuses

My wife / girlfriend / parter / dog would never accept me leaving them for two weeks.

I brought my girlfriend along. It seems that a couple of weeks in Tokyo is a pretty easy sell (dah)

Rubykaigi is almost more than 60% japanese content

Leonard Chin was a superstar, he had live translations on a second monitor in all of the japanese sessions that I attended. Anyway, I skipped more than 60% of the talks at Railsconf this year (currency of talks at these big conferences is a bitch). Most times conferences are more about going to meet and hang out with other like minded people. RubyKaigi was awesome and it’ll be pretty hard to not attend next year. See you there?