mbjones

introduction

So. My past few app reviews have been for calendaring solutions. The first couple were all inclusive, containing both event management and project management (if in a clunky way) and the third had some basic task management capabilities built in as well (although was not nearly as robust a solution). It was that third, Calvetica, that I landed on as my calendaring app of choice. It was easy to use, easy to input data into, and did just what I needed done, excepting project management. It’s this that I’ll turn to now. And I’ll review the first great program of the category that I have run across. It’s called Voodo (try and let the name not turn you away; perhaps a poor choice, but still a good app, and it might be perfect for your needs).

So what is Voodo? Voodo is a robust task management solution, that allows you to input the tasks that you have, along with their relevant details, and then get to work on them. It does a couple of clever things on top of this, as well, that might interest you.

the likes

As I previously said, this was the first good solution that I came across. Not perfect, mind you, but quite good.

The stand out feature, to me, was its google calendar integration. It’s not something I saw done in other task/project management apps, and was quite unique. It’s not a google tasks integration either. Rather, it creates a new calendar called “Voodo”, and tasks are uploaded as all day events onto it. If the task has a due date, it’s put on that date. If it doesn’t, well, they are made timeless and synced somewhere as well. This implementation is nice for a couple of reasons:

1. It gives you quick access to your tasks from anywhere, regardless of whether you have the app with you. All you need is access to your google calendar (which is easy to get on any phone with data or computer connected to the ‘net).

2. It also provides a backup in case anything happens. Hopefully the importance of this speaks for itself.

When tasks are completed, rather than removing them from the calendar, they are marked with a “+” at the beginning of the task name, creating a historical record on the calendar as well. All in all, the google calendar integration is quite a compelling feature.

It doesn’t all the creation of projects, so to speak, but allows the addition of tags to the task, so you are able to group them in this manner. Tags are a great means of categorization, and provide the ability to drill down into our tasks pretty quickly.

Speaking of the tasks, you can add location and people contexts to each, and add notes, set dates, and prioritize (4 levels). And everything can be sorted by these things (excepting notes).

the dislikes

My biggest dislike is probably the lack of projects. Like I said, tags are quite nice, and helpful, but it’d be nice to be able to group tasks together in a more coherent way. For example, I will often have a project where things need to be done in succession, and it’d be nice to be able to more specifically set this (rather than doing it generically with the due dates and tags).

It also makes google calendar “clunky”. If you have a lot of tasks, it adds a lot of info onto your calendar. This isn’t a dealbreaker by any means, but it does add some unnecessary clutter. I wish there was a way to create the tasks as time specific events, rather than all day events.

The interface also works quite nicely, but isn’t the prettiest to look at. Again, not a dealbreaker by any means, but something keeping it in the good not great category.

conclusion

As I started by saying, Voodo is a great app. If you need a simple, straightforward task management application with pretty sweet google calendar integration, look no further. It’s inexpensive too. My final verdict is 4 out of 5 stars.

introduction

As I’ve mentioned in the past couple of reviews, I’ve been on a quest to find the perfect calendaring solution for the iPad. It just seems like the iPad was made for personal organization style apps, with its ability to richly input and process data. Unfortunately those last couple of apps didn’t meet my admittedly lofty expectations; perhaps though perfection is too high of a goal, and not something within our grasp if we aren’t willing to develop it ourselves. But then there is today’s review: Calvetica. It’s as close to my idea of “perfect” as I’ve found and has (mostly) stopped my search for anything else.

I first heard about Calvetica when it was released for the iPhone. I saw it then and, not having an iPhone, thought it looked interesting but not worth picking up. Then when I found myself with an iPad, I revisited it, only to find it was iPhone only (unless you wanted to use the ugly scaling capabilities). And then not too long ago, I discovered they made an universal version, thereby enabling it on the iPad. You probably care less about it’s history (and my history with it) and more about how it works though. Look no further then.

likes

I love that Calvetica has gestures! I can easily scroll between months, select days and pinch for different views. Long taps bring up options like “add an event”. Everything I need to do can be done within a few taps, pinches or strokes.

I love that event input by and large is quick and easy. Tapping and holding brings up an entry form, and the basics can be done there. Another tap will get you into more advanced options as well. It’s all quite natural and easy.

I love that it integrates my Google Calendar (through the built-in app). I can be in sync on my computer, ipad and blackberry all at the same time with little hassle. There is some hassle though; why won’t these apps sync directly rather than using the built in calendar as a proxy?

I love the Agenda View & Week View from the main calendar screen. I love seeing about 6 weeks, alongside having the option of zooming to a day (particularly Agenda View as a list of events) or Week View, a list of all of my events for the week.

I love the ability to make a quick reminder. With a tap I can set a generic reminder for 15 minutes. This is great if I want to focus on something, zone out of the rest of the world, and then come back to things after the given time period.

Finally, i’ll mention that i love its built in Search ability (and how it isn’t cumbersome). It actually works quite well, and is self contained in a popover.

dislikes

I mentioned Google Calendar integration as a like; it’s one of those two-sided coin features though as its also a detriment in that it syncs through the built-in Calendar and not on its own. The one problem I’ve had with Calvetica has been Google Calendar sync issues. They’ve been rare though, and are in no ways a dealbreaker. It seems like it’d function much more smoothly if it directly synced.

Slow load times is my other major dislike. I think because it loads so much data from the get go, loading can be rough. I’ve seen a full calendar make it crawl (on my friend’s iPhone), and on my iPad it still takes a few seconds to load. It seems that things aren’t as optimized as they could be (but perhaps this is caused by sync issues that aren’t that easily fixed?). It’s also not a dealbreaker for me, but is definitely something that could be looked at by the developer.

what I’d like to see

The only thing that comes to mind is natural language input, as in a quick entry bar always on-screen, in which I could type something like, “Lunch with Jim Tomorrow” and have it automatically add that event to my calendar. That’d be a killer feature.

conclusion

Overall, Calvetica is an incredible app. It suits my needs perfectly. It’s quick and easy to use and feels natural, particularly when you get the gestures down. Outside of some load time and sync issues, I haven’t had any issues, and really, can’t recommend it strongly enough. And it actually does more than I’ve gone into. Also built in is task management (separated from the calendar) that syncs with Mysterious Trousers own cloud solution. Personally, I’m not using this feature; as a task management solution it didn’t suit my needs, but it might suit yours. And Calvetica seems to be actively developed which hopefully means more great features and support in the pipeline. 5 out of 5 stars

The next calendaring/organization application to review is SmartPad. I’ve actually had it the longest and used it for quite some time. When I reviewed it on the app store, the title of the review was “Best I’ve Found So Far”. It was true then (in June) but not necessarily so now.

What I liked

There is a lot to like in this app. I think they do a much better job of implementing notes for example, than the previous app I reviewed. It’s relatively trivial (a few taps and highlights) to turn bits and pieces of the note into tasks or events, which can be handy if using SmartPad in a meeting.

Other areas of note:

• Having a tab dedicated to history is quite nice as well; I can easily figure out what I’ve done and when I did it with relative ease.

• Search exists throughout everything, which would be handy if working with extensive calendars including lots of tasks and notes.

• The graphics are anything but bland. Things stand out but are still easy on the eyes. It’s easy to distinguish bits of the built in UI from my data (events/notes/task).

• They score some parts for making the footer navigation slider slightly bigger (although they lose just as many, if not more, for having a footer navigation slider at all).

Probably my favorite feature is the ease in which SmartPad enables you to automatically slip tasks into your day and calendar. They’ll take the working hours you input, and the amount of time you want to dedicate to tasks (say an hour) and then tell you what tasks from your lists to do, based on the amount of time each is scheduled to take. It is really quite a nice feature if you live and breathe by your task lists.

What I Disliked

It is b-u-g-g-y. Going into the settings screen, for example, and then exiting often gives me a blank white screen rather than my calendar. That lasts about 45 seconds and then it completely crashes. And I’m left having to reload whilst crossing my fingers that my data is still there (this is a real life crash occurring as I write this).

This was enough to make me look for something else (and why I had strong hopes for CalPad). It’s sad though that it comes down to this.

It’s not my only issue with SmartPad though. I seriously lament the lack of gesture support. This type of app screams for that on a touch device. Supposedly it’s coming in this app, and I’ll give it another go when it arrives (especially if the crashing stops) but it’s still a black mark on it.

Honestly though, these were my major gripes. Their combination (but primarily the bugginess) caused me to look elsewhere as I said.

Overall, I rated this app a 4 of 5 stars when I originally got it (rated on the appstore). Now, having had it longer and used it quite a bit more, I’d probably drop that down to a 3 of 5. It’s definitely an improvement over CalPad but not quite what I was looking for in the mythical perfect personal organizer app.

I’ve been on a constant quest to find some sort of personal organizer to use as a calendar (and if I was lucky, use it to do other things as well). I found many in the App Store, but none of them were overwhelmingly appealing. But, I knew one thing: the calendar that it comes with iOS was ugly and mostly non-functional so it was worth exploring some other options.

One of those options was CalPad. It was initially intriguing in that it incorporated event management, note management and task management into the same app. That’d make syncing easy, right? And eliminate the need for extra apps. Definitely an initial plus making it worth further exploration.

What I Liked

I actually liked quite a bit about it. It’s snappy. It’s straightforward. It seems to do a lot. To get into some more specifics, I’ll start by saying that a multitude of settings gives the air of customization that’s nice in an app like this. I’m a big believer in the notion of developing your process (whatever it is/whatever it might be for) and then finding the tool that fits into that process. You don’t want to do the opposite: find a tool and then force your process into. Lots of customizability hints that perhaps the tool can be made to fit into your process.

Anyways, onto the worthwhile settings here. First, you’ve got the ability to make multiple calendars (so you could have a work, a home and a social life calendar, if you wanted). You are also able to set your general working hours for easy event creation and task delegation. Events and tasks can also be given distinct contexts by which they can be sorted and grouped with (ie, if you are at home, you can look at all tasks with the “home” context and get to working on things). It also syncs with google calendar (for events) and toodledo (for tasks).

As far as the user interface goes, I really like that the month view shows 4 months, and not just 1 (you can though zoom to one).

What I Disliked

All of those “likes” being said, there were numerous dislikes, and these honestly keep CalPad from being my day to day calendar.

For starters, we can look no further than the user interface. It’s so frustrating that so many calendaring apps lack gesture support. Gestures would be perfect and would enrich the app immensely. A little flick of the finger should be all you need to move between days; alas its nowhere near that easy. It’s actually rather clunky, currently, to do something as simple as moving between days. This app, as well as others (including the built in calendar app) use the annoying bar at the bottom of the screen to move between days. It’s impossibly small for someone with big fingers to use; it’s always mixing my days up.

What I’m Neutral About (But Worth Mentioning)

There were several things that are worth pointing out, but that didn’t necessarily greatly impact my final decision of “to use or not to use.” They might be more important to other people though, one way or the other.

The first feature like this that I’ll mention is the list view. It’s a quite nice way to sort out events and tasks in a non-calendar environment but I never found it that useful; it wasn’t a screen I found myself turning to often. Part of this could be that it shares the same “clunkiness” of the rest of the UI; as the app improves I’m sure this will as well. For those driven by their tasks and projects though, this feature could be a big boon.

And a couple of more quick things. One: I Don’t really see the usefulness of notes in the week view. This is just a personal opinion, but I would have liked the option of being able to turn them off. Two: The color scheme just seems bland. There is nothing stand out about it, and I get bored looking at it. Something I’m going to be using day in/day out, I’d like to be sharp and eye catching. Others might really like the blandness though, and as I said, it wasn’t a deciding factor against CalPad.

Final Thoughts

Of the initial apps I tried, I really wanted to like this one the most. I can’t really place why though. It’s customization was appealing (if unfortunately limited in scope). But when all was said and done, it just didn’t flow as I wanted it to. It’s management didn’t really fit my personal process, and that I don’t want to change for a app. A big knock, as well, was that when working with a touch device, I want my interaction to be mostly brief touches: swipes, holds, etc that get things done. Not more menus and lists and settings to check. Your mileage may vary though. If you want something surprisingly robust, this could definitely be an app to check. Because of how it worked for me though, I can’t give it more than 2 out of 5 stars. It is worth noting though that it seems to be actively developed; I look forward to seeing changes down the road and would definitely consider revising that if the program incorporates some of the features that I desire in an app like this.

One of the things that our organization is looking into with increased interest is the importance of social media marketing. As a starting point, this primarily involves focusing on our facebook and twitter presence. There are a lot of tools out there designed to help you manage one or the other (or both!) and I’ve been looking at a lot of them.

The first I’m going to review is a lovely service from Flowtown called Timely. Timely focuses on one thing, and does so extremely well: scheduling tweets.

When first going to the site you have a simple page asking for a twitter username. After inputing your username, it does some “processing” and then tells you when it thinks your optimum tweet time is.

 

 

They don’t tell you exactly what formula they use to figure this out and instead just say:

We analyze all your tweets and figure out what times of day you get the best engagement, then we define these best times as “buckets”. Every account is unique.

My guess is that they look at (a) what time you typically get responses from followers, (b) where you live, (c) where your followers live, and (d) when your followers typically tweet. That’s all entirely conjecture though (but seems to make since). I’d be curious to know the algorithm though.

Anyways, what it is doesn’t necessarily matter. What does is whether it works or not. From my testing I’d say a resounding “Yes!” particularly for personal accounts. How it works is worth going into now.

After presenting you with optimum tweet times, you have the option of signing up. After this, you can start using the service to schedule tweets.

You have two basic pages to deal with: the scheduling page and the published page.

 

 

The scheduling page is above. Primary focus is given to composing tweets. You have the typical character countdown readily visible and then a large “Schedule” button and a slightly smaller “Post within 30 minutes” button. It’s easy enough as is, but there is one nice feature built in that you don’t even have to worry about — any link added in the tweet box is automatically shortened and, if you have a bit.ly account, it uses that so you can keep track of all of your tweet stats. You also get a simple stat box here as well as a look at your upcoming schedule. It’s all clean, simple and very easy to use.

 

 

The “Published” page is just as clean, simple and easy to use as well, with one annoyance: the giant suggested tweet advertising Timely. I hoped it’d go away after scheduling it once but no dice on that one. This page does though list your klout score, previous tweets and the stats associated with them. I enjoy seeing the “Reach” stat: it’s neat seeing how many others got your tweet in their stream.

Conclusion

I must say I really enjoy using Timely thus far. I like how easy it is. I like that it doesn’t have a heavy image focused layout — the page loads fast even on slow internet. I like that it focuses on a single thing and that it focuses on doing it well.

I also like that they limit scheduled tweets to 3 a day. At first I didn’t think I would but it makes sense. You don’t want to bombard your followers with an obscene amount of tweets after all. And if you are focusing on certain times of day, it makes sense to put your best thoughts forward then.

Besides the giant “advertise me” tweet box, there wasn’t much I don’t like. It’s already made its way into my daily routine.

BUT, I don’t think I’d use it at the organizational level. You can add multiple twitter accounts (a plus if you are tweeting for your organization) but I think there are tools out there that incorporate the scheduling piece as well as a host of other features that I don’t necessarily care about at the personal level but would at the organizational level. We are looking for something with a bit more “oomph” — something that actually shows your feed, that has built in re-tweeting and quoting capabilities, something that keeps more in depth stats and lets you easily expand your audience. There are tools out there like this, some of which I’ll review, so having another site to go to isn’t really appealing.

For personal use though, it definitely gets 5 out of 5 stars.

My “new” job (I guess it’s not super new…I’ve been at it for a little under a year now) has afforded me a lot more time to explore web apps and the “software as a service” (SaaS) model. I’ve come into an office making use of very little in the way of technology and am doing my best to explore the possibilities of tools that would (a) increase our efficiency, (b) improve the quality of our interactions with people locally and abroad, (c) provide cost effective solutions to tedious problems and (d) do this all in a manner not over taxing to people who may not enjoy or be used to using software.

To give examples of what I mean, before I stepped into my role there was little in the way of a data backup plan (this still needs work), contacts are stored in an old physical book that is following apart, and any time a mass email is sent out everyone scrambles to find all of the addresses to send to.

There are other issues that need dealing with as well — this is just a sampling — but it (hopefully) gives you an idea of why SaaS is a serious consideration.

In the search for tools to use I’ve gotten to experiment with a lot and so thought I’d start a series reviewing them from the perspective of a small non-profit working in Africa. This might give a bit of a different review than typically written as multiple factors will come into play:

• Ease of use for non-westerners and those for whom English is not their primary language.
• Price, which is very important for a non-profit with little operating budget.
• Access speed locally in Africa (and along with this, reliance on bandwidth heavy images).
• Does it solve an issue we have in a way that we would (does the tool fit our needs or are we trying to fit the tool to our needs?)?

These are a smattering of the questions that I have to ask before considering presenting a tool to our leadership. Hopefully you’ll find these reviews interesting and, if you are the developer(s) or owner(s), you won’t take offense if we don’t like your app due to our unique circumstances.

I’ve been able to read more lately, which is quite nice. It seems that my old job tended to wear me out mentally and when I would get home, didn’t have the energy to do much requiring invested thought. I still read, mind you, just not as much as I am now.

The last book I read is entitled A Letter to Africa About Africa by Kasongo Munza. Munza was an ordained UMC pastor from the Congo and was director of a training center in Zambia when he passed away in 2005.

His book looks in depth at the prevailing African worldview, particularly that of subsaharan Africa, and analyzes how it (a) has led to the vast problems facing Africa and (b) how it matches up against Jesus’ view of the kingdom of God.

I didn’t quite know what to expect upon picking it up. Part of me worried that this was going to be another book focused on replacing the African worldview with an American Evangelical one. I’ll readily recognize that there is much in the African worldview that needs a critical eye, but a replacement of one broken worldview with another broken one isn’t an answer I wanted to read about (I’ve already seen enough proposals like this).

Thankfully this book was not that and because of this I found it quite helpful. It was a detailed analysis of the African worldview — something necessary to understand if you are going to even begin to attempt spiritual and community development type work. It also provided a framework for building a new worldview steeped in God’s kingdom — not based in throwing everything African out and not importing everything western in.

I think it worth writing in some detail about the African worldview so that people have an understanding of the good and the bad inherent in it. And that task I’m going to save for another day. But for now, if you would like to read a fascinating and small book on why Africa is the way it is, pick up A Letter to Africa About Africa. And if you ever plan on doing ministry here, make that a priority.

I had the opportunity to see several movies over break. Unfortunately I haven’t yet taken the time to review them. That needs to change. And so I’ll start with the first one I saw (which happened to be the best).

We have a tradition in my family. On Christmas Day, we generally always have symphony beef and then go to a matinee. This is how we saw the three Lord of the Rings movies. This year we saw another epic fantasy (with a definite sci-fi flair): Avatar. By now everyone reading this has likely already seen the movie or heard enough about it to decide whether they want to or not; I don’t really expect this review to change any minds.

Visually it’s stunning, and worth seeing for this reason alone. Few movies immerse you enter their environment like Avatar was able to. Particularly the 3d version draws you in and makes you feel like you are right there. This is made all the more incredible by the world — Pandora — that the filmmakers developed. It’s unlike any we’ve seen or known. The plants are colorful and fluorescent and intriguing, and the wildlife exciting and fearsome. It’s done so well that you quickly forget all the computer animation involved.

As for as the story goes — it’s not going to win any awards for originality. I saw the plot played out in Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, and others. It doesn’t really drift from this stereotype (in fact there is a funny summary of Pocahontas “corrected” to be for Avatar floating around the ‘net). As long as you don’t expect a groundbreaking script, though, you won’t be disappointed in this regard. Particularly if you liked the aforementioned movies, the Avatar script won’t be troublesome to you.

The message is what a lot of people have been talking about. I’ve heard many upset by the portrayal of a marine that turns on his fellow soldiers in order to help the Navi people (to the supposed point of renouncing humanity). Or the not so subtle critique of US military presence in Iraq. Or the denouncement of seemingly all powerful corporations exploiting anything (and anyone) for their own gain. Or the pantheism of the Navi people. Frankly I’m surprised that some of these are the issues they are made out to be. Who for instance is really for a standing military (or mercenary band) that needlessly shoots and kills civilians? Or the exploitation of natural resources leading to the genocide of a people? We should be ready and willing to renounce such extreme greed (and that is what the movie goes after — not the military itself or even corporations). I can understand a raised eyebrow or two at the pantheistic threads. But I think it’s probably too simple to label the spirituality of Avatar as pantheistic though. The world itself is a giant bio-network. Everything, while independent, has the means of “plugging in” (for the Navi, it’s a fiber optic cord patch in their hair). There is a deity worshipped and unlike traditional pantheism (which is by its nature deistic in the sense of a non-interventionist god/goddess) she does intervene in the end on behalf of the people. That doesn’t necessarily change the pagan ties, but it is a made up world, in a made up future, with an entirely different earth history and is something that lots of movies (including the Lord of the Rings) gets a pass for by the same people critiquing Avatar; that makes the “spiritual” critique ring kind of hollow to me. That’s all personal opinion though.

Anyways, I started by saying this was the best movie I saw this past holiday break and it definitely was. My wife and I, and my parents all thoroughly enjoyed it. I still remember when the star, Jake, flies in on a tamed dragon — the biggest on Pandora — and unites the Navi in order to try and save them. It’s epic in that it presents a world never seen and an adventure never experienced (if you discount the recycled plot elements). If you haven’t seen it, I definitely would say it’s worth it.