Chrome portable

Just saw a very helpful tweet from Jo Badge about Chrome portable.

I've just installed it (to My Documents - doesn't require any permissions) and it and the extensions work a treat (the extensions weren't available on the previous portable version). The extensions I've put in are the ones I already have at home on the the full version - Chromed Bird, Google Mail Checker, Diigo Web Highlighter and Bookmark, and RSS Subscription Extension (by Google). I've also added ChromeMilk - but I might just keep that as a tab to the full site on my home pages. I should probably find one for RSS too. Any other suggestions?

So, thank you to Jo, and thank you to the nice people at PortableApps.

Update

It's just been pointed out to me that it has inbuilt flash too - even better!

Remembering the milk

By moutzouris

This is going to make me look like a complete geek, but here we go...

In January I starting using Remember the milk (RTM) to help me get more organised. More specifically I'm using it to adopt the Getting things done (GTD) system (which I might blog about some other time when I've finished the book (!), but thanks to ffolliet for getting me into it). But after a useful, albeit brief, meeting yesterday with Jo Badge and Gareth Johnson I thought I'd note down how I'm using RTM.

Getting things done involves 5 stages

1. Collect
2. Process
3. Organize
4. Review
5. Do

...and remember the milk (RTM) is helping me with all of them. I needed something that was useable for both a PC and an iPod Touch and allowed offline access. Most of what follows aren't my ideas, but things I've found from various RTM forums (especially this one on a GTD set up and this one on useful searches). So this is just a record of the technical stuff (it's a bit dull, but if you're interested read on).

Lists

I just have two regular lists; inbox and processed (which I call '|' so it takes up the least room on the tabs)

Tags

Most of my tags I give a prefix so they are appropriately grouped.

Context

My context tags I prefix with c_ (I tried @_ but I didn't fint that as intuative). So context tags are things like:

• c_office
• c_phone
• c_email
• c_web
• c_home
• c_errand

So you can see I use the sytem for home stuff as well as work stuff - which I didn't think I'd like but actually I do.

Status

Status tags I prefix with s_ and I have just the standard four:

• s_deferred
• s_nextaction
• s_someday
• s_waiting

Projects

Project tags I prefix with p_ (I bet you're beginning to see a pattern here!) and so are things like:

• p_lts2010
• p_tutorials
• p_itpeersupport

These will be fairly meaningless to you but are very specific to me - and I have loads of them because GTD defines a project as something with more than one action.

Reference

Reference tags I prefix with r_ and are things like:

• r_itswg
• r_plone
• r_homegroup
• r_itpeersupport (a lot of my reference tags link to projects)

Zzz

This helps create the tickler file and are a means of setting how many days before the action needs doing you want a reminder (days, weeks, months).

• zzz_1d
• zzz_2d
• zzz_3d
• zzz_1w
• zzz_2w
• zzz_1m

Smart lists

Because I have smart lists I only need 2 manual lists. The search code for my smart lists is as follows.

Next actions

tag:s_nextaction

Tickler

NOT(due:never OR due:today) AND NOT (list:zzz)

Waiting

tag:s_waiting

ZZZ ( a bit of a monster)

(tag:zzz AND dueAfter:now) OR (tag:zzz1d AND dueAfter:"1 day of now") OR (tag:zzz2d AND dueAfter:"2 days of now") OR (tag:zzz3d AND dueAfter:"3 days of now") OR (tag:zzz4d AND dueAfter:"4 days of now") OR (tag:zzz5d AND dueAfter:"5 days of now") OR (tag:zzz1w AND dueAfter:"1 week of now") OR (tag:zzz2w AND dueAfter:"2 weeks of now") OR (tag:zzz1m AND dueAfter:"1 month of now")

Tonight

I also have a smart list for things I need to do tonight (if I feel like it!).

dueBefore:today OR due:today AND tag:c_home

It's not a perfect system, but it is a system - and it's working well for me. I'm feeling more on top of things and less hassled. Do you have a system? Do you need one? What do you think?