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Is there a "What have I done today?" project diary-type application?


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Is there a "What have I done today?" project diary-type application?
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ghoti
owner for sale by house
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Charlotte, NC
 
2007-10-08, 15:24

I find myself writing more and more reports about what my students and I have done over a period of weeks or months. I tend to forget these things, and it takes me forever to think of what happened over a specific time period. Now that I have found a decent online TODO list (that also works well on the iPhone), I'm looking for something that will let me record what I've done. I also wouldn't mind something that lets me add the amount of time spent or something, but I don't need a complete project management tool. I also don't want to use my list of past TODOs (though I certainly will use that, too), because I can't make a TODO item for every little thing I do, and especially not for my students.

So, any ideas?

EDIT: The title is a bit misleading (that's what I get for changing it around ten times), I'm not looking for a program, but for a website to do that. Though I'd take a program too, if there's no suitable website.
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Mugge
Thunderbolt, fuck yeah!
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Denmark
 
2007-10-08, 15:36

Pretty clever.

Gotta try that booklet folding thing.

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Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2007-10-08, 15:48

What about this one? Technically a todo but can be used as didtoday if you want. You can even customize it, too!

todo.sh.

Note: Some bashing required.
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ghoti
owner for sale by house
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Charlotte, NC
 
2007-10-08, 15:57



Thanks Banana, but I have a TODO thingy. And it's a bit more ... modern, too. This would have appealed to me 10 years ago, but not anymore

I also doesn't fit what I'm looking for, which is more/something other than a TODO list where I can tick items off. I'm looking for something where I can record what I've done, and optionally how much time I spent.
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Dutch Pear
Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
 
2007-10-08, 18:01

I use Journler and like it very much.
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SteveC
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Boston
 
2007-10-11, 21:58

Two ideas:
One is to use a calendar application, and simply put in whatever you did with the date, time range, and a description. I will be releasing one soon, I hope, but any generic calendar app should do that, including Apple's. By using the category field, you can group certain events similarly, search, etc.

A second crude idea is to just use a datestamp on a Notes page. That basically gives you a big long text document, easily searchable, etc. When you say "reports" do you mean a diary, or something more?

I think I am confused by what you "really" want, though. Doesn't the to-do application you mentioned keep track of what you did, too? If you can't make an entry for everything you did in the to-do, then how will you enter the data somewhere else to generate the report? At some point you need to input the data.

My gut feeling is that you want is a good Calendar application, then you can make recurring entries, mark them as to-do, track time blocks, etc., and (perhaps) be connected with Contacts. It doesn't makes sense to be using two programs (To-do and diary) when one can do everything. Unfortunately, we are developing for a computer, not for the iPhone. But again, I'm not sure what reports you are trying to generate. Getting reports from an iPhone app certainly sounds like a brave new frontier. We wouldn't be building a sync to an iPhone until 2.0, I suspect. Kicking out an importable to-do list would probably be easy, though.

This is a sneak peak of the edit window. Would this capture all the data you need?

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torifile
Less than Stellar Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Durham, NC
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2007-10-11, 22:01

Does that program come with an ice pick so I can gouge my eyes out or do I need to provide my own?







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ghoti
owner for sale by house
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Charlotte, NC
 
2007-10-11, 22:09

Wow, SteveC, that is one of the ugliest programs I have ever seen. And I've seen a lot, believe me, I used to be a Linux zealot ...

You're right that it would make sense to use the ToDo application for tracking, but I'm not just tracking my own stuff, but also my students and to an extent my colleagues when I work with them in small projects. I don't want to make ToDo items for them.

I'm currently trying out Journler (suggested by Dutch Pear), though that is more a replacement for Notae than for my ToDo list. But I just started keeping lists of stuff that's accomplished, so perhaps it's just a question of keeping those current.
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Mac+
9" monochrome
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: 🇦🇺
 
2007-10-11, 23:31

ghoti - I know you're not looking for a full blown project management app, but in the event that nothing turns up, you might want to try (if you haven't already) OmniPlan.

Or, if you want web access, have you checked out the stuff from www.37signals.com?

All I want is a simple life
twitter
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SteveC
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Boston
 
2007-10-12, 12:28

Quote:
Originally Posted by ghoti View Post
Wow, SteveC, that is one of the ugliest programs I have ever seen. And I've seen a lot, believe me, I used to be a Linux zealot ...

You're right that it would make sense to use the ToDo application for tracking, but I'm not just tracking my own stuff, but also my students and to an extent my colleagues when I work with them in small projects. I don't want to make ToDo items for them.

I'm currently trying out Journler (suggested by Dutch Pear), though that is more a replacement for Notae than for my ToDo list. But I just started keeping lists of stuff that's accomplished, so perhaps it's just a question of keeping those current.
Eye candy is not a concern right now. :-)

The program has a field called "Agent" which we just added. It isn't in the Calendar module yet, so it doesn't show in the screenshot. But that would handle tracking "other peoples stuff" pretty easily.

So, you really hate the look, eh? I find most applications pretty, but weak in lot of areas. (Quickbooks, etc) The typeface, type size and background color are all user definable. Oh, and the data and title colors, too. I suppose I could spend more time choosing a prettier combination, but I think what people find "old looking" are the text editor shadows. Would you rather have the ability to change the GUI, or just be stuck with white and aqua? I know the icons need to get updated.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. You too torifile. lol PUT DOWN THAT ICE PICK!

Is this a little better?

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Banana
is the next Chiquita
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
 
2007-10-12, 12:59

SteveC, are you saying you made this?

If so, I'd strongly recommend that you try to make the interface look same as other applications. Right now, it looks like a port from Windows. Seriously.

No need tobe fancy; all you need to do is make it look consistent. Use brushed metal (they will kill me for that, but it's much more consistent than the present GUI), Aqua or whatever paradigm they're talking about.
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MagSafe
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
 
2007-10-12, 13:16

Have you tried http://twitter.com/ ?
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rampancy
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Fredericton, New Brunswick
 
2007-10-12, 23:00

Have you considered TaskPaper? While it's in beta it's currently free. And I assume you're not interested in the armada of GTD solutions for the Mac like iGTD, Frictionless, and Tracks/Locomotive?

Right now OmniFocus is in private beta, but you can get an invite by signing on to their beta-announce email list.

"The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice."
- Mahatma Gandhi
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