If You Use Lists......You'll Love Remember The Milk

Making up lists of activities is an almost essential part of running your business and personal affairs. 

But what do you do with these lists and how do you keep them up-to-date? There's a neat on-line application called Remember The Milk (RTM), which can really help out. 

When you join RTM, it provides you with four pre-configured lists, including an InBox. The layout looks smart and is pretty easy to use. You can even email or Twitter, tasks directly into you InBox.

The key features of RTM include:

Lists - New lists can be created to suit your personal needs. These might include phone calls, urgent actions, projects, invoicing or whatever else you find useful.

Tasks - You can create tasks within any of your lists (or transfer them from your InBox if originally created by email or Twitter). These tasks can all be allocated with names, priorities, due dates, repeats, notes, URL's etc. They can also be modified at any time.

Reminders - You can send yourself reminders about any particular task via email, SMS or one of several instant messaging services.

Google Integration - Neat integration options are provided with Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Maps.

Microsoft Outlook Integration - Synchronisation is also available with Outlook tasks.

Mobile Phone Support - iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows and Blackberry mobile devices all have support options for RTM.

RTM was launched in 2005 and claims to now have over 2.5 million users. The on-line list management service is provided free of charge. However you will need to upgrade to the $25 per annum "pro" version for the iPhone, iPad and Outlook options.

You can sign up for Remember The Milk at  http://www.rememberthemilk.com/signup/

Hint - Your lists are normally displayed in alphabetical order. If you wish to change this order simply add numbering prior to the list name.

LinkedIn Voted Most Important Networking Site

In a recent survey by ROI Research, 59% of respondents nominated LinkedIn as the most important social networking website. The same survey showed that 20% of LinkedIn users visit the site daily and 50%, at least, once a week.

The importance of personal referrals was also highlighted, with 60% being likely to take action when a friend posts information about a product or company.

The survey was sponsored by Performics, an SEO consultancy, more information can be found on their blog.

The Ultimate Networking Accessory

Coming soon to an optician near you!

Imagine walking into a business event and being able to see each person's written profile projected alongside them. This is NOT science fiction. Right now "smart" contact lenses are in the process of being developed.

The scenario painted above will use facial recognition technology to identify other people in the room. Pull down their profile information from the Internet. Then project it into your eyes. All done via your contact lens. (I always knew I'd find a benefit of being short sighted sooner or later!)

This type of capability may take 20 years to come about, or it may be a lot nearer than you think. Either way you had better get your on-line profiles looking good. You never know who or how somebody might be looking at them.

See the Economist's video about smart contact lenses directly above or for the full article click here.

Cloud Computing in Comparison.

In his recent letter to the Economist entitled Cloudy-sky thinking, Professor Milo Martin makes a great point about the reliability of Cloud Computing.

Anybody who has relied upon an in-house IT infrastructure will surely remember the angst created by system downtime due to faults, upgrades and the like. The occasional unavailability of Cloud Computing resources and the ease with which you can back-up your data compares very favourably. Not to mention the cost savings.

It's just great to log-in to one of your on-line applications and find there is a range of new features available, without anything to organise, no downtime and no additional costs.