Microsoft Windows Live Storage Solution

I’m a big fan of Microsoft products. Windows is my main operating system (currently Windows 7), and I haven’t found a full office suite yet that beats MS Office. That said, I don’t think the world’s biggest software company is quite as deft at cranking out killer webware. Considering that the customer is always right, I’ve decided to write about the “Microsoft Live Storage Solution.”

I’ll introduce my quandary with Windows Live Sync. Windows Live Sync is a free application that synchronizes folders between multiple computers. I use this myself, and find it invaluable. You simply install the software on each computer you want to sync files across and configure the folders from the web interface. It’s easy and it works. It even let’s you browse the contents of your computers if they’re online. However, it only syncs files between the computers you choose; it' doesn’t let you store anything in the cloud.

You’ve probably heard of Dropbox; it essentially does the same thing as Live Sync, except it doesn’t allow you to browse your computer. But it does store whatever data you’re syncing in the cloud as well, accessible from wherever you are. So is Dropbox my solution? Well, Dropbox has two versions: free and paid. The free version offers 2GB of storage, the paid, 50GB. I’m a cheapskate when it comes to software/webware, so I’ve only used the free version, but here’s the catch: after you are syncing 2GB of data, you can’t add any. At least Live Sync will do the whole nine yards if you want. But no storage . . .

Microsoft has another web service: Windows Live Skydrive. Skydrive offers 25BG of free online storage. It’s kind of clunky to use, since you can’t upload folders, but it’s nothing to sneeze at. However, no syncing.

Finally, they’ve got Windows Live Mesh. It’s goal is to let you “Sync, share, and access the information you care about—wherever you happen to be.” The idea is that your content and applications are available from whatever platform you’re on: PC, Mac, Windows Mobile, or Web. And obviously, it’s pretty cool—albeit a bit laggy—to be able to use all my data and run any application from a browser. Live Mesh has a component similar to Dropbox: you can set up folders on multiple computers that sync with each other and the cloud, although I’ve heard that the syncing it’s quite as good/fast as Live Sync. I personally like it’s web interface better than Dropbox: very similar to a Windows desktop. But . . . only up to 5GB of syncing. Unlike Dropbox, there’s no premium package to get more space.

So, what do I think the folks in Redmond should do? First, they should combine Sync, Skydrive, and Mesh into one product, which would probably still be called Mesh. Then, it should all work seamlessly; you would only install one application, and you could enable content sharing and/or computer sharing. Content sharing would have the fast, thorough syncing of Sync; it would have 30GB (Skydrive’s 25GB plus Mesh’s 5GB) to store your content in the cloud; if you want to sync more, it will do so, but it won’t be stored in the cloud. You should be able to purchase more space, as well as configure which files/folders you want in the cloud.

So that’s my Windows Live Storage Solution; actually, Windows Live Content is more catchy. Whatever they call it, I think it would be a better setup than the scattered syncing/storage services Microsoft has now. Do you agree? What would be your ideal multi-computer solution be?

My Remember The Milk Workflow

Remember the Milk is one of the most popular online “To Do” list web applications. In 2008, it won a Webware 100 reward in the productivity category. I’ve been using RTM to keep track of my daily tasks for about 7 months, so I thought I’d explain a bit about how I use it.

You’ve probably heard about David Allen and his book “Getting Things Done.” Although I haven’t read “Getting Things Done,” I’ve gathered quite a bit of info about Allen’s methods from around the web, and have learned a lot about how to build a personal productivity system just by browsing through the Remember the Milk user forums. Although there are other online task applications that offer more features—many that are even geared towards GTD—the “general-purpose-ness” of RTM has a certain sweetness to it that makes it my current choice. RTM doesn’t have many special categories to label your task with, but that’s okay: my system heavily relies on tagging. Not only does this make it easy to use and maintain, but it also gives me the ability to build an entirely new system without worrying about the application’s constraints, if I ever wanted to.

There are three foundations rules to my system:

1. Every task in my system is either a lone task or a part of a project.
2. Every task is either next, waiting, future, someday.
3. Every task can only be done in a certain context.

The first rule should be rather obvious: everything that needs to be done either completes the goal or is part of a bigger picture. Single tasks get a “lone” tag, while tasks belonging to a project receive a tag called “-project_name.” Yes, the dash is supposed to be there. Preceding certain types of tags with special symbols is something I learned from the Remember The Milk forums. Part of the benefit of this is obvious when tagging: RTM’s auto-completing immediately shows me all my current projects when I type “-”; but it really shines when coupled with a few greasemonkey scripts I’ll mention later.

Before moving on, let me explain a few of my project conventions. RTM doesn’t natively support projects, but with another greasemonkey script, you can add that functionality. I won’t explain how to use the script here, since you can read about it from the links below, but I’ll say that you can have a project title, as well as sub-projects, and theoretically sub-sub-projects (but I haven’t had success with those). I declare project headings by giving them a priority of 1, although this isn’t necessary. I just do it so I can view all projects at once by searching priority:1. Then, sub-tasks have a priority of 2.

Bullet Two: A next action is either a lone task or part of a project. All lone tasks are next actions (if there were anything in their way, they would be part of a project). Anything that can be done in a project is a next actions. I denote next actions by using a priority of 3. They also require a context, an energy level, and a time estimate (which is the only one that is not a tag). The context is the important one; I have energy level and time estimate in there just for completeness, and because it was easier to build it in when I started than to put it in down the road when it really becomes useful. Energy level tags are @@high, @@medium, and @@low. A context is basically the environment you do a task in, or where it is done; these tags are preceded by @: I’ve got @web, @home, @email, among others.

There are two types of waiting tasks: secondary tasks that are waiting for me to complete primary tasks, and tasks that can’t be done until other people do certain tasks. I don’t specify the first kind in any way; when I’m waiting for someone else, my task gets a tag of “wait.” The difference between waiting tasks and future tasks is that future tasks have a specific date they are done on. This isn’t a due date: think of it as a reminder system. For example, 4 times a year, I do a “deep clean” on my computer; I don’t have to do anything for this until that time comes, so I have a task with a specific due date and a tag “tickler.” Setting this task to repeat every 3 months reminds me to keep my laptop running smoothly.

Finally there are someday / maybe tasks; these are things I may want to do one day, but aren’t current; they’re just ideas. Example from my list : Design a new cereal bowl.

This seems like a lot to think about when you simply want to list a task, but once you have it all implemented, the system does all the work. The key to it all is Remember the Milk’s best feature : Smart Lists. Basically a saved search, a Smart List is a list of tasks that have a certain criteria. For example, my daily tasks list is a Smart List that looks for tasks with a priority of 3 (next actions) as well as tasks due today or before today.

There’s so much more I could say about the way I use RTM, but I’ll end this by listing the greasemonkey scripts I use and show you a few screenshots.

Make sure to read the documentation for these if your going to use them; a knowledge of JavaScript would be useful too.

• Remember the Milk – Keep Cloud Visible — Keeps your tag cloud visible at all times.
• Remember the Milk – Tag Cloud Colorizer — Lets you color and divide your tags into groups.
• RememberTheMilkEnhanced — Various enhancements for RTM, mostly layout.
• RTM Projects — Gives RTM support for Projects.
• A Bit Better RTM — Small improvements for RTM (I’ve edited this one quite heavily).
• Remember the Milk – Display Keyboards Shortcuts — This is actually a Stylish style that shows you the RTM keyboard shortcuts.

Remember the Milk without scripts

Remember the Milk with scripts

If you have any questions, please, ask in the comments!