today in the spam filter

This is a good one, it kind of makes for a sort of poem:

stikkit jvjannotti

placed

an observative post

today

on my advice to you

 

But wait, it gets better. The spamblog it links too is called boink blogs and has the following tagline:

The very best posts on Advice click read more to go to where the post was originally written.

 

You’ll forgive me for not providing a link.

my advice to you: stikkit

Stikkit is a web based to-do list/calendar/notepad application. Skip down below the divider if you want the review without the personal background.

I started using it today and my initial impressions are positive. It’s always been hard for me to keep any kind of schedule, even when I’m busy. The keeping of the schedule becomes a task in itself. Mis_nomer seems to be suffering through such a situation right now. I feel her pain.

Upon entering the working world in 1989 with an MBA and a job at an advertising agency, I bought myself a scheduler. Not one of those filofax/life planner things that were common at the time, but a little book with a calendar in it. I used it religiously and it drove me crazy. When I entered ministry in 1993 I took my calendar book with me and also bought one the following year; both of which were virtually empty when I threw them out. Having discovered Outlook, I made to do lists and kept a calendar for years almost as an act of holy obligation, but eventually I stopped doing even that.

I’ve gone so far as to evict Outlook from this notebook entirely and am now using Google calendar (synced with the calendar in Thunderbird) for all my appointments and for keeping track of which routes I’ve delivered.

However, I still sometimes find myself making short lists of to-do items (things like, ‘go to atm’, or ‘pick up girls from school’) and also making notes about what songs we’ll be doing for worship this week and such. Plus, I am occasionally in immediate need of the ability to take notes.  Like when I’m working on an article and one of my contacts calls up and can talk for five minutes right now but will not be available again for at least a century. Stop laughing. This happens at least once for every article I write. As any good reporter should, I have a pen and notebook with me all the time… but have you ever tried to read my handwriting? Probably not, and you couldn’t even if you did. Most of the time, I can’t either. It’s that bad.

Stikkit is perfect for these moments and many others besides. At least, that’s my initial impression. Here’s the thing though…

 

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Stikkit is so incredibly intuitive that it confused me at first. I’m used to web apps that are super-dumb. If you want to be reminded that your kids are counting on you to pick them up, there should be a key combination or on screen button or tab or special dance you have to do in order to get the “set reminder screen” to come up, right? Not anymore.

Want a reminder? Open a new stikkit, type something like “today 2:30pm. Pick up girls. Remind me.” Stikkit sends a reminder to your email address (or to your phone via SMS). It also automatically recognizes such an item as a calendar item. Open up your Stikkit calendar (which syncs with your Google calendar, btw) and there’s your date, already listed. The program uses certain magic words, “remind” being one of them. More info on how it all works is included in this post at 43 Folders.

Don’t want a calendar entry or a reminder? No problem. Just don’t type those things in your new stikkit. Your stikkits page still includes it but your calendar and to-do list do not. You can also tell stikkit to stop being so smart.

The only problem, as far as I can tell, is that there is no offline Stikkit… but I could be wrong. This is why I will be keeping Shock Sticker for now.

Stikkit is brought to you by Values of N, whose most recent creation Sandy, is an email personal assistant. I don’t get nearly enough email to warrant Sandy, but it seems like a good idea.

 

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