Web App: Joe's Goals

I'm a wee bit obsessed with productivity and I'm always on the lookout for tools, habits, and processes to incrementally improve myself in that regard.

Recently a tweet from LifeHacker breezed through my Twitter feed (more on that later) linking to an article on Top 10 Tools for Sticking to Your New Year's Resolutions. One of these caught my eye in particular: Joe's Goals.

Joe's Goals is a dead simple little web application that allows to easily track your habits, both those you'd like to improve upon (wear sunscreen is one of mine) and those you want to avoid (eating fast food, for example). Your goals are the rows and days are the columns and you click in a box to add a checkmark, or click a checkmark to remove it. That's the gist of it, but there are more fun little featurelets if you choose to make use of them. Goals can have tags by which you can filter your list as well as weights, which are totaled each day, giving you your daily score. Joe's Goals also tracks "chains" of consecutive days, generates summary reports, and provides a badge for your blog or iGoogle (more on that later too).

I've only fussed with it for a day or two, but it really hits that daily habits sweet spot just next door to a task list (daily repeating tasks are just oppressive). It took me no time to slam out at least 10 or 12 things I'd like to do every day (and a few to avoid). Time will tell if I can keep it up!

Joe's Goals is free, but they request just $12/year to be a paid subscriber. I may do just that, especially if he (Joe?) completes my circuit with an iPhone app.

iPhone App: WeightBot

I'll start off my iPhone apps with my most recent acquisition: WeightBot. WeightBot does exactly one thing, track your weight, but it does so brilliantly and beautifully.

There are two simple modes: data entry and graphing. When the iPhone is upright (vertical), you can view, enter, and edit your weight up to once a day, including entering past dates. Your BMI is displayed along with your weight. After turning the phone on its side, you see a graph of your weight over time, including a moving average and horizontal lines representing your target weight and where overweight ends and normal begins. Clicking anywhere on the screen cycles through different time periods (week, month, year) and flicking left and right moves your backward and forward in time.

That's really about all there is to it. You can add a password to the app if your anxious about an incidental handler of your phone peeking at your weight. Height and weight units can be displayed in either U.S. (lbs, ft/inches) or metric (kg, cm). Cute sounds can be turned off if you prefer your phone to be seen and not heard. Finally, you can back up your data. According to the iTunes page, upcoming features include a data summary view and data export and updates are free.

Despite the fact that other health and fitness applications have weight trackers and much more, I can't resist using this little app, due to its slick design, simplicity and how easy it is to use.


(Video courtesy of bestiphoneapps)

Developer: Tapbots
Source: 2008 Best App Ever Awards (Winner of Most Original User Interface)

Get it from: iTunes
Current Version: 1.2.1
Current Price: $1.99

Current Rank: #5 in Health & Fitness (paid)
Reviews: iTunes: 3.5/5 (harsh!), Average Review at apptism: 4.5/5

Review Update: New Ars Technica review on 1/14/09
Price Update: Looks like there was a price bump to $2.99 on 2/3/09. Meh.

iPhone

What follows isn't so much a review of the iPhone, but merely my experience of acquiring and owning one.

I managed to resist the sexy charm of the first generation of iPhones, given the hefty price (starting at $499!) and my personal tendency to avoid being an early adopter.

However, when my ancient LG decided to start turning itself off intermittently about a month before the iPhone 3G came out in July of 2008, I knew the time had come. The 3G (confusingly, this refers to the cell phone network, not the third generation of the phone) was definitely worth the wait. It was cheaper, faster, smaller, lighter, had better battery life, had real GPS, and the headphone jack was no longer irritatingly recessed, which required an accessory to use non-iPhone headphones.

Most importantly, as the iPhone 3G was released, the iTunes app store was launched, which changes everything. Third party developers can now create applications of (almost) all kinds which can the be sold (or given away for free) via iTunes (available on both OS X and Windows). It is incredibly easy to install applications... you can even do it directly on your phone. After just 6 months, there are thousands of applications, many of which are actually useful and implemented well. The iPhone took smartphones to the next level, challenging the Crackberry and clunky Windows Mobile devices.

There are plenty of things that aren't ideal about the iPhone. It's still quite expensive, it doesn't have cut and paste, it's only available on AT&T, it doesn't support Flash, doesn't record video, the camera is pretty feeble, and not everyone is a fan of the virtual keyboard. This is probably not the phone for folks who are on a budget, who live or work where AT&T coverage sucks, who would pay a fortune to escape their current cell phone plan, or who are devotees of text messaging (especially tactile texters) and non-stop emailing. There is also the legitimate argument that Apple is suppressing creativity and competition by keeping the App store in lockdown (unlike Google's Android). Apple must approve all applications, takes a cut of all sales, and will not permit applications that compete with its own software (e.g. a podcast downloader app) or that it deems inappropriate for whatever reason. On the other hand, this probably makes for a better end-to-end user experience, which is Apple's whole gig.

But really the bottom line is that having a usable, flexible smartphone has had a huge impact on my daily life, especially while traveling. It's like having a tiny laptop with me at all times, allowing me to do just about anything: surf the web, identify a song on the radio, know what my friends are up to, find a tasty local restaurant, get from place to place, remotely control my music library, check my cash flow, and of course, listen to music and watch video. That's just the tip of the iceberg... with applications and software updates, more functionality is available by the minute, literally. From what I've heard from speaking to friends, everyone I know that has an iPhone would be hard-pressed to give it up. It also sure doesn't hurt that it's purty.

Even if you don't get an iPhone, a smartphone is the way to go. Check it out and make your life better. And stay tuned for my favorite iPhone apps!

Heard about it from: Massive Apple PR campaign and buzzing around entire geek community
Get it from: Apple, AT&T and even (gasp) Wal-Mart

Firefox Add-On: Adblock Plus

I loooove ads on web pages. I especially love it when they flash, or start a movie, or start playing audio while I'm trying to read something. In fact, sometimes I take advantage of the extra load time they add so I can meditate.

If, in fact, you aren't as excited by banner ads as I am, you can just avoid seeing them altogether with one of the best Firefox extensions out there, Adblock Plus. Adblock Plus uses a filter system to prevent ads from being loaded at all. You won't see them and they won't slow you down. Sometimes it can make some pages look a little odd, but (sarcasm aside) it's well worth it.

Here's an example of the difference it can make:

First you see ads...


and now you don't:



Yay! I'm actually just fine without a "bay land rover" or "data migration software" so I think I didn't miss much.

To add this extension, go to the Adblock Plus page and click the big green Add to Firefox button. After you restart Firefox, you'll be presented with a page that allows you to select the filter you'd like to use. You can create your own filters, but the filters maintained by someone else are a lot less work. Choose the one most appropriate to your geographical region (probably EasyList + EasyElement USA) and click "Subscribe". Voila, you are now 99% ad free. Enjoy!

Let's all thank Wladimir Palant for making browsing the web less irritating!

Heard about it from: Don't remember... in fact, it will be a while before I plow through the stuff I've been using forever
Get it from: Mozilla Add-On library

Firefox: Add-Ons

Last time, I mentioned Firefox extensions. These are little additions to your browser that allows you to customize it in any number of ways, such as blocking out banner ads, integrating web applications or widgets into your browser, or adding snippets of functionality to the browsing experience.

Mozilla refers to these as "Add-Ons" and maintains a library of them on the Mozilla site. You can add an extension right from within the browser. Just go to the page for that extension and click the "Add to Firefox" button. Note that older extensions that have not been maintained may not work with the newest version of Firefox. You'll have to restart Firefox before the extension will be loaded. You can disable or uninstall any current extensions at any time (this also requires restarting) from the "Tools: Add-ons" menu.

These extensions are written by third-party developers (not Mozilla), so some may be more reliable than others. In fact, it's a good idea to install and check out extensions one at a time to verify that you actually want to use it, that it is stable, and that it doesn't have any strange interactions with any other extensions you may have installed. Also keep in mind that every extension you install makes your browser use up a bit more memory and possibly, run slower. It's not a bad idea to occassionally review your extensions and dump any you don't want or need.

Next up, individual extensions I <3! style="font-weight: bold;">Heard about them from: Probably wherever I heard about Firefox
Get them from: Mozilla Add-Ons or from wherever else the developer makes them available