Software, Productivity, and To-Do List Hacks from an ISV

I’m loving the new version of the Amazon Kindle.  Here are the highlights of what I’ve read on the Kindle 2.0 so far:

• Released date: February 24, 2009.
• Price: $359.00
• 25% longer battery life than the previous version
• 2GB internal storage (approximately 1.4GB available for user content).
• Just over 1/3 of an inch (thinner than an iPhone)
• Weighs 10.2 ounces
• Can be charged from a USB port (this was not available in the first version)
• Wireless access to Wikipedia

Other Features:

5-Way Controller
- Used to select menu options or tho highlight text
Next Page Button on Both sides

Text-to-Speech Capabilities
- Reads aloud books, newspapers, blogs, etc.

Includes The New Oxford American Dictionary:
- Look up a word from a document you are currently reading.  Just navigate the cursor to the word with the 5-way controller and a definition will appear at the bottom of the screen.

Auto Delivery:
Items such as periodicals are automatically delivered via the Whispernet network as soon as they are published.  For instance, if you read “The Wall Street Journal”, the latest edition will be delivered overnight so you can read it with breakfast!

Clip Your Favorite Passages:
You can select “clips” from what you are reading and save it for later referal.  The clips will be saved and can be transferred to you computer.  It looks like this is only available for text (not images).

Add notes:
Take notes and make comments while you are reading.  Any content on the Kindle can have notes added.

Convert Your Documents:
It doesn’t appear that PDF is natively supported yet.  You can email your documents to an asssigned Kindle email address and the document can be converted.  The file types include Microsoft Word, TXT, HTML, PDF, JPEGs, and GIFs.

1.) Two Attention-Focusing Apps Kill Distractions Dead

Mike Elgan of the Computer World Blog reviews two productive applications:

• q10 - A Windows based application that blocks every other application, so you can focus on your writing.
• NowDoThis - A web service that allows you to create a daily to-do list.

2.) 100 Blogs that Will Save You Time & Make You More Productive

Alisa Miller has a great write-up of (you guessed it) 100 blogs that deal with GTD, lifehacking, and productivity.

3.) How to Get Things Done with Twitter

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits has written up a great post on how to use Twitter to be more productive.  Strange, every time I get on Twitter I end up wasting a lot of time

4.) What My Cat Taught Me About Productivity

Jay Frawley wrote up this post that describes his method for completing and organizing a to-do list.

A few weeks ago I signed up for a free account at Are My Sites Up?.  I then promptly forgot about it.  Today I opened my gmail account and found the following message:

I promptly emailed support at 1and1.com and it was back up within 15 minutes.  What a great service Are My Sites Up? provides and for free!  They also provide a premium version as well that  adds a private RSS feed, Twitter alerts, and monitoring of up to 60 websites.

The screenshot below shows how easy and intuitive it is to use:

Oh, one other thing, when my site came back online I received the following email:

This service is so easy to use, there is no reason not to use it if you own your own website(s).

A Windows only tool, ZapGrab is an easy to use screen capture program.  ZapGrab is one of those applications that I can’t live without.  It is a free program and has been around for several years.  I usually keep it right in my Quick Launch area (the little black box icon below).

Clicking the icon brings up the application (shown below).  The application stays on top of all the other windows that you may have open.  When you are ready to capture a screen shot you press the Grab button.  Pressing this button changes your mouse cursor into a crosshairs and by then clicking the left mouse button and dragging over the desired area you can capture your screen shot.  The resulting screen grab is placed on the clipboard to be pasted in the application of your choosing.

Any part of the screen may be captured.  Here’s an example:

ZapGrab is portable and is a perfect candidate to keep on your flashdrive.