Gettin' It Together

Sometimes I feel like I'm sinking in quicksand when I try to keep up with everything in my life. Work gets hectic sometimes; my projects seem like one continuous steam of never-ending tasks that can never get done.

My wife and kids are a bit needy of my attention. I love 'em and they deserve all I've got. But, they sure do take all I've got without much hesitation!

I do get back in return, though.

Anyhow . . .

Lately, I've come across a few applications that have really helped me out quite a bit.

GNUCash

Money management to the rescue! This program helps me keep up with our family's spending. I've been poor with my money management lately. Now that I don't have daycare costs any longer, it's time to do some financial healing with that extra cash.

GNUCash is a free, opensource program that comes with Linux, but also can run on Windows and Mac.

It's a little tricky to use at first. I think sometimes powerful programs give you so many choices that you really don't know where to start. Read though the help files. Understanding how this program ticks is well worth the effort--especially if you're serious about taking those first steps towards a better financial life.

GoogleCalendar

I've gotten so busy that I need to start putting important dates on a calendar. GoogleCalendar works great for me. It's free and handy to use. GoogleCalendar will also give SMS, e-mail, and pop-up reminders for all your calendar dates and appointments.

And I just like Google stuff in general. So pretty and colorful. Oooohhhh . . .

Producteev

Sometimes, having a smart calendar just isn't enough. You day sucks when your boss asks you if you made "those changes yet" and you clearly forgot. But the e-mail is clearly in your inbox.

Enter, Producteev.

You can forward important e-mails to your Producteev account to build a task list so that your important reminders (be they personal or work related) won't get burried in your inbox.

You can use your smart phone to also manage Producteev.

And Producteev can sync with GoogleCalendar-- thus, marking dates on your calendar without you ever having to stop and log into your Google account separably.

Producteev has both free and pay levels of service.

Since I've started using GNUCash, GoogleCalendar, and Producteev, I finally see light at the end of the tunnel concerning my finances, my hectic schedule, and the constant onslaught of projects at work.

Now, if I could only come up with a popular application of my own that generated a huge user base. Then someone like Google could come along and buy me out and send me on a permanent vacation.

Then, I could forget about all those utilities that I just mentioned.

GoogleCL

Hey, all you Google fanboys (and fangirls) out there! Google has released a new command line interface that works with Blogger, Picassa, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and YouTube! If you enjoy the command line environment, you'll get a kick out of GoogleCL.

Using the Google command line a little tricky to get the hang of it at first (to me) but if you're no stranger to the command line, you'll find it quite neat!

Also, you can upload text files if you don't want to type the whole post out onto the command line. That helps with puncuation, spacing, and spell checks if you edit in a word processing program before uploading with the command line.

This new feature from Google will be great for people who want to develop their own software tools.

And this feature will also be great for those who want to write their blogs while at work, yet still sound productive because of all that command line typing they're making at the keyboard!

Who? Me?

I wouldn't dare do something like that while at work.