Blog entries about Information Managers

"Sunnysoft upgrades its Windows Mobile contacts manager Sunnysoft Contacts to version 1.5! Some new features include...

"Papyrus 2 brings many exciting new features, including: Search View for PIM item searching; Advanced filters management; Automatic attendees notifications, Popup selection effect for optimized display and much more! Papyrus 2 back-end engine was re-designing from the beginning and delivers the fastest experience for the pro user!"

"July 30, 2008 – VITO Technology is proud to present Task2Gather - a brand-new free service for online task management. Task2Gather is one place for all your tasks and projects: family, social, business, and private. Task2Gather lets you put your tasks online and invite family members, colleagues, or clients to participate and achieve common goals."

"June 27, 2008 - VITO Technology releases a new version of FunContact - the best selling contact manager that provides the most exciting and convenient contact management on Windows Mobile touch screen devices. You can do everything with a flick of a finger! ...features a new black skin like in the recently released ZoomBoard and SMS-Chat, and also joystick support. The black skin fits the brand-new Windows Mobile devices perfectly hitting the market like HTC Diamond, TyTN II, Touch Pro and all other devices from Touch series "

"The new version of Contacts is here. It comes with user-defined bottom buttons which can be assigned to any function of the application (e. g. speed dial, history). One of the most important functions is direct Exchange access. You can simply press the button and search your company directory. The layout is fully configurable. You can choose one of five looks, keyboard and font size, position and appearance of all elements (call and message buttons, photos…)."

It sounds like one of those TV infomercials. The thing is, I could be one of those interviewed. I can vouch for the author, John Psuik. John describes how the software evolved in his essay "Going from Fat to Skinny". I knew John as "fat" five years ago, and I know him as skinny. Also, I've known John since we both started supporting Windows CE users in 1998.

Now that I’ve published my quick tutorial on mass-deleting / marking (un)read mail items in all mobile operating systems I’ve just been asked by my blog reader natestera on how the same can be done under WM5+ to PIM ("Personal Information Manager") data like calendar (appointment) info, contacts and tasks.

I’ve already elaborated on this subject in some forum posts and articles some two or three years ago. As, in the meantime,

1. WM5 has changed the way contacts can be mass-deleted in its built-in Contacts client (read: it no longer offers mass-selection/deletion capabilities; note that it didn’t change the way tasks and appointments are handled, though. That is, it didn’t introduce mass-selection / deletion capabilities to appointments and it didn’t take away the mass (incl. Ctl + A) /block selection capabilities of Tasks);
2. SKTools, the, in my opinion, best all-in-one system tool, received mass deletion capabilities; so did the brand new and, what is more, free PIM Backup;
3. some third-party PIM handler applications also received (some) mass-deletion capabilities and
4. my previous tutorials didn’t elaborate on the touchscreen-less MS Smartphone platform, only Pocket PC’s,

I found it necessary to publish a brand new, all-in-one tutorial on all these questions.

Note that this tutorial both elaborates on Pocket PC’s (with a touchscreen) and touchscreen-less MS Smartphones. Section 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 all apply to both operating systems. It’s only Chapter 2 (see Section 2.1 and 2.2) that separately discusses third-party PIM replacement applications for the two platforms.

1.1 Built-in Windows Mobile PIM apps

First, let's take a look at how the built-in Windows Mobile applications show PIM data and whether they allow for mass selection:

1.1.1 Pocket PC’s

Appointments:

(Tools / Options doesn’t have anything like this either: 1 2)

Too busy to find time to browse through the self-help books in your local bookstore, to see if there is a good book on managing your time? Wish you could find a bunch of tips on how to use your Windows Mobile device to manage your time better?

Problem solved: you can download my free eBook entitled Time Management for Technology Users. It is currently available in three formats: MobiPocket Reader, iSilo, and the popular PDF format.

I often receive questions about quickly transferring contacts / calendar items from one Windows Mobile device to another. Because of the frequency of these questions, I deemed it necessary to devote a quick tutorial to the question, temporarily stopping my Next Big Thing: at last, a full review and roundup of ALL Windows Mobile-based database programs.

With devices running operating systems prior to WM5 this (at least as far as transferring contacts is concerned) was pretty easy: you just brought up the built-in keyboard SIP and tapped Ctl, and, then, A, to select all contacts. After this, you could mass-transfer all this via both infrared and Bluetooth to any other device. Alternatively, if you needed to transfer other (for example, Calendar) databases, you just fired up Pocket dbExplorer (my old, often-discussed favorite), backed up the database and just did the opposite (restored) it on the target machine.

Not so with WM5. Here, unless you use a (commercial) PIM extender like Pocket Informant, you can’t mass-select any kind of PIM data for transfer (yes, not even Contacts – Ctl-A doesn’t work any more) and Pocket dbExplorer no longer works either.

If you don’t have a desktop Outlook for quick synchronization of these types (the easiest way to do this is, again, Outlook on the desktop) and you don’t have access to any Exchange server either, you’re shot.

Continuing with my review of great software included with the Best of Everything Software Package, next up is Agenda Fusion.

It's been a while since I've talked about any time-management-related activities, so I decided to post on this topic today.

Whether you use a PDA or paper or both to help you manage your time, good time management always boils down to whether you are working on the right things.

Small Windows Mobile handheld computers and phones are great, but there are three basic limitations: input challenges, small screen size, and limited storage. Here are some thoughts about conserving space.

First, the right questions must be asked!

Here are some key considerations:
• Is the file in question an application file, multi-media, or data (Word doc, Excel, E-mail, etc)?
• Do you always need to have the file on your device, or only from time to time?
• If you always need it, do you need to access it often?
• Do you have a pre-Windows Mobile device, where some files are stored in battery powered RAM?
• What internal and card storage do you have available?

With those questions in mind, we’ll examine storage savings solutions from the point of view of the three file types.

In my last blog entry I started the discussion of the possible end of the PDA for time management. While I agree this is a fundamental use of the PDA (and will be for some time) I mentioned some shortcomings in my last article. I’ve gotten a few comments and suggestions on how to get around those shortcomings. I appreciate the tips and information, but unfortunately in my never-ending quest to find the perfect system I've tried everything that was suggested.

As I mentioned previously there was an article from the Sacramento Bee that talked about people giving up their PDAs (the article stated Palms) for paper. The particular paper planner mentioned was the Hipster PDA.

In a recent edition of my local newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, there was an article on how many people are ditching their PDAs as their time management tools. The replacement? Paper. Apparently it’s hip to be using paper-based planning systems again. The article cites the “single source” for this trend is “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. So, does this mean the end of PDAs for time management?

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=299705

I have a recurring appointment to give heartworm pills to my dogs, set for every 4 weeks on Saturday at 3:30pm. But, despite the fact that my Outlook Calendar is showing the time correctly, and that my Pocket PC shows the time correctly for Future appointments (NOT for this upcoming Saturday), it is showing for this Saturday as being at 4:30pm instead of 3:30pm. This is what shows on my Today screen, and what shows when I view it in the actual calendar.

Interesting thing is that when I select this Saturday's appointment to edit it, it shows up as being set for 3:30pm.

In a previous post, I mentioned a number of time-saving tools: macro capabilities within Calligrapher, the Power Text feature of Agenda Fusion, the My Text feature of Pocket Informant, and Microsoft Voice Command. Today I'd like to add to that list with the time-saving text entry tool of Access Panel.

This neat tool adds shortcut capabilities in three areas: general text, date-related text, and contact-related text. When you first start it, it gives the option of importing a number of samples for each of these areas. Many are usable as they are and the remaining ones, such as an email signature shortcut, can be easily customized to fit your specific needs. You can also add new shortcuts.

The following screenshot shows off Access Panel's interface and an example of what it can do.

The newsreader NewsBreak has been updated to version 2.0, which adds a lot of new features:

- Full support for audio, video, image, and attachment podcasts: Listen to your favorite podcasts, watch vidcasts, and view attached files and images
- Individual download criteria for each channel that supports podcasts: Schedule podcasts to download when and how you want them to -Built-in support for Microsoft Live Search helps you find all the channels you're interested in
- Save podcasts for later use
- Schedule when and how to download podcasts separately from channel updates
- Choose the maximum memory usage for podcast storage
- Store podcasts in main memory or on a storage card
- Improved menus for one-handed navigation
- Set the maximum number of channels to save
- New keyword icons plus 6 additional icons and an updated appearance

It is available for both Smartphones and Windows Mobile devices.

Below are a few screenshots. I especially love the podcast and vidcast features.

Pocket Informant Rev 3 is now in public beta. The enhancements include the addition of a Today plugin (which works great!), a reworking of the Contacts displays (a very nice reworking: I like the displays much better), 400 high quality icons, and much more.

After seeing a post within the David Allen Getting Things Done forum questioning how one can organize Notes on a Pocket PC, I thought it might be good to revisit this subject. (I first touched on it in a September 2006 blog herein.)

In the previous blog article, I talked about the built-in Pocket PC Notes application and also about PhatNotes. I'll do the same here, although with a few additional points.

One of the things I most like about PhatNotes is that it lets me organize my Pocket PC Notes by Category, as indicated below: