Byline – An application that allows you to import and read you Google Reader subscriptions.

Jaadu VNC Client – A virtual desktop connection client to your Mac from your iPhone.

Merlin – An iPhone application for the Mac Project Management tool.

To Do – A task management application for the iPhone.

Things – Another task management application for the iPhone but, this one synchs with its desktop counterpart.

Evernote – A note management application that synchs to an online note service.

MLB At Bat – MLB baseball scores, news and video.

HR Battle – A homerun derby video game application.

WordPress – An application to help with managing my blogs.

Tweetie 2 – Twitter client for iPhone that allows me to tweet on the go.

MyPantone – Pantone color guide that helps with selecting colors for a client’s project.

Color Expert – Another color guide that helps with selecting colors for a client’s project.

WhatTheFont – A tool that allows you to upload a photo of a font, upload it to the provider’s site for analysis to compare with available fonts.

Analytics – Access to Google Analytics for the iPhone.

Easy WhoIs – Access the WhoIs, DNS and IP information from the iPhone.

This is just a friendly reminder to have a contingency plan. Preparing for the best and worst case scenarios can tremendously help your confidence when managing a complicated project. When you are confident, your client is confident and everyone is happy after another successful engagement.

Having key words in your domain name that have to do with your content and that are prevalent in the copy really help out in search. Never have I stumbled upon a better case study than azfallball.com. Without going into too much detail on the stats, the particularly interesting statistic is the fact that the site has not been up that long and it gets heavy search engine referral traffic. I guess that would make sense but, actually seeing the different variations of “rangers fall ball”, “peoria az fall ball”, “az fall ball schedules”, etc. kind of blew me away. Quite honestly, this site has been up shorter than it’s parent and had more traffic in it’s first four weeks of existence than most of the Fall League of 2008.

Sorry for the rambling. It’s late, I thought that it was worth mentioning and I thought that I would share. Have you ever stumbled upon something on the web that has greatly benefited your traffic? Someone else’s bad links or similar domains?

One of the most effective task management tools that I have had the opportunity to use was Lotus Organizer. I had used the tool for several years and IBM had stopped updates and new releases. Despite this, it was still a pretty powerful tool. It allowed you the ability to synchronize your data with the Palm OS which came in handy back in the day. I have since begun to do more and more work on a Mac rather than a PC.

I had decided to install a couple of task management applications on my iPhone to see which one would be the most useful. The two that I decided to try out are Appigo’s To Do and Cultures Code’s Things. Being a project manager there are a few things that I looked for in a task management application that some of the “lite” versions did not offer. For this reason, I decided to give them both a try. Which one did this PM end up picking? Both. Here’s why.

To Do Dashboard

Ideally it would have been nice to have the ability to manage all of my tasks with one handheld application and it may seem a little inefficient to some that I am using both quite frequently. Like Internet Service Providers, Cable Companies and other products, some are better than others in some areas. For this reason, I decided to stick with both.

Some of the similar features that both products contain include a “focus” feature that allows the notification badge to show you what tasks and/ or projects are coming due within a given duration. Both applications let you customize the notifications in reference to how far out you would like to be notified. Both allow you to categorize tasks by project. Both allow you to create recurring due dates for tasks that you may want to see again.  Both have a task inbox to allow you to create tasks on the fly without categorizing them. Finally, both allow you to tag your tasks.

Appigo’s To Do is primarily an iPhone only application. Unlike Things, it does not have a desktop application that accompanies it. It’s ease of use and feature set are everything that you would need in a task management tool. I would venture to say that it is actually easier to enter tasks into your handheld than its counterparts. The user interface allows you to enter tasks in less time than it does in Things.  Selecting tags, contexts and list make it faster to create a task. Also, the date picker interface is an actual calendar rather than a scroll bar, which is extremely helpful in speeding things up.

If you are looking for a robust task management application for your iPhone without the desktop counterpart, I highly recommend To Do. I use To Do because it is fast. If I do not have my laptop, it is a quicker and more efficient way of entering the tasks. Additionally, it integrates with Apppigo’s Notebook application, which allows you to link data across applications. I also like the presentation of completed items. It makes getting tasks done fun.

Things Dashboard

Cultured Code’s Things task management application for the iPhone is a bit more involved. It requires more steps to get the tasks into the phone without the desktop application. Some of the additional steps in creating a task make it take just a little bit longer to enter tasks. Its user interface is a bit more streamlined than that of To Do since it allows you the ability to do just a little bit less from the phone itself.

Why do I still use it? The desktop application that compliments the mobile counterpart is extremely powerful. When I do have my laptop, I will usually plow through adding tasks and doing the majority of the organization on the laptop. If you have the ability for constant use of the laptop application and rely on the iPhone application solely for status and/ or updates, then this would be the way to go. I cannot say enough about the application itself. It is truly amazing and you can preview it in action on the Cultured Code website. Additionally, the iPhone application syncs with the desktop application over the air, which is quite helpful.

One last determining factor that you may want to take into consideration is the price points. Things desktop application will run you about $49.95 and the iPhone counterpart another $9.99. Appigo’s To Do will run you $9.99. Both of which are excellent products and have received rave reviews. If you have any questions about any of the other features, please feel free to submit them in the comments below. I love both of the applications and use them everyday to help make task management more effective.

Although the keyboard shortcuts are there, I would have liked to have seen one that allows you to scroll all the way to the top of the list. There is a setting that allows you to do that by default but, it would be a nice addition if you wanted to reference another tweet. I guess the thought there is that you are already using the pointer. One nice thing about the auto scrolling to the top is that, if you have focus on a tweet when it updates, you will not lose your spot. If you change views, however, you may.

From a user interface perspective, again, I think that they did an outstanding job. However, there is one little thing that I am not too terribly fond of. I don’t mind the visual notifications on the application when it is open but, the visual in the task bar could use some customization. What I mean is that it lights up when there is a tweet, regardless of is it is an @ reply or a direct message. I know I am getting tweets, the interwebs is always on and some programmer somewhere is working a late night. My solution proposition, light up when there is an @ reply and maybe have a dot in the middle when there is a direct message.

Another cool feature is that it does support multiple accounts, which definitely comes in handy. As far as the visual notification in the task bar for that particular use case, I think that it would be fine to show the same visual notification as what was proposed earlier. If I see that I have an @ reply or a direct message, I will open the application and should be able to go from there. Also, the twitpics and other images open full-sized which I thought was nifty, especially after squinting at the little boxes in TweetDeck.

The Twitter API frequency adjustments are not there like TweetDeck but after today, I am not sure that I really need them. That is just my personal preference. I feel that it does a pretty good job updating as it. But, if you are in a hurry, there is a keyboard shortcut for refreshing the lists.

In summary, I love the application. I paid the 14.95 after deciding that I liked it so much and since I was able to get a grasp on the shortcuts so quick. atebits did a fantastic job with usability and I thought that I would take advantage of the introductory offer rather than wait for improvements. I am still a fan of TweetDeck but am glad that I installed it on the Mac.

If any readers have any specific questions on any of the items that I may have left out, feel free to comment and I will get back to you.

I have turned out a number of websites in both Joomla! and WordPress and I can tell you that both have their advantages and disadvantages. A typical engagement will begin with the requirements gathering. What would you like for your site to do? Although, Joomla! does have blogging capabilities, I tend to favor WordPress in that category for it’s ease of use. Some clients have more business oriented requirements such as user management, subscription management, e-commerce functionality and additional security requirements. With more complicated requirements, I tend to lean in the direction of recommending Joomla!.

WordPress – Primarily built as a blogging platform, the WordPress Codex allows for some pretty excellent flexibility when creating WordPress powered sites. There are plugins that allow for more feature integration that give visitors a more compelling experience when visiting a WordPress site. Another virtue of the platform is that is allows for Search Engine Friendly URLs while creating blog posts automatically. The CSS and skinning of a WordPress site is very intuitive for knowledgeable developers which make for the opportunity to make some really cool looking sites.

Joomla! - Has a very large and global developer base that offers both commercial and non-commercial plugins, components and modules that are easily integrated into your site. Depending on the requirements of the site, chances are that there is one right for you. From a business analysis perspective, some of the modules that have been designed for other verticals can be customized for your site by an experienced PHP developer. While Joomla! is primarily used as a Content Management System, there are attributes that allow blogging. By default the search engine friendly URLs are not enabled by the administrative settings allow you to switch that over. Although the CSS is not quite as straight forward as WordPress sites, there are some pretty flashy things that you can do with some of the available Joomla! styles out there.

Please keep in mind that the following are base on my opinions in my experiences with both. I would love to hear your feedback on whether or not you agree.

Feature/ Function	Joomla!	WordPress
Blogging	C	A
CMS Functions	A	B
Admin Interface	C-	A
Available Plugins	B	C
Ease of Design Customization	C	A
Ease of Deployment	B	A
Support Community	A	A
Search Engine Friendly	C	A
Article Publishing	B	A
Documentation	A	A
E-commerce	B	C
Update Services (writing)	C	A
Update Services (programs)	D	A
User Management	A	A
Forum Integration	A	A

In summary, I tend to lean more towards WordPress and am looking forward to working with Expression Engine but, I have an immense familiarity with Joomla! to the point where I continue to recommend it. WordPress sites seem to be quicker to deploy than most and have all the basic functionality that a blogger would need but, WordPress would require some knowledge of the Codex in order to make the site function as more of a CMS. Out of the box it would make a blogger happy but may need to be fine-tuned for a business. While the administration portion of Joomla! may not be as intuitive as that of WordPress, it is extremely built out with additional functions that allow it to operate as more of a CMS on initial deployment. As the clients do more in the back-end of Joomla! they become more familiar with where everything is and more about how to customize their site’s content.

Is it the fact the Bird in Space artist Constantin Brancusi, had passed 52 years ago and could not have possibly been okay with it? Or was it the fact that he was paid such a large sum of money to give it to the city? Don’t get me wrong, I have done my fair share of parody logos (see the site logo) but, have never sought financial reward without either seeking permission or paying for rights. Maybe it will grow on me but, I like to think that I can appreciate art and this doesn’t resonate well with me right now.

In case you can’t tell. I am really having a hard time with this. Check it out. It’s massive.

“Constantin Brancusi: Bird in Space (1996.403.7ab)”. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/11/euwf/ho_1996.403.7ab.htm (October 2008)

Learn more on www.metmuseum.org

See more works of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of European Paintings and Modern Art.

The reason why I question the article is that there is no supporting evidence that the population is not spreading to some of the other outlying areas and we are experiencing more room and home sharing. I would be interested to learn if places like Gilbert, Chandler, Glendale, Peoria and Surprise are continuing to experience growth.

Let’s circle back to the article for a second… It does say “The City” and it is indeed referencing city statistics which means that the population is not necessarily leaving the State of Arizona. However, one item of note is that they estimate there are a few hundred to several thousand people that may have left the City of Phoenix. In the grand scheme of things,  with over 1.5 million residents (as of the last U.S. Census) several thousand may be a drop in the bucket.

For those of you that have left, you are always welcome back, and those of you that have moved to places like Gilbert, Chandler, Glendale, Peoria and Surprise, be proud that our metro area is 4.1 million strong; making this the second largest metro area to Los Angeles, California.