12/31/2005 03:21:00 am|W|P|bignoseduglyguy|W|P|Since I started wandering around the world, FreeMind, the best open source Java mind-mapping application and one of my favourites has been enhanced and much improved.  Regardless of whether you are on a Windows, Mac or Linux box, there's a release for you and - if you're on another OS - the binaries are available.  This is great for me as I can share mind maps between my work PC and iBook without any pain.|W|P|113599941114935913|W|P|FreeMind updated|W|P|bignoseduglyguy@gmail.com12/28/2005 09:22:00 am|W|P|bignoseduglyguy|W|P|As I have mentioned recently to few folks like Michael, I'm trying to get my personal productivity and task management back on track, as is my wont this time of year. However, this year I have managed to complicate things a little by moving myself and family to the other side of the world, taking a challenging job in a whole new industry and spending the three months prior working from a briefcase and laptop at various wifi hotspots.  To add to the disorientation, I'm required to use Outlook as my main PIM at work when the last time I used it, it was called Schedule+.  Instead of the more usual laptop, I have been issued a new smart phone, an iMate Jam running Windows Mobile to hook into my mails and PIM functions via the company's Exchange server.  All this is slightly at odds with my personal setup, where I've pretty much moved all my non-work computing/online activities to my iBook and my Mac-compatible Nokia 6680 3G phone.  I have almost relinquished the PC to the women of the house, save for using it as the admin terminal for the ADSL service and my wifi router.  I still have and cherish my Palm T3 but don't use it as I'm overloaded with gadgets and the Mac Palm Desktop is less than friendly in my opinion. And the point of all this is?  Casting around for possible solutions, I happened upon BitPal, a cross-OS PIM that seems to offer the possibility of bridging the yawning gap between Windows environment at work and my Mac/Symbian.  Small enough to sit comfortably on the smallest of my USB thumb drives, it'll be interesting to see how it works out, though the initial sync with the iBook is taking an awful long time - perhaps not the best of omens. [UPDATE] - Subsequent syncs were no faster so it's back to the drawing board for now.  I like the premise of BitPal so I hope that the development of the idea continues.|W|P|113576183068609696|W|P|Trying to pull it all together|W|P|bignoseduglyguy@gmail.com12/27/2005 06:08:00 am|W|P|bignoseduglyguy|W|P|Yesterday evening, my buddy Chuck and I were talking over the variety of RSS aggregators available out there and what we prefer to use on which platform.  Earlier today, I had a similar chat with Jason.  All three of us now use both Windows and Mac machines on a daily basis and between us, we narrowed our preferred apps down to NetNewsWire Lite, Firefox with the Sage plug-in and the web-based Bloglines.  It was, therefore, with interest that I saw whilst reading The Office Weblog feed just now I clicke-through on a link to discover that the NewsGator has acquired NetNewsWire.  Regardless of the particular RSS client app I end up using, I will certainly create a recurring to-do on my PDA to periodically synchronise the OPML file in the client with one of the web-based feedreaders.  That way I get to read my favourite feeds from anywhere and I also have my subscriptions backed up if the worst happens.|W|P|113566372704556106|W|P|NewsGator swallows NetNewsWire|W|P|bignoseduglyguy@gmail.com12/27/2005 07:14:00 pm|W|P| pigpogm|W|P|I'm using NewsGator for Outlook at the moment, and like it a lot. The advantage of the online syncing is that you can use NewsGator in Outlook at work, NetNewsWire on the Mac at home, and the web based service anywhere else, and it will keep all of them in sync - once you read something once, it will mark it as read everywhere.

Presumably it can handle some serious load too - it's what Robert Scoble uses ;)12/26/2005 10:42:00 am|W|P|bignoseduglyguy|W|P|I suspended blogging here a few months back in favour of more spasmodic output over at No. 8 Wire whilst we emigrated to New Zealand, secured a job, sorted visas and found a house to live in.  Whilst I have never been the most consistent of bloggers, I now intend to resume blogging here as well as continuing elsewhere.  This decision is prompted by the fact that I am back on a broadband connection after four months of email and internet access via Bluetooth connection to a 3G smartphone.  Having said that, there's a lot to be said for regular paychecks, sleeping in the same bed every night and familiar surroundings too.  After at least two minute's thought, I am pretty sure that I will now split my blogging across the two sites.  No.8 Wire was always intended to be a collection of impressions and recollections centered around our experience as migrants in New Zealand.  This being the case, I hope to keep that focus as the core of my writing there whilst broadening it a little to include things of interest to friends and family around the globe. bignoseduglyguy will resume where it left off - as a stream of bits and bobs, comments and critiques, fun and philosophy - namely a common or garden blog. As for writing elsewhere, I was involved in the London launch of the ever-growing Metroblogging franchise and still intend to post there occasionally as a 'foreign correspondent' though, now I have sorted shelter, food and warmth for the family, I might just have time to work on something else with Sean and the crew.  Last but not least, I still hold out a small hope for making time to work on something with my good friends Chuck, Jason and Roger.  Though we are all more than busy with our various lives, careers and families, I still fondly recall the fun we had writing for Chuck's most excellent but now-dormant happypalm.com.|W|P|113559375584009219|W|P|Back with a vengeance...|W|P|bignoseduglyguy@gmail.com