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The best todo app I’ve found

by on October 11, 2011 in tools

I have trouble remembering things. I can recall four phone numbers. One of them is my own. When I pass people in the halls at work I have trouble saying “Hi [name]” because I can’t remember the [name] part of that sentence. I’ve hidden a gift for my wife and been unable to remember where I put it two minutes later.

Over time I’ve started to put together systems to help myself. When I need to drop off one of the kids and send some items with them, I place into memory not only the items themselves but also the number of items. The number acts as a checksum to make sure that I don’t forget something. I’ve also made great use of calendars and contact lists so that I no longer need to remember dates and phone numbers. I add it to my trusted system and stop worrying.

And I use todo lists. Extensively. At this point my wife knows that if she wants me to do something I either need to do it immediately or add it to a list. Otherwise it won’t get done. Not because I don’t want to do it, but because in 15 minutes I won’t remember that she even asked me to do something.

I manage my todo list using a combination of Google Tasks and a physical notepad. I use the notepad for instances where I’m not at a computer, and everything in the notepad gets completed or transferred into Google Tasks.

I like Google Tasks because it’s simple. I don’t have many requirements, but it nails them all:

  • Works between computers
  • Works on my phone
  • As easy (or easier) to use than Notepad (e.g. I can use it without a mouse)
  • Ability to have sub-tasks (with indenting that works using Tab/Shift+Tab)

That’s it. The only place where Google Tasks has some trouble is on the phone. Google hasn’t made an Android app for Tasks yet, so you have to use their website or a third-party app. I haven’t found a third-party app that I like and getting to their website takes too long. So I write the task down on my notepad and transfer it to Google Tasks later.

Once or twice a year I’ll search the tubes to see if I can find a better app, but I’ve never been successful. I continue to use Tasks and hope that Google releases an Android app or someone builds a really stellar app in their stead.

“We are checking MX records for your domain” for more than 48 hours

by on October 4, 2011 in tools

Are you setting up Google Apps’ email and seeing the message stating “We are checking MX records for your domain. This may take 48 hours to complete” for more than 48 hours? If so, this post should help you to fix it.

I ran into this problem setting up a site recently. I set up my MX records, asked Google to check them, and waited for them to accept the records. But it didn’t happen, and the message on Google Apps never changed.

I can’t tell you why Google isn’t accepting your MX records, but what I can tell you is that it’s likely that there’s an error lurking somewhere in them. My issue was that I had an extra MX record set with a priority of 0. So the first piece of advice is to look at your MX records and verify that they are, indeed, correct.

Here’s how to do that. First, review Google’s instructions for setting up your MX records. You can do that at a URL like the following:

https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/scottblaine.com/SetupMXInstructions — replace scottblaine.com with your own domain name

Second, review how your MX records are actually set up as viewed by the outside world. You can do that via the following URL:

http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=dnsrec&host=www.scottblaine.com — again, replace www.scottblaine.com with your own domain name

That second URL is how I noticed there was an extra MX record in there. For whatever reason I didn’t catch it during the setup phase.

Alright, so you checked that your MX records are now set up correctly, right? Good. Next you want to tell Google to check your MX records again. You can do that by logging into your Google Apps dashboard (at a url like https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/scottblaine.com — replace the domain name). Once you’re on, go to the Service Settings menu at the top and choose Email. Scroll down and click on the link that says: Instructions on how to activate Email. Then click on the Change MX records link. Scroll down again and click the button that says: I have completed these steps.

If you do all of that it should drop you back on the Google Apps dashboard and tell you that Google will be done setting up your email in about an hour. That’s what worked for me and hopefully it helps you too (if it did help leave a comment and let me know).

Foolproof way to dial out on Google Voice with your non-smart phone

by on April 3, 2011 in tools

If you’re one of those dredges who doesn’t have a smart phone yet (like me), and you want to use Google Voice to make outbound calls, this post is for you. You may know that you can dial your Google Voice number, push 2, and dial an outbound call. But have you memorized the phone numbers of everyone in your contact list? Because I haven’t, and there’s no way I’d be able to enter anyone’s number from memory — except for my wife and parents (…maybe).

With a little ingenuity though, you can program your phone to dial out on your Google Voice number and enter all of the necessary button presses for you. We’re going to make use of a feature of most every phone: the ability to enter a 2-second pause when dialing a number. You may have to go to a special menu when editing the number to find it, but it should let you enter a two-second pause and have it appear as a “P” in your phone number.

Let’s say your Google Voice number is: 1-222-333-4444

And the number you’re trying to call is: 1-777-888-9999

The phone number you’d want to dial is this: 12223334444 P P P * P * P 2 17778889999 #

All of those underlined characters are the additional stuff you need to add to dial out on Google Voice.

You might ask why I called this a foolproof method. And, to be fair, it works 95% of the time; occasionally it will fail and you’ll have to redial. All those pauses and hitting * twice though are meant to get around problems such as:

  • Google Voice not answering your call fast enough
  • You have voicemail and Google Voice tries to start playing your voicemail instead of making your call
  • Google Voice not realizing you pressed the star key (it almost always recognizes it if you press it twice)

I converted all of my phone numbers over to the above system and I’ve had very few problems with it. One thing you’ll need to make sure of is that the method above assumes you’ve disabled the PIN to access your voicemail. [1]

Hopefully that helps you enjoy the awesomeness that is Google Voice on your non-smart (dumb) phone!

 

[1] If you want to keep the PIN, you’d need to do something like this: 12223334444 P P P 1234 P * P * P 2 17778889999 # (assuming 1234 is your PIN). Note: I haven’t tried this and I’m not sure it’d work out of the box like that.