Though I’m not a writer, I recognize a lot of the same concerns from my work as a software developer. You have a variety of bosses expecting different deliverables at various deadlines. They all get angry if you run late, and even angrier if you don’t tell them you’re running late until after the deadline. It’s probably even harder for writers; I often feel like I need some hard-to-invoke inspiration to finish a software project, but the role of inspiration in writing a story has got to be much greater.

Still, it’s good to know that Voo2do can help writers with their work just as it helps me with mine.

Now, every website with awards for X-of-the-day is doing it partially to get links back. But if you’re publishing these awards by quoting the “winning” sites’ own descriptions in a part of your site no normal visitor will ever see, it starts to look like you’re just asking for free Google juice. Every webmaster’s gotten bogus “link exchange” requests from spam sites. Is this award just one step up from that?

And does anyone out there actually read RedOrbit?

Update: I was wrong above; there is actually a link to sites of the day from the home page of RedOrbit, under “Technology and Innovation” at left. So far (13:55 EST), it has sent 1 hit my way.

Category: Online To Do Lists

Best Offering: Voo2do

Description: Ever more of the software we use on a daily basis is moving online, from e-mail to feed readers. To-do list managers are no exception. I’ve used a variety of them and so far the one that’s resonated with me most is Voo2do. A one person operation run by Shimon Rura, Voo2do uses Ajax sparingly but very effectively to let you create and manage multiple to do lists. With an API available for you to access or export your data with your own programs, support for Joel Spolsky’s Painless Software Scheduling method, Voo2do is the embodiment of simple, satisfying software.

Runners-Up: Tada Lists and Remember The Milk

Full article: The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005

Thank you for the kind words, Dion, and a big welcome to new users heading our way thanks to the article!

We’ve also been picked up by a few directories of Ajax services: eHub, WSFinder, and ProgrammableWeb. Voo2do is also noted in the “Similar Initiatives” page at the AjaxOffice wiki. Thanks, everyone!

A voo2do competitor worth noting is NextAction. NextAction is a fully-browser-based web application, and makes good on the promise of Save-As Deployment that I predicted on my blog in March. In NextAction, not only can you save the app to disk (actually, that’s the only way you’ll be able to save your data) but you can bring up an IDE and edit the code, query the DB, and run tests right in the browser. This is exactly the sort of craziness that will bring us even better web applications over time.

In closing, I’d like to quote one of my favorite kinds of voo2do mentions: the foreign-language review. This short one is from Dr-Leech’s Blog:

Voo2do – Muy buen administrador de tareas y proyectos, a mi gusto mejor que TadaList.com

Muchos gracias, Dr-Leech!

(Oh, and by the way, some nice improvements are in store for deployment this weekend, like project name autocompletion and time zone support.)

For some time I have been using two time managing — voo2do (not for a long time but often) и BackPack (for a long time but not so often). And now it is time to compare those two and choose the one, which will stay on my computer.

A little bit of graphics to learn those two: screenshot V2D and screenshot BP. You can notice at once that bright colours of V2D set you into positive mood, whereas BP says: «Don’t look aside, continue working…»

The main element of V2D is task. The task can be assigned to a certain project. Each task can have end date (dropdown calendar), priority, estimation (using any units), current executing and actual cost. And to each task some number of notes can be attached.

Disadvantages of V2D :
- while creating new task the name of the project is to be typed manually from the list of all tasks. If a task is created from the project page — then the name is filled in automatically. The is no automatic name pre-filling
- all changes are to be saved also manually, by means of ‘Save’ button, that is placed far from the «entry», in the upper right corner.
- till the recent time the service was often inaccessible (perhaps because of the large number of users).

But V2D has tray application , greasemonkey userscript and blog, where the news and other information is published.

In the BP the situation is a bit strange. The projects are replaced by pages (in a free version — up to five), tasks by a — lists. There is also a possibility to add notes, and images, but they do not seem to be connected to certain tasks.

Big advantage of BP — is reminders (they are the only part I use in this system. And also in comparison to V2D in BP AJAX technology is wide used. All is transparent, appears and disappears fluently. And all managing buttons ( ‘Save’, ‘Add’) are placed next to the element, and all is made automatically.

What is missing in V2D? Reminders, simultaneous access to the account (for example to give a customer a possibility to view the state of the whole project), autosaving, images storing and ajax using.

And there is a hope, that it will come. I choose Voo2Do!

hmm….looks like an Ad?

Author: Denis Perekhrest ( http://inforedesign.com)

PDAs are passe, so you don’t want to risk looking unfashionably retro in front of the office “in” crowd. Paper isn’t green, so what’s an industrious wanna-be to do? A free account on voo2do might be just the ticket. It’s a nothing-to-install application that runs through your browser and can neatly separate the tasks in your work life from what you call a personal life. Nifty.

Also, Amber in CommandN Videocast Episode 12 chooses voo2do for her “web pick of the week”. CommandN sent quite a few hits over to voo2do yesterday, according to voo2do.. Thanks for the mention!

• Update: Chris Beams posted a mention and a greasemonkey script that adds a keyboard shortcut for creating a task. (Sorry for forgetting this, Chris!)
• Update 2: Paul Craig has tried a lot of different systems, and they were all terrible. Until voo2do…
• Update 3: Slackah calls it “my new love”.
• Martin Gordon has the most substantial review I’ve seen so far.
• Lifehack.org suggests that readers try it out.
• Alinobairro appreciates my “license” – if you like it, smile at a stranger today.
• miss thinks-too-much says whee!
• Irubin asks about the underlined shortcut keys (I replied)
• Tao of Mac is skeptical — do all Ajax apps really use the same yellow? (Actually yes, otherwise sunlight leaks in and degrades the code.)

Please comment if you see something I’ve missed.