neděle 6. listopadu 2011

Producteev & Evernote Sync: Proof of concept

In case you missed it, I created the

Producteev & Evernote Synchronization

application to synchronize Producteev tasks with Evernote notes. It is still work in progress, but I would love to hear any comments. I plan to move pretty fast with this so stay tuned!

neděle 23. října 2011

Create Producteev tasks directly from Word or LibreOffice

I do often need to write down some notes e.g. from a meeting. And in fact there are not only information, but generally a lot of tasks as well! Would not be nice if you would be able to send them to Producteev?

Currently I am writing such notes in Evernote because I want to access them on all my devices, but at the end of the day I am sending them usually as a body of an email or PDF/Microsoft Word attachment.

Would not it be cool to create tasks directly from Evernote, LibreOffice or Word?

UPDATE: Read here.

pátek 30. září 2011

Would Posterous and Google+ integration be helpful?

Currently I am using several blogging platforms:

  • Blogger for my English posts about software development, personal development, GTD and Covey
  • Posterous for my Czech posts related maily to time management and how to live in balance
  • Google Plus for ... not quite sure yet, probably composition of both developments mentioned earlier
  • Facebook for sending links to other blogs and for companies propagation
Those are also linked to my different Twitter accounts (davidpodhola, twitter.com/naseukolycz, twitter.com/gassumo).

What I am missing the most right now is the way how to autopost from Posterous to Google Plus. I know Google Plus API is still in Beta, but come on, you can develop something on beta API as well.

I will try to have a look at those APIs and think about the possibilities. There is a difference in writing posts between Posterous and Google Plus: in Posterous you have title and content, but you have only "what is new" in Google Plus.

Will let you know :-)

neděle 25. září 2011

Covey - First Things First - Roles

I have been listening to Stephen Covey's First Things First recently. I like the part about different roles and their synergies the most. I wrote an excerpt on my NašeÚkoly.CZ blog (in Czech).

neděle 1. května 2011

Moving my personal and Czech stuff to Posterous

I will no longer post my personal or Czech stuff here. All those new posts will be my Posterous.

However I will update you with everything related to tasks, Google Outlook Android Tasks synchronizer etc.

neděle 17. října 2010

Golf

I started to play golf. OK, not yet, but we went to driving range on Friday and were totally amused. So I returned there on Saturday with my wife and today... I am buying "My personal trainer" for my Wii!

My Personal Golf Trainer

I was practicing swings on Wii Fit Plus, but I hope this will tell me much more about what to do better.

úterý 28. září 2010

Beta tester to share info about Remember The Milk's official Outlook synchronization utility?

As you know, Remember The Milk is probably creating it's own Outlook sync.

Is there anybody, that has already access to this synchronization utility and would like to share his feelings? It would be very interesting to know the approach of RTM.

I am a little bit playing with Android these days, but I am still excited if RTM would have it's Outlook synchronization!

pátek 24. září 2010

Those who can't do, teach. Are you kidding me?

I know that we are all following the AngelGate these days, but this subject is something that was stuck in my mind for a quite long period of time. And it is not because next Monday I start part time lecturing at Prague College again nor the discussions I had last few days with several people.

We are told (and it seems to be a thing all world around), that "if you're good enough to actually do, you wouldn't have time to be teaching." [Joomla4Web]

I like the argumentation on the Joomla4Web very much. However that is not exactly my case. To be honest, I started guest lecturing back in spring 2009, because my very good friend Veronika asked me to come and talk to her Computing students. I must say, I liked it.

It was only logical I started to lecture two HND computing units a week since January 2010. It is definitely not a full time job for me, but yes, I am getting paid, thanks for asking. I am also adding one HND business unit this semester (e-Business Strategy/e-Business implementation).

So to return back to the question in the title - there are several things that always follow in the discussions:

  • If you are a teacher, you just follow some books and you have never done this by yourself. Although I agree with Shari, that this is not the most important thing as "It is up to the student to digest the information he receives and find an application for it in his life, not for the teacher teach him each individual step" [BlogCritics], if you are wondering if I have enough practical experience teach computing or business, have a look at my CV.
  • If you are a teacher, you are not successful at you "normal" job so you have to teach to pay your bills". This one seems really very funny to me. Working more than 10 years for Sprinx, going to several conferences etc. I do not consider myself failing at my daily job.
    Also check my currently running projects.
  • Teaching is paid so bad, it is "last resort" position for people. Again, that might be true for government schools. I lectured at CTU, FNSPE while studying and yes, I was not making a fortune there. But this is not my case anymore. If you are still not believing me, setup a consultant meeting with me through my calendar and mention this blog post as a source. I promise, I will charge you only the same sum per hour :-)
  • When you are teaching, you are loosing your professional experience. True. That is why I am running my projects and keeping my professional career. Just now I am learning how to develop for Android so I do not stay at the same place.

And yes, I am still enjoying that :-) And that is the most important thing for me.

středa 22. září 2010

pátek 17. září 2010

Remember the Milk Outlook Synchronization by Remember The Milk?

It it not the end of the year yet, but I saw something interesting last day and it reminded me of the thing I was doing from January till today...

That I saw was really interesting - Remember The Milk people are about to have their own Outlook synchronization.

It seems quite logical to me. If you read the thread at Remember The Milk forum, you can see there was quite a demand for Outlook synchronization from the very beginning (2007).

I am not sure what brought me to Remember The Milk the first time, but it was my wife who appointed me to this online task list the second time. I opened the web and ... surprise, surprise, it looked very familiar and I found out I was already registered!

Working for Sprinx Systems at that time (and still now) and using Microsoft Outlook for my task management, I was looking for something that would synchronize Outlook with RTM. I was always interested in synchronization, wrote the very first version of SprinxCRM Outlook Sync ages ago and I wanted to use online task management.

Actually, that is why I started to develop SprinxCRM OutlookSync for Remember The Milk back in February 2010. Of course I did some research first and get my few beta-testers through a simple form here on the blog.

As far as I know the synchronizer worked pretty well from the beginning and when I saw the Software Engineer (Windows) opened position at Remember The Milk jobs page with explanation that the guy will be responsible for Outlook integration, I was amused. I even applied explaining that it the sync is already done, but apparently was not chosen.

However, I am very interested to see what was created by RTM people. Every competition is good, that is what I think about this. And that is also the story of OutlookSync - it evolved into UniversalSync and it supports not only Remember The Milk these days, but also Producteev and more will come in the future.

středa 15. září 2010

"Is 30% too much to pay a CRM sales rep for company lead?"

I came across a very interested LinkedIn discussion about Sales Rep margins.

You can read the discussion here.

I like the guide from Million Dollar Consulting (Alan Weiss) mentioned by Pierre DeBois very much.

It describes what to pay as a finder's fee:

---20% for business that the other party closed and requires only your introduction and client acceptance of work.

---10% for business for which your introduction has been arranged, but your skills are needed to close the deal.

----A thank you and small gift for cold leads that require your skills to close the deal.

That seems pretty fair for me. Costs of sales are high these days and you have to pay enough to your sales teams or ... you know what happens to your profit if your sales team is moody or unmotivated. I will write more at my Gassumo CRM page.

pátek 10. září 2010

Producteev connector for SprinxCRM UniversalSync

Since I like to have more possibilities to choose from and since latest Astrid supports also Producteev online task list (also here), I decided to try to implement a SprinxCRM UniversalSync connector to Producteev.

I just started, but I already have a one-way synchronization from Producteev to Outlook. Have a look at Producteev Connector Homepage.

úterý 7. září 2010

What Google Apps (mainly Standard Edition) synchronization are you missing the most?

I started this Google Apps discussion on LinkedIn and even the very first post was very helpful with a lot of links, thanks Aaron!

Still thinking about more synchronizations... I am already planning to include Google Tasks in SprinxCRM UniversalSync and maybe I also do something more on Google Calendar Synchronization as I am not that much happy with the original Google one.

I hope to sort all those things soon and prepare the next generation of my synchronization utility.

More about how SprinxCRM UniversalSync works

If you are really interested in how SprinxCRM UniversalSync works, how are Outlook tasks synchronized e.g. with Remember The Milk (RTM) task or Google Calendar events with SprinxCRM calendar, read here on Gassumo.

I will also try to create a presentation for this.

neděle 1. srpna 2010

Where is SprinxCRM OutlookSync for Remember The Milk heading?

If you are Outlook or Remember The Milk fan, I hope you heard about SprinxCRM OutlookSync for Remember The Milk. As mentioned in WebWorkerDaily, it is "an add-on for Outlook that enables two-way synchronization of tasks between the two apps".

It is almost 5 months since I started developing this little task synchronization utility. Interested where it is heading now? Have a look what is in development right now!

středa 28. dubna 2010

Outlook Android synchronization

Thinking about syncing your Outlook tasks with Android? Are you obsessed like me to have your tasks with you all the time?

If you are experiencing something similar to me, you might be in a need for two sync utilities:

SprinxCRM OutlookSync for Remember The Milk
Astrid

They both allow you to synchronize your tasks with great online task list Remember The Milk. Simply create your account at Remember The Milk, install both tools and setup them to use the account you have just created.

And voila - your tasks from Outlook are sync'ed to RTM and from RTM to your Android phone!