2007 November archive at ScreeperZone

Archive for April, 2008

To-Do List with Google Maps - Version 2.0 with new advanced features

Published by Mahin November 25th, 2007 in Smart Todo. 16 Comments

To-Do List Version 2.0 is here. I was able to include most of your suggestions in this version..

The new features include:

Due Dates: Now you will be able to set due dates for your tasks. Just click on edit and you will see an option to use Due date. Check the “Use due date” checkbox and set the appropriate due date. Click on “Save Due Date” and the due date should be saved for the task. The number of days due is displayed adjacent to each task as “2 d” or “365 d” which represents 2 days and 365 days respectively.
Auto change Priority to “High” based on Due date: You have the option to let the gadget change the priority (to High) automatically based on due date. For instance - You could specify that the priority of a task becomes high when the task is due in certain number of days (1-5 days). To achieve this, just click on edit and check the “Use due date” checkbox, then set the appropriate due date and then select the number of days when the priority of the task should become high.
Various Sorting Options: Now you have the option to Sort the tasks by priority or by due date. As the name indicates, “Sort by priority” sorts the tasks based on priority of the tasks. This comes in handy when combined with the auto-change priority option. “sort by due date” sorts the tasks based on due date.
Various Printing Options: Now you have the option to Print the tasks based on due date. You have the option to print either All tasks or Tasks that were due yesterday, Today or Tomorrow.

To-Do List with Google Maps - Windows Vista sidebar todo task management/Task checklist gadget

Published by Mahin November 25th, 2007 in Smart Todo. 109 Comments

You can download the gadget by clicking the Vista sidebar button below:

Version 2.2.0 (Recommended Version)

Minimized version of todo vista gadget

(Minimized View)

Maximized version of todo vista sidebar

(Maximized View)

NOTE: If you are using old version (If you can’t find version number at the bottom of the gadget, then you are using OLD version), Please print all tasks at your convenience. PLEASE DO NOT edit settings before you print all your tasks.

The functionalities are similar to the iGoogle and NetVibes gadgets. You can read the functionalities here.

New features included as part of Version 2.2.0:

Minimizing the gadget to fit Windows Vista sidebar: You can click “Minimize” link at the bottom to fit the gadget in to Vista sidebar. If you want to look at the more advanced version, click “Maximize”.
More storage: The gadget now allows you to add as many tasks as possible without loosing data.

Bug fixes included as part of Version 2.2.0:

Data gets lost after editing settings - This was because the maximum size of data that can be stored was 2Kb. So the gadget discarded all the data without warning when it hit the limit. This bug should be fixed now.

Some known quirks include:

The gadget will seem to disappear sometimes when you click on “edit” or add too many tasks. Don’t Panic ..Just scroll through the vista sidebar tabs (On the top of the sidebar near the “+”, there should be “>” and “<”), and you should see the gadget in the next tab. The reason is that - Vista seems to push the gadget to the next tab when it doesn’t have enough space to display the entire gadget.

I am trying to improve this gadget whenever I get some free time.

Please leave your comments and suggestions. I really appreciate your feedback

Activity Tracker - Windows Vista sidebar Time Management/Time Tracker gadget

Published by Mahin November 25th, 2007 in Activity Tracker. 70 Comments

You can download the gadget by clicking the Vista sidebar button below:

Version 1.2.0 (Recommended Version)

(Minimized View)

(Maximized View)

NOTE: If you are using old version (If you can’t find version number at the bottom of the gadget, then you are using OLD version), Please export or print the logs at your convenience. PLEASE DO NOT edit settings before you export or print your activity logs.

The functionalities are similar to the iGoogle and NetVibes gadgets. You can read the functionalities here.

New features included as part of Version 1.2.0

Minimizing the gadget to fit Vista sidebar: You can click “Minimize” link at the bottom to fit the gadget in to Vista sidebar. If you want to look at the more advanced version, click “Maximize”.
More storage: You can track activity for longer time without exporting and clearing your logs. But to be productive, I would recommend you to export it on a monthly basis.

Some known quirks include:

The gadget will seem to disappear sometimes when you click on “edit” or when adding new activities. Don’t Panic ..Just scroll through the vista sidebar tabs (On the top of the sidebar near the “+”, there should be “>” and “<”), and you should see the gadget in the next tab. The reason is that - Vista seems to push the gadget to the next tab when it doesn’t have enough space to display the entire gadget.
Currently, it is not possible to adjust the width. So the gadget will look like it has exceeded the width of the sidebar.

I am trying to improve this gadget whenever I get some free time.

Please leave your comments and suggestions. I appreciate your feedback.

Activity Tracker - Keep your activities expanded.

Published by Mahin November 20th, 2007 in Activity Tracker. 5 Comments

The recent release had a new feature that collapsed all the activities for a cleaner interface. Unfortunately it was an inconvenience for some of the users and they had requested to revert back to the old interface with the expanded view.

In order to satisfy both the groups, I introduced a check box “Keep activities expanded” that once checked should keep all the activities expanded. You can check this option under the edit settings screen. Just click on “Edit settings” menu on the top of the gadget and you should see the option to keep the activities expanded. Once checked, it should keep the activities always expanded. Please see the images for better understanding.

“Keep Activities Expanded” in IGoogle

“Keep Activities Expanded” in Netvibes

Sneak Peek on upcoming features for “To-Do List with Google Maps”

Published by Mahin November 13th, 2007 in Smart Todo. 0 Comments

Related to : [To-Do List with Google maps]

Based on feedback, I’m making some enhancements to “To-Do List with Google maps”. The new version will be available tentatively on Saturday night (24th November 2007) around 10:00 PM (GMT -7).

Some of the features include:

Due Dates
Change Priority to High automatically based on due-date.
Sort by due date
Sort by priority
New Print Options
Etc..

The upgrade should be transparent to existing users. There is nothing special that you need to do. Please do take a print of all your tasks by Friday at the latest.. just to be on the safer side. Please don’t delete the gadget as that may delete all your tasks permanently.
I will provide more explanation in my next blog.

Search business locations along the route using Google maps (POI along a route)

Published by Mahin November 12th, 2007 in Business Along Route. 0 Comments

I recently released a gadget “To-Do List with Google Maps” that had an interesting feature wherein one can find all businesses along a route given the business names, the start and end address. This is very useful and is a very productive way to complete the regular chores. Some of you had suggested that this could be a separate stand-alone feature by itself.

And here it is !!. I separated out the POI along the route functionality from the gadget and made it a separate website. Visit the site here.

It is very simple. Just add business names (like Costco, Walmart etc) then specify the start and the end address. Click on “Map it” and you should see Google map with the route highlighted. You should also see all the businesses highlighted along this route. The driving directions are printed below the map.

Map showing business along the route

Please note that sometimes Google might not be able to resolve a business name in which case it will show incorrect businesses. In that case please go back and make the business name more specific. For instance, if you would like to visit “Costco Home” and you just typed “Costco” - then your results are more likely going to include the regular “Costco” stores as well.

Find Businesses on your way

Activity Tracker Version 1.0 with new advanced features

Published by Mahin November 10th, 2007 in Activity Tracker. 11 Comments

Activity Tracker Version 1.0 is here.. I was able to include most of your suggestions in this version.

The features include:

Expand & Collapse the task view - All tasks remain collapsed in the main view providing more room and a cleaner interface. You can expand each task by clicking on it. Now you can have all your 100 tasks and not worry about clobbering your iGoogle page. If you want to see the total time spent in all projects, just click “Graph” and you should see details about all projects.
Drag and Drop - Re-arrange your tasks in any order you want. I know lot of people had been asking for this especially because you would want the currently active tasks on the top. well.. now it is here.
Add Notes to each activity log -For each task, you now have the ability to add a custom note each time you punch-in. Hence you can have as many notes as there are logs. The log is limited to 50 characters.
Edit the activity logs - Many people wanted this feature to get a fine grained control over the time. Now you can just do that. Click on edit and add new entry or edit last entry or even delete an entry. You can edit the notes as well.
Auto focus to Task text box - Once you click on “Add New”, the cursor should automatically focus on the text box.
Fixed the 2 window issue - Many people had complained about the gadget not realizing that it is open in 2 windows and thereby the punch-in/punch-out gets messed. Now the gadget will gray out if if finds that it is not in sync. You will have to refresh the page for it to sync up.
Internationalization - The gadget is now localized. Currently I have Spanish and Portugese versions. Thanks Natalie from Google !! I would love to have it localized for all other languages. I just need translators. If you are interested.. please do leave a comment.

This newer version should transparently and automatically import your old tasks and so you do not have to do anything. If it does not.. sorry

Also if you happen to have a punched-in activity (during the transition), you may experience problems when you click the log. You should see something like this

-X- An Error Has Occured
Error may be due to following reasons.
- required parameter is missing.
- required parameter is of invalid type.
- the site is under maintainance.
Sorry for the inconvenience !!.

In that case, just clear your logs and start again. You should be fine.

Why do I inline Google gadgets ?

Published by Mahin November 8th, 2007 in iGoogle General, Smart Todo and Activity Tracker. 6 Comments

Some of the users had concerns about the warning that shows up when they try to add my Activity Tracker or To-do list gadget. So this blog is to explain why you should not be worried about adding my gadgets..

Inline gadgets allow users to save more than 2K of preferences. So gadgets like Activity tracker and To-do list that needs more storage space to save logs and tasks respectively can use this to their advantage. Also I found that if inline modules are placed in seperate igoogle tabs, gadget users can store more than 600 tasks in the to-do list gadget.. that’s pretty impressive.. huh

I just want to assure you again that my Gadgets DONOT modify your homepage nor hamper operations of any other module. The beauty of this gadget is that all your preferences and data is stored in the Google servers as Google preferences and none is stored on my server. So you can safely click “OK” to trust the module.

Leave comments if you still have any questions..

Backup your “Activity Tracker” tasks

Published by Mahin November 7th, 2007 in Activity Tracker. 7 Comments

I’m releasing a newer, more advanced version of Activity Tracker (Version 1.0) this Friday night (9th November 2007). I will post a separate blog highlighting the new features.

I have included scripts that should automatically and seamlessly import your current tasks into the newer version. It should be completely transparent and there is nothing that you have to do. Nevertheless mistakes can happen and so I strongly advise you to export your data by Friday at the latest to ensure there is no potential loss of data.

And watch my blog for the announcement of the newer version of Activity Tracker..

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