So what’s happened to the company since it made a big splash at last year’s conference? (This year’s Net:Work conference in San Francisco is just a few weeks away on  December 8^th.) In short, they’ve become a piece of a larger puzzle, being acquired by Mindjet to help create a broader solution that takes ideas all the way from inception to execution.

Around a year ago Mindjet, known for its mind mapping and brainstorming solutions, decided to expand from just helping people generate and capture ideas to also helping them realize them. To do that they needed some new technology, and after keeping a close eye on the project management space as well as pondering building a product themselves, they happened upon Cohuman, which met their needs and which had been struggling to find funding.

The acquisition went through in August of this year, with Mindjet releasing a rebranded Mindjet Cohuman on September 22. But don’t worry if you loved Cohuman last year, explained Blaine Mathieu, Mindjet’s chief product’s officer in an interview. The new product is still very similar to the one that won raves at Net:Work 2010.

“If somebody was a historic Cohuman user they would recognize Cohuman today other than some enhanced feature functionality and the Mindjet logo on it,” he reports. But the company plans bigger changes going forward.

We’re working through a phased integration between Mindjet’s other products and Mindjet Cohuman. In fact, we’re just a few weeks away from releasing our first beta integration between our application for information mapping and project planning called Mindjet Connect and Cohuman, sharing data back and forth. Then during the course of 2012 we’re going to be merging these applications more and more closely together, so users of either application will see additional functionality being borrowed from the other one. We’re moving down the path in 2012 of making them one thing.

Thos who originally came to Mindjet for a brainstorming app and those who chose Cohuman hoping to manage their projects socially will, hopefully, see the functionality of both products expand until they morph into an integrated offering that handles your projects from first inspiration through to the details of making them reality. The freemium business model will remain the same.

Besides logically expanding Mindjet’s offerings and solving Cohuman’s funding woes, the acquisition also brings Cohuman’s technology to Mindjet’s already existing large user base. “That’s the cool thing,” says Mathieu. “As Mindjet’s been around since 2001, we have over two million paying users today for our applications already, so obviously the first thing we’re doing with Mindjet Cohuman is taking that application to our existing user base and saying, ‘hey, look at this great new application we have for you.’”

“There are a lot of interesting little startups in the social task management area doing some interesting things,” says Matthieu, “but the big advantage that Mindjet has is we’re not a startup starting at zero – zero users, zero viral effect. 80 percent of the Global 2000 use a Mindjet solution today.”

That should mean more exposure and more users for a rebranded and expanded Mindjet Cohuman in 2012.

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It’s an approach you’d imagine would appeal to a couple of ex-Facebookers now tackling the enterprise task management and productivity tool space. But as Justin Rosenstein and Dustin Moskovitz launch their new web-based product Asana out of beta this week, they’re actually out to prove the opposite: When it comes to getting things done at work, social is the wrong thing to focus on.

So what’s the foundation of professional productivity if it’s not breaking down org chart divisions, building relationships and easily sharing information? For Rosenstein and Moskovitz, that answer is deceptively simple: the work itself.

Tasks not people

In your personal life, your focus is naturally on building relationships, so “it makes sense to have a product that is fundamentally social,” says Rosestein, but to apply that same principle to your professional life just doesn’t work. The chatter on your Facebook account is the point; random comments and exchanges help you get to know people and stay in touch. At work, where your goal is, say, meeting a project deadline, chatter is just distracting noise that breaks your flow, wastes your time and limits your creativity.

In a professional context, the ultimate aim is not to get to know people (though surely that’s a facilitator and by-product of good work) but, as Rosenstein puts it, “to create interesting things.” So when it comes to professional productivity tools, “it makes sense to put the work as the fundamental unit, and for us, tasks are those atomic elements of productivity.”

Rosenstein elaborates: “Much in the way that email makes a message, the core notion, the fundamental unit that is being moved around and operated on, or say a social network makes people the fundamental unit, Asana is about making the task the fundamental unit.”

In essence, “Asana is basically a shared, collaborative task list,” he says, “allowing users to reference the product and know what everyone on the team is working on, as well as having all conversations, files and artifacts around those tasks collected in one place.”

By “following” a task, users are kept up to date on all actions and comments related to it via email, as well as who is assigned responsibility for the task. You can easily “unfollow” tasks that aren’t pertinent, set tasks as private or search the system for past comments and actions. Users can view tasks by project, including information on project priorities, group a project’s tasks by assignee, or sort by person and see all tasks an individual is involved in across all projects. A mobile version of Asana is a new improvement on the beta.

Eroding barriers to adoption

Other more social productivity tools based on following people or conversations not tasks are often simply too noisy and too slow, frustrating new users who then fall back on old standbys like email, and in-person chats, according to the Asana team (and, to be fair, my personal experience as well). For this reason, Rosenstein feels their main competition isn’t other offerings in the space, but the inertia that drags down new tools:

When we think about who our competition is, it’s not really the other productivity tools or enterprise collaboration tools because that’s not what people are using. Even among the early adopters who have been trying out Asana, 75 percent of them prior to using Asana were using email and documents to keep themselves organized. Email, documents, white boards, notebooks, in-person meetings, that’s the competition. Those are the tools people are still using today in order to try and keep themselves on the same page.

We have certain people who signed up for the beta who said, ‘I’ve tried a dozen different tools for project management, for group collaboration and could never get any of them to work. None of them would ever stick. I couldn’t adopt them. My team couldn’t adopt them.’ And so I think the big differentiator from those tools is this is the only one that actually works.

Will it work? The team is striving to make Asana as fast, flexible and easy to get started with as possible, minimizing the number of keystrokes or clicks to accomplish anything and making sure the signal-to-noise ratio is high so users get only relevant information. Asana can also be used as a personal, rather than team, task manager and grows virally as a single user assign bits of work to others, though Rosenstein warns that managers looking to lead a top-down adoption of Asana for their teams think carefully before proceeding.

“The biggest failure mode for adoption has been when someone comes in, plays around for a minute, doesn’t think about how they want to organize things, say ‘everyone, hey, come use this,’ and doesn’t set up any structure ahead of time,” says Rosenstein. “You need some sort of order.”

The future

In short, Asana’s future is vague but hopefully populous. The team’s immediate goal is getting users signed up rather than bringing in revenue. “We’re really focused on going for ubiquity, for mass-scale adoption,” says Rosenstein, “so at this point in time, we don’t even have a pay model. That’s something we’ll announce later. The product is free and will remain free for teams of 1-30.”

The product was beta tested by everyone from a sports management firm to a political campaign (plus, obviously, plenty of tech companies) so Asana is aiming for a broad market, though one that’s not without serious competitors, including major players like Microsoft and Cisco, as well as alternatives from other startups.

Will Asana’s streamlined, task-centric approach and limited use of social be the secret sauce that makes its tool the irresistible pizza of task management rather than another worthy but unappetizing product your boss nags you to use? Check it out and let us know what you think.

Do you agree with the Asana team’s general point that excess sociability and noise makes many productivity tools hard to stick with?

Image courtesy of Asana.

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SocialBase “is a team collaboration, tools integration and task management system to bring your social media workflow into one central dashboard.” Tasks related to social media can be managed through the dashboard, and team members assigned to specific tasks. The interface also includes a “tools” pane where users can log in to social media directly.

The developer has some interesting suggestions for how to use SocialBase, but I’m not sure what sorts of businesses it will appeal to. I doubt that those already using one of the many project management tools that we’ve covered will want to pay a hefty monthly fee for another system to manage (and another login to remember). Organizations that aren’t using a project management system will probably be better off looking at other enterprise-oriented social media solutions like HootSuite and CoTweet.

SocialBase has three pricing plans: a “Solo” plan for $50/month, a “Team” plan for up to 10 users for $200/month, and an “On Call” plan with unlimited users for $2,000/month. A 30-day trial, a video tutorial, and more information is available at oneforty’s website. You’ll need to log in with Twitter.

How do you monitor and manage your organization’s social media presence?

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Rather than trying to cram in all of the functionality that’s present in the web app, the iPhone app concentrates on the tasks that a user is likely to need when out of the office. Matthew Work, Cohuman co-founder and CEO, notes that the app was developed for “those times when we’re getting ready to go to work or have just left the office — usually the times when we’re the least connected.” The app concentrates on providing access to tasks, co-workers and activity; the home screen offers users five options: Add Task, My Tasks, Cohumans, Projects and Activity, but there’s no access to calendars or search functionality, as there is in the web app.

I tried the app on my iPhone, and it works well, enabling fast and easy access to team members, upcoming tasks and updates to projects — all of the data I’m likely to need while away from my laptop. Tasks added using the app can be delegated to other users, commented on, added to projects and have due dates set, just as with the web app. Files attached to tasks can be viewed in the app, but there’s no facility for uploading files. I can imagine the lack of a search feature being an issue for users with lengthy task lists or large numbers of co-workers; those users will probably need to use the web app to access the search feature to find particular tasks or co-workers. The app should also theoretically work on the iPad, although I haven’t tried it. It would probably look odd, as the app is designed for use on a smaller screen and it cannot be used in portrait mode. I’d recommend sticking with the web app for iPad users.

The Cohuman iPhone app is free and can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store. An Android app is also in the works and should follow in a few months. To use it you’ll need a Cohuman account. A Cohuman Basic plan offers 1 GB of storage and is free. A Cohuman Pro plan provides greater control over permissions, HTTPS connections and offers 10GB of storage at a cost of $19.95 per month.

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SmallTask has a clean, minimalist interface that’s designed to look like a notepad. There are only two buttons: one for creating new tasks and the other for setting up Dropbox sync. Tasks created in the app can be given a due date and time: Reminders for tasks that are due can be delivered by both the iOS app (via push notifications) and the Mac app (only while it is running). Tasks in the list can be edited by clicking or tapping them.

I’ve tested the apps, and the Dropbox sync works very well. But even though I’m normally a fan of minimalist apps, I find SmallTask a little too basic for my needs. There’s no feature for marking which tasks have been completed (you can only delete them), nor can you set up tasks that don’t have a due date or time associated with them. Additionally, there’s no support for more-advanced task management functionality such as tags, additional task lists or projects. It doesn’t have a search feature, which means it probably won’t be much good for users with lengthy task lists, and it almost certainly won’t be suitable for use in a GTD-style system. However, if you’re a Mac/iOS user and all you need is a very simple task list you can access anywhere, then SmallTask is worth a look. The Dropbox sync means that, unlike web-based task management apps like Google Tasks, your to-do list should always be available, even if you don’t have an active Internet connection; tasks will simply be synced next time you get online.

SmallTask is free for both Mac and iOS. The synchronization feature requires a Dropbox account; a 2 GB account is free.

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Teamly takes a different approach to most collaboration apps. Rather than assigning tasks to the people on your team who will get them done, Teamly encourages your team to look for the priorities in a project and exercise a little autonomy. It focuses on creating very short priority lists — consisting of just five things — and allows for the setting of daily, weekly and monthly priorities. It also allows managers and team members to review those priorities and provides real-time feedback for managers.

Two new multi-user plans are available. Teamly Professional costs $8 per user per month, and includes access to everything, including phone support. Teamly Starter is free and includes access to most functionality, but is ad-supported and doesn’t have access to some of the more advanced features, like data export and SSL encryption. Current Teamly beta users will be transitioned onto a trial version of the Teamly Professional plan that will last until May 9.

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WorkWyze’s task assignment system is built around around a simple task request/response workflow. Anyone can create a task (complete with tags, a description and a due date) and delegate it to anyone else; they can then mark the task as “accepted” if they’re ready to add it to their task list. Once a task is done, the person carrying out the tasks marks it as “Complete” in WorkWyze and a notification is sent to the task requester asking them to confirm that the task is actually done with. WorkWyze makes it clear who owns each task and what its status is at any time.

It’s possible to keep track of everything that’s going in the team via an Activity Feed that’s reminiscent of Facebook’s newsfeed; it  displays all of the team’s activity and can also include status updates.

I like WorkWyze’s straightforward workflow approach, but the app is still in beta, and it feels like pre-release software in places. Some features are a little rough around the edges, and the design of the site could definitely do with some work. In particular, I’d much prefer it if tasks were identified by name rather than by ID number, as it would make it easier to see what’s going on. There’s also some additional functionality that I’d like to see included: when creating a task, for example, you can only add a link to related documents, not upload the actual documents themselves. The site is supposed to work best in Firefox and Internet Explorer, but it worked OK for me in Chrome.

WorkWyze is currently free to use; a Google account is required to sign up.

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The instant appeal for me with Thymer is the straightforward data entry process. Thymer uses a natural language parser, so I can type simple statements and it knows what I want and where I want it. There’s no tabbing through multiple selection boxes needed; a single carefully-constructed statement can tell the system everything it needs to know about my task.

The key to productivity in Thymer is learning the syntax needed to enter your tasks. For example:

Write Thymer Review @WWD @today @review @1.5 @important @waiting

will assign myself a task, due today, called “Write Thymer Review.” It will add it to my WWD project and tag it as a review, with an estimated time of  1.5 hours. The other items make use of built-in flags to show that the task is important and that I’m waiting for someone or something to complete it.

While keyboard entry is prominent, the interface makes nice use of drag-and-drop functionality: Move and reorder your tasks as needed. One of the slickest features allows you to move the input box down to the specific area of the page where you want your tasks to appear.

There is a bit of a learning curve to getting used to the syntax, and to set up the searches and views you will use on a regular basis. It’s a very freeform system, which makes it flexible enough for a lot of different task management processes, but some may be put off by the lack of structure, at least when getting started.

As a one-person shop, I didn’t have a chance to test the team features, but planning functionality is built-in and you can easily assign tasks to others. Each task can also handle discussions and comments.

While expected features like emailing tasks into Thymer, daily reminder emails and even Twitter integration are done well, I’d really like to see some better auto-complete options for predicting existing tags and projects.

There is a lot more to Thymer that I haven’t even begun to implement yet — specifically, the time tracking. Each task can be given an estimated time for planning purposes and individual timers can be set to track work completed. Additionally, multiple time entries can be added to a task and totaled upon completion for billing purposes.

Mobile access is proving to be an issue for me, though, — perhaps even a dealbreaker. While an iPhone app is available the site doesn’t seem to function on any of the mobile browsers I tested it on. Ubiquity of the data entry and access is key for me, so I’m struggling to keep up when away from my computer.

Pricing starts at free for a basic no-frills but functional account, while paid accounts start at $5/month for a solo plan. A 30-day trial is available.

I’m undecided if it’s worth the time and effort to move over from Toodledo — but Thymer is something I’m watching closely.

How do you track your tasks? Is Thymer right for you?

For a while, I’d sync Outlook and Palm Desktop, and then Outlook would update the BlackBerry (I didn’t actually use Outlook at all, it just acted as the middleman). It worked great. But then my dependence on Google Calendar  grew, because I could access it from any computer as well as my BlackBerry, and it wouldn’t work with my sync setup.

I investigated many tools and synchronization applications to find a perfect sync solution. I didn’t want to use lots of different applications to syncing needs.

The almost perfect solution was to find a dedicated synchronization app. Mine comes from CompanionLink. This method cuts out Outlook for good. CompanionLink now has a Google edition available that synchronizes all of Palm Desktop’s features with Google, too. For updating my BlackBerry, I use Google Sync for Mobile. It’s still not perfect, but it works and I can access and update my information in Google or Palm, while my BlackBerry just has access to the information.

If you’re struggling to find the perfect syncing app, here are some options (some free and some paid):

• Chapura: PocketMirror has been around for a long time, and syncs Palms with Outlook. Its Echo and PocketMirror work with Palm Pre.
• CompanionLink: Syncs Google, Palm Pre, ACT!, LotusNotes, Outlook and many others.
• Google Sync: free Google syncing applications for Mac, Linux, Android and others.
• gSyncit: Syncs Outlook and Gmail.
• Mark/Space: Sync apps for Macs.
• Sync’Em: Connects Macs with Exchange and Outlook.

How do you keep your data in sync?

Photo credit: djwudi

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The web app has two key features: adding new to-do items and setting reminders. It also lets you set up email or SMS reminders.

The service provides an iCal link so you can incorporate your reminders into an iCal-compatible calendar. Google Calendar, for one, can import Superminder’s tasks and due dates. In my tests, this worked, although not perfectly: It doesn’t look like it transfers recurring tasks and it sometimes takes quite some time before Superminder updates Google Calendar with tasks, or maybe it’s the other way around. Refreshing the calendar doesn’t speed up the update process.

Superminder can send reminders by SMS and every account receives two free reminders. If you want more, it costs $4 to buy 15 SMS credits or $13 to buy 50. Google Calendar has its own email and SMS notification, so you can work around these charges if you import Superminder into Google Calendar.

Although Superminder doesn’t come with instructions, it’s so simple you don’t really need them. However, it would be nice to know why the iCal feature doesn’t update as regularly as I’d like. Superminder offers a viable solution to those needing a simple to-do application that’s accessible over the web.

What reminders app do you use?

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I find a project management system indispensable. Like a lot of web workers, I’m always juggling multiple projects and clients, and such systems are the only way for me to easily track deadlines, time spent, and progress. So I’m always interested in new options, although my three-person company has been generally happy with ActiveCollab.

Thus, when I look at a product like WizeHive, I confess that I have some preconceived ideas as to how a project management system should operate. I’m not entirely sure that WizeHive would work for me, but it does include some good ideas, and the latest update offers some nice features:

• Email and Twitter integration. The folks at WizeHive understand that some people prefer to use tools with which they are familiar, rather than navigating through a web site. Thus, it’s possible to post files and comments, and to follow discussions, directly from email and Twitter.
• Desktop software. For people who’d rather have a standalone application, WizeHive offers an Adobe AIR-based client. I haven’t tried this, but it’s supposed to have the same functionality as the web app, and can be customized using the WizeHive API.
• Easy setup. The first time you log in, you’re taken through a series of screens that help you set up the basics. These screens are well-written and easy to understand; much more so than many others I’ve seen.
• Home screen. There are actually several home screens, depending on how many workspaces (sort of like meta-projects; see below) you create. Each workspace has its own home screen, marked “Recent Activity.” Here you can see messages and tasks from you or others related to the specific workspace. You can specify whether to show replies or not, and whether to limit the length of messages that are displayed. The resulting effect is somewhat like the Twitter web site. There is also a tab marked “All,” which shows activity from all workspaces.
• Task management. I like the layout and customizability of the task screen. You can choose to view just about any aspect of tasks, and arrange the display to suit.
• Version management. WizeHive automatically saves multiple versions of the same document; earlier versions can be retrieved if needed.
• Backups. WizeHive told me that they do real-time mirroring, with another mirror every 15 minutes, plus document backups through Amazon S3. I like that approach, since project management data really is mission-critical.
• Extendability. WizeHive has developed an API, and is working on an SDK, that will allow users to develop their own modules. It already has a “ratings” app for clients who need to conduct votes among project participants.

I haven’t decided if I like some features of the other WizeHive features, though. They may appeal to you more than they do to me.

• Workspaces. This is one of the features that WizeHive is most excited about. It describes workspaces as being appropriate for people who have more than one company or organization with which they work. Thus, you could have a “Company A” workspace and a “Family” workspace, each with its own color scheme, layout and set of users. I’d probably want to make each project a separate workspace, which would cause the need to scroll the tabs at the top of the screen. Luckily, it’s possible to change the order in which the tabs appear.
• Pages. Most other project management systems would call these “Projects,” but WizeHive has made Pages more open-ended. WizeHive pages can be created for aspects of a project, or they can be used to collect data on present or potential customers.
• Email archives. I’m not thrilled about getting a daily update of activities from the program, but it’s easy to turn off. I prefer RSS feeds, which WizeHive also has.

There are also some limitations in WizeHive that I’d like to see addressed. Some seem to be simple bugs, which I assume can be fixed relatively easily.

• Management of user profiles. Administrators can invite new users to share a workspace, and have control over whether they’d like the program to send invitations, or send their own. Users can create their own profiles, and add a significant amount of information. But administrators can’t edit other people’s profiles, so WizeHive can’t easily be used as a CRM solution.
• Documentation. Given that the introductory setup screens are well-written and laid out, I was surprised that I found some parts of the help system to less than clear. It could be that the help hasn’t yet caught up with the new features, so let’s hope that it will improve.
• Creating files online. WizeHive has options to create documents or spreadsheets online. These options redirect users to Zoho Writer and Zoho Sheet, respectively, but after creating and saving test documents, one has to close the Zoho window manually and refresh the WizeHive screen to see the updated list of files.
• Uploading files. WizeHive now allows uploads of up to 50 files at a time. When I tried it, however, it crashed Firefox 3.5. Their one-file-at-a-time uploader worked, but the image preview function did not display either a small GIF or a small PNG.
• Pricing. WizeHive is currently in beta (although it’s been available for over a year) and is free. The WizeHive folks told me that the plans listed on the pricing page are subject to change. Right now, they’re thinking of making the number of users for all plans unlimited, and charging for the amount of storage used and for some of the more sophisticated features. Hopefully, they’ll decide on their pricing structure soon, so that potential users can make informed decisions as to whether they want to deploy WizeHive.

Mike Levinson from WizeHive told me that he and his colleagues couldn’t find a project management system they liked. So they built one. The result is an admirable attempt at creating a very flexible system that can be used in many different ways, while giving users guidance in how best to make the most of it. However, I’m not entirely sure they’ve succeeded, as WizeHive reflects an idiosyncratic view of how to organize projects. WizeHive’s flexibility could be a great strength for some people; for others, a more structured product may work better. Nonetheless, WizeHive has potential, especially for those who haven’t used a project management system before. For those of us who are familiar with other systems, it definitely takes some time to get used to how the site is organized.

Have you used WizeHive? What project management systems do you prefer?

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I’ve struggled for years to try to find the right solution for me. I’ve used a Franklin Planner, a Palm T/X, Microsoft Outlook , Remember The Milk, and a few other options. Nothing ever seemed quite right for me, though, and at times I found myself scribbling on paper pads still.

That was the case until I bought my first Mac and started looking for a task list for OS X. One of my friends recommended Things from Cultured Code. I almost didn’t try it because of the price ($49.95 desktop, $9.95 iPhone app). Thankfully, there is a free trial of the desktop application, so I was able to check it out without committing to the hefty price tag. It’s good that there’s a free trial, because I would otherwise have passed it by.

Put simply, Things has been the solution I’ve been searching for. It has revolutionized my productivity. It works with my natural flow, instead of against it.

I like to make long lists of tasks. There are urgent tasks that I have to get done immediately, the ones I need to get around to soon, and my projects and long-term items. Things gives me ways to track all of those items, without them having to be in my face all the time making me feel overwhelmed.

The desktop version of Things is very Leopard in its look and feel. It is simple, uncluttered and intuitive to use. It syncs with both iCal and the company’s iPhone app (via Wi-Fi).

I can easily drag-and-drop my tasks between the Today, Next and Someday lists to prioritize them. I can use tags or areas of responsibility to filter the list to show only certain types of tasks.

It isn’t quite as easy to move tasks around on the iPhone app. Since drag-and-drop isn’t an option there, it takes a few more steps. But the iPhone app is excellent for adding items on the go, or reviewing your current list and marking tasks complete.

One of my favorite functions in Things is the ability to make project lists. For a large project with multiple tasks or steps, I can create a project list of all those tasks and then drag individual tasks to my Today or Next lists while still also viewing them as part of the project as a whole. If a time comes when I am focusing almost solely on a project (such as the trade show I have in a few days) I can use the project list as my main working list.

Scheduled tasks are probably my other favorite feature of Things. For a future task, either a one-time or a recurring one, it is easy to create a scheduled item that will not appear on my main lists until I need to see it. This avoids distracting clutter and keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by tasks that don’t actually need to be seen at the moment.

Task management that fits well with how I think and work is worth the price of Things to me.  I am getting more things done, and feeling less stressed about it. That is priceless.

Do you love your task manager? Or are you still looking?

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So is Feng Office worth the price of admission? To some extent, that will always depend on your available budget, but here are my impressions.

Interface

I’m partial to the Feng Office interface, because it’s clean, simple, and works well on any platform that I’ve tried thus far (Windows and Mac, IE, Chrome and Firefox). It also reminds me of Office 2007′s look, which is great for at least visually integrating with my existing workflow, which involves using Office in a virtual machine via VMware Fusion.

The interface uses a tabbed control screen, without the need for continual page refreshes whenever you update, which means response time is super snappy. Menus are dynamic and load without delay, and are organized as you would expect them to be, especially if you’re familiar with Office menus and command locations. The degree of polish on the interface alone shows me why Feng Office costs $10 per month when compared with some of the free options I’ve tested in the past.

Features

Feng Office packs most of the features you should require for most project management duties. In addition to basics like calendars, contacts and email, it also provides milestone and task management, and a built-in time-tracking function.

All of the above are well-implemented, although some users may actually find the similar interface design of all the functions more confusing than helpful, since it’s often not clear which function you’re using at any given time without looking at what tab is highlighted. I like the uniformity, though, since it gives each feature a sense of connectedness to the others and adds to the feeling that Feng Office is a holistic solution.

Notes, Links and Documents features also bring much to Feng Office’s overall value proposition, and each is well-executed. You can even create new Word docs and PowerPoint HTML documents and presentations directly from within Feng Office using its own built-in editors, both of which retain UI elements from Microsoft’s own suite. That means less time switching from browser to standalone apps, which adds up to better productivity.

Tags can also be applied to anything and everything in Feng Office, which really helps keep things organized. On the left-hand side of the screen, persistent menus allow you to change workspaces and filter by tags, so that you can drill down and find things quickly if you’re working on a larger project, or multiple projects with many team members.

Pricing

As mentioned, Feng Office offers no free option. You can try it out free for 30 days, which is what I did for the purpose of this review. After that though, if you like it, you’ll have to choose one of its five tiered plans to continue. Plans start at $10 per month for a single user account with a 300 MB storage limit, and range up to $179 per month for 40 users sharing 15 GB of space. The longer the term of your subscription, the larger the discount applied to that fee, up to a maximum of 10 percent. Both onsite (self hosted) and online (hosted by Feng Office) options are available, depending on your needs.

It isn’t free (normally a dealbreaker for me, given the number of free apps available), and it isn’t really cheap either, but it definitely is a very well put together piece of software. In fact, no free alternative I’ve come across offers quite the level of professional, bug-free service that Feng Office provides. It’ll probably ultimately depend on your project’s budget, but don’t pass up at least the free test run of this little gem.

Let us know your thoughts on Feng Office in the comments.

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Last month, Aelgo launched the latest revision of its Manhour time-tracking application for Mac users.

WWD regularly covers time tracking, accounting and billing applications, but Manhour’s new release and its specific support for OS X users makes it a good time to cast our critical eye over this product.

Some of the highlights from Manhour’s latest 1.3 release include:

• Support for varying hourly rates that might apply for different times of day or activities, for example.
• Automated time-tracking and fee calculation, based on the fee structure you’ve defined. Users can even choose to bill down to the second, which could get interesting when coupled with a premium-rate phone support option!
• Integration with the OS X address book, to allow tasks and projects to be directly linked to clients’ contact cards.
• Comprehensive and editable reporting of recorded tasks and time blocks, also exportable as CSV, PDF and plain text.

Manhour does nothing that you wouldn’t expect from such an application, but its integration with core OS X features such as the Address Book and Menu Bar, coupled with a low price of $10 and a 15-day trial period, seems like pretty good value.

Personally, I shy away from working at hourly rates, but I have to admit, I might just give Manhour a whirl for a couple of weeks to track how much time I’m actually spending on work that I generally only bill in half- or full-day increments. Certainly most web workers could benefit from “metering” actual time vs. billed time.

Find out more at Aelgo’s Manhour product site.

What do you use for time tracking?

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Sadly, Gmail’s recently introduced Tasks feature doesn’t offer offline or mobile sync, my iPhone’s default Notes app has no desktop or web equivalent and Apple Mail‘s To Do capability send my Gmail account’s IMAP sync into a tailspin.

I’ve experimented with OmniFocus (a little complex for my taste) and  Things – supremely elegant, but quite expensive with iPhone and desktop editions priced separately. Now, my business partner swears by Hog Bay Software’s TaskPaper – a product we covered earlier this year, and has just rolled out a 2.0 update of its software.

As Mike alluded to in his May review of TaskPaper – ‘sometimes simple is best’. TaskPaper makes no allusions to competing with its GTD-infused brethren, such as OmniFocus or Things, but reinforces the notion that a plain text document, marked up coherently can be very powerful indeed.

TaskPaper 2.0 adds a search engine, quick entry window, keyboard shortcuts, themes, a projects sidebar, AppleScript support and some UI tweaks. Despite all these additions, the product still feels elegantly simple, powerful and lightweight, retaining its orientation around a text document. Indeed, despite the lack of web or phone editions, the plain text core is actually the foundation for a powerful ecosystem of third-party solutions, one of which – Taskphone – is looking to bring Taskpaper support to the iPhone.

Personally, I’m not fully won over by any solution yet – holding out for a good Google+Apple linkup – like the interoperability of Gmail+Apple Mail or Google Calendar + iCal. However, right now its a toss up between the versatile, but plain girlfriend (TaskPaper) or the glamourous and expensive mistress (Things).

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In the tradition of Fashion Your Firefox, and iPhone Your Life, Appy Holidays collects a selection of Google Apps under a consolidated theme, in this case “manag[ing] the holiday hustle and bustle”.

The Google services featured on the web site include Calendar, Docs, Picasa, and the recently released Gmail-integrated video chat. In fact, the services listed and their suggested uses does present a nice way of getting all of your holiday ducks in a row. Most useful are probably Calendar and Docs, especially if you’re already using these services professionally.

I’m awful at keeping track of deadlines without a planner or calendar, and I already use Google Calendar to keep track of appointments, so it makes sense to add a new calendar devoted exclusively to making sure I don’t miss any of those holiday parties I’ve committed to, or, at the micro-management level, reminding me that the turkey needs to go in by 10:00 if it’s going to be ready when company comes.

Appy Holidays also suggests using Docs for shopping list management, and for labelling and writing holiday letters. They’ve even prepared a special selection of templates so that most of the work is already done for you. If you’re like me, you might also want to keep tabs on your holiday budget using a Docs spreadsheet, since otherwise January might be a very long, scant month indeed. Leftover turkey can only feed you for so long.

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