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Anxiety: A Lightweight Mac Task Manager

Simon Mackie — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:00:31 +0000

Looking for a simple task management app for your Mac, and find the likes of Things and OmniFocus too complex? Check out Anxiety. It’s a lightweight to-do list app that can integrate with iCal and Mail. Unlike many of the more full-featured task managers, it’s relatively unobtrusive, taking up a tiny amount of screen real estate. The interface to check (and check off) your tasks is always easily accessible via a menubar button, but disappears when not required.

Anxiety presents your tasks as a simple to-do list in a small semi-transparent window that can hover over the other apps open on your desktop. It’s integrated with Apple’s other applications that posses to-do functionality; double-clicking a list item reveals the task in iCal or Mail for extended editing. Simple shortcuts allow you to see your full list externally.

It’s highly customizable, so you can tailor its appearance and functionality to match your own preferences and workflow, including toggling the application dock item and menubar item, enabling list sorting and setting the list window to disappear when inactive.

Personally, I will stick with Google Tasks for my simple task management needs, because I like being able to access my tasks from anywhere and I use Gmail and Google Calendar through my browser instead of Apple’s apps. But if you use iCal and Mail and want a very lightweight, simple to-do list manager that’s tightly integrated with them, Anxiety is worth checking out (despite its somewhat strange name).

Anxiety is a free download (donations appreciated). It requires Mac OS X Leopard 10.5+.

What task management app do you use?

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Four iPhone VoiP Services Worth Ringing Up

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:00:50 +0000

There’s not much in a web worker’s life that beats a cheap or free phone service. Perhaps a supporting role in one of David Pogue’s next iPhone video musicals might, but odds are slim. Especially for me and my voice. Or maybe it’s because I have a face for podcasting, I don’t know. I do know however, that the iPhone Mr. Pogue sang about many moons ago can be a powerful VoIP tool if you have the right applications installed. Here’s a quick look, complete with links to the iTunes App Store, at four inexpensive or downright free solutions that are worthy productivity contenders.

Nimbuzz – Version 1.01 recently arrived for free and has potential as a Swiss Army toolset since it offers far more than voice communications. Nimbuzz works with your Skype or Google Talk account for voice calls, but it’s still a bit buggy yet. I was able to initiate a Skype voice call with one of my contacts and the sound quality was amazing over WiFi. Unfortunately, I couldn’t start a Google Talk call and even subsequent Skype voice calls wouldn’t connect consistently. Still, the app just hit the ground so it needs time to get running. Definitely worth watching because it provides IM (in landscape mode, no less) with many other platforms such as Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, MSN, Facebook, MySpace and more. In fact, The Apple Blog had more overall sucess with it than I did, so you’ll want to see their perspective.

TruPhone – While Nimbuzz is just getting started in this space, TruPhone is… well… tried and Tru. It’s a service that GigaOM reviewed almost two years ago and Om still uses heavily to call his family abroad. The application is free, but you will pay for calls to landlines or other mobile phones. Calls in the U.S. for example are $0.06 per minute. Why bother with TruPhone when you already pay for an iPhone voice plan? TruPhone works over WiFi, so if you don’t have a signal or you’re out of the country without an international plan, a hotspot gets you talking. Plus, TruPhone calls to other TruPhone users are free. The company also offers their TruPhone Anywhere service which routes as much of the call over the Internet at reduced rates, which is handy for international calls. Our own Jason Harris gave TruPhone Anywhere a spin earlier in the year although that was prior to the iPhone version.

Fring – Just last month Fring appeared in the iTunes App Store and has already seen a large number of downloads. Like the other apps, Fring offers calling capabilities to landlines and mobiles, but leverages the SkypeOut feature of Skype. Using this method means that voice calls aren’t free as Skype charges for their SkypeOut service. Still, I find it to be a nominal charge since rates within the U.S. are as low as $0.02 per minute. Adding to the VoIP functionality, Fring supports IM on various platforms like AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger plus you can post directly to Twitter. Even better: Fring works with SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol, allowing for use of services like Gizmo, Free World and SIPNET.

JAJAH – Here’s the only app in the list that actually isn’t an application at all. JAJAH offers a web-client at http://iphone.jajah.com/ that you can bookmark on your iPhone and use for low-cost calls. The web page offers a dialpad for numeric entry, but you can also maintain an contact list on your JAJAH account, making for quick calls for as little as $0.029 cents per minute. Two things make JAJAH stand out from the other services. First, the international rates can often be very reasonable, making this a contender if you have clients across borders. Second, only the “middle” part of the call is done over the Internet. When you make a JAJAH call, the service calls you back on your handset and then connects your call recipient through their handset. For all intents: each of you is on your phone, but the voice traffic is routed over the oft less-expensive web. As I result, our test calls were very high quality.

Each of these iPhone apps and services has something to offer, depending on what you’re looking for. But each app has one glaring deficiency, even though it’s not the fault of the software developers: none of them are persistent. That means due to iPhone limitations set by Apple, none of them can run continously in the background. When you close the app, you’re effectively unavailable for VoIP or IM on your handset. That doesn’t diminish the value these services can add, but it’s defintely something worth mentioning. For initiating calls and conversations each offers value, right in the palm of your hand.

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A Look at TruPhone Anywhere for International Callling

Jason Harris — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:00:09 +0000

When traveling abroad, making calls back home or otherwise can get very expensive, as alluded to in a previous post. With an unlocked GSM mobile phone, you can use the Orange service as discussed in the aforementioned link, or any other pre-paid GSM provider. However, what if you could combine the convenience of a mobile phone with the low-cost calling of a VoIP company.

A mobile VoIP company called Truphone is attempting to make international calling very inexpensive for travelers and other users of their service. Truphone is a program that runs on your Wi-Fi enabled mobile handset used the Internet to cheaply send and receive phone calls, much like to Skype on your PC. Truphone allows for cheap calling from your mobile phone when signed onto Truphone via Wi-Fi.

Truphone Anywhere is a new feature of the 4.0 version of their software. When you are out of range of a Wi-Fi hotspot, you can use Truphone Anywhere to take advantage of Truphone’s inexpensive international calling rates. To use the Truphone Anywhere service, dial an international number. TruPhone will use a call-through mode by using a domestic phone number as a bridge.

Truphone will first see if there is Wi-FI available and if so, will route the call accordingly. Otherwise, the handset calls your local Truphone gateway (depending on which country you’re in currently) and passes the dialed number for connection to the internet via the local gateway.

TruPhone Anywhere works in many countries including most of Europe, North America, and some Asian countries. For the full list, consult Truphone’s website.

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