Goodbye, Beta
Friday, October 30, 2009 by Emily Boyd
The particularly observant among you might have noticed something missing when you logged into Remember The Milk this morning; that's right, the "Beta" in our logo is gone!
When we launched Remember The Milk four years ago, we had this quaint idea that we'd leave beta once we were "done". I'm not too sure what we thought "done" meant, but as we've been busy developing stuff over the years it's become pretty apparent that we'll never be done — there's just too many exciting things we can develop, and too many ways we can still improve Remember The Milk.
So we've decided, like the web app that inspired us, to finally leave beta; web apps don't need to be in beta anymore to continue to evolve. Goodbye, little beta label — you've served us well, but it's time we part ways.
Join the team: Scala hacker
Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Omar Kilani
Did you fall in love with Scala at first sight? Do you dream of actors, DSLs, implicits and pattern matching? We have a full-time position available for a Scala Hacker (Server-side Engineer) at Remember The Milk. If this sounds like you, and you'd like to join us in our quest to make the world more organized and productive, head on over to the jobs page and get in touch!
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Saving time and frustration at the video store
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 by Emily Boyd
This week's winner, RTM user kristian.domagala, shared a helpful tip to prepare for video store visits:
When going to the video store to hire out a DVD, I used to find it very frustrating to try to find something that I wanted to see. Either I didn't recognise any of the movies or I couldn't think on the spot of movies I had been wanting to see. By browsing through the titles, I sometimes came across something that I recognised, but it was hit and miss and always took longer to choose.
Now, whenever I read a review or see a preview of a movie I think I would be interested in seeing, I add it to my Movies list in RTM. As a user of RTM on the iPhone, I can do this almost immediately so I don't forget. Then later, when I'm at the video store, I just pull up the Movies list on my iPhone and go straight to the movies I want to see.
I also have a CDs list that I maintain for the same reason. Whenever I hear a song on the radio that I like, I make a note of it so I remember it the next time I'm out buying CDs.
Thanks for sharing this tip, kristian.domagala!
Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum and add a new thread and let us know how you use RTM. Each week we'll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.
iPhone app update: Now with Smart Add goodness
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 by Emily Boyd
The latest version of the Remember The Milk app is now available on the App Store — w00t! The biggest addition in version 1.2.0 is support for Smart Add with a handy new 'Add Task' bar.
Add tasks quickly (and with as many properties as you like!) by using Smart Add syntax, e.g., "Pick up the milk tomorrow", "Order stationery #work", "Return books in 2 weeks @Library", and more.
This feature saves time too, with support for adding by context: tasks added to your today list will be due today, while tasks added to Smart Lists inherit their criteria. So, if your Smart List shows all your high priority tasks that are due today and located at the office (due:today AND location:office), any tasks added to this Smart List will automatically inherit all these properties.
But wait, there's more! In addition to the Smart Add features in this release, we've tweaked task name editing (pressing 'return' is now the same as the 'Save' button) to help you speedily add and edit tasks. This update also fixes an issue with note editing that was introduced by iPhone OS 3.1.
We hope you like this update! Want to learn more about the app in general? Check out the Remember The Milk for iPhone & iPod touch section of the site.
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Bring your tasks to the desktop with GeekTool
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 by Emily Boyd
GeekTool is a handy utility for Mac OS X that allows you to embed all kinds of stuff (specifically files, images, or command output) on your Mac desktop. Seeking a way to show Remember The Milk tasks on the desktop, RTM user dws90 has written and shared a script for GeekTool to do just that:
Pretty cool! Check out dws90's forum post for the script download and more details. The download itself includes helpfully detailed instructions on getting set up. dws90, you're our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week — thanks for sharing this! :)
Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum and add a new thread and let us know how you use RTM. Each week we'll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Going crazy with advanced searches
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by Emily Boyd
This week's tip comes courtesy of RTM user wcitypoe, who has some fantastic examples of just how advanced you can get with the advanced search operators. While wcitypoe describes it as "how to be far too complex with RTM's advanced search", but I say there's no such thing… go as crazy as you like! :)
wcitypoe starts off with a useful Smart List that basically hides all the tasks that he doesn't need to see right now:
First, I set up an exclusion list — all items I didn't want showing up anywhere in my task system. I called this "(99) Exclude". It's:
(tagContains:hold OR tag:@not-a-task OR list:"Dead Projects" OR list:"Project Notepad" OR (("Debbie" OR tag:@callback) AND dueAfter:tomorrow) OR ((list:"Computer Upkeep" OR list:"Daily Tasks") AND dueAfter:"today 23:59″)) OR (isRepeating:true AND dueAfter:"2 days from today") NOT tag:@alwaysshow NOT list:"(98) Errors"
Essentially, this will exclude (i) any task having a tag with the word 'hold' in it; (ii) anything I put in as just a note; (iii) any dead or 'someday' projects; (iv) any notes for my next meeting with a friend, as long as I'm not meeting with her today or tomorrow; (v) any "waiting for so-and-so to call me back" notes, as long as I don't have a follow-up scheduled for today or tomorrow; (vi) any computer backups or daily tasks that aren't scheduled for today; (vii) anything that's a repeating task that happens three or more days from now. However, I can circumvent this exclusion by including the "@alwaysshow" tag. And, even if something meets these criteria, if they meet an error criteria, they'll show up.
By including NOT list:"(99) Exclude" in the search criteria of his other Smart Lists, wcitypoe can choose to keep the tasks found in that "Exclude" list from showing up in his other lists.
Feeling inspired to get more advanced with your Smart Lists? Check out the full forum topic for more of wcitypoe's ideas. Thanks for sharing these examples, wcitypoe! You're our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week. :)
Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum and add a new thread and let us know how you use RTM. Each week we'll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.
Birthday #4
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by Emily Boyd
Four years ago yesterday, we breathed a sigh of relief: after more than a year of development, our super-secret project was finally ready to launch! Little did we know that the adventure of Remember The Milk was only just beginning…
Five days after our launch, there was already a crazy 50,000 tasks being managed with RTM. Perhaps that should've given us some indication of what we were in for, but it wasn't until 2007 that we figured out that, well, we might need a little help. (It turns out that two people and a stuffed monkey working full-time on a free app with some serious hosting bills does not a sustainable service make.)
So, we introduced Pro accounts, and we're extremely grateful to everyone who has supported us! :) We've been able to grow our team to six people, develop new stuff including a bunch of Pro features, and keep Bob well-nourished with a constant supply of bananas (something that I'm sure will please those who were concerned for his health).
We've also been busy continually improving and upgrading our infrastructure; there's a whole lot of you guys using RTM now, and collectively you're adding or updating over 2,200 tasks every single minute. Our hardware hamsters have their work cut out for them!
We'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped us along our adventure over the past four years: thanks for all your support, your invaluable feedback, and simply using RTM (what can we say? seeing people get organized makes us happy!). We're excited to continue to improve RTM for you guys in the future. :)
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Create a Smart Add cheat sheet on your phone
Tuesday, October 6, 2009 by Emily Boyd
Want to use Smart Add when emailing tasks to Remember The Milk, but having trouble remembering all the different properties you can include alongside your task name? Try this helpful tip from RTM user jwander14 (while jwander14 is using an iPhone, this general idea will work on many phones).
I use the iPhone with "RTM" as a contact for both individual task add and task import add via email by entering my unique email addresses to the RTM contact. In order to remember the punctuation marks needed to assign the variables for Smart Add, I use this abbreviated chart so it fits nicely on my iPhone contact notes section.
Task Name & Due Date
Due Date – ^ date/time
Priority – ! priority
List and Tags – # list/tag
Location – @ location
Repeat – * how often
Time Estimate – = time est.
URL – Begin with http://
Thanks for sharing this tip, jwander14! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week. :)
Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum and add a new thread and let us know how you use RTM. Each week we’ll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.
Mmm, Donut
Friday, October 2, 2009 by Emily Boyd
Bob's feeling slightly ill after consuming a few too many baked goods to celebrate the launch of Android 1.6 (aka "Donut").
Despite his sugar-induced stupor, Bob reminded me to let everyone know that Remember The Milk for Android is Donut-tested and ready (yay!). This might be handy to know if your mobile provider is one of those that has started to deliver this update.
Bob also wanted me to ask everyone to make sure that they've updated to the latest version of our Android app (currently that's 1.0.11). The Android Market will notify you when an update is available, and Bob recommends keeping up-to-date. You can check out the release notes to see what's changed in each update.
App for the milk brings your tasks to the desktop
Friday, October 2, 2009 by Emily Boyd
Looking to get your Remember The Milk fix on your desktop? App for the milk is a handy new desktop client developed by Christoph Peter.
The app allows you to manage your tasks in a stand-alone window, and works both online and offline (changes made when offline will be synchronized with RTM when you're back online). Thanks to Adobe AIR, the app is cross-platform and supports Windows, Mac, and Linux.
App for the milk is still a work-in-progress, with Christoph indicating that Smart List support is next on his to-do list. If you're looking for a way to quickly manage your tasks from your desktop, check it out!
App for the milk [via Lifehacker]