Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Keeping your house clean, one room at a time
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 by Emily Boyd
Have trouble maintaining a clean house? This tip shared by emily.hawe aims to turn cleaning from a daunting prospect to something that might actually get done:
I don't know about you, but I'm often overwhelmed by the idea of cleaning my whole house. I used to wait until Sunday to dust, vacuum, mop, organize, etc. but the amount of things to do would inevitably make me procrastinate and not do any of it.
I decided to break down the task of cleaning my house into mini tasks. I started a list called house work and I listed each room under the list. In the notes section, I write down what I need to do in that room (ex. for bathroom I have notes about cleaning the shower tiles, cleaning the toilet, changing the towels). I then assign each room a day of the week and set the due date to repeat weekly.
You could also divide it by cleaning tasks instead of room (vacuum on Tuesday, dust on Wednesday, organize on Thursday, etc.). Now I only have to clean one room a day and it is much less overwhelming. Even better, my house is clean on Sunday and I can enjoy the weekend!
Thanks for sharing this tip, emily.hawe! 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, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. 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.
Posted in: Tips & Tricks
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Automating library books
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 by Emily Boyd
Library book automation? Yup, nkirsch has come up with a brilliant way to keep track of library books using Remember The Milk and a little bit of code:
I use RTM, the API, and a Python script to crawl my local library's RSS feed. I automatically find books that have been checked out and their due date and create RTM tasks for each item (marked with the library location and a tag for book). When I return the book, it automatically marks the task as complete.
I no longer have to worry about keeping track of when books are due – RTM takes care of it all for me!
Thanks for sharing this tip, nkirsch! 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, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. 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.
Posted in: Tips & Tricks
iPhone app update: iOS 4 release with multitasking, Retina display support, accessibility and VoiceOver support, new trials, and more
Saturday, July 17, 2010 by Emily Boyd
We're excited to announce that the latest version of the Remember The Milk app is now available on the App Store. The focuses of this release were making the app iOS 4 compatible, taking advantage of some of those shiny new iOS 4 features, supporting the Retina display, and accessbility and VoiceOver support. Read on to learn what's new in version 1.4.0.
Multitasking with fast app switching
We love multitasking! The app supports fast app switching, the iOS 4 feature that allows you to quickly switch between recently used apps. No more waiting for the app to reload, yay!
Background sync completion
Leave the app mid-sync? Don't worry — with background completion of syncing, the app will finish up your sync with Remember The Milk, and make sure you're all up-to-date.
Retina display support
Lucky enough to have an iPhone 4? All the artwork in our app has been recreated to take advantage of the awesome Retina display. Ooh, pretty.
Accessibility and VoiceOver support
We're passionate about accessibility, and excited that the app now has full support for VoiceOver, the iPhone's gesture-based screen reader.
Localization updates
We love making the app available in as many languages as possible. This version brings localization updates for French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, Polish, Czech, and Greek (whew!). Interested in helping to make the app available in your language? We'd really appreciate any help — please check out our online translation program.
App-wide optimizations
We want this thing to be as quick as can be! Faster app = more productivity for you, right? We've been working on app-wide optimizations to speed up the app, as well as improved the sync speed.
Bug fixes and enhancements
We've also taken the opportunity to include some other small enhancements and fixes in this release:
- Fixed issue with note scrolling in iOS 4.
- Fixed issues related to date parsing, tag parsing and repeat parsing under iOS 4.
- Date parsing now works correctly in languages other than English.
- ^never is now recognized in Smart Add if the Default Due Date option is 'Today'.
- due:never is now inherited in a Smart List if the Default Due Date option is 'Today'.
- Tag sorting in the Smart Add auto-complete list now matches other parts of the app.
- Fixed issue with text in Add Task bar disappearing when accidentally touching outside the field, or if screen orientation is changed while editing the text.
New trials for everyone
The app is available as a free download on the App Store for Pro users. If you don't have a Pro account yet, you can get a 15 day free trial by downloading the app. Used the trial before? No problem, we've reset everyone's trials in our system with this update… so if you've tried the app previously, you can now start a new 15 day trial to explore the iOS 4 features of the app. Go on, try it out! :)
Enjoy the updates!
We hope you like this latest app release! Want to learn more about the app in general? Check out the Remember The Milk for iPhone section of the site.
Posted in: New Features & Updates
Android app update: Auto-complete for Smart Add, smarter auto-syncing, a whole bunch of little fixes, and new trials for everyone
Wednesday, July 14, 2010 by Emily Boyd
It's Remember The Milk for Android update time, w00t! Bob and the more human members of the team are continuing to work on improving the app, and today we're releasing version 1.3.0 (codename: "Trurl").
Auto-complete for Smart Add
There'll be no more hurting your brain trying to remember the Smart Add shortcuts (# for tag, @ for location, etc). It's now super fast to add tasks in the app with auto-completion for the Smart Add field.
When adding your task, just tap on one of the icons (due date, priority, etc) below the 'Add Task' bar. You'll then see a list of quick options you can tap, such as common due dates or tags you've created. You can also start typing to filter the options (e.g., find your tags that start with "p"), or enter something that's not in the list.
Smarter auto-syncing
No more waiting around for auto-sync! Until now, if you opened the app to just quickly add or complete a task, you either needed to wait for the auto-sync to happen (about every 5 minutes) or start a manual sync to make sure that your changes were synced with Remember The Milk.
With smarter auto-syncing, the app will wait several seconds after you've made a change, then automatically begin syncing with Remember The Milk. Yay!
Bug fixes and enhancements
We've also taken the opportunity to include some other small enhancements and fixes in this release:
- Updated widget styles for Android 2.0+.
- Tasks now repeat correctly after a repeating task is deleted and the 'Continue Repeating' option selected.
- Searches/Smart List criteria containing the OR NOT operators now return the correct results.
- Time estimates when the device language is not English are now interpreted correctly.
- Smart Add now uses the default list setting when adding tasks.
- Fixed issues related to saving note changes.
- Empty Smart Lists now show a count of '0' instead of 'smart'.
- Searches for completed tasks now default to the completed task view.
- ^never is now recognized in Smart Add if the Default Due Date option is 'Today'.
- due:never is now inherited in a Smart List if the Default Due Date option is 'Today'.
- Fixed issue with text in Add Task bar disappearing when accidentally touching outside the field.
- Fixed issue with due date display in some widgets.
New trials for everyone (even monkeys)
The app is available as a free download on the Android Market for Pro users. If you don't have a Pro account yet, you can get a 15 day free trial by downloading the app. With this update, we've reset everyone's trials in our system… so everyone who's tried the app previously can now start a new 15 day trial to explore the latest features. Why not give it another go today? :)
Enjoy the updates!
We hope you like this latest app release! Want to learn more about the app in general? Check out the Remember The Milk for Android section of the site.
Posted in: New Features & Updates
An update on support for iOS 4
Wednesday, July 14, 2010 by Emily Boyd
Bob's been furiously working away on our iPhone app to make it iOS 4 compatible, consuming vast amounts of bananas to get the job done. We were relieved when he finally emerged from his lab last week and gave us the "submit this to Apple for approval" nod (he's a monkey of few words).
We'll let you know once our updated app is approved by Apple and made available for download on the App Store. In the meantime, we apologise if you've run into any quirks (or, ahem, bugs) in the app on iOS 4… we're hoping the wait won't be too much longer!
Update: The updated app has been approved by Apple; see our blog post for more details.
Posted in: New Features & Updates
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: The power of tagContains
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 by Emily Boyd
The advanced search operators in Remember The Milk can be pretty powerful — particularly when used in a Smart List, as in this excellent example shared by sylviavas.
I've gone from using regular lists almost exclusively to using tags and Smart Lists – they're so versatile. But I have a lots of tasks that aren't necessarily "real" tasks. Things like grocery items, etc. These, I don't want to see on my main list.
For these tasks, I have multiple tags such as "+grocery", "+packing" and "+waiting".
Notice that they all start with a plus sign? That's to make them easier to exclude from my main Smart Lists. So, instead of using this to exclude from the main Smart Lists:
not tag:someday and not tag:grocery and not tag:packing
I just use this:
not tagContains:+
This excludes all my items that aren't real "tasks", in one fell swoop.
Thanks for sharing this tip, sylviavas! 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, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. 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.
Posted in: Tips & Tricks
Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Separating tasks by context
Tuesday, July 6, 2010 by Emily Boyd
Getting distracted by all the tasks you can't do in your current context? This tip shared by ralfvd provides a great solution using a clever Smart List:
My list of activities is split in locations, @work, @home, @phone, @web etc. During my working day, I can complete all activities except the @home part; for these activities I need to be at home.
To get me motivated to get down to zero open items for the day, the @home activities — which I need to do when I get home — will clutter up the view.
So I created a separate Smart List, Today, with the following search:
(due:today or dueBefore:today) and NOT location:@home
This will keep my attention during the day focused on all non-@home related activities. And you will get the reward of having an empty list during the day ;-)
Thanks for sharing this tip, ralfvd! 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, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. 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.
Posted in: Tips & Tricks
