Blue Rock + Daylite

Daylite tip+tricks > cool things to do by dragging onto the calendar.

2009-03-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

quickly change a Task's due date! create new Appointments for the dragged Project and Opportunity! The quest for improved efficiency is never-ending. I'd like to share a great feature in Daylite that has helped me tremendously. Take a look at the screenshots and descriptions below.
#1	In this one, I'm dragging 2 Tasks from my Due List [located to the right of the calendar] and dropping them on a date in the calendar: this makes the Due Date for both of those Tasks equal to the date that I dropped them on.


#2	In this one, I'm dragging a Project from my Due List [located to the right of the calendar] and dropping it on a date in the calendar: this creates a new Appointment that's linked to that Project. [hint: same concept applies when you drag an Opportunity from your Due List onto the calendar]

I love these huge timesavers; give them a whirl!

iTunes newest stroke: the Genius Sidebar.

2008-09-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

In a word, the Genius Sidebar is cool. Super cool. Two words, then.

Just click on a song in your playlist and the Sidebar will show you some suggestions:

complete the album
top songs you're missing
view and buy recommended songs that are similar

Of course you can preview the song right within the Sidebar, no need to go to the iTunes Store. Just click the music note next to the title to get your 30-second preview. And double of course, there's a handy Buy button to purchase the song.

And it's hooked me already: who knew that I needed ONJ's 'Make a Move on Me'? I loved that song back in the day...so I bought it. Among others. Damn you Apple, you evil Genius!

iPhone applications: goodies for travel

2008-09-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows I'm not a fan of downloading and installing everything under the sun just cause it's free or cheap. Though the existence of the PhoneSaber on my iPhone might beg to differ, but hey that one wasn't my fault.

So I have some trips coming up and the other day I grabbed a few apps for my iPhone to test them out. So far, loving them all.

Travelocity:

Starts out groovy by showing a full screen image of the famous roaming gnome, then gives you the following tools:

flight schedule: enter departing airport, arriving airport, and flight time to see the flights between the 2 cities
gates and times: select the airline, flight#, and date (yesterday, today, tomorrow) to see the departing info on the gate and terminal, as well as the weather, area map and TSA Wait time
security wait times for selected airport/day/time

Travelocity also uses the iPhone's locator to show you hotels nearby, and if you have a Travelocity account you can view your current and past trip info.

Urbanspoon:

Check out places to eat in your area by...

use the Shake button: takes advantage of the iPhone's 'shake' function: simply shake the phone and the screen's slot machine will roll and land on an area, cuisine and price. Or you can lock in the any of the factors (area, cuisine, price) and the shake will roll to randomly choose the other 2 factors. Shaking the darn thing is highly silly and highly addictive.
use the Browse button to browse by neighborhood or cuisine
use the Search button to type the name of a specific restaurant
use the Near Me button: uses the iPhone's location feature to show restaurants near your current location

iWant:

Uses the iPhone's location feature to show services near you. Click the gas station icon, or the movies icon, or the ATM icon, etc to see a list of those services near your location. Click on each item and you'll see a map, address, and clickable phone number

All of these applications can be found in iTunes>iTunes Store>App store>Categories: Travel.

*Blue Rock is not affiliated with any of the applications mentioned in this post. While we are satisfied with the way these applications work on our iPhone, this post makes no guarantee regarding the effectiveness or safety of the applications and Blue Rock assumes no liability regarding the use or installation of the applications.

Daylite upgrade 3.7.6 recommended

2008-09-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

Marketcircle has released an upgrade to Daylite, highly recommended for everyone running Daylite 3.5 or higher. The update addresses improved offline synchronization reliability and how synchronization failures are reported and handled:

some extra checks have been implemented to report the proper cause of a sync failure
more robust handling of the problems detected during a sync
a sync failure no longer forces a restart of Daylite; Daylite will remain online or offline and allow you to continue working

Another great improvement is the ability to schedule automatic database backups through the Daylite Maintenance Preference. We could always do this in the OpenBase Manager application, but now it's been made easier than ever!

Database and schema: Per Marketcircle, there is no change in schema version between 3.7, 3.71, 3.72, 3.7.3, 3.7.4, 3.7.5, and 3.7.6. There is no change in OpenBase version between 3.7.5 and 3.7.6. All computers must be upgraded to the same version of Daylite (in this case 3.7.6). There is no need to sync or recreate offline databases before the upgrade (those of you who know me well can already hear me recommending that you sync all offline databases before upgrading all of the computers!). Daylite 3.7.6 is a free upgrade for all Daylite 3 users. Daylite Productivity Suite 3.7.6 is a free upgrade for all Daylite Productivity Suite 3 users.

Download the upgrade here.

too many ideas, keeping it together

2008-08-09T10:34:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had so many ideas on improvements, whether to your company's website, procedures, or even personal stuff like home improvements, that they turned into a whirling dervish in your head?

I confess to countless nights lying awake with too many great (of course *I* think they're great!) ideas. A nice problem to have, but a problem nonetheless.

I love Daylite's Projects section for keeping all these in tidy order. I've got the Project itself, maybe it's designing a new custom Daylite HUD. And I use the Details field to briefly describe what I'm trying to accomplish with this HUD. I can define a pipeline that's specific to designing custom Daylite products (maybe my stages are concept, design, test, publicize)...so of the many HUD design Projects I've got going, I can see where each of them is in the process.

Tends to make the dust settle in my head. Good for sleeping.