Mac|Life Cultured Code RSS Feed

Comment Contest: Things -- Stop the Nagging

Roberto Baldwin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:53:50 -0500

How many times have you asked someone to remind you of something only to get a little peeved when they start nagging you. Hey buddy, you asked for their help, don't get all defensive when they're just doing their job.

Instead of hassling friends and co-workers, why not enter our Things Comment Contest. You'll be happy, and your friends will finally start taking your calls again.

Lucky for you, we're giving away a copy of Things from Cultured Code. All you have to do is post a comment in this article to win your very own copy of Things. That's it! The comment can be as long or as short as you like – one word will do!

Our Mac|Life super comment choosing machine will choose a random comment and award one lucky person Things, with a retail value of $49.95. The odds of winning are determined by the number of eligible entries received. The prize is nontransferable and must be accepted as awarded.

Here are the rules:

- You can only enter once. Commenting more than once will automatically disqualify you from the contest.

- The contest is limited to legal residents of the United States(excluding residents of Puerto Rico). Void where prohibited by law. Entrants must be at least 13 years of age.

- The contest will end at 11:59p.m. PST on August 19, 2009.

- Check out the full official rules below.

So cross your fingers and start your comments.

Things Comment Contest rules: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. The sponsor of the contest is Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court,Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 (“Sponsor”). All entries must be received no later than August 19, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. PST. Winner will be determined by a single random drawing of all valid entries held on or about August 21, 2009. The decision of Sponsor shall be final and binding and within its sole discretion. Winners will be notified by phone or email within ten (10) days of the drawing.

Only one entry per person is allowed, multiple entries will lead to disqualification. The winner will be required to sign an affidavit of eligibility/release of liability/prize acceptance within seven days of receipt; failure to do so upon request will result in forfeiture of the prize. By acceptance of the prize, the winner agrees to the use of their name and/or likeness for purposes of advertising, trade, or promotion without further compensation, unless prohibited by law. Employees of Sponsor, its respective parent, subsidiaries, affiliated companies, and agents, and foregoing employes' household or immediate family members (defined as parent, spouse, child, sibling, or grandparent) are NOT eligible to enter Contest. By their submission of entry, participants warrant they are legally entitled and authorized to make such submission, either on their own behalf, or as to information submitted upon the express authorization of another on whose behalf the information is submitted. In the event of a dispute as to the winner's identity, entries will be deemed made by the holder of the email account associated with the entry. All prizes will be awarded. Prizes won by minors will be awarded to their parents or legal guardians. Limit one entry per email address. Use of automated devices or methods of submission are not valid forms of entry. Entries must include a valid email address for the entrant. Entries become the property of the Sponsors and will not be acknowledged or returned. Entries are subject to Sponsor’s privacy policy, the terms of which can be found at http://www.futureus.com/privacy.php, which terms and conditions entrants accept and agree to by submission of entries pursuant to these official rules. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel or suspend the contest should causes beyond its control corrupt the administration, security, or proper play of the contest. Future US,Inc. is not responsible for damages or expenses the winners might incur as a result of this contest or the receipt of a prize, and winners are responsible for income taxes based on the value of the prize received .A list of winners may also be obtained by sending a stamped,self-addressed envelope to Future US, Inc. c/o Mac|Life Contest, 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 (residents of Vermont may exclude postage).

Comment Contest: Things -- Get it Together Man

Roberto Baldwin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:54:54 -0500

See that big pile of stickies and cocktail napkins on your desk. Yeah, you need to get that sorted out. Sure you could separate them into different piles. The pile you can read and the pile with undecipherable gibberish. Instead of trying to figure out if your supposed to pay the phone bill or take Bill to Phoenix, why not let Things task management software help you sort out your busy life.

Lucky for you, and your crazy pile of stuff, we're giving away a copy of Things from Cultured Code. All you have to do is post a comment in this article to win your very own copy of Things. That's it! The comment can be as long or as short as you like – one word will do!

Our Mac|Life super comment choosing machine will choose a random comment and award one lucky person Things, with a retail value of $49.95. The odds of winning are determined by the number of eligible entries received. The prize is nontransferable and must be accepted as awarded.

Here are the rules:

- You can only enter once. Commenting more than once will automatically disqualify you from the contest.

- The contest is limited to legal residents of the United States(excluding residents of Puerto Rico). Void where prohibited by law. Entrants must be at least 13 years of age.

- The contest will end at 11:59p.m. PST on July 28, 2009.

- Check out the full official rules below.

So cross your fingers and start your comments.

Things Comment Contest rules: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. The sponsor of the contest is Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court,Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 (“Sponsor”). All entries must be received no later than July 28,, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. PST. Winner will be determined by a single random drawing of all valid entries held on or about July 30, 2009. The decision of Sponsor shall be final and binding and within its sole discretion. Winners will be notified by phone or email within ten (10) days of the drawing.

Only one entry per person is allowed, multiple entries will lead to disqualification. The winner will be required to sign an affidavit of eligibility/release of liability/prize acceptance within seven days of receipt; failure to do so upon request will result in forfeiture of the prize. By acceptance of the prize, the winner agrees to the use of their name and/or likeness for purposes of advertising, trade, or promotion without further compensation, unless prohibited by law. Employees of Sponsor, its respective parent, subsidiaries, affiliated companies, and agents, and foregoing employes' household or immediate family members (defined as parent, spouse, child, sibling, or grandparent) are NOT eligible to enter Contest. By their submission of entry, participants warrant they are legally entitled and authorized to make such submission, either on their own behalf, or as to information submitted upon the express authorization of another on whose behalf the information is submitted. In the event of a dispute as to the winner's identity, entries will be deemed made by the holder of the email account associated with the entry. All prizes will be awarded. Prizes won by minors will be awarded to their parents or legal guardians. Limit one entry per email address. Use of automated devices or methods of submission are not valid forms of entry. Entries must include a valid email address for the entrant. Entries become the property of the Sponsors and will not be acknowledged or returned. Entries are subject to Sponsor’s privacy policy, the terms of which can be found at http://www.futureus.com/privacy.php, which terms and conditions entrants accept and agree to by submission of entries pursuant to these official rules. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel or suspend the contest should causes beyond its control corrupt the administration, security, or proper play of the contest. Future US,Inc. is not responsible for damages or expenses the winners might incur as a result of this contest or the receipt of a prize, and winners are responsible for income taxes based on the value of the prize received .A list of winners may also be obtained by sending a stamped,self-addressed envelope to Future US, Inc. c/o Mac|Life Contest, 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 (residents of Vermont may exclude postage).

Things 1.0.4

Cultured Code — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:25:16 -0500

Organize your tasks in an elegant and intuitive way. Things combines powerful features with simplicity through the use of tags and its intelligent filter bar. A Leopard style source list allows for quick and easy focusing. Together with a beautiful user interface, Things aims at the seemingly impossible: making task management both easy and fun.

REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later

To download a demo copy of Things 1.0.4 (4.3MB), click here.

Cultured Code Things

Zack Stern — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:26:00 -0500

There’s a lot to do today, but the objectives feel manageable.

For all of life’s to-dos--paint the guest room, take out the recycling, file income taxes--Things keeps a running checklist. A honed interface nearly always helps manage objectives in an empowering way. Things makes us feel more productive and helps us stay on task, despite its occasional shortcomings.

Things adapts to you instead of forcing you to use a particular system, such as Getting Things Done. It fully supports that approach, but you can take as much as you want from those rules, or come up with your own checklist system. The application’s power comes from its ability to manage lists of up to hundreds of current tasks while allowing you to focus on just a few at a time.

The Today view presents a manageable group of the day’s objectives. You can move items in and out of the space, and it’s a relief to concentrate on just a few to-dos instead of the running chronological Next list of every single task. Best of all, items with a start date remain hidden until you can actually accomplish them--“Buy CD” won’t show up until after the CD you want to buy is actually available, provided you’ve entered that information.

Recurring tasks are also easy to organize, such as a weekly recycling reminder. Many variables make Things fit into different workflows, including the option to set a recurring task to repeat only after it’s been accomplished, so that important tasks don’t disappear if you happen to forget them on the day they were scheduled to occur.

Additional options let you stay organized in a way that works for you. Project tasks organize big items, breaking them down into individual, manageable steps. Task keywords and notes enable quick searches. Tasks can even link to Mail messages or be associated with Address Book contacts. And when viewing a list of tasks, you can drag items around to change the order, scheduling each day in a way that works for you.

Things occasionally faulters with omissions or needless confusion. We wanted an option to see every upcoming task in the Next view, even if it’s scheduled for the future, as in the CD example. But Things makes you toggle between the Next and Scheduled views to see everything outside of the Today view. While Cultured Code plans to address this in an update, you can’t have repeating items within projects. Projects with finished tasks don’t appear in the Today list to ask if they’re complete. And you can’t shift an entire project, full of date-sensitive tasks in a relational way; instead, you have to manually readjust every deadline within the project.