Maria’s Guides

Putting your to do list in the Dashboard.Back in August, I wrote a blog post titled “Ten Dashboard Widgets I Can’t Live Without.” In it, I included DoBeDo, a widget that displays the items in your iCal Do To list in the Dashboard. The trouble with DoBeDo, as I soon found out, is that it was not compatible with Mac OS X Leopard. So when I upgraded, I was without a to do list in my Dashboard. This seriously impacted my productivity, since I was in the habit of consulting the To Do list periodically throughout the day.

Time passed. Today, I decided to find a To Do list solution for Dashboard. And I found two: DoBeDo 4 and To Do Widget.

DoBeDo 4.0

Blue Henley, makers of DoBeDo, have upgraded their software. DoBeDo 4 is Leopard-compatible and offers the same collection of features found in the Tiger-compatible version (which is still available for those of you who haven’t upgraded yet).
I like DoBeDo because of its extremely flexible display options, which you can access on the back of the widget. You can set sort options, how long completed items are displayed, how far in the future items should be displayed. You can also choose from among 4 predefined styles and how much detail should appear in the dialog you use to add a new item.You can also print a to do list — which is something I can’t seem to do from within iCal itself. That alone makes it a good tool for managing things to do. I’m very glad to have it back.

To Do Widget

To Do Widget, by Philipe Fatio, offers to do list functionality in the Dashboard using a yellow notepad interface that nicely matches the interface in Mail.
To Do’s customization features are a bit limited when compared with DoBeDo’s. You can set sorting options, but you can only select whether completed items show or don’t show –rather than allow them to be displayed for a limited number of days. One nice feature is the ability to set the font and font size, although the options are limited. I absolutely hate Apple’s choice of Marker Felt font,which is the default for To Do, so it was nice to be able to change it to one I prefer.

What They Both Do

Both widgets are fully integrated into iCal and Mail. In fact, it was kind of neat to see one widget immediately change when I made a change to the other. Both widgets enable you to mark an item as completed, edit an item, add an item, or remove an item. So you can manage your entire To Do list through either widget.

Both are good options for anyone who needs a To Do list in their Mac OS X Dashboard. Try them and pick the one you like best. Both are free, although I assume that the developers wouldn’t turn down a donation to thank them for their efforts.

Information from Software Update.

This update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.

A quick note about how you can conveniently get new content from this site.

I’m very pleased to see that this site, although less than 3 months old, has already attracted a large number of subscribers. Those of you who have subscribed obviously understand the convenience of using the RSS feed feature of blog-based sites to get new content delivered to your RSS reader, whether it’s a standalone reader like NetNewsWire or endo (my choice) or another Internet application like Apple Mail, Safari, or Firefox.

Subscribing by E-Mail

About 18% of you have chosen to receive new content by e-mail. This is especially easy for folks who don’t want to deal with RSS reader software. Articles are sent out once a day, by e-mail, and include all images and formatting you’d find in the original article on this site. A single e-mail message includes all articles for the day — although I usually have just one or two — and if there are no articles, there’s no e-mail. The e-mail list of subscribers is protected and not used for any other purpose, so you won’t get spammed by me, Feedburner (which provides the service), or anyone else.

I do want to remind people who are interested in using the e-mail subscription feature that it’s a two-step process to sign up. First, you enter your e-mail address in the Subscribe by E-Mail form at the top of the right column of any page of the site and click Subscribe. Second, you must click the link in the e-mail message that arrives almost immediately to confirm your subscription. If you use a spam filter, this e-mail message might end up in a junk mail or spam folder in your e-mail client. Look for it. If you don’t click the link, you will not be subscribed.

Unsubscribing is easy and it works. Just click the link at the bottom of any of the e-mail messages you receive. You’ll be removed from the list and will no longer get new content by e-mail.

Subscribing to the Feed

The remaining 82% of subscribers use some sort of RSS reader to subscribe to the feed. This is easy, too. Simply click the RSS link at the top of any page. Depending on your operating system and Web browser, you’ll be given some method to select the program you want to use to read the feed. Then, each time you open that program, the new content will be gathered for you to read.

Full Text Feed

Unlike many other sites, Maria’s Guides features a full text feed. That means the feed — whether it be by e-mail or by RSS reader — will contain all the text and images you’ll find on the site. I’ve done this purposely to make following the content on this site more convenient.

At the bottom of each feed item, you should see a link that you can click if you want to read a article’s comments or add your own. I urge you to do so if you find an article particularly interesting. Sometimes, there’s a lot more information shared in article comments than in the article itself. You can help share what you know with other readers by using the comments feature to add your input to the discussion.

Any Requests?

I’m open to requests for improving the site or its feed. Please use the Comments link for this article to share your thoughts or make requests.

Information from Software Update.

The following updates to iWork applications are now available.

Keynote Update 4.0.2

This update primarily addresses performance issues while playing or exporting presentations.

Pages Update 3.0.2

This update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.

Numbers Update 1.0.2

This update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.

Links worth following.

Here are the links of interest to readers of my books for the week ending January 26:

• MacBook Air (Parody)
  A video on College Humor.com. Thanks to @bck on Twitter for sharing the link.
  (tags: Apple parody Mac video humor)
• MacBook Air: the iPod shuffle of Macs
  Interesting take on the lack of features in the MacBook Air. On MacUser.com.
  (tags: macbook apple air)
• MacBook Air Attack
  More commentary about the MacBook Air’s lack of features. On The Macalope: An Apple Blog.
  (tags: apple macbook air)
• Six Things I Hate about Leopard
  I don’t think I could have added anything to this. Quite complete, quite true. Hope Apple is reading it, too. On the TidBITs blog.
  (tags: Mac Leopard OSX Apple interface design)

New article on Peachpit.com.

My most recent article for the Peachpit Press Web site is now online: “Going Back to Your Mac in Mac OS X Leopard.”

The article explains how to set up and use the Back to My Mac feature of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

You can read more of my Peachpit articles on their Web site.