Last night I was putting some brain power into finding ways to better collaborate with clients, team members, and anyone else is do tasks for.

I’ve recently started to use Things, which I’ve fallen in love with, but there’s currently no way for others to add to my list. Basecamp, and Backpack allow for shared to-do lists, but they don’t let me organize all my to-dos in one master list in the way that I want to digest them.

We have syndication for blogs (rss), calendars (ics), etc. but, as far as I know, there’s no universal format for porting to-do lists from one application to another.

WHY NOT!?

If there were, anyone could make me a to-do list, send me the subscription link, and I could pull it into the to-do list reader of my choice (Things). No more entering and re-entering to-dos.

I really don’t see it even being that complicated. This is stripped down a bit of course, but a to-do feed could look something like this:

<list title="My To-Do List">
	<item>
		<status>incomplete</status>
		<description>Mail out invitations</description>
	</item>
	<item>
		<status>incomplete</status>
		<description>Throw killer party</description>
	</item>
	<item>
		<status>complete</status>
		<description>Make invitations</description>
	</item>
</list>

If anyone’s interested I say we look into this further and solve our to-do list woes.

I grabbed a vase of bamboo from the living room to throw on my desk this morning and I have to say it really changes how I feel sitting at my desk in a very positive way. I recommend you do the same!

I’ve decided I’m going to try to start a new habit of doing a 30 minute mini-app once a week. Why? I need a distraction from work now and then, so why not make it something productive? Also, it gives me a chance to solve mini puzzles to keep my mind from rotting.

This week I’ve done a basic URL minimizer I’m calling Thurl.

Have a suggestion for a 30 Minute Mini-App? I’m sure I’ll run out quickly, so suggestions are much appreciated!

For the past several months I’ve been labouring hard on a new project. I plan on writing a lot more about the process, and challenges of building the site later, but for now I just want to announce that it’s now live ready for action. Check it out at www.vume.com!

I’ve recently started reading Wired Magazine more and more, and finally decided it might be worth getting a subscription. When I went to the Wired site, I noticed they currently had a deal on 12 issues for $10. How could anyone pass that up?!? Then as I started filling out the subscription form, I realized it was for U.S. citizens only…so I clicked over to the Canadian form. I suspected it would be a little more expensive for exchange rates, and a little extra shipping cost, but to my surprise, the same 12 issues cost $40 here in Canada. What the hell?

Why the extra cost? Shipping to Canada is not THAT expensive, and the exchange rate is more or less moot at this point..it’s like sales tax.

Needless to say, I suddenly became less interested in a subscription, and will pick and choose my issues at the newsstand.