Lately, I find myself having two windows of Firefox open:

1. My working instance, with tabs for my Tasks install—soon to be a TasksPro instance, but anyway—along with a tab open to Facebook and GFMorris.net so I have access to all the stuff in my sidebar. If I’m directly working something else, I’ll have that work open in other tabs in that instance. [As I write, I have a tab open to my WP install here on IJSM.org.]
2. My feed-based instance, with tabs for whatever I’ve found interesting in NetNewsWire. This instance sometimes has no tabs open at all, and has an empty tab window, waiting for directions. Other times, it’s got 10-30 tabs open, depending on how aggressively I’ve clicked tabs that day.

This hasn’t made a ton of sense to me lately, mainly because I’ve gotten addicted to hiding programs that I’m not actively working in but want to keep running. Now, if I’m posting about something I just read, it’s got value: I happy Cmd-` between the browser instances. [Oh Cmd-`, how I love thee. I love thee more than I love Jeremy Casella's new album, and I love it very much.] But I could just as easily Cmd-Tab.

[Yes, yes, I've made a dreadfully long conclusion with a number of rabbit trails---but this is how I am, people. If this feels unfamiliar to you, clearly you and I have never had a conversation in person.]

Anyhow, with that advent of Camino 1.5 and Camino’s wicked awesome how-to on Firefox-to-Camino migration, I’m thinking about going to a work instance of Firefox and a feeds instance of Camino—and that way, when I don’t have feeds open, I can quit Camino and keep working. Call me weird, but I like having a Firefox instance that’s virtually the same across my Windows machine at work and my home machine—I want the same workspace for browser stuff. But in Camino, I’m just browsing, y’know? And feed-reading seems perfect for that, because I’m … just browsing.

One thing that some folks—namely Rae and Chris—have given me crap about is using a client-side reader again. It seems so 2004, no? But I find that feed-reading has nothing to do with what I do for work, so I don’t need to do it during work hours. [And if you've tried to catch me on IM during business hours, like Alex and Mark have, you've figured out that I'm terribly busy at work. ] So I leave it for at-home use, and that’s it. Admittedly, I should have NNW instances on both my mini and my iBook so I can sync up through Newsgator Online—I hear that groaning from the Front Range! —because there are times when I’m on the road and would like to have my feeds, and I would also like to not have to have NNW up 100% of the time [which I have to do to keep up with my ETree and DIME feeds]. Most days, I come home to 400+ feeds, but I’m hoping that NNW3 will help me pare the feeds that I really don’t do anything with.

Okay, that was terribly disjointed. But it’s IJSM.org, and you’re used to that. :post:

Alex has released Tasks 2.7 [and TasksPro 1.7, but I haven't done that upgrade yet], and the big feature is tags, which I’m using to provide context for things I’m working on mainly by indicating where I’d work on them and/or what tools I’d use. I’m already campaigning for filtering the Upcoming screen per tag, the way Tasks Pro filters Upcoming per groups. [I may still convert my personal installation to a TPro install just to get this, even though Alex has promised me a bookmarklet next week for this over IM. Why? Well, I don't expect to be single forever, either. ]

Suffice it to say that I’m still a very happy Tasks user. If I have a browser open, I have a tab open to Tasks. [Yes, Alex, you can use that as a testimonial pull-quote.]

I’m really tempted to grab TP 1.7-a1. I won’t only because other people use my TP install besides me. Just as soon as a Tasks alpha with tagging showed up, though, I’d be ready to dive in: tagging is my most-wanted feature, by far. I live inside of Tasks, people. [And yes, when I havemake time, I'm writing that up as a best practice entry.]

Kudos as always, AK.

I passed 25,000 tasks entered tonight in my Tasks installation; I hit 5k back at the end of January. I have a great memory, but computers are far more timely about remembering things than I am.

Email is conversational and collaborative, but ephemeral. Wikis can be somewhat disruptive to the flow of communication in a group, but are great at recording a first draft of institutional memory.

– Jeffrey Veen: “People use software they like”

Whoa. I now understand why I use TasksPro, in some ways, like a wiki.

I meant to write about when I passed 2500 tasks entered into Alex King’s Tasks, but I missed it. Similarly, I missed my opportunity to write about #5000—sometime about 10 days ago. But as I come to lean on Tasks more and more every day—and really, it’s indispensable for me at this point—I’ve gotta note that task #10000, entered sometime last night, was the parent for the tasks necessary for me to import Long Line of Leavers, my favorite Caedmon’s Call album, onto my Mac. There’s nice synergy there: favorite software platform, favorite album, favorite machine.

I imagine that I’ll be to 20,000 tasks created by the end of February at this rate.

I am now officially Alex’s bitch: not only do I personally use Tasks and FeedLounge, but I have a TasksPro install for [rocksmyfaceoff.net] and, as of yesterday, a UseTasks install for the UAH SGA House Rules Committee.

All this because of WordPress. WordPress is the marijuana of the personal productivity software marketplace.

In order to fully understand the depth of my psychosis, I’ve put every episode of Law & Order into my local install of Tasks and marked off everything that I know I’ve watched.

There’s something strangely satisfying in that. And yes, I’m a geek.

Eric Meyer’s worthwhile thoughts on XFN coerced me to add appropriate “me” values to GFMorris.net. I also updated my link to urge people to go get a copy of Tasks; I love that happy, short, and sweet URL.

As I intimated at oh-dark-thirty this morning while doing software upgrades, Alex has released new versions of Tasks and TasksPro™. I was happy to help Alex test his procurement systems laaaaaaaaaaate last night.

Okay, I’m totally lying.

But having tools to track your progress? That’s awesome.

New versions of Tasks and TasksPro are in the offing. Don’t ask me how I know.

After muddling my way through the Great CD Preservation Project for over a year now, I’ve decided to get a bit more organized about it. [pause for laughter]

I’ve come to a conclusion: my CD collection is out of control, although the GCPP is helping me get it under control. As it stands right now, I have over a hundred tasks in Tasks 2.0 alone dedicated to the GCCP, and that number grows higher all the time. Mind you, I’ve already completed a lot of these tasks, but in many cases, I have not.

In either regard, taming the collection is just proving to me how many CDs I own. It’s a scary figure.

Geof: Offhand, do you know how to do HTTP authentication with an URL?

Geof: such as http://domain.tld/tasks/rss.php?user=blah&pass=foo?

Alex: http://alexking.org/software/tasks/documentation/rss_401.html

Geof: Okay, next time, I’ll RTFM

Alex: documentation isn’t for reading, it’s for sending links

Geof: yes

Geof: very much true!

In case you missed it: HTTP Authentication for RSS feeds. This FAQ is specific to Alex’s software, but the schema should work the same for most everyone.

Alex has some cool news: his Tasks Pro was recently reviewed in Linux Magazine!

Your hard work deserves the kudos, Alex.

Alex has created a hosting service for his Tasks and TasksPro™ software packages: UseTasks.com.

This is very cool: you get a hosted service with nightly backups to protect your data and automatic upgrades to the software package for a reasonable monthly fee. I would switch to this service if I did not already have a dedicated server at my disposal. I use TasksPro™ to manage the tasks for [rocksmyfaceoff.net], and I use Tasks to manage personal projects.

One more thing; we’re offering free accounts to open source projects. I’m a big fan of open source software and I’m very pleased to be able to offer a little something to those making their contributions.

That was the one nugget of information that I didn’t know prior to Alex’s announcement, and I’m blown away by the offer. That’s unbelievably cool.

If you find yourself realizing that a Web-based tracking tool would be easier than something client- or PDA-based, Tasks is the way to go. Tell Alex that I sent you—I don’t get a cut, but I know we’d both like to know who recommended it to you.