motask

While I’m on this three week hiatus (and in the future) if you have a topic that you’d like me to write about you can add it to the custom to-do list that I set up on motask. Unlike the main motask site, you don’t need a password, you can just go ahead and tell me anything. If anyone else wants a to-do list like this let me know… of course you can have your own personal mobile to-do list now, but if you want a public to-do list leave a comment.

Try it out.

I started working again today, so far so good. I will likely be leading the charge on putting content into RSS and or blogging so that should be interesting – can’t really say too much more.

The new format of the blog seems to be working well. Readership is increasing and it’s easier for me to blog everyday. I probably prefer a less structured approach, but there certainly are advantages to the structure – and I will tweak the structure if need be.

Not much to say from the Motask, Lopico, or BCO front. I’ve made some minor design changes to Lopico but haven’t added anything new in a few weeks (I also found an error that I’m fixing right now, but I don’t really want to brag about that). I’m thinking I might try to sell motask in the coming weeks – I don’t have to time to do with it what I’d like but I don’t just want to shut everyone out that uses it. BCO needs some momentum – interestingly more people have bookmarked the event in del.icio.us than have signed up. I haven’t done much with BCO yet, other than getting it blogged on Brewed Fresh Daily – one of Ohio’s most popular blogs. If you’re interested pleas sign the wiki.

Newbs and Exes - blogs/feeds I have started reading or have stopped reading this week
In:
Mike Davidson
Threadless Weekly

Out:
AU Blog
Riding Rails
Marketing Vox

All that with 33 minutes left before Tech News Tuesday.

I almost started a new business today, but stopped myself. Instead I took a job. Part-time marketing very flexible, with a great company that I worked for before. I just need to focus. In all that I do. Right now I’m:

• In law school full time
• Running Lopico - though I do less than in previous years
• Running Motask - though I do very little
• Doing some search consulting
• Blogging
• Hopefully helping out with BarCampOhio
• Going back to work in an office
• Trying to find a job for next year
• and trying to live a normal life

It’s a lot to do (especially the whole law school thing) but it’s manageable as long as I focus.

I’m going to write a couple of posts in the near future about things that I do to stay on top of things, but for now let’s just go with one shameless plug:

Motask - simple mobile to-do lists. It really is a great tool for me. I add things to my to-do list on the go and then check them out when I’m at home or school and can do something about it. It’s not the most complex to-do list (in fact it’s probably the least) but that’s all I need - simplicity.

- Josh (who you may know as J.D. or possibly Joshua)

What better to do on a friday than make RSS feeds. Today I added RSS to motask and Lopico.

Motask’s RSS is limted because of privacy regarding to-do lists, you can only get the feed to work properly as a live bookmark. Perhaps more importantly, I also added RSS to Lopico Reviews. I did this to make it easier for businesses owners to find out when their business has been reviewed.

It seems like I’ve been blogging for a while, but this actually marks post number 100 for me on this blog (at least according to wordpress - which I think counts other pages such as this one). Anyway, let’s celebrate. As I did with the new Lopico, I’m going to give my loyal readers a sneak peak at my new site which will launch within the next week (the latest it will be is the 18th). Motask, which I’ve been hinting at since I started creating it on Aug 28th, is a very simple mobile task manager. You may be thinking that 2 weeks is not a very long time to work on an app before pushing it out, but actually my total work time is something more like 10 hours, it’s just that simple of a program.

I use it all of the time, and for me it just makes sense. I tend to split my work between 2 computers (more like 3 since I run linux and windows on one of them) and spend a lot of time away from my computers as well, having a task management solution that is everywhere that I am has been a great experience. After I started writing the program I did come across one pretty good alternative, but found it too complex for the small screen - hence the focus on simplicity. I really like it and hope that you will too. I have a few more things to do (mainly emails) before I can go ahead with a full launch, but for now if you’d like to try it out you can start at http://www.motask.com/demo.php from there you can just play with it or follow the links to create an account.

What about a business model you ask? I’m pretty new to the mobile game so I really think that I need to get a better feel for the market before rushing to the business model. I can imagine one or two models emerging from this, if it gains any traction, but for now just enjoy it… I also wouldn’t be opposed to selling it.

- J.D. Amer