my two favorite PIMs compared

     I like my apps tiny yet robust. Feature-rich but without the baggage. Less bloat, extra strength. I say no to CPU hogs, yes to “pound-for-pound” best fighters, like Bruce Lee. If they can run on my desktop background without affecting anything else, that’s the ideal for me…I don’t have to waste time finding and opening them.
     For a personal information manager(PIM) or calendar / todo / notes organizer, these qualities are even more important to me, since being able to see the information right there in front of me at all times is even more crucial.
     A couple years ago, I found Rainlendar online. It quickly became my favorite task-managing tool. Rainlendar is a nifty, tiny, skinnable desktop calendar with integrated events, todos, reminders, & notes, and I couldn’t be happier with it. At a mere 2-3mbs, it was amazing how much Rainlendar could do. When I switched to Ubuntu a couple months ago, I was even happier to learn that the new version, Rainlendar2, worked on the Linux platform as well. How convenient!
     But, when I tried Rainlendar2 for the first time, I didn’t like the ‘improvements’ - for every step forward there seemed to be a step back. For instance, you could prioritize and add recurrence to your todos & you could arrange them according to any of 6 different criteria, but the notes section I cherished so much completely vanished! The new options menu now boasts a slick GUI - but that doesn’t impress me, because now it is slow and clumsy. Also, the skin I was using before (and that I had spent days customizing by mixing 2 skins together and then some) cannot work completely in the new rainlendar, because instead of the .ini configuration it used before, Rainlendar2 now uses an .r2skin extension which is basically a zip file of an xml configuration file. This means that in order for me to get the skin I want back, I have to reconfigure it into another format. Ughh. Since I don’t want to do all that over again, I decided to visit customize.org to see what other users have come up with. Months after Rainlendar2’s debut, I found only 4-5 new compatible skins, that is all. It seems I’m not the only one tired of skinning.
     A PIM is only as good as the time you put into it, plugging in info so you can get it back at the right time. Unfortunately, I have found myself avoiding Rainlendar2.
     About a week ago, I found an alternative on Lifehacker: command-line-powered todo.txt files. I was intrigued. It seemed to be a fast way to get your tasks on file, and the more Unix you learned and the more you used it, the faster it got. You can also use additional software such as Remind(also Wyrd) & gxmessage which will organize your reminders and pop them up, respectively. What really sounded neat to me, though, was the ability to send part of your todo list to your cellphone, so that, for instance, you’d have your grocery list on you when you needed it - without paper. All this without opening a browser or even an application? I set on the mission to figure it all out. Within no time I had my todo.txt file working, and I was able to retrieve sections of it through keywords. But then, how to send my grocery list to my cellphone? For that, I needed extra scripts, as well as a proper setup on my computer. First I needed to be able to call the script from anywhere in my file tree, then I wanted to alias the long todo.sh to just ‘t’, then I needed to download a ‘mail’ program(such as mailx), which is really an MUA to couple with the already installed Postfix (the MTA), then to configure it properly (which is not done yet), etc, etc, etc. It really is a HUGE undertaking, but again, the more you put into it, the more you get out. I am hoping to HAVE set up [check it out here!] various lists(or projects), have them integrated with Remind, have them outputted on my desktop (through gxmessage & Remind calendars/lists) as well as my cellphone (through mailx & Postfix). My main issues right now are:

• configuring Postfix to send my lists properly to my cellphone - this accomplished, almost, with the help of Eric & Kevin at todotxt yahoo group
• finding an Ubuntu replacement for Samurize(Windows) or Geektool(Mac) which displays files on the desktop - this done! with Ubuntu app Conky. Thanks to Brenden & ‘calmar’, I now have a beautifully tweaked desktop. Check this out:

• ideally, using Tannie’s script to have my computer send me my lists when I call for them, away from my computer
• linking my todos better with Remind, finding a fast way to organize &/or sync the two
• using the remind-to-ical scipt to sync my events to my cell, eventually

     I’d be interested in hearing what you use to organize your life, or if you use one of these PIMs, what you think about them. Please share your thoughts below…