Juiced On Writing

While researching into some of the latest Adobe Air Applications available, I came across the following apps helpful in making my own writing more productive, most of which happen to be free. I’ve set up some example screenshots for you, to show you my two favourites, with lists and details on 14 more.

Adobe Air

Adobe Air, for those who haven’t heard of it, is the latest technology out there for creating simple dynamic web  applications for the desktop, without the need for a browser. The apps can be built with Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML or Ajax, and normally look quite swish. As a browserless web app, Adobe Air Apps also benefit from being cross-platform.

Many of the Adobe Air applications created are free, and most can be recognised by their black user interfaces. My selection of the best for writing productivity below, are all free. Once you’ve found your first Adobe Air application, you will be prompted to download and install it, but will also need to install the Adobe Air runtime onto your computer also, just the once. Your first install of most adobe air apps will firstly install the runtime for you, but should you want to do this separately,  here’s the link to Adobe Air Runtime.

Klok – Time Management

Klok gives you a reasonably simple desktop time management system. You can add projects, or clients – with sub projects onto the left hand bar, and drag and drop the relevant projects / sub-projects or tasks onto your calendar view on the right. You can then drag those bars across timeframes to either notify your planned session times, or do so in hindsight. Here, I’ve setup some of my current projects into different colours, and you can see my current plans for the next few days of my week, including my novel writing for NaNoWriMo (don’t ask why I put it in red).

Klok provides reports also – a pie graph of your working day, and an exportable graph of your time spent, which you can save to your harddrive and open into MS Excel.

Klok is a reasonably good little free time manager for your desktop. And with the reports, may make a good tool for freelancers dealing with multiple writing projects.

For more information on Klok, and to install, find Klok here.

MiniTask – Task Management

This little application, which works on Windows and MacOSX, couldn’t be much simpler. Add tasks, set a little reminder, add separators which you can name – to order your tasks into goals, and tick off as you do the tasks. The tasks can be copied and pasted into a word or excel or similar document also. MiniTask can run on startup, and is available simply via an icon on your system bar when you need it.

For more information and to install MiniTask, find MiniTask here.

Other Adobe Air Apps Worth a Look

Although MiniTask does a great job at providing a simple task management system unobtrusively from your desktop, there are other Adobe Air apps which you may find beneficial for keeping your writing productive.

1. Moderator – If you own a Wordpress blog, of version 2.6+ and you get lots of comments to moderate, the Wordpress Moderator app can allow you to do this from your desktop. You will need to install a plugin into Wordpress itself. This is quite an early beta version.
2. Google Analytics Reporting Suite – if you find yourself managing websites or blogs, and constantly going to the Google Analytics website for reports, this Air suite will release some of that time. The analytics come through onto a desktop app for you, showing trends, graphs and your latest good or bad news.
3. Remember the Milk Notifier – if you use the website, Remember the Milk, to manage your personal calendars, tasks and notifications, there is now an Adobe Air app which will provide these notifications onto your desktop.
4. Compuccino Time Track – built to be compatible with 37Signal’s Basecamp webapp, the Compuccino allows you to time multiple projects in an alarm-clock interface.
5. Doominow – Doomi is a simple to-do list similar to MiniTask. Add to-do items to the list, you can set times against them, and you can see closed off ones.
6. Twhirl or Tweetdeck – if you use Twitter, then either of these Air apps will suit your needs, pulling your notifications onto a desktop app for you, and allowing you to post updates, replies and direct messages to Twitter from the application. Twhirl can bring in notifications from Twitter, Jaiku and FriendFeed amongst others. With Tweetdeck, you can organise the Tweets you follow into groups, allowing you to track conversations and subjects in columns across your decks.
7. AgileAgenda – this is an Adobe Air app which allows you to schedule projects and produce gantt charts from your tasks. These can be shared via the AgileAgenda.com website, which has a range of subscriber services.
8. Timeloc – Time Tracking, with multiple projects or clients, set charge out rates, and record your time spent on each project, with an editable billing period.
9. Ora Time and Expense – generate timesheets, and track time and expenses, with customisable templates for your reports.
10. ReadAir – if you have a large RSS reading list via Google Reader, then this can have a huge impact on your time. ReadAir lets you read these feeds via a desktop application.
11. GMDesk – for your Google Mail, Calendar and to use Google Apps from your desktop.
12. WebKut – open a webpage, and you can capture a screen shot – of the entire page, a selection or the current view.
13. Shrink-O-Matic – drag and drop photos into Shrink-O-Matic, and you can resize. Works with Jpgs, Gifs and Pngs.
14. Screenboard – from the Adobe Labs, this sample app actually lets you write notes on your desktop, using a range of pens and thicknesses. Maybe just for fun, maybe you can use it for a quick in-your-face scribbled reminder.

LINKS:

• Adobe Air runtime
• Klok Personal Time Tracking
• MiniTask

Others:

• Moderator
• Google Analytics Reporting Suite
• Remember the Milk Notifier
• Compuccino Time Track
• Doomi
• Twhirl
• Tweetdeck
• AgileAgenda
• Timeloc
• Ora Time and Expense
• ReadAir
• GMDesk
• WebKut
• Shrink-O-Matic
• Screenboard

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