I was recently notified about FruitfulTime TaskManager at a perfect time and decided to give it a try because of how many tasks I needed to get done (on time). I figured this would be a great way to share my experience and opinions of this software with all of you and get a new post out at the same time!

FruitfulTime TaskManager actually looks better than a lot of other task management applications and allows you to easily see what your progress is for any tasks. It’s also small in size and performs very quickly. Another feature that has been tempting me to buy a new thumb drive is that it is portable as well. This means it can be installed on a thumb drive so you can take it wherever!

Being that I work on projects that also involve other people, it’s helpful to see who is assigned to what, so if you have a task that is dependent on another task which is assigned to someone else, you’ll know by viewing who it is assigned to and be able to contact that person regarding the status because of the Contact Manager built-in.

I do have a few annoyances/suggestions that I want to point out, that I hope could be considered in a future version:

1. Subtasks not grouped with tasks. Instead of separating the subtasks below the task listing, I would rather see a tree listing with the subtasks below each task, so I don’t have to click on a task just to see the subtask. This would save me time.
2. Deleting subtasks. Several times I have made the mistake of clicking on a subtask to delete, only to end up clicking on ‘Delete Task’, which shouldn’t appear when a subtask is selected. If the parent task was selected, then ‘Delete Task’ should appear. I just become confused when I’m so busy and not paying attention.
3. Setting task options, like Priority, Status, Progress, etc. When changing them, I have to triple-click! I wish I only had to single-click like I do for editing the name of the task, but would even settle for double-click. But triple-clicking is going a little too far and wastes time.
4. Setting the progress of a subtask does not automatically update its task. For example, if I set a subtask to 50% (say there is only one subtask), shouldn’t the task’s progress become 50%? I don’t really want to manually set it to 50%, because again, it takes time.

Features I really like:

• Adding notes to tasks.
• Adding references to any relevant websites or files. Very useful option for me especially since the company I work for has MANY websites that I need to be able to login for QA. A lot of the time, I also need to be able to review a document, so this can save me time from having to go back through lots of files to find the document I need.
• Adding reminders. Reminders can be set to go off before the Start Date or the Due Date. For me, setting reminders before a Start Date is helpful, because sometimes I like to start projects early, rather than waiting until I actually need to start it.

Overall, I do like FruitfulTime TaskManager and will probably continue using it since I’m tired of Outlook 2007 running so slow on Vista because I have a lot of e-mails and tasks to add. I like how Outlook manages tasks, but when I have to wait forever for Outlook to load, it’s not worth my time.

If you would like to see a demo of FruitfulTime TaskManager in action, there is video on the website. Interested in trying out this wonderful (very affordable) application? Go download it!

I would really like to hear if anyone else has given FruitfulTime TaskManager a try, and what you think of it. Please leave a comment below.

The Logitech webcam I had is really good, almost clear video (in small resolution only though), but would still recommend for XP and earlier.

Last week the webcam arrived and of course I tried it out right away. As the instructions said, I installed the software first (which took a long time), then plugged the webcam into the USB port. Opened up the software to see how the video looked. It crashed and closed out! Something about ffdshow needed to be installed, according to Vista. The first thing I thought was: “Doesn’t everything I need come included on the CD?”

So, I installed ffdshow and the webcam software worked just fine. But, the video quality was really poor. It was like watching a station on TV that doesn’t come in very well, a lot of static. This webcam was claimed to have good video quality!

After playing with the ffdshow settings that made no difference at all, I uninstalled it. The webcam software worked fine even after uninstalling ffdshow. Weird. I looked up reviews online and eventually came across one person saying to not install from the CD, but to download the software/drivers from Microsoft and to change the USB bandwidth to a lower number.

I re-installed (just to be sure), switched the USB bandwidth to a lower number and noticed a change. But, a lower USB bandwidth number means slower video. Picture quality though for the most part is really good.

Here are some features of this webcam from the back of the box; my notes in italics:

• High Definition video (1.3 megapixels) and photos (5.0 megapixels interpolated) (Logitech webcam quality wasn’t as good)
• Wide-angle lens (Logitech webcam didn’t have this)
• 3x digital zoom (Logitech webcam has this)
• Automatic face tracking software (Logitech webcam comes with this too)
• Automatically adjust for low-light conditions for superior video quality (Not any better than the Logitech webcam)
• Read more features of the webcam on the Microsoft product page.

One thing I don’t like is if there is a light in the view of the webcam, it just makes that area completely white, rather than showing what is really there. The Logitech webcam didn’t do that.

Below is a very short clip of what the video looks like with the high definition video (1.3 megapixels) and the USB bandwidth set at 6. (Windows Media Player only, sorry.)

Link to video if you can’t view it above: Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000

I like that the webcam can sit on top of my monitor, unlike the Logitech that wasn’t designed to. I may have to put some double-sided tape on part of it so it doesn’t move when my monitor is bumped though.

Overall, I guess it’s an okay webcam. You get what you pay for right?

I don’t plan on purchasing a new webcam anytime soon, but if you know of one that has really good quality videos, I’d like to hear about it!

Image is a modified screenshot from the Microsoft product page.

Finding out which provider is better for what you want can be hard until you’ve done some research. That can be very time consuming, right? I know I spent a lot of time thinking about switching from GoDaddy to another provider and wasn’t sure if I wanted to go with HostRocket because I didn’t really have issues with GoDaddy, just that I wanted more.

I just found out about Web Hosting Choice, which seems to help with your web hosting choice. I did notice that they recommend Host Gator, throughout the site. Makes me feel like it’s an advertisement, but I don’t know if it really is.

I love the Quick Web Host Search box on the front page. Enter in the maximum monthly cost, maximum setup fee, minimum disk space and bandwidth that you are looking for. Click Search for Hosts and browse the results of the available web hosting providers.

Most of my searches resulted in mostly just Host Gator hosting plans. I’m sure it’s because they have a variety of plans at affordable prices.

The site also has a great Learning Center to help you learn what you need to know about web hosting. For example, what is PHP or Perl? There is also a page that talks about scams that you may run into when looking for a web host. One of the scams is about providers offering unlimited bandwidth/space. My provider actually does offer me unlimited bandwidth (which, yes, I’m sure there is a limit at some point, but it doesn’t mean it’s a scam, in my opinion).

I like that it lets me select specific features that I may be looking for, example: ASP. Or select a specific web hosting provider and see the plans each one offers. Warning: the directory of providers is very long! This must have taken Web Hosting Choice a long time to build.

If I need to look for another web hosting provider, I will most likely check out Web Hosting Choice in the future, because it could save a lot of time! I only wish I knew about it when I was looking earlier last year.

Check them out if you’re looking for a new place to host your website. Hopefully it will help you in your search.

Sponsored by Web Hosting Choice

Many have fallen in love with the iPhone and iPod Touch. Playing games on them is a nice feature. This Ultra Games Bundle is an interactive DVD which includes 40 games and even software to allow you to create your own iPhone and iPod Touch games and widgets. It also includes parental controls to keep children from playing any games that may not be appropriate.

Plenty of people who own an iPhone or iPod Touch probably wished they could create better games to play than the ones that are currently available. You don’t need to write any code to create games with the software. The software makes it easy for you to design your own games.

Games for iPhone/ iPod Touch are limited, but with this bundle, you can turn limited into unlimited by creating your own! Thumbs up! A revolution in mobile gaming. The games that are included in the bundle look really good, but create your own games and impress your friends.

I have always wanted to create my own games since I was little and hearing about this software makes it sound easy to do at an affordable price.

Sponsored by igiki

I thought I would give FeedDemon a try as suggested by Jeffro2pt0 and also because it’s free. Who can pass up free software with good reviews? Not me.

I am not writing a full review, but more of a short first time experience with FeedDemon.  I hope that by sharing my experience, I can help others decide if FeedDemon is the right software to use.

I started off by importing a file I exported from Google Reader and FeedDemon only  imported very few feeds. A bug? I had to tell it to import a second time and it added more that was missing. Since I am subscribed to so many, I don’t know if it’s still missing some feeds. I will assume it found what was left.

I have to say my favorite feature is the Panic Button. What is the Panic Button? Say you have 1,000 feed items to read and don’t have the time. Hit the Panic Button and mark all items, items older than 24 hours, 48 hours, etc. as read. That is the best feature to have. I usually try to skim through all items, but sometimes you just have to let them go. I went ahead and marked all items as read since I had previously gone through them in Google Reader and didn’t need to go through them a second time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out how to add the Panic Button to the toolbar in FeedDemon.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m used to how simple Google Reader is to use, but I still feel myself going back to it. FeedDemon makes me feel like it will just fill up with items, eventually filling up my hard drive.  And no other feed reader that I’ve tried seems to have the feature to automatically mark an item as read when I’ve passed it. That’s the one feature I like about Google Reader that has kept me hooked.

FeedDemon seems okay, but not exactly what I want. So, again, it seems I’m back to Google Reader. Anyone have any other recommendations on feed readers that might be more similar to how Google Reader works? I want one that will save me time, instead of clicking to mark each item as read or having to remember to mark all items as read when I’m done looking at them.

Besides being fun, we wanted one so we could get our almost four-year-old off the Xbox 360. He just likes moving things around on the screen and playing like we do, but there really aren’t many kid friendly games for the Xbox. But, if he’s going to play any games, it’s going to be ones that keep him active, such as the Sports on the Wii. He’s very good at the boxing!  Instead of learning what buttons to push, he only needs to move the controllers.

I’m still getting used to not using many buttons to play, but it’s fun. I can’t wait to get the old Mario games and the classic controller so I can play my favorite games again.

I like that you can set a PIN for some things on the Wii, but what about for just about everything? That’s another reason we wanted him to stop messing with the Xbox, because he’d go in and change all the settings. Unfortunately he can easily delete the Miis on the Wii if he wants to.

I love the Wii because it has Wifi built-in. Since I have the Wifi Max Dongle hooked up to my computer for my Nintendo DS, it also works with anything else that needs a wireless Internet connection, such as the Wii. We did run into a problem when downloading the updates though. Changing the Dongle’s settings to channel 11 sped up the downloading.  I think channel 1 is also recommended.

For anyone wondering about the graphics on the Wii: it is not noticeable. You have too much fun playing to notice anything. I also don’t really care about graphics when playing games though. Having fun is what matters.

Things I like:

• Small (Can be stored anywhere.)
• Easy to use (Doesn’t have a lot of features like the Xbox 360 to get lost in.)
• Better parental control than Xbox 360 (Four-year-old is smart enough to go into someone else’s profile to get out of the parental control restrictions.)

Things I don’t like:

• Sensor bar (Four-year-old likes to move it.)
• Long download wait time (For updates, news, shop, etc.)
• Nunchuk (I just don’t like it.)
• Exiting the game before ejecting the disc. (Other systems do not require this. The Wii asks you to insert the disc.)
• No profiles (I like having profiles so I know what saved games are mine and no one else can delete them.)

If you have a family with kids, the Wii really is the best video game system to have.

PAYjr is a program for families who want to make assigning chores and giving allowances easier. PAYjr is known for the Visa Buxx card for teens and has recently launched a partnership with Target allowing parents to give kids a Target Gift Card that is reloadable. Allowances can be deposited electronically to the card.

PAYjr Chore & Allowance is a great program for parents to help teach the little ones how to be responsible with money.  It allows parents to assign chores, print chore charts and set reminders. The great thing is that PAYjr is free to join!

Get your kids to want to help around the house and be rewarded with a Target Gift Card. PAYjr looks like a fun way to get the kids involved and learning about how to manage money.

Sponsored by PAYjr

PayScroll is an online social networking career and salary website. PayScroll helps you find the career you want and deserve by providing you with tools to research salaries, find jobs and ask questions. I like that it lets you search for jobs or search for salaries by location or company. Google anyone?

It’s very easy to use. Enter in the job title, then the city and state or the company you would like to work at. Compare salary information using PayScroll’s report tool.

Registering with PayScroll allows you to save jobs that you have searched for so you can go back to them later. This is great, because it saves you time from having to go back and repeat those same searches. Also, get access to detailed salary reports which display the exact salary and a salary range. It can be hard to find out what you could be earning for the specific job you are looking for. If you have job related questions, discuss them with the fast growing PayScroll community.

PayScroll also lets you create and share profiles with the community: personal, professional and skills. Take the PayScroll tour and find out how you can build your own professional profile.

Sponsored by PayScroll

I have tried so many media players over the years and they each have something good. I wish they could be mashed together to create the one media player that everyone wants and loves without the huge memory consumption.

Winamp was my first media player years ago. Then I had Windows XP for an operating system and I was using Windows Media Player. I used to strictly use Windows Media Player, because it’s already there. Why install more when it could do everything I needed? Now that I have an iPod, I have to use iTunes as well, which just duplicates my music collection. Sure, I could purchase a plug-in for Windows Media Player, but I would rather not.

The media players that I’m writing about are: Winamp, iTunes, Windows Media Player, and Songbird.

Winamp

Winamp has been around for so many years and is probably one of the top media players chosen by most. I never thought Winamp could improve. It was always lacking some features, which would require installing a plug-in. It has always been my favorite since the beginning, because it plays just about everything and supports skinning with a large community actively contributing.

I like that it now has a notification popup above the system tray. I am someone who minimizes everything to the tray if possible. I like a clean desktop. If I’m not currently using it, I don’t want it showing (less distractions). When the song title is longer or shorter than the previously displayed one, the popup shrinks or grows smoothly.

This version of Winamp is their 10th Anniversary Edition, 5.5. The last time I used Winamp, I think it was version 3.0! Winamp has improved a lot over the years.

Winamp is probably a great alternative to iTunes because it now supports connecting an iPod and downloading podcasts, too.

Another must-have feature that most media players have been including is album covers. It makes you feel like you’re looking at your CD collection, instead of just a file collection on the computer, which allows for easier browsing. Winamp now includes album art and support for it on portable devices! Winamp seems to do a better job at finding album covers than iTunes (I don’t buy all of my music through the iTunes store). Winamp is possibly just as good as Windows Media Player, but Windows Media Player allows you to search for them if it can’t find them.

A Winamp toolbar was also added for the browser, but I opted to not install it, because I hate toolbars. But, for those of you who like filling up the top of your browser with unnecessary useful toolbars, you can now control Winamp from your browser.

When using the Winamp Browser and viewing a site (e.g. fluxblog) with music on it, the music will play in Winamp as if it was local. This could save you time from using your regular browser and downloading the music and then telling it to play in Winamp.

Plays an insane amount of audio and video types: see them all!

Winamp has always tried to support most file types. File types supported by Winamp: AAC, AIF, AIFF, AU, AVI, CDA, MID, MIDI, MOD, MP1, MP2, MP3, M3U, MP4, MPEG, MPG, OGG, WAV, WMA, WMV and lots more I have never heard of!

Winamp probably has more features than other media players and uses very little resources. Check out the many (new and improved) features that Winamp has. Winamp has become my favorite again.

iTunes

iTunes is usually installed on Windows if you own an iPod. If I didn’t own an iPod, I wouldn’t use iTunes. One cool thing in iTunes that I like is the album cover view. Even nicer when used in fullscreen view.

Besides supporting iPod connectivity, you can also select what you want synced to the iPod. I do like that iTunes remembers and shows you what songs you have selected to sync with the iPod while still listing the songs that aren’t on the iPod. For podcasts, you can set it to sync only the most recent ones or even ones that haven’t been played yet.

iTunes is very easy to navigate. It isn’t overloaded with tons of features like some media players are, which can take time setting up for the first time.

A few things about iTunes I don’t like are:

• Converting most of my songs and taking forever to do it. Even though this is done just once, I don’t like having duplicates!
• iTunes also is not that great for finding album covers. I have some that just display the musical note instead of the actual cover. Windows Media Player and Winamp both do a much better job.
• When deleting a song, it displays a progress window and the progress bar takes a long time to complete.
• I can’t just click how many stars I want when rating songs. iTunes makes me right click on a song and move the cursor over ‘Rating’ and then click how many stars I want to rate it.

It’s not that I don’t like iTunes, it’s that there are too many features I don’t like. If iTunes didn’t feel the need to convert a lot of my songs, I would be happy.

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player comes with Windows, so this may be the most used media player available. I’ve never had a problem with Windows Media Player as long as it played my MP3s.

Microsoft made many improvements to Windows Media Player which was very much needed. It now looks a lot better than it did. Although the previous versions allowed you to install skins, they were ugly.

I have to admit, Windows Media Player is fast when loading and importing songs. Possibly faster than other media players.

Another reason why I like Windows Media Player over some is that I can display a mini version of it on the taskbar giving me access at all times. It displays the current song playing and also the visualization if you choose. Even watch a movie in a tiny screen.

With a large collection of CDs, it can take a very long time to rip them. Windows Media Player does this very quickly. This may vary depending on your computer.

The new version lets you share media to the XBox 360 or another digital media receiver. Before, you would have to install another program to share. Also browse and sync your library to a portable device. No iPod support! Thumbs down, Microsoft!

If you need to play many different file types, Windows Media Player may not be the right one. It’s limited to just several. I’m surprised it even plays MP3s!

Songbird

As you can see in the screenshot, Songbird can have a similar album view like iTunes. It’s pretty, but slow. The album view in iTunes is faster and a little better looking.

Songbird^â„¢ is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers. Like Firefox^®, it is built from Mozilla^®, cross-platform and open source.

Besides looking good, it has some really nice features:

• Supports many file types.
• Themes
• Three repeat modes.
• Mini mode
• Create your own custom mixes.
• Browse the web for music to play.
• Extensions
• Sync your iPod!
• and more.

Since I use iTunes to download new podcasts and sync them to my iPod, the library changes. When I loaded Songbird, it popped up a window saying it detected changes in my iTunes library and asked if I want to import those changes into Songbird. Of course! This is a great feature if I must have iTunes and another media player installed together.

I’m not very fond of the Cheesy Video Window when watching a video. Yes, it’s really called that. I’d like to see it open in the main Songbird window. It’s okay when playing videos. I had noticed it skipping a little, may have been my system actively doing something.

Songbird is fairly quick when importing, but don’t expect to do anything in Songbird until the importing process is complete. It wouldn’t let me. I’m sure that will change as newer versions are released.

Another great feature is that it will check for any updates just like Firefox and download and install the updates for you. No manual work involved!

Watch the screencast to see what Songbird is like. If Songbird keeps improving, it may replace the other media players for me. But, that Cheesy Video Window must go!

Other Media Players

Other media players that didn’t make my list:

• BSPlayer would have made the list if it wasn’t for the free version having advertisements. The cost of the pro version isn’t too bad though, but I’m not interested in buying a media player when I can get a good one for free.
• Amarok would have also made it if it was cross-platform. Unfortunately, it’s only for Linux. It is my favorite media player when using Linux! Can also sync the iPod with Amarok.

Check out some screenshots of media players over at Lifehacker’s Media Player Show and Tell. Many of the screenshots are of Foobar, which is a media player I have never tried.

I want a media player that is fast like Windows Media Player, has a mini player window like Winamp and Songbird, has an album view like iTunes, syncs to my iPod, displays what will be synced to the iPod like iTunes does, minimizes to the system tray, lets me rate songs like Winamp does, and has a notification popup displaying what song is playing. Or, I guess depending on the mood I’m in, I can keep all four installed and use either one. I really don’t want to.

Which media player(s) do you use and why do you prefer it/them over the others?

I have never really been a fan of the iPod, but I do have one (30GB iPod Video). I love it because it takes up very little space and I can listen to music and podcasts and watch videos no matter where I am. There are a few things I don’t like about it:

• The click wheel is the most annoying way to move through menu options. Sometimes it even causes me to bypass the option I want. Having to remember which part to click to go back is annoying as well. If the click wheel was labeled better, it might be slightly easier.
• The battery drains when I’m not using it. Maybe mine came with a bad battery, I don’t know. But, it could be just a week that I haven’t used the iPod (fully charged battery) and I will turn it on and it tells me it needs to be charged!
• The blinking “Do not disconnect.” icon.
• iTunes may have a few nice features, but it is slow! Let me choose how I want to put my music on my iPod, please. And, in the format I want it in!
• Calendar, Contacts, Notes, etc. I don’t really care about any of that if I can’t edit directly from the iPod.
• It’s not wireless. (I know the iPod Touch has this, but I don’t own one.)

Even though there are several things I don’t like about the iPod, I still like it. But, the Zune has some nice features that the iPod is lacking:

• Playing Windows Media Audio (.wma) and Windows Media Video (.wmv).
• Wireless. (Again, I know the iPod Touch has this feature.)
• FM Radio! There are many times I’d like to listen to just the radio.
• Faster charge time.

I would gladly trade my 30GB iPod Video for either a new Zune or even better, an iPod Touch. I know the iPod Touch is currently at 8GB and 16GB, which is much less than 30GB, but I know the size will eventually increase, right Apple?