The trouble has been that OmniFocus for the iPhone initially only worked with the MobileMe and WebDAV services. I did setup an Online File Folder account with GoDaddy but it didn’t work right. I would sync my data only to find that repeating tasks would start duplicating on both my iPhone and my desktop. This proved too be to annoying to cope with and eventually I gave up using the app on my iPhone.

The good news (and something I have been patiently waiting for) is that OmniFocus for the desktop (version 1.5) and OmniFocus for the iPhone (version 1.1.2) both support Bonjour network synching now. This means that I can sync the data between my desktop and my iPhone using my local network. Finally, it all works!

The setup is really easy. For OmniFocus on the desktop, you just need to adjust your preferences as such:

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Then from the iPhone, you enter the settings menu and pick the Bonjour network as shown here:

The best part, of course, is being able to make use of all your actions while on the go. Here are some screenshots that show OmniFocus being used on my iPhone:

(home screen)

(main application screen)

(contexts screen)

I have written about OmniFocus many times before on this site (more notes here) but if you are looking for a GTD solution that works both from your desktop and while you are mobile, then this is definitely worth checking out. I’m definitely happy with it (finally).

I recently learned of DynDNS, a free dynamic DNS service, from Paul VanderLei. As most know, the connection to your ISP is always a dynamic IP address which means that you might have a 24 hour window (roughly) where you can hand out your IP address for others to connect to your home server before it changes again. Obviously, this is not optimal. Enter DynDNS. They allow you to create a domain name that others can depend on without worrying about the IP address changing underneath. The following demonstrates how easy this is to set up:

1. Create a free DynDNS account.
2. Add a new hostname where you can choose your name and then pick from a selection of suffixes. Example: aeonscope.homeip.net.
   
3. Download the DnyDNS client. This is what updates DnyDNS with your new IP address as it changes.
4. Finally, launch your AirPort Utility, click on the Advanced tab, select port mapping, and then personal web sharing or whatever service you are planning to host:
   

In my case, I choose to use only port 3000 since I’m mainly just hosting my Rails apps to share with others for development purposes. Thanks Paul, for the tip. Hopefully others will find this useful as well.

For the MacOS only.

As a small business owner, tracking the projects that you are working on, the hours worked, your billing rate, generating invoices, etc. can be a hassle. I bought Billings 3 a couple of weeks ago to solve these issues and am glad I did. While you can visit Billings 3 web site to learn, here are a few pros and cons from my experience:

Things I Like

1. Getting started is really easy. Simply import client information from your Address Book, create a new project associated with the client, create a working slip, set your hourly rate, and start the timer to clock your hours.
2. After the application is started a little clock timer shows up in the MacOS menu bar giving you a handy way to start/stop time. You can also set when the timer should time out in case you forget to turn it off manually.
3. Working slips are how you track time and itemize work for a project as a whole. I like to label my working slips by versions, milestones, iterations, etc. For example, I might have a project called GeoMiner that requires two months worth of work with two-week milestones. Each working slip slip can be labeled Milestone 1, Milestone 2, etc.
4. Being able to generate professional looking invoices from working slips saves me a ton of time. It only takes a couple button clicks to turn a working slip into an invoice which can then be e-mailed as a PDF or printed out.
5. There are multiple theme templates you can choose from to style your reports, invoices, etc. There is also support for building your own theme or customizing an existing one.
6. Theme templates can also be applied to labels and envelopes. I find the envelope printing feature very handy not only for clients but for other printing purposes where you need a professional look and feel.
7. Even though a project must be tied to a client, there is support for personal projects. For me, this is extremely handy as I use personal projects to track time spent on open source projects, the work I do for my HOA, experimental R&D, etc. Even if you are not running a business, I see this as a great tool to add perspective on how you manage and spend your time.

Things I Don’t Like

1. Client information is pulled from your address book when setting up new work. That is fine. What I don’t like is that a new category gets automatically created in your address book called Billings. Bah.
2. I wish you could track stock being earned in a company. Let’s say that for each hour you work, 5 shares of stock is accumulated. It would be nice to automatically track and see a summary of your stock total by working slip and project as a whole. The workaround is to use the customized fields feature of a project, label it “Stock Shares”, and then manually do the calculations after each invoice billed.
3. When going into triple digits for hours worked, the timer really only has space for showing double digits so some of the numbering gets cut off unless you dig into the log a bit more. Not a big deal but something that could definitely be fixed in the future.

So give Billings 3 a look. I definitely recommend buying a copy (which is at a discount currently) if you are in need of tracking projects, time, and keeping yourself organized.

The shot above was taken of the wall art located in Old Colorado City. A fun place to shop and eat and not far from Manitou Springs either. This is where Josh and I met up with crew after coming back down Pikes Peak Road. The rest of the evening was spent hanging out on our balcony while enjoying the sunset and watching the deer wander through the neighborhood.

I’d like to thank everyone who made it out to attend. We had an amazing time and really hope that everyone that visited did as well. It was great seeing family and old friends especially those of the old OTI crew.

Anyway, thanks again to all those who attended. I just wish it could have lasted longer.

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The second talk for the evening was on Web Frameworks by Matt Raible. Good speaker, both entertaining and humorous. The slides for his talk can be found here. He does a quick comparison of Grails/Rails backends with GWT/Flex frontends. The winner? There is none. It depends on your temperament and what works for you (or what fits best with how your brain is wired). Basically, you just need to spend some time reading and experiment with a few or all of them. There is plenty of material on the web to get you started.

I’ve dabbled with GWT (liked it…but it’s Java…and Java isn’t fun anymore), PHP (yeah, quick to get started, many web hosts support it…but it’s ugly and a pain to work with), haven’t tried Air/Flex/Flash yet (looks interesting but not fond of the proprietary roots), Ruby (love it, elegant language), and JavaScript/AJAX (not as much fun as Ruby but starting to like it). Personally, I think a mix of Ruby, Rails, and JavaScript is the way to go. I am having fun with them and the tooling is fairly decent. Plus, I also think that JavaScript + CSS3, HTML5, and SVG (and other graphic support) will soon be powerful enough to rival that of GWT+Gears and/or Air/Flex/Flash. That’s just speculation though. What do I know.

A couple of new concepts I hadn’t heard before though: SOFEA and SOUI. From a high level, it is a way of thinking about all these various web technologies/frameworks and mixing and matching them. If you were to architect your web application carefully using RESTful designs per se, you could run Rails with Flex on top, or GWT, or AJAX, etc. It’s got me thinking. Maybe it will gnaw at you too.

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The first picture is from the Black Canyon of Gunnison and the last picture is back home in the driveway. We bumped into a few people along the way home that liked Kate’s little sign taped on the back of the top case.

As for wedding pictures, well, they are being developed. We had a professional photographer come out yesterday to shoot photos but won’t have them in hand until they are fully developed in about four weeks or more.

All-in-all the trip was excellent. We could have stayed longer, of course, but all turned out well. BTW, if you ever need to have an event coordinated at the Chipeta Sun Lodge, talk to Jessica Bresett. She did an outstanding job. I would also recommend the Chipeta Sun Lodge as a great place to stay. Will definitely be thinking about returning some day.

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The last of the pictures are views of old mines and ghost towns as we wound down the base of the mountain and back into the little town of Ouray.

A couple of notes. We started the tour around 9am and got back into town around 1pm. Kate had done a tour like this before, but for me this was the first time. I enjoyed it but couldn’t help but think how I could ride the motorcycle up this road. I think that if I dropped a bunch of weight, thew on some knobby tires, I could maybe do it. Maybe. Of course, I’m not sure Kate would ride with me if I did that. Oh, and for those interested in taking a tour over the mountains into Telliride, there are two main routes and they take all day to do. From what I understand, those tours are only for the most adventurous.

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We didn’t take a lot of photos as we were enjoying the ride too much. As you view the photos, pay attention to the footer notes as they will help explain where we were (roughly). BTW, more photos of Molas Pass (where Kate and I are relaxing in the picture above) can be found here.

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There are a couple of interesting things to note about the Chimney Rock area. The first is that it is part of the Chaco Culture that makes up part of lower Colorado and Northern New Mexico. It was a major trading route that existed around 1000A.D. We learned that when standing from the top of the Chimney Rock area, you can see a plateau about 60 miles to the South. Apparently, back in the day, you could light signal fires from Chimney Rock to that plateau. The plateau could then be used to signal the Chaco Culture even further to the South. Makes me wish I could have spent more time camping at the Chaco Culture earlier this year. I plan to return.

The other interesting thing to note is that during that day in age, the people of this period would have witnessed a few major events. One is the explosion of the Sunset Volcano (now known as Sunset Crater in Northern Arizona), the other is Haley’s Comet, and the last is the bright light of the Crab Nebula super nova (if I have my facts right) which lasted for many days (even in sunlight). Pretty cool time to be alive despite that you started having a family at roughly the age of 12 and were probably dead by 25 or 30 due to tuberculous.

I mentioned that we camped in the Ute Campgrounds just up the road at the start of this post. Not a bad area with plenty of trees. My only complaint is that it is not far from the road so you do get some traffic noise. It was convenient though and, in this case, worth it.

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I had always wanted visit this area but never had the chance until now. Treasure Falls, is located just a few miles North of Pagosa Springs, CO.

This post was composed with the WordPress app on my iPhone. Too bad I can’t mashup the Here I Am app with this one.

More pictures soon.

Well, the time has finally arrived to get married. The motorcycle is packed and we are ready to hit the road in the morning. I’ll be posting updates on this site when apt. Otherwise, I’ll be Twittering as usual.

More from the road!

© Trinity Brewing Company

For those in Colorado Springs area, the Trinity Brewing Company’s inaugural opening is today. We have been looking forward to this since catching their booth at the Craft Lagerfest.

We intend to be celebrating with friends and family around 5pm although others will be arriving sooner. So clear your afternoon schedule and head on down:

© The Dark Knight

Hopefully, by now, you have seen this movie. If you haven’t, then you really should.

The Dark Knight, for the unaware, is the sequel to Christopher Nolan’s first film: Batman Begins. Which is also the rebirth of the Batman franchise. To be honest, I haven’t really been into the Batman series since Tim Burton’s Batman (which I recommend seeing and owning, BTW). Unfortunately, the sequels that followed caused the series to get progressively worse. Especially Batman Forever and Batman & Robin which are horrible films. I didn’t care for some of the campy humor let alone the different actors that were chosen to fill the Batman role. For me, Michael Keaton was the ideal candidate for playing the Bruce Wayne/Batman role.

Now, over a decade later, the Batman franchise is being reborn and in a major way. Some are even saying that The Dark Knight is equal the The Godfather: Part II in terms of quality and impact. I would have to agree with that. It really is that good. So much so, that it got me excited enough to go to the theater again (which doesn’t happen very often these days).

Aside from the fact that the film is well written, well executed, and well worth watching. It also has some technical merit. I had read an article in Wired Magazine where I learned that Christopher Nolan had shot the film in IMAX format. Which, if you haven’t had a chance to experience yet, you really need to before it leaves the theater. However, I do want to point out than not all scense are in IMAX format. Which, for me, was a little disappointing. That being said, the scenes that were in IMAX format were truly astonishing, especially the beginning of the film as well as all city and aerial shots. There is just something to be said about having a movie totally engulf your vision and, for a short while, throw you into this dark world of super villians and super heroes.

As for OpenOffice, I use it in a rather limited capacity. Actually, I’ve been using NeoOffice but tonight convinced me that I need to drop NeoOffice and check out OpenOffice again. It has improved quite a bit since I last used it. It even supports extensions. Neat.

I spoke with Gary, who runs the Colorado Springs Open Source Meetup, and offered to give a talk on Ruby, Ruby on Rails, etc. I mean, c’mon, the meetup has only been running since January of this year and still, there is no talk of Ruby or Rails? That needs to change. Hey Brett, if you are listening, I think you should fly up. We could give a rather compelling demo of Ruby, Rails, and Google Maps.