Obama Releases Election Night Flickr Set [Politics]
The Obama campaign posts an 82-picture Flickr set of candid shots from the night of the eleciton. The Creative-Commons-licensed pics show the candidate and his family in their hotel room while the results were tallied, and then heading to the stage for his victory speech. [via]
Battle of the iPhone Task Managers [Lifehacker Faceoff]
When the iTunes App Store first opened up to eager iPhone and iPod touch upgraders (and iPhone 3G buyers), one of the first types of applications to show up was the to-do/task manager. From simple check-box lists to voice-transcribing tools, there's a bewildering number of apps, many of them free, that promise to help you keep track of your necessary actions and projects while you're away from your computer. Today we're checking out five of them, all free except for one requiring a "Pro" account, and comparing their features and functionality side-by-side, as well as asking which app you use to keep their busy lives together. Read on for the full show-down and reader poll.
Remember the Milk
- Pricing: Free to download, but access requires $25/year Pro account (which also grants access to Windows Mobile/Blackberry app).
- Task options: Multiple lists, priorities, due dates, tags, repeating tasks, time estimates, location, URL, and notes.
- Organization: Today/Tomorrow/This Week lists, a multi-list view, and sorting by tags or location.
- Other features:Can use location awareness to find tasks closest to you; search function; home screen icon updates with tasks due today.
- Web syncing?: Yes.
Zenbe Lists
- Pricing: Free (for both app and web account).
- Task options: Basic text and due date.
- Organization: Multiple lists, with x/x completed counts and due dates shown in list view.
- Other features: One-click syncing to web account; easy e-mailing (of link to web list) through iPhone email.
- Web syncing?: Yes.
reQall
- Pricing: App and account are free.
- Task options: Auto-context text—use the phrase "Remember" or say "Tuesday," and reQall labels it accordingly. Tasks can be sent to contacts from add page.
- Organization: iPhone app is laid out onto three screens: "Time," with item viewing by Today, Soon, or Overdue; "Things," broken into Notes, Shopping, and To-dos (though any and all of them are technically to-dos); and "People" for shared tasks. All three organizing pages can be flipped to single-page listings.
- Other features: Add by phone call (after registering phone number with reQall); Shake the iPhone/touch for a "memory jog" (random task pops up on screen);
- Web syncing?: Yes.
To Do's
- Pricing: Free.
- Task options: Title, notes, and three-step priority (high, normal, low).
- Organization: Priority-colored tasks with note previews laid out with checkboxes next to each, with options to sort by priority or date. Click blue arrows to edit or see full tasks.
- Other features: Home screen badge can update with just high-priority or all tasks still due.
- Web syncing?: No (but cited for future).
EasyTask Manager
- Pricing: Free app; Online syncing (apparently) requires $19.99 account, which also buys desktop software.
- Task options: Very GTD-focused: Action name, project list, context, start date, due date, importance (1-5), and notes.
- Organization: Three pages: A "Dashboard" that lists all tasks, sorted by due dates (Inbox, Tomorrow, Next 7 Days, Past Due, Completed); a "Projects" list; and "Contexts" view.
- Other features: Online
- Web syncing?: With paid account.
This was by no means a comprehensive list, as any look at the iTunes App Store will show, but we tried to pick out a decent sampling of the different apps out there—basic checkmarks, phone-integrated, GTD-focused, paid, and a halfway option. We could have, for instance, included Jott for iPhone, which (like reQall) offers a voice-adding service directly through the iPhone interface, though it's limited in recording time (and it requires an actual iPhone to test and use).
Now that you've seen them, and maybe even tried them out, which to-do manager fits your needs the best? Vote in the poll below, and offer up your whys, or objections, in the comments.
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Earlier today we 
It's also a tabbed browser, capable of playing any embedded MP3 or searching popular music sites—like 
Songbird also promises dream-like integration with iTunes for those of you who are just too hung up on iTunes to give it up. When you first open run Songbird, just tell it to Import your iTunes library. You can even have Songbird update its library with any changes made to your iTunes library each time it runs. When the import finishes, all of your iTunes playlists (regular and smart) should be sitting comfortably in your sidebar.
Songbird suggests several extensions when you first install it, including one that adds iPod support and another called mashTape, which integrates with web services Last.fm, MusicBrainz, Google News, YouTube, and even Flickr to give you artist info, videos, and photos while you're listening to music.
When I tried importing my iTunes library out of the blocks, Songbird took forever to import my 6500+ tracks. It took rougly 17 minutes to hit 99%, then sat there for an additional 20 minutes before I gave up on it and hitting cancel. When I did, I got the error message below.
I don't know for sure whether or not the unsupported files were the cause of the delay or not, but either way it was a drag.
Unfortunately the bugs don't stop there. At one point, I double-clicked on the album art for a larger view, but it displays as a pop-up, so when I couldn't close it, I couldn't do anything. I hit Cmd-Q to quit the app, but that just closed the album art window. That made me happy until I realized that everytime I tried double-clicking a track to play it, Songbird thought I wanted to edit the track instead. That was interesting because I wasn't aware of the inline editing and I love that kind of inline editing, but it's not what I wanted to do at all.
I also received alerts every time a track changed from my Flash player telling me that "Adobe Flash Player has stopped a potentially unsafe operation." The alert prompts me to change my Flash settings, so when I click Settings as it asks me to, I see the disturbing alert message at right. (I suspect the mashTape extension is at fault, but as a suggested extension, it reflects poorly on the core application whether the extension is at fault or not.)
Remote desktop applications have been around forever, giving power-users and administrators the ability to access and control a computer remotely from any other computer. Today, remote desktop tools aren't just for the power-user or IT admin; they're for anyone who isn't sitting at home or in the office but wants to grab a file from their computer, start or stop a download, or even shut down their system. For this week's Hive Five, we want to hear all about the remote desktop tool or application you count on to get to your system no matter where you are. Keep reading for details and to nominate your app of choice.
Reader and desktop tweaker extraordinaire