Backpack and GTD (Getting Things Done) redux

Patrick has posted his ideas on how he uses Backpack to Get Things Done.

June 27, 2006 in Tips & Tricks

Using Excel to make Backpack-ready tables

This forum post explains how to write an Excel macro that converts an Excel table-range to a Backpack-style table and copies it to the clipboard so you can paste it into the page body or a note.

March 28, 2006 in Tips & Tricks

Getting Things Done with Backpack

A weblog about Getting Things Done has updated an article on using Backpack to Get Things Done. If you’re a proponent of the GTD method do check out the article.

February 6, 2006 in Tips & Tricks

Color code your to-do items (and more)

Here’s a great tip showing you how to color code items in Backpack. You’ll need the Firefox web browser and the Xinha extension, but once you’re all set up it works like a charm. [Thanks Leon!]

December 31, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Holiday Newsletters Made Simple.

Boy, the holidays come faster and faster every year, don’t they? I bet you’d barely digested that Thanksgiving turkey before the first Christmas card arrived in your mailbox. And now there’s only a few days left of the year and you haven’t even sent out your annual family newsletter! Whatever will you do!?

Have no fear, Backpack is near! In a few minutes you can easily create a quick and simple family newsletter to share with all your friends and family, complete with photos and notes that explain just what’s been keeping you so busy this year.

Use Textile markups to insert images into your header body and the notes section, and you can even upload a copy of the newsletter in a Word format for those friends of yours who’d like to hang it on their fridge. Share the URL publicly or keep it private by inviting people to start a Backpack page of their own.

Who says the holidays have to be stressful and tedious? Backpack makes sending out your newsletters easy and fun. And don’t forget to start a Tada list to keep track of all your card recipients!

A big special thanks to our friend Melissa Summers for the pictures she let us borrow of her beautiful family. There’s one holiday newsletter I can’t wait to get!

December 23, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Using Backpack to remind you of mail-in rebates

The Consumerist has a great tip for using Backpack to remind you of mail-in rebates. I’ve been doing this for a while now and have probably saved over $300 that I would have forgotten about before.

December 6, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Backpack and GTD (Getting Things Done)

A nice write-up of using Backpack with the GTD system.

November 28, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Backpack Blackberry Hack

Dave Mabe and O’Reilly were kind enough to allow us to share the chapter on “Using Backpack as Your Mobile Workspace” (PDF) from the Blackberry Hacks book. If you’re a Blackberry fan you’ll love this book. Check it out.

November 9, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

How to use Backpack to take notes for school

Page Sands, a Backpack customer, was kind enough to write up a blog post about how to use Backpack as a total note taking solution while at University. The write-up includes screenshots and techniques to format the notes. Well done, Page! Thanks for putting this together.

August 22, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Content classification badges

Need a quick way to classify your content in to-do lists, notes, etc? Want to be able to quickly spot calls to make, urgent items, work-related to-dos, etc? A Backpack customer just made it easier for everyone: Check out these content classification images that you can add to your to-dos and notes to help keep things even more organized. Great idea and thanks for sharing them!

June 6, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Using Backpack to log calls via caller ID

Ok, now this one even blew us away. We thought we’d considered all possible uses of Backpack until we saw this… Dave is using his caller ID system and a script he wrote to fire off emails to Backpack and log his calls. Amazingly creative. Well done Dave!

Read all about it at Dave’s blog.

May 13, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Tip: Categorize your pages with links

You can use the Links section to tie your Backpack pages together into categories. For example, you could have a page called “People” with links to different authors or thinkers you’re reading about. Or, if you run a small business, you could have a page for each employee or each client/lead you have. Then the page for each person links back to the “People” page, which acts like a directory or portal.

OK we know that’s a little confusing. But for those of you with lots of pages, links take Backpack to a whole new level. Check out this Quicktime movie to see what we mean (1:51 minutes, 4.2MB).

Proud of your linking prowess? Let others know what you’re up to in the Forum.

May 9, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Mac OS X Tip: Using Applescript to pop-up Backpack reminders

Vondrix put together a tutorial (on a public Backpack page, no less), on how you can use Applescript and Apple’s Mail program to pop-up alerts on your Mac when a Backpack reminder comes due. This tip only works with Mac OS X. Thanks Vondrix!

May 8, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Tip: Link image sources in their captions

Here’s a tip to collect images you find online without losing track of where they came from. When you find an image you like, download it to your computer and then upload it to a Backpack page. Then create a link in the caption to where the image came from.

For example, the first rug photo below came from this page. After I uploaded the image to Backpack, I typed this in the caption:

"Source":http://www.spongobongo.com/daxv826a.htm

That created a link called “Source” that goes straight to where I found the photo. I did this for each image, and now I can get details on each rug whenever I want by clicking the “Source” links.

Do you have a great tip to share? Join the growing community of Backpackers in the the forum.

May 5, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

List tip: Create trees with headers and →

You can combine bold headers and an HTML arrow symbol (→) to make trees in your lists. Here’s an example:

To make the bold header items, just wrap them in asterisks: *Bold header* will become Bold header. Then insert → in front of each item you want to indent with an arrow.

May 4, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

REMINDERS: +## to set in minutes or hours

Want to set a reminder in the next 15 minutes? Next 45 minutes? In 2 hours and 30 minutes? You can enter a specific time (7:30pm, for example), or you can pick from the pulldowns, but there’s an easier way. Try this:

+15 Pick up lunch → will set a reminder in 15 minutes.

+45 FedEx the proposal → will set a reminder in 45 minutes.

+2:30 Return the movie → will set a reminder in 2.5 hours.

May 1, 2005 in Power users, Tips & Tricks

Making it easier to remember a page's email address

While the random word##word@backpackit.com email addresses can be tricky to remember, they are there for good reason (it’s much tougher to spam when there are tens of thousands of possible combinations to shuffle through before you get a direct hit).

However, there’s an easy to way to remember.

Add your page’s email addresses to your computer or cell phone’s address book and then give them your own names (“BP” as the first name and whatever you want for the last name). For example:

"BP Home" for your Backpack home page
"BP Vacation" for the page you made for your vacation
"BP Quotes" for your favorite quotes page
"BP Receipts" for your e-commerce email receipts page

…and so on.

So, instead of having to remember that john34kris@backpackit.com is your home page’s email address, you can just remember BP Home.

April 30, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

Adding a simple table to a page

Need to add some tabular data to a page body or note? If you know HTML you can create your own tables and table styles, but if you don’t, or if you prefer speed over HTML coding, then read on…

If you separate text with | then you can make a simple table. For example:

|Sunday|Monday|Tuesday|Wednesday|Thursday|Friday|Saturday| |11|12|13|14|15|16|17|

Will be displayed as:

April 25, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

PAGES: Adding content to a page via email

Backpack makes it easy to add content to any Backpack page via email (watch as video to see it in action).

Every Backpack page has a unique email address. You can find the email address at the bottom of a page. The email address is usually a random word followed by a number followed by another word (ex: john87mary@backpackit.com).

Adding a note to a page via email

If you want to send a note to a page, compose an email to that page’s email address and begin the subject of the email with “note:”. Next, finish the subject with the title of the note and then fill the email body with the body of the note. The note will then be added to the “Notes” section on the Backpack page you emailed. Here’s an example:

Adding a to-do to a page via email

If you want to add a to-do to a page, compose an email to that page’s email address and begin the subject of the email with “todo:”.

At this point you have two options: 1: If you only want to add one to-do you can just add it after the “todo:” subject or 2. If you want to add multiple to-dos at once, don’t add anything after the subject but instead add multiple to-dos (each on its own line and each starting with an asterisk and then a space like “* The item name”) in the body of the email. The to-dos will then be added to the “List” section on the Backpack page you emailed. Here’s an example of both methods:

Adding an image to a page via email

Emailing an image to a Backpack page couldn’t be easier. Just create a new email, attach as many images in GIF, JPG, or PNG format as you’d like, and address the email to the page you want to add the images to. The subject of the email and any text in the email will be stripped out. The images will then be added to the “Images” section on the Backpack page you emailed. Here’s an example of an email:

Adding a file to a page via email

Emailing an file to a Backpack page is simple. Just create a new email, attach as many files as you’d like, and address the email to the page you want to add the files to. The subject of the email and any text in the email will be stripped out. The files will then be added to the “Files” section on the Backpack page you emailed. Here’s an example of an email:

April 24, 2005 in Power users, Tips & Tricks

SETTINGS: Changing your Backpack color

Did you know you can change your Backpack color scheme? Just click on the Settings link (upper right corner inside your Backpack) and scroll down the page. You’ll see 12 (or more) color options. Just click the button below the color you want, click the “save changes” button, and your entire Backpack will take on the new color. You can change your colors as often as you want (note: you have to choose from the preset color options, you can’t add your own at this time).

April 23, 2005 in Tips & Tricks

REMINDERS: Shortcut for adding a reminder today

Did you know you can insert a time before a reminder to set that reminder for a specific time today?

For example:

6:45pm Pick up dry cleaning → will set a reminder for 6:45pm today.
9am FedEx the proposal → will set a reminder for 9am today.
19:30 Return the movie → will set a reminder for 19:30 (7:30pm) today.

You can use either 12-hour or 24-hour format. If you use 12-hour, there can't be a space between the time and the am/pm ("9:30am" will work but "9:30 am" will not).

April 22, 2005 in Power users, Tips & Tricks