Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Google Tasks Standalone!

Google Tasks is known and loved by many of us, but one problem with it--at least with me, anyway--is that Tasks is only able to be edited through a Gmail window. All you need to do it is enable it in Google Labs.

Unbenownst to many of us, Google has surreptitiously launched a standalone version of Google Tasks: no more wasting RAM to hold a Gmail window just to read your tasks!

It is located at http://mail.google.com/tasks/ig.

There are many ways to make this standalone; the way I am using right now is through Firefox's Prism application.

Because I use Ubuntu, I use the (to me) easier, downloadable Prism app: just do sudo apt-get install prism in the terminal and apt-get will automatically download the prism application. (Remember, this is ONLY for Ubuntu and other systems that support apt-get, not Windows. Windows users should go to the above link for Firefox.)

Of course, if you don't have Firefox or anything, you can use Google Chrome's "create a standalone application" tool or just keep the Tasks open in a tab or window.

Feel free to comment about how YOU organize your tasks, and if you found this useful or interesting.

Update: Someone has found out a slick way for Windows users to integrate these tasks on to their desktop. His post is as follows, and is located at here.

"What I did was right click on my windows taskbar and go to the Toolbars> submenu, click on the 'New Toolbar…' button.
In the field for the location, just past the link:
https://mail.google.com/tasks/ig
And press Enter.
Then you will see a new toolbar on your windows taskbar (it may be collapsed). Now take that toolbar and drag it to your desktop. It will create a window on your desktop.
This window will always load with windows, and if you logged in with internet explorer and saved your passwords and username for your gmail account, then it will log in automatically.
What’s nice is it sits on your computer and loads up to remind you what to do and I believe there’s an option to even make it sit on top of all windows if you like."

[TipsFor.Us]