Ryan Smith

So on Tuesday of last week I revived an old idea.  I  wanted to create a web app that helps college students trade their textbooks.

Let me explain this idea with an example.

As a student. I want to save as much money as possible. I can do this by not buying my books from the university bookstore. But if I do not buy my books from the bookstore, how then shall i get the required reading material? My solution is to BookUp! So, lets say that I just finished Calculus III and I no longer need my 50lb Calculus book. I go to BookUp, find my Calculus book on the list and then I will create a listing associated with the book. This listing will show the world that I no longer need this book and I wish to give it to a student who does. I could sell it for cash or cashews, it does not matter because BookUp does not assume that much. BookUp is more of a tool to connect students and less of an commerce app. So basically this is a Craig’s List for college textbooks.

Let me know what you internet people think about this idea. . . . And now, in case you missed the link

BookUp

requirements:

• Simplicity
• Group TODOs with projects
• iphone app
• syncs with basecamp
• iCal integration

Things.app

I evaluated this solution first. I was initially drawn into this product by its wonderful use of OSX goodness. They have a very sleek interface that allowed me to quickly understand my data. The work flow is very nice. I start by brain-dumping my tasks to  the inbox and then filtering the inbox into two my granular compartments. Things makes sorting the inbox super simple. I add due dates to all of my TODOs and Things will show me these TODOs on the date of their deadline. They also have a nice container for “someday” projects. My someday box is growing exponentially.

Pros:

1. Interface
2. elegant HUD for adding new todos
3. less money than omnifocus

Cons:

1. No integration with BaseCamp ( for now )

OmniFocus

After 20 days of using Things, i decided to give OmniFocus a shot. The bar was already set really high. Unfortunaltly this may have slanted my opinion. Nevertheless i gave OmniFocus the college try.  OmniFocus is developed by the Omni Group, makers of OmniGraffle - one of my favorite tools. This is probably the reason why OmniFocus is a bust. It is to complex for what i wanted. It seems very powerful, as does the learning curve. Four days into using OmniFocus and one of Einstein’s famous quotes came to mind: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”  It appears that OmniGroup had never considered this when designing OmniFocus.

Cons:

1. Crap interface
2. bloated

bottom line

Things.app !

An interesting approach to a ruby interpreter on the iPhone .

I can not get enough. It seems that frugal is the new lavish these days and what better way to tighten down the hatch then keeping a strict budget. Mint.com will not only will track your expenses it will report them in a intuitive fashion that will enable you to quickly curtail destructive trends in your spending. Oh, and did i mention a brand new

iPhone App.

are you super productive or are you a lazy internet bum-junkie?

As you can see from the picture, i have been doing pretty good (well at least for tonight

goto Sife Labs and track your productivity; if you dare.