Productivity Archives - The Tech Savvy SMB

TickTick Takes Task Management To New Levels

I have been a long term premium Todoist user for many years and I do not anticipate that changing. However, due to lockdown boredom, I have started looking at other productivity software after watching some videos on the excellent Keep Productive YouTube channel run by Francesco D’Alessio, including Notion and TickTick.

Notion I just could not get my head around, but I think that probably that says more about my head than Notion. TickTick, however, offered a tantalising alternative to conventional task managers and I have spent some time watching YouTube reviews and tutorials and written reviews.

Adios Evernote, Hello Nimbus?

by Kevin Tea

Right now there is a lot of disappointment and frustration with Evernote, feelings that I share as I have been a long-term Evernote user since 2008 and am far from happy with the direction my once must-have service is going. I won’t go too much into the reasons but suffice to say the latest V10 offering has taken away some functionality, including the vital backing up of all notes via a right-click. Also, the drag n drop files into a new note functionality disappeared for quite some time but that has, thankfully, been restored.

I never really thought I would have to do this, but I have decided to look around for a new service and I believe I have found it with Nimbus Note.

Newton Launches First Major Update After Takeover

by Kevin Tea

Newton Email

Newton email has released its first major update since the service was acquired by Justin Mitchell and Maitrik Kataria from the previous owner after a troubled Flightline. In an email to users, Maitrik says: ” We are super happy to announce the update for Newton mail across all platforms. This release is a huge milestone for us. Our work for the past quarter has helped us create a solid base for the future ahead. After building up the team from scratch, including our wonderful support team, we have slowly progressed towards gaining an understanding of millions of lines of Newton code and the complexities involved.”

Planning For Effective Video Meetings

by Kevin Tea

It looks like coronavirus is here for the long haul and despite lockdowns being lifted – and reintroduced – the bean counters in companies are looking at the advantages of ditching large, corporate headquarters and allowing employees to work from home. Total breaking up of the workforce is not always possible, but one London company is actively looking at ditching its expensive West End office, working out where geographically its employees live and creating regional hubs for presence meetings between the team and the clients.

Many years ago, I handled the public relations for a London-based virtual office company and then took on the marketing communications for is international counterpart The Global Office Network. Whether or not these virtual offices can handle a surge in business I have no idea, but I can predict the big property landlords are going to catch a cold. The proliferation of services such as Zoom, Webex and Google Meet means that working from home does not equate to working alone, but there is a fair bit of groundwork to be done before video meetings can operate satisfactorily.

Google Meet And Jitsi – Free Zoom Alternatives

by Kevin Tea

A few weeks ago I published a post criticising Google Meet. I owe Google an apology and expose myself as a total moron for failing to work through the obvious steps to getting it to work. When I first started to play with Meet I could not get it to work at all on Chrome.

Five weeks on I started trying it in Firefox and it worked. Once I gave the browser permission to use the camera and microphone in my webcam, it worked perfectly. I tried the same in the new Microsoft Edge browser and it bombed. This is where I made the important discovery and realised I had failed to go through the first, basic steps if something isn’t working in a browser.