iWork '09 and iWork.com after three days

iWork '09 (and then mainly Pages) for the last couple of days. Sharing documents with others through iWork.com. I'm pretty pleased with the possibilities of this service, since it also seems to perform very well on the receiver side (web).

It's nice to discuss a document online with others, however I can see that the service isn't finished yet. Actually, I dare to say that the whole iWorks'09+iWork.com package is not ready for full collaborative working.

It starts with the uploading of the Pages document. Does it need to go through a cloud? Why not just implement a Peer-to-Peer collaboration like Coding Monkey's SubEthaEdit?
But I can see that there's revenue in a cloud service for Apple, and of course the documents are available when the author isn't (which is not the case for peer-to-peer sharing). So, I can overcome the extra cloud option.

The downloading options are of course very nice, I do not need to keep a word or pdf document next to my Pages document anymore. It's converted along the way (although I fail to understand why a Pages document is so much bigger than a doc or pdf even).

The commenting and "chatting" in the iWork shared document area is great, however there is no way for the author to directly edit the document. Also here, I can see that this is not needed (or even desired!) for the shared online document. But additionally there is currently NO way to "sync" comments back into the original Pages document.

Say for instance I send a document to my manager for review. He has some comments and we discuss these online. All fine, but in the end, there are a few items that need changing, and those comments should be available in the "offline" version as well! At least iWork '09 should retrieve the comments when I load the Pages document and highlight the areas, showing the active comment in a sidebar or HUD of some sort.

Now, I need to keep Safari open, and flip back and forth between original and shared document to check for comments and change accordingly.

Annoying, especially when you have a large document with lots of comments.

So, please Apple add the above functionality in iWork '09 and I'm a very happy puppy :-)

Additionally, some way of user management would be nice. Maybe I want my manager to be able to edit the document, but someone else only viewing/commenting. Those changes can then be synced back and marked into the original document by iWork '09. 

By the way, did you know iWork.com also has an iPhone optimized site? Unfortunately it is then only possible to view the shared document, you cannot add any comments to it. Still, it's okay for quickly reviewing smaller documents while on the road, I guess.

Tools for (non)productivity

I never got the "Getting Things Done" hype. Bought the book, read it, thought "okay, that's kind of logical" and never truly adapted the GTD way of working. I'm more of a "Getting Things the Fuck Done" person. Henry Rollins Style. Mike Atherton aka Sizemore knows all about it (the image is his design), and just like me he's fat and wears glasses (sorry Mike ;-)). Just get your shit done. That's it.

But the GTD hype does spin off some nice tools to make life a bit easier. Here's a top 3 of tools I dig:

Remember The Milk. Yes, rule nr1 of the GTD is to write shit down. Clear your mind for useful stuff. True, but this attitude is what ruined our educational system and now kids can no longer calculate. Because they used a calculator.. since then you could use your brains for something else. No, try to keep your brain active is more important, I think. Nonetheless, there is only so much you can remember and sometimes there are things you need to do but are not urgent enough to keep in your RAM. This is where RtM is good at. Keep your tasks available. It's online, and gadget freaks like me love the iPhone or mobile interface. Keep it with you all the time, everywhere.

Evernote, another online tool. Not so much to help with organizing your tasks, but you can dump everything in it. Scraps, snapshots etc. I mainly use it to store my registration codes of software and business card snapshots (taken with my iPhone and Griffin iClarifi case, of course). You can share your evernotes too. nice interface, slick use, although the iPhone app could use a speed bump. Evernote has replaced Yojimbo for me.

drop.io, like evernote, you can store everything (almost literally everything). But it goes further than this. People can add anything to your drop as well (if you allow them to). Better yet: drop.io announced that they'll open up a managed drop tool soon, which will make collaboration a breeze. I signed up for their alpha test period and hope to be able to start using drop.io in class or with co-workers and use another drop for photography, etc. It's private, secure, non-searchable by google. Great stuff.

This is my top 3. Do you have any other tools?

Of course this post should not go without mention to posterous.com. The easiest and best blogging system available.