I need a Task Manager
2007-12-25 8:51:00
To briefly recap... when last we met... I needed some sort of a task
manager utility to track my various tasks/projects as unix/network
system administrator. I am pretty much a one man team so task sharing
capabilities are not overly useful.
I got a bunch of replies, many more Me-To's than solutions, many whom said
things like "Hey man, how did you get my job description!?", so I guess a
lot of people are in the same boat. Solutions ran in 2 broad categories,
makeshift and sophisticated special purpose utilities. I'm going to list
the makeshift solutions first, not because they're the best, but just
because they're short and simple. Be sure to read down to the sophisticated
solutions for the real answers.
MAKESHIFT SOLUTIONS:
-------------------
Mailtool:
Make sure people mail you task requests and don't move it
from your main mailbox till you're done. Well, that's basically
what I've been doing for the last couple of years. I was looking
for something a little more sophisticated.
System menu and vi:
Add a line to your .openwin-menu that calls vi which
opens a file called ToDo. Yea, okay... NEXT!
xrolo: I don't thinks so; a good rolodex but not a task manager.
Calendar Manager:
This is really only good for saying what you think you'll do on
a given date or what you actually did in the past. It doesn't
carry unfinished task to the current day.
SOPHISTICATED SOLUTIONS:
------------------------
zorro: a tcl/tk application. This is supposed to be a pretty good X-app
that fills my wish list but I didn't bother with it because I
didn't want to load all of the tcl/tk stuff. If you've already
got that stuff loaded this may be a perfect solution for you.
Written by Lindsay Marshall
ftp://catless.ncl.ac.uk/pub/zorro.tar.gz
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Programs/Zorro/
gnats: Unix tool with emacs interface for editing. Tasks submitted by
email; data stored in flat files.
I grabbed this and looked at it. It's from the gnu people
so it's probably very good. I did not bother to compile it after
I read the README and various other info files. It appears to
be a big, powerful, system solution, a solution for a fairly
large support group that needs to share a large numbers of tasks.
Probably extreme overkill for a one man team.
I seem to have misplaced the ftp site... archie for it.
qcalc: Lotus clone that runs on Sparc. Very basic, shows task, date
entered, days open. ETA, who requested.
I get the impression this user must be using a spreadsheet
template he wrote himself, it's not quite clear. Sounds like
a border-line solution to me although it appears to work for
him. I discarded it based on the sole fact that Qcalc costs $.
scopus: No details were included. I didn't bother to archie.
taskman:
This task manager, written by Diarmuid Coyle, has a lot of promise.
It was written in Xview so it looks like a standard sun xapp. It
has a nice email interface for receiving tasks and replying to
requests. It was actually quite feature rich. And I like the fact
that it doesn't assume I have TCL or perl already running on my
machine. I had a little trouble getting it to run and when I did
it lost the first 5 tasks I entered, although I suspect it was
probably my fault, not sure what happened. Worth looking into...
Diarmuid was ready with helpful replies and might consider fixing up
the few existing bugs if you ask real nice. :-)
No FTP site: either ask Diarmuid to email you a copy or you can
ask me if you want.
plod: Sorry, I just didn't get around to checking this one out yet,
although I plan to! It is a perl script, so, if you don't have
perl loaded and don't plan to... forget it. Supposed to be quite
good. I don't have much else to say about it. Check it out.
ftp.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
/pub/archive/comp.sources/misc/plod
xvtdl: (XView To-Do List) THIS IS THE ONE I'VE DECIDED TO ACTUALLY USE
FOR NOW. It lacks a lot of the sophistication of the other
applications like gnats, zorro, and taskman but it's small, clean,
easy-to-use, and seems to serve my needs, although it may well be
insufficient for many. I haven't decided yet. It contains a small
calander (about an inch by and inch and a half) that resides in
the main window. You can assign specific tasks to specific dates
like in calander manager but this tool is smart enough to carry
unfinished tasks forward. It allows you to set priority levels
and to check things off as they're done. It also has some logging,
printing and display features. It does not allow for task sharing
nor does it have any mail interface, which would be really nice.
Oh well, a mail interface is mentioned in the TODO file. Maybe soon.
Said to be found at: sunsite.unc.edu
I actually managed to find it at: ftp.bl.physik.tu-muenchen.de
By The Way: One person mentioned a discussion group aimed at single
administrator sites which he suggests is perfect for discussing
this sort of issue. If you're interested...
Post your message to: sage-solo@usenix.org
To subscribe, send mail to majordomo@usenix.org
with a message body of "subscribe sage-solo".
MANY MANY THANKS TO:
--------------------
lowery@fv.com "Carlyn M. Lowery"
brett@erm.oz.au "Brett Newton-Palmer"
digioia@sybase.com "David Di Gioia"
dpc@metagen.co.uk "Diarmuid Coyle"
zaitcev@lab.ipmce.su "Pete A. Zaitcev"
fgreco@lehman.com "Frank Greco"
david@capmkt.com "David Mostardi"
bshaw@soleil.spdc.ti.com "Bob Shaw"
tkevans@eplrx7.es.dupont.com "Tim Evans"
Sure hope I didn't forget anyone...
-drp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ | Dan Penrod - Unix Administrator |
| _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ | USGS Center for Coastal Geology |
| _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/ | St. Petersburg, FL 33701 |
| _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ | (813)893-3100 ext.3043 |
|_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ | penrod@whiplash.er.usgs.gov |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Comments
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
