This week’s Tech Tip is written by our guest blogger, Elizabeth Bowman, President of Innovatively Organized.

Are tasks slipping through the cracks? Feeling overwhelmed by all the responsibilities on your plate?  There are lots of tools to help you manage your to-do list, but how do you know which tools are best?  You’re in luck!  At Innovatively Organized we have put together a list of 4 tools to help you manage your to-do list electronically.  Now, you will be able to access your tasks from home, the office, or on the go from an Internet browser or your mobile device!

Keep in mind, it’s not about having the perfect to-do list, it is about picking a tool that will work for you and using it consistently.

1. TeuxDeux

Compatible with:

• iPhone or iPad

• Internet

• Mac or PC

Highlights:

• Simple design

• Basic list tracker

• Cross out tasks when complete

• Moves un-finished items to the next day automatically

Toodle Do's Interface

2. Toodledo

Compatible with:

• iPhone, iPad, Palm, Blackberry, Droid

• Internet

• Ability to sync with Outlook & TaskAngel

• Has ability to print to-do list neatly

Highlights:

• Comprehensive and robust features

• Offers ability to delegate and email tasks directly

• Can filter and run reports on tasks

• Includes a timer to help you stay on task

3. TaskAngel

Compatible with:

• Native PC software download

• Ability to sync with Toodledo

Highlights:

• Matches Toodledo’s comprehensive task tracking details

• Runs fast on your PC helping you stay productive easily

• Can export your to-do list to Excel

4. 2Do

Compatible with:

• iPhone & iPad

• Ability to sync with Toodledo

Highlights:

• Option to color-code tasks by category

• Provides tabs in the interface on an iPhone and iPad

• Has lots of fields to enter your tasks easily from a mobile device

For more organizing and productivity tips, check out the Innovatively Organized blog!

Do you listen to either music or audio books on your iPhone or iPad as you fall asleep? If so, you could set the iPhone or iPad’s timer to put the device to sleep when the timer expires. Here are instructions.

• Open the Clock application your iOS device (iPhone or iPad)
• Click on the Timer button
• Spin the hour and minute dials to the desired time, such as 30 minutes or 1 hour.
• Click on the “When Timer Ends” button and scroll to the bottom of the list of options and select “Sleep iPod”
• Click the Start button to start the timer.
• Click the Home button to exit the Clock application.
• Open the iPod application and listen to your music or audiobook.

When your timer ends, your iPhone or iPad will go to sleep.

Are you looking for an easy way to share files with your colleagues who use a mix of Macs and PCs? There are many online file sharing and storage systems, but I use and recommend DropBox. I’ve tried a handful of systems including MobileMe’s iDisk, SugarSync, Windows LiveMesh, Box.net and GoogleDocs. While I use several of these services on an on-going basis I think DropBox is the most versatile and has the best mix of features that I use and care about.

Here’s a list of some of my needs.

• I want a fast, affordable, easy-to-use and secure system. I want to keep the files locally on my computer and have them get copied (synced) to my colleagues Mac or PC.
• I want to be able to share different folders with different people.
• I want to be able to access the shared folders and some of the files from my iPhone and iPad.

Dropbox meets all of these needs and has many other handy features. Here are some highlights.

• It provides status indicators when files are getting synced and optional on-screen notification messages when files have been added, deleted or edited.
• It saves older versions of files so you can retrieve a previous version.
• It lets you view your shared folders and files from their web site so you can access any file from any computer which has an Internet connection.
• If two people simultaneously edit the same file it’s smart enough to save both copies and point out this conflict.
• Files stored in DropBox can be accessed on iPhones, iPads, Blackberries, Android-based phones and tablets
• There is a special Public folder which can be used to share a file with the entire world, if you want. Any file in the public folder has a “public link” which can be put in an email or on a web site to provide an easy way for others to download this file. This is a handy way to share a file that is too large to send as an email attachment.

Dropbox is capable and versatile, but it’s not as robust as a full-fledged file server to which you might be accustomed. In particular it’s important to know that you can’t share a folder inside another shared folder. Instead you would need to create a separate shared folder outside of the shared folder. Anyone you’ve invited to a folder can then add, delete or change files within that folder. Anyone you’ve invited to a folder can then invite others to join the folder. As the owner of the folder you can see the list of people who have access and you can revoke somebody’s access privileges at any time.

You can try Dropbox for free. A free account includes 2 GB of storage space. If or when you outgrow that 2 GB of storage space you can buy more storage space. 50 GB of storage space costs $100 per year or 100 GB of storage space costs $200 per year. Give Dropbox a try. I think you’ll like it.

As expected, in January Apple announced their first tablet computer. They call it the iPad. What is the iPad able to do and how is it innovative compared to PC tablets?

The iPad is a new class of device at least for Mac users. It’s a tablet computer and it fits somewhere in between a smartphone and a laptop. PC manufacturers have made tablets for over a half dozen years. These tablets typically required users to use a stylus or an on-screen keyboard for input and never sold well since they cost as much or more than a comparable laptop. The iPad differs from these PC tablets in two obvious ways. The iPad is a touch-input device and it costs less than a Mac laptop. The price range for iPads is $499 to $829 depending upon features and storage capacity. One primarily uses finger gestures and an on-screen keyboard to control the iPad.

The iPad is a versatile device that could replace a laptop for some users. This initial model’s strengths are in entertainment. It’s oriented towards consuming data not producing data. It’s capable of letting you listen to music, view photos and watch movies like an iPod and read books like a Kindle. It also has the ability to send and receive email messages and view web pages like an iPhone or a laptop. It also lets you view web sites and access your email. To increase typing speeds one can buy a special full-size external keyboard or use an external bluetooth keyboard. For a thorough description of what the iPad can and can not do, please refer to this MacInTouch article.

There are some important limitations and omissions based on the information that Apple has currently released about the iPad. While it’ll let you view and compose email messages, it’s unclear if you’ll be able to edit attachments. Apple has not indicated that it’ll be able to print. Curiously, it does not include a camera though it seems likely that this’ll be adding in the future.

The iPad’s ability to handle Word and Excel documents is unclear. Not surprisingly Microsoft has not had time to develop versions of Word and Excel for the iPad. Apple has announced special iPad versions of Pages and Numbers but how versatile they’ll be remains to be seen. It’s unknown if they’ll be able to open and edit Word and Excel files.

Over the coming years the iPad will evolve and eventually could become a suitable replacement for a laptop for business users if these shortcomings are addressed but currently it only seems that it’ll replace a laptop for more casual users whose primary uses for a laptop are personal email, viewing web pages and handling music, photos and movies.