Ilium Software Blog

A Good Name is Hard to Find!

July 12, 2006 by Marc

With the recent announcement of the Microsoft Zune I just felt a need to talk about naming products. I’ll give Microsoft a little credit. It’s really hard to name a product these days. Most of the good names are already taken by something. That leaves new products stuck with either made up names or names that squish two words together and pretend that it is one word (yes…we’ve done this too…I know).

Now, some of the made up names end up being quirky cool, like WOOT! and Google. Unfortunately, it seems that this has led big corporations to think that a wacky new word for their product name is the smart way to go.

You got “Getting Things Done” in my ListPro!

July 10, 2006 by Kevin

Ten points to whoever recognizes the advertising throwback in the title. “Getting Things Done” is a methodology developed by one David Allen to help create a ‘trusted system’ for tracking what you need to.. get done.

GTD focuses on helping you dump your brain into this trusted system, so you don’t leave obligations looming in the black uncertainty raincloud over your head. If you don’t have time to read his book, you can probably get a good sense of how the core of GTD works by looking at this flowchart [PDF file, 30KB].

GTD is pretty popular with geeks, probably because it takes quite a bit of fiddling to get it done (geeks love to fiddle with things, in my experience), and because it’s a “Life Hack”, a way of optimizing your life to make things work better.

GTD is also something that is basically a bunch of lists. We make a product called ListPro that is very good at making bunches of lists. So inevitably, the two will collide. For the collision, keep reading after the cut thingy below.

Who’s Going to Denver?

July 10, 2006 by Ellen

By “who” here, I mean which electronics – I’ve picked up the developer habit of at least sometimes calling them “he” or “this guy” (yes, of course they’re male. Here’s the official joke).

Any trip of any kind gets at least a cellphone, 1 PDA (just in case I need a quick game while I’m stuck waiting for something) and my mp3 player. More and more, the pedometer comes along – not only do I like to “get credit” for how much I’m walking, it also has a built-in clock, and since I don’t wear a watch (or always carry the cellphone if I’m just walking around for exercise) that’s very handy. And of course if I’m on a business trip, I also bring a laptop for taking notes and checking email, and usually at least 2 PDAs, just because my business trips are PDA related.
[Read more…] about Who’s Going to Denver?

Meet (yet another one of) the staff!

July 6, 2006 by Lee

I’m Lee, part of the support team, and if you call or email for tech support you will probably get Kevin before you get me, unless you are a bulk-purchaser or one of a select bunch of resellers.

I have been doing tech support of one variety or another for about 15 years, nearly five of those here at Ilium Software. It truly is a great place to work; it’s nice to be around people who are caring and honest, and really believe in what they are doing.

I, too, am a big fan of our software, especially ListPro and eWallet. I use them every day, both at work and home, and wonder how I ever managed without them. Both travel everywhere with me on my Treo 650; it’s so nice to have my information at my fingertips! I save a ton of time by filtering my grocery list to only show the items I need, and then sort it by aisle. Then I print it out and check it off in the store (I really don’t have enough hands to wrangle two active kids, a grocery cart, *and* my Palm — and besides my kids will ask endlessly “Mom, can I play a game on your Palm now?” Out of sight, out of mind). One trip through the store and I’m done. No backtracking to a missed item (this is a really good thing — see previous statement about two active kids…).

Also, since I am calendar-challenged (write it on the calendar and promptly forget it), I use a running list of appointments, events, reminders, etc. in ListPro. Since I am constantly referring to it for one reason or another, I don’t miss appointments anymore. When an event is past, I check it off to make it hidden, but I can easily look back and say “When was that?”.

Did someone encourage me to write about our software? No. Do I recommend it to friends, and even people I don’t know? Yup. It’s good stuff, and it just works.

Screen Resolution Rant VS. Samsung Q1:Fight!

July 3, 2006 by Kevin

After writing my little opinion essay on screen resolution, something was missing. “What about the new UMPCs!? Those have tiny screens!”

Actually, they’re not so tiny. The Samsung Q1 for example has a 800×480 screen, which seems small but it’s adequate. Anyone who remembers (or still uses!) the Handheld PC devices will recognize that as a similar format to the famous 640×240 screen, but with more wide and twice the tall.

The problem was, we didn’t have a UMPC to play with so I didn’t have any real-life experience. Well, now we do, and I’ve played with it.

In short, my verdict is: Needs Work. This is on a scale of, “Dismal Failure” to “Sliced Bread”. For a first-revision device in a ‘new field’, Needs Work seems to be a pretty decent assessment. Certainly not a Dismal Failure.

For more details, a quick review, and a picture, read on.

Meet (another) Member of the Staff

July 3, 2006 by Julie

Hi, I’m Julie. I’ve been working at Ilium Software since last September, and I help work on the website and marketing end of things. I also help answer the phones when everyone in support gets swamped. So, if any out there ever calls and gets me, you might not get technical help right away, but I am great at taking messages!

Besides working on the web site here, I am still going to school, online, for a degree in web development, so I am pretty much in front of a computer screen either here or at home, about 12 hours a day. Of course, I’m not complaining, really – I’m glad that there is such a thing as online school. I don’t know if I would be able to work here and attend a traditional college – there just isn’t much flexibility in on-site schools, but the Internet is always open.

I have to admit, before I started working at Ilium Software, I didn’t know much at all about PDAs. I mean, I’d heard about them, seen commercials and ads, but I couldn’t have told you the difference between a Pocket PC and a Palm handheld to save my life. Of course, it’s not like they always make it easy out there, as in the new Palm Treo 700w Smartphone, which actually runs a Pocket PC operating system. I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s ever been confused by handheld devices. So I’m really glad that I’m starting to understand more about mobile devices and that I am able to use them when I need to around here – the world is definitely becoming more mobile, and wireless, and all those other technological-type adjectives.

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