Finding the best web to-do list software that works for your day-to-day need is a very hard taks to accomplish. There are so many variable involved (features, layout, devices compatibility, etc..) plus the fact that most geeks have the weird tendency to enjoy setting-up the best productivity system, so we are naturally attracted to searching for a new option for minimal reasons.

Toodledo is very complete, yet simple. On the web version, its inline editing capabilities gives you the flexibility to adapt your process to the day-to-day. In my personal experience, it is very difficult to stick to the full GTD methodology every day. Sometimes I just need a very basic punch list that can be pulled from my dozens of outstanding taks, and staring them in Toodledo is a very handy way to do it. Adding priorities is also a snap.

When you have more time to organize your activities, Toodledo also offers advanced features, such as tagging, organizing in folders, collaboration, contexts, calendar view, and much more.

Another great thing about this online application is its omnipresence. For me, to have a single inbox for my system, it is essential to have it everywhere. I personally have it on the following formats: the web, iPhone app, mobile version for my BlackBerry, Firefox sidebar and as a gadget on Gmail. This way I find it hard not to have it around when recording a new task or checking what's next to be done.

The only thing I don't like about Toodledo is it's design on the web version. I don't understand why they chose the purple-yellow combination, but I was told once that you cannot judge other's taste. In any case, I found a quick fix for that. You need to first install the Stylish Firefox add-on and then add the "Toodledo by Nonimage" style. Toodledo staff: if you read this post, I suggest you addapt you default design to Nonimage's version.

Toodledo is free, although after one month using it I decided to pay USD $14.95 for the Pro account. The main reason that motivated my decision was the ability to keep my completed tasks for 2 years (the basic version keeps it for a week) and the Subtasks feature. However, you also get a foldable print booklet, statistics, and the inovative "Scheduler":

The Scheduler is useful for when you are feeling indecisive or don't have the energy or motivation to be as productive as you could be. All you need to do is specify how much time you have available to work and Toodledo will tell you what to do. Toodledo analyzes your due-dates, priorities, time estimates, last modified dates, and other characteristics to determine the best use of your time. If you have 2 hours free, Toodledo can pick the tasks from your list that will be the most effective usage of your time.

The iPhone app costs USD $1.99 and is a very well built and easy to use piece of software.

Will Toodledo be the best task manager for you too? It's hard to tell. If you are like me, you'll probably want to test other options as well. Check this very detailed table provided on Toodledo's web site for a comparison with the competition.

... and on my favorite task manager: Create post about Toodledo - DONE

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Pixton is a new web application that allows you to create, publish and share comic strips online. According to the description on the site:

With our click-and-drag comic creator you can easily customize characters, move them into any pose, and compose up to 12 rows of scenes right on the page. Embed them in your blog or social network and get your friends to remix them. Make friends and fans around the world and connect through automatic translation.

The automatic translations are available in 40+ languages.

Pixton is free, and a Pro account is being planned to be released soon (for an annual fee), including the ability to animate the stories.

Try Pixton here.

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If you are reading this blog, you probably have several accounts for your many social streams: Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Friendfeed, and the list keeps growing. Let's not forget about your RSS feeds as well!

To facilitate the process of accessing all my information, I recently started playing with EventBox, an excellent software for Mac OS that does a great job in aggregating and displaying the streams from these services. As a cloud computing addict, I soon realized I needed something that I could setup once and than access it not only from my iMac, but also from my eee PC and my office Vista machine.

After some research, the best option I found was Streamy. It is a very well designed aggregator that allows you to setup all your services and RSS feeds, and than customize it as you would on Netvibes or iGoogle. It also allows you to setup your Google Talk, MSN Live and AOL accounts, so you don't need to have Meebo running on a separate tab.

The interface is very sleek, and most actions are done through intuitive drag-and-drop operations. You can choose from 3 beautiful skins: Aqua, Onyx (similar to Twitter Deck) or Alum (to integrate well with Safari).

Try Streamy here.

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Me-trics is a tool that allows you to log different aspects of your life. It can serve the purpose of just keeping you motivated by forcing yourself to be disciplined about a specific task, or it can also provide analysis and correlations between different activities.

The default areas for entering data are: Health Items, Exercise and Consumption. However, you can create new sets if you want. Inside these categories, you can track the most diverse things, including the amount of beer consumed, # of push-ups. Twitter followers, mood and much more. The service also provides automatic integration with Flickr and Last.fm, in case you want to track the # of photos posted or music listened to.

Once you enter the data (from the web site only for now - an iPhone app is currently under development), you can create reports or set-up RSS feeds. You might want to check how the progression was overtime or check correlations for the different metrics you track.

Me-trics is free and you can sign-up using your Google account here.

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With today's overload of information, I'm almost positive that you don't have enough time to read everything you would like to. Zap Reader is a web application that tries to help you in this herculeous task.

Here's how it works: you access ZAP Reader from your web browser, paste the text you want to read into a box and click "Zap it!". The application will be launched, and after you hit play you will start seeing a word-by-word flow into your screen that is supposed to help you go through the content faster.

If you go to settings, you can define the number of simultaneous words you see, the speed, font size and color. To facilitate the copy/paste process, you can add a Bookmarklet to your favorites, so whenever you are reading an article, you just select the text and hit this button. The company also offers integration with different blogging tools and is currently deveolping plug-ins for MS Word and Outlook.

On my personal experience, I didn't find it helped much. Perhaps my ability to concentrate is not good enough for this tool. However, I did find the idea very interesting and will probably try again later with a more interesting article and some tweaked settings.

Zap Reader is free and you can access it here.

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You can share your maps with other people, and Google Chat integration is available to enhance real time collaboration. Another handy feature available is the ability to define different parts of your map to be exported and shown as a presentation.

Although Dropmind is an online application (based on MS Silverlight), you can download the desktop software (Windows, Mac and Linux - Ubuntu) and sync your work with your online account, if you don´t want to rely on your connection or will use it on your next flight.

Try Dropmind here.

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I remember very well how desperate I wanted to get my hands on one of the limited invitation-only accounts they offered. I am feeling the same way now for Wave.

Wave is a web application that combines e-mail, IM, collaboration tools and much more.

According to Google:

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

As described on this article from Computerworld:

Wave represents Google's answer to the emergence of streaming, or real-time, internet applications, as evidenced primarily by the rise of social networks.

It might seem ordinary at first, but once you learn more about it, you realize it is really game-changing.  View the video below (a very long one, so you may want to skip some parts) or access the official page to learn more about Wave. According to Google, it will not be available until the end of this year.

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Visio killer Creately is a free web application that allows you to draw and colaborate on different types of documents, including: Mindmaps, Flowcharts, SWOT diagrams, Organizational Charts, Wiereframes for websites, and much more.

According to their self-description:

You'll find Creately - Online Diagramming and Designs a joy to use. Its designed for simplicity and collaboration. The platform flexes and adapts to the kind of drawing and design you are doing. It takes 'easy' to a whole new level.

A Whole New Level Of Easy - We've put in a ton of great features, but kept the interface simple and neat. Our smart objects and stencils come with contextual features that only appear when you need them. And all this goodness right in your Internet browser.

Instant Collaboration - Comment, Share, Email, Publish and Export your online diagrams and designs right from Creately. And we're not just talking about JPGs here - you can export to PDF or XML to take your data out and more.

Growing Base Of Design Objects - Our smart objects have built-in behaviour and understand why they are on the canvas. With smarts objects for business, design and technical diagrams, you can do more with less.

Diagrams With Smarts - Now your diagrams and designs are not just pictures but data driven visual representations. Enter and export text or data from your designs to bring your designs to life. Update the data in your designs and watch your designs evolve.

Creately is developed by an Australian start-up company called Cinergix.

Start your free account here.

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Schedule events - find the ideal date via a simple scheduling poll.

Make Choice (please see screenshot above, deciding on what type of movie to go) - make the ideal choice by asking people their opinion.

Conduct Survey - conduct an anonymous opinion survey.

Create to-do lists - work efficiently with a shared ToDo-list.

The sign-up is extremely easy and the interface is beautiful and effective. The Swiss company also claims that takes care of data with extreme care, so users don't need to worry about using Moreganize as a corporate tool.

According to their website:

Moreganize is especially useful for groups of people who do not have access to a personal electronic date book/calendar (i.e. Outlook).

I do think the tool goes beyond that, since the other 3 modules are not offered by Outlook and might be very useful for teams of different sizes.

Moreganize is free. Try it here.

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Shutterborg is a free word processor that runs entirely in your web browser. Instead of using expensive desktop software, Shutterborg makes life easy by allowing you to edit documents online for free. It's easy to get started - just click an option from the list on the right.

Shutterb.org doesn't offer colaboration features nor storage for your files. However, there are 2 things I liked about it:

1 - Its simplistic, pleasant design. It is just simple and elegant. In a few second you are using it. No sign-ups involved. Also, the buttons are beautiful and bring intuitive functionalities.

2 - You can open and edit a web page simply by typing its URL. This might be a very handy solution for many occasions, since you can save the page later as HTML, DOC or PDF, or switch to the "code" view and copy the edited HTML code.

The option to upload a file, although offered, brings a message that it is still under development.

If you are looking for a nice and simple alternative to create your next word document, you should definetly try Shutterb.org.

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