Hasta La Ideas

Local Motors‘ Strati, the world’s first 3D printed car.

Last week, Las Vegas played host to Autodesk University, Autodesk’s annual gathering—part conference, part continuing education—for 9,000 professional designers, engineers and animators. Below is a summary of some of the big ideas and themes that will be shaping the conversation around making in 2015.

It’s alive!
Design is a living process that lives past the moment of creation—a key theme for this year’s Autodesk University. From featured speakers and workshop presenters to the company’s CTO and CEO, the message was clear: we are moving swiftly past the Internet of Things, where devices interact with us, toward a broader, more complex and, ultimately, more valuable Community of Things, where products interact with each other and respond collaboratively to the environments in which they exist.

Jeff Kowalski, Chief Technology Officer and SVP, Autodesk

Hardware is hot, hot, hot.
Three elements in the design process and manufacturing are supporting the innovation that will drive this evolution—an evolution that’s not just on the way, it’s already here. First, the advancement of 3D printing, micro-molding, capital and funding options means that production is more flexible and robust than ever before. Second, demand is continuing to grow from “a few sizes fit all” to individual customization (see Normal’s custom-fit ear buds after the jump). And finally, our attitudes towards products are changing. For a variety of reasons—sustainability, cost, our own hyper-individualized mentalities and even our desire to create better communities—we are starting to expect that products will be responsive, change and get better over time.

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Après les pochettes d’album, nous avons décidé de tourner la page sur cette année riche en cinéma pour se préparer à 2015 en partageant avec vous notre sélection des plus beaux posters de films. Des posters que nous avons vu passer en 2014, pour des films révélés cette année ou qui sortiront en 2015 sur nos écrans français, à découvrir dans la galerie.

The Booklamp is an energy efficient and sustainable lamp, handmade of wood and copper. A LED light is incorporated in the armature, which will last at..

We’ve covered some nice productivity software over the years, like TeuxDeux and Due. Today, I want to point out Todoist, not only because it’s nearly ubiquitous, attractive, and effective, but because it has two features I think are really great. The following reasons are why Todoist is the digital project manager that has my attention these days.

It’s everywhere

Okay, so this isn’t one of the cool tricks but it’s something very much worth mentioning. Todoist boasts that it’s available on 13 platforms and devices. I’ve been using it on my Mac and iPhone, but you’ll also find options for Android and Windows, plus extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Outlook, Gmail and more. In my experience, synchronization between my computer and phone is lightning fast.

Import and export

Todoist lets you make color-coded projects and tasks, complete with tags, due dates, repeating events and so much more. It’s great-looking and effective. What’s really cool is its ability to import and export templates.

Here’s how this time-saving feature works:
When you create a new project, it’ll probably have several steps that must be ticked off before the thing can be marked as done. You can be really thorough, like me, and add due dates, contexts, color coding and more. Sometimes there will be a project that you’ll do over and over. A good example is the podcast I run at 5by5. Each week I go through the exact same steps, from scheduling to research and publication. I could add those steps to a project week after week, or I could just use a template.

Once a project is set up exactly how you like it, select “Export template” from within Todoist. It converts all those steps into a simple text file, with all my customization intact. I can store it wherever I want, and opting to import it sets up that project all over again, and all I had to do was click a single command.

There’s a great post on the Todoist blog that features several templates that are ready to import and use, including holiday gift shopping, pre-Christmas organizing, a holiday party plan, and even one for travel. I’m using the Christmas organization one now, and have saved the travel template for the future. This feature saves me so much time.

Karma points

I promised you two tricks, and the second one is something I should not like as much as I do. As you complete tasks, Todoist awards you with “karma points.” The more you use the app, the more points you receive. There are several ranks to earn and a pretty chart. Ignore the app or fail to complete tasks on time, and you’ll start to lose points. Yes, it’s 100 percent gimmicky and silly, but I totally get excited when I see my point total climb.

There are a huge number of project management apps available, and Todoist is only one of them. But I love its clean looks, near ubiquitous access and fantastic templates. You can use Todoist for free as long as you like, or upgrade to the premium version for just $2 per month (or $29 per year). I’ve found it to be definitely worth the expense.

Post written by David Caolo

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The post Todoist is a task manage with two cool tricks appeared first on Unclutterer.

Comme les années précédentes, les artistes de la ville de Kaunas, en Lituanie, se sont concertés pour édifier un sapin de Noël hors du commun. Une tradition créative qui perdure, notamment avec ce nouvel arbre luminescent en forme de nuage magique et orné d’une douzaine de sculptures d’anges revisités. Un arbre féérique digne des fêtes de Noël, à découvrir.