Google is trying to make backing up your data easier, with both Google Takeout and the Data Liberation Front. Both are good initiatives, but they don’t cover all of Google’s many applications. One that’s missing is Google Tasks, the to do list that’s part of Gmail.

But a third-party developer has filled that gap. Using Google Tasks Porter, you can download your to do lists quickly and easily.

Let’s take a look at how to do just that.

Getting Started

Head over to the Google Tasks Porter site. You’ll be asked to give the site permission to access your tasks. That permission is in effect until you revoke it.

Once you’ve granted Google Tasks Porter the necessary permissions, you can take a snapshot of your tasks. A snapshot represents your to do list as it stands at this moment. That includes the tasks you’ve completed and the tasks still on your plate.

Click the Take Snapshot button. It can take some time to build the snapshot. Depending on how many tasks you have, it can take a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

Downloading Your Snapshots

After you click the Take Snapshot button, you’re taken to a page that lists your snapshots. There are four links that you can click:

• HTML with microformat, which creates a nicely-formatted HTML file
• iCalendar, which downloads a file with the extension .ics that you can import into most Web-based or desktop calendar application
• Outlook, which downloads a comma-separated values (.csv) file that you can import into Microsoft Outlook
• Remember the Milk, which lets you email your task list to a popular Web-based task management application

If you click Remember the Milk, you’ll be asked for the email address that you use to log into Remember the Milk and the name of the Remember the Milk task list to which you want to send the information from Google Tasks.

Anytime that you want to review your snapshots, just go to the main page of Google Tasks Porter and click the View Snapshots button.

Final Thoughts

Google Tasks Porter provides a much-needed service for anyone who uses Google Tasks. Whether you want to back up your data or have decided that Google Tasks isn’t right for you and want to move your data elsewhere, Google Tasks Porter makes it easy to do just that.

Photo credit: xololounge

The post How to Back Up Your Google Tasks first appeared on Techerator.

Hold On … The Command Line?

You’re probably wondering why you should use the command line instead of popular Web applications like Remember the Milk, Toodledo, Todoist, or Ta-Da Lists. They’re all great, no doubt about it. But you need to be connected to the Internet to use them. And it’s not easy to export or move data between those apps or to other services.

With Todo.txt, you’re using a text file. And let’s be honest, the format of a text file hasn’t changed in … well, a long time.

Getting Going

Todo.txt is a shell script. To use it, you’ll need a bash shell. That’s not a problem if you use Linux or Mac OS — they both come with one built in. Windows users, on the other hand, are out of luck. Unless, of course, they use something called Cygwin (tools that add a Linux-like environment to Windows).

Once you have a bash shell, now all you need to do is download the archive containing the script. When you pop that archive open, you’ll see it contains two files:

• todo.sh, the shell script
• todo.cfg, a configuration file

Extract the files to a folder in your path — on my Linux-powered laptops, I put them in /usr/local/bin. Then, edit the file todo.cfg to point the shell script to where you want to store the actual to do list file. Look for the entry EXPORT TODO_DIR= and change the path.

Using Todo.txt

Let’s start by adding a task. Open a terminal window and then type todo.sh add [task] — for example, todo.sh add Edit Chromium FLOSS Manual. Then, press Enter.

Obviously, you’ll want to check your to do list from time to time. Do that by typing todo.sh list in a terminal window.

Notice that each item in the list has a number. That number is useful to know when you want to add a priority to a specific task or mark the task as complete.

Why add a priority? Well, some tasks are more important than others. Adding a priority moves them up in the list. Priorities start at A (most important), and move down from there.

To add a priority, type todo.sh p [task number] letter, where letter is a letter of the alphabet. For example, todo.sh p 7 B. That adds a priority of B to task 7 in the list.

Finally, when you’ve completed a task you can mark it as done and remove it from the list by typing todo.sh do [task number] — for example, todo.sh do 7.

Todo.txt can do a lot more. To learn about all of the available options, type todo.sh -h to read the help.

Going Graphical

You say you like the idea of Todo.txt, but the command line part is a bit geeky for you. If you have an Android-powered phone or tablet and an account with Dropbox (an online file storage and syncing service), then you can install an app called Todo.txt Touch on your phone from the Android Market.

Todo.txt Touch everything that todo.sh does at the command line, but on a touchscreen. The app saves your to do list to a folder in Dropbox. From there, you can share the list with your computer and/or with any other Android-powered devices you might own.

Final Thoughts

Even though using the command line sounds difficult and a tad geeky, Todo.txt is easy to learn and use. Even for the most ardent GUI addict. And by using Todo.txt Touch on your Android device, you can literally have your to do list anywhere and in a format that won’t be obsolete anytime soon.

Image credit: Dean Shareski

The post Take Your To Do List to the Command Line first appeared on Techerator.

Staying organized can be tough. Between paper notes, calendars, and technology, it can get pretty complicated to keep daily tasks in the forefront of one’s priorities. Heck, sometimes a person even needs to organize their organization methods just to keep their wits in place.

Now how can Techerator aid you in this prioritizing predicament? First off, I recommend getting a SimpleNote account, a free cloud-based space where you can sync and update any note created on a device. From Windows to Mac to Android to iPhone/iPad/iPod, any note changed or created on these devices becomes automatically updated and stored.

Fortunately for us, there are plenty of applications to help us sync these SimpleNote notes and better our lives. So let us take a look at a nice iOS application (an alternative to the official SimpleNote application we previously covered): NoteTask.

NoteTask, available in the Apple App Store, is an interesting meld. Not only does it allow your SimpleNote notes be downloaded, uploaded, and updated, but it has a special feature that allows notes to be changed into task-like to do lists.

As you can see, every time a hyphen is used in a note, NoteTask automatically makes a nice box to check off. If a colon is used, an entirely different section is created in the note for more tasks to be added in. Pretty cool, eh? Futhermore, stickers can be used to tag and sort notes in the main application screen and an underscore before the first words can be used to hide notes.

NoteTask works on all Apple devices running iOS 4.0 or greater, and a free, lite version of the application is available for download. Otherwise, for $2.99, all these things and more can be yours.

Get those prioritizing shoes on, Apple users. NoteTask is here to help.

The post Let Your iPhone Organize Your Life with NoteTask and SimpleNote first appeared on Techerator.