Bill Kratz's project/contact method and synching to Palm?

[Longstreet]

Does anyone know what has happened to Bill Kratz? :( His use of the contact feature in Oultook for projects is brilliant and works well for me in Outlook 2003. I do remember that he had come up with a method for synching project information to a Palm, but I cannot access this information. Does anyone have a pdf explaining this method? :shock:

Thanks,
Longstreet

[kglade]

I do not know what happened to Bill. I tried emailing him but got no response. I hope he won the lottery and is practicing the NTD (Nothing To Do) method.

Here is a link that is sort of a backdoor to his web site. The link still worked today when I tried it. You can get much of the info on his method there.

http://home.comcast.net/~whkratz/id2.htm

I recommend printing or otherwise saving this info in case the web site becomes unavailable.

Ken

[Longstreet]

Thanks, Ken. However, the section on how to setup synching to the Palm is not on this backdoor version of his site. If you look, it was to be the next thing he was going to post! :shock: I know he did so, but I failed to keep a copy of the method. I remember that it involved using the Notes in Outlook and inserting a note link into the Project page, or something like this. Do you remember? Anybody else have this series? :(

Thanks,
Longstreet

[kglade]

Oh, you mean Bill's 16 step procedure, complete with screenshots? The one that starts with the text:


This section illustrates a method for synchronizing your Project information with a "plain-vanilla" Palm handheld. The method takes the Projects and associated Tasks, Contacts, Appointments and Notes that you create via the methods shown elsewhere on this site, and syncs them to a Palm. This syncing technique will


1. Show you a complete Projects list on your Palm;
2. Keep the relationships between the Projects and associated items;
3. Display your Projects with the associated Items grouped below;
4. Maintain, even in your handheld, the simple GTD use of Item Categories to group by "context"."

Never heard of it :D <just kidding>. Try this link.


http://web.archive.org/web/20030501230135/home.attbi.com/~gtdoutlook/palm/index.htm

Ken

P.S. I swear I put this link in my original post but I must have forgotten to submit it. Ken

[ceehjay]

Kratz (I'm assuming it's the same one) is a member of the GTD Support forum. I can't check his profile because I'm not a member -- nor can I register, as you have to be an Add-In user to register. You might check there if you would like to ask for updates.

I found this post from September 2003 there: http://gtdsupport.netcentrics.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=227

Carolyn

[Anonymous]

Only steps 1 and 2 are valid, then it becomes a dead link.

Does anyone have a mirror? :-(

Thanks!

[Longstreet]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the link. But as reported, only the first two steps are accessible. :( Do you have any other sources or ideas as to how to access this information?

Thanks,
Longstreet

[kglade]

Mr/Ms. Longstreet, you are a tough customer to please! Good thing I'm paid by the hour :D

The link I posted earlier worked for me for all steps except #3 and #16.

Try this link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030925183743/home.comcast.net/~gtdoutlook/palm/step_16.htm

I was able to open all 16 steps today.

If this works for you, would you be willing to make a pdf of all 16 steps and send to me privately?

To more generally answer your question, the site web.archive.org keeps mirrors of the internet and allows searching back in history. You should be able to search for other Kratz material there, too.

Ken

[kglade]

Ceehjay:

It is the same Kratz at the GTD support forum, but he has not posted in several months: he used to post nearly every week. Hope he is well.

I will try to access his profile and send a private email to him.

Ken

[Longstreet]

Hi Ken,

I have the pdf file. Send me your email address and I will send it to you.

-Longstreet :D

[Anonymous]

Hi folks,

I tried this, but I have one question. When you assign many tasks to one project (Contact), they all show up in your task list. If you have 10 projects with 10 actions associated with them, that leads to 100 items in your task list! :shock:

Is there any way to view only the NA associated with a project in your task list, instead of getting overwhelmed with all the remaining to-dos in a project?

By the way, this is one of the reasons I like PigPog -- it only shows the next task per project. (Good if you avoid parallel dependencies)

Thanks!
-John

[Anonymous]

I'm not 100% sure, but the timing of this news story coincides almost exactly with the most recently updated page on Bill Kratz's site:

Kratz dies of heart attack
http://examiner.net/stories/012704/new_012704014.shtml

[Anonymous]

I don't think that's him. There's a post by Bill on his Forum dated February 10th, but the obituary is dated late January.

[Anonymous]

I'm fairly positive that's not him . I traded some emails with him while trying to implement some of his macros (posted on the NetCentrics add in forum)

sounded to me like he was involved in a few different businesses -one of which involved a partner across the pond.

not sure if it was on this forum , or the add in forum that he expressed concern that people were jumping from method to method and not really getting things done.

He may have decided to stay silent for a while . I understood him to be nice guy. Sort of Ironic but I got too busy with some family issues for a while during my testing of the macros and forgot to keep responding back to him and he actually emailed our webmaster inquiring about me to see if all was well.

Sorry I didn't print out any of his web pages etc.

[stargazer_rick]

I'm not 100% sure, but the timing of this news story coincides almost exactly with the most recently updated page on Bill Kratz's site:

Kratz dies of heart attack
http://examiner.net/stories/012704/new_012704014.shtml

I had seen this as well. This Bob Kratz in this article lived in the Kansas City area. The whois information for the improvedoutlook.com domain owned by the Bob Kratz that we are discussing shows that he lives in Mercer Island Washington.

[BryantSmith]

I've been doing projects as contacts for a while now. The easiest way to me seems to be using Agendus, both for the Palm and the desktop.

Thanks,

Bryant

[furashgf]

I'm actually worried about bill. What happened to him. I corresponded with him several times, but haven't heard from him for a while.

[Jason Echols]

I also emailed him some six weeks ago with no response. I hope he is doing OK. :(