[Llamagraphics Support Center] Most Popular Articles

Syncing Advice for the iPhone and iPod touch

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:37:56 GMT

If you are having trouble syncing, first go back and read the iPhone Advice Book Chapter on Syncing: http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/iphone/ChapiPhoneSync.html If this doesn't immediately clear up the problem, try the following: Check the wi-fi settings on the iPhone - they are in the launch page. They should be set to your network - not a neighbor's network. Check to make sure that your desktop computer is on, not completely asleep or turned off. If you are syncing to Life Balance for Windows, Life Balance should be running and your Life Balance outline should be displayed. The Windows desktop needs the free application BonJour to help the sync. The desktops should be the current version of Life Balance and the 'Enable iPhone Sync' should be marked. For both, the advice book will explain other conditions to be met on the desktop. If you do not have a license for the desktop and the trial is up, you need to purchase a license. If you are still having trouble, let us know by opening a ticket - and tell us that you have read this article and gone through the suggestions here.

I lost my license code or it stopped working.

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:35:57 GMT

Problem:

I lost my license - or Life Balance says my license code is invalid when I try to re-enter it.

Solution:

If you've simply lost your license code, contact us by opening a ticket and we'll send you the license information again. Be sure to include your name, the name of the purchased who purchased the license (if not yours) email address, old email addresses you might have used, the platform (Windows, Palm, or Macintosh) and the approximate date when you purchased Life Balance.

If Life Balance says that your license is invalid, keep in mind that each license code is tied to a specific platform so make sure you are using the correct code on the correct platform. Palm codes begin with LBPA, Windows with LBWI, Macintosh Life Balance 3+ with LBMA, Macintosh Life Balance 4+ with LBMU, and retail license codes with LBDT. If you think you have a valid license and the application rejects it, send along what you are entering - sometimes it is just a matter of misplaced letters or numbers.

New License Codes are required for Life Balance 3+ for Palm OS. Your old 2+ license code - which does not start with LBPA - will be invalid in Life Balance 3+. The pre 3+ versions won't work with devices running Palm 4+. If you have a new device, chances are that you will need Life Balance 3+, available from our downloads page:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/downloads/index.php

If you have installed Life Balance 4+ for the Macintosh desktop, you need to purchase an upgrade license. You can purchase a discounted add on license at our orders page:

https://www.llamagraphics.com/store/bundles.php

Choose 'add on' as the type of license you want. You will be asked to provide the old License Code in order to receive an add on discount. If you have lost your old license, we will send it to you so you can enter it when you purchase. Please, please provide a valid 'reply-to' email address so that we can send your license to you - and enable us to send you email if you are using a filter which requires extra mail from us (i.e. spamarrest)

Before you purchase an upgrade or add-on license, make sure you need to buy a new license. Some upgrades are free!

We are not issuing new or replacement Palm Life Balance 2.0 licenses.

Take a look at the section on Installation in the Life Balance Advice Book for more information about device and version upgrades - go to the Resource section of our website for a link to the online Advice Books.

And.....remember that if you used Life Balance for thirty days in the past and not purchased...it might seem as though you had purchased when you really didn't! We will be glad to check that out for you.

And...if you demanded a refund, your license will have been retired so that it can't be used for upgrades or discounts or new downloads; in that case, the system will not accept the retired license. You will need a new one, not an add-on or upgrade.

How do I maintain my list in Life Balance? What is weekly planning like?

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:36:56 GMT

Problem:

How do I maintain my list in Life Balance? What is weekly planning like?

Solution:

Life Balance is not so much about static weekly planning, but more about continuous dynamic planning.

Here's something to think about. I have a different set of steps that I do for review, that take far less time to acccomplish than the traditional weekly planning session. One Life Balance customer recently told us that he was able to trim back his daily planning session from one hour each day to just a few minutes. What could you do with an extra hour each day?

What you get done now today dynamically affects what Life Balance suggests that you do next in the future tomorrow. One problem with most to do lists is that they are perpetually out of date from the time that you make them. You are affecting the "system" in which you are working, and your list needs to reflect that to truly represent what you are doing and where you are going!

Overall, it is our observation that people who are first starting to use Life Balance tend to try to do quite a bit of extra manual work to maintain a traditional style of static weekly system that they are familiar with. Carrying tasks forward from day to day, putting everything into buckets for particular days, making artificial appointments with themselves, etc. Often that is work that they don't necessarily have to do.

What I generally do for a review is more like the following, and it is the process that I personally recommend for use with the Life Balance software product line:

1) Subdivide and Conquer. Look over the list for any existing project headings that have popped up, or things which look too big to tackle and that need to be broken down some more. Things like "Update the web site" which is not something that I can just do in one sitting since it involves fishing around for the next essay or review idea and then following through with the posting to the web site. So I add in tasks under that for what the specific next steps might be. I won't necessarily do all of these tasks, but I can capture them for now.

2) Top Down thinking. Are there long term projects that are not on the list at all that I want to think about, reasearch or do? Happy with my top level tasks? Usually this means looking at the second level and saying WHAT ELSE could I possibly do for that long range goal which would make that top level goal happen and be wonderful!?

3) Bottom up thinking. Are there tasks that I AM already doing that I need to add to the list? For instance, I may get a phone call from someone with a project that needs follow up. Customer support is frequently in this catagory. We recently had a customer support case that involved quite a bit of back and forth interaction with our contacts at PalmOne. That was a project that sprouted up overnight, and when it was done, we even had a new beta tester!

4) Adjustments. What has changed? I look at the list with "Include Closed Places" and "All Places." Does the order reflect the current state of things? If not, I select a task that seems like it is too high or too low and travel up the hierarchy until I find the HIGHEST project that needs adjustment in importance. This will then take care of all the related tasks that also need adjustment.

5) Weeding. Are there any things on the list that I should just delete as being dead ends?

6) Balancing. Switch to the Balance section. Is the Actual pie chart reflecting where I want to put my effort in the coming week? If I caught the flu, then I might cut back temporarily on work. If I'm preparing for a trade show, then I might increase that slice to the max and let the laundry take care of itself until it is time to pack the suitcase.

Not all steps need to be done each time, and I tend to do this quickly whenever I feel the need, but that is more or less the list that I go through for what the equivalent of a "Weekly" planning regimen would be.

--Catherine E. White, President

How many top level items can I have?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:22:08 GMT

Problem:

There can be many top level items in your outline - a good number is seven or less.

Solution:

There's no fixed limit on the number of top level items you can have, but we recommend sticking to seven or fewer top level items. Beyond that, it becomes more difficult to decide on the relative importance and desired effort that you want the items to have.

For speed, the pie charts will only display the first 20 top level items in your outline. You can have more than 20 top level items, but they won't show up in the pie charts.

Catching up, skipping, and postponing tasks on the iPhone, desktops and Palm.

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:13:57 GMT

Problem:

I need to skip a routine task but I don't want checking it to give me credit.

Solution:

On Macintosh 4/5 and Windows 5 desktops, there are new menu items for handling the catch up, skip, and postpone situation.

The Palm Life Balance 3.5 has those commands, too. You can reach them from the To Do screen Task menu.

Here's what happens to routine tasks:

Skip: Reschedules the task to occur one period later that it is currently scheduled to occur. So if it repeats every year and it's scheduled for 2/1/09, skipping the task will reschedule it for 2/1/10, regardless of what today is.

Catch Up: Acts as if you just completed the task, but doesn't give you credit for it. The next scheduled time will be one period from now, regardless of when it was originally scheduled for.

Postpone Until: You get to specify exactly when to reschedule it for. In that case, it becomes a due date schedule.

The iPhone sync server was unable to start due to an unknown exception

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:33:12 GMT

This error message can occur on Windows if Apple's Bonjour for Windows is not installed. The iPhone sync feature of Life Balance requires Bonjour for Windows 1.0.5 or later.

You can check to see if Bonjour is installed by going to Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs and looking for "Bonjour" in the list of currently installed programs. If you select Bonjour and click on the "Click here for support information" link, the version listed should be 1.0.105 or later, which corresponds to Bonjour for Windows 1.0.5.

If Bonjour is not installed, or if you are running an older version, you can download Bonjour from Apple's web site at:

http://support.apple.com/downloads/Bonjour_for_Windows_1_0_5

What exactly does Purge do?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:27:20 GMT

Problem:

Not everything seems to be gone after I purge my outline.

Solution:

The Purge command in the Balance section deletes tasks that were completed more than a certain number of days ago. You can use this command periodically to prevent your Life Balance data from growing larger and larger. You may find that navigating the Outline and updating the To Do List are faster after a purge.

Certain tasks are not deleted by the purge command:

tasks that are not checked off
tasks with uncompleted subtasks
tasks that happen routinely
tasks that happen by Date Book and are scheduled to repeat in the Date Book
tasks that are linked to DateBk templates

Remember that a subtask inherits the schedule of its parent task unless it has a schedule of its own, so if a parent task repeats, its children will generally not be purged.

Important: If you are using the To Do List export feature of Life Balance, then purging tasks in Life Balance will also delete them in your Palm's To Do List. (The tasks will be archived to the desktop at the next HotSync, but they will no longer be available on your Palm.) If you don't want this, be sure to turn off exporting in the preferences before purging your Life Balance data.

What does the skip command do for a 'routinely' scheduled task?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:01:05 GMT

Skip: Reschedules the task to occur one period later that it is currently scheduled to occur. So if it repeats every year and it's scheduled for 2/1/09, skipping the task will reschedule it for 2/1/10, regardless of what today is.

Catch Up: Acts as if you just completed the task, but doesn't give you credit for it. The next scheduled time will be one period from now, regardless of when it was originally scheduled for.

Postpone Until: You get to specify exactly when to reschedule it for. In that case, it becomes a 'due date' schedule.

How many importance settings are there?

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:35:42 GMT

Problem:

There are only a few words attached to the importance slider - but the slider can stop anywhere.

Solution:

The importance slider is basically continuous — each different pixel position on the importance slider represents a different value. The text that appears above the slider is just to give you a little feedback about which end of the slider is which.

What are those little yellow triangle icons doing in my outline??

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:18:36 GMT

Problem:

Little yellow warning triangles are appearing in Life Balance on the desktop. What do they mean?

Solution:

They are conflict icons. If you have changed the same task, place, or event in conflicting ways on the desktop and handheld, after synchronizing, a conflict icon will appear on the left of the item in the Outline, To Do List, Balance, Calendar, or Place panels as appropriate. When you click on the icon, a dialog box appears which will ask you to reconcile the conflict by choosing to either keep the information from the desktop or from the handheld.

You may not see conflict icons in the To Do List if the conflicting task is filtered out by your current settings. However, you can tell if you have any conflicts because there will be space left for the icon between the color bar and the checkbox in all the lists if you have any conflicting tasks. You can then switch to the Outline to look for the conflicts.

You don't have to immediately resolve all conflicts. If you don't modify the conflicted task on either platform, then the conflict will stay unresolved. If you do make a change to the task, then the synchronization algorithm will do the conflict check again; if you've changed the task such that both versions have the same info, then the conflict will go away.

The handheld version actually knows nothing about conflicts. Only the conduit and desktop application know about conflicts and we only store the resolution info in the desktop file. We do this to keep the Palm version uncluttered both in terms of memory usage and user interface.

I keep getting the sample data on the desktop

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:16:37 GMT

Problem:

When I launch Life Balance all I see is the sample data - I don't know how to keep my outline from disappearing even though I have been syncing multiple times.

Solution:

In the Windows platform you need to do the following:

Launch Life Balance
Open your personal outline file using the open command
Close the sample data
When you are ready to exit, save the outline file using Save As.
Give the outline file a distinctive name - this will also provide you with a back-up outline file
Leave the outline file openÂ Â - do not close it.

This is more information about the behavior on Windows -:

"The general behavior on Windows is that Life Balance remembers all the
documents you have open if you use File->Exit, but if instead you close
documents by clicking on the close ("X") box then it only remembers the
*last* document"

You want Life Balance to open with your personal outline file - so once you get it in Life Balance, you want Life Balance to remember it.Â Â On the Mac, go to the File menu and choose Open Automatically.

In the meantime, go to the Hot Sync Manager on both platforms and choose
- on Windows - the custom conduits
- on the Mac Conduit SettingsÂ
Â and select the new distinctive file - you have probably been syncing to the generic file, Life Balance Data, I think.Â Â You need to tellÂ Â the conduit what you want to do - overwrite in some direction or sync.Â Â

Priorities in the To Do List

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:35:00 GMT

Problem:

Why aren't the most urgent tasks at the top of the to do list?

Solution:

A task may be urgent, which means that it is scheduled soon, but still be unimportant, meaning that it does not contribute to your life's ambitions and goals very much. Just because a task happens today does not mean that you should necessarily strive to accomplish that task. For example, there may be a party after work. But if your heart's desire is to start a new career as a zoologist specializing in studying wild Llamas in the Andes, then going home to do your zoology homework may be the better course of action.

In many traditional time/task management systems, you make a (non binding) contract with yourself to tackle tasks within a certain timeframe. Everything goes into a notebook or file, from which you manually pull tasks. Periodically, you review this list and schedule target dates for some of them. You might have several lists to cover the next few months ("goals"), then a more detailed one for this month ("plan"), and a more specific one for this week ("schedule"), then usually try to squeeze some of those onto your list for the day. Then at the end of the day, you have to copy those tasks forward, or throw your hands up in defeat when the situation around you changes suddenly.

Life Balance takes a different view of these things. Life Balance does not put artificial dates on things, and we never require you to do the quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily breakdown.

If something is truly important to you, then presumably you want to push that project ahead as your energy allows.

Your Life Balance to do list allows you to focus your energy on the things that are important to you, and those things will float toward the top of the to do list view as conditions are favorable (stores open, right place, right time) etc.

This probably represents the heart of the shift that is necessary to make good use of Life Balance. Life Balance actively brings important tasks forward to your attention, rather than sitting there like a lump, requiring you to fetch things out of it to manually place them into a different set of arbitrarily scheduled lists.

One of the pitfalls of the traditional approach is that it often leads to failure, guilt and remorse. If you don't get a new job as a zoologist by the arbitrarily scheduled deadline of next Tuesday, you tend to feel awful about it, even if you really had no way of knowing in advance if the deadline of next Tuesday was reasonable because the opportunities that would get you that position might be hard to track down.

Life Balance takes a more positive approach, which is that learning everything there is to know about llamas is possible and you can work toward those big tough goals with each day until you make them happen. If you hit a setback, you can work through it, because the important tasks will stay in focus toward the top of your list.

Does Life Balance run on other operating systems except iPhone/iTouch, Palm OS, Windows and Macintosh???

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:42:45 GMT

Problem:

I have a machine which does not run on the iPhone/iTouch, Palm Os, Windows, or Macintosh operating system... will Life Balance run on my machine?

Solution:

Life Balance runs on the iPhone/iTouch, Palm OS, Windows desktop, and Macintosh desktop.We are concentrating on the platforms we have - especially the iPhone - at this time.

Recent efforts to run the Windows desktop version of Life Balance (and .NET Framework 2 Redistributable) under an emulator on a Linux operating system have not been successful.

We are always reassessing the situation regarding possible platforms for Life Balance so if you are interested in news about other operating systems, please make sure to sign up for news about Life Balance:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/email/index.php

We do not send out much mail so there will probably be general news releases. If you are interested in our progress and development, you might want to look at our company's front page, where we post news and twitter what's going on.

What is Life Balance?

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:36:21 GMT

Problem:

I'd like to know what Life Balance is - a short description of what it is supposed to do!

Solution:

Life Balance is a time and task management program that helps you focus on what's really important to you and actively balance the often conflicting demands of career and personal life. Life Balance emphasizes the intrinsic importance that you've assigned to your projects and life goals, rather than arbitrarily filling every slot in your calendar. This helps you to spend your time and energy on what matters to you the most. You can be self-directed, and know that you are working toward long term goals while still managing your day to day routine.

Some of the features that set Life Balance apart from most to-do list software are:

A built-in outliner so that you can organize your tasks into projects
The ability to reprioritize all the tasks in a project by dragging a single slider
An unlimited number of places (categories) that you can use to filter your to-do list
Dependencies, so that Step B won't appear on your list until Step A is finished
Routine tasks, like laundry, can be scheduled to happen with a flexible interval rather than scheduling for a particular day and time
Lead times to gently bring your attention to approaching deadlines
Integration with the schedule in your Palm's built-in Date Book
Pie charts that provide feedback on how you are spending your time
Unique "balance" feature nudges your to do list to help to bring your actual time and effort allocation more in line with your desires
An active and knowledgeable User Community available in the User Forum to help answer questions and discuss how to get the most out of Life Balance software.

Ultimately, Life Balance is software designed to help you achieve that feeling that you are living authentically and following your own unique path.

We have customers who have been successfully using the Life Balance self management methodology since 1995.

Why do top level items ever show up in the to do list?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:23:36 GMT

Problem:

Top level items will appear in the to do list under some conditions.

Solution:

When all of the subtasks under a higher-level task are checked off, Life Balance puts the parent task itself on the to-do list in order to get your attention. If the higher-level task represents a one-time project, this provides you with the opportunity to check off the project itself and get credit for completing it. If the task represents a long-term goal or a project that isn't done yet, then this is a reminder to add new subtasks so that you can continue making progress towards your goal.

This approach works best if you express your abstract goals as verbs rather than as nouns. For instance, "Family" may really mean "Raise children I'm proud to know", or "Travel" may mean "See the World". By expressing your goals in this way, you're making clear what you're trying to accomplish, and it's more obvious what you should do when one of these goals shows up on your To Do List.

We generally recommend this approach, but if there are cases where it doesn't work for you, you have a couple of options:
You can create a place named "Goal" or "Category", and then assign your abstract goals to that place. This will prevent the task from showing up in your To Do List except when you have selected "All places". If you have To Do List exporting turned on, this will also allow you to prevent your abstract goals from being exported to the Palm's built-in To Do List.

Warning: You must be careful when you create subtasks of this goal, since they will automatically inherit the main task's Place. If you forget to enter less abstract, visible places for them, your mundane tasks will be as hidden from your To Do List as the abstract goals.
You can create a subtask under the abstract goal and give it an importance of "None". As long as this task remains unchecked, the abstract goal will not appear in your To Do List. This solution clutters the outline but does not risk hiding your tasks.

The Advice Books are version x but the software is version y

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:07:39 GMT

Problem:

I'm not sure I've got the right Advice Books.

Solution:

Yes, you do have the right Advice Books. The Advice Books versions are sometimes not changed from one version to the next. While the internal changes to the Palm version are often massive to accommodate the new Palm devices, the visible functions are sometimes not changed to the degree that would require new Advice Books. To see the list of changes from one Life Balance version to the next, see the release notes:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/LB/MergedReleaseNotes.html

How to send us a crash report and your data from the iPhone

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:11:38 GMT

How to Report a Crash If you encounter a crash in Life Balance for iPhone, here's how to report it: 1. Sync your iPhone with iTunes. This will copy the crash log to your desktop computer. 2. Locate the crash log: Mac OS X ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/DeviceName Windows XP C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter\DeviceName Windows Vista C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter\MobileDevice\DeviceName The log file names start with "Life Balance" and have the extension “crash”. They are just plain text files and can be sent by e-mail in original or zipped form, or even copy-pasted into your e-mail program. 3. Send the complete crash log, along with a description of what you were doing when you got the crash, to support@llamagraphics.com. Please also tell us the exact version number of Life Balance for iPhone that you were running. You can find the version number under More ▸ Settings ▸ About. How to send us your iPhone data Sometimes the easiest way for us to reproduce a crash in Life Balance is to get a copy of your data file so we can see the problem under the debugger. Your data will be treated confidentially, and used only to reproduce the problem you have reported to us. To send us your iPhone data: 1. Use the “Backup...” command under the Network tab to create a desktop backup of your Life Balance data. 2. Locate the data file: Mac OS X ~/Library/Application Support/Life Balance/Backups/DeviceName Windows XP C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Life Balance\Backups\DeviceName The backup files are named with the date and time of the backup, and end with “.lbsql”. Although they can be attached to an email message directly, it's generally a good idea to compress the file into a ZIP archive before sending it. 3. Send the data file, along with a description of what you were doing when you got the crash, to support@llamagraphics.com. Please also tell us the exact version number of Life Balance for iPhone that you were running. You can find the version number under More ▸ Settings ▸ About.

Deleting To Dos from Mail can also delete from Life Balance

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:58:54 GMT

If you are running Leopard, there are To Do reminders in your Mail program. I found out, much to my surprise, that if you delete those from Mail, then do an iCal/Life Balance sync, the tasks you deleted from Mail will be deleted from iCal and Life Balance. Since this deletion may not happen right away if you don't sync iCal very often you might not notice the connection with the Mail deletions. In other words, watch out when you delete To Do Reminders from the Mail program on Leopard! You can be deleting those tasks from everywhere - Mail, iCal, and Life Balance!

The Reminders in the Mail program should be treated with caution and respect and not deleted en masse (which is what I did) (leading to restorations via Time Machine) (another good reason to back up your data frequently).

Software updates

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:00:11 GMT

Problem:

I worry that I'll need to buy an upgrade immediately after I buy my license.

Solution:

You don't need to worry about "timing" your purchase. If you purchase licenses for Life Balance from our web site within 30 days of a paid upgrade release, we will issue upgrade licenses for you without an additional upgrade fee, as long as we can confirm the date of purchase in our database. So contact support by email if you are in that situation.

Our official update policy for Life Balance is to decide, case by case, whether or not to charge for each release.

We try to be generous with minor updates, but we do not guarantee that all updates in the future will be free. You are welcome to look at our release notes - many minor updates to Life Balance have been free. Here is the address of the release notes:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/LB/MergedReleaseNotes.html

Pricing may change, or there may be charges for upgrade releases in the future. Always check the store for latest pricing information. In the past we have issued generous discounts to current customers when we have charged for a major update, and we would likely offer discounts to existing customers in the future.

Eight levels in the Outline

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:28:35 GMT

Problem:

Why can't I create a child task more than eight levels deep? Why can't I drag some projects to a lower level?

Solution:

The eight level limit affects creating child tasks and also dragging to the right - if you have a project with eight levels, dragging to a lower level still won't take the bottom tasks lower than eight levels.

We limit the outline to eight levels because we need to make sure that when you sync to Palm OS devices, many of which have screens that are only 160 pixels wide, all your tasks remain accessible.

Also, we generally recommend that you take an approach where you have about three levels
Top Level: Stated as BIG goals
---Second Level: for medium size Projects
------Third level for Tasks, things that can be done in a sitting

You might have some extra subprojects levels, but we recommend that you keep the outline relatively flat. For most purposes, that seems to work out well.

You might have a listen to the Audio file lesson where we discuss that idea in more detail.

http://www.llamagraphics.com/audio/index.html

I know I need to read the manual - where is it?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:49:47 GMT

Problem:

I know there's a manual and other resources for finding out how to run Life Balance - but I don't know how to find them!

Solution:

These are some of the resources available to you:

There certainly are manuals -

http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/index.html

And audio lessons -

http://www.llamagraphics.com/audio/index.php

And downloadable starter sets of exchange files for the desktop Life Balance

http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/exchange%20files/index.html

And our Llamagraphics' President's blog, the LLamalog:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/wordpress

And you might enjoy the mobile web site:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/mobile/index.html

In general, our website has lots of handy information - you can visit the resource page:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/index.html

And of course, the knowledgebase!

If all that doesn't help and there's a question you just can't figure out, send us a ticket from the support center!

How to become a reseller

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:59:16 GMT

Problem:

I would like to sell Life Balance to my clients.

Solution:

If you feel that our Life Balance software would benefit your clients in your practice as a consultant, Life Coach, Professional Organizer or other related specialty, Llamagraphics would be delighted to provide you with extra services and support designed to meet your needs. You can read more about our requirements for qualifiying for the Certified Associates program here:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/coach/

When is the next release coming? And does it do (insert your favorite feature request here)?

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:07:56 GMT

Problem:

What is the llamas' schedule for new features - what is in the next release?

Solution:

There are never any announcements on timelines or feature lists for future releases.

We are a three person company with very limited development resources, and if one of us should happen to get the sniffles, or if there are other outside factors to consider, it can easily impact our intended development schedules.

In planning releases, we try to strike a balance among

-responding to customer requests,
-the needs of our various partners,
-supporting features on new devices,
-supporting new operating systems,
-providing consistent features across the product line and through the conduit
-working efficiently within the structure of the code, (similar features often get handled at the same time),
-and the needs of the business.

I would not make any assumptions on how those various factors interact. We try to plan our releases with a long term perspective so that they ultimately serve the needs of our customers, even if they don't necessarily get in everyone's favorite feature request every time.

-- Llamas

Jobs at Llamagraphics

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:00:49 GMT

Problem:

Do you have any job opportunities? Can I send you a resumé?

Solution:

Right now we are not actively looking to hire any new people. However, if you think you have complementary skills that could help us to grow our company, open a ticket and we will let you know if you should send a resumé.

There's a pie slice in the Actual Pie with no completed tasks

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:32:00 GMT

Problem:

How can a top level section of my outline appear in the Actual pie chart when there are no checked tasks in it?

Solution:

The actual pie chart accumulates credit for all the tasks that were checked off in that section of the outline, not just the tasks that are currently checked off. There are a couple of different reasons that you might have credit in the actual pie chart when no tasks are checked off:

You may have a repeating task that has been checked off once, but has unchecked itself and is waiting to be checked off again. You get additional credit each time you complete a repeating task.

You may have deleted or purged a completed task from that section of your outline. When you delete or purge a task, any credit you received for completing that task is transferred to the task's parent.

As you continue to use Life Balance, the accumulated credit for older tasks will gradually go away. Life Balance automatically decreases the credit for tasks the longer ago they were completed. As you continue to check off tasks in other sections of your outline, the credit for these new tasks will gradually replace the archived credit for the older tasks in the actual pie chart. You can read more about the gradual decrease in accumulated credit in these sections of the Advice Book:

http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/windows/Balance.html

http://www.llamagraphics.com/resources/documentation/windows/Preferences.html

If you want to delete the credit for a task when you delete the task, move the task to the top level of your outline before you delete it. Since there will be no parent task for Life Balance to transfer the credit to, the credit will simply go away.