My Personal Kanban – use your own local cloud

I’ve finished new release of My Personal Kanban 0.5.0 and version of My Personal Kanban Server. New Cloud features enable to Upload and Download Kanban to any Cloud server, accessible via web.

My Personal Kanban Server will accept uploads and downloads from My Personal Kanban and store it on disk. You don’t need to generate key, however you can use the same one, you use with MPK Cloud.

Details of how to install server and run it can be found here: https://github.com/greggigon/my-personal-kanban-server .

Technology involved in the MPK Server

I decided to learn Clojure and write the Server in Clojure. I thought the problem was simple to implement it while learning new programming language. I’ve picked Ring to help me. It provided just enough to handle web requests and left me with everything else to code.

Clojure is great language and I hope I will be using it more in the future.

My Personal Kanban – Cloud storage encryption

Not too long ago I finished working on a new release of My Personal Kanban. It is a small Open Source project that I have been working on. The aim is to provide a very simple Offline Kanban board in a browser window.

The latest release contains one major improvement for Cloud Uploads. It encrypts (ciphers) Kanban with user provided Key before uploading it into the Cloud. Thus, there is no possibility to view or decipher Content of the Kanban as the Key is not uploaded to the Cloud but only stored in your browser local cache.

The only data stored by Cloud in the readable form are: username and email address. In the wake of recent Spying and Snooping events, I believe this feature of My Personal Kanban should provide ease for everyone concerned about their privacy.

Cloud Encryption key setup

I’m using Rabbit encryption algorithm from CryptoJS library.

The latest release 0.4.0 also includes some bug fixes and code cleanup. You can grab it from here.

Once you have the new version, when you upload for the first time, the Kanban will be encrypted.

Next release that I am currently working on, will include persistence to a local Cloud storage (a small version of Cloud application running on user network and user server).

My Personal Kanban, offline Kanban board for personal use

I’ve just released new version of My Personal Kanban. You can check it out at http://greggigon.github.io/my-personal-kanban/ .

My Personal Kanban is offline Kanban Board that runs within web browser.

Why Kanban for personal stuff?

Kanban is lightweight enough to bend to my personal lifestyle and to the way I do things outside work. I used a simple TODO list but I wasn’t happy with it.

Kanban gives me clear overview of things that need to be done, things I’m working on and stuff I finished. It also provides way of prioritizing the work (by color coding or bubbling the most important tasks to the top of the columns) and clear visual aid for reviewing tasks.

By limiting Work in Progress I can make sure I stay focused on task and finish it. By looking at the last column with things done I can give myself a tap on the back for achieving task completion.

Have a go and try it. Greg

My Personal Kanban, new tiny application just released

I’ve posted about Kanban before (Free Kanban Board , Kanban), however this time I’ve created a little Kanban Board application that I started to use as my personal, sophisticated TODO list.

My Personal Kanban Screen — Example of a Board

My Personal Kanban is Free and Open Source for anyone to use.

More description of it’s functionality can be found here: http://greggigon.github.io/my-personal-kanban/ and the source code in here: https://github.com/greggigon/my-personal-kanban

Free Kanban board on Mac with no additional software

I’m a big fan of Kanban board. I prefer it over TODO list for all my professional and personal work. It’s clear to understand, doesn’t require extensive management process and most important offers great visibility of work.

I’m not going to focus on Kanban itself. If you want to read more about it I would refer you to few external links for more info:

What I would like to focus on is how to do a cheap Electronic Board on Apple Mac without any additional software installed.

What you need?

If you got Mac you don’t really need anything more. I’m running OS X 10.8.3.

To make the Kanban board I used application shipped with OS X called Stickies and a custom made desktop backgrounds.

How to do it?

First of all, I’ve created a new Desktop using Mission Control and setup Desktop Background to my Custom “Kanban Board like” wallpaper.

Adding new desktop in the Mission Control

I’ve prepared two backgrounds, dark and bright, which you are more than welcome to use for free.

Kanban Board - Desktop background - Dark — Kanban Board – Desktop background – Dark

Kanban Board - Desktop background - Light — Kanban Board – Desktop background – Light

My empty board is ready. All I need to do now is to add some Stickies onto it.

Voila. You can modify color of a sticky and make it transparent. I’m using colors to distinguish between different types of tasks. Stickies on the top are the one with top priority.

Once your Done column is full you can archive your Stickie by saving it and removing from the board.

Simple as that I hope you’ll find it helpful and easy to use. Greg