New user, my use case, request basic advice

New user, my use case, request basic advice

[David Rogers]

Hi

I'm gradually getting accustomed to org-mode; thanks to all those whose
work makes this great software keep getting even better.

I've been trying to figure out how to integrate org-mode into my gadgets
and my situation, and realize that I've been thinking about it upside
down. The missing piece of the puzzle, for me, the thing I don't know
how to accomplish, is the most important one to have. So, here's what
I've got and what I'm trying to do:

- Working at home part of the time, usually near the computer; and at
  various other locations the rest of the time, NOT near a computer.

- Android phone, with root access and (often) able to use wi-fi at work

- Home computer, with internet access obviously

- Off-site web server where I'm free to install and run whatever is necessary

- No laptops or tablets, and none planned. Got more than enough
  machinery already. :)



My main goals:

1. I need audible alerts from my phone for appointments & reminders
   when I'm away from home. I don't really mind how those are
   accomplished, but I have to hear a sound of some kind at the
   appropriate times. I can't be counted on to check my phone
   periodically - I need the phone to "check" me instead, or I'll forget
   a lot of things. For example, I'm very attracted to 0rg-notify, but
   have no clue how to transfer that functionality onto the phone. (SSH
   the phone onto the server and run emacs on there? But I don't even
   know if that would give audible alerts.)

2. I need a way (any reasonable way) of keeping the home computer's
   appointments & reminders, and the phone's appointments & reminders,
   in sync. Automatic sync is nice but definitely not a requirement - I
   can sync manually if needed. (MobileOrg the obvious choice? or
   something else?)

3. In all of this, I want to maximize use of org-mode/gnus/emacs and
   associated tools, and minimize use of other tools.


Thanks for any thoughts or advice on how this might be done.

-- 
David Rogers

Re: New user, my use case, request basic advice

[Charles Philip Chan]

David Rogers <davidandrewrogers@gmail.com> writes:

Hi David:

> My main goals:
>
> 1. I need audible alerts from my phone for appointments & reminders
>    when I'm away from home. I don't really mind how those are
>    accomplished, but I have to hear a sound of some kind at the
>    appropriate times. I can't be counted on to check my phone
>    periodically - I need the phone to "check" me instead, or I'll forget
>    a lot of things. For example, I'm very attracted to 0rg-notify, but
>    have no clue how to transfer that functionality onto the phone. (SSH
>    the phone onto the server and run emacs on there? But I don't even
>    know if that would give audible alerts.)
>
> 2. I need a way (any reasonable way) of keeping the home computer's
>    appointments & reminders, and the phone's appointments & reminders,
>    in sync. Automatic sync is nice but definitely not a requirement - I
>    can sync manually if needed. (MobileOrg the obvious choice? or
>    something else?)

Since you use Android, the solution is:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.matburt.mobileorg&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDMsImNvbS5tYXRidXJ0Lm1vYmlsZW9yZyJd

in conjunction with org-mobile.el, which is part of org-mode. Please
read the manual:

http://orgmode.org/manual/MobileOrg.html

Cheers,
Charles

-- 
How do I type "for i in *.dvi do xdvi i done" in a GUI?
(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of interfaces.)

Re: New user, my use case, request basic advice

[Erik Hetzner]

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At Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:03:58 -0700,
David Rogers wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> I'm gradually getting accustomed to org-mode; thanks to all those whose
> work makes this great software keep getting even better.
> 
> I've been trying to figure out how to integrate org-mode into my
> gadgets and my situation, and realize that I've been thinking about
> it upside down. The missing piece of the puzzle, for me, the thing I
> don't know how to accomplish, is the most important one to have. So,
> here's what I've got and what I'm trying to do:
>
> […]
>
> Thanks for any thoughts or advice on how this might be done.

Hi David,

My setup, for slightly different goals, but which could probably meet
your needs, is as follows.

I keep my computers (laptop, work desktop, & server) notes directory
(which contain my org files) synced using gitdocs [1]. This means that
I always have the same org files on each machine. You could use the
same setup to keep your org files synced with a server and use the
rest of the setup below to accomplish mobile syncing.

(Some remarks on gitdocs follow. Disadvantages: if I leave an org file
open on one machine, and it gets updated on another, emacs complains
because the file has changed. Alternatives: sync using dropbox.)

I have an android phone, on which I use mobileorg. I use this, as near
as I can tell, in the ordinary way, except that I run
org-mobile-pull/push in crontabs on a server (actually, I just set
this up, but it seems to work). Because my notes are synced (via
gitdocs) across computers, this works fine.

  15 * * * * emacs24 --batch -l /home/egh/.emacs --eval "(org-mobile-pull)"
  20 * * * * emacs24 --batch -l /home/egh/.emacs --eval "(org-mobile-push)"

I use org-caldav to sync my events to a google calendar. This is
connected to my calendar on android. I suppose that I could use the
mobileorg sync calendar function, but this seemed safer. My phone has
a widget on the main screen that displays my next appointment. I
assume that getting audible notifications is just a matter of
settings.

I run the caldav sync on my server [2] every hour, using the
following:

  10 * * * * emacs24 --batch -l /home/egh/.emacs --eval "(load-library \"org-caldav\")" --eval "(org-caldav-sync)" > /dev/null 2>&1

Because my server’s notes dir is synced (using gitdocs) with my laptop
& desktop, if I add an appointment on my laptop or desktop, it should
be pushed to my google calendar in an hour at most.

For the record, I also run the following:

  0 5 * * * emacs --batch -l /home/egh/.emacs --eval "(org-batch-store-agenda-views)" > /dev/null 2>&1 && mailx -s Agenda egh@e6h.org < /tmp/agenda_schedule_day

This generates an agenda & emails it to me daily. Furthermore, my
agenda is pushed to an HTTP server, and I use it as my home page. So I
look at it every time I see a new browser window.

Hope that helps!

best, Erik

1. https://github.com/bazaarlabs/gitdocs
2. Note that getting credentials set up is a little tricky. See
https://github.com/dengste/org-caldav/issues/2

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