All -

Today, we have posted the highly-anticipated "SI-1" release that a number of you have heard about from conversations with REXsupport. We wanted to say a special thanks to two Jedi Knights from our user community, mgerbasio and cmacdonald, that played an important part in driving the requirements and nuances for the SI-1 release. Both went above and beyond in communicating their thoughts in a positive, proactive, and patient way - thanks a lot guys!

So what is the SI-1 release? SI stands for 'system integration" and SI-1 is the first of three defined SI projects that we have. SI-1's goal is to convert any blip that happens in one's life into a reference item, a task to accomplish, a goal to remember, without re-typing or cumbersome cut-navigate-paste. We see the BlackBerrytm as a revolutionary and enabling tool for this approach because it is always with you and when configured properly, all one's communications flow through it, making it the perfect collection point for this real-time-life-integration approach - PC's are deskbound and therefore, quite limiting.

We are not the only ones with this thought. Our goal is very much in line with the goals of IBM's Activity-Centric Computing (dyson-video.mp3) that is being highlighted in the newest Lotus Notes / Domino products, where activities like an incoming email, phone calls, or visited website URLs can be instantly transformed into a followup item within one's management system. David Allen (of GTD Getting Things Done fame) (see www.Davidco.com) highlights having a follow-up system that is trustworthy and efficient, so the philosophy field on the activity/task topic is crowded. Our BlackBerry-centric observation is that wireless, always with you, computing technology is the key technology enabler that makes everything come together, but that's probably plenty of REXphilosophy for one day... lets move on to the details of the release...

Specifically, the SI-1 release adds click-menu based injection of work, tasks, and reference information from wherever it is found on the BlackBerry into todoMatrix and ideaMatrix. Seven data injection points from standard RIM BlackBerry applications / API's have been provided in the SI-1 releases of todoMatrix and ideaMatrix:
1) E-Mail Inbox / Outbox
2) Phone / Phonelog
3) Address Book
4) BlackBerry browser
5) Tasks applet
6) Memopad
7) Calendar

Starting with this release, a BlackBerry professional using todoMatrix and ideaMatrix can schedule or save information for later follow-up with a couple of easy clicks, setting alerts and other elements, and then return instantly back to the point of origin.

The second important piece of the SI-1 release is that we enhanced todoMatrix's and ideaMatrix's ability to trigger events such as instantly dialing a phone number, sending an email, or visiting a URL with the browser from our view-mode screens. We also added a number of smaller enhancements, remapped the [D] hotkey to be a instant done/notstarted toggle in todoMatrix (thanks stinsonddog for observing that every current BlackBerry unit has a dedicated DEL key and our mapping of the D-hotkey as delete was redundant), and fixed a few issues we had with double-byte encoding (Chinese) data (thanks pengrus).

Each injection point is a bit different and offers varying levels of capability, depending on the richness of the RIM provided API. RIM is opening up API's with new levels of the operating system - for example, a person using a Pearl with 4.2 will see a better injector capability from us in memopad than will a 4.1 person with an 8700, because of limits in the 4.1 level API.

As one sample, here is a six-screenshot-sequence from the e-mail injection point - the other application injection points are similar:

1) Start in BlackBerry E-Mail inbox -


2) Menu click and choose "Inject into ideaMatrix" (or todoMatrix) -


3) Select what information you want to inject -


4) Select a destination folder, keeping yourself well-organized -


5) Add any alert option or simply save it -


6) Instantly return back to your BlackBerry E-Mail inbox -


If you are a todoMatrix and or ideaMatrix user, download your free software upgrade wirelessly - the recommended procedure is found on our Frequently Asked Questions page at:
REXwireless FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions / Help

Lastly, since someone is bound to ask, the future SI-2 project is extending the integration to Microsoft Outlook-Exchange, Lotus Notes, and Novell Groupwise. REXwireless Software no longer releases planned availability dates. SI-3's details remain company confidential.

Enjoy!

--the REXguys

REXwireless helps gung-ho top-ten-percenters do more - a lot more - with their BlackBerry. REXwireless Software is an official BlackBerry Alliances Partner. Free software trials and video demos are available at REXwireless.com (www.REXwireless.com)



REXwireless Software Products in Brief:

todoMatrix
todoMatrix is a world-class to-do / task management / project management application. todoMatrix can manage an unlimited number of personal and delegated tasks, organized by project drawers and folder, cross indexed by time and assigned delegate. todoMatrix is a favorite of professionals that subscribe to the "Getting Things Done (GTD)" methodologies of David Allen (see davidco.com).

ideaMatrix
ideaMatrix is an unlimited, free-form idea and notes management database and features REXwireless's quick free-form Indy*Search. ideaMatrix is a highly-flexible application and is used in many different ways. In addition to the ideaMatrix's primary mission of instant-recall "Post-it Notes" and ideas on your BlackBerry (Post-it is a trademark of 3M Corporation 3M | Post-it® | Home), top ten uses from a recent sampling of users included:
1) Customer Relationship Management Information [Sales Professionals]
2) Personal Journal / Accomplishment Log
3) Student Note Taking in Class [Classroom Education]
4) Comprehensive Conversations Log
5) Medical Reference Information for Doctors [Medical Industry]
6) Investment Opportunity and Note Tracker [Investment Professionals]
7) Time log / logging [for Lawyers / Legal Industry (and billable consultants)]
8) Fitness / Workout Diary
9) Diet / Food Intake Tracker
10) Light Reader for Book and Magazine Article Summaries

REXdesktop
REXdesktop is a web-based browser system that enables secure access to your REXwireless BlackBerry-resident databases and wireless synchronization using a broadband-connected Windows PC, Apple Mac, or Linux desktop.

+++

Important Notice:

The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images, and symbols are the exclusive properties of and trademarks or registered trademarks of Research In Motion Limited - used by permission. IBM, Lotus Notes, and Domino are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Microsoft Outlook and Exchange are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Novell Groupwise is a trademark of Novell Inc. Post-it is a trademark of 3M Corporation. Getting Things Done and GTD are trademarks of David Allen & Co. And, last but not least, Jedi Knights is a trademark of LucasFilm, Ltd.

What can you say - its a brave new IP world.

Excellent addition! TodoMatrix is the most powerful application for my blackberry.

The email and call functions are very useful.

Thank you for the fix with double-byte encoding (Chinese) data. You have delivered everything that you promised.

A quick question:
Since TodoMatrix becomes so powerful that it integrates all major components of BB, have you considered to increase the character limitation so that it won't be a problem to add a long email to TodoMatrix? I often get the "FIELD FULL" error message when I inject an email to TodoMatrix.

A feedback:
The email injection does not work well with HTML emails.

Great job, Rex Team!

For those reading this thread, I will be devoting a page to these products. The REXguys know what they are doing, now if they could only fix my plumbing.

Excellent addition REXguys! GettingThingsDone easier is what technology is supposed to deliver and this new SI-1 (more to come) clearly gets things done easier in a very organized and efficicent way.

What an awesome addition, thanks Rex Guys

Stinsonddog - looking forward to that page

I put some real basics up tonight. This one is going to be like the GPS page and take a bit. There are so many options. Lots of screenshots to do.

RE: Field Full, todoMatrix will continue to have a field limit into the future and ideaMatrix will not - we remain focused on keeping todoMatrix really quick, even as a person passes hundreds of folders and thousands of tasks in their Matrix. There are substantial differences between tuning the underlying databases, especially as we add more dimensions in the upcoming 5D releases. We would suggest injecting full e-mails into ideaMatrix, not todoMatrix, and using your inject "E-Mail Headers + Clipboard" option from todoMatrix to capture the key nugget of data needed for followup. ideaMatrix offers a basic alert so it can be used as a reminder if needed.

RE: html e-mail injection, we inject what the e-mail program sends us, and use the standard BlackBerry edit/view control to display it. We will look at ways to improve and process html injection in the coming months but don't expect that our programs will render full html soon - the more likely scenario is converting html into straightforward text.

Thanks a lot!

-- the REXguys

How about a "Inject into todoMartix" and have email header only with "Received", "From" and "Subject" only. I think it would be easier considering the limit on the todoMatrix field lenght. The problem with email + clipboard is I never know what is in the clipboard so I can't just get the header.

By the way, nice job.

Regards-Michael G.

Mike,

This option will be added to next month's release.

Thanks,

--the REXguys

Great. One other thing I'd like to see is when a email or phone log message is injected into one of the applications, for me, I generally need to get back to that person within a day. I'd like to see the due date automatically default to one day. Since you would have to change it anyway, if you didn't want the default date, this would certainly be a time saver.

Regards-Michael G.

We will want to make this user set parameter, as everyone has a different perspective on how much time to bump it forward. This will take a bit more time. We will try to work it into the schedule and a new release but it probably won't make the next cut. Thanks for the suggestion.

--the REXguys

One minor complaint is that the "inject what?" buttons are not fully readable on the Blackberry Pearl. Both the clipboard and the full message say "E-mail Headers +..." and then are clipped off. Is there any way to format this to be 2 lines?

My review is now 85% complete. Screen shots are done and some editorial. Will be adding some additional materials on getting started and real life experiences, and I would be interested in people emailing me with their thoughts too.

Stinsonddog's Blackberry Tips - todoMatrix and ideaMatrix

I just read your 85% complete review- pretty impressive.

I have a quick question - I'm on BIS - when e-mailing a todo, can you select the address its coming from? Can I send my wife a todo from my personal e-mail address, and a work one from my work e-mail address? (OK, so sending my wife a todo probably isn't a realistic example, but you get the idea)..

Thanks!
Don

Believe it sends from the address set up under Options>Advanced>Message Services which is where you set your default. You can't change the default or choose an alternate at the email window, nor can you have more than one which is why I suggested you have to define a group to do that, but they are not sure that works and I have not tried it.

Let me know if you would like to know more.

I have used both Todo and Idea Matrix for almost a year now. I initially liked the concept, although I felt the price was a little expensive. What I can honestly report after extensive experience is that this is the most useful software I have on my BB for organizing my professional life and it is worth every penny. The Rex guys have been responsive to every issue, request, question, etc. When I say responsive, I mean I often heard from them within minutes, day or night - Rex is a great company to do business with.

I know everyones needs are different, but Todo and Idea Matrix are so versatile that I continue to find new ways to use it to increase my productivity. The new improvements make already great software even better.

That is why I have added them to my must have list of apps. I do think my three gripes about alpha sort, editing from the detail view via Alt-scroll, and and the lack of jump to folder are really critical access/functionality issues, as all the power in the program can't be accessed if you get bogged down.

All,

A few problems with our 2007.01.25 releases have prompted us to post new versions of todoMatrix and ideaMatrix. Specifically, the 01.25 version had a couple of issues that concern alerts and synchronizing tasks/notes and alerts with REXdesktop. Only tasks / notes acquired from the "injector" interfaces from the standard BlackBerry applications have a problem in 01.25.

Users may download the new versions using their BlackBerry wireless browser by navigating to http://REXwireless.com/download. After upgrading, we suggest reviewing any tasks or notes that came in via an injector to ensure alerts are set as desired.

We included some enhancements that were scheduled for the next release, including stinsonddog's suggested folder-jump [J] hot*key for navigation / moving tasks and alpha sorting.

Thanks!

--the REXguys

I took advantage of the ability to reset my trial period to check out this new release.

I had a couple of questions, which were promptly answered by John J at Rex Wireless. His outstanding support was the tipping point to purchase the silver matrix package - he even sent an e-mail to me to alert me that a fix had been posted for a minor issue I came across. Since he earlier told me it was going to be posted later that day when I asked the question, I did not expect a follow up e-mail to tell me it was posted.

Stinsonddog's review also went a long way (so I'm blaming Rex support , and you Stinsonddog, if my finance minster (AKA wife) sees the transaction on the bank account)

Don

The new injection stuff for tagging emails and phone calls for followup reminders and next actions is excellent. However, does anyone have good info on when the rumored 5-d version will be out and what it will do exactly? Rex support was quick on replying to me but didn't give up much on details or est availability. I wonder if anyone else has received a better detailed answer.

Is anyone beta testing this ver yet?

Tell her I will kiss it and make it feel better

From speaking with them on doing the reviews it's a priority, but I don't know the date. So long as they make it simple for someone to get going, they can layer in all this complexity. They have lots a great shorcuts. As I have told them my vote is for user preferences before 5D, and I would like to see them use the detailed view screen as the edit screen by using ALT-scroll. Even if you have to push E for edit first. They have been very receptive to my simplicity suggests. That latter one is harder for some reason. User prefs would also make it easier. For example, one I would use Set Alert 1=Same as Due Date

LOL - yes, I'll do that

Good sense of humor. Sometimes I get out of hand.

I need a sense of humor. I came from the Window Mobile platform where a lack of a sense of humor will drive one insane.

Can you elaborate more on the functionality of "automatically triggering events" using the new SI-1 integration format. Also is an updated help section on the new features anywhere on the REXdesktop or home web site??

thanks for the reply!

Possibly covered on my review page- not exactly sure what you need to know. You can inject from other apps into the todoMatrix and then set the three levels of alerts plus delegation to another. Take a look and then let me know what's not clear and I will answer and update the page. Thanks

A new cut of our documentation will be posted by the end of the month and will include the changes for "injecting" from BlackBerry e-mail, phonelog, address book, etc, as well as the new folder jump / move note to folder functions. Sorry that our code jumped ahead of the documentation by a month or so.

Check REXwireless.com/support (REXwireless Documentation Link) around March 1st.

--the REXguys

These are the words that got my attention from your post which REXguys posted as well "The second important piece of the SI-1 release is that they enhanced todoMatrix's and ideaMatrix's ability to trigger events such as instantly dialing a phone number, sending an email, or visiting a URL with a browser from the view-mode screens". I did speak to the REX guys and they are saying I may have read too much into this. I thought there was some special functionality ADDED to do this with.

Well in a way there is. You can do these things from the sepecific todo which IMO is a huge time saver. What it does is connect the other parts of the BB. We take it for granted but its a real key.

Hi Ron,

We misunderstood your support question. In the past, our software didn't do a good job of enabling dialing, e-mailing, or browser hyperlinking directly from our software. This quote highlighted that the SI version enhanced the apps with menu click to dial, e-mail, and browse. This capability is very important in our eyes and had been asked for by lots of users. Sorry for the confusion.

--the REXguys

Glad to see you guys are still going strong. I used todoMatrix and ideaMatrix a while back and loved it. Sadly had to give up the BB, but I still highly recommend this application. A definate must have for anyone serious about staying organized. Take it from the Blackberryforums Gecko, you need this if you don't already have it.


Gecko

Thanks Stinsondog and REXguys for the clarifications. Just to confirm my understanding of what I did not catch is that you can now insert a phone number in an injection and would be able to dial that number, or an email address if inserted, by one clicking it with the wheel when the alert pops up form either TODO or IDEA rather than having to go back to the address book to dial or email. Sounds like this may not have worked in the past and clearly it does now because I have tried the phone number example and it rocks!!

Guys I really love this product keep up the good work and the outstanding responsiveness. I mean how many companies respond on week ends?? REXwireless does!!

I have been using todo and idea matrix for the past few weeks on my 8700c wthout any problems. Just bought a 8800c a few days ago, now the program and everything else freezes up when I respond (dismiss or snooze) to a todomatrix alert pop up box. Has anybody out there had similar problems ? or can the rexguys help ? Thanks.

Please e-mail REXwireless support so that we can open an incident and track down the issue. REXwireless support email is support.center at rexwireless.com.

Thanks!

--the REXguys

As an FYI, version 2007.02.15.42 (4.2 OS) and 2007.02.15.40 (4.0 OS) have been posted for download with some misc corrections including the alert pop-up issue on BlackBerry 8800 units reported above.

Thanks,

--the REXguys