Dougal Campbell's geek ramblings

A couple of years ago, when we moved to the Atlanta area, I was working as a contractor doing some web programming on a project that I couldn’t say much about, because I had signed an NDA. But now I can talk, because the product is officially released (actually, I suppose I could have talked about it back when it was in beta). That product is ViaList.

ViaList is software that helps your club, group, committee, or family stay organized and up-to-date. It lets you share any kind of list — things to do, contact information, agendas, ideas, whatever you need — as easily as sending an e-mail.

A program that helps you make and share lists may not sound like a big deal, but when you actually use the software and see how intuitive it is, you could very well end up adding it to your list of favorite tools. I often see new utilities come onto the scene for the Mac and think, “I wish there was something like that for Windows.” This is one of those rare programs that turns the tables, and could have Mac users wishing they had ViaList (there are plans to make a Mac client, eventually).

A lot of what I worked on was on the system administration side, configuring the server for email, setting up the bug tracker, creating a “single sign-on” system, etc. But I also worked on a very early proof-of-concept for the web-based list interface. Oh, and with me being a WordPress dev, the site ended up using WP for its blog.

Susan and I have used it to maintain lists of projects around the house, shopping lists, and planning tasks for web sites that we’ve worked on together. This kind of asynchronous planning is very convenient. Anyhow, if you have a need to keep various kinds of lists (to-do, dated events, priorities, shopping, etc.), and especially if you need to coordinate the lists with other people, you should take a look at ViaList.