Ideas aren't tasks, but for some reason, many of us manage our ideas alongside our to-do lists. Wunderkit, on the other hand, gives you a platform specifically for managing your ideas. It's a great idea bank—or a place for all of your projects, goals, and the things that come out of your brainstorming sessions that you catch yourself wishing you could remember later.

Wunderkit is made by the same people who built Wunderlist, our pick for best to do app for OS X, Windows, and Linux. If you're familiar with Wunderlist, Wunderkit will feel very similar. If not, don't worry—it's very intuitive. The service gives you a workspace to arrange your ideas and projects into separate projects, tag them, assign due dates to them, and even bring in other people to help you. I have a few gripes (we'll get to those later), I trust it as my brainstorming tool and my personal well of ideas, and I think you should too.

Why Wunderkit?

I tried getting into Wunderlist to manage my to-dos, but I never really found myself really using it every day. I already had a great to-do tool. I didn't need an app to remind me to remind me to file a TPS report every Monday; I needed something to hold all of my ideas: Future Lifehacker posts, my bucket list, and all of my personal projects and goals. Here's why Wunderkit is a fantastic tool for this:

• It keeps your ideas neatly organized. Part of what sets Wunderkit aside from other to-do apps is the fact that you can have different boards for different projects, each with their own sets of tags, due dates, and ideas, and none of them intrude on the other (unless you want them to.) For example, I have boards for "big brainstorm" ideas for large projects, article ideas, household projects, tech projects, and so on. Inside each of those boards, I have individual lists, ideas, and to-dos, all tagged and organized even further. From there, you can filter them so you only see the ones you're interested in at any time.
• It's fast. Wunderkit is primarily a webapp, but it's also available as a standalone app for iOS and OS X. The tool itself is fast enough, but what we really mean is that adding ideas and tagging them is as easy as typing a few words. It has tons of keyboard shortcuts, and almost every action is a keystroke away.
• It keeps your ideas in sync. If you use the OS X app (which is essentially a container for the web site), the iOS app, or the webapp, you'll notice they're always in sync. Your to-dos, tags, notes, even any custom icons or wallpapers for your workspaces are synchronized in the background, and available on any device with a web browser.
• It's free. Wunderkit is free—and always will be, according to the developers. The Wunderkit team will eventually offer premium features in the future, but everything here now will always be available for free. The mobile apps are also free, with no in-app purchases or other "pay more to get this tool that actually makes it useful" tricks up their sleeve.

Part of the reason Wunderkit works so well may be because it's not trying to replace your standard to-do app. It's smooth and easy to use, but it's not a calendar or reminder app, and it doesn't want to be. Some people will just consider it another app they have to have open to stay organized, but if you're using Wunderkit as a place to store your ideas—not your to-dos—you only have to look at it when you're ready to take those ideas and start working on them.

Organize Your Ideas and Projects with Wunderkit

Getting started with Wunderkit is easy. Sign up for an account (or link your Facebook or Twitter account) and you'll land on your dashboard. The dashboard gives you an overall picture of what to-dos you have in-progress and which ones you've completed, along with any other recent activity, like freshly added notes or tag changes. Let's say you want to plant a garden, now that the weather is turning warm. Create a new workspace for your garden by clicking "create new workspace" in the left sidebar. You can even upload and assign a photo of a plant or flower to your workspace so you can tell at a glance what it's for. From there, you can dive right in and start adding the to-dos required to get your garden up and running.

For example, you'll probably want to research what grows well in your area, make your shopping list, and then shop around at different nurseries to get the best prices on what you want to grow. Add each of these as to-dos for your project. Since your shopping list might get long, you may want to tag that to-do with "shopping," and then use the Notes section to build your shopping list out and include things like soil, fertilizer, pesticides, some fencing to keep the dogs out, and of course, the plants or seeds themselves. Tag your note with "shopping," and both the note and your to-do will appear if you do a search or filter for shopping tags later.

If you want to organize ideas or to-dos even more discretely, you can star them to mark their importance, heart them to indicate favorites, and sort them into individual lists inside of a workspace. I've found that tags and stars are sufficient, but it's nice to have the option. You can also assign due-dates to any of your ideas, and when it's time to work on them, they'll appear in the "What To Do" panel at the bottom left of the screen (indicated by a check-mark.)

Wunderkit doesn't have all of the bells and whistles that some to-do apps have, but it shouldn't be judged based on a checklist of features that you may or may not use. What makes Wunderkit really useful, in this writer's opinion, is how easy it is to add and organize your ideas, retrieve them when you want to review a specific tag or project, and how good you feel when you click that checkbox and see your idea join the others you've completed at the bottom of the screen. You don't spend a lot of time digging through ideas and adding new projects in Wunderkit—you dive in for a little brainstorming or something to do, mark them complete, and feel good about doing your work. That's a wonderful thing.

Use Wunderkit to Collaborate and Share with Others

Up to this point, we've discussed how easy it is to organize your thoughts in Wunderkit, and that's by far its strongest suit. However, the app has a collaborative dimension that's useful if you work on projects with groups, especially if you can convince them to sign up. If you want to bring in someone else on a workspace, you can invite them via email, or select from your Facebook friends or Twitter followers (if you've linked your account with one of those services.) As soon as they sign up and you grant them access, you can assign them to-dos, get their feedback on your ideas or get them to help you organize, and you can see their activity on your dashboard.

For example, one of my workspaces is exclusively ideas for articles and features to write here at Lifehacker. When Adam Pash comes calling, asking if I have ideas for a feature next week or a post tomorrow, instead of trying to brainstorm on the spot, or pull specific ideas out of my list that I think he might support, I can invite him to view my workspace and weigh in on the ideas he thinks has legs. Similarly, if I need help researching some of those ideas, I can invite one of our interns to my workspace and assign one of my ideas to him so he it appears on his dashboard. When he's finished, he can update the task, I'll see it on my dashboard, and I can start writing.

This is especially useful if you're collaborating on the same ideas with someone else, or if you have someone who needs to see what's on your plate, like a manager or supervisor who can help you prioritize all of those ideas you've added to your workspaces. Wunderkit's real power is in helping you organize your own activities, but it's really nice to give someone else a window to what you're working on and get their feedback from time to time.

Not a To-Do List, an Idea Well

Wunderkit is a platform, and the developers behind it say more tools and built-in "apps" like the dashboard, tasks, and notes are on the way soon. Even without them, it's a powerful tool for organizing your ideas and creating a constantly growing well of creative ideas.

It's not perfect; you can't link notes with to-dos (but you can tag them so a quick search will pull up any relevant notes as well as to-dos you want to see), and I wish it could sync with my calendar for alerts or reminders. Even so, it still complements the to-do app I already use, and I think it'll work well with yours, too. If you need a to-do app that will pop up a reminder that you have to do a certain thing at a certain time, Wunderkit isn't that app right now—it may develop some of those features in the future, but its real strength is in how it complements those traditional tools as an bank or well of ideas that's quick and easy to update as soon as a new one pops into your head.

Do you use Wunderkit? What do you think of it, and what do you use it for? Share your experiences in the comments below.

Nobody likes to give negative feedback to a friend or colleague. In fact, most people, especially if you have a lower self-esteem, don't give negative feedback at all. The reason? A new study in the British Journal of Social Psychology suggests that you withhold negative feedback to protect yourself, not the person being judged.

The experiments had people give feedback on a writing assignment face-to-face, anonymously, or were told their feedback wouldn't go back to the writer at all. The participants also had to answer questions about their own self-esteem. Theoretically none of these details should matter, but it turned out that participants with a lower self-esteem gave more positive feedback and left out the negative. Those who rated their self-esteem high gave the same feedback regardless of the delivery method.

The implications of this are summed up by the researchers:

The data ... speak[s] to the importance of developing cultures that encourage frank and fearless feedback giving and non-defensive feedback receiving. Strong and positive feedback cultures might help overcome some of the fears of feedback-givers, and reduce the tendency for feedback to be adjusted as a function of who is watching.

Honest feedback is key to making a project turn out right. These findings suggest that if you want to give (or receive) honest feedback it's best to boost your self-esteem first. We've also pointed out before that asking someone how "feel" as opposed to "what they think" is a good way to initiate truthful feedback. What do you think, do you have a harder time giving honest feedback when you're feeling a little down in the dumps?

Withholding negative feedback: Is it about protecting the self or protecting others? | British Journal of Social Psychology via BPS Research Digest

Photo by Cisco Australia-NewZealand.

Google's new file syncing service, Google Drive, is finally available and looking pretty great. But how does it stack up against the current king of file syncing, Dropbox? Here's where each app shines (and falls short).

Each service has a lot of features, and each excels in different areas. Here, we'll compare the desktop client, webapp, sharing features, speed, and other characteristics of each service.

Very Similar Desktop Clients, with a Few Important Differences

Google's desktop client is very similar to Dropbox's—in fact, certain parts just seem copied exactly from Dropbox's interface. When you install it, you can choose where to put your Google Drive folder, as well as choose which folders you actually want synced to your desktop. You can choose to sync Google Docs files or not sync them, your choice.

Once it downloads all your files, you'll see them in your Google Drive folder, just like Dropbox. Each has a green checkmark if it's synced, or a blue refresh icon if it's currently syncing. Items created in Google Docs have their own special icons, and can only be opened in Google Docs. If you double-click on them, they'll open up in a new browser tab. This is fine if you want to use Google Docs, and it works well with Google Docs' offline viewing, but it's really annoying if you want to be able to tweak docs in your favorite desktop word processor—you actually have to go to the Drive webapp, export them as an Office-compatible file, then open that copy up instead. I get that Google Docs is integrated, but I wish I had a choice in the matter. Other, non-Google Docs files will show up normally and open with their default programs.

It's also worth noting that Linux users don't have access to Google Drive, but they will have access to Dropbox. It's not a huge point of comparison (since it's pretty much a deal killer for any Linux user), but it's worth noting anyway.

Feature-Filled Webapps, Plus Google's Powerful Search

Google Drive's webapp is where it really shines. You're probably pretty familiar with it already: it looks exactly like Google Docs, except you have two views: a list view (like the one in Docs) and a thumbnail view, that will show you previews of all your documents, images, and other files. The webapp has a search bar at the top and, just like other Google products, it's pretty powerful—you can search by document type, owner, and other advanced filters. Dropbox has an advanced search, but it isn't quite as good—you can only search for "all these words" "any of these words" "this exact phrase", or "none of these words". It'll suffice for most things, but those of us that have gotten used to Gmail's awesome search powers will really love Drive.

Drive's search also hooks into Google's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Google Images database, to find images and uneditable document scans using text search terms. So, if you've scanned a document, it'll scan it and you'll be able to find it by searching for words in the document. Similarly, if Google can tell what your pictures are of, you can search by subject—e.g., searching "Eiffel Tower" will bring up your photos of the Eiffel Tower from your recent vacation. Dropbox can't do any of that.

Lastly, like Dropbox, Drive's webapp also has built-in viewers for tons of different file types, including images, videos, and even Adobe files. You won't be able to edit them all from the web, of course, but it's nice to be able to view them without downloading them or installing any extra software. Dropbox, from what we can tell, has just about the same feature set when it comes to previewing files—though Drive has the added advantage of making Docs files editable in Google Docs, as you would expect.

Powerful File Sharing, But No Desktop Support for Google

Both apps do pretty well at sharing files, they just work in slightly different ways. Dropbox lets you share files by right-clicking on them in Windows Explorer or the Finder and getting a link to share with your friends. Google Drive forces you to go the webapp, and has a slightly confusing method of sharing files—if you check a file and go to More > Share, you can send it as an email attachment with Gmail or Share with other people. When you click Share, you either type in the names of other Google users to add it to their Google Drive, or click "Change" next to "Who Has Access" to share it with "anyone that has the link" or "public on the web". It's a bit more convoluted, and we wish there was better desktop integration, but at least the feature is there. Both services also let you share entire folders with other people, for easy collaboration.

Google Drive, however, has an edge in the collaboration department. Not only can you share folders, but it also has all of Google Docs' built-in collaboration features that we love so much. By sharing a document with another Docs user, they can edit the file, make comments, and so on. That way, you don't just see the edited file, you see what they've done and can chat with them in real time as they do it.

Dropbox Gives You More Power Over Your Syncing Speed

We tested syncing a 50MB file with both programs, with interesting results. By default, Dropbox is significantly slower, because it automatically throttles your upload speeds. However, this is all tweakable in Dropbox's preferences. You can change how fast it uploads and downloads files, which is great if you don't want it to steal bandwidth from other important things (like video chatting, games, or BitTorrent). Google Drive doesn't give you these options, which is kind of annoying. With Dropbox set to "Don't Limit", it uploaded files at the same speed as Google Drive in our tests.

However, Dropbox also has LAN sync, which means transferring files to another computer on your network is going to be a lot faster than Google Drive, which will download it from the servers instead of the other computer. After uploading our 50MB file to Dropbox, it took less than a minute to show up on our other machine, while Google Drive took about 3 more minutes.

Drive is also really annoying in the sense that it doesn't give you any information about how fast it's syncing or when it's done. Dropbox's system tray icon will not only show you when it's uploading or downloading just by looking at the icon, but if you hover over it, it'll also show you how fast it's going and how long it thinks the transfer will take. It'll also notify you when new files are added. Drive doesn't do any of these things. To see if it's syncing, you have to right-click on it, and it'll only tell you that it's syncing—now how fast it's going or how long it'll take. It doesn't have any notifications, so the only way to see when it's done is to right-click on it compulsively, reload your Drive folder in Windows explorer, or visit the web interface. Dropbox wins this section by a mile.

See Old Versions of All Your Files Right From the Webapp

Both services offer revision control, although for normal, non-Google Docs files, Dropbox does it a little better. In Google Drive, you can see revisions by opening a file and going to File > See Revision History. If it's a Google Docs file, you'll be able to see the revisions in detail, but for other files, you just have a choice of downloading old revisions to your desktop, which kind of sucks. Dropbox, on the other hand, will let you restore old versions of a file right from the web interface, which is much more friendly. So, each has their own advantages depending on what kind of file you're looking at, but the bottom line is that you can always revert to an older version of a file if you need to.

That said, Dropbox has the distinct advantage of letting you restore files long after you've deleted them from your Dropbox, something that Google Drive doesn't do. So, if this tends to be something you deal with, Dropbox has a pretty big advantage in this area.

Dropbox Has More Opportunities for Extra Free Space, but the Pro Service Will Cost You

Lastly, each gives you different amounts of space for different prices. Dropbox only gives you 2GB for free, while Drive gives you 5GB—although it's very easy to get more Dropbox space for free, and you can get well beyond 5GB. However, if you need more than, say 50GB of space, you'll need to pony up some cash. Drive is significantly cheaper than Dropbox, offering 25GB for $2.49 a month, 100GB for $4.99/month, and even 1TB for $49.99 a month (with a few other tiers in between, and going all the way up to 16TB). Dropbox, on the other hand, gives you 50GB for $9.99/month (or $99 a year), 100GB for $19.99 a month (or $199 a year), and anything above that requires a pretty expensive Dropbox Teams account, starting at $795. If you're looking to save cash, Drive is the clear winner.

Drive is actually pretty solid for something that just launched, but they're also super late to the game, and it's a little disappointing that they're only most of the way there after all this time. If you're a heavy Google Docs user, you'll probably love Drive, but Dropbox still has the edge in most of our minds—especially because its desktop app is just so much better than Google's. Have you tried out Google Drive? What do you think of its feature set and how it compares to Dropbox (and, the big question: Will you be switching)? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Have a project or big idea you're working on and want to find an awesome programmer, illustrator, writer, or designer to help out? CollabFinder is a new site for finding that collaborator.

It's a pretty simple concept and site: Join, using Facebook, with your details—including your interests, skills and background—and others can pitch their projects to you or you can pitch projects to similar members on the site. You can find collaborators by searching for interests, skills, or those nearby, as well as if anyone is connected to your mutual Facebook friends (I found a couple after joining).

Networking isn't always easy (especially if you're a really shy creative type like me). This site, which doesn't allow recruiters or "business-types" might help you get your project off the ground.

CollabFinder | via Swissmiss