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Web interface and iPhone, only locally? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
I am admittedly desperate here. I simply cannot get the omnifocus interface to work on my iPhone when I am not on the local network.

My computer resides at work, and as such, I have no access to any router nor could I do any port forwarding, even if I understood what that really means. My iPhone can access the web interface fine as long as I am on the same wi-fi network, but I can't access the interface from my iPhone, or any other computer once I am off the local network.

The situation is the same at my apartment, where again, I have no access to the wireless router.

Is it simply impossible for me to access the web interface off network? Is there any system preference or command line change I can make that will help my poor computer to broadcast further than the local network?

I have spent almost 20 hours trying to find an answer, but no one seems to spell out whether it is impossible or explain what the actual steps involved to make it work would be.

All in all, very un-omni like. Please help. My family is counting on you to help me Get Things Done!

Last edited by mjstarks; 2007-08-29 at 04:42 AM.. Reason: typo
 
I'm afraid it's not really a matter of the computer "broadcasting", it's a matter of the routers between your computer and the rest of the internet blocking the requests coming from your iPhone. Changing settings on your computer won't affect that.

Unless you can configure the routers, or whoever configured them was somewhat lax about security, it is unlikely that your iPhone will be able to connect to your computer. (I don't mean to imply that the OmniFocus web interface is insecure. It's just that routers are often configured to block all traffic that is not explicitly allowed.)
__________________
Cheers,

Curt
 
Perhaps, the application could be put on my iDisk? I have a .mac account - is it possible to run a program from the iDisk, thus being beyond my network, and thereby accessible via the web, or iPhone?

Or is there a way to set something up through one of the website hosting services?

Or could the interface be programmed in javascript like iChess, so it works independently of the network, when it is unavailable?

Or can some sort of .mac syncing service work?

I just bought a copy of OmniPlan instead of upgrading my Merlin, specifically and largely only, based on my hope that Omnifocus and Omniplan will eventually be integrated. I thought I might save time having everything in the same system at the get go.

BUT, what I really need is a way to access my GTD system from my iPhone. I mean, its killing me. I am carrying a $600 paperweight until it actually helps me get things done!

I know, there must be a clever way of setting things up, I just need someone more creative than I to set me on the path of possibility again. The trail has gone cold for me. Ugh.
 
I hate to pour cold water. But I'm afraid someone has to, or else leave you hanging.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mjstarks View Post
Perhaps, the application could be put on my iDisk? I have a .mac account - is it possible to run a program from the iDisk, thus being beyond my network, and thereby accessible via the web, or iPhone?
.mac does not host applications, only data.

Quote:
Or is there a way to set something up through one of the website hosting services?
There is a possibility (perhaps even a likelihood) that someone will step into the market of hosting people's OmniFocus data, but no existing website hosting service will be able to provide that service today.

Quote:
Or could the interface be programmed in javascript like iChess, so it works independently of the network, when it is unavailable?

Or can some sort of .mac syncing service work?
These are both interesting ideas that I suspect OG is considering.

Quote:
I know, there must be a clever way of setting things up, I just need someone more creative than I to set me on the path of possibility again. The trail has gone cold for me. Ugh.
You could pay for wired internet at home, buy your own Airport Extreme, set up port forwarding, and serve your OmniFocus data from home. That's not easy or free, but unless you can put a machine on the public internet you can't access the data from your iPhone with the current version of OmniFocus. Cleverness, unfortunately, has nothing to do with it. Unless you're willing to wait on the cleverness of the OmniGroup.
__________________
Cheers,

Curt
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjstarks View Post
Perhaps, the application could be put on my iDisk? I have a .mac account - is it possible to run a program from the iDisk, thus being beyond my network, and thereby accessible via the web, or iPhone?
Even if you run the program from an iDisk, you'd still be running it from your home or office computer. The iDisk is a network-mounted drive, not an independent computer.

Quote:
Or is there a way to set something up through one of the website hosting services?
What you might be able to do is use a service like DNS2go.com to access your home computer from the iPhone. Without knowing the details of your setup, it's likely that your home computer has a dynamic IP address assigned by your internet service provider, and thus you can't reliably connect to the home computer from elsewhere. DNS2go provides solutions for forwarding from your own domain name, with a static IP address, to a computer with a dynamic IP address or behind a router.

Disclaimer: I've never used their service, or any similar service. This is just a suggestion.

Quote:
BUT, what I really need is a way to access my GTD system from my iPhone. I mean, its killing me. I am carrying a $600 paperweight until it actually helps me get things done!

I know, there must be a clever way of setting things up, I just need someone more creative than I to set me on the path of possibility again. The trail has gone cold for me. Ugh.
I'm not keeping up with iPhone developments, but there are a lot of people in your shoes and I'm reasonably confident that some solution will be developed reasonably soon.
 
What you'd have to do is run a service like DynDNS.com on your mac. (go to their site to read about it.)

What it does, is keep track of your DYNAMIC DNS (which is likely what you have) by running a program on your mac (@home). Now you can 'find' your mac (via a name, like mjstarks.dyndns.com)

That routes your request to your mac. Then you use 'port forwarding' on your home router, to forward the ports that OmniFocus needs ONLY to your Mac.

So the connection would be like this:
mjstarks.dyndns.com....automatically reroutes your request to your home network/router. Since the data comes in on port 80 (again, this is an assumption, I haven't run the web service), your router in turn pushes the data to your mac.

So, you need to configure three things:
The DynDNS Service
The client for DynDNS on your mac
The router to re-route incoming traffic to your mac (port forwarding)
The OF Software (as it has to be running)

Does that help?
 
I appreciate the efforts involved, but I had already read all of the posts regarding the dns and port forwarding methods.

Problem is, I don't have access to the router to do any port forwarding, and I my employer prefers to "just not mess with things"

I also get wifi via my apartment complex, and have no access at home.

Without having my context specific lists with me (via iPhone) GTD isn't GTD, thus omnifocus is only semifocus - it only is usefulf for my @work & @computer contexts.

I am becoming very unbalanced in my accomplishments.

Does anyone know more about the iGTD web interface? It seems that somebody was excited to see if OmniFocus might mimic it.

Would it require me to have the ability to port forward?

I mean, I am all about the OMNI love, but I refuse to throw away my precious iPhone and buy a damn phone that has iCal todo syncing. I mean, really... what was apple thinking with no todos?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by brianogilvie View Post
What you might be able to do is use a service like DNS2go.com to access your home computer from the iPhone. Without knowing the details of your setup,
I was setting up something similar via www.dyndns.com, I believe but got stuck on the port forwarding, as I have no access to the router.

Actually, I don't think DNS2go.com supports the mac platform, now that I look at it:

"Supported operating systems include Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003 and most major Linux distributions." (http://dns2go.com/dynamic-dns/)

Even if it did, I believe it would require port forwarding still, unless I misunderstand.

Quote:
Originally Posted by brianogilvie View Post
I'm not keeping up with iPhone developments, but there are a lot of people in your shoes and I'm reasonably confident that some solution will be developed reasonably soon.
If you know of a place where I could keep up with iPhone developments, please submit the link - being able to see what is coming down the pike would be very helpful for me. Quite honestly, it took me weeks to even learn there was an omni forum where I could look for answers (albeit unfruitfully to date.)

Thanks for all the creative minds. Perhaps Omni will just jailbreak their iPhones and make Omnifocus native to it... Although, I doubt apple would be thrilled.
 
 


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