Sorry, but the ViaList service is no longer available.
We’re sad to say that as of June 11, 2008, the ViaList service and software are no longer available. We kept ViaList free for as long as we could, but it’s become apparent that we can’t justify the time and expense it would take to maintain, operate, and enhance ViaList to meet increasing expectations of performance, features, and reliability.What about my lists?
If you created lists in ViaList, you should still be able to open them using the desktop software. You can continue to make changes to your lists using the desktop software, but you won’t be able to post those changes for other users of the list or retrieve their updates, since the ViaList server isn’t operating any more.Since we do not plan to update the ViaList desktop software, we encourage you to move your important list data to another application. The easiest way to do this is to open your list, click on a row number, and choose Edit > Select All from the menu, then Edit > Copy to copy your entire list to the clipboard. Then just paste the data into another application of your choice. Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet software work particularly well, as the columns in your list will appear as columns in the spreadsheet. Since the columns in the pasted data are separated by tabs, you may also get good results pasting the list into Microsoft Word or another word processor, and then adjusting tab stops until you get the columns the way you want them.
Also, your shared lists will no longer be available via the Web.
- If you are the list’s creator, and still want to share your list with other users, we suggest you consisder the publishing and sharing features available from Web sites like PBWiki and Google Apps. If you have serious group collaboration needs, consider Qtask or Basecamp.
- If you accessed other people’s lists via the Web rather than using the desktop software, the lists will no longer be available to you. Please contact the list owner and ask them to export the list data and email it to you, or suggest that they publish it via some other method as described here.
Where else can I go?
In addition to the sites mentioned above, there are plenty of services on the Web where you can easily enter and share lists and to-dos. Most of these are Web-only, and don’t offer desktop software like ViaList for accessing your lists offline, but they do offer lots of features that ViaList doesn’t, such as SMS notifications, access via mobile phones, and others. Many of them are free for basic use.We’ve heard good things about these:
- PBWiki -- a general-purpose way to share information... if you thought Wikis were too hard, look again!
- Ta-da Lists -- from 37 Signals, the same people who offer Basecamp and other really nice online collaboration tools
- Remember the Milk -- focused on tasks and to-do’s, offering great mobile support via Blackberry, iPhone, and others
- Vitalist -- task and project management oriented around the “Getting Things Done” philosophy, also offering mobile support
- Bla-bla List -- simple sharable to-do lists