You can read the first part of this article by clicking here.

My Test Run

After setting up a free account, I logged-in and was presented with a page listing the features available for free accounts: inviting another team member (remember you’re allowed only two team members including yourself for a free account), setting up the first of five pages for the account, and setting up reminders (email or text message reminders that can be set up through your account to remind you of important dates, meetings, etc.).

For a service like this to be of any use, it is a good idea to only set up an account if you plan on using it for, say, some kind of project or if you just want to use it as a daily, weekly, or monthly to-do list organizer of sorts, for example. So it would be a good idea to have in mind what you will be using your account for before you begin to set your Backpack account up.

My plan is to use my account for a business plan I have been working on. I am at the research phase now so my plan is to use my Backpack site as a handy online tool for notes, bookmarks, and lists, for starters.

Creating A Page

Pages are the backbone of your Backpack account. With pages, you can create lists and notes which can be shared among your team or just for yourself.

Since I will be the only one using the free account, I decided to go ahead and setup a page for the account. After logging into my account, I created a page by clicking on the Make A New Page graphic located in the upper right side of the page. The first thing you have to do after creating a page is to give it a descriptive name so you can remember what it is for.

I’ll use this first page as checklist for research I need to do. So I clicked on List in the top menu to create a list to add to the page. In the box that appears, enter a descriptive name for your list so that you don’t get them confused with any other lists you may add to your pages later.

With the title of your list chosen, you can then add items to your list. You can think of this list feature as a way to create a To-Do list. To add items to your list, just click on the Add an item link under the list title. You can enter as many items as you wish. If you need to delete an item from your list or wish to rename one, just move your mouse over that item. This will cause a little menu to pop up where you can choose to move, edit, or delete your item.

After creating my lists page, I created another page to be used just for notes. Instead of jotting down notes on whatever I can find on my desk, I can just use this notes page instead. With my new page created and named, I then clicked on the Note link found in the same menu containing the Lists link. Once clicked, a new window will appear on the page where you can enter a title for your note along with information on the note you want to save. Once done, click on the Add This Note button to save it to your Note page. Just like with the Lists page, you can save as many notes as you need to your page. A handy feature is the option to have the date attached to your note for easy reference.

Writeboard: The Killer Feature

If Backpack pages are the backbone of your account, then the Writeboard feature is the meat. With a writeboard, you able to create a web-based document which can be added to, edited, and read by members of your team who have access to your Backpack account.

To create a Writeboard, you’re going to use the same menu found at the top of the page. After clicking the Writeboard link, you’ll be prompted for a name for it. After supplying a name, a new text box window will appear which you will use to enter text for your Writeboard. With the free account, you are only allowed two Whiteboards.

One nice feature is you can download a Writeboard as either a text file or as a HTML file to your hard drive. Another handy feature is the ability to roll-back to any saved version of your Writeboard so that if you realized a mistake was made a week ago, you can go back to that version and fix whatever errors were made.

Remind Me Again

With the Reminders feature, you and your collaborators have the ability to create reminders to be sent on dates listed in a drop-down menu. Say you want to talk to your collaborators tomorrow, you can click on the Reminders link, enter the text you want to send to your team members, select when it is to be sent out from the drop-down menu and you are done. The reminder will be sent via email to everyone’s email or cell phone.

The only draw back to this feature is the inability to select the date you want the reminder sent from a pop-up calendar. The dates listed in the drop-down menu are kinda vague but you can’t really gripe too much since it’s free. Maybe the Calendar feature from a paid account allows specific dates and times to be selected?

Dear Journal

Rounding out the features available for your free account is the Journal. With the Journal feature, you or your team member(s) can post dated entries pertaining to the project you are using your Backpack account for. This can be a very useful and critical feature especially if you are collaborating with someone. The key would be to ensure everyone participating uses it to chronicle the work or updates they made to the project.

Final Verdict

Despite not having some of the nicer features the paid accounts offer (such as more pages, writeboards, the calendar feature, etc.), the free account does offer a lot for those who are looking for an all-in-one online collaboration application for a project. Even if you are a one-man show, the free account offers enough tools and features making it well worth looking into.

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