(By Janne Hellsten)
I had long been struggling to keep my todo lists and notes organized. I had been trying to use a set of text files for todos but it quickly got either too long or too unorganized. I also tried to use a wiki todo lists but my tasks got quickly hidden into the depths of my wiki. I also setup an elaborate reminder system using a calendar but didn't like it that the tasks got lost if I didn't complete them immediately after being reminded about them.
At some point I learned about an Emacs app called planner-mode and used it for a while. Planner was pretty neat and had most of the features I had been wanting for a long time. I especially liked the ability of being able to freely embed tasks into wiki pages. Another great feature was to be able to have tasks turn themselves on at a certain date (and keep out of my todo list until then).
For reasons I don't anymore remember, I wasn't 100% happy with Planner either and wanted a better solution. As it happened, I learnt about Ocsigen which inspired me to try web programming in my favorite programming language. During my Xmas holiday in 2006 I finally wrote the first version of Nurpawiki.