I love Evernote. It’s like having a junk drawer on a cart that I can wheel around with me wherever I go that comes with a personal assistant willing to rummage through it all and find just the item I’m looking any time of day or night. There are many ways to file stuff into Evernote quickly ranging from the main interfaces on PC, tablets, and phones, the excellent browser-based plugins, and the magic Evernote email address mechanism. However, one feature that is a little less well known is that of import folders. This scenario addresses the need to quickly file “things on disk” into your junk drawer for later reference. You can set up one or more folders that Evernote will monitor. As soon as a file appears in that folder, Evernote will scoop it up and file it in the appropriate notebook. It even comes with an option to delete the file once the note has been created. This is a perfect combination with a Print to PDF printer driver as you can now take a note of anything on your computer that you would print.
Enabling this feature is as easy as going to Tools->Import Folders. You specify the location of the folder on disk as well as a notebook into which files in the folder should be stored. Choose Yes for Subfolders if you want Evernote to scan child directories of the folder you specify, and choose either Keep or Delete to indicate whether Evernote should leave a copy of the file one the note has been created. It’s that easy.
Now anytime an email comes in that you’d like to file away just print it as a PDF and save the file into the appropriate directory on disk. Evernote will create a new note containing the PDF which you can reference later.
Yesterday we celebrated my birthday with our friends Aaron and Melissa first with a meal at Buster’s Texas BBQ and then later with a visit to Cinetopia to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. As ever the food at Buster’s was superb. If you’re a fan of BBQ I’d highly recommend a visit. We always have a great time there. After our meal we drove to see the movie. Unfortunately we got there a little later than expected and were unable to sit with our friends. We still had a fantastic time with the movie though. I hadn’t read the book beforehand and really enjoyed the story. The acting and production quality were top notch. Some folks might be offended or disturbed at a couple of the scenes, but there was nothing gratuitous. It was able to very well deliver the poignancy of a great story without going over the top. It was great to double date with our friends and I’m looking forward to returning with them to see the second movie.
Friday night Meaghan had arranged a surprise party for me at Ground Kontrol with our friends. I had a slight suspicion that something was amiss when she wouldn’t nail down the name of the restaurant we were going to, but I had no idea she’d organized to meet with our friends or of the great location. It was wonderful to walk in and see everyone there. What ensued was a collection of beer drinking, great conversation, and of course old school nostalgia gaming at a truly classic arcade. Amy and Dan had a Ms. Pacman competition. I watched Laura flexing some skills for Bryon on the BurgerTime cabinet. I had to rekindle an old love with a few runs on the Dance Dance Revolution machine, and Matt, Dan and I tore up a few rounds of Gauntlet Legacy. It was a great night, and were it not for Sagat ending my clean run on SF II I would have had a chance to clear arcade mode in a single quarter (I find M. Bison much easier than Sagat).
After Ground Kontrol we retired to the Portland City Grill for some nightcaps and more conversation. Amy, Dan, Matt, and Holly got my The Camera by Ansel Adams; a great compliment to the new lens I got for Christmas and the new camera bag I received for my birthday from Meaghan and my parents. I’ve already studied a couple of chapter and can see why Mr. Adams was considered such a pivotal part of modern photography.
Thanks to everyone who sent me well wishes for my birthday, via phone, email, FaceBook, or in person. I truly appreciate it and I feel extremely blessed to have such great people in my life. Here’s to making another great rotation!
I’ve now been playing Skyrim for almost a week. I’ve put about forty hours in so far and I’m still loving it. The world and story are some of the most immersive I’ve seen in an Elder Scrolls game to date, and if you’ve ever played an Elder Scrolls game before you’ll know that’s high praise. This is a series that is known for its incredible scope and even more incredible ability to immerse you in a rich world. Skyrim takes that to a whole new level. While in some areas there are only subtle refinements to the formula, they are often in critical areas where their effect is profound. For example, in Oblivion there were many scripted events in which a character or other subject of a quest would just happen across your path relatively independently of the path you took. However, there were definitely cases where you could be searching for quite some time to just run into a certain event. It could pull you out of the immersion as you were forced to either start a thorough search, turn to the guide book, or simply give up on the quest until a later time. So far in Skyrim I’ve never felt like I didn’t know where to go. The answers and story weren’t spoon fed by any means, rather the answers and targets occur after just the right amount of searching. It’s a very pleasing way to interact with a semi-scripted set of events. You never feel out of control of the action, but equally you don’t feel herded like cattle down a narrow corridor. The ability to kill just about any NPC makes the whole system feel incredibly fluid. There is very little requirement to complete all the but fewest of main story quests to advance and if you want to play a character with a tendency to randomly kill or annoy quest NPCs for no reason then you absolutely have that opportunity. The balance change from Oblivion is subtle but it has a vast overall effect on the flow of the game.
Another set of changes that stand out to me are in the combat system. While it’s still nowhere as slick as many first-person action games, there is much less sword flailing than there used to be. The encounters feel much tighter and there is a lot more opportunity for employing spacial tactics such as using doors to funnel enemies together or leveraging an altitude advantage such as standing at the top of a stairwell or ledge. Battles can often go one way or the other based upon a few key advantages or disadvantages, and as a result you are never left feeling overpowered by an enemy; there is often a tactical option to swing the tide of battle in your favor. There are definitely moments where I have felt my own character is unrealistically overpowered, but who really complains about killing a few foes with a single swing? It’s just epic feeling. Archery has also been improved subtly; especially with regards to sneak attacks. Enemies in Oblivion had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly where your first arrow was fired from. You’d hit them once and more often than not they would turn and start charging right towards you, even if you’d attempted to snipe them from cover. This time around it is not unreasonable to pick off a few unsuspecting foes by finding a good ledge from which to rain down fire.
The skill system has been reworked a little, ultimately being more clear than Oblivion. Unfortunately the changes are significant enough that long-time players may be a little disoriented by the new setup. The only criticism here is the difficulty encountered when navigating between nodes in the new skill trees. The nodes are set up as stars in constellations that represent certain skills. Moving between them is a random affair at best and it can be frustrating to accurately select the item you want.
There are some noticeable glitches, both graphically and with the gameplay. I’ve had to load a previous game a couple of times to get past some particularly bad problems. In one case everything I came near would instantly die, like a long-range Midas touch of instant doom. Ordinarily in a game like Halo this would be no problem, however in Skyrim that means you’re also nuking all of the friendly NPCs, quest-givers, and merchants. Not to mention that being a walking avatar of doom loses its appeal fairly quickly. After all, you want to swing that new shiny sword of killing +1 and do the deed yourself from time to time. The other glitch I’ve encountered is with some enemies being able to attack through walls. They aren’t always bounds checked properly and I’ve been hit by a few spells and arrows that somehow emerged through a layer of solid rock without being able to return the favor. Fortunately, in both cases the problem cleared up by loading a recent save game.
On the note of saving, do it often. Get used to saving like you were working on an old 386 in a location where the power might go out at any moment. While the autosave feature does a fairly decent job of saving your character here and there, I have run into a couple of occasions where I lost about an hour’s worth of play due to not having recent save files to call upon; something that is particularly irritating when you are loading to fix a glitch rather than as a result of your own foolhardy actions.
I get the sense that I’m about 20% through the game so far. I’m approaching a level of map and location visibility, a level of power, and a decent enough stock of equipment to feel about a fifth of the way done. I’m basing this on no particular metric other than a familiarity with other titles in the series and the approximate size and length of those games. It’s also inline with the Bethesda prediction of about 300 hours of game time. I’ve zipped through some of the early stuff quickly, and the endgame always takes a little longer. I tend to play by completing everything pretty fully. I do all of the side quests in taverns, and definitely stop for scenic detours along the way. I’ll dump loot in the houses I buy and sometimes even arrange books on bookshelves or items on tables. I’m certainly not a streamlined player but make up for the detours by ploughing through dungeons at a fair pace.
In terms of game activities, I’d say I’m seeing the following breakdown:
60% questing – Completing objectives, exploring dungeons, making progress
15% maintaining – Selling items, crafting potions, weapons, and armor, sorting through bags
25% role playing – There is an immense amount to see. Sometimes you have to stop and take it all in.
For an open-ended role-playing game that’s a pretty good balance in my opinion. Just enough action to keep you moving, and just enough maintenance to make crafting and bartering fun without feeling arduous.
I’ll update more once I get a bit further in.
I’ve been playing Skyrim for about 4 hours now and it’s already competing for the title of greatest game I’ve ever played. My mind is blown. The world is so immersive, and the pacing so far has been about as close to perfect as I could imagine. Events happen at just the right time, and goals are found after just the right amount of searching; not so easily as to feel spoon-fed, yet neither so obtusely as to feel onerous. It is clear that an amazing amount of effort and time has been put into making this game feel massive and open, yet centered and focused around your story at the same time. Mind…blown. Bravo Bethesda. Bravo!
Merry Christmas!
After a rowdy Christmas Eve of fine wine, champagne, a little beer, and even some tequila, we retired for a good night’s sleep; those of us who weren’t spending extending periods in the bathroom that is. After a refreshing sleep we woke bright and early to wish each other a Merry Christmas and exchange gifts.
I often feel overwhelmed by the veritable wealth of gifts laid at our feet. Everyone was incredibly generous and we all have many new toys and treats to enjoy. I’m typing this post on my new Apple wireless keyboard paired with my iPad; I feel all hip and cool. Meaghan celebrates her birthday today also. She is wearing her shiny new earrings that my parents and I bought for her and enjoying reading her new pastry recipe book from our friends Amy and Dan. We are planning a special birthday celebration for Meaghan tonight after we have eaten our Christmas dinner; it’s important to delineate the events.
It has been a wonderful week thus far. We’re so glad that Mandy, Chris, and Cole were able to drive down to celebrate with us. This morning we had a short web chat with my family over in England. We used FaceTime between my MacBook Pro and Peter’s new iPad. Neither of us have a particularly good internet connection available so the picture was choppy and the sound was a little delayed, but it was great to see them all and to get to wish them a Merry Christmas face to face. It’s difficult to be so far away at Christmas, but wonderful that technology brings us just a little bit closer every year.
Tomorrow we’re planning to do some shopping in Palm Springs and see if there are any after-Christmas sales of which we can take advantage.
This year for Christmas, Meaghan and I find ourselves in Joshua Tree California. We are visiting with her parents, Greg and Jenny, and with her sister Mandy, her husband Chris, and their son Cole.
We started our journey by catching a bus to downtown Portland in 27 degree weather. It was relatively early in the morning (for a vacation day) but after changing to the MAX line downtown found us arriving at the airport a comfortable two hours before our flight was scheduled to leave. This provided us with ample time to sit and eat a relaxing lunch before crowding into our winged sardine tin. Fortunately the flights were comfortable and went by quickly. Despite a minor problem with the airline failing to transfer Meaghan’s baggage, and thus leaving her without a change of clothing for our first day here, the complete travel experience was relatively discomfort free.
Greg had to work on Thursday and we were dealing with “not at work so we can finally let down” syndrome. We had a nice relaxing morning and then drove out to Copper Mountain College to meet Greg for lunch. After a tour of the college campus we went to a restaurant called Sam’s Pizza, which offered pizza (duh), subs, and Indian food (eh?). From the outside you wouldn’t know there was much there, but once inside we discovered a gem of a place to eat. The Indian food was authentic and extremely well prepared. The girls ordered a veggie pizza (*boggle*) while Chris, Greg, and I ordered curries. Well appointed sides (raita, mango chutney, and a variety of sauces) joined a very authentic tandoor taste to create a thoroughly delicious meal.
Friday was Greg and Jenny’s 33rd anniversary. To celebrate we drove out to Temecula to visit a winery of which they are members. We began the day with a superb lunch at the South Coast Winery restaurant, and then finished with a wine tasting tour at the Wiens Winery and Vineyard. After sampling a large variety of wines, we eventually selected five as our favorites; the fantastic Temperillo Petite Syrah, Reserva Primitivo, both the ’08 and ’10 Sangiovese, a Pinot Gris (for Meaghan) and an Orange Champagne. As our penance we now have to drink the bottles that we bought over the next few days. It’s a hard life.
Today we’re relaxing, watching some football, and perhaps heading out to the movie theatre to see the new Mission Impossible.
Thanks to a combination of planning and stubbornness on my part, I didn’t have to brave the malls during December even once this year. I was able to do all of my Christmas shopping online! Not only did I save a bunch of time and money, but my stress levels are lower and my Christmas cheer higher. Thank you Internet, thank you.
Tonight, while playing Call of Duty, I encountered an enemy I just could not see. No matter how many times I looked for my nemesis he would always shoot me before I could even see where he was. Eventually I decided to watch the kill-cam, a short replay of the last kill from your enemies perspective, to see if I could determine from where he was so able to finish me every time.
What I saw was a view from underneath the playing arena, an area players are not supposed to be able to reach. From this location my enemy was able to see the whole map without fear of being seen in return. He could leisurely pick off his foes at will without being in any danger himself. What a filthy cheat! I went into the replay room and recorded this video of his cheating ways. I also reported the bugger to the XBox Live! team. From what I’ve read the team try to follow up on reports of cheating so hopefully he’ll get banned. This sort of exploit just spoils the game for everyone else.
A cheating git found an exploit in MW3.
Fortunately I was able to simply leave the game lobby and find a group of people to play with who would abide by the rules. Several hours of grief-free gameplay ensued and a great time was had. My brother in-law Chris joined mid way through and we had a great time running around and shooting people together.
![fruit_mixed_thumb[4]](http://blog.stuartthompson.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/fruit_mixed_thumb4_thumb.jpg "fruit_mixed_thumb[4]")
Right now, this very minute, life is better than it has ever been. Technology has transformed our lives. We can interact with people thousands of miles away at the touch of a button. Medical technology helps us to diagnose and treat almost every ailment we suffer. Citizens have the right to vote, to speak their mind, to incorporate businesses, to trade, and profit from their endeavors. Not too many decades ago you could be convicted for poaching a deer from the lord’s lands just in an attempt to feed your family. Now we waste more food at every meal than most of the rest of the world gets to eat in a week. Grocery stores are overflowing with produce of every single kind. You can not only get access to milk and cheese and fresh fruit, but you can choose where and how it was produced, how much fat it contains, and whether it was grown organically or not. Life is brilliant.
Just two hundred years ago, Marie Antoinette was one of the only people in the world to have a flushing toilet. Paris was a cesspool of poverty stricken people who could barely afford to survive in conditions more filthy than even the poorest area in the United States today. They would have killed, literally and probably quite violently, for even a tenth of what we have now.
If you were unemployed back then, you had very few avenues to improve your situation. Many lacked the basic education necessary to even read or write. Finding and keeping a job meant submitting to the every whim of your employer. Minimum wage didn’t exist and you could be asked to work punishingly long hours for little or no reward beyond the chance to show up and do it all again tomorrow. There were no safety standards, no legal recourse for harassment, and no equal employment opportunity rights meant discrimination was just a part of daily life.
These days we can choose a job from a vast array of employers, or take loans from the government to get more education. When we choose a job, we benefit from limits on the number of hours we are asked to work, there is a legal minimum on what we get paid, and there are all manner of regulations and standards in place to keep us safe while we work. Even better than that, if there aren’t any jobs out there that we like, we can start our own business and employ our friends, all for less than the cost of a flat-screen TV. The government will even pay us to do so and there is a wealth of free education and resources on the internet to help get us started. During times of high unemployment we can create new jobs! The opportunities to improve our own situation have never been richer.
Everything is brilliant now. We just refuse to see it.
November 14th, 2011 in
Politics |
4 Comments
The Occupy Wall Street movement, the 99%, argue that "our" money has been taken from us by the richest 1%; that the richest 400 people own the majority of our wealth. However, they have failed to do some rather simple math about what would happen to that money were it distributed.
According to a this article on Huffington Post, the richest 400 people in America have a total of around $1.37trillion; that’s $1,370,000,000,000. Wow! What a lot of money! Or is it? There are roughly 300 million people in the United States; that’s 300,000,000. What would happen if we were to divide that enormous fortune equally amongst all of us?
$1,370,000,000,000 / 300,000,000 = $4,566.67
Wait, what? That can’t be right. If we equally divided all of that money equally then we’d each only get a little over four and a half thousand dollars? But the 1% have stolen everything from us, haven’t they? If they don’t have our money then who does? The reality is that those 400 do have the majority of the wealth, but unfortunately even their vast fortune is not a lot of money. Almost half of our country’s value is owned by them but that isn’t the sad part. The real problem here is that our wealth is no longer held by anyone.
What happened to our wealth?
Take a look in the dumpster behind any restaurant. Think about every kitchen that was torn up and renovated just to add a few thousand dollars of value to a house. Fridge/freezers less than a year old ripped out and thrown into a landfill to make room for bigger, better ones. We buried our assets in landfills on the premise that our improvements were adding value to the houses we lived in. In reality that value never existed, the houses weren’t worth any more and the money spent on them was sitting in a landfill somewhere growing mold. Waste. We turned money into waste.
We’ve consumed and disposed over and over. Entitlement has taught us that we need the best of everything and that we need it right now. Unemployment checks spent on luxuries. Credit cards leveraged to the hilt, not to buy food or essentials, but to ensure that we had the latest LCD TVs, BluRay players, and surround sound speakers. “Old” items thrown away to get the latest and great.
I love to buy toys. My bright red Toyota truck, my wonderful cherry red iPad, and my shiny new MacBook Pro. They are fantastic in every way and I love them, but I didn’t get them right away. I first test drove a Tacoma truck in 2003. It took eight years of waiting, and saving, before I could finally get it. There have been many times when I would have loved to have bought all manner of items, but if you don’t have the cash you shouldn’t buy the item. This was one of the first rules I learned when I was young; you spend cash for toys, not credit, not loans, but cold hard cash from a savings account, and only when it won’t impact your budget in other ways.
It’s all about choice.
For over a decade I’ve rented an apartment instead of buying a house. I’d love for Meaghan and I to get a place of our own (and some day soon we will, I promise baby!), but only when we can do it responsibly. I was taught to pay my debts and that purchasing something without the ability to pay for it is not only irresponsible but also immoral. We’ve spent years paying off car loans, paying down student debts and putting money away in savings so that when the time is right we can find a modest house that’s within our budget and have a nice down payment. I’m not saying we haven’t made stupid choices in our time. I’ve paid off my fair share of credit card bills that were full of non-performing debt and frivolous purchases. The difference is that I’m willing to fess up to my own mistakes and learn from them. I spent the money, I failed to put it in savings, and now I have less money as a result. No-one broke into my house and took it while I slept. I swiped the card through the machine and punched in my PIN number. That’s where the money went. End of story.
November 14th, 2011 in
Politics | tags:
1%,
99%,
Occupy,
OWS,
Wealth |
11 Comments
As part of my ongoing effort to get and stay organized I’ve been evaluating my to-do list management. What I’ve found so far is that I do pretty well on burning tasks off the list, but I sometimes fail to capture new tasks as they come up. If I am sitting at my desk or using my iPad then I add the task right there and then. Unfortunately, ideas don’t play fair like that. Often new tasks will pop up at the most inconvenient of times, such as when I’m in the shower, out on a walk, or in the middle of playing a game. Some of the time I’m able to remember the idea long enough, but more often than not I remember weeks later when the task is no longer relevant. In the worst case I have déjà vu and realize that I’ve thought of and forgotten the same task so many times over that it’s not even relevant to the current century.
One of the biggest reasons for this gap is the lack of a native Android phone application for ToodleDo; my current todo list management platform of choice. I’m far more likely to have my phone with me than my iPad or PC so if there was a native phone app then I’d automatically have a higher chance of capturing my awesome ideas right away. As a stop gap I’ve been using Evernote as a temporary holding bay for such ideas but with varying levels of success. It’s more of a task graveyard than a functional system.
What about other Android apps for ToodleDo?
A few years ago I evaluated a couple of Android apps that integrated with ToodleDo but found them to be lacking. I decided to search once more to see if anything had changed since then. I petitioned my friends on FaceBook and got some good recommendations. I’m starting out by evaluating two candidates; Ultimate To Do List, and DGT GTD. Unfortunately I can’t find my notes from two years ago so I don’t know if I’ve already rejected these apps.
[Update: I've since rejected Ultimate To Do List. It's a battery hog and the UI is harsh on the eyes.]
I’m really losing momentum with Google+ lately. I love the platform, the structure of the streams, and the simplicity of sharing. However, there are some huge gaps that are causing me to share and engage here less and less often.
No API
The lack of an API means a lack of third-party tool integration. In turn that means I can aggregate my feeds and cross-post to all of my social platforms except Google+. I have to make a separate trip here to catch up or share what I’m thinking.
No Native iPad App
This is more specific to my use case than I’m sure it is to many others, but I bet I’m not completely alone. I use my iPad for just about everything these days. It’s with me way more often than I am at my computer and therefore it sees the most use. When I lift the cover I’m greeted with a number of badge counters to draw my attention to recent events. The FaceBook app shows how many unread comments and messages I have. Twitter shows my mentions. Google Voice shows me unread messages. Google+ shows me…nothing…because the best I have is a link to the url which will open in Safari. I could go the route of installing the iPhone version of Google+ on my iPad and running it in 2x eyebleed mode. I chose not to do that because in 2x the interface is as ugly as a war wound and as useful as a paper hat in a broken nuclear reactor.
Noise Control
The signal:noise ratio even at my low number of circled friends is often abysmal. I see the same few posts over and over with no way to mute a post generally. I’d love to be able to say "yes, I’ve seen the kittens, now let me mute the original post and have that mute all of the subsequent shares of that post". If it’s possible to track the sharing with ripples, it must be possible to track it for muting.
I really, really like Google+, but I’m finding I visit less and less. When I have ten minutes to spare and I open the cover of my iPad, I’m more likely to investigate the (9) unread items on FaceBook or my (3) mentions on Twitter than click on a bookmark in Safari and go sniffing through the noise for stuff that might be interesting.
I have had an incredibly busy schedule of late, mostly self-imposed but busy nonetheless. Between taking piano lessons, trying to set up a couple of small businesses, and a few home organization projects, I’m having to manage my time pretty carefully to ensure that I still get the chance to exercise, relax, and unwind. I’m moving very quickly and I want to avoid burning out.
Deadlines don’t work for me
One of the first lessons I learned is that deadlines don’t work for me. I start out strong planning out exactly when I’d like to get everything done by. Then real life happens and within a couple of days the whole plan is out of sync; deadlines pass by and a backlog of unfinished tasks kills my motivation.
Leveraging the Backlog
Applying the lessons learned from the Agile development process, and more specifically Scrum, I have instead opted to put everything in a backlog. Essentially the Scrum process encourages you to put all tasks in a single backlog, accompanied by a coarse grain estimate of the amount of work involved. This backlog is then prioritized and work begins on the top task in the list. When that task is completed you move to the next one. As new tasks arise they are estimated and placed into the backlog according to their priority. By measuring the velocity of your work you can get a reasonable estimate of when a task might complete. This is different from setting deadlines because you are predicting when something might be done rather than drawing a drop-dead line in the sand. Real life interruptions are free to occur as all they affect is velocity. I find this system much more effective and far less demoralizing than a system where deadlines whoosh by.
So far I’ve been using ToodleDo to keep my backlog. However, I’ve had to shoehorn my system on top of it as TD is very priority and due date oriented. I’m considering instead moving to something like Pivotal Tracker or one of the other cheap and easy Agile management tools but I’m just not sure. I sense an experiment or two coming on.
The latest installment of the fantastic Call of Duty series is hitting stores on Tuesday. However, our current finances would have seen me drooling at others playing the game until early December. That is until Meaghan’s parents sent me an early Christmas present. Excellent! Much appreciated and something I’ll get many hours of enjoyment from.
Looks like I’ll be going prestige and pwning n00bs on release day after all. Thanks guys! I’ll be sure to upload more YouTube videos of my greatness.
November 5th, 2011 in
Uncategorized |
No Comments
I attempt to clear out my email inboxes at the end of every work day, although I usually manage it only a couple of times per week. I’ve been doing this for about five years now and one of the reasons was a belief that it would help me to organize my thoughts and be more responsive. However, I’ve never had any data to back that up, until now.
Ever since I started tracking my time and interruptions on my iPad, I’ve been able to observe interesting trends in the data. In addition to tracking where I spend my time with Eternity, I also track occurrences of events such as external and internal interruptions, ad-hoc phone calls, and the subject of this discovery; the “I forgot to do something” event. I mark an instance of “I forgot…” whenever someone has to ping me about a follow-up item from a meeting, something I promised to do during a conversation in a hallway, or as the result of a request within an email.
What I’ve found by looking back through my data is that on the days following a cleared inbox or zero email bounce (ZEB), I had very few “I forgot…” events due to missed email requests. It would appear that clearing my inbox now has substantive data to indicate that it reduces missed follow-ups.
Based upon this I’m planning to be more diligent about clearing my inbox at the end of a day to see if it the data continues to support the idea that it makes me more responsive.
October 28th, 2011 in
Productivity |
No Comments
Ever since I bought my iPad I have been searching for a good blogging tool. I first tried the community supported WordPress application six months ago and was not impressed. The lack of rich text editing features made it little more then an HTML editor with some WordPress API integration. Writing posts from scratch was a clunky walk through angle-bracket land, nothing like the experience I had come to enjoy from Windows Live Writer.
A few days ago I heard that the newest version of the application now featured a richer editing bar. Excited I downloaded the update from the app store and fired it up to write this post. While there have been a couple of improvements, the rich editing bar is rather disappointing. Bold, Italic (but no underline) are supported very basically, there are options for hyperlinks, and a couple of other HTML constructs. However, there is still no rich text editing support and as a result complicated posts remain a sea of angle brackets and mark-up, which makes reviewing and editing the post content very difficult.
I remain hopeful that some day a rich blogging application will become available for the iPad, but today is not that day. This app is still and clunky and unhelpful as ever when it comes to writing anything more than a Twitter-like update only. Beyond plain text it is simply easier to wait until I get home and write on my PC.
This weekend I had a lot of things to accomplish. My task list this morning was packed full of high priority items. I employ a couple of tools that help me to manage my time effectively so that I can both complete my tasks and set aside time to relax and play.
I’ve tried out several combinations of tools looking for the right pairing and last week I think I discovered it. Eternity Time Log and ToodleDo complement each other in just the right ways to allow you to prioritize tasks and then track the time spent on them.
Eternity Time Log (link)
Eternity is a fantastic time tracking tool. When starting an activity or task you simply select it and click a start button. When the task is complete you click the stop button. You can include a note to provide context as well as a list of tags. The log of activities for a day can be edited at will to correct errors in start and stop times, or to add missing entries at a later date. The list of activities is fully customizable as a nested hierarchy. This allows for tracking to be as fine or coarse grain as appropriate. The logs for a day are arranged chronologically and the data can additionally be viewed as a pie-chart that shows both the hours spent on each activity as well as the percentage the segment represents. Furthermore, the logs can be exported in a comma-separated value file that could be imported into Excel or other data processor for deeper analysis and reporting. One of the most useful features within Eternity is the ability to set an alarm when starting a task. This lends itself very well to application of the Pomodoro technique as starting a task can be accompanied with a 25 minute alarm. Breaks can then be logged in between the work activities to complete the cycle.
ToodleDo (link)
A popular online task management tool, ToodleDo is an excellent place to jot down tasks as soon as they are imagined. This gets them off your brain and into a prioritized backlog of work items. Pairing this with Eternity gives a very powerful mechanism for prioritizing and then tracking against a personal task backlog. The available reports are rich enough to allow for adjustment of expectations in future task planning without introducing an unreasonable amount of overhead.
So…what did I get done?
As I type it out it feels like it should be more. Yet I did manage to accomplish everything on the list. More to the point, I’ve been able to hit my goals at work every day I’ve used these apps. I’ve also learned an incredible amount about my work break habits by reviewing the data captured in Eternity. For example, I learned that I take proper GTD breaks (5 minutes every 25 minutes, 15 minutes every 2 hours) regularly at the start of the week whereas towards the end of the week I end up working straight through. I’ve also learned that the number of ad-hoc meetings that happen by people sending me an IM or stopping by my cube rise sharply towards the end of the week. It shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that productivity went down on those days as a result. Good data to have and something to learn from.
Washed and Detailed my Truck
I keep my truck pretty clean most of the time. However, in honor of it reaching 5,000 miles it was time for a detailing. So after a run through the car wash and a quick once over with the vacuums I busted out the ArmorAll wipes and went to town.
Shaved my Head
It was time. The dome was starting to look fuzzy again. I had to bring the sexy back.
Scanned and Filed Old Family Photographs
We have several packs of family photographs that I would like to share online. I’ve now finished scanning, processing, and filing the first batch of these photographs. They are now ready to be filed away in a labeled, acid-free cardboard box for long-term storage. After scanning the photographs I took the opportunity to tag the photos with the code written on the front of the storage box in which the original photograph will be stored.
Cleaned up Metadata in iTunes
We have songs that were imported incorrectly and have bad metadata as a result. I am progressively cleaning up all of the songs in our collection. Today’s task covered albums beginning with the letters D, E, F. This isn’t the first pass through the library and it’s unlikely to be the last. Nevertheless, D-F now have correct artist, album, cover art, genre, and song names; the majority of the problems being incorrectly spelled names or incorrect or missing album art.
I’m now completely caffeine free. I don’t drink soda, coffee, tea, or even those Sobe fruit drinks that try to disguise themselves as something else. For the past two years I’ve had no caffeine at all and my energy levels have never been higher. Managing energy with meals and exercise has been far more effective than any caffeine stimulus.
Kicking the Habit
I had been trying to quit drinking caffeine on and off for the last five years. Back in 2008 I managed to go for thirteen months without cracking open a can of Coke or Mountain Dew. However, after a stressful job shift and some other concerns in my personal life I broke down and started on the syrup-sugary goodness once more. Fortunately I was able to reign it in after just a few months and now I don’t even think about caffeine, in fact the thought repulses me. Sugary soda and the subsequent crash it produces were a false economy for me. Get a couple extra hours of productivity on one side, but pay the price heavily on the other. It just wasn’t balancing out. It was even a zero sum game. I actually found a loss in productivity overall when fueled by soda and coffee.
Keeping up on Energy
There are times when I can feel my energy levels are dipping. However, this is usually due to a poor meal choice or lack of stretching and exercise than a lack of caffeine. By choosing the correct breakfast and lunch meals and taking regular breaks to stretch and clear my head, I can easily control my energy levels and avoid the mid-afternoon dip. If anything I find that my energy levels in the afternoon are slightly higher than they were in the morning and only finally dip in the evening a few hours after dinner. Eating meals at consistent times seems to help, and eating an early dinner helps to avoid evening fatigue while giving enough time for energy levels to tail off before it is time for bed.
October 17th, 2011 in
Health |
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Over the past few months NetFlix have announced that they were raising their prices, splitting their DVD by mail and streaming services, and finally that the service split would actually involved splitting into two companies. Since that time there have been many customers who have decided to drop one or both of the services.
This morning we received an email from NetFlix indicating "It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs."
It seems that NetFlix have heard the sounds of customers leaving and decided to reverse one of the three changes. The price hikes and service split will stay but "…in other words, no Qwikster."
While it is good to see some response from Netflix, it seems to me that they are missing the real reason that is causing people to cancel their subscriptions. I believe that many people used both services because they were bundled together; in essence they were receiving the streaming service for free. When Netflix announced the price hike and service split it caused consumers to reconsider the value of one or both services.
Meaghan and I determined that we don’t use the DVD by mail service sufficiently to justify paying the monthly fee. We really only rent a disc or two per month so RedBox satisfies our optical media rental needs for less money and quicker satisfaction. Curiously though, we have also evaluated whether we get sufficient usage from our streaming subscription as well. There are many other services in this space and with this move Netflix have become self-disrupting. Evaluating our options has caused us to wonder if we really need Netflix at all.
I’ve recently been playing Magic: The Gathering on XBox 360 with my friends Kevin and Roody. I have deliberately steered clear of the Magic line of card games for years. Both being a completionist and having an addictive personality, I feared that Magic would be a quick way to dispose of large amounts of both money and time. Magic is a card game where opponents face off using decks of cards. The cards in there hands represent creatures, spells, and magic items that can be used to do battle. The danger of the traditional Magic card games is that you are able to purchase new cards to augment your deck, thereby giving you stronger cards to use in battle. Strong players will spend significant time and money to create the perfect deck.
The XBox arcade versions of the game mitigates those risks by limiting the decks and cards that are available. This has two appealing effects; you won’t meet players who have spent thousands of dollars creating the perfect deck, nor will you be tempted to also spend thousands of dollars in order to compete with them.
Kevin, Roody, and myself have been meeting online on Sunday afternoon to play together for a few hours in a game mode that pits the three of us against an arch-enemy; a computer controlled player with bonuses that make him or her extra tough to beat. It’s a nice way to shoot the breeze and have some fun.
October 4th, 2011 in
Games |
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As part of the ongoing migration to Evernote, today I began scanning in the last of my old paper journals. I’ve already moved a lot of things into an electronic format, either to the blog in the case of public journals from vacations or to electronic documents in the case of more private diary entries. There were, however, a final few paper journals sitting on my bookshelf; the last of the old guard. While there still exists a certain romance with old pen and paper journals, the reality is that the availability and portability of modern media outweighs that romance for me.
I like keeping old journals because I like to look back at times and see what I was thinking and experiencing in years gone by. The security offered by backup systems and the availability of cloud services has made it a no-brainer. While an iPad would no more survive a fire than a paper journal, off-site encrypted backups certainly would. So with that goal in mind I removed the pages from my remaining paper journals and this evening I started to scan them in and file them electronically.
Last weekend Meaghan and I travelled up to Seattle to meet with her parents who were leaving from the port town for an Alaskan cruise. We took a bus to downtown Portland and then caught the Amtrak Cascades train at Union Station. Pro tip: The travel time on the train is less than a typical drive from Portland to Seattle and is a lot more comfortable and scenic.
Meaghan and I arrived a little earlier than her parents flight landed so we decided to tour the world famous market on the waterfront. There are a great variety of shops and curios on display that can easily fill a Friday afternoon.
That evening we met up with her parents at our hotel, conveniently where they were also staying for the night, and headed out for a meal at the Rock Bottom brewery. After a good night’s sleep, we rose early and took a stroll down Pike Place and the Post Alley shops.
The first Starbucks is always a popular tourist attraction. On this day there was a single busker with an acoustic guitar and a few large tour groups. Fortunately as it was an early Saturday morning, despite the crowds it was much quieter than usual. The market was also very quiet and we were able to enjoy the flowers and amazing stalls of fresh food without the crowds.
The final stop for the morning was at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, and at a machine used to crush a penny to create a memento of the visit (also for Chris’ mom who likes to collect them).
Due to inconsistencies in the space-time continuum, and also because I didn’t get around to posting this for over week, Greg and Jenny actually returned from their cruise yesterday. All reports indicate that they had a fantastic time. It was lovely to see them both, even if it was for just one day. We look forward to seeing them again at Christmas time.
This morning I received my flu shot, got a tetanus booster, and as part of a typical annual wellness assessment had blood drawn to learn my vital statistics. This will help me to save money on my health insurance next year due to a neat benefits program offered by my employer. As I sat in the waiting room preparing to be poked and prodded I thought about the incredible services that are so readily available to us. While having metal needles stuck into my skin certainly isn’t my favorite thing, the knowledge that ten minutes from my house there exists a sterile, professional, and well-funded institution providing these services is an incredible blessing. Looking around the waiting room I saw anxious faces ruminating the procedures that would fill their short term and smiled. We forget how lucky we are. Adding to the availability and convenience, the staff at OHSU maintain a high level of professionalism and courteousness that makes the process all the more pleasant. I’m now good on tetanus for another ten years, have my flu shot, and a blood panel on the way all in under thirty minutes and I’m back at work and ready to go.
Health Insurance Discount Incentive
One of the reasons I scheduled my health assessment (in addition to simply wanting to know if I’m well) is because my employer, tw telecom, is offering a reduction in next year’s health insurance premium to all employees who do so. I think that’s a fantastic idea and one I was quick and happy to support. I believe that preventative solutions save more money than reactive ones and I’m sure that’s as true in medicine as it is in technology. If me getting early warning signs on health issues helps to save the beleaguered health system money then reflecting those actions in a lower premium seems very appropriate.
Influenza virus picture courtesy of AJC1.
"Your card is declined, sir." The words rang through my ears. I was dumbstruck. Jovially I asked that the card be run again. Same result. I could see it in her eyes, feel it from the faces of the people around me. Surprise was replaced by shock, which was soon replaced by anger. I check my wallet and retrieve my American Express. "We don’t accept American Express." I check the slot for bills. No cash either. Well fuck. Futilely I insist that the card is good. Her look does not change. She has seen it all before. My ears ring with the whispers of those around me. My embarrassment flourishes as I perceive their thoughts. Shamefully I return the food as I awkwardly explain that I have no other ways to pay. Instinctively I reach for my cell phone and punch in the number for US Bank customer service.
TL;DR Summary (for those with either limited time or concentration)
US Bank suspended my debit card and failed to contact me about it. This resulted in me being unable to pay for lunch while out with my work colleagues, looking like an NSF schmuck, and having to walk away hungry. It then took more than thirty minutes with an unhelpful customer service rep who failed to correctly verify my personal information before unlocking my account again, who also failed to provide any good explanation as to why the hold was placed in the first place or why I had not been contacted about it.
Meaghan and I visited Seattle this weekend. During the twenty minutes I was on hold, I had more than enough time to connect the dots and figure out what had happened. I know I have sufficient funds, I know my card hasn’t been physically stolen. The damn fraud protection nannies had come out to “help” me by disabling my card for suspicious activity.
By now I had returned to the office, hungry, embarrassed, and livid. I pulled up the usbank.com website and started looking for any indication my account was out of order. The balances looked just as I had seen them only hours before, and the status on my debit card was listed as “active”.
I finally got through to customer service.
Failure #1
Last year my identity was compromised and leaked by HealthNet. As a result, I have a password on my account with strict instructions to ask for it upon any interaction. I was not asked for my password by the customer service rep, only for a few pieces of personal information.
Failure #2
After confirming that there was indeed a problem with my account, the service rep transferred me to cardholder services. I was asked for personal information but again not asked about my password.
Failure #3
I explained that my card had just been declined while attempting to buy lunch. I was humiliated and upset. Instead of any kind of apology I was interrogated by the card services rep who treated me more like a thief of my own account than an upset customer.
Failure #4
The reason they had frozen my card was because I purchased bus passes at a TriMet ticket station the day before. I ride the bus to work. I buy bus passes at TriMet ticket stations about once a month. It was then explained that it was also because I bought food in Seattle the day before that. My snarky comment about having bought rail tickets to Seattle earlier in the week did little to soothe communications, which at this point were heading for a full-on breakdown.
Failure #5
I ask why there were zero attempts to contact me about this suspected fraud. Whenever US Bank wants to upsell services, offer to finance a mortgage, or engage me in a customer survey they have no problem contacting me 24/7 via email, SMS text, or over the phone. So why is it that when they suspect fraud on my account they stay completely silent. The customer service rep indicated that I was due for a call but that because the “fraud” happened on a Sunday it was outside of their business hours. I pointed out that it was currently Monday afternoon, and asked if that was within business hours or if perhaps they only made fraud calls on the third Thursday of lent in each leap year. Communications continued their downward slope.
Failure #6
Finally, after being assured that the hold would be lifted at some point soon, I asked why my card had shown as active online and how I would have had any clue that my card was suspended. I was simply told that I would only know when it was declined. I explained that such a situation was not acceptable to me and that I needed a better option. I was told that no such option existed and that this could happen any time I make purchases outside of my normal pattern. Bloody useless!
So there you go. Successive failures and an all around horrible customer service experience. Meaghan and I visited our bank branch this evening and talked to the manager there for about forty-five minutes. He listened as we explained everything that had happened, apologized for my unpleasant experience, and promised to research the situation and get back to me. I indicated that my biggest concern was about this happening again in the future and making sure that we were contacted immediately if our cards were suspended or fraudulent activity was suspected. My biggest problem with the whole day wasn’t the embarrassment at the food court, or even the snarky and shitty customer service representative. What bothered me most was not being asked for my password by either rep, and knowing that this could happen again at any time and I wouldn’t know until my card was declined.
What would you do if your card was declined while you were stuck at an airport trying to get on another flight, or taking your boss out to dinner, or perhaps simply getting money for a taxi on the way home from a night out? Thirty minutes on hold, only within business hours, doesn’t really cut it for most situations. I get that fraud protection is important, but if the bank can find the time to call me for sales calls, surveys, and service upselling, then surely they can take a minute to call and inform me that my card has been deactivated.
We celebrated July 4th by having a few drinks and setting off some fireworks with our friends. They have a superb view up on the hill where we could see several of the larger fireworks shows around the town as well.
Pictures are posted here: http://photos.stuartthompson.net/Holidays/July-4th-2011/
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