My cell phone is working for the first time since Friday evening. I won’t get too deep into the details but suffice to say that Verizon and I are on very bad terms at this point. I’ve had issues with them since I moved out to California and I’m crossing the days off my calendar before I can kick them to the curb. Anyway, if you called or text messaged me this weekend, I didn’t get it. Sorry about that but everything should be fixed now.
Archive for the 'Tech' Category
My old idea of having tech news on this blog didn’t work out. I didn’t want to put really heavy stuff on and couldn’t summon the energy for a lot of the rest. This turned into mostly a personal blog. I’ve wanted to start a tech blog again, if only to keep up with the knowledge I’m gaining and losing daily. I’ve finally put it up over at Wordpress. It’s at:
http://ellistech.wordpress.com
I may look at moving it to my own site later but the Wordpress site will work for now. Topics that you’ll probably see over there include MOSS, .Net, SQL Server, Silverlight, my continued experimentation with Mac OS X, Subversion, Python, Ruby and other interesting tech diversions. If you’re interested in that kind of stuff, subscribe and stay tuned.
The whole Web 2.0, social community thing just hit a big reality check over at Digg.com. If you don’ t know digg, it’s a social website that allows users to vote content up and down. Only stuff way up shows up on the front page. Even comments from users can be voted up and down. Well, a little while ago, someone got hold of the HD-DVD key (the digital key that allows decryption of HD-DVD movies and posted it. Shortly after that, the site descended into anarchy. Digg has always been a haven because they don’t censor their users (though a story appears every few days claiming differently.) In this case, they pulled the HD-DVD key story. HD-DVD sponsors the digg podcast and digg was afraid of what would happen. The users went NUTS. Digg apparently starting banning users and removing stories as fast as they could. It looks like they even shut down story submission at one point. The result is that just about every story in the last 18 hours has something random title and the HD-DVD key in it. People whipped out every phrase from DMCA to free speech to sold out. It even spilled over onto other sites like Reddit , TechCrunch and TechPwn. The CEO issued a statement that basically said get over it (I’m paraphrasing) and just made things worse. Eventually, the whole frontpage of the site was nothing but crazy stories with the key in them.
Anyway, at the end of the day, it looks like they are sorting everything out. Kevin Rose (I don’t envy the last 24 hours of his life) has issued a statement on the digg blog:
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Things are already returning to normal over there. All the HD-DVD stories are being voted down and they’re already beginning to forgive Kevin. However, you have to wonder if this apparent win for user-generated content is in anyone’s best interest. The users now know they may not be able to trust Digg completely. They’ll have that tiny doubt next time, wondering whether Digg will stand up for them. On the other hand, Digg has taken up a sword in what has so far been a very mess fight with a large, sue-happy media company. I’m not sure who ranks higher on the “my life is not as great as it was 24 hours ago” scale.
I had someone ask me about my Vista posts. Yeah, so the final verdict is the same it was with Windows XP originally. My audio drivers were iffy, CD Burning was intermittent and iTunes crashed constantly. My RSS Reader didn’t work. I hate the new menu, User Access Controls and I’m indifferent to the Aero glass interface. Office 2007 and desktop search are completely awesome but I can run both of those on Windows XP. The drivers just aren’t there yet and the applications haven’t been fixed to work with Vista yet. I’ve given up and gone back to XP. I’ll give Vista 6 months to be released for consumers and have all of the initial bugs and drivers fixed, then try it again. I’ll also have to see what the final version of Leopard looks like. It sounds better every day.
This post is a follow-up to a previous post called What Color Is Analytical? Not only does my mom love me (I think she has to technically) but she’s also way smart. Check out the email I got yesterday:
Brian,I read your blog about a week ago and noticed what you put in there about color coding things. You might be interested to know that your color coding system has been tested by science. At the University of Iowa in Iowa City, they discovered that using bright colors makes the information 60 percent easier to recall, greatlyreducing to-do list stress.You might also be interested to know that music strengthens the connection between the creative right hemisphere of the brain and the analytical left hemisphere (Daniel J. Levitin, author of This is Your Brain on Music). Music has been shown to boost problem-solving and information-organizing skills by up to 82 percent according to Levitin. Plus, listening to music increases the number of neuron connections in the brain’s memory center, thereby enhancing one’s ability to focus on and retain details.So keep on listening to music and playing around with the guitar. It’s good for you.Love you and see you soon, Mom
Yeah. I’m not crazy. Thanks mom.
Just to be fair, I’m going to keep putting out updates on Vista. After writing the former post (here), I decided that it would be a good idea for me to look for positive points in Vista from an end-user point of view, rather than a developer view. To that end, I’m trying to get all of the things that keep me in XP over to Vista. My goal would be to work only in Vista for a while, adjust to any changes and make notes on what actually has changed visibly. So, to that end:
There is a good listing of all 17 versions of Vista (including the EU and Korea versions and accounting for 32 and 64 bit versions) at Paul Thurott’s site here. It even has a good matrix for what features will come with what version. As for my move:
- I successfully copied over my iTunes libraries, including playlists and configuration. I hate having to restart my library since I keep a lot of time-specific playlists such as Recently Added (last 30 days). I was able to copy everything over easily. Point of Note: Vista now keeps everything under a folder called Users and only has a single place to put Application Data. To copy everything over, I had to move “my music\itunes files” to “users\my music” on the new system. I also had to move “documents and settings\brian\application data\apple computer\itunes” to “\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes”. Itunes works well, however I still experience the stutter over airtunes problem that I had earlier at random intervals. Also, it seems to have some problems burning cds. Hopefully a reboot fixed that. I’ll try again later.
- I successfully copied over my uTorrent settings using the same method described above for the user settings.
- I successfully copied over my Firefox settings using the same method described above.
- RSSBandit still doesn’t work under Vista. For now, I have no RSS reader. They put out a beta recently and are replacing the controls that are keeping it from working in Vista. No release date for the update.
- AVG Free (free virus scanner) is temperemental. It failed to install once. It installed right later. After installing it runs and updates but it constantly gives me strange errors and claims it is out of date, even though it updated.
- Office 2007 runs well as expected.
- My Creative Audigy is running on beta drivers. No release date for new drivers.
- My printer is working on sheer luck. It is an HP. There are no drivers but it seems to install with the old drivers.
- Nero burning rom still doesn’t work. Maybe it will later.
- CDBurnerXP doesn’t work. Although, that’s expected since it has XP built into the name.
- I hate the sidebar. I turned it off. I’m not one for widgets like konfabulator and sidebar. Maybe you’ll like it.
So that’s where I’m at. I’m going to try and live in Vista again. Last time, I had to go back to XP due to the issues with iTunes and RSSBandit. Looks like I’m halfway there. We’ll see.
I’ve been running Windows Vista at the house for a few months via various Beta and Release Candidate versions. I’m got to tell you that my current opinion isn’t high. For full disclosure, I’ll tell you that I’m a huge fan of Mac OS X. I sold my powerbook because I couldn’t run Visual Studio on it but I’ve never forgotten the feeling of that operating system. Don’t get me wrong, I love Windows XP. It took a while but it’s the most stable and well-supported OS Microsoft has ever put out. It just doesn’t have that BMW feeling that Mac OS X has. It feels more like a Toyota. Solid but utilitarian. Maybe even…boring. Meanwhile, OS X puts out a new version every year. Every version packs features that are not only obvious (64-bit) or useful (spotlight desktop search) but just plain revolutionary (time machine). So, I’ve been waiting for Vista for a long time. I have been eager to see the OS X killer from Microsoft. They may not innovate but they can copy and improve pretty well and I had high hopes. Unfortunately, I’ve pretty much given up.
At the end of the day, Vista is designed for developers. I’ll repeat that in a different way. There is nothing in this OS release for home users except annoyance. I know all the dirty details about Avalon and Indigo. I know the graphical interface was rewritten. I know the ReadyBoost system lets you use a USB key to speed up system performance. I know the entire driver model was rewritten for security. I just don’t know how to convey any of that to my friends and family. I know people that don’t own USB keys,do you think they’re going to get ReadyBoost? I know a lot of people that play on the internet and take digital pictures…do you think they’re going to understand the significance of Indigo? To an end-user, there is nothing significantly different on the surface of Vista. At least nothing that is good.
How about the pretty graphics? They’ll like those…except they still won’t be able to find anything since the start menu was designed for engineers and then had a translucent UI slapped on top. There are a million things on the start menu and they all blur together since every one of them says “Windows” in front of it…like I forgot and thought I was running Linux? Why don’t you rename them then? I decided to rename them like Jeff Atwood did but wait, the new security model just made me click FOUR dialogs to okay a single rename function. There’s around FIFTEEN to change. That’s SIXTY clicks…ouch. Well, maybe I’ll just turn the computer off…good thing there isn’t an off button that either hibernates the computer or sprouts a menu with about ten confusing options…oh wait..I guess there is. I don’t even have a witty saying for the fact that the OS is still missing tons of drivers so half of the hardware doesn’t work. Don’t even try to load the 64-bit version or I”m pretty sure your computer just melts and your printer mails itself to the trash can.
Sigh…I know lots of counterpoints. I know that the new infrastructure is supposed to be a boon to software developers, who will in turn write killer apps for Vista. I will ignore the fact for now that we’re struggling to keep up out here. The .Net 3.0 framework just came out and most people I know weren’t even aware it was released. I asked a not stupid or uninformed friend to name the 3 pillars of 3.0 (avalon or wpf, indigo or wcf and infocard). He stared at me like I was from lying to him and then started looking very concerned about being out of date and out of touch. I just wanted to discuss infocard with someone. Anyway, add to that the fact that no business I know is planning on upgrading to Vista anytime soon. It’s expensive and no one has any idea what it’ll do to their apps. XP is stable and well-supported. I’m just saying, let’s assume that we’ll all be somewhere in the neighborhood of not completely stupid about 3.0 in the next year. In that case, I hope Microsoft has a killer app coming for Vista because I am not sure it’s coming from the community any time soon. I’m not talking about a website that lets you login via infocard…I’m talking iLife. That’s what makes people want to upgrade.
Anyway, I know that Vista will fill out with drivers in the next six months to a year (it happened when XP launched as well). I know that people will buy computers and get the new OS for free and won’t care that the cost of the new OS is outrageous and the licensing is arcane. I know that they won’t understand until too late the much greater restrictions in Vista that Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) are putting on them and their usage of music, video, HD content and media in general. I know all of these things. I even know a few good things like the new DVD maker are hidden in there.
At the end of the day, I’m just so disappointed. It took five years for this confused mess of an operating system to come out. It dropped about 5000 features along the way. I thought by now the OS would have a better vision of what “Vista” was and how it was going to win fans in the new world. I guess that OS X Leapard banner that read “Vista 2.0″ was right. Unfortunately, I just stand here disappointed and think about the time in the future when I’ll buy a MacBook that I can dual-boot with Windows XP.
Here are some reference links:
I was called analytical earlier today. Arguably, you can also rephrase that as “anal-retentive”. I’m not offended or shocked by the remark. I’ve been meaning to write a post on organization. Since a lot of information flows through my inbox or is stored on my hard drive, I tend to try to organize things. Since I’ve been doing more intensive project management, the problem of organization has only been exacerbated. The mention of analytical thought today made me think of my organization system and I thought I’d share it. This mostly refers to work, although I use a few of these items and techniques at home as well. Where to start? How about…
Figure out your learning style. I learn lots of things lots of ways. However, I’ve learned in life that I’m extremely visual. I like to meet people at least once in business dealings to put a name with a face. If I see a few bullet points, I’m a lot more likely to read than if I see the same information in a solid block of text. In general, I learn things far faster if there is a visual element.
If I am designing things at work, I live and die by the whiteboard.
If I write up a process or component, it WILL have a Visio diagram in it somewhere.
I use a ton of color because I see more in 1 second with a colorful diagram than you could tell me in 60 seconds if the picture is set up right (more on color in a minute). I tell you all of this to explain both how I absorb information and how some of my systems evolved. Also, I love to make lists. Analytical…I know. So onto…
Staying on Track
I organize email differently at work than at home. At work, I use a system of colors and priorities that works with my calendar. If you’ve used Microsoft Outlook 2003, it has flags of about seven different colors in it. I set up different colors for company work (red), client work (blue) and personal business (green). I also used the same colors on the calendar, even though the calendar didn’t sync up with the flags. The flags also had no date attached to them. There was also a section called “Tasks” that was pretty much useless. Each section lived in a seperate world and didn’t talk. An imperfect system but one I managed.
Fast forward to Outlook 2007. I’m not sure that anyone is as stoked as me about such a simple thing. The colors are now the same between the calendar and the flags and the flags are synced with the tasks. All of this is integrated into a To-Do bar on the side of the screen. Flags can be easily set up and they automatically become tasks. You can also set timeframes. So, at the end of the day, I can set up color coded calendar appointments (with date and time information), a few tasks that are due today, tomorrow or this week, flag an email as client work and set it to be reviewed “today” and all of them pop up in a single, easy to manage place. The end result looks like this:
Look excessive? It may be for some people but it keeps me sane. I usually only use three colors. Client work is first, company work second. Personal business can usually be put off till I get home (buy tickets, get birthday present). I can easily look at my todo bar and pick out client work and see exactly how much I need to get done today. I can easily look at my calendar in day, week or month mode and see what the situation is with work, life, etc.
You’ll also notice I said life. I book most of my life in Outlook, including personal appointments. I had a problem in the past of overbooking myself and it is something that I decided to work on. I now schedule my personal life in the same calendar as work so that I have a single version of what’s up with my week. I mark anything not work related as private and make sure that I check my calendar before I commit to something. It may sound dorky but I have a much better chance now of not bailing on you because I forgot something than I did a year ago.
On to home. I use gmail. That means everything I have ever received is archived. If you send me a forward (send this to 10 of your friends…) or it’s spam, it gets deleted automatically, NOT archived. I track everything with a number of labels including accounts if it has a user name and password in it, pictures if the email has pictures in it, birthday if it has someones birthday in it and address if it has an address in it. It helps to be able to click address later and find that friends address that i know I asked for last year but I’ve long since forgotten. Worst case scenario, I can usually just search the email and find stuff. I use basic search parameters such as from:brian address. Nothing fancy.
Speaking of search, I use Microsoft Windows Desktop Search to search my computer and email.
Outlook 2007 uses this. Outlook 2003 search was terrible. Google search on the web is where it’s at, but for my files, Windows Desktop Search seems to organize things much better. It has clearer categories (email, calendar, documents) and a preview pane for looking at the item in questions. I have it index all of my email and all of my folders that contain documents and data. No source code, program files or any other junk folders. It works like a charm.
I also have a rule to keep everything in my inbox until I have time to sit down and devote an hour or so to cleanup. Then, I usually answer and archive everything and get to zero items in the inbox. I do this with work too. Even if I have 10 things on my todo list, I’d like it to all be organized and out of my inbox. The inbox acts only as a general purpose clearinghouse for things I haven’t gotten to yet.
I’ll leave you with a few tips for how I manage data on my computers.
- If possible, I keep my operating system on C:\ and my data on a separate physical disk (D:\ for DATA, complicated, right?)
- I never use My Documents. I can’t remap it to another location on the drive and I don’t keep data on C:\.
- I create a bunch of folders on D:\ (videos, pics, docs) What they hold is pretty much self explanatory
- One folder is music. I remap my itunes music library to here and let it control and name everything. This is my one stop shop for all my music.
- I organize pictures by date and subject, year - month - day so they appear in order. For instance 20050421 Birthday, 20061031 Halloween
- I keep a directory called download. Like an inbox, this is where everything goes. All default downloads (firefox, bit torrent) are put here and I throw any documents or things I run across in here. Whenever I clean up, it either gets put in a folder to keep (pics, docs, videos, etc.) or it is deleted from here.
- I keep a directory called public. This is shared and anytime I need to get data from one computer to another, I always know that it has a shared directory called public where everything will be.
That’s it. Most of this has evolved over the last 2-4 years of my life and I’m sure I have more strange idiosyncracies that I can come up. However, this is the majority of the system for how I manage a life that is completely saturated with appointments to keep, email to respond to, music to listen to, pictures to share and just a lot of data floating around. I don’t know much about it but from what I’ve seen, some of my practices are close to the GTD system (Getting Things Done) which is a big life and data management system that is picking up steam with individuals that have a lot of life to manage.
Overall, just make sure that you solve whatever problems you have. No system is any good if it’s too difficult to manage for you or it doesn’t solve your problems. I know where my music is, when to meet my friends and what emails I need to respond to. That’s what matters.
If you haven’t tried del.icio.us, I recommend it. It’s a social bookmarking site. What that means is that instead of bookmarking things in your browser on your local computer, you tag the link and submit it to a site. I have an account and it keeps track of all the links I post to it. It also allows rss feeds of those links and sharing of them with other people. My account is here. You can also get an RSS feed of anyone’s page. Mine is here. You can also tag content with words that tell you what it is about. For instance, I subscribe to a few of my friends feeds with words like “bouldering” and I can see any new links they post having to do with the local bouldering scene. You can even just subscribe to lists of popular links and see what the internet is buzzing about right this second.
Now, how does it work? Honestly, it’s way too much trouble to submit stuff and tag it. That’s why I haven’t been keeping up with it. However, I got a new extension for Firefox the other day that makes it super easy to use. By the way, if you’re not using Firefox, why not? It’s an internet browser that is just as easy to use as Internet Explorer. It also has tabs and lets you install extensions that make the browser better. I have an extension that brings me the daily weather, one that removes annoying ads from web pages automatically, one that check my gmail accounts and lets me know when I have new mail and the newest, one for del.icio.us. The new extension lets me right click any page that I’m on and “Post this Page” to del.icio.us. It will automatically find other people that have posted that page and use the same words that they are using to tag theirs to tag mine. It takes all the work out of it and now I have a list of links that I can search, share and won’t lose when I upgrade or switch computers.
The long and short of it, Firefox already makes my life better and with the new integration of delicious that I found, it looks like delicious will soon be on my list of must-use online sites.
Still testing. I’m going to be posting tech feeds, probably a lot on SQL Server and .Net. I put a category and feed together just for professional posts if you only want those.