Does the space work?

Does the space work?: Jason Womack

Wherever you're reading this, take a look around. Is that space the way you want it? Or, have you wished it was different. It is possible (as I found) that with a minimal investment of time and focus, to create a workspace conducive to enhanced control, productivity and efficiency.

Some good quick thoughts that can ramp up your productivity.

Technorati Tags: gtd, lifehacks, organization

The "Daily File" and how I handle daily task reminders.

Found on Flickr: This is somewhat neat, I didn't know that you could get a day by day numbered folder like this and I could see where it could come in handy.

zRyu posted a photo:

It also got me thinking about my weekly reminder list I have set up in OmniOutliner.



I can judge how well my week went to some measure by seeing how close to "checked off" every parent item is. Each parent item represents a day of the week. I have my weekly review scheduled for Friday, but I uncheck all items on Saturday which is a bit counter-intuitive. I've found that this is the best way it works for me though, after having Saturday be the "start" of my week for a while. Sunday just fits better.

I've been using this for three or four months now and it's actually working out really well. Things that I would have had either as reminders in my Sony Clie and my iCal are now in this list. One of the big suggestions in David Allen's Getting Things Done is to get repeating tasks OUT of your calendar. This may have been one of the most powerful changes I made.

Previously I would literally have had reminders beeping at me all the time at weird hours. At times when I either didn't want to do the task requested, or at times when I literally couldn't. It's a little hard to tidy the living room when you're at a sunday service. I'd get a reminder, and instead of reading it, I'd just click it off.

If a day goes by and I haven't done something on my task list, I can go back and do it later without worrying that I'll forget. For example in the picture above I've got Wednesday open, but I haven't backed up my PowerBook yet. When I finally do get around to doing that, I'll check it off. So I can do Wednesday tasks on Friday, or Thursday tasks on Sunday if I've got some free time and I want to get a head-start.

Fewer trivial tasks slip through the cracks, and I get more satisfaction out of my week. And of course I've taken trying to remember to do these tasks off my mental plate whereas when I had them set as timed reminders, the reminder would go away and I'd be back to trying to remember to do whatever it was I had just been reminded to do.

As a final component of this, I've used the amazing power of Cron to force my OmniOutliner lists open at regular intervals, 9:30am and 6:00pm daily.

magneto:~ scarr$ crontab -l
30      9       *       *       *       /usr/bin/open /Applications/OmniOutliner\ Professional.app
0       18      *       *       *       /usr/bin/open ~scarr/Documents/Lists/Recurring\ Tasks.oo3
0       18      *       *       *       /usr/bin/open ~scarr/Documents/Lists/KinklessGTD.oo3

[Digression]

The above crontab entry is actually kinda whack.. On the first line OmniOutliner opens at 9:30am alone, but to my advantage it'll open with the last list I had up (as specified in the prefs pane). The second and third lines specify files to open rather than OmniOutliner, but I could just replace that with the entry specified for 9:30am and it would work about the same.

[/Digression]

Why 9:30am? Why not 9:00am? Because sometimes I show up to work late, and if I open my Powerbook after the cron job has passed, it won't be run. So the extra half hour is a safety net. In general, I don't

To summarize, I need so many reminders that I am only a few steps away from tattooing them all over my body. Compulsively reminding myself has had the benefit of both helping me get things done and helping me to not forget in the first place since I'm learning through repetition.

[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: gtd, life, lifehacks, macintosh, osx

More gas-price mojo magic

The Enquirer - Gas supply kept tight

Surprise; gas companies are manipulating pump prices to gain maximum profits.  I don't know if I can blame them so much as I blame the collective "us" for being so gullible, and susceptible to manipulation in the first place.

Similarly, a Texaco executive in 1996 complained of "surplus
refining capacity" and wrote that "significant events need to occur to
assist in reducing supplies and/or increasing the demand for gasoline."

And so enters....

Technorati Tags: environment, k-oi

Some Firewire Kung-Fu to Recover a Busted Mac

I'm actually not sure how well this will work with the latest generation of Apple products but it just worked like a charm between my G4 PowerBook and a G5 desktop box.

Evan ran into some trouble with a couple of QuickTime plugins (and who knew that QT plugins could halt an OS, that's a new one by me). This caused his system to get to the login prompt, and then essentially quit, almost like Finder was crashing again and again.

So before he went through the process of trying to recover in single user mode, we did the following to just delete the new plugins from his hard drive.

I grabbed my PowerBook and a Firewire cable and ran over to his desk.

Evan shut down his busted workstation.

I plugged my PowerBook into the Firewire port on the front of the G5.

I rebooted my PowerBook, holding down T so that it would boot up as a firewire drive.

Evan restarted his Desktop workstation, holding down Command-Option-Shift-Delete to bypass the built-in drive and boot from an external source (in this case the Firewire'd PowerBook).

From there the workstation booted, and displayed my login prompt so that I could get in and delete those files from the drive on his workstation. If we had needed to, we could have done lots of file-recovery magic, as well as emergency backups.

Wikipedia's OSX page.

Wikipedia's Firewire page.

Apple's keyboard shortcut page.

Alsoft's DiskWarrior, if all else fails.

Technorati Tags: apple, Firewire, macintosh, PowerBook

Hybrid scooter

FTA:

The scooter has an electric motor powered by a (Li-)ion battery. If the Fhybrid is ever put into production, the idea is to charge the battery with a fuel-cell system, which would derive its energy from a tank of hydrogen. While scientists are working to make such systems more efficient, obtaining hydrogen (by splitting it out of water) is for now too costly to be practical. Scientists disagree whether it will ever be viable.

The prototype scooter uses a simulated fuel-cell to recharge the battery.

Article on the hybrid scooter at LiveScience

Update: another article with some in-depth from Treehugger.

Technorati Tags: environment, scooter, Transportation, Vehicles

Wicked cool mini-jets coming soon.

Check out Eclipse Aviation's E500, the first "VLJ" (Very Light Jet) to receive a provisional certification by the US Federal Aviation Administration.

The NBAA defines VLJs as single-pilot jets that weigh 4,500 kilograms or less.

The Eclipse E500 will take 2 crew for a total of 6 occupants, and can cruise at about Mach 0.6, or 735 kilometers per hour.

Honda Motor Co. announced Tuesday at Oshkosh that it will start accepting orders for another VLJ, the HondaJet, this fall.

The Eclipse 500 entry at Wikipedia

Some wallpapers of the E500 from Eclipse

A story from CNN.com on the E500

The HondaJet entry at Wikipedia

hondajet.com

Technorati Tags: airc, aviation, Transportation, Vehicles

Macintosh Division, 1985

Macintosh Division, 1985:

Mike_fj40 posted a photo:

Mike's comments

This was taken a few months before I was hired. I was hired by Mike Murray on the far right...

Technorati Tags: 80s, apple, macintosh

Delving into the world of fixed-gear bicycles.

So I have a new obsession; fixed-gear bikes.



I still love my '99 Schwinn Moab 2 mountain bike, six years after I purchased it, but I'm starting to feel the urge for a change. The simplicity and challenge of fixed-gear riding appeals to me.

I also want a bike I will actually be able to lock up somewhere outside without immediately having it stolen. If you lock your bike up outside in Toronto, make sure it's one you don't mind losing.. I think we were in first place one year for the bike theft capital of North America.

It would be great to be able to ride downtown and stop somewhere for a coffee, or something, again. As it is now I literally can't keep my eyes off of my bike. My U-Lock has been tested in circumstances where I was away from my bike only for a few minutes.

Finally I really want to learn about bike mechanics so I can maintain my own bikes. It's not so much that I'm shelling out a lot of money in maintenance, but I'm the type of person who feels helpless if I can't maintain something that I depend on.

So where do I start? Well as it so happens I recently picked up a somewhat abused hybrid CCM from my friend Viet with the intention of restoring it as my "beater" bike. It already has a road frame and slim tires so it's a good template for my project.

As I began studying, I kept landing on single-speed and fixed-gear enthusiast sites. Many who had converted bikes from the almost inescapable 18 speed commercial variety into custom-made, light, and really simple, capable machines. You can also buy fixies pre-assembled, but they're a bit rare and in my mind it defeats some of my purpose to buy one already made.

Fixies have some interesting advantages over geared bikes too;

Fixed-gear bikes force you to keep cadence with your terrain, so it's a bit like spinning. There's no freewheel, so there's no coasting.

Fixed-gear bikes give you more control over your ride. Since you are in more direct contact with the traction of the ground you're on. (At least in theory).

Fixed-gear bikes are lighter simply by having far fewer components than geared bikes. On a properly configured fixie, you can drop most of the cogs, your rear brakes, the freewheel, and the shifters out of the configuration. The weight savings add up pretty quickly.

Apparently you lose less torque with a fixie because there are fewer components between you and the drive-train. (At least in theory).

Fixed-gear bikes are much more simple to maintain.

You can peddle backwards on a fixie. Can't wait to try this out.

Finally, the beef; where I am looking for my research on how to convert an old 18-speed bike into a fixed-gear.

Sheldon Brown has published a lot of really good information on fixies and conversions. His glossary also kicks butt too (it's right there on the index page).

There's an evolving Fixed-Gear Wiki with some helpful diagrams and more data as well.

I am actively trolling BikeForums for tips, tricks and support from the community.

For inspiration check out the Singlespeed/Fixed Gear Bicycles group on Flickr.

Personally I really like the idea of gaining more control over the mechanics of my bike, as well as more control over it's ride. I'm excited by the prospect of being able to build my own bikes as well; me being too lazy to learn how to maintain a complex set of gears, pairing it down to one gear, no freewheel ball-bearings, and a minimal front brake.

If you need further inspiration yourself check out these crazy videos at digave.com. The most recent New York vid blew me away.

Technorati Tags: Bicycle, environment, fixed-gear, Toronto, Vehicles

Brian Oberkirch

Brian Oberkirch:

Will Pate posted a photo:

Stickered iBook required me to post.

Update: Correction! Stickered PowerBook (Thanks Brian) ;)

Technorati Tags: apple, iBook, macintosh, stickers

Just upgraded to OmniOutliner Pro 3.6

I just (like literally just) upgraded to OmniOutliner Professional 3.6, for $29.95. Impressions; Really sweet. I upgraded for the most part so I could try out Kinkless, and get all the benefits of Pro of course. Some of the upgrades are pretty sweet. The voice-recording option should be pretty interesting at meetings for a start and the improved layout has already forced me to focus a bit more on my lists (sorta like an instant Hoist).

I'll post more impressions later, right now I want to play around.

PS: oh, yeah I forgot to mention; if you've got a recent PowerBook, or any Mac for that matter, you probably already have a copy of OmniOutliner. If you want to upgrade rather than pay the $69.95 for Pro all you need is your date of purchase and your serial number. I'd suggest it since it's a good deal (unless you don't need organizational software ;) )

Technorati Tags: apple, gtd, macintosh, PowerBook

Clumsy capture

From Tokyo Times...

Clumsy capture:

Cool building.

Technorati Tags: architecture, japan, tokyo

Inside the Cave

Inside the Cave:

Monkey River Town posted a photo:

A small group of stikfas set off on an adventure.