Entries from August 2007 ↓

In the grand tradition of Friday posts having nothing to do with the topic of the blog (wait, this blog has a topic) I hereby announce the return of Friday Kitten Blogging. I shamelessly stole this idea from Bruce Schneier. I consider my version much improved though as he writes about squid on Fridays.

Readers who have been with me for awhile remember Friday Kitten Blogging. It is mostly a cheap ploy to get my mom to read my blog (Hi Mom!). Everyone else can sit back and enjoy weekly images of the Internet’s cutest or funniest kittens.

(Image Source: ICanHazCheezburger.Com)

I love office supplies and productivity blogs. This dual passion was certain to lead to only one place… David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD). Given the aforementioned love of office supplies there was only one logical way I could put the GTD system into action… Moleskine.

For those not familiar the Moleskine is a legendary brand of notebook. Well really it is the reconstituted legendary brand of notebook but we don’t have to get into that. Suffice to say if you are in the market for a pocket sized notebook you could do a lot worse than the Moleskin.

Getting Things Done is a great time management system created by David Allen. The key part of the system for me is getting all of the little reminders in your head out of your head so you can actually think. Basically when you think of something to do you have two choices:

• If the task takes less than 2 minutes do it.
• If the task takes more than 2 minutes put it in a trusted system and come back to it later. 

Once it is in your trusted system you can decide to do it, defer it, delegate it or disregard it. My trusted system includes my Outlook calendar (which follows me around on my Windows Mobile smartphone), and my Moleskine. I categorize tasks into Work, Home, Hobby, Errands, Networking as well as separate sections to track the projects I am working and a section for brainstorming.

If this sounds interesting to you there are a lot of people from which you may learn.

I had every intention of going to Doyle’s last night for trivia. I was certain that Love Tacoma at Doyle’s would be a hoot and a half. The previous Wednesday was my first trivia outing in far too long. There was a time where the team of Becherer, Taylor, Maxwell & Associates was a weekly presence and a force to be reckoned with. We won in excess of 50% of the matches at Doyle’s. I don’t know if I have gotten dumber or Russ is smarter but the trivia seems harder. Maybe Russ just had a good night.

I can’t believe Doyle’s gives real prizes for winning now! It used to be bragging rights (which were basically worthless) and a drink of your choice so long as your choice was Jameson Irish Whiskey, served neat. The prize for winning trivia last Wednesday included 4 tickets to the Tacoma Rainiers with access to the Gold Club Room (read unlimited beer, peanuts and Cracker Jacks).

Trivia happens every Wednesday night at Doyle’s Public House. It all starts around 8 and there are two rounds each lasting approximately an hour. Show before 7:30 if you want a good table and I highly recommend the Cheesy British. One last tip, bone up on your Get Fuzzy.

The Seattle-based Noonhat luncheon service is now matching pairing people up for lunch across the United States. Brian Dorsey uses these words to describe the goal of his site, “connect us with people outside of our normal social, work, and hobby circles.”

Noonhat is exceptionally easy to use. Go to the site and enter an emaill address, specify a date and using the Google Maps interface specify a geographic area in which you are willing to meet. On the day of your lunch you will receive an email with the contact information of your match (if there is a match). The site is starting to get a lot of traction in Seattle, having been featured on King 5 news and the Seattle PI’s Big Blog.

I’ve been on two Noonhat lunches in the launch site of Seattle. Because of Brian’s connections to the tech community in Seattle my matches have been other software developers. The first luncheon did not go very well, bad chemistry is a nice way of putting it. My second Noonhat was awesome. I’ve settled on a Noonhat every other Tuesday schedule.

Maybe Tacoma can be the first non-tech, non-Seattle Noonhat outbreak?

Without fanfare SoundTransit has extended the wireless Internet pilot project to some Tacoma trains. There has been no official announcement of WiFi availability on Tacoma Sounder trains. The SoundTransit WiFi project page only lists the Seattle-Everett line.

WiFi hunting Sounder riders should sit in the first car and look for wireless networks named “Sounder_” followed by a number. My car was Sounder_109 but I saw one other Sounder WiFi network before leaving Freighthouse Square. The speed was a respectable 700 kbps down and 100 kbps up. It was fast enough to publish a blog post.

I wonder if Casey Halverson is still running the SeattleWireless TacomaSounder Node?

(Sounder image courtesy Troy Mason)

One aspect of my new job is that I no longer have the luxury of spending most of my computing life in Linux. This was a major concern about the new job. All things considered, Windows XP hasn’t been that bad but it hasn’t been all that great either.

I do have to plug Windows Live Writer. The interface is easy and it talks Wordpress. Also it is free as in beer. Anyone not using an offline editor to blog from a Windows platform should check it out.

I have a love hate relationship with my new AT&T 8525 (aka HTC Hermes). When the device is working it is great! The device runs Windows Mobile 5, syncs with the MS Exchange server at work and connects to the Internet via AT&T’s 3G HSPDA network.

The problem is that it is usually not working. I made the mistake of buying a reconditioned device from AT&T. The first device arrived broken. It had intermediate radio problems. I had to RMA that device within the first week. The second device lasted a whole month before it had the same intermittent radio problems. A smart phone with no voice or data access is not so cool.

This wouldn’t be so bad if AT&T had competent and efficient customer service. To warranty return my device I made the mistake of going to a corporate AT&T store. No dice. I had to call the 800 number. The replacement process took over an hour and required that I be transferred no less than 6 times.

I’m watching the OpenMoko project with great interest.