A Bit Eclectic

Ford and DeWalt are teaming up to bring RFID and contractors together. For a comparatively low cost, contractors can add the RFID to their Ford trucks to track what tools are on board. This is a great implementation of the technology and hopefully it helps reduce the cost of replacing lost tools.

It’s 5 O’Clock. Do You Know Where Your Tools Are? – Gearlog:

You get a 50 ID tags (in DeWalt yellow, of course) that you apply to tools, an RFID scanner and software for creating a database, and two RFID antennas that go in the truck bed and monitor what’s onboard and what’s missing. You monitor the tool status via the Ford In-Dash Computer. One button press brings up a screen that shows what’s missing that you had on board earlier in the day

The Unclutterer blog has a great low tech tip for keeping track of your stuff.

When I was teaching, I helped a student with severe ADHD develop a system to help her get between home and school and back home again with all of her materials. The program was based on counting to three. Her lunch box was marked #1, her daily planner was #2, and her “inbox” in her locker was #3.

She had two sets of books (one left at school, and her parents rented a second set to leave at home), so all she needed to do was count “1, 2, 3″ to make sure she had everything in her backpack at the start and end of the day.

(via Unclutterer)

Too many people are just passing through life. To them, it is a chore. There isn’t anything interesting or intriguing, you just wake up and move on. No purpose or goal and everything seems mediocre. The problem is passion. They lack a driving force in their life.

Passion

Passion is a corner stone for a prosperous life. Passion for anything and everything you do. Seek out projects and get involved with them. Feel a personal connection to them. Build value in your life by surrounding yourself with things you care about. The world will look bland if you never look up.

Take on things you care about. It means nothing to fill your life with stepping stones. Don’t seek out a job only because it will lead to a “better one.” That can be a factor but not the factor. That better job may never come and you will settle with what you have.

We have a limited amount of time and there is no need to waste it. Seek out what you are passionate for and don’t be ashamed of it. If you like taking pictures, then take pictures. Don’t spend time thinking about how goofy you look or how bad your photos might be. If your friends and family are important to you, then spend more time with them.

Boredom

Every so often someone will tell me they are constantly bored. They sit around and complain about it and refuse to take a step in a different direction. This is shocking. There are so many opportunities and they can’t even find one that interests them. The problem may be linked to respect.

Respect

Respect your passion and the passion of others. One reason people don’t follow their passion is because they are too worried about what others think. This shouldn’t be an issue. Your passion is for you and no one else. Respect it and pursue it. Passion is solely for the one pursuing it. Don’t judge another’s passion. Let them seek it out and enjoy it.

I have a passion for technology, photography, numbers, writing, movies, and books. What are yours?

Come this December, I will have been a Mac user for 6 years. I got my first mac (a sexy little iBook) for Christmas. My uncle was working at Apple in Cupertino which provoked me to look into Apple computers.

After my first visit to apple.com I got intrigued by the veil of mystery that surrounded the Mac. At the time I didn’t know anyone that owned one. This presented me with the opportunity to be the first to learn about the technology. I could safely fiddle to my hearts content without anyone telling me a better way to do things. It gave me a chance to take the longest way possible to arrive at the simplest solution and learn new things along the way.

I had plenty of friends that knew about Windows. I even had some that knew about Linux. Due to this fact, I would always be second best. I wouldn’t have the chance to learn as much. If they asked what I was working on it would eventually lead to just giving me the answer. As long as there were others that used these operating systems, I would always be second best in my mind.

With the Mac I had free rein to explore until I saw fit. I could come up with my own weird ways to do things without anyone telling me to do it differently. I developed my own opinions on software and created new habits.

Read the rest of this entry »

I love being a geek. It keeps me entertained for hours as I fiddle with endless gadgets, software, and websites. My geeky nature also gives me the urge to fix things that are broken, even if I don’t know anything about it. I will fiddle for hours trying to learn about and fix new things. Although my geekiness is great most of the time, there is a downside. This is what I call the curse of the geek.

The constant fiddling is great most of the time.  That is until I have a lackluster yet important task to accomplish. I have no problem accomplishing the task and am perfectly capable, but my fiddling nature can quickly derail me. The other day I had to start writing a paper for one of my classes. It wasn’t a large and unbearable task, just less interesting than some other things. I had allocated more than enough time to accomplish the task and write an amazing paper. I had a full day of writing and then a couple of spare hours to revise. All was on track, until the curse.

I was knee deep in the research aspect of my assignment when I took a break for some food. I decided to take this extra time to check on my blog and maybe polish up some posts. Then it happened, my site was having problems. I logged into my blogs admin panel and tried to load up the main dashboard. It would start loading, then stop a quarter of the way. Worse than that, it would take down the rest of the site.  I would get error after error that the server wasn’t available.  If I waited a few minutes, I could regain access to other parts that weren’t the main dashboard (like plug-ins, posts, or comments.) If I went back to the dashboard, it all went down again.

As you can imagine, I just had to try and get this working again.  I couldn’t leave my precious blog struggling to stay alive.  The thing is, I am pretty new to hosting my own blog.  Up until a month ago I have used wordpress.com or Blogger.  So when things went bad, I wasn’t exactly sure how to fix it.  After messing around for awhile to make sure it was a consistent problem I contacted support.  Things got more difficult because they couldn’t recreate the problem.  It seemed really odd that it only happened when I went to one specific page.  After 12 hours, they had given up and told me that I needed to upgrade to a Virtual Private Server because I was using too much of my servers resources.  That is ridiculous considering I get 16 or 17 visitors on a good day.

Eventually I ended up reinstalling wordpress and restoring my database from an old backup.  The site worked fine for about 10 minutes and then the problems happened again.  Cutting to the end, I finally isolated the problem to my theme.  After disabling a feature of the theme, everything is working fine for the most part.

The point of this long drawn out story is that my fiddling can get the worst of me.  I did end up writing my paper, but that was after 8 hours were wasted trying to revive my blog.  The paper turned out to be great, but I had to make sacrifices.  I didn’t get as much sleep and I had to postpone other projects.  Overall it just wasn’t a good thing.  This is what I call the curse of the geek.  It is the ability to get distracted and derailed from more important tasks by something that requires fiddling and has to deal with technology.

One of the most important upgrades I made to my computing setup was a second monitor. The extra screen real estate has greatly increased my productivity and allowed me to work more efficiently. The benefits aren’t really multi-tasking, it is really improved single tasking. I have seen my productivity increase in school assignments and photo processing, among other things.

School Assignments

One of the most noticeable areas is in my school work. When working on assignments, I have my word processor open on one screen and research on another. This allows me to keep my report open along with articles and my outline. These are all lined up side by side and are visible at all times. As I type, if I need any of the other information all it takes is a glance over. I can continue to type while verifying facts from articles. Another aspect that gains is my spreadsheet work. It is easier to copy data when it is directly to the left/right of the workbook. I can also follow directions just by a quick glance. I no longer have to shuffle around windows when doing assignments.

Photo Processing

I have also seen benefits when dealing with images. I use Aperture to manage all of my photos. Aperture allows me to have my browser on one screen and the selected images on the other. I browse through images while having a preview blown up on the other 20″ monitor. I can then apply adjustments to my image while maintaining the ability to switch to other photos or select multiple to compare. You could do all this on one monitor, but everything will be more limited. You can’t see as many thumbnails in the browser and the preview will be smaller. Additionally, you have all your tools scrunched up in one space.

These are just two examples of the benefits of dual monitors. Overall usage will be easier and more productive. You gain extra space to arrange your applications which makes it easier to switch tasks. You can easily switch from email to blogging just by shifting your view, you don’t have to minimize any windows. One of the simplest productivity upgrades for your computer is an extra monitor.

Edit: Here is an old photo of my setup.

A couple months ago I bought a new 26″ Westinghouse LCD TV. My main reason for the purchase was the size. Its sleek form made it easier to transport back and forth between school.

The TV had a great picture and overall I loved it. That was until I noticed the audio started becoming out of sync. At first I thought I was crazy and it wasn’t really going on, but it got progressively worse the longer the TV was on. The audio would happen half a second after the video.

I then started doing some research to fix the problem and came up with nothing. I started to make up excuses for the problem, like it was the power source or the DVD I was playing. So I learned to live with it, until last night. After watching 30 minutes of Silverado I got fed up with the issue and decided to look up a solution yet again.

This time I had a ton more luck. I found my solution in a review at Buy.com. Apparently, some Westinghouse TVs had a firmware issue that would cause this problem. Lucky for me, the firmware on my TV is user upgradeable. All I had to do was download the newest firmware from the manufacturer’s site and load it onto a portable USB drive*. That then plugged into the side of my TV and the update started. It was really easy and the whole process has renewed my faith in the company. The audio/video sync issue is completely fixed.

The whole process was so simple that I wish it was on more devices. This is the first TV that I have owned that allows the user to update the firmware with minimal frustration. Although it was a pain to deal with the audio issues, now that it is fixed I can easily recommend this TV.

*There are more detailed instructions with a few more easy steps located on the firmware page.

For those of you who aren’t super obsessed Apple Fanboys, you may not know that one of the biggest Apple events, Macworld, is right around the corner. In fact, it all starts on Tuesday 1/15 and Steve Jobs will tell us about those amazing and shiny new products that Apple has been working on. But I am not talking about Macworld. What interests me are the weeks that lead up to it.

The weeks, or even months, before Macworld is when people start “leaking” information that someone on the “inside” has passed along. In addition, you also see speculation about where the industry is headed and the products that are “definitely” going to be released. Some rumor sites post lists of their readers ideas and speculation, most of which sound as if there origins are in a science fiction story. We hear stories about really cool technology that doesn’t really sound feasible. In the end, most of the rumors and speculation are usually wrong and way off the mark, but this doesn’t negate their value. In fact, these fake rumors are just as important as the products that are actually released.

All these fake rumors were created by someone’s imagination. They dreamt of things that they would like to see invented and instead of shooting down an idea because it was unrealistic, they ran with it. They told others about these ideas and somewhere along the way it turned into, “Company A is going to release product B according to a reliable source.” The fact is, a companies innovation is limited to their creators imagination. If people stop dreaming and start saying “this isn’t possible” or “it can’t be done” then innovation will come to a standstill. Some of the greatest products are a result of people following their imagination.

I don’t believe that all, or even most, of these rumors are started by employees at Apple or other tech companies, but their idea could still make it there. Someone may hear about this idea and try to make it a reality. These creative individuals may even start their own company or find their way into one that is already established.

Remember to take the rumors you hear with a grain of salt, but don’t stop enjoying these fantasy products that may show up in the future.