I have to say, I am jealous of these workspaces. I have been standing up at work for the last 6 months. I can’t say I would ever go back to sitting all day long. My standup setup is not great, but it works.
I have started biking into work again. It has been enjoyable and an interesting adventure. This time around I’m using my commuter, a converted mountain bike (Schwinn S9five6 – Purchased in 1995). This is one of my favorite bikes, I’ve had a great amount of fun over the years with this bike. In the last 5 years it has sat in my garage gathering dust.
When I started commuting this year I was using my Fuji road bike. I love that bike, it is fast, light and nimble. However, using it for commuting became difficult. The route I take to work takes me across 2 major roads. One of those roads does not have bike path. To accommodate I typically ride on the sidewalk. The road bike does not handle the sidewalk that well. Too many curbs and opportunities to pop a tire.
To make commuting easier I decided to use the Schwinn. I have put Bontrager slicks on it and added some safety lights and flashers. Other than the items above and adding a Roc Shock back in 1998 it is stock.
Over the last week it has been fun to ride to work. Not having to worry about what I ride over; curbs, cracks and gravel. Though I only ride 6.8 miles into work, it is about 30 minutes across a few busy roads and a few bike paths.
I typically don’t ride on a sidewalk, especially on the road bike but it is much safer earlier in the morning. People don’t often look for bikers when they are driving into work.
If you have not tried to commute into work via bike, I would suggest trying it a few times.
For years I have used EveryDns.net. They were recently acquired by dyndns.org another service I use. The issue is that the full Managed dns that I have used from everydns will not be free or donation any more. DynDns.org wants to charge a per-domain fee.
I’m not opposed to paying for this service, but for ease of use I have a lot of domains managed there. I know I could use Godaddy for this, but not all the domains are at Godaddy.
I have recently moved everything over to dns.he.net
For those of you who know me, you know my loves are God, Family, Technology and soccer. This weekend the Premier League starts. Living here in the US makes it hard as a soccer fan. We have limited access to games and we don’t get to be part of the culture of soccer that is seen over-seas.
I spend a lot of time watching soccer and can’t wait for the thrill of the weekend games. Go Man U and go Tottenham Spurs.
It sounds like Starbucks is starting to see an issue with people camping out all day at their stores and using it as their office. I’m guessing these Laptop warriors are purchasing one drink and staying all day.
I’ve done my time in coffee shops and used it as an office but it’s normally a half-day event and I purchase items along the way. Because I feel if I’m in a retail space, I am required to at least have a purchased item.
I find it interesting that Starbucks and other places don’t have a rule or unwritten rule that says you need to have a coffee to be using their wifi or camping out. I think the idea of taking away power outlets is good from a tactical standpoint, but it is not the long term answer.
I recently purchase a new (to me) laptop. I now get the fund job of installing all my favorite software. I’ve been tracking what I use for the last few years and have a few basic apps that I install right away. Below is my list. One addition this year is I am using allmyapps to install the latest releases.
I recently decided to keep my new years resolution and get more life insurance. Now that there are 4 children running around at our house it is important that they are taken care of in the event that I pass away.
I listen to Dave Ramsey and he is a believer in term life insurance. I would have to agree. Term insurance is basically that. You are buying insurance for a duration of time. In my case I decided on 20 years. The amount of time when my youngest would be independent.
To start the process I decided to also follow Dave’s advise. I contacted Zander Insurance.
A quick online form filled out and a confirmation email. Let me review prices and setup an appointment to get a health screen. So far the process has be inexpensive and painless (unless you are afraid of getting a blood test)
The only thing I would recommend against is going to other insurance sites. After my original quote from zander I decided to do a google search and do another online form to get a quick quote. That was a mistake, I’ve been getting spam for the last 2 weeks.
I love to browse engadget and gizmodo to see the new things in tech. Technolust is just something that is in me. The most interesting lists I have seen in a while are the CES 2011 items to watch and the travel gadgets.
I’ve had this link bookmarked for a while. The tech is a bit old, but the items are good. http://www.vagabondish.com/12-killer-travel-gadgets-every-geek-needs/. I think a solar backpack / charger of some type is just a great idea. I can’t say how valuable a waterproof case is. For those who know me, I’m fond of the ziplock waterproff case for the iPhone.
The like page has a good list of items for 2011. I have to say this will be the year of the tablet. Though, I can’t wait for what Apple will do with the iPhone 5. If NFC comes to the phone, I’d love to do a few little programs with that.
If you are like I am and continue to use your iPhone / iPad for more then they are used for. Jailbreaking or just tinkering, you will love this great little app called iphone explorer
I have a lot of apps loaded on the iPad. Many of these apps are games, productivity, social media, and just entertainment. However, there are a few that are really tech and work related. Since I am in the IT field I found a few apps that I would recommend.
Remote control – VNC
VNC is a great remote control software. It is free and open source, supports windows, linux and Mac.
screens – $19.99 http://edovia.com/screens
Screens is probably the best VNC iPad app. The cost is not cheap but it always works. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/screens/id400012962?mt=8
I always think about work life balance. I’m what you would call a workaholic. I don’t go to extremes as the definition says, but I do enjoy to work and feel that it is something that is part of me.
In my readings I came across this presentation by Nigel Marsh at TED
I get 4 magazines. Linux Journal, Wired, Inc, and Money Magazine. I really enjoy each. Inc has so much information and ideas it makes me both excited and angry when I read it each month. Money always gives me ideas and motivation to keep saving and how to continue to invest. Wired Magazine is just to keep up with trends and get some fun reading. Linux Journal is just a true love. No matter what I am doing, I enjoy reading LJ, it has so many cool ideas and gadgets.
This week while traveling I read the most recent copy of Wired. There was an article about Radio Shack. How it has changed it’s name, image, and what it sells. What I found interesting was how the franchise is changing what it’s focus is. They are moving away from hobbyist and moving to be a mobile device seller. The basis for this change is that the margin and the sales commission on a cellular phone is great money.
The change in focus means that the Do It Yourself hobbyist and tinkerer loses out. The “Shack” as they are re-branding themselves are continuing to drop inventory of the items that people have known them for. Soldering irons, transistors, circuit boards, and connectors are going away to make room for cellular accessories.
This is very sad for me to hear. After reading the article it sounds like most of this change has already happened. The article focused on one small shop that is ignoring the change and catering to the core customers that radio shack has had for years. This shop happens to be right down the road from Make (makezine.com). The “Shack” is exactly the type of shop that readers of Make, Popular science, and DIY require to do projects. The trend these days is to use and throw away. If your printer breaks, I’m guessing you are not going to spend any time trying to fix it. You will probably just junk it and buy another one. That is what most people do these days, no one tries to fix anything any more.
I realize that retail is changing, but a Radio Shack that does not carry a connector or soldering irons is really not that useful to me. If I need mobile accessories or a mobile phone, I’ll get that over the internet. I could order most of the supplies I need (connectors, circuit boards, etc..) online but is always costly to ship and also make sure I have the right size. I am sad to see a store like the Shack change.
My wife’s laptop decided to be unreliable. I took the opportunity to upgrade her to a new computer. As with many items I am attempting to keep things portable. So we are upgrading her from a 15 inch Toshiba laptop that I purchased in 2007 for ($400) to a 13 inch HP Dm3-1130. I chose the HP for 2 reasons; size and price.
Of all the 13.1 inch laptops out there this was the most reasonable in terms of price. It has the AMD vision processor (though I’m not a fan of AMD). A very nice aluminum / brushed case that is really small. The price was hard to beat, $499 for a 13.1 inch laptop is pretty hard to find. The purchasing experience was interesting. I had been looking for a deal both online and locally, when I found this at officemax. Two of the 3 local stores did not carry it. When I did find it, the sales team was very admit that I needed an external mouse, and many other accessories / software if I purchased this machine. I am guessing they are suggested to offer these items to anyone purchasing a computer. However, that process of telling a computer shopper that they need to purchase software or other items makes me angry.
So far (day 2) the machine is great. I had to (decrapify) the computer but I was expecting that. The little guy has a great keyboard, fun to type on. The machine has no DVD or CD-rom drive. Not having a media drive is just fine with me, we don’t have any CD’s or DVD’s anymore. So far the battery life has been as expected 4 plus hours. It is now loaded with Windows 7 (x64) and has pretty good performance.
Overall, this will be my wife’s primary laptop that she takes with her and uses at home. I HP did a great job on this laptop.
Last week I had some service done to my car. I decided it was time to take on the task of riding the bus (City bus). I knew that my car would not be available for 3 days so that ment I had three days to ride the bus. So on Sunday night I googled for the Grand Rapids, michigan bussing system (www.ridetherapid.org) After 45 min of trying to figure out where to get on the bus and what time. I decided I was ready Monday to ride public transportation.
When Monday morning arrived, I had my $1.30 in hand and was ready for the bus at the nearest stop to my house. I live about 200 yards away from a bus stop. Not that I could tell from the web site or the schedule on the web site (we will get to that later). When the bus finally stopped in front of me and I got on. I had to fingure out how to pay. So I dropped my money in the machine and coin slot and took my seat. I then watched the next person get on and when they put in their money they took a ticket. It was at that point I realized that I had made a mistake and did not / or forgot to take a ticket. I was hoping this was not an issue. I then had a chance to watch people as they got on the bus. I knew from the bus schedule on line (if that is what you can call it) that the bus made a stop close to downtown, infact near where I would park my car if I were driving. However, when on the bus, no one got off they kept riding, so I did not know the procedure to get off. And the bus kept going past the stop I thought I would get off at. So at this point we are getting on the highway and heading way from downtown where I work. Not knowing what was the next stop I just decided to ride it out. So we eventually came to the bus depot and I was remembering that this bus (route 7) did go back downtown. However, everyone got off the buss at this time. I did not know if this bus I was on would actually still stay on route 7 or go to another route. So I decided to just walk from there, since it was not too far from the office.
My first day of riding the bus was an adventure. I was able to get from my front door to my office in 20 min. That’s with going to the incorrect stop and also being early to the bus stop. I will write more later on my experience.
I love to see people using technology. I recently read an article in the New York Press about podcasting. I love the fact that the press would actually acknoledge some new type of media such as pod casting to it’s readers. I have also had a lot of discussion at work regarding RSS and Blogs (web logs for those who are confused)
It is great to see new technologies and ideas start to be used at the work place and for other individuals than us geeks.
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