JC - Technology and Stuff

So I made a few minor adjustments to my PC today on the way to the perfect setup. Of course there is no such thing, there are always things that can be added or changed

First off I synced up my desktop Microsoft Outlook with my Google calendar (see article). This solved a small little annoynace that was outstanding since I got rid of Mozilla Thunderbird a few months ago. I like using Google calendar because it’s an online app that is always there when I need it. However, on my desktop PC I use Outlook to manage all my ‘domain’ email addresses and so it makes sense to use Outlook’s calendar too. Now my desktop calendar is permanently synced to my online calendar. Another little success!

I also downloaded a cool little tool called ObjectDock. I am now using this as my tool-dock and have hidden my taskbar away. Day by day my PC becomes a more finely tuned machine.

I think there’s only another two hundred or so fine tunings I can make now…

…199 - I just added WindowBlinds to my PC too. Now that is REALLY cool

Today I thought I’d write about a couple of social networking sites; LinkedIn and Plaxo. I have accounts at both of them and use them both. One of the things about social networking sites is that there are so many of them. Different friends use different sites and so you end up having accounts on several. I guess that’s part of the purpose of them. So, let’s talk a little about them both.

My favorite social networking site without a doubt is LinkedIn. It’s very much a professional site though and doesn’t try to be anything else. The objective of the site is keep everything about your work history past and present in one place and enable you to keep in contact with colleagues you previously worked with. LinkedIn lets you connect directly with people with up to 2 degrees of separation (in my case currently about 15,000 people outside of the 145 people I’m directly connected with). You can connect with other people, via an introduction with a 3rd degree of separation, in my case some 1.3M people. I guess that’s a lot more people than I’ll ever know in my life. The total LinkedIn network stands at over 25M people. Pretty impressive.

You can choose to use LinkedIn for free (which I do) or there’s a premium model available if you want to use the network for marketing or advertising your presence. It’s always good to check up periodically on what old colleagues are doing and it’s a lot less intrusive than sending them an unsolicited email.

Towards the other end of the scale is Plaxo which tries to hold a middle ground between professional and casual social network. Plaxo does all the work stuff (but not so well in my opinion) but also adds a calendar, people’s birthdays, maps to where they live or work, photo uploads and a few other features besides. There’s no way to tell just how many people are on the network and you can’t connect to anyone who’s a friend of a friend or a friend. It’s actually a little more difficult to manage your connections in general on Plaxo than on LinkedIn.

You can categorize connections on Plaxo as either Business, Friend or both and this lets you make available whatever information about you you want them to see. That’s a pretty good feature as you can let individuals have your home address and email if you want to, rather than just your work contact information.

But, like I said at the beginning of the article the real problem with these social networks is that no one of them owns the majority of the marketplace and so you end up having to join several. I have different friends and colleagues on LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook, FriendsReunited and Hi5. I’m sure if I joined some others I could even round out my experience!

Still the whole experience is a whole lot easier than it was in the old days to keep in touch with people. No more writing a letter once every few months and waiting for a reply. No more need to send an email every few months either. Not even a need to have these people on instant messenger (unless you speak to them every day). Socializing with your friends and colleagues who don’t live in your hometown is now as easy as getting an online account and either just watching their lives change from a distance or participating in it to whatever degree you feel comfortable. Just remember though. In the same way that you can watch other people, other people can watch you. Be careful what you share with the world. Your boss may be reading your blog!

This should be a no-brainer really. Except it obviously isn’t otherwise why would there be so many ToDo list applications, planners and the rest?

The problem with a ToDo list is two-fold:

1. Creating the list
2. Working the list

So, let’s look at the problem one step at a time
1. Creating the list -  This in some ways is the easiest part, yet is the main reason why step 2 is so difficult for most people. The reason is that it’s not as simple as just creating a list; you need to think about how you want to use the list too. The only way you’re ever going to stay on top of a ToDo list is if it’s organized in a way such that you can stay on top of it. That means it has to be simple and therein lies the problem. Most simple ToDo lists don’t enable you to fully capture your thoughts and action items in a way that make sense. Catch 22 (if you’ve read ever read the book).

There are hundreds of books that have been written on the ToDo list topic and there are also hundreds of applications and methods available to use too. Where do you start? I seriously recommend you start with about five different solutions. Seriously. Yes, I do. They should probably be something like as follows:

a) A piece of paper
b) An Internet email program that has a task list (e.g. Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, Google Mail)
c) A paper organizer system
d) A desktop PC application that you think might work
e) A web application that you think might work

Then what you want to do is using ALL these methods concurrently list all the ToDos that you can think of that need doing, even the ones that don’t need doing until next month, next year. Oh, and then add all those little jobs and projects you’ve been meaning to get round to. So that’s a good start, but now you’ll need to go back over all these ToDos and  categorize them into subjects / topics / projects (whatever works for you) and then try and assign each one a higher or lower priority as relevant, and lastly assign due dates or start dates, or whatever else works for you. Only you will be able to tell what is right for you. Now you’re beginning to see the problem. Probably already two out of the five methods won’t work for you and you’d never have known this if you hadn’t gone through this process with all methods. So now we come to the hard part, getting the system we’ve chosen to work properly.

2. Working the list - Ultimately it’s this area that will dictate whether or not you stay on top of your ToDo list. Completing the first few items on your list was easy. Of course it was. They were the items that you knew you had to do anyway and no matter what method you chose they would have been completed. That’s why it was important to capture every item at the beginning. So you’ve completed your first few ToDos. What do you do now? What is your list telling you? How is it guiding you? How is it confusing you? How is it stopping you from doing the right things? You need to ask yourself these questions and more when looking at the ToDo lists that are left on your option list. The chances are that there still isn’t a single list (application) that is working for you. But at least you now have a better idea of exactly what it is you want. Don’t give up now though. Now is the time to persevere. Keep using these lists for the next week or so and record what works and what doesn’t. It might be as simple as you keep thinking of new ToDo items when you’re not in front of a computer and so you don’t have a way to enter them. It might be that the project items you have on your list are getting in the way of the day to day ToDos. The possibilities are endless. Nonetheless after a week or so of using your system you’ll know what the problems are. It’s at this point that most people give up and this is why they never stay on top of their ToDo list.

I daresay there is no ideal solution for you. We all process ToDos in different ways and that’s why there are so many systems out there. Ultimately you will have to make some kind of compromise and use a system that nearly works for you. I have cycled through about 20 systems I guess and now I have something that nearly works for me. What do I use? Well I have mentioned this before but here’s the complete breakdown:

• A web application called Toodledo - I’ve found this application to be very flexible in how you use it and view your ToDos
• A Firefox plugin for Toodledo that allows me to open my ToDos (with full edit and create features) in the sidebar at any time. I can also just right-click on a web page and create a ToDo that references the page I am on (very useful for bookmarking something to investigate more later)
• A Twitter account to enable the next feature
• Using Twitter to send and request ToDos from Toodledo (Toodledo can use Twitter for receiving and sending ToDos). This means I can create ToDos when I’m not in front of my PC but do have my phone with me (I can send text messages to Twitter that Toodledo processes)

Is this a foolproof system? No, but it works for me. I still need to tweak how I use the Context, Status and Tag features for my ToDos but for the most part it is helping me stay on top of my ToDo list on a day by day basis, and ultimately that will make me more productive and focused over time.

I’ll report back in a few months and let you know how it’s going.

Today’s post is a little off topic but nonetheless I wanted to write something about it. Who is Larry Norman you are probably asking? Well he was a Christian ‘rock n roll’ singer who came to fame in the late 60s and early 70s. A former ‘troublemaker’ who was into drugs and everything else, he converted to Christianity and devoted the rest of his life to God. I recently found out that sadly he died in February this year at the young age of 60. God finally caught up with him.

I mention him because in the mid 70s he was one of my favorite artists and I had all his records and played them non-stop (probably much to the annoyance of my parents). As is mentioned in this article he brought his own unique style of rock and roll to Christian music at a time when it wasn’t done to do so. One of his famous lyrics is “why should the devil have all the good music?” and that just about summed him up. I still use two of his lyric lines in social network quotes (Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that hold a special significance for me:

• “What a mess this world is in! I wonder who began it? Don’t ask me, I’m only visiting this planet.”
• “This world is not my home - I’m just passing through”

Sometimes small things from our past affect us deeply as we travel life’s journey and these are definitely two little thoughts that have stayed with me.

So, I’ll finish with a short set of lyrics from a Larry Norman song entitled “Pardon Me” and I’ll let Larry go to that place where all musicians go - inside a small piece of my heart. Bye Larry.

“Pardon Me”

Pardon me
Kissing you
Like I’m afraid
But I know I’m being
Played with
And you’ll leave me
When you get the chance

Off you’ll go
In the darkness
Of the night
Like a bird
In freedom’s flight
You’re thinking only
Of deliverance

Pardon me

- Break -

Close your eyes
And pretend that
You are me
See how empty
It can be
Making love
If Love’s not
Really there

Watch me go
Watch me walk away alone
As your clothing
Comes undone
And you pull the ribbons
From your hair

Pardon me

So, I apologize in advance. This post may appear as a piece of sponsored advertising for T-Mobile. I do indeed work for T-Mobile, but even if I didn’t this wonderful piece of equipment and marketing would still get my vote. What am I talking about? T-Mobile @Home.

Let’s start with the basics. What is T-Mobile @Home? Well, it’s a wireless router that connects to your broadband network at home, that you can plug a normal wireline (you know those large old fashioned phones that stay in the apartment or home) phone into. The router will set you back $49.99 (currrent pricing) and the service will cost you $9.99 a month (current pricing) with a two year contract. For that you get unlimited national coast to coast calling and a shiny new wireless G router that will connect to your current setup (and I know ‘cos I’ve done it). There are a few other bonuses too, but we’ll get to those. First off let me tell you my experience.

We employees at T-Mobile had to wait for the national launch of the @Home service before we could get one of these beasts. The service had already been released to the Seattle and Denver markets a few months previously and I spent those months eagerly waiting my turn to eat my own dogfood. I previously used Vonage for my service and although I had no complaints about the service (after all I had been using it for nearly 3 years) I was eager to switch to @Home (besides which Vonage was charging $24.99 a month for the same unlimited plan). So, on the second day after the launch (I was on vacation on the first day) I signed on online at the special T-Mobile site and placed my order for the service. Then I waited. I was so impatient that for once I wished it was possible to go to the T-Mobile store like an ordinary customer! Well, I placed my order on the Monday and on Thursday my router arrived. Pretty quick! I unpacked it, stared at it, read all the instructions and tried to stay calm. There were big stickers over everything that warned to run the CD before you connected anything or turned anything on. I had to believe T-Mobile meant it too as there were literally stickers and instructions on everything. So, I had a think and decided how I should connect this thing up in my apartment. I have a Verizon DSL connection at present that gives me 1.5mbs of speed (yes I know I can get 6mbs from Comcast - I just haven’t gone there yet), and the DSL connection comes in from the wall and gets plugged to a Verizon wireless G router with 4 ethernet ports on it. My Vonage box was connected off that and also a 4 port ethernet switch was wired and attached about 30 feet away that connected up my server, desktop, network printer and network storage. I had two options. I could connect the T-Mobile router in place of the Vonage box and use my home phone off that, or I could replace my ethernet switch with the T-Mobile router and run all my networked devices off the new router. I decided for the latter option. It involved more work in setting things up as I had to unplug and replug all my equipment and also I couldn’t perform the swap out until halfway through the install process because of the warnings on the @Home materials but nonetheless I went ahead and took the plunge knowing that at some point I would be without an Internet or network connection on my main PC.

The install was extremely painless and at the appropriate time I hooked up the router, plugged in all the cables and my network and Internet connection sprang into life. Oh and by the way, halfway through the install you have to insert a SIM card (just like SIM cards that are inside mobile phones) that you also receive with the kit, into the router. This SIM card will be what makes your home phone work. So, I had followed all the instructions, set up my router, plugged my home phone into one of the two ports for the phone, gone to the router’s admin page and set it up for everything and thought my work was done. Hmm, only one little thing. No dial tone on my home phone. Alas there was also no blue light on my router where the phone was connected like there was supposed to be. Not to worry, I could call T-Mobile customer care from my mobile phone and troubleshoot the problem. It turned out that I hadn’t actually been assigned a number for my home phone yet. There had been such a rush of T-mobilites requesting these little beasties that the delivery had gotten ahead of the provisioning. Still, I was assured that my phone ‘would be working in a few days’. Hmm (I’m always slightly dubious when I hear these reassuring words from a support department).

Still, in the meantime there were some other things I could and needed to do with my router. First things first I turned off the wireless signal from my original Verizon router and set up the wireless signal on the T-Mobile router. The reason for this was I wanted all my network traffic to go through this router. Why? Because the T-Mobile @Home router has call (VOIP) prioritization built in. This is a wonderful feature and it means that when you are using your phone on the router the service will get priority over other Internet traffic. This is a good thing - trust me! Secondly, I wanted to set up my mobile phone to use the new T-Mobile router. What do I mean by that? Well I have a Blackberry Curve that has WiFi built in and clever T-Mobile has enabled it so that it can connect to wireless networks and use VOIP wherever possible too. Whenever my mobile phone is connected using WiFi it costs me zero minutes - now that’s a good feature! And of course as the T-Mobile router is optimized for VOIP then I wanted my mobile phone to connect to that too. My wife’s phone also has WiFi and so when she got home from work I set hers up to work with the router too. And in case you’re asking why I would do this it’s because as we all know, mobile phones work brilliantly except at home where they always manage to find a dead spot somewhere in the house. When you’re connected via WiFi this problem goes away!

I’ll take a little detour here too, in case you’re not familiar with phones that are WiFi enabled. With mobile phones in normal use when you are out and about you will use your provider’s airwaves (network) for both your phone calls and Internet requests, but when you are attached to a wireless network (think T-Mobile Hotspot) your phone will use that network instead of the airwaves for its calls (actually not all providers are like T-Mobile and so sometimes only your Internet requests and not your actual phone calls will use the wireless network). Anyway, within a few minutes I was cooking on gas and my mobile phone seamlessly connected to my home network and was ready to receive and make calls using my broadband connection. Sweet (by the way, my mobile phone also connects automatically to T-Mobile Hotspot connections all over  - like at Starbucks - whenever it can).

Anyway, back to the plot. I still didn’t actually have my home phone working on my router. Then, a few days later I received an email saying my home phone was now provisioned and the email contained my new home number (by the way you can port your existing number too if you want to). I was at work at the time but I thought to myself there was no harm in trying. I mean, what was the worst thing that could happen? What am I talking about? I dialed the number T-Mobile had sent me of course! And my wife answered the phone! Sweet! That’s what you call an easy setup.

So now I have a great new VOIP optimized wireless G router AND a landline equivalent with unlimited national calling. Like I said at the beginning, even if I wasn’t a T-Mobile employee I would have happily spent the $49.99 equipment (once off) and $9.99 a month fees for this service. Quite frankly this is something that Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and all the others can’t match. After all, why would they want you to give up your expensive home phone for a cheaper model?

No that’s not some kind of English saying, it’s the name of a piece of software. Task Management software to be exact. At toodledo.com you can find a competent piece of online software that will manage all your tasks and reminders GTD fashion (that’s Getting Things Done for all you newbies). It’s simple to set up and easy to use and before you know it you’ll have everything up and running and checking off tasks. Now if that was the end of the story I guess it wouldn’t be too exciting but the reason why I wanted to use toodledo was because of two other things:

• Firefox add-on
• Twitter add-on

I wanted the Firefox add-on so that I didn’t have to go to their website every time I wanted to create a new task. After all, that defeats the object a little. The Firefox add-on will let you input a new task via a drop down menu of the Tools bar. But that’s not all. You can also open toodledo in the Firefox sidebar (like History or Bookmarks) via the View menu. This is by far the most useful feature. This means that whenever you have a browser open - which let’s face it is all the time nowadays - you are in a position to input a new task (or edit or complete an existing one) with some simple mouse actions.

But, and here’s the killer part of the application, you can also access your toodledo task list via twitter. Remember twitter from last time? That piece of software that I am using to send myself notes? Well it turns out that toodledo has an account with twitter and so I can send a message to toodledo via twitter and toodledo will process that message for me and create a task (or give me a list of tasks and lots of other features). Now that means I don’t even have to be in front of my PC to create a task or get a list. I can do things directly from my phone! How neat is that? So, when I’m sitting in the bar solving the world’s problems and I suddenly get a great idea, I can send that idea via SMS to twitter and it will appear on my task list so I can process it when I’m next on my PC (or in another bar!).

I knew there was something inherently clever in modern technology! That’s it for today. Go and try it. You never know, you might even like it.

So I read all the hype about Twitter, then I looked at the website, then I ignored it all and let it do its thing in the background for several months. I even read all the recent press about how bad the service was now it’s grown so big and how it’s unusable and a dog.

But, after writing my blog entry last weekend about social networking I revisited the website and re-watched the semi-comic video. I wondered what Twitter could do for me. If it could even do anything for me! Anyway, to cut a long story short I signed up for an account and was wowed by the nothingness of it. Just what was I going to use it for? I sent a twitter anyway, just for the fun of it (Sitting at home trying to become social 01:56 PM July 13, 2008 from web) and I sat back. Exciting.

But then it hit me. It wasn’t about what twitter was, it was about what twitter could be used in conjunction with. If I sent twitters to myself throughout the week as I was doing things then I could use those twitters as reminders for when I write my blog entries. Hmm. Now the mind was beginning to work a little.

So that covered when I was at home or at work and on a PC, but what about when I was out somewhere without access to a PC? What if I had a thought or event then? Not a problem, I could also attach a phone to my twitter account and use that to send and receive twitters too. Now all I had to do was send a text message to ‘40404′ (the twitter shortcut) and lo and behold the text message appeared on my twitter log. Amazing. And I really do mean amazing. Now I had a way of sending myself reminders, statuses, ideas. The possibilities were endless. Maybe twitter wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

I sent 6 twitter messages before I had my next bright idea. But that’s another story…

Over the past few weeks I have been trying to get sorted - technologically that is. Since I was about 14 I have been living in a world of technology and trying to keep up to date with it all. It all started in about 1974 - long before PCs existed. Long before the Internet was in use and long before blogs were written. In fact I remember keeping my own diary in those days.

Anyway, back to the point of all this. Over the past few years my interest in technology has lessened some and I haven’t stayed on the cutting edge of everything. Sure, I’ve got a good laptop and I have a Windows server and I keep my own websites and I write the odd piece of Javascript and I try to read as much about technology as I can, but I haven’t really embraced the social networking world in which we now live. Email yes, even IM, but social networking - no. I was trying to work out why that is but I think really it’s because I don’t network via the Internet. I mostly network via personal methods - speaking. Be it face to face or over the telephone. Interesting. Maybe social networking is something that is a generation removed from me. Maybe even me, someone who has always professed to be into technology has finally had their day and is becoming a dinosaur in the technological world in which we live. Scary thought. I am also a lazy person by nature and I don’t keep in touch with people as often as I should. I keep telling myslef that I should change this habit, but I guess it’s a tough one to break.

Well getting back to sorting things out I have slowly been migrating things and changing things to try and make life easier. It all started when I recently got married again and decided I should start trying to rebuild things properly from the beginning. I had spent too many years previously doing things in my own way for my own benefit and not considering anyone else. (Being single and getting screwed by a bad marriage can do that to you.) The first thing I did was to register a new website for both me and Debs (my wife) so that I could blog and have pictures about the family and not just me. Then I deleted my old johncox.com website (this one) in order to change the emphasis. I’ve also been looking at other things too like:

• Email addresses (do I have too many?)
• Should I store files locally or online?
• I need to back things up more often
• I should upgrade my Windows server and get it working better
• I should ’socialize’ more

The list goes on.

So, that’s my thought for the day. Over the course of the rest of the posts I’ll start going into more details and implementing things. Then I’ll report back on how all these things have changed my life, whether for the better or for the worse. One thing that’s for certain though is that my technological world is going to continue to change.