DAB Radios

When I left TDC a few weeks ago, I got a really nice present; two series of The Simpsons :) Unfortunatly it didn't fly well with the missus, and you know if it doesn't fly well with her.....well, it doesn't fly at all ;) The problem is, that she really doesn't like the Simpsons, and the with the amount of TV I watch, I would like to watch something she's not objecting to watching. It's quite rare that I watch TV when I'm alone, but that's not something my friends at TDC could know, and it's still a cool present. Fortunatly the guys who bought the present, made sure that I could exchange it to something else if I wanted to. The only problem I have now is: what to change it to? I've been looking af the stuff Fona has, but the local one didn't have any films or series of interrest, and I'm not sure I actually need an extra iPod Shuffle :) They did have some nice DAB radios though, and having tried my father-in-law's EVOKE-1 I thought it might be a really good replacement for our current (rather bad) Sony clock radio. The local Fona just didn't have one of those, so if anyone has any suggestions or comments as to which DAB radio is a better choice, it will be much appreciated :)

Strange DVD burning problems

We've been trying to backup a bit of data (all our pictures, our mpeg'ed music etc.) to DVD, but so far it's not behttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifen all that successfull :( A while ago, I bought a LaCie DVD burner, but I have never been able to burn anothing but rewritable DVD media. I've tried with a few different write-only, but none of them ended up working. The drive seemed to burn them just fine, but when I tried to read the content of them on a different drive, it turned out to be just yet another beer coaster. When we bought Katrin's iBook, we decided to go for the model with a superdrive, specifically to replace the LaCie drive. Unfortunatly, it has exactly the same problem! :( It destroys all write-only discs but not re-writable ones... I haven't got a clue what the problem could be, so any help would be appreciated. UPDATE: It turns out that the while problem i a firmware issue!?! Apple has apparently messed up somewhere, and limited the drive in the iBook to only 2x speed. This doesn't play well with 8x speed discs for some reason, so those 100 discs we bought when we were in Canada is as good as useless. The only way we can use them, is by buying a new DVD-burner, or hope that Apple updates their firmware. Somehow, my respect for Apple dropped a few notches tonight...

Sync'ing with paper

While I'm still waiting for my electronic paper thingie, I found someone who explains how to use iSync to synchronise iCal with a HipsterPDA. It's not as cool as it sounds though :) When I first read about it, I though about OCR, scanning and a bit of fairy dust (or something), but it's much more low tech then that. It's actually just a way of using iCal to handle the various lists suggeted by GTD, and with a bit of AppleScript it's possible to format the lists and have the result put onto the clipboard. With that one can paste the formatted lists into word, and print them. I'm not sure I would call it synchronising iCal with a HipsterPDA (since data in the HipsterPDA can't automatically be put into iCal) but the idea is nice anyway.

Problems with ssh

For some reason, I can't (or "couldn't" by the time you read this) access my server via ssh. This also means that I can't publish my blog, since it's done using sftp. I hope it'll get sorted out soon...

Too many options

I'm still in the process of reading the Getting Things Done book, and while reading I've wondered about how to go about and implement the system. I'm not even sure I want to go "all in" on the system, so where to start? Mahler sent me this link, that talkes about using Thunderbird to GTD. I've also read about some people who use a basic Hipster PDA, and David Allen himself uses a Palm handheld. There are even personal Wikis that is targeted the GTD audience. I'm allready using Thunderbird at work, but I use Mail.app at home. Perhaps I can achieve the same thing using both, I'm not yet sure, since I haven't read the whole article about using Thunderbird as a GTD tool. I like the idea about using just plain old paper, since doodling and scribbling things on paper is much faster than trying to input stuff into a PDA. On the other hand, I've got a PDA, and I like the idea of being able to carry loads of information with me, but then how do I input? The personal wiki's are kind of cool, but I'm not in front of my laptop all day long, and it seems rude to be working on a laptop during a client meeting, so I'm not going to drag it along. So far, I think I'm starting out with plain paper for capturing, with some sort of software to handle the lists. The reference stuff and other larger amoutns of data could also be stores digitally or at work/home. It could be cool, if I could somehow have my lists with me on my K700i phone, since it's small enough for me to want to carry it arround all the time, and then have a small notebook with me too, to capture stuff. I just haven't found the right software for the phone, and I haven't even looked for a small notebook to know if I want to have one with me at all times...

I-Want-One-Of-Those (.com)

Man! This would be The Ultimative Gadget for me at the moment. The idea of being able to carry a load of different books is more appealing now than it have been before. Partly because I'm likely to be taking public transport to work form now on, and partly because it's finally foldable/roleable, flexible, has a much better contrast and a larger screen than those small pesky PDAs. Just too bad it's probably a few years away from becomming generally awailable...

Thunderbird

I don't know if it's Windows, the implementation of Thunderbird on windows, or just Thunderbird it self, but my inbox is slower than I've ever seen it before!? In Apple's Mail.app it's faster to search for an email than trying to sort them into forlders, which is why i have about 550 emails in my inbox. Why should I move them? Even when working with Thunderbird on Linux the performance was reasonable, and I didn't see a need to clean out my inbox, but with Thunderbird on Windows, it seems like my first task of the day to clean out my inbox. It can't even handle junk mail without taking forever to finish. If I mark something as junk, my junk settings require it to move my junk mails to the junk folder. That just doesn't happen. To try and force it, I manually run the "Run junkmail controls on folder" tool, but that just seems to want to download all email again and go through each and every one of them. It's strange that it doesn't remember having looked through all my email before, and that it just need to look at my new mail. So far I'm staying on Windows, due to my new tasks as a project manager, but I might change to Linux once we figure out which tools and processes we want to use. This means that I probably need to clean out my inbox in order for Thunderbird to function sufficiently - at least thats my guess - but apparently thats a very good idea to do generally. I've been reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen, and one of the things he's talking about, is reducing the clutter, so that one can see the relevant tasks. Apparently, the inbox needs to be emptied in order for this to work, so I guess I better get cracking if I want to implement his system at some point :)

Public transport

Yesterday and today I'm taking public transport to work. Katrin stays at home because of a flue, which means that there is nowhere to park the car, without it costing a small fortune. Normally, Katrin would take the car to school, where she can park for free, but there is no free area arround my new workplace. Anyway, it's not all that bad. I get to read alot and it actually takes the same amount of time to get to work, as when I drive there. The only difference was getting back yesterday. I hadn't checked any schedules, and just left for the train when everyone else was leaving. It turned out to be fairly bad timing :) The metro was packed so full, that I missed two trains, and when I got to the stop where I needed to change to regular rail, I had to wait 15 minutes before a train I could use arrived. I guess the conclusion is that if you plan ahead, and actually makes it to the first station in time and the trains aren't delayed, it's fairly fast to get to and from work. But if you miss a train or something like that....you're in for the long haul. Did I mention that we're looking for an appartment in copenhagen now? ;)

What a day...

My day has mostly just been meetings. We started out with a monday morning meeting, with breakfast and everything, then a sales meeting, a strategy meeting and after lunch a meeting with each of my new coworkers. My. brain. is. full! :) And to make it all a bit more difficult, my cold that started on Thursday is still around. It has been really interesting though, and I'm still sure it was the right thing to do. My new coworkers are really nice and friendly, and the general atmosphere is really good and fun. There are a few things i need to get used to though; when we're 12 people in the meeting room noone else is joining us :) and if you have a good idea, there is quite a good chance of it being implemented. The organisational structure is almost as flat as it can get, and there is a very democratic way of doing things. I'm excited about tomorrow, where I'll be starting on some of the projects.

Last day

Well it had to happen at some point. My last day of work at TDC. It's a bit strange, because it's both sad to think of leaving a bunch of really nice coworkers, but I'm also really exited about starting my new job, and meeting new people. Next week has allready been filled with meetings and stuff to do and learn, so I'm not afraid of having nothing to do :) All I need to do now, is finish up documenting my stuff, and clearing out any personal items on the desk or the computer. Then we'll have a few beers, and celebrate :)

Some Danes...

I read this morning in the newspaper, that there is a suggestion as to how the danish state can be further distanced from the church. I find this to be a good idea, since religion and politics usually just leads to trouble (just look at the US :). I also read a letter from some guy had written to the paper. He claimed to be agnostic, but still didn't want the suggestion to be made into law, since i didn't like the idea of Islam being equal to Christianity! Whats wrong with this guy?! He doesn't like the idea of church and state together, but he thinks that all religions being considered equal is a bigger evil?!? Personally I think there are more messed up Christians than Muslims (look at the US again :) but unfortunatly Danes doesn't seem to get that. Somehow Muslims are all bad, and should be exported. I surely don't agree, and I think people needs to be a little more open minded. Not that I'm a perfect example or anything, but at least I try. Anyway, that is one of the reasons I like to see how it is to live in another country...the general oppinion about non-danes here is sometimes too depressing.

Online tools II

It's funny what you can find on the web. I wanted to change my favicon (the old one really wasn't that good) and what better way than to use an online app? Looking through the archive og Schacks linkspasser, I found what I needed; FavIcon from Pics. The result? you should be able to see it besides the URL (or you need a better browser)

Online tools

The Internet rocks, no doubt about that, but it can be a bit difficult to find the information you need, without spending most of your day doing it. I have lately discovered a few online tools, that have really helped me manage all the information I either get or come across. First tools is del.icio.us. Before I found this, I had a small bookmark application installed on my server, where I could place links to interesting sites in different categories. The application was ok, but not that easy to work with, and I ended up with having links thrown arround the place. The main problem was, that I had to put a link into a category. But how do you know which category to but it in? is Appleinsider "news", "rumors" or "apple"? That wasn't the problem that kind of "killed" the application for me though. The final blow came when I moved to my new server, because I for some reason coudn't log in. Whithout being able to log in, I couldn't approve new links, and then the app became quite useless. Del.icio.us solved all of these problems, since it doesn't use categories but tags, and since it's managed by someone else (who would actually do something about a login problem :). The way del.icio.us handles tags is brilliant; when I add a new link, I simply choose which tags I find relevant for this link e.g. "news rumors apple" for Appleinsider. When I want to find a link, I can simply just browse my list of tags, and that way find all links that I find has something to do with Apple. The second app is Bloglines. This has releaved me of trying to handle two or more lists of RSS feeds that I follow, as well as making sure that I don't read the same news again. Before I found bloglines, I would have a list of RSS feeds in Thunderbird at work and in Safari at home. Some feeds would be in both lists, with the result that I looked at the same news at least twice when going through both lists, and other feeds would only exist in one of the lists. Now all my feeds are centralised, and since it's a web based app, it remembers which feeds I've allready read.

Time for a change

It's time for a change. Friday will be my last day as a developer at TDC. From monday I'll be working for Adapt as a project manager. I'm really exited about this, and look forward to new challanges and to try working in a small company. For the last 5½ years, I've been working in varous parts of TDC, and even though there are advantages of working in a larger company, I would still like to experience the differences of working in a smaller team, with more responsibility and more dynamic tasks. Our Canada plans have been postponed for a bit, since it seems to take the immigration office in London a lot of time to get to our application. Another change has allready happened - the blog is changed! and even updated! :) I know that my friends here at TDC will probably demand that I update my blog, so that they will know I'm still alive, and I thought I might as well get startet. Hopefully I'll find time to update it more often than the previous one...