Getting Things Done

I read this blog entry on Douglas Welch’s web site and it intrigued me enough to check out the webinar.

Everybody has their own time-management systems and I don’t believe that you can really completely adopt another system exclusively as your own. However there are some very good points to be taken away from the GTD philosophy (from the David Allen Company). I’m currently trying out their Outlook add-in and am quite impressed so far. Now to decide if it’s practical enough to keep (it’s well conceived and pretty robust so far) or if I just take away some of the ideas that it promotes.

Book Archive

The following are books that I read before September 2005. I’ve just decided to start listing them in a different manner rather than on a separate page they will just be part of the blog itself.

My preference in entertainment books tends toward Science-Fiction (as opposed to Fantasy). I have some interest in mystery fiction (a la Sherlock Holmes), but my heart is in new and interesting worlds where you can experiment with current societal issues in new and different contexts.

The books listed below are those that I’ve read recently or (where indicated) favorites that I want to share with you. The dates at the bottom indicate when I started reading a particular book. My scale is Don’t Bother, OK, Good, Very Good and Excellent. If I’m really impressed I’ll even review the book.

Broca\'s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
August 2005		 The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy
August 2005		 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)
August 2005
Excellent		 Flash Black
August 2005
Very Good
Ender\'s Game (Ender Wiggin Saga)
July 2005
Excellent		 The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don\'t Work and What to Do About It
July 2005
Don’t Bother		 The Way Things Ought to Be
June 2005
OK		 Reach for Tomorrow
June 2005
Very Good
The Virtue of Selfishness
June 2005
Excellent		 Who\'s Looking Out for You?
May 2005
Very Good		 Tom Smith and his Incredible Bread Machine
December 2004
Excellent

IBM X41 Tablet PC

I’m thinking of picking up a laptop to replace the tired one that has been faithfully serving me for the past while. I got it used and it was a good addition to my computer menagerie but that venerable 600E IBM Thinkpad is now too slow and non-portable to be of much use anymore. The battery has been dead since I got it so it was good for using around the house but I am increasingly seeing the value in being able to take my computer on the road.

From what I’ve been hearing in IBM’s new X41 Tablet PC seems pretty ideal, if a little pricey. I first heard about it on The Tablet PC Show podcast and I’ve been doing a bunch of research at places like CNET.com and on IBM’s own website. They have a great online demo by the way that lets you get a pretty good sense of the machine and its attributes.

I have a T42 that I use at my day job and prior to that was using a T30. I have a high opinion of the durability of these machines, even with the new “Lenovo” moniker it looks like the quality of the machines is going to be maintained.

Two things are holding me back, first is the complete lack of stock. Something like this I’d be a little happier picking up in a bricks-and-mortar business. There have been supply issues and even ordering from the web site I can expect at least a month or more of delay. Also I’m having some difficulties figuring out how to configure the machine. On IBM’s website there seem to be two species and you can take it or leave it. I want to get a larger hard drive and more powerful battery but I also want the built-in biometric fingerprint reader. But this last option is in no way offered with the “better” model.

Also, is it me or do a lot of the choices on the “Customize and Buy” page not really make a lot of sense. It looks like it was programmed by somebody who believes that the consumer needs to already know everything about the machine and has very little guidance. You could easily end up purchasing two copies of office for the machine if you weren’t careful.

I think I’ll end up calling one of the online retailers and walking through the configuration with them and see if I can’t get exactly what I’m looking for.

Podcast – Slacker Astronomy

is a quirky, sometimes corny but always enlightening podcast. Typically 10 to 15 minutes long this is a quick way to stay up to date on those things that occupy the sky above us.

Whether it’s talking about the newest planet in our solar system (yeah, yeah I know the jury is still out on that one) or projectiles from NASA slamming into passing comets with suitably spectacular results, Slacker Astronomy will provide enough details so you can know what is going on without having to be an astrophysisist.

Genuine Windows Validation

I came across what seems like a really interesting screensaver alternative from Microsoft – The Microsoft Video Screensaver.

Unfortunately it’s part of their Genuine Microsoft Software program. Which means your computer must be validated in order to install, and presumably to use the software.

“No problem”, thought I “I’ve got a legitimate copy of Windows XP Home edition on my box.”

But I also use FireFox as my browser which doesn’t run Active X controls. So I ended up using the alternate validation methods, one to validate my box (GenuineCheck.exe) so that I could actually download the software. This worked fine. And another that I downloaded (legitcheck.hta) that was supposed to prime my box to actually allow the software to install.

Try as I might, every time I attempt to install the Video Screensaver, it fails with a dialog box that gives this URL
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=33171&LegitCheckError=2
and a message saying “Application Not Found”.
genuinewindowsvalidationerror

Has anybody out there seen this? This is relatively new, the video was only released on July 20, 2005 and I’ve only heard about this “Genuine Microsoft Software” program once before. So I’m pretty sure that this is a teething issue caused by MS being a little too eager to get this program out there…

Oh, and I’ve already tried resetting my default browser to Internet Explorer (I keep it up to date so that I can retrieve updates and visit the sites that have coded specifically for IE). Rebooted and the same error still haunts me.

Nothing so far in Google or on MS’ Knowledge base – but I can’t believe I’m the first to stumble across this problem.

Good car repair experience

I took my venerable Honda Odyssey EX (1997) in for a combo 95K and 105K servicing – this was a biggie – timing belt, radiator flushing and pretty much everything else that you do to your car. I’ve got only 104,000 miles on her and those were the original brakes that were finally replaced. They weren’t even squeaking yet!

The last time I had my car serviced, primarily to reduce the “ticking” that comes from too much space between the camshaft and the valves, I didn’t notice any real change at all and was quite disappointed.

This time, however the engine purrs and a weird noise I used to get when the engine was shifting are now a thing of the past (turns out it was a broken engine mount rather than a transaxle issue I’d been fearing).

The only issue remaining is that now my front brake *does* squeal. I’ve got to bring the car back in for that 🙁 . But beside that I was very happy with Ed Voyles Honda here in Marietta.

No Comcast Internet connection

On Tuesday (July 19) I got home from work and found that my garage door wouldn’t open for me. There have been a lot of storms around here lately – fallout from the recent hurricane and just some really odd, pedantic weather systems. So I wasn’t too surprised when I found that the circuit breaker for my garage door opener had tripped.
However a little later I found that my Comcast internet connection also wasn’t working and my satellite receiver was complaining that it couldn’t receive signals on the second tuner.
To make a long story short, it turns out that we must have had quite a power spike if not a minor lightning strike against our place that not only tripped the fuse but also fried the single satellite tuner.
I have surge protection and UPSs on nearly everything of value in the house, but I only had the surge protection for one of my two Satellite tuner’s incoming coax cables. I guess this proves that the surge protection works as it is supposed to. Believe me, I’ll be getting a second protector when I decide to replace the tuner unit!

My gripe right now is with Comcast. The cable has been out for portions of several cities ever since Tuesday, meaning that I’m well into day two of no internet access. Since I’m also depending on my cable connection for my phone connection, well… Let’s just say I’m glad we have cell phones.

I’m really shocked and dismayed that Comcast doesn’t seem to regard themselves as anything more than a recreation company rather than a utility. I was on the phone with them yesterday and the only solution they could offer me was to contact the billing department so I could be reimbursed for the days of loss of service (probably amounts to about $4). I told them that that wasn’t the point, folks who use their internet service often depend upon it for business purposes as I do when I’m working from home or responding to work emergencies.

They had no answer for that. It seems Comcast simply isn’t ready to play with the big boys yet. I’m just happy that I use satellite for my TV viewing – I would otherwise be missing Lance’s road to victory in the Tour de France!

In the (how many now?) years that I’ve used DSL I’ve never had an outage of this magnitude. Especially since they corrected the intermittent line drop problem – an admirable effort on their part. I moved away from BellSouth because I did not like having my phone services bundled with my internet services and they would not separate the two. I may have to go back to them, warts and all, and just subscribe to a basic phone service in order to ensure a slightly slower, but more dependable service.

Anybody else have any experiences with BellSouth DSL or Comcast High Speed Internet service?

Coldforged.org

One of the weblogs that I keep an eye on is Coldforged.org’s.

He has a wide range of interests, many of which I share. The site should be of particular interest to anybody interested in tweaking WordPress. He recently posted some tips to make XP run a little faster that may prove useful to some folks out there.

I especially liked this one (a link from Webgear Resources – Datacreek.net). Check out item number 6 about making previously hidden items show up in your add/remove programs dialog.