Patrick’s Musings

According to the website for Australia’s first Social Innovation Camp it has been 117 days since the camp. I wonder what has happened since then with the ideas that went to the camp?

I know what has happened with one of my ideas that didn’t make it, “Cup of Sugar” a website that allowed you to share your household goods with friends and neighbours. For instance does every house in your street need a 4m ladder every day? I doubt it, and when I need one I borrow from a neighbour. The idea of the website was to scale that system. Using a feedback and rewards system like Ebay and Couchsurfing.org to promote trust.

I was pleased today to find Neighborgoods.net (Excuse the American spelling), a website that allows you to share your household goods in your neighbourhood, with a verification system like couchsurfers and a rating system like Ebay.

Let me be clear, I’m not insinuating that this idea was stolen from me, I have complete faith that Micki Krimmel independently came up with the idea herself. I think it’s great that someone had the idea, the time and the capital to get this rolling, which I wasn’t able to do and I wish them well. Of course if they did get the idea from me royalty payments can be sent to my paypal account

I’ve been reading with interest Tony Pearson’s blog Inside System Storage as the IBM view on things is often very different to the EMC/NetApp/Everyone Else view on things.

The last two posts have been about getting a new laptop, and all the effort Tony has gone to getting all his data synched (he is currently searching for a crossover cable).

When I received a new laptop at EMC, not because the company automatically replaced them after 4 years, but rather because the hinge snapped about a week after the warranty expired, I had some similar issues, thuogh certainly not 134 applications to reinstall.

As an early adopter of Dropbox all my important files are synchronised with the cloud. Anything customer sensitive that I couldn’t host online was kept on a Truecrypt encrypted USB key that lives on my keychain. (It used to live in my pocket, but after two trips through the washing machine I moved it to the keychain (If you’re interested it’s a Patriot XPorter XT)).

So old laptop boots up a Darik’s Boot & Nuke and starts wiping. The new laptop boots up the corporate image which I promptly transfer into a vmware image using vmware converter. I then install my OS of choice, which was the Windows 7 beta at the time, VMware server & Dropbox. An hour later (using LAN sync and getting the data off my desktop not the Dropbox server) I have all my files back. I then install my base applications that I cannot live without, Firefox, Launchy, PeaZip, Java, Acrobat Viewer, PDF Printer, Open Office & Truecrypt to start.

I could have saved an hour and just installed Dropbox in the corporate image, but where is the fun in that. I currently have 3 desktop computers & 2 laptops. Thanks to Dropbox I always have my files. I can even access them from my Android phone bringing support to a total of 4 operating systems, Windows, Linux, Mac, Android.

According to Google Reader I’m the only person subscribed to the ALP RSS Feed.

Feed URL: http://www.labor.com.au/media/rss/2.0/feed.xml
Posts per week:26.4Subscribers:1Last updated:7:42 AM (1 hour ago)

I can hardly talk, only 2 Google Reader users are subscribed to my blog, 1 is me, I’m assuming the other is my wife. (Hello dearest).

Looking at many of my other feeds which I’m the only subscriber many are friends, coworkers or other acquaintances.

So my Samsung drives don’t work with the Adaptec controller, so if anyone wants to buy 5 2tb Samsung F3EG drives drop me a line.

Now on my desk I have 5 Western Digital WD20EADS which are definitely on the qualified list of drives. So when I get home tonight it’s time to build a 4+1 R5.

Oh the joy.

On the weekend I acquired the bits I needed to start my new project. A Windows Home Server (WHS) for my network at home. I can hear the cries of ‘use Linux/BSD/Solaris etc’ from here. I have decided to try Windows for several reasons, which in no particular order are:

• All my desktops & laptops now run Windows 7
• I hack away at UNIX & Storage all day at work, at home I just want it to work
• It supports all my hardware
• I wanted plug and play support for my Windows 7 Media Centre PC

I installed WHS on a Gigabyte motherboard with an Athlon X2, 4gb of ram (32bit OS) and currently a 500gb sata drive. I spent more on my heatsink (Oh how I love thee Noctua) than my motherboard. I also grabbed and am yet to install an Adaptec PCI-E raid controller, the 51645. Which supports 20 SAS or SATA drives. I intend to play with that tonight. Who needs sleep really.

The install was pretty simple, though a little confusing when after the first reboot it started the standard blue screen, press F6 to install drivers, install. But this is based on Windows SBS 2003 so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Once installed I ran Windows update to get the latest patches & Power Pack 3 which adds Windows 7 support. I then ran the included software to connect my Desktop to the WHS. After a little trouble with my password (don’t connect as guest, then try and authenticate, you stay authenticated as guest and have to reboot), I was now connected. I checked My Computer and didn’t have any new drives, tried looking in Homegroup & Libraries, nothing there, oh what I have to map the network drives myself? I thought WHS was all about removing the concept of drive letters.

Perhaps I’m doing something wrong. I’ll spend some time searching around tonight for options.

What I did like was it automatically backed up my Desktop PC to the server, though with 1.5tb of files I did have to manually exclude my music and movies folders from this backup. I’m given to understand that the restore disk that came with the installation disk can be used to restore my desktop using the backup from the server. Now that’s cool.

More as it happens.

I’ve just been given this handy URL by a co-worker. Booko.com.au.

It’s a price search engine for Books and DVDs. It searches the Internet to find the cheapest copy of a book anywhere and it just saved me around $20 on the cost of a brand new, just printed book.

This is a test of my mobile blogging using the Blackberry wordpress client.

I’m on the train home from Powershift at UWS. I was up at 6am and left the house by 6.30 to setup the EWB stall not to bad an effort considering everything except the tables and chairs was taken onsite by me by train.

A huge thanks to Sophie from the AYCC who has received numerous txts, emails & calls from me in the last couple of days after I decided to attend at the last minute for Engineers Without Borders.

The keynotes were fantastic, if a little cultish, and it was a shame that some activists couldn’t let Nathan Rees have his say in peace. From 11.30 to 3.30 I manned the EWB stall with the help of a number of EWB volunteers, the interest was greater than I expected and we had a lot of interesting discussions and got a few new members and people for our mailing lists. Overall the time was well spent, though I feel a little more structure may have been better.

From 3.30 to 4.30 I was in the “Communicating the Climate Change Message” breakout, the discussion was good, but not long enough, only a few questions were asked. I think 2 hours per breakout might have worked better.

I then traipsed off to room 2.02 to hear Keillen from Greenpeace talk “Media Engagement”. After 15 minutes waiting I left. Advised the AYCC team at the front desk that our facilitator hadn’t shown and headed for a bus/taxi home. I didn’t have the good to walk up two flights of steps again.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, and even more to future events, when AYCC can apply what it learns this weekend and hopefully hold many more successful events.

A month ago I took a leap into the unknown world of Smartphones and purchased a Blackberry Bold 9000. This is my first 3g internet enabled phone. After 3 happy years with my Motorola L6 and GPRS. Naturally I’m eagre to start using my GtD system on it. Especially as my employer blocks both Evernote & Sugarsync from the office.

I have installed Evernote for Blackberry, Remember the Milk‘s RTM for Blackberry and SugarSync for Blackberry. Three fantastic applications that I use daily. Sugarsync is not strictly GTD, it’s a file synchronisation program that allows me to keep important documents synced between my 3 computers, PDA and now my Blackberry. How can I Get Things Done if I don’t have access to my files?

I also have Google Sync for Blackberry to keep my Calendar & Contacts up to date.

First up, gripes. RtM for Blackberry uses Blackberry categories to sync to RtM lists, not tags. As the Blackberry allows multiple category per todo item and RtM only allows an item to be in one list I think this is a big fail by RtM, who I normally think of as a fantastic and enlightened company. Sugarsync also has a major flaw, when attempting to open a PDF on my Blackberry it gives an error that I don’t have a default viewer installed. Despite the fact the Blackberry Messaging and Browser both open PDF files without an issue.

Now, the system.

• I use Evernote to capture all my notetaking thoughts. Minutes in meetings, pictures I take, audio thoughts etc.
• I rely on the task manager to know what I’m doing. Everytime I get a task I record it in the task manager. Using classic GTD style categories, @work, @home, @computer etc.
• I use the Calendar for fixed date events & the tasks list for due anytime events.
• I ignore emails and SMS when I am in a ‘non phone’ environment, for instance in a meeting.

Because I always have my phone on me, I can review tasks at will. When I’m on the train, waiting for the train, standing in line at the supermarket, I can whip out my Blackberry open the task manager and review my task list quickly and easily. The weekly review was always my GTD failure. I never did it. Now I do a daily or even hourly review. Not stricly what David Allen suggests, but the important thing is, it works for me.

Is it making me hyper productive? Not yet, but I think I’ve improved.

Tips:

• I wired the left hand quick access key to Evernote. Quick access makes a difference.
• I still stick to the ‘if it’s going to take less than 2 minutes and you can do it now, do it now’ rule.
• Buy an extended battery. All this lifehacking really drains the juice. Especially minuting a meeting in Evernote.
• I scan every paper document I get and put it in a Sugarsync managed folder. If someone calls me while I’m in thousands of kilometres from home to talk about an invoice they sent me, I darn well want to be able to find that invoice then and there. If I received it, it will be in Sugarsync.

Would you like to live next door to fourteen storey tower blocks? A huge overdevelopment has been proposed for Lewisham, at the corner of Old Canterbury Rd and Longport St. See map.

The development includes 14, 12 and 6 storey towers and a large supermarket mall with basement car parking. The developer has bypassed council and the local community and gone straight to the state government for approval under the controversial Part 3A law.

* Overdevelopment
* Traffic congestion and pollution
* Community disruption
* New precedents for building size for the Inner West
* Local shopping strips hurt – Petersham, Dulwich Hill, Summer Hill
* Interferes with the Cooks River to Iron Cove Greenway project

The Greens are campaigning to stop such a massive overdevelopment. You can view our webpage on this issue: http://marrickvillegreens.wordpress.com/issue/lewisham-part-3a-development/

A public meeting has been called for 7pm, Wednesday 20 May at Summer Hill Community Centre, 131 Smith Street, Summer Hill. See map to venue. Come along to see the developers plans, express your opinion, and show your feelings on this development.

I personally am concerned about the precedent this could set for the Summer Hill Mill site, just across the train line from this site.