Rhoneisms

Aurora is a free digital alarm clock for Mac that integrates with both iTunes playlists or ElGato’s EyeTV. It is highly configurable and features such nifty features as a sleep timer, support for an Apple Remote and volume fade-up. This sure will help me out for those early sessions at Macworld this year. (via Lifehacker)
Ben Stein makes a compelling argument from a conservative point of view for raising taxes on the rich. Heresy you say Mr. Rightwing? Well, Warren Buffett agrees with him. (NYT via Kottke – Evil yet Free Subscription required)
LifeBoat is a new Mac backup application that auto syncs files and/or directories to a USB key or external drive automatically upon connection. It backs up the files to a read only DMG file that is then easy to mount and get your data from.

One of the main tenants of the GTD methodology is the idea of ubiquitous capture. That is, a way to always get that stuff you have floating around your noggin out of it and into a trusted system that will allow you to evaluate it later. For many, having a pen to write stuff down with at constant disposal is the easiest, quickest and most cost effective solution for this. Problem is, most pens are better designed for the shirt pocket than, say, any other pocket that you more regularly have available in this increasingly casual society.
That being said, here is a rundown of some stealthy pens that can fit in all manner of other places so that you are never without a way to jot down that next great idea (or just an addition to your honey-do list):

Lamy Pico – This is the one I own. The Pico is a really stylish and slick little pen that is the size of a really small cigar when closed and extends to a full size pen when open. I actually keep it in the bottom of my wallet with some half-size index cards thrown in to complete the kit. Although this combo is not my main capture device, this helps ensure that I am never without one.

The Inka Pen – Really small when closed and has a loop that attaches to your keychain. Once detached, it converts to a full size pen and even has a PDA stylus. This is one I would have gotten if I had not seen the Pico first.

Levenger Silvertini Wallet Pen – This small, elegant, sterling silver pen is designed to attach onto a wallet, checkbook or other small personal accessory. It is only three inches in length so it can fit almost anywhere and has a strong clip so it wont get lost. It does not expand to a full size pen so you will not be writing a novel with it but that is not the point.

Bookmark Pens (via David Seah) – I have yet to find these but they sure do look interesting. They are sold as flat pens that are designed to attach between the pages of a book. They kind of look like they would make a book the size of a Moleskine bulge a bit but it might . David has a good write-up if you follow the link.

FoldzFlat Pen – This is a pen that folds into a flat unit the size of a business card for easy carrying in the card slot of a wallet. Looks kind of goofy to me but there are no points for style in this list – only functionality.

Pilot G2 Mini – The Pilot G2 was my pen of choice for a long while and is a fantastic gel roller with unbelievable smoothness. The mini version is just a good but in a package small enough to carry in a front pocket with little notice of it being there. A good and cost effective solution.

Zebra F-301 Compact – This is another “convertible” pen. Only 4 inches when closed it converts to a regular size pen once opened. Another cost effective solution.

(Late stage addition)

Fisher Space Pen – How could I have forgotten the venerable Space Pen? This lovely little feat of space age design is certainly small enough to carry in the pocket of your choice and can write on almost anything. This is the pen of choice for many a GTDer. I have been properly scolded for this original omission in the comments.

Idio Magazine is an interesting idea. It is a virtual flash based magazine with content that is customized to your interests.
The new Spot speakers from JBL are so retro cool that even the wires are wrapped in cloth – old school style.(via RetroThing)
Civil Netizen is a Mozilla based file transfer utility for sending files that would otherwise be to large to e-mail. Currently in beta, they are inching towards an official release with a sexy interface redesign for the Mac version. Works for Windows and Mac with a Linux version promised.

My friend Tim Erlin, pointed me to this Fast Company article titled “A Head for Detail” about an experimental software project called MyLifeBits and how Microsoft Researcher Gordon Bell is using it to create a lifetime store of everything. Everything he sees and says, his phone calls, his e-mails, every document he writes or reads – everything one could conceive of is captured and stored in a searchable database designed for quick recall of every possible aspect of his life. Here is an out take:

“As we chatted about ious topics–Australian jazz musicians, his futuristic cell phone, the Seattle area’s gorgeous weather–Bell’s gear quietly logged my every gesture and all my blathering small talk, snapping a picture every 60 seconds. Back at his office, his computer had carefully archived every document related to me: all the email I’d sent him, copies of my articles he’d read, pages he’d surfed on my blog… He plunked down in front of his computer, pulled up a browser, typed in “Clive Fast Company,” and there they were: Hundreds of pictures of the meeting scrolled by on his screen, and the sound of our day-old conversation filled the room. It was a deeply strange feeling.”

Besides being a brilliantly written article, an engaging and fascinating read, it really highlights some of the groundbreaking findings that are coming out of Microsoft Research and it implications on productivity in the workplace.
For instance, the research on how multiple monitors increase productivity has provided backing to my personal crusade I have been leading at work to make sure that any IT staff member who wants an extra monitor receives one. I also hasten to remind the management types that the research actually shows that three monitors is the sweet spot (I am still working on winning that one). The point here is that searching around the Microsoft Research site can dig up some fascinating stuff that is just over the horizon including some stuff that you can use to your benefit today.
As a final note, there is a fun little side link to the article that tells you how you can start to create your very own MyLifeBits using off the shelf technology and software that is out today (including Mac Org-Fu cult favorite DEVONThink).

I have not used Microsoft OneNote much as I am not a very regular Windows user. That being said, here is an excellent tutorial on using it’s Note Flags feature to get your Org-fu on.
I am a big fan of Blinksale for invoicing clients for my business. Now they have added integration with Basecamp for sharing client info between the two apps. Pretty nifty!
Stikkit is a new web application that is basically like sticky notes – except these sticky notes get parsed for data. Enter a address for instance and it will automagicaly get parsed out and added to a contact section, links get added to bookmarks, etc. Looks interesting but it certainly wont replace my fave.

A few more minor changes around here, some you can see, some you cant. I will run them down real quick:

• The site is now running on Movable Type 3.3.
• A new “popular” category has been added to highlight the articles that are getting linked to, del.icio.us’ed and read the most. Want to get a feel for what the site is all about? This is a good place to start.

• I have added my most recent Flickr uploads to the “status” page.

• I now use John Gruber’s most excellent Markdown formatting syntax for all of my posts.

• Remainders now have both a header and comments in deference to Princess Bethany

Once again, thanks to Michael my web-fu sensi for all of his hard work.


Yojimbo, an application that is quickly gaining ground as my favorite software of all time, was upgraded today to version 1.3. This release adds, among other things, the ability to easily tag items and then to group those items into “tag collections” by said tag. While, this is the one feature that I was waiting for to turn Yojimbo into the info-ninja I have been waiting for, I am sure it will not satisfy those who are champions of the long in the tooth idea of sorting.
You see, one of the reoccurring requests that keeps coming up on the Yojimbo mailing list that I am member of is the ability to have endless sub-collections. That is, to be able to have a collection folder called “Projects” and then be able to have sub-collection folders underneath that with the names of your ious projects, then sub-collections under that for the ious project areas, etc. Basically, a way to organize information that is not much different than the Mac OS Finder (for our purposes here – “sorting”).
The Bare Bones folks have countered that this feature is not in their current plans for the product and may never be. Their argument is that, with the ability to label, tag, flag, search and the ability to create your own tag collections will provide all of these benefits of sorting and more. Better yet, they say, the Core Data based capability to search for the information one seeks by any of these criteria and/or the content of the info is all one needs to be able to slice and dice their heaps of info (for our purposes here “searching”). They hasten to add that this arrangement is not really any different than what Apple is doing in iTunes and iPhoto, and the direction Apple is moving even in the Finder with sidebars and smart collections – why should data in Yojimbo be any different?
There are many things I find interesting about this. Not insignificantly, what I see as the upcoming computing battle royale of the decade, search (including labels, tags and flags) versus sort. Search, as an organization metaphor, is quickly gaining ground on the mature but aging sort paradigm. Needless to say, those that are strongly tied to the sort method are up in arms over this decision and are forced to either suck it up and change their long standing way of organizing or go elsewhere to an application that fits this need.
I personally agree with Bare Bones on this one. I think that by following this course, Yojimbo is doing just what it is supposed to do, allow one to be able to dump all sorts of information into it and then be able to recall that information quickly when needed. All of the options given (collections, labels, tags, flags, etc.) allow one to easily sort the data for the time such sorting is needed. For me, sorting items into endless levels of organization is actually less productive and in fact a giant time sucking wolf in organizational sheep’s clothing. Give me the ability to tag and bag quickly and easily any day and then I can let the little elves inside my computer do the heavy sorting work for me.

Khoi Vihn @ Subtraction switched from using kGTD to Mori for managing his GTD and is not looking back. “At a stage in my life where I’ve come to accept that things will only get busier, dead simple is really attractive.”
The new Lamy dialog 2 is a very sexy new rollerball pen. The most interesting feature is a clip that retracts into the pens body so it is out of the way when you write. Very cool. (via Notebookism)
Speaking of sexy, dare I say fetishistic gear, I want to take long walks on deserted beaches with this watch from Nixon. I will whisper secret private love notes into it and play them back in Princess Bethany’s ears.
Yesterday’s installment of Productive Talk, the series of interviews by Merlin Mann featuring David Allen, was the best so far. This one dealt with something I experience hourly – Interuptions and how to manage them (because they will never, actually, go away).
Lastly, do your country a favor and get out and vote today. Remember, especially if you are female or minority, many have fought and died to extend your constitutional right to do so. Honor them by exercising it.

Have you been considering quitting your job and striking out on your own? Phil Gyford has recently updated and expanded his excellent Beginners Guide to Freelancing. It is a little anglo-centric as he works across the pond but the basic themes are excellent and well laid out.
Lifehacker has a good roundup of 12 Killer Apps for Palm PDAs.
Back in the day, you know that day when all Macs were beige, Acta was a great little outliner for the Mac. Note quite a full featured as others but, for some, less was More (pun intended). Opal is a port of Acta for Mac OS X re-done from the ground up in Cocoa by the original developer. If you are looking for a great, straight forward outliner for the Mac with very few bells and jiggles, it is worth a look-see. (via TidBITS)
Here is a little GTD luv for the Ubuntu crowd – GTD with Linux, Gnome and Tomboy

Every so often someone inspires me in such a way that I designate them my Short Term Personal Savior. There are many ways one can receive this special designation. It could be through a lesson I have learned from them, a way that they are living life that is inspirational or that they are just plain badass.
Today’s Short Term Personal Savior is Neal Stephenson. Here is why:

1. He is hands down one of my favorite authors and I feel probably one of the greatest writers of the last 20 years. I mean, this guy not only writes novels, he writes epics. His last work was The Baroque Cycle which consisted of three books, each nearly 900 pages long… Which he wrote by hand… i.e. Longhand… On legal pads… With a quill pen… Badass!
2. He discourages almost all public interaction in an effort to increase his productivity as a writer. To him, e-mail, speaking engagements, silly questions about petty details in his book that he has not only answered dozens of times but are also easy to find his answers to them on the internets, all of these keep him from doing the one thing he was put on this earth to do – write. Which he explains thusly:

“Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four. If I know that I am going to be interrupted, I can’t concentrate, and if I suspect that I might be interrupted, I can’t do anything at all. Likewise, several consecutive days with four-hour time-slabs in them give me a stretch of time in which I can write a decent book chapter, but the same number of hours spread out across a few weeks, with interruptions in between them, are nearly useless.”

1. His only web presence is a page on The Well the contents of which one could basically boil down to this phrase:

“All of my time and attention are spoken for–several times over. Please do not ask for them.”

He is not trying to be an ass. He is just explaining why he does not even have the time to put up a pretty web page or even hire someone to do so for him. He is caring for his inner introvert.
It is for these reasons that Neal Stephenson rocks the block and is worthy of being my Short Term Personal Savior.