James study
Day at union station
Had a great time today goofing around at crown center & union station. I'm in love with the history & architecture there.
Every time I'm there we run into old friends. Strange how many people disappear in your life.
Defining Optimism
op·ti·mism
[op-tuh-miz-uh
m]
m]–noun
1. The realization that having a broken fridge and being forced to live out of a cooler has one benefit... I can bring my Fridge to the grocery store with me.
See delusional for a more accurate definition
Interesting mobile stats from kcbt.org
I was playing around with our (http://kcbt.org) google analytics data today and found something interesting.... The mobile devices that hit our website had dramatically changed over a one year period
The first chart shows the mobile traffic by OS from Feb 1, 2010 to Mar 3, 2010 (A one month span from last year)
283 mobile devices hit our site, and clearly the iPhone had taken the lead. Android although in second place, was a spec compared to the iPhone stats.
The following show the mobile traffic by OS from Feb 1, 2011 to Mar 3, 2011 (A one month span from this year)
1766 mobile devices hit our site, that's 525% growth! Android has climbed to 877, a growth of 2148%. While iPhones have grown 105%. If we factor in all iDevices (just for fun) Apple has experience a growth of 247%. Impressive but you can't touch that Android growth with a 10 foot pole. It's important to note also that this is after the Nexus One had hit the market so although I can't give exact figures, there were several different Android phones available.
I'm not even going to mention the PalmOS thing, but
Don't get me wrong I love my iThings, but you really can't ignore those numbers.
If my math is way off, somebody let me know... I calculated % change via: Percent Change = (value at end of period - value at beginning of period) / value at beginning of period * 100
Chain of Fools : Upgrading through every version of windows (HQ)
via youtube.com
This is amazing! Really cool to see a VM upgrade through the entire Windows line and still function! Despite my dislike for windows, I can't ignore how amazing the compatibility is, including reversi and Doom II.
Disturbing Oatmeal
McDonald’s oatmeal contains more sugar than a Snickers & only 10 fewer calories than their cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin
Be prepared
It's the boy scout motto, and good words to live by!
I went into the mens room at church this morning... Lets just say, I had some time to think, and was noticing the mountain of TP available at my "disposal". This is seriously a ton of toilet paper, I took a moment and prayed that no one would ever be in a situation where this many rolls of toilet paper were ever necessary, EVER! Then I "noticed" how it was almost impossible to access the much needed parchment without causing an avalanche of TP to spill out on the floor and into other stalls around it. Which I can only image would lead to gasps of horror and worry from tenants of adjacent cubicles.
There is a point in life where preparation leads to "confusion and delay" (to quote Thomas the Tank Engine). I do this all the time with my task management. I take a simple approach and I start to tweak it for one special situation. Then again for another special situation, then again, then again... Until I have a monster, that I can't remember how to interface with it given my "special situation".
Task management is supposed to be about getting things done quickly, however I often turn it into a task in it's self. Spending hours revamping my tags, methods, and approaches... which in the long run is supposed to save me time. However, in reality I think all it does is take away my productive hours in the day.
In reality, the Mountain of TP is probably there because the last roll wasn't completely empty, but they decided to add a new roll. Makes sense on the surface. But how many backup rolls do you need? At what point as efficiency become a barrier for the user to interface with the dispenser? I'm not "crapping" on our facilities department, cause the truth is we all do this. We lather on so much efficiency that our systems become inefficient. Like having several rolls of toilet paper explode onto the floor and roll around the office bathroom. Truth is it's convenient in the short haul. It's easier for the guy refilling the bathroom tissue, not easier for the user. My websites can get like that too, that's one of the reasons we've rebuilt kcbt.org every year in December, to keep it fresh, and keep our extra content from taking over the site. But to be honest I don't do that in a lot of other areas of my life, and I need to.
It's time to "flush" away all the extra junk in my life and focus on the things that really matter.
Ever-mator: Automator Import folder for @Evernote
If you don't know what Evernote is, stop what your doing and go to http://evernote.com/ right now! It is hands down the most important app on my computer!
I started by installing http://awesomescreenshot.com/ (Chrome addon) to take images of an entire website, and annotate any part I wanted to remember. This add-on will save the image to a folder, but I wanted to keep the automation up... so on to automator.
I created a folder called "Evernote Import" (I placed it in my Document folder)
Then launched automator and asked it to create a folder action with the following items.
Run Apple Script
on run {input}
tell application "Evernote"
repeat with x in input
try
create note from file x
on error error_message number error_number
display alert "Send to Evernote Failed" message "Error: " & error_message & "
" & "Error Number: " & error_number as warning
end try
end repeat
end tell
end run
(Ok this alone will do the job, but then you've got files building up in this "Evernote Import" folder so I wanted to keep going to clear this stuff out)
Get Specified Finder Options
Referencing the "Evernote Import" folder... I put mine in my "Document" folder, but wherever works for you should be fine.
(This will select your "Evernote Import" folder)
Get Folder Contents
(This will select all the items in our "Evernote Import" folder.)
Move Finder Items to Trash
Last but not least, delete em!
Hope this helps someone, it's really simplified my inspiration gathering for webdesign, If you have any tips for Evernote I'd love to hear them!
James Edwards
Jim Edwards is the luckiest man on the planet. He's a follower of the one who has forgive all his sin, Husband to an amazingly loving women named Heather, Father to the greatest daughter in the world, and IT Director of a great church (KCBT). He's got a 105 year old house that leaks air like it was made of swiss cheese, and currently has a van with no transmission, a toilet that leaks, and a fridge that just died... but, yep, he's the luckiest man on the planet.
