Nick Projects

In a previous post I mentioned using desktop stickey notes for all kinds of temporary sort of issues.  I have pretty much stopped this process.  The problem I found with the system was… that it was way too easy to create 50 or 60 minimized stickey notes that became out of site and out of mind.  I liked the ability to click a button and have a place to copy and paste a phone number or jot down a quick note,  but I wasn’t disciplined enough to manage that information so it just hung around until I got sick of looking at it.   I was sort of inspired by this 18 minutes to keep your schedule on track article and started messing with paper todo list templates. My default paradigm is “paper sucks” so I replaced the process with the tools below.

Texter:

Over the past few weeks I’ve been getting a lot of millage out of a LifeHacker program called texter ( Texter).  Texter gives you hot keys to write repetitive text quickly.  The tool is great for programming,  but also for things like email signatures or your mailing address if it isn’t part of your existing signature.  I have been using texter to pre-format text documents for todo list items.   Simply typing .todo gives me a prompt for a new todo list item.

DropBox:

Since Note Pad takes up almost no memory and launches super quickly I have been keeping my ToDo lists inside of a simple text file.   To facilitate synchronization I have been using the before mentioned drop box to keep files in sync between my desktop, laptop, and work computers during the day.  I’ve come to like drop box because it keeps local copies of files rather than using the net to access everything.  This makes launching files much faster.

Samurize:

Finally I missed the ability to have information omnipresent on my desktop, but have been able to  set up a sweet program called Samurize to keep my text files open and in my face.  Samurize is described in more detail on lifehacker ( Samurize Info)  I also made a 2 minute video on how to set up a config file for samurize.  The program isn’t super user friendly,  but it doesn’t seem to suck up much processing power and it works well.  I think the coolest thing I’ve been able to set up with this is the ability to right click and edit the original notepad file.  This is shown in my video here:  http://screencast.com/t/zCVgjSnS8

The Future:

The only thing I don’t really have is mobile synchronization or alerts.  I didn’t have all of this with stickey notes, but it isn’t quite as cool as remember the milk either.  I’m thinking about making a web page that emails me my todo list every few hours during the day.  This would push it to my mobile phone pretty easily.  I would still have to cross things off the list from a computer because drop box doesn’t allow editing from a web page yet,  but I can live with that.

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As a gadget person, I come across all kinds of data.  One of the issues I run into is finding a way to archive that data or find it again when I need it.  There are a few tools I have been using and like for this purpose.

Wordpress is treated more as a blogging solution than a personal database.  But,  if you think about it the two aren’t really all that different.  Both allow you to organize information in a way that’s easy to search and find.  Both allow file uploads and linking to external documents. So,  why split hairs.  

The truth is,  that wordpress is really easy to use and has so many plugins that it is a great way to aggregate information public or not.  Of course,  it is a web based platform so if you want to be archiving your tax documents you probably don’t want that on a web server anywhere.  Luckily,  there is this way cool company called jumpbox (www.jumpbox.com) that distributes virtual machine images of many web based platforms and wordpress is on their free list.  If your interested in wordpress check them out.  

  Evernote is a more traditional personal database.  In my opinion the best feature of evernote is that it has amazing OCR capabilities.  You can even search on handwritten documents and not so great scanned images.  The downside of evernote is that it is really designed to archive information to a central website.  This is a double edged sword.  On one hand it’s great to be able to sync notes across multiple computers and handheld devices.  On the other your space is limited and your security is a bit suspect ( although probably just fine).  Evernote also makes it easy to archive emails and websites which is pretty cool.  

Zotero is a solution designed for academic purposes.  Like evernote it can clip websites for archiving,  but it allows you to store all of your data locally or on a private solution like jungledisk.  Zotero also records academic standard source citation information.  This is great if you are researching to get a paper out or if you tend to do research for this purpose.  Zotero is also able to pull source information off of most academic databases.  

Mendley is sort of like zotero,  but it has a social component.  Mendeley is good if you are working in a group and have an academic focus. Mendeley should be able to handle larger data sets than zotero,  but again the focus is on community research.  I keep thinking a platform like this would make a great solution for a small programing group.

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I’ve been reading freakanomics.  One of the stories is about a gentleman who decided to sell bagels by dropping them off and asking people to put the appropriate dollar amount into a box.  This simple business yielded volumes of information about people’s trustworthiness, ethics, and job satisfaction.  I believe the bagel barometer should be used by any company that is concerned about its employees morale or job satisfaction.  Here’s how the experiment should go down:

Management sends out a memo saying that to improve the workplace environment they will have bagles delivered to the office every morning.  The cost for bagles is $1 leave a collection tin next to the bagles.

Each day tally up how many bagles were taken vs how many bagles were paid for.

At the end of each week or every other week send out a scathing email chastizing people for not paying for their bagles.  The email needs to be firm but not overly harsh.  You don’t want to scare people simply make it kown that the bagles are not free and that people are expected to pay for them.  This is to prevent the rule from becoming a guidline and eventually a joke.

What to watch for:  Obviously management should be watching for any dips in the payment rate for bagles.  This change should be tracked and refferenced to any business activities that would disgruntle employees.  If there are layoffs or if hours suddenly change the bagle theft rate should be an indicator of how employees actually feel about whats going on.  If there are no changes in the work environment that would cause employee dissatisfaction this is an indicator of a problem cropping up in employee moralle.  A disgruntled employee is more likely to steal from their employer in small ways before quitting or doing more damage.

In addition to being a relatively low cost experiment the bagle consultant has the positive advantage of making an office a better place.  Who wouldn’t be more happy working in an office where fresh bagles were brought in each morning.   This is a win win.

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