Excitement

Do you love the rush of excitement?  

For the last week playtime with either an HTC G2 or Logitech Revue preoccupied my free time.  Partly novelty to blame, but mostly the sense of unknowing.  What hidden gems will these new gadgets unlock?  Although previews provide a glimpse of capabilities, actually owning the product starts the full immersion.  While amazed by all the features, already the devices have been put to productive or fulfilling use on nearly a daily basis.  

htc g 2 voice recognition test

I am now gonna write a blog post from my htc g 2 using the voice rex ghosh the software. I'm not sure how to write punctuations so I am just saying parts of the sentence and then I'm editing later. okay this is the end of the post.

Routine

I forgot the ease by which we slip into routine. I mean "we" in the exclusive sense. It's difficult for me to slip into a long-term routine due to forgetfulness. I rarely immerse myself fully to routine in life. Who knows the cause. But lately, I feel disconnected from my "routine" of life in Chicago. Not to say I had one.

The random take aways from recent travels I list below.

1. Doing laundry is underrated. Every hotel should allow guests to do their own laundry for free.
2. Photographs capture moments when you can find them, but only when selective. Facebook allows me post massive amounts of pictures for vanity's sake: I'm thankful for that. While you may enjoy the 200+ pictures of your event, I only need a handful to invoke memories.
3. I'm horribly blunt with communication: to the point that I often times fail. I either misunderstand or am misunderstood. I'm thankful for the understanding of my friends, and the unending patience and understanding of my wife.
4. Everyone is a social being. Everyone feels the need to be included; everyone hates feeling excluded. Even if that means being a target, attention is paramount and feels good.
5. Peer involvement creates exciting situations. I avoid saying peer pressure because of the negative connotations associated with that phrase. There's something that just makes it okay to be caught up in a moment when surrounded by peers. I don't think I could always be caught up in this, though. Now that I think about it, this may be part of the New York life (and what's lacking from the LA life): the constant presence of peers.

For Me

Photography can provide more than just 1,000 words. Photography may provide 1,000 memories. Photography may provide 1,000 feelings.

Feelings

When I was younger I flipped through the channels and somehow wound up watching "A Perfect World." I had no real concept of Stockholm Syndrome. I had no idea how emotional a movie could be. I had no idea how deep my own emotions ran. For the first time I could remember, I cried because of a movie.

I was alone at the time. There was nobody there to help me deal with my emotions. There was nobody but myself. I didn't know how to deal with emotions, so I tried my best to pent it up. I tried my best to ignore it. I tried my best to pretend it was something else. I did all this to my detriment. Now, I understand feelings are just a part of life, and I'm best to deal with it.

Walking on Wrigley Field

On Saturday, October 2, 2010, I and a guest have the opportunity to play on Wrigley Field.  This once-a-year opportunity is granted through a lottery limited to residents of Wrigleyville, I happen to win this year!  Of course I take my wife (who has the fortune of already experiencing this event), my glove, a baseball, and my camera.

Life and Death

It's difficult to think about life when consumed with the idea of death.  

I want more from life than slaving through one day to the next.  I want contribution with or without attribution.  I want to change the world.  I strive each day to make my wife happy.  I hope this is enough.

Ill

I've had a cold the last few days, and a bit out of it.

Distracted

I filled the last few days with user experience training, and will resume Blogging tomorrow.

Mortality

Death is scary. 

I've been to quite a few funerals/wakes in my life.  From friends to relatives to people I didn't know.  It's always a different experience, but it's always awkward for me.  I don't know how to deal with death.  I don't think I'll ever know. 

Patience and Elbow Grease

It's great to have patience. But sometimes you need to put a little force into what you do.

Last night was spent replacing the glass/digitizer on an iPhone 3G.  One step of the process is to heat the glass to loosen the glue holding the frame.  But even after heating the frame, it's not like the glue is no longer tacky.  Although I bent the frame a bit while removing the old glass, it doesn't matter because it's hidden behind the glass.  In this case, perfection was not necessary.  And that's okay sometimes.  Sometimes you need to be rough with the situation at hand to get results.

Childhood Fun

Yesterday I had fun. Not fun while drinking. Not fun while hanging out with friends. No. I had the fun one experiences in childhood.

For my birthday my sister bought me a Lego set. It could either be a sport-touring bike, a hog, or a dragster. I choose the sport-tourer first. While diligently following the directions I can already see flaws in the design. After constructing as instructed, I play. I pull out another Lego set for pieces. I modify the design to make the bike more sporty. I spend over an hour trying different configurations.  Afterwards, I snap a few photos of my creation. Perhaps the whole idea of solving a problem excites me the most. I feel happy just to play with the Lego set. I don't need music. I don't need a TV droning in the background (although the thought crosses my mind).  I destroy my sport bike creation. I return to reality by constructing the Sears Tower and dragster as instructed.

Patience

My thoughts on yesterday consists of frustration and realization.  

I attempt to take the easy route and use the "create a playlist from choosing a song" option.  It captures some of my favorites but not others.  I then proceed to scroll through my extensive list of music to create my own playlist.

Too many times I try and find the "easy" option.  I want things fast, I want things now.  But often times I need to exercise patience.  Often times I need to do the work.

Not to say that trying the easy option first isn't a good idea.  But when that doesn't work I need to put my head into the task and plow ahead.

Acceptance

I've always felt awkward in social situations.  People say it's normal and that I should just "be myself" or whatever it is that people say.  But I always strive for acceptance, and I fell my thoughts are so contradictory that I wouldn't be accepted.  So I say nothing and I respond directly.

Work Life

My mantra for work life is passion.  Passion for excellence.  Passion for discovery.  Passion for problem solving.

Pushover

Fairly late in life a friend taught me two important things.  One: the meaning of "pushover."  And two: that I was one.

I often credit my success to the low bar set.  Going through life I contribute as much as I can to better people's lives.  But at times I swing in the opposite direction and think only of myself.  As I continue in life, my idea of service should evolve to include deeper meaning.

Live (9/20/2010)

This begins a series of posts designed to challenge views on living.  The plan is to write a post at least daily.  The post should reflect on some thing.  This thing (an idea, a purpose, a major event) revolves around living life.  What drives my living today?  Why does this drive me?  

On the plane ride home I watch "Before Sunrise." Although I've seen the movie a few times, I feel as though I don't remember any of the scenes.  I connect with the movie on different levels: similarities with the feelings, understanding of thoughts, some comedic value.  My brain churns on the ideas of purpose in life.  Although I live with a vague idea of purpose, I never actually sit down and write my thoughts.  I wonder how my life would change had I kept log of the things that affected my life on a daily basis.  

Today I lived to serve.  I always feel that to serve is the best way to express my affections.  I love showering my wife with gifts and attention.  I enjoy extending this to my family and friends.  I sometimes worry that I will be misunderstood; but for the most part rely on the optimism in the human thought process.  For one reason or another, serving makes me happy.  On a small level, helping someone out with a gift.  On a larger level, employing my talents to an effective level.  Today was just a small blip: offering to pay for my father-in-law's new sunglasses.  But seeing his excited expression invokes my feelings when receiving a special gift.  

iPad - Useful at Work in a Professional Capacity?

A month ago the company purchased an iPad for testing and demonstration purposes.  Because I had time (and presumably resources), I was tasked with initial setup.  I took the opportunity to incorporate the iPad into work life.  I placed my Franklin-Covey planner into a drawer and carried around the iPad instead.  After a month of use I can come to no definite conclusion about this product.

I paid $10 for Keynote, and $10 for Pages.  I used Keynote daily, I never used Pages.  For taking notes and arranging ideas, Keynote fits the bill.  Using set templates and graphics, the app works to bullet point lists and present rudimentary graphics (pie charts and graphs).  But the interface is rough when attempting to reformat a page.  I still don't know how to reliably call the "copy, paste, delete" functions on a box (tap the box, then wait?  tap the box, pause, tap again and wait?).  Resizing snaps to center lines and existing objects but not to major ruler units, and it is impossible to define absolute positions and sizes.

Browsing the web is just as an iPhone.  The keyboard is clumsy to recognize when I am entering an e-mail address.  Numbers are not available on the default keyboard layout (big minus because our website is Zap2it.com).  Once the keyboard appears, browsing is reduced to a small slit: okay for text boxes, bad for text areas.

Using the Exchange e-mail client relies on an internet connection.  Error messages appear when service is interrupted.

Typing is horrid.  When on its stand in landscape I am forced to hunt-and-peck because I cannot ground to the F and J keys.  And my wrists began to hurt because I must float my hand over the keyboard.  On the iPad I reached a maximum of 30 WPM with fatigue setting in after the first two sentences (note: on a good day I hammer out 90 WPM on a standard keyboard).  Balancing the iPad with one hand while typing with the other is a bit awkward because of the small space available to hold the device, but was my preferred method of typing notes in meetings.

In meetings, it allowed me to arrange notes on the fly.  I would run multiple bulleted lists within a Keynote presentation, bouncing back and forth with ease.  My notes were more organized, but less in depth (due to slow typing speed).

I spit out a few flow charts as well.  The experience mimics both the usability and frustration of Visio.

I reduced printing e-mails by having them readily available.  But, I rarely print e-mails as it is.  The Exchange server cuts off the number of e-mails downloaded to a week.  So while I have important e-mails dating back months or years, I do not have access to them.

Having my Exchange calendar at the ready helped as well.

Conclusion
Could I incorporate the iPad into my work life?  Yes.

Can the iPad replace a paper planner/the Franklin-Covey system?  Certainly.

Does the iPad have any impact on productivity?  No.

Had the iPad helped in any way to improve my efficiency, I would consider it a viable product.  But it's shortcomings in refinement and power limit the device.  Just as with any tool, there are pros and cons.

Conclusion 2
Using apps for personal use (USA Today, What's On? HD, Eyewitness, and others): I enjoyed the distraction, but find it limiting that I must be near a WiFi hotspot for the full experience.  Watching movies or TV shows is annoying because of the glare/reflections; pretty much the same with reading.

But for personal use, the $500 price point kills it all.  Do I want to pay $500 for an iPad?  No thank you!

Wiper Blades

Why is it so difficult to determine the lengths of the wiper blades on a 2004 Infiniti G35 4-door sedan (base model)? Rain-X website says 24/17; Bosch says between 22-24/17-19; Amazon.com says 22/18.

Time to break out the measuring tape. The Internet fails.

Ubuntu 10.4 Clean-up

Today, with the help from Chad, I cleaned up my Ubuntu install. Disk space increased from about 300 MB to nearly 1.8 GB. Items removed include: Open Office, older linux-kernels, and games.

And to create a shortcut to lock my machine, it's actually the switch user command. I needed to create a new keyboard shortcut with the command gdmflexiserver. I use "window key + l" to mimic Windows Vista behavior.

I really want offline GMail back up and running on my netbook. I just installed Google Chrome, but it doesn't support offline GMail. I have Firefox 3.6 installed (Namoroka) which has a round-about way of installing Gears; I will need to investigate this further.

Left versus Right.

Democrats versus Republicans.
Apple versus PC.

Why are people so adamantly on one side? Why do people go to extremes?

With the release of the iTab, I am trying to understand the logic of it all. Right off the bat, the tech crowd rejects it because it fails to fill any void. But more surprising, I found the non-tech crowd rejects it because it fails to offer any value. Thus far, the only proponents with cause are those in the textbook industry; this device is only meant for media consumption. Does this mean Apple predicts the end of periodic publications in print? Or at least, a large departure from the print medium, and consequently a large swell towards the iTab?

When it comes to redistribution of content: I know that Google struggles with media companies, newspapers in particular. It boils down to revenue. If Google can't figure it out, how will Apple?

I will play with the iTab when it's at the Apple store, mainly to see how Google works on it. Google Docs, GMail, Google Reader, Google Calendar: all of these products fill the voids of the iTab. But I will give the iTab a shot, just as I gave the iPhone a chance. But this time, I will hopefully have the wisdom to realize whether or not the product is for me before buying it. I will admit that the idea of an Apple tablet really appeals to me. But if I must pay $650 + $30/ month for this, better alternatives exist. These alternatives allow me to not only consume, but to create.

During the Presidential address last night, Obama laid out his agenda. He opened up. He tried to reach out to the American public. I hope he reached at least one right extremist because he did all he could to be respectful, even when that courtesy was never extended to him. When he talked about citizens who had lost faith in our biggest institutions, I felt like he was talking directly to me. The right extremists need to give this guy a chance!

I understand why people have their obsessions. I understand how passion fuels debates. But after the adrenalin wears off, I hope that all of us are wise enough to concede. I hope that all of us are wise enough to compromise.