Tech in the Trenches

Listen

On May 28, 2014

I love The Pastry Box Project. It’s the best addition I’ve made to my reading list this year. Catching up on it, I read Jeff Eaton’s piece Listen or GTFO. He writes,

Sure, some white men. But not all, obviously. As I prepared to jump into the conversation — to help clarify that not all of us were determined to hog the spotlight, that we were excited to help — I did something uncharacteristic.

I shut the fuck up.

I shut the fuck up, and I tried to listen.

…

Defending ourselves is always easier than listening to difficult truths.

…

Perhaps, just maybe, it’s time for us to quiet down and listen to the people who have to live it.

We may not know all the answers, but we can stop pretending it’s someone else’s problem. We can listen.

I am a straight, white male. I’m also 6’5″ and 350 lbs. I’m a mountain of a man and about as alpha a male as I can get without being in proper shape with rippling muscles.

I see how my wife is treated. I see how my friends are treated. I see how women around me are treated. I don’t try to defend men. We are the problem. We are the cause of the pain and anger and hurt. We are the cause and we are the solution. Period. It’s not someone else’s problem. It’s our problem to solve.

What is the solution? I don’t know. This is where we all need to shut up and listen. Listen to women. Listen to our wives and girlfriends. Listen to our friends. Our mothers. Our sisters. Our grandmothers and if they’re still with us, great-grandmothers. This isn’t a new problem. This is a long-held, deeply rooted problem.

It’s not one we’re going to fix in a week or a month or even a generation. It’s bigger than all of us. We can start taking small steps. And the first step is to listen.

Talk to the women in your life. Ask them, what is it like going through your day? What is riding a bus or driving a car with the windows down like? What about walking down the street on a hot day?

How does it make you feel? Start there. And Yes, all women have a story to share. Listen to their stories. If you’re a women, share your story. We can seek solutions when we start to listen.

iPundit

By Carl

On May 27, 2014

In Observations

Since this is the time of year where all the pundits predict what will be in the next iPhone, I’ll throw my hat into the iRing.

Water-Resistance

From The Wirecutter’s review of the Samsung Galaxy S5,

…it’s the first widely available flagship smartphone that is water-resistant out of the box. And we mean “dropped it in the toilet and survived” level of water-resistant: the Galaxy S5’s IP67 rating means it can survive being submerged in up to 1 meter of water for 30 minutes.

I want a phone that will survive a summer rainstorm in my pocket. I want a phone that will live through an accidental drop into a glass of water or slip into a sink.

Drop-Resistance

I know iPhones look very pretty. I know nerds like to ooo and aahh over their gorgeous, glassy exteriors. But I’d prefer a phone that doesn’t shatter upon impact. I’d like a phone that will survive a chance meeting with a sidewalk.

My iPhone 4 was pristine for just over two years. I’d dropped it on my desk, car floor and the tiled floors of my apartment without injury.

Until it slipped from my hands while putting it in my pocket. It fell to the sidewalk during a walk and smashed the front of the screen to bits. A fall of less than 4 feet and the phone was toast.

I know the front of the screen must be transparent. But is glass really the best choice? Is there not a plastic that would serve the same purpose?

Battery Life

I want a phone that can last through the day. And by day I mean the about 12 hours I am out of the house. From when I leave for work to when I return home. I should be able to go to work, use my phone and return home without it dying at noon. You know what can last far longer than that?

My Bluetooth headphones. The Motorola S305. I’ve had these things for a couple of years and they routinely work from when I get in the morning. I can listen to them all day at work. And they’ve still got enough juice to hit the gym after I get home.

I can’t say the same for my phone. Make the phone thicker. Put a bigger, better battery in it. I don’t need a phone that’s a sliver of paper. I need a phone that lasts. Without power, the beautiful phone becomes the world’s shiniest paper weight.

A screen I can read in direct sunlight

When it is bright and sunny outside, I can’t see the screen. Even at its highest brightness, it’s still much too dark. I would love to be able to look down at my phone, standing beneath the summer’s sun and read the screen without straining my eyes. I want to use my phone outside.

That’s what I want out of a phone. Much the same as I got from my first cell phone and have wanted those same features ever since phones got smart. I don’t want a museum piece. I want a telephone I don’t have to be terrified to drop once.

I want a phone I can use and live with. I want a phone I can have in my pocket if I get caught in the rain. I want to be able to enjoy life and not think about my phone. It’s an accessory. A toy. A companion as I navigate my life.

It’s not in control. I don’t want to pretend it is any longer.

Train Mode

By Carl

On May 13, 2014

In Observations

Every morning I enjoy Train Mode. Each work day, I wait for a bus. Which I take to a train. Where I ride underground for about 35 minutes until I arrive at work. Then I rise zombie-like from beneath the ground and emerge to the light.

Each morning my mind races with all the things I could be, should be, might be doing. And then I don’t. I do a single thing.

Catch yourself about to multitask today. Stop, breath, and go back to what your were originally doing.— Garrick van Buren (@garrickvanburen) May 13, 2014

When I step into a train, my phone becomes an island. I turn off all wireless communications. My phone is adrift in a sea of silence. No email. No social. No interaction.

I open Kindle. I read. I enjoy the blissful silence and focus of words on a page.

This past week I’ve read with my phone in one hand and a paper notebook in the other. I’ve written thoughts and pondered questions. I’ve interacted with the book in a real way.

Not passively reading, but reading to remember. Reading to know. I’ve ignored the rest of the world and for that short train ride, it’s just me, the words, and my thoughts. And it gets to happen again at day’s end. Where I wait for a train. To a bus. To home. All without the phone making a peep. Unless I put on music to drown out the song of public transit.

And it’s blissful.

Voting with your two feet

By Carl

On May 13, 2014

In Observations

If your time is being wasted, ignore sunk costs and change your situation by voting with your two feet.

I was initially skeptical of these bite-sized chunks of advice, seemingly for the self-employed followers of bliss. Though as I make my way through Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life I awoke this morning with a different perspective. I thought, this is advice I could apply to my life as well. So I gave it a shot.

At first read, I thought this was telling me to quit my job and walk away. That’s not feasible for a life constructed around the stable income. One that gives my wife the freedom to experiment. I am the rock. She is the stone.

If your time is being wasted, ignore sunk costs and change your situation by voting with your two feet.— Garrick van Buren (@garrickvanburen) May 12, 2014

At second read, I took it to mean get up and take a walk.

When I have a problem I can’t solve, I hit my head against it until I was exhausted. Frustrated and no closer to a solution, I’m slowly learning to step away. To change my situation by voting with my two feet. To take a walk. Think about something else. Do anything else.

Even getting up to get a cold drink resets my mind. At a former job, we had a soda fountain in the building. When I hit a problem I couldn’t see my way past, I would walk by my co-worker’s desk and utter a single word. “Drink?” And with that, we’d head upstairs to the fountain. With icy cold Cokes in hand, we’d chat about life, work, writing, whatever weird Internet thing we’d come across that day.

Sometimes we’d ride the elevator all the way up, or all the way down. Just for a few extra moments of conversation. Sometimes with others, but often alone, we’d chat and laugh. Then, when I got back to my desk, fueled by good cheer, cold carbonation and a few moments of joy, I would stare down the problem. And more often than not, a solution would come to me.

So next time I come upon a seemingly insurmountable problem, or one I just can’t seem to think through, I’m going for a walk. And maybe a drink.

Making Outlook Manageable

By Carl

On May 6, 2014

In Observations

I am stuck in Microsoft Outlook. As many others around the world, I too suffer through dealing with Outlook. I’m often struck by its lack of flexibility and usability. For an application that appears to do absolutely anything I can imagine, it fails at some basic points. One of the times I moaned about being stuck in Outlook…

https://alpha.app.net/peroty/post/28616760

Jason Rehmus shared his secret of Outlook Contentment…

https://alpha.app.net/longstride/post/28619159

I’ve setup this system in Outlook 2010 and have used it for a few weeks with no issues. It does not require scripting nor a degree in Computer Science. It uses only Outlook’s built-in features.

Steps to Outlook Contentment

Create a new folder and give it a name. I named mine Archive but the name doesn’t matter. Call it whatever you like.
Setup a rule to do two things. First, it will copy all incoming emails to your newly created folder (which I’ll call Archive for the rest of this post). Second, it will mark all received mail as read.
Start the Rules Wizard in Outlook.
Create a New Rule.
Under the heading Start from a blank rule click Apply rule on messages I receive and click Next >.
On the What condition(s) do you want to check? screen select nothing, and click Next >.
Outlook will display a prompt that says This rule will be applied to every message you receive. Is this correct? Click Yes.
On the What do you want to do with the message? screen, check the boxes for mark it as read and move a copy to the specified folder.
Click the link that says specified in the lower box.
Choose the folder you created in Step 1. For me, it is Archive.
Verify the rule now reads move a copy to the Archive folder. Then click Next >.
On the Are there any exceptions? screen. Don’t check any options. Then click Next >.
On the Finish rule setup screen, name the rule and check both boxes.
For Step 1: Specify a name for this rule, name the rule whatever you like. I’ve called mine ARCHIVE all received mail.
For Step 2: Setup rule options check the first two boxes, Run this rule on messages already in “Inbox” and Turn on this rule.
Click Finish. A dialog will pop-up stating This rule is a client-only rule, and will process only when Outlook is running. So none of this will take place when Outlook is not running.

Once you click Finish, Outlook will begin copying all email to the Archive folder and marking it all as read in both the Inbox and Archive folders. This will take some time, especially if you have a large mailbox.
Once it finishes running check to make sure all messages were copied over. An easy way to do this is to look at the number of items in each folder. Once those numbers match, I also check the first and last message in the folder and make sure they match.
Once you’ve verified all of your messages were moved successfully, delete everything from your Inbox. All of those messages are safe in your Archive. You don’t need them in your Inbox too. Delete them!

Now the system will work for you. Only keep any message you’re actively working on in your Inbox. When you’re done with it, delete it. Remember, you have a backup copy in your Archive folder.

Now, instead of having thousands of messages in my Inbox, I have 3. And once I’m done responding to those, they’ll be gone too.

Why go through all of this?

You mean other than for your own sanity? I worked in a customer support role, so it’s valuable for me to keep all communications I receive from customers. But I don’t need to see them all the time.

When I need to find an old message, I search my Archive. I need the messages for reference, but I do not need to look at them everyday.

Why do I mark them all as read?

I don’t care about unread/read status. If it’s in my Inbox, I need it. If not, I don’t. I also mark them as read or they’ll show up as unread in my Archive too. And it’s a waste of your time to mark messages read. The fewer things I have to touch, the happier I am.

What if I don’t have space on my mail server?

Setup your Archive in a Personal Folder instead. You can set up the folder anywhere you like. On the mail server or saved locally to your computer. Though please, if you are going to save everything in a Personal Folder, please save it to a network drive where it can be backed up. The Archive is useless if it can be lost when your hard drive crashes.

Resist complication!

I like to tweak and tinker. I like to try to be clever and make things easier for myself. But often times it only results in more work. Let me leave you with this piece of advice I’ve tried to adopt as much as possible. Don’t complicate the system!

https://alpha.app.net/longstride/post/28619344

I’ve resisted complicating the system. Mostly. I had a few rules I’ve automated to categorize messages I need to quickly find to run reports again.

I turned off those rules after setting up this system. I realized the categories are unnecessary. If I need a message, I search the archive folder. Categorization is complication. So I disabled those rules and haven’t missed them.

I hope helps bring some sanity to your life in Outlook. I’m much happier looking at a tiny number of emails instead of thousands. I hope you will be too.

Did this help you? Have a suggestion (but not a complication), please let me know! I’d be curious to hear from you.