Sunday, 9 June 2013

Weekly links roundup (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

Whats in my bag LA edition

Whats in my bag LA edition by Jeeves.2001

Whats in my bag LA edition, a photo by Jeeves.2001 on Flickr.
It's been a little quiet here last week as I received some awesome news, I'm off to E3 next week! So, here's what I be taking with me:

To Pack:
Superdry Swim Shorts
3/4 Shorts
Chino's
Shirt
Polo Shirt
T-Shirt
iPad & Charger
PowerMonkey Classic
Bose Headphones
Shades
Various Cables
Toiletries & Underwear

To Wear:
Jeans
Long Sleeve T
T-Shirt
Superdry Hoodie

Due to the late notice I've got a short transfer in Washington, hence the desire to have only carry on luggage. Now, down to the techy detail, what about the gadgets? 

I'm not going to take my laptop as the iPad will be a perfectly good travel companion and since the Blogger apps been updated I'm sure it'll be fine for my travel / E3 blogging needs. After quite a bit of research I've opted for AVPlayerHD to let me watch non Apple formatted video's, it's had consistently good reviews and has a really simple UI with an easy way to get media onto the device. 

I've contacted my carrier and got my mobile unlocked for international travel, although I'm pretty sure I'll pick up a T-Mobile SIM when I get the chance. 

Update: the best desisions I made, at 3:50am just as my taxi arrived, was to put in a pair of track suit bottoms to change into for the flight. Very happy with that after 15 hours on a plane. 



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Sunday, 2 June 2013

Weekly links roundup (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, 26 May 2013

Weekly (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Thursday, 23 May 2013

Minimalism and Health

Minimalism:

I'm continuing on my quest for a more minimalist future but its been a rocky road. However, this week I think I've made a small but important contribution to the task. I've got rid of about 50% of my clothes. 

This might seem a bit weird but its something that been bothering me for ages. Moving towards minimalism there are some things that are totally out of your control; I've got a flat, so I need furniture. Thankfully its a furnished flat but still there are things you can't get away from, same with kitchen equipment  I need pots and pans! But clothes are totally within my control and when I started my personal inventory I was shocked to discover how many clothes I have. 

I've also got a bit of a secret stash of belongings at my parents house. Since moving to a new flat I boxed up a lot of my things and asked them to look after things for me; sentimental stuff, or books or CD that I didn't have a home for. But I'd also left a load of clothes with them. This stuff has been sitting there for months so it's not like I was going to miss it. One weekend and I've got rid off all the clothes that where there and seriously cut down on whats left here. 


Obviously there is a lot more to do if I want to get below 100 things but its a good start. Next up is the CD and DVD collection, given that I've gone mostly digital with this stuff now it shouldn't be that hard right? 

Health:

Following a weekend at my parents my partner and I have realised just what poor quality sleep we have been getting at home. I'm sure there are a number of contributing factors here but one I've read a lot about is me addiction to gadgets. So I've adopted a "no screens after 10:00" system and so far I've been pretty impressed with the results. Post 10:00 pm I don't use my phone, computer or iPad, I'll turn off the TV and read (I've got an 'old' e-ink Kindle which is perfectly OK to read on), and my quality of sleep has improved. As a pleasant side effect, I'm really getting back into  my Sci-Fi reading list.

Additionally I've realised that I'm in an almost constant state of de-hydration, which is probably not helping the sleep situation, or helping me stay awake and focused during the day. My problem is that I don't pay enough attention to the amount I drink and I don't like the water filter system in my office. I've got myself a Brita Fill&Go personal water filter which not only filters the water for me, but means I can easily track if I'm drinking enough. Again, I think this has helped me feel more awake during the day and (possibly as a side effect) helped me sleep better.

Despite the contradictions around multi-vitamins I'm still keeping up with my Vitabiotics and Antioxidants. They are almost certainly not doing me any harm and may even be good for me :)



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Friday, 17 May 2013

Can I live with only 100 things?

(note: this is an update to my earlier post, Is Extreem Minimalism Realistic)

For a while now I have been interested in the concept of a minimalist lifestyle but seeing features on people like +Andrew Hyde, living with only 15 things have really got me thinking, what is the least amount of stuff I need? 

100 seemed like a nice round number, and its probably more realistic than 15! To kick this all off I've started a Personal Inventory, but soon realised I have way more than 100 things. Of course it really depends on what you define as 'things' so some ground rules are required:

It doesn't include anything that has no re-sale value eg underwear. There is a large degree of common sense - 
"The “rule” of ownership is the express-lane checkout rule. If you were checking out in a grocery store, what would be counted as one item in your bag? A six-pack of beer would be one, right? I count my things as resellable items I would be pissed if someone took.
Coffee cup? No. Jacket? Yes. iPhone and headphones? One thing. Simple enough?"
- Andrew Hyde (Extreme Minimalism)

For simplicity sake I'm going to stick to this rule and try not to be too anal about it. If your interested in following the progress I'll be tagging future posts with #lessthan100 or #minimalism for wider articles. 
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Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Head in the Cloud


Cloud services are now more important to me that locally installed apps, in fact, I really don't have that many local apps. Maybe its time for that ChromeBook........

Storage: 
There are two main contenders for Cloud Storage, with very similar features and a great deal of crossover. Both offer storage for almost all filetypes and both offer local directory synchronisation. 

+Dropbox is a little more comprehensive in its service and is less bothered about the type of file you want to hold in its cloud storage. It is very customisable and I currently use it to backup almost everything on my Mac. Using a couple of SymLinks its very easy to sync all my photos, my Calibre Library and (if I wanted) document folders. Dropbox also offers full automatic photo upload of all my mobile phone pictures. 

+Google Drive is a little more context sensitive and has less options for syncing whole folders, like creating a backup sync copy of my photos or Calibre Library. It does however offer a directory sync service that helps me manage all my cloud files locally and enables me to work offline if required. 

Photos: 
I have spent quite a while trying to sort out my photo backup and syncing system but I still use quite a few services here. Instagram is really the only odd one out as that is just for sharing content. 

For years Flickr was my primary photo sharing and backup site, however with the move to standardise on Google Services I started using Picasa (both Web and Picasa client) and have not really looked back. The only thing missing from Picasa (IMHO) is the social aspect offered int he Flickr groups. A similar feature on Picasa would see me totally migrate. There are a few niggling things with Picasa and the integration with Google+ but hopefully these will be ironed out in time. 

Finally Instagram. Though this qualifies as a cloud service, its really only for sharing, I don't ever really see my downloading all my Instagram pictures, or using it as any kind of backup. 

Notes: 
I've been using Evernote for years but an only now really getting the hang of it, and then what happens? Google upsets everything and brings out its competitor Google Keep. Although Keep is currently nothing like a match for Evernote, if escapes Googles regular culls, I think Google Keep will go from strength to strength. 

Reading: 
Amazon has really built on its cloud services, but the best service by far (for me) is the Kindle. Not only are all my books kept in the cloud, but any blogs or articles I want to read can be very easily sent to my Kindle for later reading on the beautiful e-ink screen. Not only that but thanks to the personal document options I can send on and read almost any document I like on the Kindle. PDF's still need a bit of work though. 

Feedly goes from strength to strength with their RSS reader as if comes closer to the switch off of Google Reader. This service is now the backbone of my RSS reading along with some funky Yahoo Pipes.

I can't leave out Instapaper as my go to 'read it later' service. Combined with +feedly I can easily collect together all my reading content from around the web and send this to my Kindle creating a kind of personalised magazine to read on the move. Particular useful when my commute includes the underground, no internet required!   

Music: 
Having moved back to +Android I've refreshed my Google Music account and am slowly weeding out all the rubbish. I still depend heavily on Amazon MP3 to get hold of my music but have now successfully migrated away from iTunes to a happy, cloud based, music library. 


Blogging:
I'm a long term +Blogger fan but have recently been attracted by the simplicity of +Postachio. I don't think it'll replace blogger, but its a great backup service. 


Other: 
LastPass is an indispensable service that saves me from having to remember  the enumerable log-ins and passwords the rest of these services depend on. Until I can sign into everything with my Google Account that is :) 

+IFTTT is the glue that sticks all my cloud services together, from automatically creating my Lifelog to cross posting Twitter, this is probably up there as one of my most used services.

Along the same lines is Yahoo Pipes which is central to my Proactive RSS reader. It can be difficult to get into Yahoo Pipes thankfully +Lifehacker can get you started. 

Finally, its almost not worth mentioning, but of course the first and most used cloud service I have is my email, thanks to +Gmail.

This list just illustrates how much I have come to rely on 'cloud' based services. It's amazing what you can do with just a web browser! Although, I'm sure I've missed something? 


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