Getting Nothing Done.

A year or two ago I learned of Getting Things Done by David Allen. It’s a great book that lays out a step by step path to managing large amounts of tasks and using your time more productively. Podcast personality Merlin Mann talks at length about it at 43folders.com. It’s a great methodology and tons of geeks have found it helpful in getting their lives under control. I hope to someday master the techniques discribed in the book, but so far my attempts have been unsucessful.

The primary focus of Getting Things Done (or GTD, as it’s adherants call it) are next actions. A next action is any isolated action that takes less than 2 minutes and will advance a project along. A project is defined as anything that takes multiple actions or steps to complete. For example, gathering up all your dirty clothes is probably the first action you take when doing laundry. In this example the project would be doing laundry and the next action would be to gather all the dirty clothes. So you gather ideas for projects, break down the projects in to bite-sized actions, and make a list of all the very next actions for all the projects. Notice you aren’t making a list of every action, just the next actions. This allows you to juggle projects, accomlishing bits here and there. Eventually you run out of actions on a project and that project is finished. The rest of the book tells you how to track all these projects and actions. It also tells you how to manage the time you have to do them in.

I get all of this. I understand the methods and see how  they can work. The biggest hurdle for me is overcoming distractions and mustering the energy to perform the next actions. I get easily distracted and I’m the king of procrastination. As far as the energy thing goes, I work 40 hours a week and most afternoons I get hit with a sleepiness that drives me to nap. These bad habits are really hard to kick. I’m going to keep stabbing at GTD, but it feels like an uphill battle.

Posted in Life | 3 Comments »

I May Switch to DCBS for Ongoing Comics.

One of the unfortunate side effects of having a comics hobby is that it can get a little pricey. Especially if you are interested in collecting ongoing comics and want to maintain that collection. At $2.99 a pop your monthly fix can add up quick, even if it is worth it. I love comic shops and I don’t think I’d ever pass up a visit to Austin Books. They’re a great store and I really want to support the little guy comic shop. But at some point paying full price plus tax seems stupid when there are services like DCBS and In Stock Trades. They offer pre-order comics and trades at 37%-75% off. Since I’m going to be paying $30 or more each month on ongoing comics, why not get them off of DCBS and buy the minis and one shot at the comic shop?

This sounds like an optimal solution. I can still get my weekly comic shop visit fix and support the local economy, but still save a grip of cash. Cash that can be spent on indy comics or comics I would have otherwise passed up. So yeah, I’ll problably end up spending more money, but at least it would be on comics.

If anyone knows of a good site to get back issues for cheap let me know. So far eBay and Half Price Books seem to be the best solution.

Posted in Comics | No Comments »

Importing LiveJournal and Blog Formating.

Over the next couple of weeks I will import selected LiveJournal entries, edit them for spelling or grammar errors, and standardize the formating. This means that now is a good time to decide on style guidelines. The web has changed the way we emphasize words, titles, and concepts. Some bloggers don’t emphasize anything, others hyperlink most of the key nouns in their post. I have a hard time deciding on bolding, italics, or both. So far I think bolding should only be used for the emphasis of proper nouns (like titles of works and names of people) and key concepts. Italics should be used for quotation, sarcasm, and questions. Or maybe questions should be bolded. What do you think? Or do you prefer this?

I assume you don’t bold punctuation. Hyperlinks are useful but should probably be used spareingly. Should I link to the wikipedia entry on every obscure topic? By the way, when (if ever) is it okay to use all caps? Ah, I should have paid attention during the MLA lessons. However, I doubt MLA applies to blog posts.

Let me know what your personal style guidelines are and what you prefer.

Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment »

Comics Have Taken over My Life.

Okay that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But I have been reading a lot of comics. I’m all caught up on the current JSA, JLA, Batman, Detective Comics, Booster Gold and Secret Invasion. The grand total was something like 55-60 comics. Its only comics, but it sure feels like an accomplishment.

I’m still behind on X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, but only by a few issues. Later on this week and next week I’ll be getting The Death of the New Gods 1-8 (I heard this was tied in to Final Crisis), Kingdom Come 1-4 (JSA is in the middle of the Thy Kingdom Come arc), and JLA/Avengers 1-4 (this was cheap and is one of the best crossovers ever) in the mail. Ebay has some great deals.

Get a load of all the titles I’m collecting (titles with an * are limited series):

DC

• All-Star Superman*
• Ambush Bug: Year None*
• Batman
• Batman: Gotham After Midnight*
• Booster Gold (why aren’t you reading this?!?)
• Detective Comics
• Final Crisis*
• Final Crisis: Rogue’s Revenge*
• Final Crisis: Revelations*
• JLA
• JSA
• The Spirit
• Superman
• Teen Titans: Year One*

Marvel

• New Avengers
• Secret Invasion*
• Secret Invasion: Frontline*
• Uncanny X-Men
• Wolverine
• X-Men

So, not counting the limited series comics, I’m collecting 11 titles. That’s roughly $33 a month. Not too bad. But damn you big two! Why so many one shots and limited series? I can’t say no. But I draw the line at Secret Invasion: Captain Britain and MI 13. That’s just stupid.

Posted in Comics | 2 Comments »

I Feel Like a Total Winner.

My van’s engine has been clicking which tells me that it’s low on oil. I’m pretty sure it has a slow oil leak, but I haven’t investigated it. Anyway, on the way home I stopped at Walmart for some motor oil and snacks. I drove home and opened up the hood.

Putting the oil in is no biggie, but while I was doing it I examined the AC hose that sprung a leak when I filled the AC system with freon a few weeks back. I noticed that the leak was caused by a c-clamp cutting in to the hose where it was tightened on to the coupler that leads in to the AC unit. It probably had a pin hole leak there and when I put it under pressure it blew out the hose. If that was the only reason the AC wasn’t working, then maybe I could repair it. So I loosened the clamps and pulled the hose off the coupler. I cut the bad bit of hose off just before the leak, slid the newly cut hose back on the coupler, and tightened down the clamps. When I started up the AC, I could tell it was working because there was enough pressure to kick on the compressor. All it needed was some freon. Luckily I still had the filler hose from my previous attempt. I went back to Walmart and bought a can of freon. I only bought one can in case it doesn’t work. I fitted the filler hose on and emptied the can into AC system. The compressor came on and stayed on steady. No leaks! And the pièce de résistance? Cold air blowing out in the van. Oh, man this’ll make things 110% better.

I’m going to watch it for the rest of the week. The filler hose gauge reads “low”, so it can take some more freon, but I figure I’ll wait and see if it goes up as the system pressurizes.

Posted in Life | 1 Comment »

My Dad the Television star.

My father is retired and has found that one of the many things he has the time to do now is pursue a television career. He has helped my uncle with many commercials and attended various shoots before, but this is the first thing that I’ve ever actually got to see him in. This cap is from act 3 of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog. This is doubly odd for me as I haven’t seen my parents in a while and he’s shaved off his beard. I’m so proud of him. Cheers dad, may your television career take off!

My dad’s been pretty busy! Check out his credit list:
Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog 3/19/08
Fired Up (Movie) 4/01/08
An American Carol (Movie) 4/03/08
True Blood (HBO) 4/14/08
Crank 2 (Movie) 5/03/08
Raising the Bar (TV) 5/16/08
ER (TV) 6/04/08
Meteor (Hallmark Channel movie) 6/25/08
Chuck (TV) 6/27/08
Chocolate News (Com.Central) 7/10/08

Update!: My dad recently shot a scene in the new Dan Brown film Angels & Demons. Keep an I out for the church scene.

Posted in Life | 3 Comments »

I Need to Be More Like Wil Wheaton.

Wil Wheaton has the right idea when it comes to blogs. He updates often and about many different topics. He has posts that are personal, posts that are basically advertisements for things that he thinks are cool, and posts that are pretty geeky or only of interest to a small group of people. This mix of topics seems to drive a lot of traffic and gathers plenty of google juice. Of course his Star Trek celebrity doesn’t hurt, but I don’t think that’s what propels his blogging success. If I had to pin it down to one aspect, I’d have to say it was his constant posting and attention to his readers.

Here’s a video that uses sex appeal to lure readers.

I need to post more often and about more varied subjects. I’m going to try to post everyday, but more importantly I’m going to try to be more diverse in what I post. Most people that visit this site probably assume I pretty much live in the Matrix and eat Linux kernels for breakfast. True I am the chosen one, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to have fun like normal people. I also need to work on deathbydvd.com and add more content, but that is another issue. Stay tuned for more.

Posted in Life | 2 Comments »

Elisa 0.5.1 Is Out!

Our fantastic friends at the Elisa project have reached the 0.5.1 version mark. The media center is offically released, but the deb packages for Debian and Ubuntu have yet to hit the repos. As soon as they are put up I’ll be updating my media server.

In the meantime you can read my previous review here.

I’ll have a full review once I get it installed. The Windows binaries are up here. If you have a Windows PC you can try out 0.5 before it’s released on Linux. Remember, as with all pieces of software, it runs a little hinky on Windows.

Update!: There are finally some Ubuntu/Debian packages available.

To update Elisa on Ubuntu and Debian add this repo to your apt-get sources:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/elisa-developers/ubuntu hardy main

And then run:

sudo apt-get update

And finally:

sudo apt-get upgrade

Posted in Linux, Tech | No Comments »

How to Minimize Your Windows Usage.

I’ve been dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows XP since December 3rd of last year and I’ve come to use Windows less and less. My long term goal is to use Linux full time and ditch Windows altogether, but there are still a few pieces of software that don’t run natively on Linux, won’t run properly under WINE, or are unique enough to not be replaced by an alternative application. Eventually, all the Windows programs I use will be replaced or ported. Until then I’ve tried to eliminate all the possible reasons to use my Windows partition. If I’m booted in to Windows its for a few specific purposes.

If you’d like to ditch Windows, here is the plan I followed.

1. First identify the Windows programs that you use on a daily basis. Include the smaller tools and the more rare utilities. Catalog every Windows program you even remotely use. Don’t forget video and audio converters, games, and proprietary file format viewers. Leave no stone unturned, as they say. The object is to find out just how addicted to Windows you are.

2. Next compile a list of all the hardware you use. This list should include scanners, audio interfaces, remote controls, and MP3 players. Hardware support has come a long way in Linux, but since the majority of hardware vendors only officially write drivers for Windows, Linux hardware support tends to lag a bit. Hopefully, you don’t use anything that is so exotic or new as to be unsupported, but if you do then maybe you can eventually replace it with Linux compatible gear. In the future you can research what hardware runs well on Linux before you buy it. If you buy your gear in a shop, be sure to ask if it is Linux compatible. If you did your research then you probably already know the answer, but it’s good practice to make hardware shops aware of Linux. When you get the hardware working, call the shop and tell them that it works so they can tell their customers in the future.

Now that you have a complete list of all the hardware and software reasons you use Windows, you have a clear picture of how much you depend on Papa Microsoft. Hopefully you are a casual addict. But I know some people may be deeply entrenched and it might not be possible to lower their Windows usage to under 50% or so. For these people the the advantages and power of Linux might not be so apparent while in the Microsoft mindset.

4. This next bit gets a little tricky. You need to find ways to do as many of the tasks that you do in Windows but using Linux instead. For many programs this is simple. Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, VLC, Skype, and many other open source applications have Linux native versions. In these five applications alone, you have what I consider the best in web browsing, email, office productivity, media player, and VOIP telephony software. If you use these programs, you already have Linux solutions for most of your daily tasks. You can even try them in Windows first to see if they are suitable replacements.

Next, you can consult this page to find alternative programs to the ones you use in Windows. This is just a matter of trial and error. Keep the Windows program installed, but install the Linux alternative in your Linux distro and give it a spin. If you don’t like it, trash it and try another one. You may find (as I did) that the Linux alternative is better than the Windows application. If after trying all the alternatives you find that none of them suit your needs, you have a (hopefully short) list of programs you can’t live with out. For these stubborn apps, you can try WINE.

WINE is a Windows compatibility layer. This allows you to run some Windows programs in Linux. You can check the program’s compatibility with WINE here. The site is based on the experiences users have with installing and operating various Windows applications under Linux. Don’t take their word for it, try it yourself. There are special versions of WINE, called CrossoverOffice and Cedega, that help you easliy install office apps and games. They both use WINE, so you can theoretically do it yourself, but sometimes it’s just easier to use one of them.

If you can’t replace your favorite Windows app or run it under WINE, then you have no choice but to boot into Windows or if you are feeling adventurous, run them under a virtualizer like VMWare or Parallels. I’m not familiar with virtualizers, but many people love them. It’s not a bad option for people with high-end hardware. If you are lucky, then your final list of Windows-only apps is much smaller than your original list. This means you can spend more time in Linux and less time being frustrated by Windows. :)

My list of Windows programs is small:

- Ableton Live 7  (Nothing can replace this yet and the latency is too long under WINE)
- VST Instruments  (DLL files that are used by Ableton Live)
- iTunes (I may move back to Rockbox now that Banshee works better)
- World of Warcraft (My video card is too weak to run it in Linux)
- Various Emulators (Once I get my Xbox 360 controller to work under Ubuntu, I will be migrating these)
- Magic the Gathering (It has issues under WINE, but I barely even play)

Hope this helps you. If you have any suggestions please leave a comment.

Posted in Linux, Tech | No Comments »

I Believe You Have My Stapler.

Yesterday afternoon when we came home from comic shopping, we found that someone had parked in the space in front of our apartment. Since the apartments are one story and there is only a porch between the parking spot and my front door, it feels pretty invasive to have a mysterious Ford Explorer occupying the parking space directly in front of my dwelling.

As of this morning it’s still there. I put a note on it politely asking them to not park in my space. If it is still there when I get home from work, I am going to knock on doors until I find the owner. If the owner isn’t here, I’m contacting the apartment management to have it towed.

EDIT: I came home to find a different car in my spot, a van actually, but the note I left was responded to and stuck to my door. Apparently, the owner of the Ford is my new neighbor and my Escort was parked in their spot. Fair enough. So I moved my Escort and my van. After a few hours, they moved their van and I eventually moved my van back to my spot. I have yet to see this new neighbor, but there is proof they exist and they can be reasoned with. I think we can overcome the initial setbacks.

Posted in Life | No Comments »