Patrick’s Musings

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So my Samsung drives don’t work with the Adaptec controller, so if anyone wants to buy 5 2tb Samsung F3EG drives drop me a line.

Now on my desk I have 5 Western Digital WD20EADS which are definitely on the qualified list of drives. So when I get home tonight it’s time to build a 4+1 R5.

Oh the joy.

On the weekend I acquired the bits I needed to start my new project. A Windows Home Server (WHS) for my network at home. I can hear the cries of ‘use Linux/BSD/Solaris etc’ from here. I have decided to try Windows for several reasons, which in no particular order are:

• All my desktops & laptops now run Windows 7
• I hack away at UNIX & Storage all day at work, at home I just want it to work
• It supports all my hardware
• I wanted plug and play support for my Windows 7 Media Centre PC

I installed WHS on a Gigabyte motherboard with an Athlon X2, 4gb of ram (32bit OS) and currently a 500gb sata drive. I spent more on my heatsink (Oh how I love thee Noctua) than my motherboard. I also grabbed and am yet to install an Adaptec PCI-E raid controller, the 51645. Which supports 20 SAS or SATA drives. I intend to play with that tonight. Who needs sleep really.

The install was pretty simple, though a little confusing when after the first reboot it started the standard blue screen, press F6 to install drivers, install. But this is based on Windows SBS 2003 so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Once installed I ran Windows update to get the latest patches & Power Pack 3 which adds Windows 7 support. I then ran the included software to connect my Desktop to the WHS. After a little trouble with my password (don’t connect as guest, then try and authenticate, you stay authenticated as guest and have to reboot), I was now connected. I checked My Computer and didn’t have any new drives, tried looking in Homegroup & Libraries, nothing there, oh what I have to map the network drives myself? I thought WHS was all about removing the concept of drive letters.

Perhaps I’m doing something wrong. I’ll spend some time searching around tonight for options.

What I did like was it automatically backed up my Desktop PC to the server, though with 1.5tb of files I did have to manually exclude my music and movies folders from this backup. I’m given to understand that the restore disk that came with the installation disk can be used to restore my desktop using the backup from the server. Now that’s cool.

More as it happens.

I’ve just been given this handy URL by a co-worker. Booko.com.au.

It’s a price search engine for Books and DVDs. It searches the Internet to find the cheapest copy of a book anywhere and it just saved me around $20 on the cost of a brand new, just printed book.

This is a test of my mobile blogging using the Blackberry wordpress client.

I’m on the train home from Powershift at UWS. I was up at 6am and left the house by 6.30 to setup the EWB stall not to bad an effort considering everything except the tables and chairs was taken onsite by me by train.

A huge thanks to Sophie from the AYCC who has received numerous txts, emails & calls from me in the last couple of days after I decided to attend at the last minute for Engineers Without Borders.

The keynotes were fantastic, if a little cultish, and it was a shame that some activists couldn’t let Nathan Rees have his say in peace. From 11.30 to 3.30 I manned the EWB stall with the help of a number of EWB volunteers, the interest was greater than I expected and we had a lot of interesting discussions and got a few new members and people for our mailing lists. Overall the time was well spent, though I feel a little more structure may have been better.

From 3.30 to 4.30 I was in the “Communicating the Climate Change Message” breakout, the discussion was good, but not long enough, only a few questions were asked. I think 2 hours per breakout might have worked better.

I then traipsed off to room 2.02 to hear Keillen from Greenpeace talk “Media Engagement”. After 15 minutes waiting I left. Advised the AYCC team at the front desk that our facilitator hadn’t shown and headed for a bus/taxi home. I didn’t have the good to walk up two flights of steps again.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, and even more to future events, when AYCC can apply what it learns this weekend and hopefully hold many more successful events.

A month ago I took a leap into the unknown world of Smartphones and purchased a Blackberry Bold 9000. This is my first 3g internet enabled phone. After 3 happy years with my Motorola L6 and GPRS. Naturally I’m eagre to start using my GtD system on it. Especially as my employer blocks both Evernote & Sugarsync from the office.

I have installed Evernote for Blackberry, Remember the Milk’s RTM for Blackberry and SugarSync for Blackberry. Three fantastic applications that I use daily. Sugarsync is not strictly GTD, it’s a file synchronisation program that allows me to keep important documents synced between my 3 computers, PDA and now my Blackberry. How can I Get Things Done if I don’t have access to my files?

I also have Google Sync for Blackberry to keep my Calendar & Contacts up to date.

First up, gripes. RtM for Blackberry uses Blackberry categories to sync to RtM lists, not tags. As the Blackberry allows multiple category per todo item and RtM only allows an item to be in one list I think this is a big fail by RtM, who I normally think of as a fantastic and enlightened company. Sugarsync also has a major flaw, when attempting to open a PDF on my Blackberry it gives an error that I don’t have a default viewer installed. Despite the fact the Blackberry Messaging and Browser both open PDF files without an issue.

Now, the system.

• I use Evernote to capture all my notetaking thoughts. Minutes in meetings, pictures I take, audio thoughts etc.
• I rely on the task manager to know what I’m doing. Everytime I get a task I record it in the task manager. Using classic GTD style categories, @work, @home, @computer etc.
• I use the Calendar for fixed date events & the tasks list for due anytime events.
• I ignore emails and SMS when I am in a ‘non phone’ environment, for instance in a meeting.

Because I always have my phone on me, I can review tasks at will. When I’m on the train, waiting for the train, standing in line at the supermarket, I can whip out my Blackberry open the task manager and review my task list quickly and easily. The weekly review was always my GTD failure. I never did it. Now I do a daily or even hourly review. Not stricly what David Allen suggests, but the important thing is, it works for me.

Is it making me hyper productive? Not yet, but I think I’ve improved.

Tips:

• I wired the left hand quick access key to Evernote. Quick access makes a difference.
• I still stick to the ‘if it’s going to take less than 2 minutes and you can do it now, do it now’ rule.
• Buy an extended battery. All this lifehacking really drains the juice. Especially minuting a meeting in Evernote.
• I scan every paper document I get and put it in a Sugarsync managed folder. If someone calls me while I’m in thousands of kilometres from home to talk about an invoice they sent me, I darn well want to be able to find that invoice then and there. If I received it, it will be in Sugarsync.

Would you like to live next door to fourteen storey tower blocks? A huge overdevelopment has been proposed for Lewisham, at the corner of Old Canterbury Rd and Longport St. See map.

The development includes 14, 12 and 6 storey towers and a large supermarket mall with basement car parking. The developer has bypassed council and the local community and gone straight to the state government for approval under the controversial Part 3A law.

* Overdevelopment
* Traffic congestion and pollution
* Community disruption
* New precedents for building size for the Inner West
* Local shopping strips hurt – Petersham, Dulwich Hill, Summer Hill
* Interferes with the Cooks River to Iron Cove Greenway project

The Greens are campaigning to stop such a massive overdevelopment. You can view our webpage on this issue: http://marrickvillegreens.wordpress.com/issue/lewisham-part-3a-development/

A public meeting has been called for 7pm, Wednesday 20 May at Summer Hill Community Centre, 131 Smith Street, Summer Hill. See map to venue. Come along to see the developers plans, express your opinion, and show your feelings on this development.

I personally am concerned about the precedent this could set for the Summer Hill Mill site, just across the train line from this site.

What a fantastic 2 days. I didn’t want the conference to end. A huge thanks to Donortec & Connecting Up for organising such a great event. I’ve already implemented one thing and jumped up to start a NetTuesday group in Sydney.

I think I twittered more yesterday than in the past 2 months. It was great to have a dialogue going between each session, so you could sit in one room, but be across the stream of information in all the other rooms.

A lot of people were asking how they could use social media for their organisation, and the answer was invariably “it depends”. I’m putting together a presentation now on using social media like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to try and bring 3rd sector NGOs and Not For Profits up to speed on the possabilities available to them, as well as the pitfalls. Watch this space.

I’m also going to completely overhaul my Project Management presentation, as I learnt of at least 10 new tools over the past two days that I want to integrate and talk about.

I highly recommend everyone has a look at my Twitter friends list and adds everyone I’ve added in the past 2 days to their list, it is the most amazing group of people

FOOTSCRAY Community Legal Centre will call on Maribyrnong City Council to ban door-to- door salespeople after it was found that African migrants were signing contracts they didn’t understand.

FCLC manager Denis Nelthorpe will appeal to the council at its Community Access and Strategic Planning meeting in May to ban the practice in the municipality – or at the very least, ask retailers to leave the area alone.

“If a council, any council, was to take the step of saying ‘we want to ban this or we want to at least ask these retailers to stay out of our area’, my guess is every second council in Australia might well decide to follow suit,” Mr Nelthorpe said.

Source

I can’t say I’m surprised. I’ve worked for door-to-door sales companies and their tactics are always less than ethical. They make a living of convincing people to sign up on the spot, making a decision that has ramifications often for years in a split second. I always did poorly and never lasted long in the job myself.

I don’t buy toothpaste without umming and arring (I’m open to suggestions on how you would spell that) for several minutes about this triple whitening action vs that 12 hour total protection. However when I was in Shanghai recently I purchased items without taking that time for the simple fact I recognised a logo, but couldn’t read any of the writing on it. These sales people use the same tactics, they sign people up for long term contracts for energy, phones or even donations to charities (big business, believe me), by presenting very little information, a big friendly logo of a well known company & making it seem like the offer will expire if they take the time to ask their family or friends about the offer etc.

I don’t know what the legality of banning door-to-door sales people is, but I know from my childhood that they never come into the house with the drooling boxers sitting in the front yard eyeing them off as they try to open the gate…

Last night Adam Butler addressed our monthly Ashfield Greens meeting, I’d already read his blurb, and subscribed to his blog in Google Reader, but it was nice to see him in the person, and add him on twitter (@bikesusenofuel). It wasn’t until he started talking about the proliferation of lawyers in parliament that I realised he was right, we do need more engineers in all levels of Government. We need people who think outside the normal box, people who can critically analyse an issue, and make a decision based on calm rational thought rather than the letter of the law or what is going to get more votes. I wish Adam success in his campaign to get on the Senate ticket, and look forward to extolling the virtues of Engineers Without Borders to him in the future.