There’s a free and open to the public class tonight (4/15/2015) at Princeton Public Library at 7 pm on Google Drive. I’m excited for the session because in many of the conversations that I have with clients about how they manage documents and archives, I usually end up discussing Google Drive with them as a solution.
Why Google Drive?
Because of:
Cloud-based storage, about 15 GB for free
Rich creation, collaboration, and editing tools for documents, spreadsheets, drawings, and presentations
The multi-platform nature of drive, in that it opens up anywhere you have a browser or app.
The security that protects my documents, especially when using two-factor authentication.
I hope you can join us for my talk on one of my favorite software services,
Don’t eat anything incapable of rotting by lemasney
Vegetable manchurian
Muesli recipe by lemasney
i heart coffee by lemasney
So, those of you paying close attention may have noticed that I write about food. A lot. And so you might ask:
What does food and nutrition have to do with technology, design, and training, John?
And my answer is straightforward: Everything.
Cooking, food, nutrition, and technology.
Food and nutrition in my life are highly influenced by technology. Every time I eat anything, the next thing I do is use my phone, computer, or other Internet connected device to add to my food log. I count every calorie I eat. I am able to review, analyze, or otherwise know the details of every calorie I eat, going back years. Around my neck, always, is my fitbit, which counts steps, stairs, sleep, and other data about what I’m putting out as far as energy. The difference between when I was very heavy and now is that now I know to the calorie what I am taking in and what I am burning. As a result, technology is directly responsible, in part, for my level of fitness.
Cooking, food, nutrition, and design.
Food is design in that when you cook, count calories, or otherwise plan your nutrition, that is design. It’s not visual design, or architecture, granted, but it is very clearly design. In fact, I would posit that the difference between the obese and the normal weighted is very often the result of a lack of design. I’ve redesigned my nutritional plan, and lost over 100 pounds. Design is the act of codifying, simplifying, and making clear a plan of communication, layout, or direction. Taking hold of one’s nutrition is a pure form of design.
Cooking, food, nutrition, and training.
I have learned a lot in my journey towards health. I know when and exactly how I am mis-eating, which I did not know before. I knew when I was eating badly, I knew when I was eating cleanly, but I did not know, numerically, to what degree either had as an effect on my fitness. I know now. I firmly believe that I could help (e.g. train) anyone with a weight problem to resolve it, if they want to. There is no cost but your will in my method, and no disbenefit except awareness of how badly you might be eating. But as soon as you lose your extra weight, you’ll forget all about that.
Take typed notes – You can use it as a simple note taking application, and many people do only that.
Take image based notes – you can also use it to take images and add them to your research or study notes.
Take voice based notes – You can be your own Don Draper and use it to do voice based dictation, with transcription!
Take webpage based notes – You can collect web pages for reference in Evernote
Annotate your notes – Once you have created your notes, there are lots of ways to add commentary.
Store and organize your notes online – You use Evernote’s cloud service to store your notes, and use notebooks and tags to group them.
Get to your notes from anywhere – Because it’s a cloud based service, you get the benefit of access from all of your devices. That includes most OSes on the desktop, phone, tablet, Raspberry Pi, etc.
Study – Evernote is a student’s friend, allowing you to collect all of your citations, tag them, add them to a notebook, and include lots of different media types.
Do research – Field researchers love the abilities of Evernote, from the multifaceted media input types to the organization and taxonomy tools.
Support your business – Some people use Evernote as a customer relationship Management tool, and so might you.
This sketch reminds me of the story of the space pen, in which it’s suggested that the US was wasteful in spending a million dollars to develop a space pen, while Russians simply used pencils. A great story, but false on many counts:
“The lesson of the infamous “space pen” anecdote about NASA’s spending a small fortune to develop a ballpoint pen that astronauts could use in outer space, while completely overlooking the simple and elegant solution adopted by the Soviet space program (give cosmonauts pencils instead), is a valid one: sometimes we expend a great deal of time, effort, and money to create a “high-tech” solution to a problem, when a perfectly good, cheap, and simple answer is right before our eyes. As good a story and moral as that may be, however, this anecdote doesn’t offer a real-life example of that syndrome. Both U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts initially used pencils on space flights, but those writing instruments were not ideal: pencil tips can flake and break off, and having such objects floating around space capsules in near-zero gravity posed a potential harm to astronauts and equipment. (As well, after the fatal Apollo 1 fire in 1967, NASA was anxious to avoid having astronauts carry flammable objects such as pencils onboard with them.)”
I have been traveling, and just came home, and walked in, and it’s joyous. I decided to make a record of how I feel and why I feel that way. It’s important to note that I enjoyed my trips away, and it’s also important to note that I was not especially homesick. Nonetheless, there are certain things that I really enjoy inside these four walls (and nearby) that I just can’t get in the places I’ve been recently, namely, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C..
High speed Internet connectivity.
When I am at home, I’m enveloped in bits, and it feels amazing to be back in that digital bath. In the ORD airport, you get 20 minutes free if you sit through an advertisement. Some airports do not have free Internet at all. In the hotels, when you get Internet access for free, which is less and less, it’s spotty at best.
I feel like Internet connectivity is to productivity as water is to the body. I feel like we need to seriously consider some level of high-speed Internet connectivity as a basic human right.
When you don’t have it, you crave it. When crave turns to need, you’re in trouble.
My media collection and services.
Even if I have no Internet at home, which is seldom the case, I have books, movies, TV shows, and lots of other media sources. In fact, with a good Internet connection, I can get to most of them remotely. Away from home, I have none of it. If I’m lucky I can get YouTube or Netflix over the lousy wi-fi. See also point one above.
Chromecast.
If there’s one flaw to a Chromecast, it’s that it will not work if you try to connect to WiFi that has an agreement screen. I really need to invest in a travel router or run OpenWRT on my Raspberry Pi so that I can start bringing my Chromecast with me and using it. But even if I did, I’m sure the media would stutter because of the low-bandwidth in the hotels. Also, as a cable cutter, I’m happy to not watch TV anymore, and this is the one amenity available in every hotel. I’m rather have the ability to just use my Chromecast. You can keep the 40 channels of nothing.
A ‘comfortable’ bed.
Don’t get me wrong, the hotels I have stayed at have had incredibly fluffy, well maintained, 1200 thread sheeted, super soft, and therefore incredibly uncomfortable (to me) beds. The main reason I have a very soft futon is because I sleep especially well on a very soft futon.
I like my 10-year-old pillow, my comforter that’s beyond repair, and the particular distance from the TV to the pillow.
I can’t wait to crash tonight.
Expectable weather.
Recent travel by John LeMasney in 2015 (Google Dashboard)
I never know exactly how to pack for a trip away. It’s hard at the moment because the country is entering Spring, and as a result, it can be 28 degrees in a Chicago morning, and 57 degrees by dinnertime. But I’m not packing a puffy coat for a chance of snow. On the other hand, I was pretty cold walking to work in my hoodie this week. In this part of the world, it’s easy enough to leave your jacket in the car. When I travel, I seldom have a car. I’m glad I don;t have to worry about it for a while.
Local restaurants.
I really enjoyed some of the restaurants I visited while I was traveling, but I’ll never be a regular there. I like having a ‘Cheers’ moment when I walk into a local restaurant like Michael’s in Lawrenceville. In a place where you are generally alone, like we tend to be when we travel, it makes those ‘Cheers’ moments seem far more distant.
Local groceries, a stove, and a full fridge.
Sunday is grocery day in my house. I go to my local farmer’s market, stock up on fruit, veg, and bread, and eat like a king for a week. In 3 out of the 4 recent trips, I walked to the places I was going, or I did not go, and more often than not, the nearest grocery was miles away. The walk there would have been okay, the walk back would have been much harder. In 2 out of the 4 hotels I was at, there was no fridge, and 3 out of the 4 had no stove. The one with the full kitchen was also the one with the grocery within walking distance, luckily. I love to shop for groceries, and I love to cook, but it’s often impossible to do either when you travel.
Local convenience stores.
We absolutely must talk about the difference between the United States’ Eastern coast convenience store, and the rest of the world as two separate categories.
Wawa only exists in 5 states.
7 Eleven is mostly everywhere, but please, don’t try to tell me that the experiences are similar. No QuickChek or Sheetz in most of these places, though San Francisco had some amazing green corner delis.
The rhythm of home.
If I’m away, these days, it’s for business. That usually means a 9-5 job for a few days or a week. I’m grateful for my employers’ generosity, that they would give me such amazing opportunities. But it’s a lot different when I get back to my normal schedule. Part of the reason I was so excited about making consulting my living is that most days I work until 3 am, wake up around 10 am, and work as I please in between. I always make my 8 am meetings, when they are scheduled, but they’re not scheduled everyday, and most people are just as happy to meet at 1 pm as at 7 am. I’m so happy I can get back to the rhythm of this place.
I’m really happy to be home.
I hope this article does not come off as kvetching. I really do not mean it to. I really enjoyed my recent travels, and as I said, I thank my employers for the opportunities and all that goes with them. I just wanted to sing the praises of home a bit. I hope you see some of what you love about home written here, and that it helps you to look around and notice all the nice stuff you have going on. I was taking it for granted, until some travel reminded me of what I love about this place.
This is Jack’s sneaker. I asked him to choose something for me to draw for this project, and after some careful thought, he chose his sneaker. It has the most beautiful lines, and this bright orange color offset by a deep gray. I made the illustration using the open source digital illustration program called Krita.
If you’d like an illustration of your favorite shoe, you can get yours here. Just email me at lemasney@gmail.com.
