I’m always wondering if someone at work is reading my blog. If you are, you’re probably wondering, does Daniel ever work. Is he constantly writing blog posts at work?

The answer, no.

It’s not very interesting to post only at night, or on weekends. Most people are reading blogs, likely at work, during the day. I use the WordPress editorial calendar plug in to “schedule” posts ahead of time. Rather than write and post in real time, I research, write, and post in batches. In fact, I sometimes write so many posts all at once and pre-schedule them that I’m refreshing my own blog to see what new posts are coming out.

Software is expensive, really expensive especially if it’s not work provided. Fortunately, there’s an amazing wealth of open source software available for free download. There’s a huge user community generating great how-to guides and building new functionality into the software. For basic office software, here are some of my recommendations.

MS Office – OpenOffice – Open Office replaces the entire Microsoft Office suite.

• Word – Writer
• Excel – Calc
• PowerPoint – Impress
• Visio – Draw
• Access – Base

Photoshop – Gimp – Photoshop image manipulation is easily replicated with Gimp. The software is powerful enough to replace all your photo editing needs.

Illustrator – Inkscape – Illustrator is also really expensive on its own. Inkscape can easily generate vector-based illustrations.

With all these software, the biggest challenge is learning the new software. If you’ve already gone through the steep learning curve of the commercial package, be prepared to do it again if you switch to open source. While it’ll be mostly the same, some functionality operates differently.

Having a bad day, take a moment and see how it compares in relative size to the Universe.

Compared to the rest of the planets, we are relatively small. We’re only larger than Mars, Venus, Mercury, and now not a planet Pluto.

But when we put our Sun into the picture, the rest of the planets are minuscule.

But if we look outside of our solar system, our sun is tiny compared to Arcturus and we’re not even on the scale.

But even then, that’s now it. In the image below, compared to Antares, our beloved Sun is only one pixel and Arcturus is minuscule.

So whatever problem you were dealing with today, it’s minuscule compared to worldly problems and in context of the universe, it doesn’t exist or matter.

Images taken from {Evolutionary Edge}

Inspired by speak by Sir Ken Robinson

My attempt to scribe the question regarding simultaneousness usage of voice and data with a Verizon iPhone.

“Experience is so so paramount at Apple and he iPhone with A&T currently allows that GSM constant data, constant voice connection. Can you just describe what is the experience difference of being on a voice call and then attempting to access data such as the web. How does that feel on an experience level using CDMA technology?” -Tech Reporter (Ars Technica)

My interpretation: Isn’t it going to suck not being able to receive calls when I’m using my data? You give me this mobile hotspot, all my calls are going to go to voicemail. I’m not going to get push notifications when my mom calls. I’m on a conference call, I’m not going to be able to look up movie listings buy tickets through Fandango am I?

“You know, I think people place emphasis on different things. And, I can tell you that, as I said before, the number one question I got, despite selling tens of millions of iPhones and having customers download billions of apps is when will the iPhone work on the Verizon network. I could not be happier to sit here today and tell all those 93 million people and all the people that want to join Verizon that we are delivering it to them. And I think they will make those sorts of trade offs.” -Tim Cook (Apple)

My interpretation: You dumb fools want this thing so badly, well, here you go. You just can’t wait a little bit more until we can fully develop a 4G iPhone so that you can do everything you should be able to do. Well, if you really want it that bad, here you go. Come and get it. You know what, six months from now, we’re going to release an even better phone but no, you just can’t wait.

Bottom line: I wouldn’t buy a product that Steve Jobs himself didn’t present. Sounds like he wasn’t so happy an iPhone that can’t do data/voice.

With the availability of mobile technology such as smart phones and wifi hotspots, we’re always connected. The moments of downtime that our brains used to process thoughts are now filled with mindless filling of games, apps, blog, and messaging. By filling in all these moments in the day, we are doing the equivalent of not “sleeping.” Some of the free moments include (what other moments are there?):

• Waiting in line
• Sitting in traffic
• Waiting for food at a restaurant
• Drinking coffee
• Eating breakfast/lunch/dinner

In fact, this same mentality is brought into the workplace. We force our employees to “work” by doing something rather than letting free space and free time inspire innovation, creativity, and ultimate increase productivity. This backwards mentality creates overworked employees who don’t have the “bandwidth” to do anything other than the mindless tasks in front of them. If we create a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being a doing job to 10 being a creating job, as we go up the scale, employees require more free time to develop and process.

Happy 1/11/11 @ 11:11 AM

There are companies that are out to make a quick buck and run and then there are companies you know are in it for the long haul. I recently bought and reviewed my Alkr messenger bag. I bought it specifically because it was designed to hold my Apple products: iPhone, iPad, and MacBook. After a few weeks of use, the inside pocket stitching broke and a hole spilled my miscellaneous cables. I sent a picture to the company and received the following response:

Hi Daniel,
Thanks for your email! Sad to hear that you have a bad experience with one of our products. Of course we try to do everything that these things never happen. But if a little part of the seam is not sewed perfect, this can happen. We take this serious and we will think of double sewing the seams…

What we can do is two things: we send you a new messenger. Or you get a refund on the one you have. Just as you like. All we want is that you are a happy customer…

We really appreciate your support that you gave us in buying a product from us. That´s why it always hurts us personally when something like this happens.

All the best from Hamburg

Bold emphasis added by me above. When a company “hurts” from a defect, they’re a person, not a corporation. I understand that as companies grow, automation is necessary to reduce operating costs. However, it is a pleasure doing business with a company that responds personally.

I sent my message on January 3rd and received a new bag on January 7th. My email communications were responded within an hour. I’m not even sure what the time difference is but it’s impressive to always get a response to quickly. Mind you, this company is based out of Germany.

To all the world, and my dear workers at Alkr in Hamburg, thank you and I am a very happy customer.

I like to be mobile. The idea of a fixed office desk with tacked on photos and personalized crap is not appealing to me. My goal is to have my entire office packed up in one bag. Where possible, tools should be multipurpose.

Alkr bag – This bag is designed for Apple products.

• MacBook Air – amazing for lightweight travel.
• iPad – I prefer to read webpages and books on my iPad.
• iPhone – with MyFi for those times without wifi.
• Solar Joos Orange – to charge my iPhone/iPad. This will be useful when I’m away from a power plug.
• Square – to accept credit card payments.
• Pilot Pen – great for jotting down notes.
• Moleskine – my go to notebook for doodling.
• Belkin Power – extremely useful at coffee shops with limited power plugs. It has three plugs and two usb power ports.
• Flip Mino – just in case I need to make some video.

I also keep a mixed bag of cables and miscellaneous office supplies.

Here’s my wishlist for additional tools:

• Portable scanner
• Pico projector
• Mifi dedicated internet
• Memory card reader

What do you think? This is just a conceptional plead. How do we implement this?