It Rains In Triplicate

Done through ‘S’, 951 albums.

So I’m spending some time thinking about my general workflow. I’ve spent a not-enough time trying to come up with a good workflow for my day-to-day activity, how I can improve it, and where it is falling down. So my object is to get these ideas out there and see if I can make some progress.

So my work (both paid job and on-the-side stuff) is about idea elicitation and realization. Either turning an idea into something that I can realize or something my team can realize, or taking someone else’s and turning it into something real. (yeah, that’s intentionally vague).

So, what do I want to do:

1. Have some capacity to take down notes where ever I am
2. Be able to go lo-tech (i.e., no electronics) when necessary
3. Be able to share my notes with team members in a secure fashion (posting them on a blog or 3rd party website is bad)
4. Generate and keep track of personal and team taskings (could be GTD-like, gantt charts, etc)

So what do I do now:

1. I carry around a small notebook and a LiveScribe Pen with me most of the time. Of course, not everyplace I go will let me take in my pen, so I use plain pen-and-ink otherwise
2. I carry around a macbookpro as my primary machine, with my TODO list in OmniFocus and my team TODO list in an excel spreadsheet. I have evernote, OmniPlan, and mindmapping software on the mbp, but don’t really use it
3. I also carry around a blackberry (work email) and iphone (everything else). I’ll send myself an occasional note via the blackberry

So I also have a bunch of electronics that aren’t seeing use, that may fit into the workflow someplace …

1. a Nokia tablet (N810)
2. an IBM X61T convertible tablet with onenote (I like the tablet, I hate the keyboard)
3. a Samsung Q1 UMPC (screen is a little small to use for ink)

My current practice, in general, which leaves a lot to be desired …

1. A spend a lot of time writing in my notebook, mostly using the livescribe pen
2. At the end of the day, the pen is synced to my PC (since there isn’t any mac software yet, and no ink-to-text software)
3. Go through my copious email and file, flag, or transcribe into spreadsheet or omnifocus
4. As I take notes, if there are action items, I write them down and transfer them to my spreadsheet or OmniFocus when I get a chance
5. As things get done, update omnifocus or my spreadsheet

The major issues are of the OHIO variety. I have no less than five different locations of notes and taskings (e-mail, livescribe, ink, omnifocus, and spreadsheets), which should be, eventually, narrowed down to omnifocus and spreadsheets. I have no less than 3 different locations for ideas (livescribe, ink, and e-mail), all of which are disconnected. From a mobile perspective, I really only have a small subset available to me at any all times (my notebook). OmniFocus-on-iPhone will probably help with that, but that is still a little ways off.

Enough rambling. I don’t see an easy answer, I think.

JPA or reflection needs to get a whole lot more mature. The current hell is having code like:

protected Map<String, Object> data_map;

and related accessors in my code.

Such makes Hibernate / JPA barf with an ultimate exception of:

Caused by: org.hibernate.MappingException: Could not determine type for: java.util.Map, at table: BasisObject, for columns: [org.hibernate.mapping.Column(data_map)]

However, I turn the Map into a HashMap (who needs generic, well written code anyway?), it all works. It comes down to a Map isn’t serializable, but a HashMap is.

Bleh.

To continue installing Microsoft Office 2008 SP1 through Microsoft Auto Update, I had to quit Microsoft Auto Update.

I hate typing, I’m always looking to change my notetaking / idea elicitation practice, and I really like new APIs, so when the livescribe pen was announced many months ago, I jumped on the pre-order bandwagon. I had a logitech io2 pen, which is the same basic technology. I used it religiously (where I was allowed to) before it broke.

So after some drama about getting the thing delivered (fedex failing to deliver it to the right address, etc), I unpack the thing and realize that while it has a small and useful cradle, it, the pen does not have a simple mini-USB port for charging and syncing (which, really, all technology should have by now).

After looking through the livescribe store, I can’t find a way to buy a new cradle. Ideally, I’d keep the cradle hooked up to my home desktop and keep a spare in my bag for when I’m on the road.

So I asked the question of customer service, when I could buy one.

The response was, since they are not available for separate purchase right now, they’ll send me a spare one in the mail on Monday.

I was ready to pay $30+ for the thing or be told that it was not currently available, and ready to wait. Sending me a new cradle costs these guys very little, but sure makes me feel good about my future interactions with this company.

Anyway, the pen is nice so far. The desktop software has no integration with anything else (I’d sure love onenote or evernote integration), but the fact that a big part of their hook is an open api for putting applications on the pen and conduits, I’m hopeful.

So as I find myself reading more fiction, instead of strictly work stuff, I make heavy use of my kindle. At this point, I do not buy physical books, I don’t have a desire to buy more paperbacks to fill up my (overstuffed) bookcases. Anything I add to these bookcases is most likely going to be technical reference books.

So, between amazon’s bookstore, fictionwise, and tor’s book-a-week plan, I’m all set for a good long time, with the hope that publishers and authors start to embrace digitally publishing in earnest.

However, some authors are also releasing their books digitally and for free. I have four Cory Doctrow books on my kindle, and I’ve read two of them so far. However, since I can’t buy them through amazon’s kindle store, nor through fictionwise or other publishers, and I am unwilling to go buy the paperback version for reasons stated above, how do these authors get compensated? Had these books been available through an ebook outlet, I would have gladly paid for them.

The truth is, technology is at the point where 99% of my fiction reading will be done electronically, with the only paper content I have being magazines (to be read during takeoff and landing). I will always favor those books that are being distributed digitally. So the model of “release it digitally and people will buy the paperback” is no longer relevant.

I want digitally distribution to continue, be it for-pay / free-as-in-beer / free-as-in-speech formats. I don’t want the next fiction novel I really want to read to be a physical artifact that weighs down my bag. I will favor those books that come digitally (i.e., my computer book publisher of choice is now Manning, because they let me buy a PDF, instead of O’Reilly, which has no such option). I am willing to invest money in these products, but the authors and publishers need to give me that option, instead of pushing digital as a hook to buy the next one as a printed artifact.

One of my spare power adapters for my macbook pro stopped working. A total of 15 minutes at the apple store (including 10 minutes waiting for my turn), I have a new power adapter. That was nice and easy.