Technology ramblings from a dilettante of all things digital

Well its been 3 months since I last posted about my desire to join the GTD world.  First I'd like to apologize to my readers, both of you, for my lack of posts.  So how's it all working out? 

Remember the Milk has been awesome!  Visiting its website is my main place for modifying my tasks.  I can easily see the whole list on each tab and reorg them with keyboard shortcuts.  For a daily summary, I prefer to use the plugin for the iGoogle page or the one for gmail.  And being able to add from my HTC Mogul phone is great too, although I mainly use it to review what I need to do when I"m out and about.  Its invaluable for grocery lists when I'm at the store and I know it has everything on the list since I can manage it from anywhere.

I've been experimenting with using RTM for work as well.  Having one list is optimum.   Plus I get a mental "aahhhhhh" from completing all my tasks for the day.  I'm still grappling with a few issues though.  I like my work task manager for its richer gui interface, more fields, easier ability to add notes and the ability to add subtasks.  I've noticed that I'm now motivated to do tasks I'd normally put off, if nothing else than to get my list cleared off.  It sounds a little goofy, but it works rather well.

Evernote is working out great.  It stores everything I throw at it and I've had no issues with its syncing so far.  My only gripe, and its a small one, is that I wish the new evernote firefox addin that lets me copy to evernote is missing the ability to include a link to the original webpage when it gets pasted into Evernote.  I also wish it were easier to funnel it into different notepads, but its easy to move a note to another notepad once its in evernote.

I think my weakest link right now is the weekly reviews of my tasks and projects.  Sometimes I miss them or don't do them right or rush through them.  I need to work on that.  I'll keep y'all posted.

Okay, so my memory is probably better than the average person as far as being able to recall things manually.  My internal alarm clock and internal todo list is HORRIBLE.  So to complement that (the todo list), I'm trying to embrace GTD, by David Allen and I'm a premium paying member of Remember the Milk.  That's working out well, except for the fact that I'm pretty bad about the weekly cleanup of my tasklist.  I think this habit is definitely a keeper and I will be able to refine it with time.  For my job, I use this ToDoList. 

Now, to address my normal memory.  Remembering all the details of something, like researching a big purchase, is impossible.  So for that I am trying out Evernote.  So far it seems like it a keeper.  Its still in beta, but its ability to sync between computers combined with its ability to capture things WELL from almost any source (computer clipboard, cell phone picture message that gets OCRed, etc) is awesome!  I'll keep you posted on how it goes as it progresses.  FYI, if you need an invite to the beta, post in the comments here and I'll get one to you.

After reading this post I decided its time to get started on my habit changing activities.  I posted my answer in the comments on that site and I'll post it here as well

1. The habit:  not following my normal workout schedule
2. The why:  I need to get in shape to be more competitive for outdoor volleyball season, to prep for indoor volleyball season, to make myself more attractive to my girlfriend and to improve my self confidence.
3. The difference: The deadline.  Its not the most enjoyable, but I work well with deadlines and pressure.  I'm going to find a volleyball tournament just over 30 days from now, sign up for it at one or two levels higher than I normally play.  For me to have a prayer of doing respectably, I need to definitely be in better shape than I am now.

Update:  Here's the tournament I think I'll put as my deadline:

http://www.mavolleyball.org/t06.html

I've probably lost all of my loyal readers (both of them) from my severe lack of posting anything on here.  Anywho, I just wanted to state for the record that I will start publishing frequently on here again.  Expect to see several posts over the next couple of days, as I boldly pretend to try to bring my pet projects and interests to fruition here at work.

I recently got this error mucking with SQL.  It wouldn't connect worth a darn.  So I managed to find this simple concise blog entry that fixed it and so I feel I should mention it here.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sql_protocols/archive/2007/05/13/sql-network-interfaces-error-26-error-locating-server-instance-specified.aspx

For me, I just has to start the sql browser service.  Woooo.....

Just a quick note, if you happen to be running a service that will call automated tests like WatiN or IEUnit that need to open a browser or interact with the desktop in some way, you need to go into Computer Management, open the properties for that service and check the box that says "Allow this service to interact with the desktop."

This is just a minor thing, but there were some assemblies I needed in the GAC and wanted to reference them with minimum hasslehoff, so I just copied them out of the C:\windows\assembly\gac folder using the command prompt.  I got the solution from this post

Strategy

Notes:
shove dynamic behavior into interfaces.  have the main base compose the behavior interfaces.  Then you can dynamically assign the behavior interface instances in the child classes of the main base class.

Decorator:

Basically think of an abstract class like a vehicle.  Then you have a couple of classes inherited directly off of it: truck, bike broken down Chevy, etc.  Then u have a base decoration class, which inherits off of vehicle and also contains a member instance of vehicle, so it both "has a" and "is a" vehicle, and has a constructor that takes a vehicle type.  Next, you've got a bunch of decorations, each of which inherits off of the root decoration class, such as pimped out, racing striped, washed, waxed, painted pink, etc. 

So in code, you can create any of these decorations and pass them in a vehicle or a decorated vehicle.  This way you can have pink truck just as easily as you can have a pimped out-washed-waxed-racing striped broken down Chevy, without having to create a complicated inheritance tree for each possible combination.

• Some Notes:
  sort of define your own inheritance tree on the fly
• defines an "is a"/"has a" relationship between the decorations and the object they're decorating
• one possible use:  to dynamically aggregate functionality of semi-heterogenous items
• composition + inheritance

As good of a computer science education that I think I received, when I was an IROC (Idiot Right out of College) I was definitely lacking huge in certain areas.  Chief among these were software engineering (which I think I'm a lot better at now) and beyond basic OO, the fine art of Design Patterns.  I've managed to read about half of Head First Design Patterns and actually implement a few at work.  However, I still feel way behind on them overall, so I started a study group with some coworkers.  We'll attack 2 patterns a week.  I'll post notes about them and links to examples in my svn repository.

Enjoy!