Isolator for Mac, or how to focus on your work

Okay, whoever said that postponing your work to surf the web for hours is a total waste of time? During one of those session I came across Isolator, a nifty little program for the Mac that helps you focus on the work you actually have to do by toning down the visual clutter on your desktop (I’m using it right now… it is great!)

Besides the quieting of the screen noise I think it also works on a psychological level: flipping the Isolator switch also triggers your brain. By flipping the Isolator switch the I’m-ready-to-do-some-work-now message is send and the brain kicks into work mode.

Possibly even a simple button that you could flip between “Procrastinating” and “Working” would help you to get in the right mood; whichever mood you would prefer at that particular moment.

Now, if I could only resist the urge to blog about it, I could really get some work done.

gr.jakko

 

 

What, no Amazon service?

So, suddenly I’m not good enough for your service.

Well…  I didn’t want your service anyway.

gr.jakko

Addicted to Harry Potter

When you say you have an addiction most people just shrug and respond with an uninterested don’t-we-all. They assume you are talking about your regular house-hold addiction like booze, hard-drugs or chocolate. What if you had something darker, more shameful to hide. Something you shouldn’t talk about in public, but you can’t help it because you just HAVE to talk about it, otherwise it would build up pressure and you would start to peel off little bits of skin from your arms until they where all sore and you would have to wear long-sleeves to cover up the mess you’ve made even though it is friggin’ hot outside. That kind of an addiction, like a Harry Potter addiction.

So there, I’ve said it, I have a Harry Potter addiction. I just realized today. I should have noticed the signs earlier, but they were hiding near my blind spot. Today I suddenly had this urge to pop in the earphones of my iPod and fire up the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, even though I finished listening to the whole series a month ago – for the I-lost-countieth time already. I have all the books in English and I have read them all several times. I have all books in Dutch and I have also read them. And, to top it off, I have all the audiobooks read by Stephen Fry… seven million CDs crammed in a cupboard, ‘cause that’s how much audio there is to a Harry Potter series.

But they are just soooo good, especially the audiobooks, Stephen Fry is an excellent actor and he adds so much to the already rich Potter world. I can’t get enough of it.

No, I can’t… I have a pile of books to finish first.
Maybe if I just listen for a couple of minutes, and then I stop, nothing wrong with a couple of minutes. I just stop. Yeah… that’s it… yeah, I can do that…

Oh, by the way, I think the movies suck arse and should be buried in the deepest, darkest, foulest pit.

I own all the DVDs though.

gr.jakko

Positive iPod replacement experience

I love my iPod Classic, and I like to think it loves me too. Unfortunately it didn’t love me enough to accept music anymore, which I think is a major part of its reason for existence. After an evening of fiddling around I had to come to the conclusion it was properly broken and that I had to get it repaired. And that’s when I got depressed.

Most of my experiences with product replacement have been very bad. Angry-letter-writing bad. Making-a-scene-in-the-shop bad. It could be that I lose my cool too quickly when dealing with bored, rude, or dim-witted shop assistants. But I like to think it isn’t my fault really, I just want some proper service. With that in mind I didn’t feel like going through a frustrating when-the-hell-am-I-going-to-get-my-stuff-back process again. This time I skipped dealing with the retailer and went straight to the source.

Contacting Apple was easy, I answered in a couple of standard questions on a web form, added some details, and pressed the send button. They got back to me pretty quickly, the next day I received the package for returning the limb iPod. If I would have been home I could have send it back immediately, now I had to call for someone to pick it up again the next day. In all it took exactly a week for a spanking new iPod to arrive after my initial report of the problem. I’m pleased and impressed. Maybe buying additional Apple Care might not be such a bad idea.

gr.jakko

CLANK! That door is closed… permanently

The office I work in is located in a former Philips headquarters building. An old one, build in 1927, when customs were different from the way we do things now. At that time employees would line up in front of the vault where all the wages were stored to receive their share of the week.

One of those vaults is located on our floor and since there is hardly any use for physical money anymore, it was converted into a meeting room. They left the vault door in, it is an original feature and it looks damn cool, especially when you invite visitors and clang some chains. MUHAHAHAAA.

Now one of my fellow workers (who remains anonymous) managed to close the door in a jammed-shut sort of way. And vault doors are usually built to resist opening when they are closed. I can tell you that it is doing what it was designed to do with excellence. All our video conferencing equipment is inside, I guess at least it is safe.

I can’t help but finding this extremely hilarious. We probably have to call someone to open it again. God, I hope it involves blowtorches.

gr.jakko

Things, task management for clever people

Throughout my computer years I’ve tried many outline, scheduling, calendar, GTD and todo-list applications to help me conquer my organizational woes. And I got rid of every single one of them, the click with my brain just didn’t happen and I was left as chaotic as before.

Now there’s Things, a new kid on the block, and a strange thing has happened: I use it (almost) every day to organize my tasks… for two months already.

Things is a clever little application. Clever in a way that it doesn’t force me too much and gives me room to mess about. You can even use it the Getting Things Done way, if that’s your thing. Now don’t get me started on GTD, it’s absolutely not my thing and I’ve become extremely allergic to anything GTD related. The method itself doesn’t work for me, but that’s not my biggest problem, it’s the whole community that has risen around it. A community almost resembling a bunch of religious zealots, preaching the GTD evangelism. But that’s just me and I’m digressing a bit.

The good thing is, you can use Thing the way you like it. And now there is an update that integrates it with the Leopard system-wide to-do system, so you have access to your tasks in Mail and iCal. Joy!

Things is available as a free Mac-only preview, the final version is going to be released sometime this spring. Go check it out.

gr.jakko

Casino Royale and Devil May Care wallpaper

Just for the heck of it I’ve created two James Bond novel wallpapers. When I say “created” I actually mean “cut up and rearranged.”

The Casino Royale one is taken from the new hardback edition of the Ian Fleming classic and is part of the Centenary Edition Hardback collection. Every book is graced with an awesome cover… very appealing, I’m tempted to collect them all.

The other is from the new Bond novel Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks.

Sorry, widescreen only. I’m a mac-head.

gr.jakko

 

Devil May Care, the new James Bond

There’s a thing that chocolate cookies and James Bond novels have in common: they are both guilty pleasures of mine. I shouldn’t like them so much, but I do… and I’m a bit ashamed of it. Like I wouldn’t eat a whole package of chocolate cookies during my train commute, I wouldn’t read a James Bond novel in plain sight of my fellow commuters. I’d feel too self-conscious to take in any of the words. Both cookies and novels should be consumed in the privacy of your own home, preferably on a comfortable chair with a nice cup of tea. And now my embarrassment levels are going to be tested again, there is a new James Bond novel coming out, and I’m pre-ordering.

On 28 May 2008 it’s Ian Flemings 100th birthday and on that day Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks is released, a brand new James Bond novel. And praise the lord, it is situated during the Cold War. Those communists make damn good fictional bad-guys.

Thank god there is a semi naked chick on the cover, that will make my commute so much easier.

gr.jakko

Our family went 1-UP

One week ago our little daughter Ashling was born. So I’ll expect the Responsible Citizen Badge to arrive by mail any day now. With two kids we’ve got a higher than average family size. Yes, we’re taking an active role in trying to stop the trend of the ageing population, rescueing our pensions at the same time. We should be rewarded for that.

Mother and child are doing excellent. So do big brother and dad. Although dad’s a bit tired and has this continuous whining headache in the back of his head.

I wasn’t going to post a picture of the baby, because usually the only people who care are the parents and most babies look alike anyway. At least from my guy perspective they do.

But she’s so cute and I just can’t help myself.

gr.jakko

The Kite Runner… sigh

By bullying and psychological manipulations my wife finally got me to pick up The Kite Runner… the book, not the movie. I really didn’t feel like reading this particular book. My wife liked it, and that’s a big part of the reason I didn’t want to read it. We don’t share the same taste in books. Mine can handle dragons, hers doesn’t.

As the open-minded-person that I am, I put the damn thing in my bag and started reading it this morning on my way to work. I’ve read a couple of chapters, can’t say it really grabbed me yet. So far I’ve only read setup, setup and some more setup. Nothing happening there, not even a decent dialogue between two people. I fear it is going to take a lot of effort to plough through this thing.

Could be that my literary interests don’t exceed those of a twelve year old.

Some books I’ve finished recently that I did like:

• Stephen Fry – Moab Is My Washpot (Beautiful prose, funny, very personal)
• Diana Wynne Jones – Howl’s Moving Castle (Enchanting, charming)
• Neil Gaiman – American Gods (bombastic, couldn’t put it down)

gr.jakko