eric135

Evernote and "Evernote: The unofficial guide to capturing everything and getting things done"

Evernote      

For the past year or so, I've been keeping notes in a plain text file saved in a Dropbox folder. I don't organize it at all, it's pretty much a dump of whatever I am reading, listening to, or written in my Moleskine notebook that I wanted to keep digitally.

It's a pretty simple setup, especially after I downloaded the Blackberry app. I can view this notes folder anywhere I have internet access, including my phone.

The problem with the Dropbox app is that it doesn't have any search function. If I'm looking for something specific, I have to scroll through the whole file, and now that it's getting to be a big file, it's getting to be a hassle. 

So I wanted to upgrade to a note-keeping system. Specifically,

• I want to be able to keep my notes online.
• I want to track tasks using the Getting Things Done method.
• I want my notes to be secure.
• I want to be able to sync my notes and retrieve via the internet.
• I want to be able to work with my notes on my phone.
• I want to use tags, and be able to pull up notes easily via the tags.
• I want to have the option of sharing specific notes with others.
• I want to be able to store images.
• I want it for free.

For the past couple of days, I've been giving Evernote a try. I have been reading tweets and blog posts about happy Evernote users, but the last time I tried to figure it out (more than a year ago) it didn't seem very user friendly. So either they've fixed that problem, or I've become more saavy (probably a good deal of both).

The tags work great. Tags are on a list by alphabetical order, but when viewing a list of all of my posts, all tags for that note are clickable so you can drill down into all other Notes with that tag. 

When the tags aren't enough, Evernote comes with a search function so you can find just about anything quickly. 

I would highly suggest reading Daneil Gold's Evernote: The unofficial guide to capturing everything and getting things done. I've assigned GTD tags by urgency (!!today, !!ThisWeek), location (@work, @phone, @computer, @waiting) and by project (.christmas, .resume, etc.)  I haven't had the need yet but if I interacted with others and needed input/response I would have another cluster of tags like #fred, #ethel, #lucy, #ricky. By searching for groups of tags, you can get a pretty thorough working list of things to be done:

• Searching "!!today" shows the stuff you want to do today.
• Searching ".projectX and #lucy" shows what tasks you've assigned to Lucy regarding Project X.
• Searching ".projectX and @waiting" shows what tasks for ProjectX are awaiting input/response from anyone.
• Searching ".projectX and @waiting and #ethel" shows what you are waiting for from Ethel regarding Project X. If you want to finish it today you can add the tag !!today.
• By saving searches, you can use them over and over again.

Evernote has launched a new function called Evernote Clearly. After running the install, now when I am reading a web page, I have a button on the browser that re-loads the page stripping off all the ads. You end up with a much more readable page that you can also adjust the font size. You can click on a button and beam that as a new Note directly into Evernote. Images are included, and all the links work (even if you just click-and-drag, when you paste into a new Note, the links work, which is nice). 

Some other nice features:

• You can send notes to Evernote via email, and you can assign tags via email.
• Images are scanned for text, and they will show up in search (for Premium users).
• You can imbed audio files.
• The free version includes a monthly allowance of 60MB of data. After that, it's $5/month or $45/year.
• You can generate URLs for specific Notes. For notes written in my Moleskine, after I type them into Evernote, I run these URLs through tinyurl.com and write the ~7 character string (the random characters after "http://tinyurl.com/") in red next to my Moleskine notes. This way, multiple note-taking sessions will have the same tinyurl for the same subject.
• You can grab the note URL and clip it into Google Calendar, so if there is a note associated with a calendar event you can read it.

Evernote also comes with apps for the iPhone 4S and Kindle Fire that Santa's going to get me for Christmas.

 

Lake in Watercolor pencils...

I've been expanding my horizons, working on my drawing skills with colored pencils and watercolor pencils. 

I still enjoy watercolors, but it is daunting to get everything all set up for what might be a short uninspired session, and you end up thinking you'd rather just not do it today so you won't have to clean up everything afterward.

That's where the watercolor pencils and colored pencils come in. I have Prismacolor watercolor pens, and I also have a set of colored pencils. 

I sometimes want to do something creative, but don't want to fetch clean water, get all my brushes out, tape down my watercolor paper and all that. No I can just pull out a handful of pencils and start sketching away. If I use my watercolor pencils, I can later spray a fine mist of water over the sketch and watch the colors intensify. You can take a brush and move some pigment around, or even switch to watercolor brushes and use that medium to put in dominant themes.

5in x 8in Moleskine sketchpad

Prismacolor watercolor pencils 

 

 

 

 

Absolutely amazing guitar version of Michael Jackson's Beat It by 15 year old Sungha Jung

Amazing. He also has an excellent version of Dancing Queen and Hotel California on his YouTubes. 

 Here's a duet with Trace Bundy performing Pachelbel's Canon. Beautiful. 

www.sunghajung.com

 

Wisconsin Isn't Ohio

Well, it turns out it won't be as easy a task to push the recall of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, despite encouraging results in Ohio the other night.

• Wisconsin law does not permit a public referendum on the Collective Bargaining law. The only way to repeal the law is to recall Governor Walker.
• Unlike the Ohio law defeated Tuesday, Wisconsin's Senate Bill 5 specifically excludes firefighters and police.
• Wisconsin voters may not be as ready to recall a Governor as Ohio was to block a specific law or policy.
• Wisconsin voters may not be ready to recall a Republican and replace him with a Democrat.No Democrat is clearly interested in taking over the job of being Governor of Wisconsin.

From NPR

 

My Favorite TV Shows

I watch a lot of television. I'm sure I constitute a nightmare of social evolution -- sitting in a darkened room, watching stock charts on one screen, typing into email or blogging on another, with TV perpetually in the background. The TV is always on when I'm awake, if only to provide background noise. And it doesn't stop when I go to bed. I have Star Trek The Motion Picture on my netbook's Tivo Desktop, and I play it as I get into bed (cool thing about that is that when the movie is over, the laptop goes into sleep mode).

Television is an important part of my morning routine. After working a 12-hour night shift at the hospital, we eat breakfast in front of the 50" TV and crank up Tivo for an hour or so before I go to bed for the day. 

This is what we are watching:

The Rachel Maddow Show. Yes, we're pretty liberal. Some day, we'll block Fox News so it won't even play anywhere in our apartment. We get all of our political news from MSNBC and CNN. But we just love Rachel. We call her "Honey." So when something interesting happens, one of us will say to the other, "so, what does Honey have to say" or "how do you think Honey will respond to that one?" If Rachel ever finds my blog and reads this, I hope she isn't mortified. Honey means she's a part of our family -- the part that makes sense first thing in the morning and tells us the truth.

 CSI Crime Scene Investigation. I've been saying this since its first season -- the smartest hour on television and a good show to watch how the Sciendific Method actually works.

 Big Bang Theory. People tell me am just like Sheldon. That would be enough for me to look, but after three seasons, it's the great writing that keeps me coming. Like them, we eat our meals in the tv room. We don't eat out as often, but we do have favorite restaurants we go to over and over again. We do have assigned seating. I love the way the ensemble cast has grown with and into one another.

 Fringe. I think it's an homage, maybe even a re-imagining, of the X-Files franchise. Really weird and freaky story lines including the perenniel favorite, alternate dimensions and time lines. John Noble is spooky-effective as Walter.

 Hot in Cleveland. I just love Betty White. She gets the best lines but the worst wardrobe. And I've had a thing for Valerie Bertineli since One Day at a Time.

 The Good Wife. I don't like a whole lot of lawyer shows, but this isn't just about the courtroom. This is the story of the wife of a State Attorney who cheats on her with another woman. She decides to make it on her own as a lawyer, while dealing with the aftermath with her family. A lot of really powerfull talent in this show.

 Happily Divorced. They've been married for 18 years, and then one day he realized he had been gay the whole time. This is a hilarious story about how these two divorcees try to rebuild their lives in what is usually a painful situation. The magic of the show is that the two still love each other deeply. 

 2 Broke Girls. These two girls have such great chemistry. She's like Bernie Maddoff's daughter who has lost all of her money and belongings to a grand jury, and she's trying to start a cupcake business while working at a downtown NY diner. The dialogue is the best on television. 

 New Girl. I loved the first episode, but was disappointed in the second episode, and then they went on hiatus for a month. The producers of the show need to think about that more. Anyway, I'm willing to give it another chance but the last episode was the ubiquitous "saw you naked" episode which, in the genre of co-ed room mate shows, is just too overdone. I think they should keep Jess, Schmidt and Cece but change the other two room mates to more interesting characters. Still giving it a chance. 

 Terra Nova. An interesting Sci-fi show. Folks from 22nd century Earth have messed up the environment so bad they had to get off the planet, and the way they did it was to figure out a way to go back millions of years into Earth's past. If you're a Star Trek fan, you'd freak out right here as they messed up their own time line, but somehow that catastrophe has been averted, they are screwing up with a parallel dimension's time line. Well, I'm not as much into that as the story of how they survive in a pre-historic environment while yet enjoying the benefits of 22nd century earth. Jason Omera is great and believable, as is Stephen Lang (who I had just grown to hate after his character on Avatar, but here he's very heroic and likable.) My only problem with the show is that it can lapse from great Sci-fi to, well, basically, a trivial episode of Dawson's Creek. I mean, teen-aged angst is going to be a problem when there are velociraptors out there trying to eat ya? I don't think so. But again I'm giving it a chance.

 American Horror Story. Man, this is one messed up show, and I Totally Love It. It's a haunted house recently bought by a painfully dysfunctional family. A sex dom dressed all in leather, ipecac-laced cupcakes, nurses getting stabbed to death (oooh... I do love that one... don't ask me why...) and the appalling lack of lockable doors all set my nerves on fire. 

 Grimm. He's the descendant of a long line of monster killers. The Matriarch, his aunt, has died, and has left him everything, including a trailer full of axes and swords. I like the show so far, especially the chemistry between David Guintoli and his two parters (one is a cop, the other is a vegan wolf man with a sense of honor and justice and does pilades. )

Grimm is on at the same time line as Fringe, and I hear the ratings are down for Fringe as Grimm goes up in ratings. I'm hoping with the DVR/Tivo technology out there, that we've come up with a way to count our household under both shows, as our dual-channel Tivo records both at the same time. No idea how that works out.

Listening to what people have to say... sounds like a good plan...

Yesterday was a good day for the little people.

Ohio voters rejected a law, proposed by Governor Kasich, that would have worked against collective bargaining via unions in the state. In his statement, Kasich admitted that he had to "spend more time listening to what the people have to say" about this issue. I thought he did a good job with the reality check. I don't know how the Republican Party ever got the idea that villainizing fire-fighters, teachers and nurses and protecting the rights of the richest rich would get the vote. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus downplayed the importance of the vote, stating that this was "just a local state matter" and that the real news was the defeat of Obamacare in Ohio. Yeah, his finger is right on the pulse of voting Americans. Interesting that the numbers of votes defeating this law is greater than the number of votes that put Kasich in office in the first place.

Speaking of Obamacare, although defeated in Ohio, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Obamacare is constitutional. Probably far more compelling than what happened in Ohio.

In Mississippi, voters rejected the law that defined personhood as beginning at conception. The law, if passed, would have had frightening implications for women who not only became pregnant as a result of rape or incest, but all women who rely on certain hormone-based birth control. As written, a woman could possibly be the subject of criminal investigation for having an ectopic pregnancy, or hell, for even having an unusually heavy menstrual flow. Those that wrote this law really needed to find a state where, say, there weren't any women at all. Certainly a state where the women don't have sex. I mean... so simple...

Yes, Arizona, there's hope for us too. We voted to recall Russell Pearce, the Arizona State Senator who authored the law that enabled police to ask for immigration papers for "anyone that looked in any way suspicious." 

The lesson here, one I hope that the Republican Party is busy learning today, is that you can't demonize and villainize 99% of the people, in blatant favor of the richest rich, and expect to do well at the polls. You can't make healthcare decisions for half of the voting population without any sympathy to the health impact a law would have on your own mothers, sisters, and daughters (much less your neighbors' mothers sisters and daughters) without suffering at the polls. And you can't turn your back on the fact that, just a few generations back, your family were immigrants (unless you're a Native American) and that all of us are standing on American soil cultivated, nurtured and indeed slaved over by the aching backs of immigrants.

 

Bombay Spice Grill and Wine, Phoenix AZ USA

  We were in the mood for something different for dinner. We've been to an Indian restaurant here in Phoenix but that one seems to have gone out of business, and the others were too far away at the other end of town. 

Bombay Spice Grill and Wine ironically is located just a few miles down the road, and shares the parking lot with a frequent haunt, Gamestop store. I found an online review, and after perusing its website, we decided to give it a try.

 I ordered two appetizers (I didn't read the menu very carefully and didn't realize neither was an entree, but I still enjoyed my meal). The dish on the left is the lamb Seekh Kabab, and the one on the right is the seared eggplant. Both were excellent, not too hot, not too overpowering. I really love eggplant and rarely cook it, so it was a treat.

Definitely a place we will visit again. The decor was modern and elegant. On a Monday night, the restaurant was not very full so there was plenty of room. The staff were friendly and knowledgeable about the food.

Moleskine -- My life in little black books...

 I love writing in little notebooks. I'm pretty digital usually, with most of my thoughts, projects and plans saved in some type of electronic device. But I've always loved writing in little notebooks.

My favorite is the Hardcover Pocket Moleskine Square Notebook, and am currently writing in two of them (I thought I lost one so I bought another, and then found it again months later). I also am writing in two Moleskine 5x8 (large) notebooks, a large Moleskine 5x8 Watercolor Notebook, a classic composition notebook (the cheap ones used in grade school, with the black and white marbled cover), and a large ruled "pleather" bound notebook that I bought sometime around 1983.

So what do I write in all this stuff?

Pocket Moleskine Square-ruled Notebook:

• This is my daily workhorse notebook. The first thing I do is number every other page. I don't know why I prefer the square-ruled paper, rather than lined or blank. I carry it in one of the pockets in my scrubs, or the back pocket of my jeans or shorts, or in my bag.
• Thoughts or quotes from books, magazines or blogs I'm reading
• titles and authors of books I want to read (and why I want to read them, if it's not obvious from the title)
• notes from news or "political television" about presidential candidates, during election times
• websites I want to read later (I usually run the URL through TinyURL first, using the Custom Alias feature to make the TinyURL more readable; I especially use this at work because we have a web filter and many sites are blocked
• map coordinates for places I want to save on my GPS (I hate the way my GPS sometimes doesn't put me right in the parking lot of the business I'm going to, so I use GoogleMaps Streetview to find the place and grab the exact latitude/longitude coordinates and send those to my GPS)
• notes during meetings
• miscellaneous contact information
• For topics that may run from one set of pages to another, at the end of an entry, I'll write -->35 indicating that the topic continues on page 35, and at the beginning of an entry I'll write 25<-- indicating a topic that is continued from page 25. 
• I don't keep an index. Instead, I'll type pertinent information I want to save permenantly into a .txt file that goes into a Dropbox folder that I can pull up anywhere and can search through.
• For text/images that I want transfered from one notebook to the next, I've started to save information in "MSK" files on www.moleskine.com, which I can add to, save, and print. The info is formated to fit the notebook -- I print them out, cut them down to size, and tape them into the first few pages of a new notebook. I limit this to hospital phone extensions, door lock codes, and faxes I use daily.

Large Moleskine Ruled Notebooks: I've been keeping a diary for years, although years may lapse between entries. This is the last thing I do before bed, an exercise to clear my mind before going to sleep. Because I am a frequent Ambien/zolpidem user, some of my entries are complete surprises to me when I read them later. I'm also using my diary to work on improving my worsening cursive handwriting. 

Large Moleskine Watercolor Journal: a hobby that comes and goes. If I don't feel like writing in my diary, I'll sometimes paint a bit before going to sleep. 

Classic Composition Notebook: I keep almost daily notes on the stock market, as well as whatever research about interesting companies, usually from the Investors Business Daily website.

 

Desert Botanical Gardens

We spent a day visiting the Desert Botanical Gardens. 

Our local library offers free passes to local attractions, including the Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix Zoo, the Heart Museum and other attractions. It's a very good deal (it saved us $36 today, and we've used the passes on several occasions the past year). 

It's been several years since we've last been to the Botanical Gardens. I remember our first visit when we first moved to Phoenix. It was a hot July afternoon, and we had not learned the Phoenician sense to stay out of the heat. It must have been 112 degrees in the shade, and it was hard to enjoy the gardens when my first and primary thoughts were devoted to basic survival skills and getting through the damn park to our air conditioned car. 

You'd think we'd learned our lesson, but a few years later, I was in the DBG with my sister, this time in late May, the temperature was around 105 degrees, and again our primary thoughts were of survival.

What a difference a few years make. We've learned the local common sense of staying out of the damn heat when is damn hot outside, and save trips to the DBG for cooler months. In early November, the temperature was a mild 72 degrees, many of the plant species were in bloom, and the whole experience was much more enjoyable. 

The one thing we have yet to learn as Phoenix residents is that the sun will still burn you, even in the winter. Being so cool, we didn't wear hats and we didn't put on any sun block. Thus we both got some pretty serious sunburn over the course of two hours.

The learning curve continues.

See the full gallery on Posterous

What... On Earth... is going on with the Republican Party?

I'm a hopeless junky for political news. I watch mostly MSNBC and CNN, and also try to watch BBC and PBS Newshour. I've been appalled by the hot mess going on in the Republican party. It just seems they are doing enough damage to their own party, much less offering any real alternative to the Democratic Party. The debates have been ludicrious, even silly, and the sound bytes coming from the Romney, Cain and Perry campaigns are just plain weird ... singing, weird hugging of bottles of syrup, reversals of opinion... it's all very strange. 

To put my political views in some perspective, I haven't always voted Democrat. I voted for Reagan, daddy Bush, and even baby Bush (twice!). There have been times that I have agreed with their fiscal policies, their views on world politics, and their ability to keep the American Dream alive.

But what on Earth is going on with them now? It just seems, since the McCain/Palin campaign, the Republican Party's poor showing and their forced marriage to the Religious Right has forced the Republicans to make a lot of concessions.

It's like they haven't been able to get a date for the senior prom, and so they were forced to ask some weird chick, and when they picked her up to take her to the dance, her Dad opens the door holding a few snakes, drinking from a very large barrel of red Kool Aid, and speaking in Tongues. But you can't say, "whoa, dude, you are totally fucked up, no way am I going to have a thing to do with you or your religion or political views," because you know you're going to have to talk all nice to him so he'll let you sleep with his daughter.

Yeah, it's just like that.