A Few Of My Favorite Gmail Tricks

One of my morning tasks: sorting email. Yeah, the same as zillions of other earthlings. My team are Gmail users, so here’s a quick trick I use to speed up my morning. Plug the following into the search bar: in:inbox has:nouserlabels.

This pulls up everything that’s not been labeled yet. I use labels to help prioritize. Plus, one everything is labeled, it’s easy to pull up the whole thread and then archive the redundant messages. I prefer getting all the responses together in one email. Trying to minimize data scatter.  Another one I use: in:inbox is:unread. Pulls up all your unread messages. Of secondary value to the first, though.

I check my spam folder >= daily, but I don’t scroll down to the spam tag. In the same box, just type “in:spam”, and it pops up fast.

Thoughts on Chrome, Firefox and Open Platforms

I’ve noticed over the past few days that Chrome became boggy and SLOOOOW. There are things I love about Chrome, but it’s propensity to hogging resources and, thus, degrading my machine’s performance have long bugged me. Being deeply enmeshed within the Google ecosystem might play a big part in that. But, the more I think about things, the more I’m concerned about my personal trend towards the Chrome/Google system.

I highly value the Open Source community and what they bring to the table. Even though I’ve worked for several large corporations, I really appreciate all that this community brings to the world. It’s more than simply free software, but also open standards. To me, it’s critical that corporations cannot lock out access to our data. So, utilizing open standards is critical.

With that, though, I look at tools such as Gimp, Open Office, and Scibus and see so much potential. For, say, image editing, wouldn’t it prove better to the world that the default image system wasn’t Photoshop, or desktop publishing InDesign? Dependence on one company causes me great concern. I really want to start pushing towards the adoption of open standards as the default for most industries. I don’t mean to disparage Adobe, Microsoft, or any one else. It should just scare the crap out of us to have only one real player in an industry.

So, going forward, I shall find open alternatives for my work (see the links above to start with). First, today, FireFox for browsing. I know this will also improve my system performance. And will I really notice any of the missing features. Heck, other than drag & drop attachments from Gmail to Windows Explorer, is there anything that is in Chrome but not available in Firefox? I’m not too concerned.

Growing Healthier

A few years ago, my weight crept past 220 lbs. With clothes tight, belts tighter to the point of needing replacement, I felt fear. In my mid-40s, all the diseases associated with obesity stared me coldly in the eye. Even more frightening, I noticed a few people, slightly older than me, with major mobility issues. All that lead to a call to get healthy.

Now I didn’t race for the nearest cross-fit course. I just added back some things I love: cycling and walking, also attacking some dietary “low hanging fruit” (limit soda, cut back on sweets, smaller portions) and ten pounds dropped quickly. But each additional drop presents challenges. So I adopted several smartphone tools, the main one now being MyFitnessPal. And I keep looking for better tools.

About 6 months back, I noticed my wife’s Fitbit laying unused and asked to try it out. I hated the thing! It displayed, in great detail, my sedentary life. So, I parked the thing. Then, around New Year’s, my fallow account got friends connecting to me. Funny, that motivated me to find the Fitbit and relaunch the tool. Now, though, the lack of activity challenges me to grow forward. I’ve been trying to add more activity to my life, deliberately so. Small steps, small steps; pun completely intended.

Last night I noticed the nutrition tab in MyFitnessPal and was, again, horrified. Too much fat and carbs, too little of myriad key nutrients. For sometime I’ve thought about building a menu about achieving great nutrition. Well, time to up that. So, a brand new life project. Got ideas, suggestions, etc, let me know.

Java, Lenovo, Crapware and my Annoyance

I wrote about Java’s sneaky install of the Ask.com crap before, but this has come up again for me. So, let me go on a little bit more. When installing Java, or Java updates, make sure you uncheck the “Search App by Ask”. Watch for this screen here:

Fortunately, the fix for this is pretty straightforward: go to Control Panel, Remove Programs and then remove it.

I love Java, and Oracle, but this just annoys the heck out of me. This puts them in the same doghouse that Lenovo resides in right now. I find it annoying enough for them to embed this adware at the root level, but then to try and minimize the security risk involved just angers me. I’ve had great success with Lenovo machines and like to recommend them. This, though, greatly impacts that trust.

In case you have one of the possibly infected machines, here are some tools for you:

More Tech Thoughts From The Sky

I’m sitting on a plane now returning to Seattle after the better part of a week away. With my trusty tablet, though, I’m pretty fully connected. My laptop is at my feet, sleeping peacefully. My phone is charging. And I’m fully in touch with the world. Well, save for the slow wifi and the fact I lost my stylus. The wifi should be excused as it looks like nearly everyone is online in some way, shape or form.

But we’re never satisfied, are we? Always want more, more speed, more power, and that’s what drives innovation and competition. The possibility to out innovate the established player drives us further.

Still, I’m struck by what I can do, right now. It didn’t seem so long ago that it was novel to just use a laptop in flight, without any connectivity. Really, if we think about it, it’s amazing.

Someone will make internet even faster, and other new glorious opportunities will arise. My biggest hope, though, is that we shorten security lines and shorten flight times. Oh, to dream!

More Tech Thoughts From The Sky

I’m sitting on a plane now returning to Seattle after the better part of a week away. With my trusty tablet, though, I’m pretty fully connected. My laptop is at my feet, sleeping peacefully. My phone is charging. And I’m fully in touch with the world. Well, save for the slow wifi and the fact I lost my stylus. The wifi should be excused as it looks like nearly everyone is online in some way, shape or form.

But we’re never satisfied, are we? Always want more, more speed, more power, and that’s what drives innovation and competition. The possibility to out innovate the established player drives us further.

Still, I’m struck by what I can do, right now. It didn’t seem so long ago that it was novel to just use a laptop in flight, without any connectivity. Really, if we think about it, it’s amazing.

Someone will make internet even faster, and other new glorious opportunities will arise. My biggest hope, though, is that we shorten security lines and shorten flight times. Oh, to dream!

Oh, Glorious Technology

I’ll write more about this later, but I wanted to share some notes from the past week at KW Family Reunion. First, modern real estate lives on smartphones. It’s nearly impossible to imagine doing this work without a smartphone. I’m using my trusty Samsung S5 and LG G tablet. The majority of phones I’ve seen this week are iPhones. iPads are prevalent for the heavier lifting begging for tablets. I’ve been surprised, and pleased bug the number of Surface devices (former Microsoftee here). I’m pretty sure that will be my next “laptop”.

So many people crowd the relatively few outlets around the Orange county convention center. Finding plug-in spots provided some challenges. I bought an external battery pack/charger. Wise. Charging my phone waking around, never having to find room at one of the charging stations, nor find an outlet somewhere: priceless!

Just a few lessons for you.

Cheers! 

Living in the Future

This morning, like many, upon waking I grabbed my trusty tablet and organized my day. Email reviewed, tasks considered, organized; yet I’m still warm in bed. What an amazing time!

I wonder:  Where do we go from here? Perhaps a Google Glass variant, the Google Contacts, where we do all the above without opening our eyes?

Is there a limit where we just won’t go further? Perhaps a Google Implant will chill us? Or are such things, allowed to simmer a generation or two, eventually a natural notion?

Of such I wonder….

More thoughts on Karmagate

Just read “Karmagate: 3 former Microsoft women discuss Nadella and what should come next” and came away with one key idea. Mr. Nadella has an opportunity for boldness and vision. My respect for him would grow if he publicly acknowledged the painful ignorance of his “Karmagate” faux pas (which he somewhat has done) and aggressively seek to change the inequalities in the tech sector.

I have the deepest respect for those who not only acknowledge mistakes, but use them as leverage points to affect positive change. Nadella has an opportunity to go from good to great. I hope he takes it.

(*my first response is here)