A software development blog that I read had an entry on alternative data storage. It referred to a tongue in cheek project called PaperBack. The idea is that your data is printed out to paper so that it will not degrade like magnetic or optical storage. There are serious people thinking on this subject. All in all I cannot tell if PaperBack is a joke or serious. Regardless, it highlights something that I often think about.
I look at all the data that I and my family have acquired over time and wonder about it. Documents, audio files, image files, videos and others. I have managed over time to collapse them down to a single large collection, which I have on multiple different hard drives. The collection represents all the floppy and zip disks I'd hauled around for 20+ years plus CD and DVD archives. Luckily external hard drives have plunged in price.
I should have started all this sooner than I did and count myself lucky that catastrophe did not strike. I have personally encountered tape that could not be used for anything or there was no software to read it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of data inaccessible. Myself, I have CD's from the late 80's that are no longer readable. I also have a graveyard of dead hard drives.
It makes me think about how fleeting all this is. The fact that hard drives even work is something of a miracle with all the things that have to work JUST so between the hardware and software, at many levels. Every couple of years I have a fit of getting things together and saved. After I spend all the time doing it and making sure I've got it all I worry about the drives that I am backed up to failing. Or that a tornado will come in and annihilate it all regardless, making my efforts futile.
Then I get very philosophical and wonder what is so important with what I have. One time when I thought I had lost about six months worth of photos I felt physically ill and dreaded telling my wife. Luckily I found the files on another backup and all was saved. Regardless, if a tornado came along and annihilated the house and both backups we would be glad just to be alive.
I guess sometimes you have to balance off covering yourself against absolutely everything and what really matters.
Regardless, if you have not already done it, go out and buy an external hard drive and back up all your data. It is only a matter of time before your main hard drive fails. It is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.
Showing posts with label tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tools. Show all posts
Friday, August 7, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
(Not) Getting Things Done
One of the core values of Getting Things Done (GTD) is to capture everything. You use "buckets" such as a pad of paper, a voice recorder, etc. to capture any and all things you need to get done. Ideally you should get by with as FEW buckets as you can, and you have to empty them periodically, ideally daily. Then all the items should be processed, put into appropriate slots for further action.
Some people start into GTD with guns blazing and eventually bail out, abandoning the system entirely as too much trouble and too rigid. Some others (like myself) continue to capture everything, but don't make the time to do the processing and wind up with information scattered hither and yon.
Myself, I have a digital voice recorder, a Palm PDA, my GMail account using a GTD Firefox extension, the GMail task list widget, a collection of Google documents and a couple of scattered OneNote files. I also recently loaded up EverNote to give it a swirl but have thus far put very little into it. Needless to say it is overwhelming when I look at all of them and try to wrap my head around it.
Like an addict of some kind, though, I continue to go through the motions even though I have no idea why I'm doing them. I guess I think I'll suddenly get a bunch of time to plough through and get my collective stuff in order.
I don't normally consider myself an overly hopeful individual but I must be. The MOST important items continue to bubble to the top but what I really need to do is clear the decks and do another reset. Hand-in-hand with that is a need to ruthlessly purge a lot of things that have been hanging around my lists for years now that I am just going to have to accept are not going to happen in my lifetime.
The geeky aspect of all this is that I'm saving up and waiting to get myself an iPod Touch to try and replace a bunch of these items. There are some people who follow GTD who have eschewed the technological approach and go with Hipster PDAs (collections of 3x5 cards with a binder clip).
I wonder what the techgnostic approach to all this should be? Generally it would mean an application of just enough technology to be effective without gold-plating for the purposes of geeky fulfillment or to fit into whatever current rhetoric my technological church of choice dictates. Maybe my technology needs are simpler than I think they are, and my fevered thoughts of creating or finding an XML format to allow for a vendor and platform neutral means to store all my GTD information are insanity?
Hmmm. Now that I start looking around apparently EverNote supports XML import / export. Here's someone else who's obviously put a lot of thought into this also. Plus there are many software packages for this.
The techgnostic thing to do, I think, would be to pick something that is just enough to help me integrate what I have and make it less painful to keep up. Another project to add my my list.
Doh!
Some people start into GTD with guns blazing and eventually bail out, abandoning the system entirely as too much trouble and too rigid. Some others (like myself) continue to capture everything, but don't make the time to do the processing and wind up with information scattered hither and yon.
Myself, I have a digital voice recorder, a Palm PDA, my GMail account using a GTD Firefox extension, the GMail task list widget, a collection of Google documents and a couple of scattered OneNote files. I also recently loaded up EverNote to give it a swirl but have thus far put very little into it. Needless to say it is overwhelming when I look at all of them and try to wrap my head around it.
Like an addict of some kind, though, I continue to go through the motions even though I have no idea why I'm doing them. I guess I think I'll suddenly get a bunch of time to plough through and get my collective stuff in order.
I don't normally consider myself an overly hopeful individual but I must be. The MOST important items continue to bubble to the top but what I really need to do is clear the decks and do another reset. Hand-in-hand with that is a need to ruthlessly purge a lot of things that have been hanging around my lists for years now that I am just going to have to accept are not going to happen in my lifetime.
The geeky aspect of all this is that I'm saving up and waiting to get myself an iPod Touch to try and replace a bunch of these items. There are some people who follow GTD who have eschewed the technological approach and go with Hipster PDAs (collections of 3x5 cards with a binder clip).
I wonder what the techgnostic approach to all this should be? Generally it would mean an application of just enough technology to be effective without gold-plating for the purposes of geeky fulfillment or to fit into whatever current rhetoric my technological church of choice dictates. Maybe my technology needs are simpler than I think they are, and my fevered thoughts of creating or finding an XML format to allow for a vendor and platform neutral means to store all my GTD information are insanity?
Hmmm. Now that I start looking around apparently EverNote supports XML import / export. Here's someone else who's obviously put a lot of thought into this also. Plus there are many software packages for this.
The techgnostic thing to do, I think, would be to pick something that is just enough to help me integrate what I have and make it less painful to keep up. Another project to add my my list.
Doh!
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Manager Tools
When I assumed my management role I had up until then acted as a lead or senior developer, leading small teams of programmers.
In those positions I did not do performance reviews, except to provide feedback to managers when requested. I did not actively participate in recruiting efforts, outside of being asked to speak to candidates. My need to convey status was relatively simple, targeted towards what the group and I were working on. It was relatively manageable to keep an eye on what was being developed, to help out with coding issues and to guide the programming efforts.
Any other aspect of management was handled by my manager. I had taken organizational behavior courses at university, plus some psychology courses and had a general idea of how you should interact with people if you wanted them to not react adversely to suggestions or direction. To a great extent, though, people were still baffling, but I did not have to really deal with people issues very much. Those issues would be kicked up to the manager.
Previous experience in administration rotated around worrying about office details at a startup, and being seconded into helping make certain projects happen. The paperwork load as a senior / lead developer was not onerous, though at times annoying. Again, the manager had to handle all that, but that was his/her job.
When I started "managing" I suddenly found myself thrust into needing to deal with people issues, continual requests for status (a friend termed me the "answer monkey" - i.e., when someone wanted an answer they would rattle my cage) and administrative overhead to accomplish tasks like recruiting, setting up training, etc. I thought "OK, I've seen this done before. It can't be difficult."
After trying what I thought were the correct approaches I realized that I needed to learn some new techniques. I read some pieces on management (helped a bit), went to some seminars (helped more) and tried out different approaches. Some things worked, and I kept doing them. Others did not, and I stopped doing them.
I seem to be handling most management items acceptably well, hiring people in and my direct reports are getting things done. I still find myself snowed under with minutiae, and struggle to control a lot of the things that demand my time (I will go on in another post about "Getting Things Done"). As an attempt to squeeze more learning into a day without adversely impacting my existing personal and professional obligations I started listening to learning CDs in the car on the way into work. These helped also, squeezing a little more learning in.
However, listening to CDs was a bit too limiting as I also have time to listen when I'm walking or at the gym, so I transferred them to my iPod. That helped somewhat too, but some of the courses on CD are six or more hours long, and I found it hard to squeeze effective learning into the half-hour fragments I tend to have. I had been subscribing to some music podcasts, and recently had added a Spanish language and a legal issues podcast. I cast about for other podcasts to add and came across Manager Tools.
Ah ha!
I started listening to their podcasts from somewhere in the early 2007 time frame and was hooked. Here was a reasonably short podcast (in the 20 to 30 minute range) with specific actionable items that I could use immediately. The presenters provided all kinds of context and information about why to take the action, but the takeaway was the thing that you should do, or other nugget of good information. Rather than trying to make a single, monolithic work that covers every last aspect of management they have taken the approach of presenting bite-sized pieces of useful knowledge.
If you are interested in management at all, you need to go listen to these podcasts.
In those positions I did not do performance reviews, except to provide feedback to managers when requested. I did not actively participate in recruiting efforts, outside of being asked to speak to candidates. My need to convey status was relatively simple, targeted towards what the group and I were working on. It was relatively manageable to keep an eye on what was being developed, to help out with coding issues and to guide the programming efforts.
Any other aspect of management was handled by my manager. I had taken organizational behavior courses at university, plus some psychology courses and had a general idea of how you should interact with people if you wanted them to not react adversely to suggestions or direction. To a great extent, though, people were still baffling, but I did not have to really deal with people issues very much. Those issues would be kicked up to the manager.
Previous experience in administration rotated around worrying about office details at a startup, and being seconded into helping make certain projects happen. The paperwork load as a senior / lead developer was not onerous, though at times annoying. Again, the manager had to handle all that, but that was his/her job.
When I started "managing" I suddenly found myself thrust into needing to deal with people issues, continual requests for status (a friend termed me the "answer monkey" - i.e., when someone wanted an answer they would rattle my cage) and administrative overhead to accomplish tasks like recruiting, setting up training, etc. I thought "OK, I've seen this done before. It can't be difficult."
After trying what I thought were the correct approaches I realized that I needed to learn some new techniques. I read some pieces on management (helped a bit), went to some seminars (helped more) and tried out different approaches. Some things worked, and I kept doing them. Others did not, and I stopped doing them.
I seem to be handling most management items acceptably well, hiring people in and my direct reports are getting things done. I still find myself snowed under with minutiae, and struggle to control a lot of the things that demand my time (I will go on in another post about "Getting Things Done"). As an attempt to squeeze more learning into a day without adversely impacting my existing personal and professional obligations I started listening to learning CDs in the car on the way into work. These helped also, squeezing a little more learning in.
However, listening to CDs was a bit too limiting as I also have time to listen when I'm walking or at the gym, so I transferred them to my iPod. That helped somewhat too, but some of the courses on CD are six or more hours long, and I found it hard to squeeze effective learning into the half-hour fragments I tend to have. I had been subscribing to some music podcasts, and recently had added a Spanish language and a legal issues podcast. I cast about for other podcasts to add and came across Manager Tools.
Ah ha!
I started listening to their podcasts from somewhere in the early 2007 time frame and was hooked. Here was a reasonably short podcast (in the 20 to 30 minute range) with specific actionable items that I could use immediately. The presenters provided all kinds of context and information about why to take the action, but the takeaway was the thing that you should do, or other nugget of good information. Rather than trying to make a single, monolithic work that covers every last aspect of management they have taken the approach of presenting bite-sized pieces of useful knowledge.
If you are interested in management at all, you need to go listen to these podcasts.
- Web site: http://www.manager-tools.com/
- Podcast name: Manager Tools
- Podcast URL: http://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/feed/rss2
- The "basics": http://www.manager-tools.com/manager-tools-basics/
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