Windows - The Wrong Platform for Presentations?

Windows PCs should not be used for Presenting

One of the best events I get to go to every couple of years is OZTeK, a conference that focuses on the science, technology and mentality of diving on the cutting edge. It’s even cooler (for me) that for the third time this year, I was one of the MCs of OZTeK.

With a variety of the world’s best speakers in diving, including the likes of Jill Heinerth, Simon Mitchell, Michael Menduno and many others, I consider OZTeK to be a TEDx of tec diving. The presenters are fantastic, and have wonderful stories to tell. As with all presentations everywhere, the quality and style of the supporting media was varied.

Consisting mostly of PowerPoint slides and some supporting video, some of the media actively supported and added to the stories, and some were neutral. Unfortunately, a small number even detracted from the presentations. What was cool was that a few presenters chose to ditch the slides altogether, and instead just spoke. They had good stories, and were clearly passionate about those stories.

I give a lot of presentations, and these days am doing more and more of them from my iPad. My MacBook Air continues, however, to be my main presentation device. What I like about presenting from the Mac is that once you’re in presentation mode in Keynote, the Mac gets out of your way. I would be loathe to use a Windows machine for presenting these days, and my experience at OZTeK only reaffirmed that. You see, Windows machines (provided by the contracted AV company I believe) were used in the conference rooms for presenting.

The biggest problem with Windows is that it is an interuptive device. Windows machines, the Windows OS and Windows applications are often attention seeking little suckers, popping up left, right and centre, craving for you to do something. Or nothing. But at least talk to it, or it will do something anyway.

On several occasions, the little popup bubble shown on the right popped its head up. This one isn’t too bad, because at least it doens’t stop the presentation running. To be fair, notifications in OSX (using Growl or Notifications Center) do much the same. In all cases, these can (and should) be turned off. Especially if you use notification centre for other things, like emails, iMessages, etc…

With Windows, however, the default setting seems to be for the system to automatically download the update (and aren’t there a lot of Windows updates) and for many of these updates to require a restart. Which it also does automatically, although at least the system is nice enough to give you a warning.

Problem is that it will kick you out of what you are doing - even if you are presenting. In presentation mode. You, the presenter, are talking away and start to notice some of your audience giggling. You turn and see the screen. You rush over to hit the “Restart Later” button, because it seems that mostly you have 60 seconds to do so.

Presentation machines - Windows, OSX or even iPads - need to be setup so that once in presentation mode all notifications are automatically blocked from popping up and interupting. And they should never be allowed to kick you out of what you are doing.

With Mac OSX and iOS devices, turning off notifications is quite easy. With Windows, the interuptiveness is deeply embedded in the architecture. It is possible to turn things off, but (in my experience) the process is like the little boy plugging the holes of the dam with his fingers. After plugging 10 holes, things get interesting. And there’s always another hole.

So, as a presenter, I would suggest that you present from a device that allows you to turn off all interuptions. Of course, some notifications might be exceptions - you would want to know if you’ve got a critical battery issue, and you and your audience might want to know if the Centers for Disease Control announce a zombie outbreak.

In my opinion, Windows PC’s are not the right device to present from.

Why its cool to be a nerd

Wil Wheaton (@wilw) sums up why it's a wonderful thing to be a nerd.

Apps for Fever Update

Last week I published a post on the State of Play for Fever RSS and Apps, providing an overview of the iOS and OSX apps available to support Shaun Inman’s brilliant, self-hosted, RSS system Fever.

After a long period of little development on the app front, this last week has seen some exciting developments. I hope these new developments are a sign of things to come. I plan to review each of these separately over the next week or so, but thought a quick update would be worthwhile.

Fever Apps for Mac OSX

ReadKit - OSX (US$4.99)

ReadKit is a wonderful tool for Mac OSX, providing support for browser based reading and sharing services like Instapaper, Pocket, Pinboard and more, in a native app. It has already been an important part of my workflow for sometime, and the addition of support Fever in the beta of version 2 is an exciting development.

Whether you’re a Fever user or not, ReadKit should be a part of your reading workflow.

Fever Apps for iOS

Sunstroke - iOS Universal (US$4.99)

Sunstroke has displaced Reeder as my go-to Fever RSS app on iPhone, and since the release of version 1.4 last week, on iPad. Sunstroke has support for a wide range of social sharing and read later services (almost as wide as Reeder), and it has a gorgeous UI and a UX (user experience) that works best with my workflow.

At US$4.99 (A$5.49), Sunstroke is well priced as a universal app [1] and I suggest that this is the one iOS app for Fever, at this time. The developer is extremely responsive on App.net and Twitter.

Ashes - iOS Universal (US$5.99)

The Ashes app has been (re-) released as a universal app for iOS devices at an introductory price of US$5.99 (A$6.49). According to the website, it will increase to US$8.99 from 9 May. Ashes fully supports all native features of Fever, and has an elegant design. It is visually pleasing to use, and seems very stable.

At US$5.99 Ashes is appropriately priced for a niche product that supports both iPhone and iPad, and makes a good choice for someone wanting an all round app for Fever. The developer is actively talking to users on Twitter and App.net.

Reeder - iPhone (US$2.99)

Version 3.1 of Reeder for iPhone was released during the last week. This added support to the iPhone version of the app (which already supports Fever) for Feedbin.

Clearly the developer is focused on iPhone and Feedbin at this time, and so we will have to wait a while longer for iPad and OSX support for Fever. With apps like ReadKit and Sunstroke, this is no longer the problem it was only a week or so back.

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1. In the State of Play article, I mentioned that I thought Sunstroke was overpriced. Compared to Reeder as an iPhone only app, that stood. But for a universal app for iOS, the price is just fine!  ↩

Notetaking Symbology

Note Taking Symbology

Patrick Rhone today posted about his Dash/Plus System for taking notes. It is an elegant approach to capturing ideas, discussions and other items that might come up, and then working out whether they are an action (open or closed), a “waiting for” item, a delegated item, etc. I suggest you take a look at his post.

Patrick’s system is not unlike an approach I use when in meetings, or otherwise taking notes. Particularly “back in the day” when I managed a diverse group of people, it was important for me to quickly move from meeting to meeting, capture items that I needed to action, or that my people needed to action (because I was ultimately accountable for their action completion), and swiftly ensure those were “in a trusted system” and move on.

It’s important in these situations to ensure that your notetaking system is leakproof (as much as possible), and that you can quickly reference back to check on the status of an item.

In my case, I use(d) the following:

• Square - a next action
• Triangle - a project (in the GTD sense)
• Inverted triange - a someday/maybe type of future project
• Circle - a waiting for item (i.e. something that someone else might be responsible for delivering)

Any of the above with a cross through it simply means that it is “done”. Of course, it is important to capture who is responsible for a waiting for (delegated) item, and when they might need to deliver it.

I post this as a bit of a quick response to Patrick’s Dash/Plus System, but you may have noticed that I stated that “I use(d) the following” above. I think Dash/Plus is a little more elegant, and I think I’ll give that a go. There are two things I like about it

1. First and foremost, separate items can be “captured” without “processing” on the fly. This means you can come back to the items at the end of a meeting, or at the end of the day, and process them into your organisation system.
2. The separation of “waiting for” and “delegated” items. My first response was why, but I quickly realised the power of this. Waiting for means others are wholely responsible to deliver. Delegated means your team is responsible, which means that you continue to hold ultimate responsibility.

I’d be interested to know if anyone else has a system for note taking symbology, like what I used, or the Dash/Plus System.

State of Play: Fever RSS and Apps

State of Play: Fever RSS and Apps

RSS feeds have been a major part of my information workflows since around 2003. My river of news is a major part of my personal information workflow, and is important for professional and personal knowledge gathering, from a diverse group of sources.

I was a major Google Reader advocate since shortly after it’s inception in 2005. Since the the advent of apps on the iPhone, Google Reader morphed into an important and powerful backend and syncing tool for my feeds, with iOS and OSX apps being where I consumed my information.

In March 2012, I began to feel that I had too much of my data in the Google “basket”. I set out to seek an alternative to Google Reader, but found few that were sufficiently supported by iOS and OSX apps. One offering though provided the backend I needed, so I bought a license[1] for Shaun Inman’sFever. At the time Fever was supported by a single app for iPad, Ashes[2]. I setup a Fever site, using Ashes on the iPad, and a web client for Fever on iPhone and OSX[3]. I started using the excellent Reeder app as soon as Reeder for iPhone version 3.0 was released with support for Fever.

Since Google’s announcement that it would discontinue Google Reader from 1/7/13, various RSS app developers have stated that they will support other platforms, and Reeder’s dev confirmed Fever support would be coming in the next versions. The developer of Ashes has also announced his intent for “Ashes to rise again”.

This article is about my experiences to date with Fever, particularly with the various apps I use. Since it’s been a while since I first setup Fever, there is a guest contribution from the author of the BrainCutlery blog, who has recently been through the process.

Fever (US$30)

Fever is a self hosted RSS engine, that costs US$30 for a one-time license fee. The developer does not offer hosting, so you have to be able to setup the application on a server that has PHP and MySQL support. I am neither a developer nor a hardware/network engineer, but was able to do all the setup myself (save for a little chron job that updates feeds in the background).

Fever has many similarities to Google Reader, in that it has a database for your feeds, keeping track of feeds you subscribe to or unsubscribe from, posts you read, favourite and mark read/unread. Importantly, Fever has an API that allows apps you authorise to use your Fever server as a syncing engine.

Apart from being self-hosted and thus not something that can be turned off on you easily, Fever has one very nice feature in that it analyses your feeds, and clusters “Hot” topics together. Posts on Hot topics are moved to a special list where you can flow through a river of the hottest news before tackling your main basket (Kindling) and supplemental feeds (Sparks). You train Fever by categorising feeds as Kindling (feeds that fuel the flames) and Sparks.[4]

There is a native browser view, which works on standard browsers, as well as a mobile view for iPhone. There is support built in for sharing to services like Pinboard, Delicious, Pocket and Instapaper, although a little bit of technical comfort is needed to get things hooked up here.

Setting Fever Up (guest contribution from BrainCutlery)

To non-experts like me, setting up Fever sounds like it’s going to be a complicated affair; after all it has words like ‘PHP’ and ‘SQL’ in it. I wasn’t sure initially that I could be bothered with the hassle. However, after some encouragement on ADN, I decided to take the plunge and was pleasantly surprised how straightforward the process was.

1. Set up a SQL database on your hosting service:

   As I already have a domain hosting service, I was spared from having to set one up. Luckily my current provider, Siteground[5] already has PHP and SQL support so all I needed to do was set up a database, which I achieved by clicking the MySQL databases button in the control panel, adding a database and making note of the database name and settings, all of which were suggested for me.

2. Test drive the Feed settings:

   The next step is to visit the Fever website, create an account and download the “Fever Compatibility Suite.” This small fille will instruct you to upload a couple of files to your destination directory. There are a couple of permissions changes that you might need to do but this is clearly explained in the instructions (I had to do this and it was dead easy from the upload dialogue on Siteground).

   Once the files are uploaded, you navigate to your chosen URL via your web browser to see a dialogue box prompting for the database details you noted down earlier. Keying those in and clicking ’submit’ will run the test and (hopefully) you’ll get a little message confirming you are good to go.

3. Show me the money

   All that’s left to do is go back to the Fever website, log into your account and fork over your $30. Once you’ve done this you’ll get an activation code that you can key into your Fever installation.

   Key the code into your Fever installation and you’ll then see the main Fever UI. The rest, as they say, is up to you!

4. Extra credit homework Once you’ve installed Fever, if you visit the ’Extras’ tab you’ll see a reference to something called a ‘Cron job’ and a little code snippet. This is basically something you can set up on your server that will poll your Fever installation remotely and force it to refresh your feeds.

   Luckily for me, there was a menu in my Siteground Control panel called ‘Cron Jobs’, so after speculatively clicking on that I was able to copy and paste the link provided by Fever (it already includes your URL) and save it. This seems to be working fine for me.

(Many thanks to BrainCutlery for providing the above overview. Since it’s been more than 12 months since I first set Fever up, I thought it’d be great to get the perspective of a recent convert!)

Apps that Support Fever

Ashes - iOS Universal (TBA)

A month or so back, the long dormant Twitter account for Ashes was revived and the Ashes website was updated with a coming soon screen. A limited beta program was soon launched for what started as an iPhone only app, but which quickly evolved to be a universal app for iOS devices. There is an App.net account for Ashes

I’ve been on the beta program for a week or so, primarily using Ashes on my iPad - I’ve played with the iPhone version but my major need is for iPad. I have to say the dev has been making giant strides towards ensuring this is a feature rich, stable offering. As of today (14 April 2013), the developer has stated that it Ashes is feature locked, and is being prepared for release

The UI is simply beautiful, and Ashes works nicely for me, in this iteration. There are some quirks, but the dev is working hard to iron these out prior to release. Ashes supports iOS native sharing with Facebook and Twitter, and also with apps like Tweetbot, Pocket and Instapaper[6]. Integration with services like Pinboard, Delicious and Evernote seem to be missing at this time.

I will review Ashes in more detail when it is released.

Chill Pill - OSX (A$1.99)

Chill Pill gives you the power of the full Fever website in its own app wrapper. This provides the advantages of the website, but also some brings some additional features to the table.

Chill Pill can be set as the default client for RSS in OSX. So if you click on a RSS feed link in your browser of choice, Chill Pill will launch and allow you to subscribe to the feed.

Being a standalone app means that if Chill Pill goes “wonky” (perhaps as a result of a feed with strange data), it will crash just that app, and not your other browser windows. Some browsers give you that natively, others don’t, but Chill Pill makes it easy.

Other cool stuff includes supports for custom styles, multi-touch gestures, and a built in article viewer.

I miss having an app like Reeder for OSX, but until such an app supports Fever, Chill Pill is doing a good job for me, filling an important need.

Reeder - iPhone (A$2.99)

Reeder was quickly my favourite Google Reader app for iPhone when it was released, and took a similar mantle for its iPad and OSX versions when they were released[7]. Since Fever support was introduced in version 3 of Reeder for iPhone, it been my go-to app for reading RSS on iPhone. Reeder’s user interface is simple, but the usability (UX) of the app is outstanding.

Reeder for iPhone has native support for Hot items, but everything else (i.e. Kindling and Sparks) seems to be clustered together under Unread. That works well for me, as I don’t tend to separate Kindling from Sparks in my reading.

Reeder is fast to use, and of all the current app supports the widest variery of inbuilt sharing, read-later and social options, including email, Evernote, Pinboard, Delicious, App.net, Twitter, Pocket, Instapaper, Readability, Buffer, etc.

Reeder is certainly the most feature rich of the offerings in this list (as of this writing).

Sunstroke - iPhone (A$5.49)

Sunstroke has a great UI and an excellent UX. It is clean, visually pleasing and highly functional. It has full support for all Fever elements, including Hot, Kindling and Sparks, and has great integration with read later services such as Instapaper, Pocket and Readability, sharing services like Delicious and Pinboard and social media apps like Twitter, Facebook and Netbot.

I enjoy using Sunstroke the most for my personal browsing of feeds, and of the three iPhone apps, I want to recommend it. I am reluctant to do so for two reasons, however.

1. It crashes occasionally [8]. Not often, but it always seems to be when I am reading an important post, and of course, that will be marked read and disappear when I go back in.
2. At A$5.49 it is an expensive app. I believe in a fair price for a good app, but when a stable product like Reeder is available for $2.99, that has to be a consideration

With that said, Sunstroke is the app to pay attention to. There are regular update releases, and the app has gotten way more stable over time [9].

Web Access for Fever - All Platforms (included)

The Fever application includes a built in web browser allowing the user to access their feeds directly. There are two versions - one for standard browsers, and one for smartphone browsers like iPhone (see image at right).

The iPhone version is quite good, but has only basic functionality. There are no options for sharing, read-later or social services. I keep a link to it on my iPhone screen and occasionally use it to reset feeds or similar. If price was an issue for apps, you could certainly “get away with” the basic app.

The web browser for desktop devices works well on iPad. I can quickly scroll through feeds with an upwards swipe gesture. I can get access to sharding and read-later services as I would on a desktop, but the links to access them are small, and I mis-click 25% or more of the time.

I’d say the browser version is fine on the desktop, and good for fast scrolling on iPad.

Conclusion

I hope that I will soon be able to add to the above list. I have apps for my three major devices (iPhone, iPad and Mac), but look forward to greater competition in each category, hopefully spurring each other onto greater innovation.

As of this writing, my recommendations are:

• iPhone: Reeder
• iPad: Ashes
• OSX: Fever by web browser or Chill Pill

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1. I like that Fever is bought and paid for, and that it is self hosted. I have ownership, and it’s mine if Shaun Inman ever decides not to support it.  ↩

2. I paid A$7.49 for the original version of Ashes in March 2012. Initially I considered it over-priced, under featured and buggy. Following an update, it became simply unusable, crashing on every use. No updates were released, and the app was later pulled from the App Store.  ↩

3. I reverted to using the browser view of Fever on iPad once Ashes became unusable.  ↩

4. Most of the time I don’t use the Hot feature, but simply wade through the broad river of news that is Kindling. I don’t think I’ve ever categorised anything as a Spark. The Hot thing works well, and I’ve recently been making an effort to use it more.  ↩

5. http://www.siteground.com/friends.htm?referrer_id=6937117 (if you sign up you get 11 months free and BrainCutlery will get 1 month free too. Good deal, eh?)  ↩

6. The iOS app has to be installed for the sharing option to be shown.  ↩

7. Reeder for iPhone v3 was released on 15/6/12 (10 months ago today). At the time, the developer stated that Fever and Readability support would be added to the iPad and OSX versions in their next major release. Those releases are still pending.  ↩

8. Update 22/4/13: I’ve been really pleased that the developer of Sunstroke got in touch with me (as a result of this post) and has been getting error logs and has identified the cause of the crashes, and will be fixing in upcoming releases. This gives me a huge amount of confidence in the product.  ↩

9. Update 22/4/13: The developer has announced that the next version of Sunstroke will have some exciting new features, including iPad support.  ↩

The De-Google-fying of my online life...

My Retreat from Google

A few weeks back I posted about my Return to Google following my move away from it in 2012. I have been growing increasingly wary of Google’s creepiness, especially relating to its free offerings and the fact that it is collecting enormous amounts of data which it uses to filter search results, and to sell to advertisers.

At the time, I had decided that I was perhaps overdoing things a little, so decided to allow Google back into my life in some areas, while spreading out my data. And using paid Google services where possible. Just 4 days later, Google announced the closure of Google Reader, along with discontinuation of several other services/products. I, like many users, was disappointed with this.

Inspired at least in part by Ben Brooks’ post You Can’t Quit, I Dare You, written in response to Marco Armant’s post Your favorite Thursday sandwich, I have taken on the challenge of De-Google-fying my online life to as a great an extent as is feasible. Marco made the provocative statement:

Want to really stick it to them? Stop using Google. All of it. Search, Gmail, Maps, the works. Delete your account and start using Bing. Ready?

…

Yeah. That’s the problem. You won’t. I won’t. Nobody will.

Now I would have to agree that it is virtually impossible to completely remove Google from your life, because they are ubiquotous and deeply embedded into so much of the online culture. But I think it is important that we pay careful attention to where we store our data, and what information we give freely (perhaps in return for a free service) to any single company or organisation.

For me, that means that I am de-Google-fying[1] to a large extent. Here’s where I am at so far:

Search

My preference is to use DuckDuckGo wherever possible due to its well regarded privacy policy. I have made it my default search in both Safari and Firefox. Firefox makes it easy to do so, by way of an extension. With Safari I had to edit the hosts file to make DuckDuckGo the default search engine.

My iOS devices now use Bing as the default engine. I have also installed and use a DuckDuckGo action for Drafts, and use the DuckDuckGo app for iOS.

Email

All of my email (from multiple domains) redirects into my Fastmail account - a paid service. As my Google Apps subsriptions expire, I will direct the domains directly into Fastmail, and bypass Google altogether. I no longer use Google for a front end. I also use the CloudPull app to grab all my historical data down from Google.

I am using Airmail as my front end email client on OSX, and the native iOS Mail app.

Calendars and Contacts

All have moved back to iCloud. I look forward to full 2 factor security for all iCloud data, along with all other Apple ID related services.

Documents

I wasn’t a huge user of Google Docs, at least in recent times, and instead use Dropbox and, to a lesser extent, iCloud. CloudPull has ensured that I have my historic documents.

RSS Reader

I have moved back to my own Fever installation. I had been using Fever for a while, but moved back to Google Reader due to the limited number of front end apps for Fever, particularly on OSX and for iPad. I am using the excellent Reeder app which supports Fever on iPhone[2], and I am using the browser interface on OSX and iPad for now. Rumour has it that Ashes app is being rebuilt to support Fever on all iOS devices[3].

RSS Feed Redirection

I have moved all of my website RSS feeds away from Feedburner to Maxime Valette’s uri.lv service. I’ve taken on a Premium account for the additional services, and so that I can support the developer.

Maps

Another easy one for me, at least on my iDevices. I’ve gone back to Apple Maps. They’ve improved in many areas, and it’s up to users to keep using and providing feedback so they continue to improve. I don’t use maps on desktop that much, and will probably use Google for that wherever needed. I’ll reconsier if and when Apple comes out with a true alternative.

Google Earth

I love this app, and do use it some of my training activities. I’ll probably keep using it. As a standalone app, it’s not really that connected to the big picture view of the data stream coming in.

Social Networking

I am not a big fan of Google+. In some respects G+ represents the essence of the so-called creepiness factor about Google. My social networks of choice are App.net and Twitter, and I rarely use Facebook or Google+, although I do have accounts.

G+ has some fantastic photo sharing capabilities, and some wonderful groups for photographers. With that said, Flickr is still my preferred photo sharing site.

The thing I do like about G+ is the hangouts. So I keep it around mostly just for that.

Youtube

I surf Youtube. I have a paid Vimeo account for hosting and sharing my own videos.

Browsers

I use Safari and Firefox as my browsers of choice. Neither are logged into any Google account. I use Chrome exclusively for Google, Google+ and Youtube.

Authenticator

Google provides an excellent app called Google Autheticator, which allows you to establish and access 2 factor passwords for a variety of services. At this time, I haven’t found an alternative that I feel comfortable switching to. Since I don’t have to logon to a Google account to use the app, it’s a standalone island on my iPhone. So I am not uncomfortable using it, as I don’t believe Google to be likely to gather or maliciously use this data.

AdSense

Played around with this some time back on a couple of my sites. I’d rather do selected, targeted promotions of offerings I like and use through referal programs and/or sponsorships.

Analytics

My sites are on Squarespace or are self-hosted Wordpress sites. I get all the analytics I need from the built in Squarespace tools or the Jetpack analytics on WP.

AdWords

I have used these on occasion for my Karate Dojo in Sydney and my scuba instructor training courses. I probably will again.

Conclusion

It’s still early days, but I have already moved substantially away from Google. I feel comfortable that my data is more distributed, largely amongst service providers who are committed to providing quality products, at a fair price and with an appropriate level of security/privacy.

I am not trying to “stick it to” Google. For many years I was a major Google advocate, and in fact encouraged others to adopt Google services. I don’t regret this - it was the right choice at the time. But times, people and organisations change. They continue to do a lot of good things, but some fundamentals have changed, causing me to reconsider my own stance.

Gabe Weatherhead expressed his reasons for his move away from Google beautifully in his post Getting Off the Google Juide:

Why go to this effort? Is this a conspiracy? No. Google is just being true to their mission: provide ever increasing information to advertisers so as to increase adverting revenue. I just don’t feel like being part of that. I’d rather pay for anonymity and data privacy. Google has not earned my trust and Apple, DuckDuckGo and Wolfram have.

I am simply (and similarly) taking ownership of my own data and online identity. In so doing, I want to to support providers who support users, and who have “earned my trust”. I hope others will consider these factors and make appropriate decisions. For those that choose free products, from Google or any company, I would encourage them to consider the true price of free.

I’d be interested to hear your views - are you de-Google-fying? To what extent? What apps/services have you adopted to replace Google services? Let me know in the comments.

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1. I am not trying to create a new word using a Google trademark. I’ll leave that to the Swedes 😃  ↩

2. Reeder for iPhone supports Fever. The developer has confirmed that Fever support, along with Feedbin support, is coming for iPad and OSX versions of Reeder.  ↩

3. I am a beta tester for Ashes. The app is looking beautfiful, and the developer advises that Ashes is feature complete. It has released release candidate stage and is being prepared for launch.  ↩

Quick Site Update

Just a couple of quick notes about the Des Paroz On The Go website.

1. Firstly, I’ve moved the site over to Squarespace. I have been planning to do this for a while, and finally bit the bullet. This is the third site I personally have on Squarespace, plus I manage two others hosted there. It’s a very integrated service, and the native Markdown support is certainly a bonus. This is my first live site thats on Squarespace6. SS6 certainly provides a lot of additional flexibility and functionality, but does take some getting used to. I am getting to like it a lot.

2. I’ve killed the old RSS feeds that were using Feedburner. I’ve moved away from the free Google offering to a paid offering at uri.lv. Looking good so far. All old feeds should be redirecting seamlessly. Let me know if you get any issues in the comments.

3. I am moving my link blog back to a simple Pinboard setup. I have the latest 5 links in the sidebar here, or you can visit Des Paroz on Pinboard

Anyway, just some housekeeping, but hope it’s of interest.

Backing Up - Securing Your Files for the Present and the Future

Backing Up - Securing Your Files for the Present and the Future

In an increasingly paperless world more and more of our data is being digitised. While offering many opportunities, there are (at least) three challenges presented by this:

1. Backup of data in case of loss or destruction of the host system;
2. Accessibility of the data by others in the event of your inability to do so yourself; and,
3. Usability of the data into the future (i.e. future-proofing).

Every inhabitant of the digital world needs to consider ensuring they maintain their data for now and into the future. This article addresses some of how I approach these tasks.

Over on SimplicityBliss, Sven Fechner recently outlined his comprehensive backup and emergency data access strategy for Mac.

Today I have not one, but effectively four different backups of my data. Three of them are always up-to-date, while the fourth one is the ‘nuclear event’ offsite contingency.

Sven has very ably outlined an approach that addresses the first two points in detail, and I’d suggest you read his article and digest his approach.

My own approach is not dissimilar, at least for three of the four levels described:

1. Onsite backups with Time Machine (I use Time Capsule for MacBooks and an old Drobo for my iMac);
2. Data in Dropbox (aff) and Evernote, protected with strong passwords and 2 factor authentication (Dropbox only for now). I am also playing with the Transporter for having my own distributed data.
3. Cloud backup using Crashplan.

As for the third consideration - future-proofing - we need to think very seriously about whether the masses of data we’re producing daily today will be readable into the future. We have an unprecedented opportunity to capture data for future generations, but we have a responsibility to ensure they will be able to read it.

There are two aspects to this problem - the storage media and the format the data is stored in.

Try listening to an old mixtape you made on an actual cassette tape. I’d bet that most people couldn’t find a (working) cassette player in their house, so unless you drive an old car, you’re quite likely out of luck! Having as much stuff in the cloud as possible deals with at least the media part of the problem, as most cloud solutions will incrementally migrate their storage media, progressively over time. You should do the same at home.

As for the format, this is an equally important consideration. While it might be inconceivable that your current .doc, .jpg or .xls files might not be readable in decades to come, try opening an early 1990’s WordPerfect document. I dare you.

I don’t have a crystal ball, and have no idea as to what formats will be readable in the future. But my gut feel tells me this:

Storing your data in the most raw form possible gives you the best chance of being able to read it into the future

In other words, applying as few photographic enhancements as possible, or using little or no rich text formating is your best strategy for future proofing your data. If you’ve tried to “restore” an old photo, you’ll know you have more chance if you can use the original film (or negative) than if you use a print. If you’ve tried to scan old, heck, even read old text, you’ll know that the simpler the font the better.

My two main forms of data that I want to preserve are my photos and my writing.

I capture all photos in RAW format, and I keep the raw files of the keepers. Backed up.

This is also one of the benefits of having made the decision to write in plain text, using Markdown. Seriously, if you write and you don’t write in Markdown, go and learn more about it. It’s not difficult, and there’s even a great book to help you learn Markdown.

I only wish that I had started writing in plain text sooner. Some of my old writing is literally locked up on on 5.25" floppy disks in WordPerfect format. I have a project to do something about that.

We are in the digital era. Being productive in this era means backing, ensuring others can access if and when needed, and ensuring your data is available now and into the future. I urge everyone to consider an appropropriate backup startegy, including an offsite solution like Crashplan. I also suggest that you learn more about future proofing your data by using the simplest possible formats for storage, including Markdown for plaintext.

How do you backup? And how do you future proof your data?

Ulysses III: Slick new text editor from The Soulmen

Great new text editor from The Soulmen: Ulysses III

As anyone who reads this site regularly knows, I love writing in Markdown. It’s a writing syntax that is best described as a tool that allows me to focus on the writing, not the formatting.

For Markdown, there are a number of text editors and other tools to support. On OSX, I rely on nvALT for capturing ideas on the go, and starting an initial draft of something. I love Byword for the actual writing process, supported by Brett Terpstra’s Marked app to have live previews of the rendered code. I also like the excellent MultiMarkdown Composer, thought I do prefer the simple, clean layout of Byword.

On iOS I use Drafts and Notesy in a similar way to nvALT on OSX, and Byword as my main editor.

A new OSX app in this class called Ulysses III was released this week, and since its on sale and has had good reviews, I decided to grab a copy from the Mac App Store (A$20.99).

Right from the start it’s clear that this is an app built from the ground up for Markdown. Although it is the third generation of a very successful family of Mac based text editors, the developers warn existing users to treat this as a completely new app.

They are quite confident in their product, stating the following in one of the introductory “sheets” loaded into the app:

If you’re new to this, then please enjoy what we believe is the greatest text editor the world has ever seen. A blank slate powered by a toolset of endless possibilities, limited only by your imagination as a writer.

Like Byword (and similar apps such as iA Writer), Ulysses III presents a powerful distraction free writing environment. A blank sheet that is sorted in groups of sheets kept in a library. You can show/hide columns showing the Group or the Library+Group using hotkeys or menu commands.

Writing is straightforward, and the user interface is best characterised as described by MacSparky:

Ulysses III is gorgeous. The way it renders text and iterates on the three pane view is truly remarkable.

Essentially, the app gets out of your way and allows you to focus on the writing.

iCloud support is built in and even somewhat emphasised. I am sure that Dropbox support would be straightforward, but it wasn’t presented to me as an easy option in the setup phase.

Although I’ve long loved the promise of iCloud, it hasn’t really taken hold for me. I tend to agree with David Sparks that iCloud is at its best with plain text type apps, but since I tend to work across several different apps (Byword, Multimarkdown Composer, nvAlt, Notesy, etc), I need Dropbox to allow files to move easily between apps.

Of course, the creators of Ulysses III, the Soulmen, also have an iOS app called Daedelus Touch. This app, for both iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad, integrates with Ulysses III.

This article is the first thing I’ve written in Ulysses III, and the following are my initial impressions:

Pro’s

• Beautiful, distraction free, writing environment
• Variety of HUDs to bring up stats, export options, links to favourites, navigation (within the sheet) and even syntax assistance
• Simple exports (“sixport”) to txt, RTF and PDF formats
• Ability to copy HTML, Markdown or plain text to the clipboard
• iCloud integration (with iOS Daedelus Touch app)
• Quick rendering of Markdown syntax, showing you most of the syntax but de-emphasised
• Choice of style sheets to work with
• Dark or light background options
• The name: Ulysses Paroz was my ancestor who first brought the Paroz family to Australia!

Con’s

• When adding links, the Markdown way of adding inline or reference links is hidden away. This makes it one step more for me to see my link, and also makes it hard for me to re-use a link
• When doing lists (like this one), I have to type a new “-” followed by a space for each line[1]
• No obvious Dropbox support, particularly with Daedelus Touch[2]
• Not sure how I can get Drafts on iOS to work into the system[3]
• Expensive

Initial thoughts

I’ll personally keep playing with Ulysses III / Daedelus Touch for some stuff to see how it goes. It grabs me as a great repository and editor, with a lot of great features. It has much promise, and if I didn’t already have Byword, nvALT, Marked and Drafts it might be a great one stop app.

But it won’t be my core app at the moment, because it’s Markdown behaviour (e.g. for links) is a little quirky, and because it would require me to change my workflow.

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1. Hitting Alt+Enter automatically brings up the next bullet point. See comment from Nicholas below  ↩

2. Dropbox integration for Ulysses III and Daedelus Touch is quite do-able. See detailed explanation in the comment from daedalicious below  ↩

3. As daedalicious mentioned in the comments, if Dropbox works as described, Drafts support should be straightforward.  ↩

Concussion diagnosis: There's an app for that

The whole quantified self movement gains momentum with every new app and gadget that allows us to track our own health and that of others. Via Gizmodo Australia comes news that scientists have now found a way of diagnosing concussion in sports players:

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame have developed a voice-recognition iPad app that listens for signs of a brain injury in someone’s speech, providing an almost instant diagnosis

As an instructor of a contact activity[1] I can see that it would be very useful to be able to quickly make such a diagnosis. At this stage, it seems that the app requires each player to be baselined before a match, and it will be interesting to see if one day the technology expands to cover non-baselined individuals.

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   I teach Shorinjiryu Koshinkai karate at the Kengokan Dojo in Sydney  ↩