Synchronised Data

Posted: Thu 21 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised | 2 Comments »

One thing I’ve spent some time doing this week is sorting out my addresses, phone numbers, and all that gubbins. I’ve written about this before, but the situation is the same I had last year. Until recently, I kept all the address information I had in my Filofax, and that was it. I don’t like duplicating the data for birthdays and so on from one year to the next, but that’s still probably the easiest way of doing things.

However, this year I’ve got the XDA phone, which has a lot more versatility and data – hell, it’s a PDA with phone functions (and Herself will say “Told you so” when she sees me saying that) – which means that I can also store addresses, birthdays etc. in it. So that’s what I’ve been doing over the last couple of days, synchronising all the addresses, birthdays, anniversarys (where I remember them, or have noted them down) and all that, copying it over from the Filofax into Outlook, and from there into the XDA.

The good thing about this is that – in theory at least – I won’t have to do it all again. Ever. Of course I’ll still have to copy through the birthdays etc. year on year in the Filofax, but at least now I’ve got a good backup of them as well. Outlook will keep a copy in Contacts, and the XDA will be there too. In fact, if I push myself, I could even print out a full list of the birthdays, and just write them in the right places, rather than flicking between [Current Year]’s pages and [Next Year]’s ones.

In fact, My God, that’s now all almost organised!

Rechargeable

Posted: Wed 20 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, News | 1 Comment »

Absolutely Brilliant idea. Batteries you can recharge through your USB port. Fantastic.

I’m going to order some, I think.

WishLists

Posted: Sat 16 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Getting Organised | 3 Comments »

Now this is a good idea – GiftTagging.com. A central repository (or “one stop shop”, if you prefer) where you can keep all your different wishlists – Amazon, Jessops, etc. etc., and people can look in just one place and see all the things you want.

Definitely worth a try, I reckon. So here’s mine, although I’ll also probably be editing that list in the next week or so.

Laptop

Posted: Wed 13 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Work-related | Leave a comment »

The new laptop? It’s a Dell Inspiron 640m. Nothing special, nothing cutting edge (well, except for the fact it’s got a Centrino Duo™ Dual Core processor, which is pretty new) but it’s fairly lightweight, has a decent 14″ screen, and what looks to be about 7 hours of battery life, which is what I wanted.

When all’s said and done, the laptop will be used primarily while I’m travelling and/or away from home, so the battery life was the driving factor more than anything. It’s definitely got the oomp and processing power too, along with a very nice 1Gb of RAM, so it should do for the next couple of years at least.

I’ve spent the last couple of days putting on all the stuff I need on it, and now I’m pretty much sorted. Good, innit?

Expensive

Posted: Tue 12 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Work-related | 1 Comment »

Yesterday was – how shall I put this – fucking expensive. Well, if I’m honest, the money had already been spent – it was just that yesterday turned out to be the day when it all arrived. So I kind of look at it that it’s only expensive once you’ve received it. Strange, but true.

So anyway, last week I’d ordered some new Cat® boots through Schuh, and because of going back into the contracting game, it was decided that a new laptop was on the cards, the old Libretto now being a) fucking noisy, b) awesomely slow, and c) just not really up to scratch. Still sexy as fuck, and with great battery life, etc., but well, just not up to the job and definitely not up to the constant travelling. In fairness, it’s five (if not six) years old, and has served me damn well in that time. But still, it was time for an upgrade.

Both items arrived yesterday, so that’s near enough £1000 of stuff that’s come through the door today. When you take into account the other odds and sods that arrived for Herself as well, we’re well over that mark. And there’s still another delivery due, and I know Amazon have also sent out the Season 7 box set of West Wing too, although that probably won’t arrive ’til today. Cunts.

But it did mean that I could spend yesterday “working from home” and setting up the new laptop with all the standard stuff I need. And when it comes to setting up Firefox on a new computer now, may I take this opportunity to heartily recommend Google’s “browser sync” extension for Firefox which makes the entire process seriously painless. Yeah, I know, it means that somewhere in Google’s servers there exists a complete and comprehensive list of all my bookmarks etc., but frankly, when it means migrating everything is a matter of two or three mouseclicks, I don’t care.

Google may be Evil, but it’s also Fucking Useful.

New Toys

Posted: Mon 11 September, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: Geeky, Photography | Leave a comment »

On Friday, I got the Pclix that I’d ordered a couple of weeks ago. It’s a little device that is going to take some getting used to, but I think it’s certainly going to be interesting in the mean time.

One thing I really liked about all the packaging that came with the Pclix is that the entire thing is recyclable – all the cardboard and so on – and they don’t supply a printed manual. Instead, it comes on a CD – which I have no problem with. It saves paper, and means I can read the thing any old time. Fine. Hell, I can even copy it over to my phone, and read it from there.

The other really cool thing, though, is the case the CD comes in. I’d not seen them before, but it’s a VarioPac ‘trigger’ case, which holds the CD securely, but doesn’t “open” as such. Instead there’s a trigger to push the CD out of the case, and look ma! No hands! Really very, very smart. I may just make some use of them myself…

Upgrade?

Posted: Mon 28 August, 2006 | Author: | Filed under: D4D™, Geeky, Getting Organised | Leave a comment »

Hmmm, having looked at a few things, it’s beginning to look like I’m going to need to upgrade my WordPress install after all. That’s something I’m really not looking forward to, knowing the problems I’ve had before.

Still, I’ll take a complete backup, and work from there. I might even do a local copy and install first, and see how that works before doing the live version. How’s that for organised?

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