Category: post

I finally broke down and ordered some of those nifty Action Pad Minis and Cards from Behance. They have come today and boy are they nice. I may have a more formal review in the future but here are some initial impressions:

• Very good paper, nicely designed, and they take pen ink very well. The presentation and packaging denotes quality and was clearly designed by and for creative types. You can almost feel the “hipness” dripping off of them. Each package contains a pamphlet outlining their “Action Method” system. It is very GTD in nature with a creative focus.
• One of the reasons I decided to get the Action Cards is because my lo-fi system was in need of a little refresh. As stated previously, I have been using my Levenger Shirt Pocket Briefcase as my principle capture device. While the index cards I have in it are great for that, I desired something a little more structured for fleshing out and tracking projects in that same portable size. The Action Cards are great for this. They are 3×5 inches, same as a standard index card. They have an area at the top for project title and date and sections with checkboxes underneath for action steps. This is just what I was looking for.

• I got the larger Action Pad Minis for work. Very similar in configuration and paper quality, these are larger and actually designed to fit in a Large Moleskine notebook, which I often take with me to meetings. The main difference from the Action Cards other than the size is that these have an area for “Backburner” items at the bottom – basically, a someday/maybe area.

One might wonder “why use these when you could just as easily use a regular old piece of paper?” I think that the Behance folks do a good job of answering that question:

“When you have a project that is tracked with a beautiful chart or elegant sketchbook, you are more likely to focus on it. Just like billboards on the highway or commercials on television, the methods you use to organize action steps can make you more (or less) engaged by a project.”

This is very true for me. Using nice, well designed, products makes me more engaged in what I am using them for.

LifeDev has a good write up of the Behance line of “Action” products. I just ordered up some of these and will be giving my own review once they arrive and I have had a chance to play. I have already been cooking up some good ideas as my current system is in a bit of flux right now.
Do you own a Mac? Are you using Quicksilver? No? Why not? If you have yet to drink the kool-aid then perhaps this Lifehacker series of videos showing off all of the cool things it can do will be all the push you need.
Also, if you are using a Mac and not using TextExpander then you need to grab another cup for another flavor of kool-aid. TextExpander will automate all of those things you type on a regular basis. If you find yourself typing the same things all of the time, you can use this to do the typing for you with just a few keystrokes. In addition, they have a new downloadable “snippets file” for regular html expressions. Coders take note, this will save you a TON of code typing. (via 43 Folders)
Google is continuing their march towards total world domination by offering a free 411 service. Just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 and one of their highly advanced automated robots will find the business you are looking for. No more high telco 411 fees. Yea! I personally welcome our Google Overloards. (via TechCrunch)
I have talked about my move towards using open source wherever possible before. Here is an unbelievably comprehensive list of open source software for Mac, Windows and beyond. (via Lifehacker)

Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion has come up with this handy collection of “MiniMe” Bookmarklets which load micro versions of sites in a small window you can keep next to your browser window. Therefore, you can keep things like Wikipedia, Google Reader, Digg and many others in a little browser window off to the side while you work on other things. Very cool idea.
Slow Burn Productions is putting up some great content, including beating me to the punch on an idea I have had in the cooker – “Pocket Moleskine vs. Levenger Shirt Pocket Briefcase“. You see, I have switched from using the Moleskine to using a Levenger Shirt Pocket Briefcase myself and it has been working great. I keep it in my back pocket and find it a much more convenient and at-the-ready capture tool. That is not the only reason for the switch though. It also stands as fact that my Moleskine 18 Month Planner was stolen along with other items in a recent break in so it would have been replaced anyway.
For those of you in the Twin Cities Area, I am going to do everything I can to make it to MinneBar ’07, a Barcamp happening on April 21st down in Lowertown in Saint Paul. There will be some great sessions and demos. Looks like a good time. Be there or be opposingly right angled.
(Update – I give a more detailed review of the Levenger SPB in the comments.)

The Random Post is my new little experiment in blogdom. It is a tumblelog which is described by Wikipedia as “…a iation of a blog, that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging.”
Mainly, this will be the place I put all the little stuff that does not seem to be worthy of inclusion in a full post on patrickrhone.com. That being said, I do have my del.icio.us links feeding over there so you may see stuff show up there that I then decide to mention here.
I am using a free service called Tumblr to publish mine which makes it super easy. Gina at Lifehacker has an excellent tutorial for getting started with it. It is a really good solution for those who feel they don’t have the time to blog or would not know what to say.
In any case, take a look and tell me what you think.

I have been getting a few requests lately to post some tips about setting up a blog and/or personal web space. I cover mostly blogging here but most of my suggestions can be adapted for other types of sites as well. Without further ado, here are the tools I use, along with some tips, and what I recommend for those just getting started:
Tools

• Hosting and Registration – I use Dreamhost. They really make hosting fun, simple and cheap. The prices they offer and what you get for that money is simply unbelievable. Their bottom package is only .95 and it gives you 200 gigs of storage and 2 Terabytes of bandwidth. You get one free year domain registration with any new account sign up and additional years or domains only costing .95. It is a steal. Not only that but they have “One Click Installs” for many of the tools you will need to get a blog up an running (more on that later).
• Blogging Software – I use Movable Type as it is what all of the cool kids use (Lifehacker, Kottke, etc.). That being said, I would not recommend it for a fist time blogger or someone who is uncomfortable with setting such things up. The install can be a bit tricky for a newbie but there is plenty of documentation for those willing to take the dive. For an easier path, I would actually recommend WordPress to a first time blogger. It has a more user friendly interface on the back end, a WYSIWYG style editor for posting, and ( here is the kicker… ) Dreamhost offers it as a one click install. Therefore, very easy setup for someone who does not know how to install web based tools. The other good thing about WordPress is that there are literally hundreds of templates out there that are easy to install to give your site a nice look and feel. Which brings me to…

• Template/Look and Feel – I do not use a pre-built template for my site. My site design is original and built from the ground up using inspiration dirived from many sources. I am a big believer and fan of minimalist design and less-is-more functionality. The “look and feel” of my site is part of an overall personal branding that is derived from such ideas. In that vein, this look and feel extends to other personal and public documents as well such as my resumé. I think that in our ever more connected and public world, developing a “personal brand” is all the more important and my website reflects that idea. I was able to do this because I have a good friend and web advisor who is brilliant at code wrangling and pixel pushing. Between my vision and his skill we were able to create something unique. That being said, there are some great books out there that give examples of great web design for inspiration. This is where I started. So if you have the skills or know someone who does, it is worth putting in the extra effort to come up with your own unique design.

• Posting – I actually do not use the Movable Type interface to write and publish most of the posts to my blog. I use an application from Mariner Software called MacJournal. Amongst it’s many stellar features, It has an excellent full screen mode for distraction free writing and I can publish to my blog from my Mac with only a couple of clicks. It is a wonderful tool and now there is even a Windows version. Well worth the money. That being said, there are plenty of other ways to easily push and publish content to your site. Flock, for instance, is a Mozilla based web browser that interfaces with you blog and many other web services such as Flickr and offers a very nice interface for posting what you are surfing directly to your site. The point here is to use tools and processes that make blogging easy because then you will be more inclined to keep up with it.

Tips

• Find your voice – Blogging is a conversation with the reader. Write as if you are speaking to a friend about all of the cool stuff you are doing or finding on the web.

Identify your source – If you are posting about something you actually saw from someone else posting it, make sure to say that. (i.e. “via 43Folders”). Always identify your original source as it is proper “netiquette”.

Be original – Blog about something new and fresh or a new and fresh take on something not new. For example, there are a bunch GTD blogs out there now. The world does not need another GTD blog. What would be good is a blog that focuses on how to implement GTD in large groups and organizations – I have yet to see anyone focussing on that.

Blog what you love – Of course, the other example is a blog like mine. The fact that I mention GTD so much is that it is that much a part of my life. But I also blog about productivity in the workplace, cool Mac applications, Ubuntu, the occasional Windows app, my wife Princess Bethany, etc.. I blog about all sorts of things that I love or otherise capture my imagination.

That is it for now. Not only would I love your feedback in the comments but I would love even more if, when you start a blog or site, post it up in the comments or otherwise send me a link. I would love to see what others are doing.
Note: Many of these suggestions and tips I originally wrote in a response sent via e-mail to my friend Jonathan Cisco. He has since gone on to start a blog of his own detailing his experiences moving to New Zealand – DreamingNZ.com.

Besides the very sexy action office pr0n the sell, they also have great tips too. Take this great article, called Making Reference Items Helpful, for example. A lot is made out of reference materials and filing in GTD land but not a lot is written about it. It starts out with a bang too “What is the relevance? For what purpose would I refer back to it at some point? If you can’t answer this question, throw the damn thing out!”.
If you are a Mac user, and you have not checked Quicksilver out, you have no idea about the productivity your are missing. More than just a launcher, Quicksilver is an entirely fresh and fast way to interface with your computer. Merlin at 43 Folders is on top of things of course with this excellent guide for Getting started (or reacquainted) with Quicksilver. It includes links to guides, video tutorials and some good places to start down the path of this incredibly deep and rich program.
Speaking of Merlin, if you have not been catching his new vidcast series, The Merlin Show, you are missing out on some great content. There have been some fantastic interviews with independent types about how they get stuff done, deal with distractions and otherwise go about living this life. Not too late to catch up.
What ToDo is a newish GTD program for the Mac. I downloaded it and played with it for a while and I must say I am pretty impressed. It is simple, clean and, most importantly for someone like myself who is outline-centric, hierarchical. While it can’t compete for my love against Backpack (it’s that whole “cold, dead, hands” thing), if I were to use a desktop GTD program, this would probably be it.

Unless you have been living under a productivity rock somewhere, you have surely heard of Highrise – The new contact management solution from the rock stars at 37 Signals. Here are some of my first impressions:

• 37 Signals has once again taken a simple approach by boiling the concept of contact management down to some basic elements. They give you just what you need and nothing you don’t. What does one really need to track communication with a contact? Attach notes? Done. Add some related tasks? Done. Attach other related communications like e-mails? Done. Associate the contact with other related contacts? Yep. Share your contacts with others? That is there too… All of it done with the straight forward simplicity, attention to design elegance and ease of use we have come to expect from 37 Signals.
• The task manager is brilliant and flexible. It allows one to associate tasks with categories (or contexts, if you will). You can assign either “fuzzy” due dates (Today, Tomorrow, This Week, etc.) or specific due dates and times to those tasks. You can even assign tasks to others in your organization.

• If I have any dig against Highrise (and this is more specifically about 37 Signals strategy) it is this – why the mostly walled garden between your ious apps? For instance, I currently use Backpack for my personal stuff and Basecamp for work related projects and now I would like to use Highrise for my consulting business clients. This means that I will have to have three apps open with no real integration between them. What I would love to see is a way to attach projects in Basecamp to contacts or companies in Highrise. What I would love even more is the task functionality in Highrise to be integrated into Backpack.

In all, Highrise is a fantastic application – especially for small business or solo business users who just want a simple and effective way to track communications with their partners and clients.

I have come up with a plan I am going to try to overcome my current writers block. Instead of feeling like I have to come up with a lot to say about a particular thing, I am going to post what I am calling a “Quick Take” on it. This will leave me the option of coming back and saying more about a cool shiny new thing later without the pressure of feeling like I must. Therefore, look for a few of these over the coming days.

The folks who brought you Stikkit have a new web app coming. This one is a personal assistant of some sort for e-mail called iwantsandy. Details are a little schetchy for now (not yet released) but it peaks my interest.
Richard Rutter and Mark Boulton want you to know that Web Typography Sucks and what you can do to change that. Yes, that’s right… You. Download the slides with notes and find out how. (via Kottke)
Lifehack.org has this enticing proposition, clone yourself by hiring a part time personal assistant. They posit that, if you use a little outside of the box thinking, it is not as expensive as one might think.

Been feeling really stuck lately. So many events have occurred recently on so many opposite ends of the spectrum. It seems for every good event in my life I have one that is so disheartening that it really takes away my ability to feel motivated to do anything at all.
I returned yesterday from a really great trip to Washington DC. My father lives there and Princess Bethany and I have many friends that live out that way to. Despite the inclement weather (icy and sleet ridden due to a nor’easter that blew through – more on that later) we managed to see a lot of the sights and spend the quality time we wanted to with friends and relatives. A really great time had.
Of course, as said previously, lately it seems that life can’t let me have a good time without giving me something horrible to balance it. It turns out that the nor’easter mentioned earlier caused major airline cancelations on Thursday and Friday while we were in DC. In turn, stranding over 100,000 people. many of them at Philadelphia International Airport, where it just so happened we were due to connect through to Minneapolis/Saint Paul (where we live) on Sunday. Are you asking how that bad weather on Thursday caused any issues for me on Sunday? Well, here is how…
When the nor’easter that hit the east cost on Thurs/Fri caused all the airlines to cancel flights, the solution that U.S. Airways came up with to get those people, now stranded for days, to their destinations was to cancel a slew of regular flights on Saturday and Sunday (i.e. mine) to cover those rebookings. Smart, huh? Here is the deal… The airport industry runs their fleets with as few flights as possible these days in order to ensure that every flight is full. In fact, more often than not, they overbook as it is cheaper to bump people than to risk a less than full flight. Therefore, when weather issues cause cancelations, there is no “breathing room” and it causes a domino effect. People like myself flying on Sunday arrived in Philly to find our flights had been cancelled. As a matter of fact, the real kicker is that they were canceled long before we boarded in Washington DC and they did not even bother to tell anyone. We were just stranded in Philly with no way to get home other than to wait on standby for the next flight. In this case the first one was the following morning! Oh, and we were not the only ones. There were over 40 people waiting on standby for a flight to Minneapolis alone. And this was the airline’s plan amazingly enough.
Now one may think… “Wow, it must cost them so much money to put people up in hotels and give them free tickets for the trouble”
This is where you would be wrong. You see, all of this was still considered “Weather Related” and airlines do not have to compensate you in any way whatsoever when it is the fault of weather. Not to mention the fact that I was flying on free tickets from being bumped last year from a flight complicated matters as they were not even obligated to find me a flight on another airline…
We spent Sunday night in the airport, waiting for the 8:00 AM flight. Then, along with the 40 or so others, the 9:45 AM, the 1:30 PM, the final flight at 8:00 PM. All of them were full. No one was leaving from the standby group. We were stuck.
The airline gave me a voucher so that myself and my sons could go sleep in a hotel Monday night so we could return early on Tuesday and go at it again…
We eventually did make it home but, damn, what an experience…
The point of all of this is that life has been taking big chucks out of me lately. Out of my time. Out of my desire. Out of my soul. The burglary, the travel, the workload. It has all gotten the best of me.
I will get out of this mood and get to posting again. I mean, there is a lot of cool stuff going on. Hopefully, in the coming days I will find the heart to say something about it.