Chris Marsden @ chrismarsden.com

So last night was the night. I redesigned and reset up my whole site. Next comes the migration and the redesign of this domain. In order to make that smooth, I have turned off all comments on all posts at ChrisMarsden.com. It is not that I don’t want your input. In fact, it is because I want your input that I am holding you off for a week. I want your input to count and not get lost in the migration.

I am hoping to launch the new blog (with all current content and comments in tack) this week, but I am wanting to get the redesigned ChrisMarsden.com up at the same time, so rather than pulling the trigger ealry, I am going to give it another day or two. Hope you don’t mind.

[The good thing about having a baby that doesn't let you sleep is that my all-nighter to get the design done doesn't feel all that exhausting.]

So I wrote about the windows day I had last week over at The After Mac. It wasn’t really Windows fault. I was mostly venting. But the outrageous number of options for Window’s Operating Systems is kind of ridiculous, especially when you can’t get all of them in any local retail stores.

Anyways… the actual problem that triggered the crappy day (which turned into a crappy weekend) was a failing hard drive. The creepy part of the whole scenario was that this exact hard drive had the same problem 3-6 months ago. I stuck it on a shelf (I have pack rat issues) and ruled it out. But when my other POS (that’s point of sale, not what you were thinking (although its that too)) started having problems, I tried this computer again on a last ditch attempt.

And it worked. It has worked for the last month.

Until it didn’t.

So after a long weekend of debating my options (rebuild data from paper and accept missing data vs. sending off for recovery ($900-3900), I was pretty much worn out. So why not plug the hard drive in for one more try. What do I have to lose, right?

And it worked. Sort of. But it at least worked well enough to get my data back.

And that’s why I quit my potential IT career. I couldn’t deal with intermittent problems. How can you feel confident that you have fixed something if you didn’t actually do anything and the problem just goes away (and comes back).

But this has got me thinking about relationships and human interaction issues. Do we have solid consistent connections with reality and others? Or… Do people see as intermittent problems? We are inconsistent, so avoiding us for fear of the uncertainty of how we’ll react.

I try hard (especially over the last year or two) to be consistently me. Good or bad, I’m me. You see the beauty of a consistent problem is that it is recognizable and addressable. Often, it is recognizable before it becomes a critical problem. So while I want to consistently me and have that me be a problem free experience, I want my problems and issues to be consistent as well.

So for future computer experiences and for my own life, I pray for problem free experiences. But when there are problems, lets hope for some consistency so we can identify the problem, troubleshoot it, and move on with life.

Don’t Forget.

June 17th is Firefox Download Day.

Help Set a World Record and get your hands on one of the greatest browsers ever. It doesn’t matter what OS you are running (within reason), Firefox has a version for you.

Check it out.

Tags: firefox, download day, world record

With WWDC around the corner I have just announced a contest at The After Mac. It runs through next Sunday Night. All you have to do is comment on any of the WWDC related posts over the next week. Each comment is an entry into the contest.

So… BIG NEWS!!!

I am now a professional blogger!

Seriously.

I have been kicking the idea around for quite a while. Debating about whether I should try and set up my own niche site or join a network or what. I want to write and I want to help people. Blogging seems such a natural easy way to do that.

So anyways… I was surfing on problogger’s job board, not expecting to find anything (at least anything that fits me) and sure enough, they were looking for a Mac blogger who could cover GTD apps as well.

Ding!

So as of last night, it is official. I am a b5media.com blogger on TheAfterMac.com. Stop by and check it out. I will see you at TheAfterMac.com soon.

BTW… I do not forsee this in lessening the posts here at ChrisMarsden.com. In fact, the constant research and writing has given me more to write about, so stay tuned here, as well.

A year and a half ago I was firmly on the GTD wagon and had a great workflow for how to process information and actually turn it into something useful to myself and to others. Today, I just kind of try my best to get things done and hope it comes out ok.

I have spent the last couple days and will be spending the next couple days evaluating how I work. I am looking at what is the most efficient way to get things done, how to manage myself, and which programs to use for what.

At the start of this process, I am using Qumana to write blog posts, NewsFire to read my RSS and Firefox to surf. I am also using Apple Mail, gmail, twitter (via phone and twhirl), Addressbook and ical. There are other programs I am using here and there, but the part of the problem is that I am not using them. OmniFocus is being neglected. Quiken and Quickbooks are being updated only as often as I have to. My text editors are sitting in my dock collecting dust.

Also, I don’t like all of the programs on the list. And while I have Quicksilver installed, I am not using it to its full extent. So I am re-working it all. I am going to try alternatives. I am going to play with quicksilver to get more seamless integration. I am going to schedule things through my week. I am going to follow my junk mail rule on Internet sites. I am going to close firefox everyday (as opposed to leaving 10 or 15 tabs for tomorrow which becomes 43 that I closed yesterday). I am going to practice inbox zero. I am going to have an inbox.

I could go on, of course, but you get the idea. There needs to be organization and order in my life. My mind needs to "flow like water".

—-

Stay tuned for a big-ish announcement later today (or tomorrow).

BTW… I know I didn’t link to any of those apps. Rest assured I will be writing about what each of them does and how I use them and their alternatives in the near future. If you are impatient and must know now… try google.

If you aren’t using RSS to read your favorite websites, you should be. Everything else is just a waste of time. So save time, be more productive, and check on the updates of your favorite sites via RSS.

On a related note…

RSS Feed publishers…

PLEASE publish your whole feed. I hate having to click through to read something. I know you are only doing it to get the ad revenue traffic. I hope it is working for you. Quite often I do click through to leave comments, bookmark your article, etc… but if I find that your site is too much trouble to read, chances are I won’t be reading it for long.

M… A Company of Heroes.

If you are looking for a place to connect with people who want to change the world… …M is for you.

If you are looking for a place to connect with people who care about each other and others… …M is for you.

If you are looking for a place where people aren’t so stuck in the way it has always been and are willing to do whatever it takes to make a difference… …M is for you.

Come join me on M and lets Save the Universe one planet at a time.

[Don't forget to add me as a friend once you sign up]

Recently, when I was in LA, I committed to trying to actually use twitter for a few days. I have been trying the service for a while and even made the huge mistake of trying to integrate it directly into my blog. I knew I wouldn’t be able to post as much as I would like, so with twitter, I could at least update people to what was going on.

Now that I am back to my "real life", I am still uncertain as to how useful twitter really is. It is certainly distracting. And if you notice the length of most of my posts, you might understand my frustrations with the 160 character limitation of twits.

But I have to tell a story of the usefulness of twitter.

While I was in LA, I twittered a bit about where I was at and what I was up to. Up until that point, I hadn’t really used the notification to txt feature, so while I had been "following" several people for a while, I wasn’t actually following hardly anyone except when I happened to be logged in to IM.

Well anyways… This guy Bryan who I had been following since I first got into twitter sends me a reply suggesting we get together because he too was in LA.

Now I am not overly familiar with the general geography of LA, but I knew it was huge. Knowing that, the last thing I wanted to do was drive all over LA and try and hook up with some guy just because I happen to be subscribing to his twitter feed.

So I got online, checked out Bryan’s profile, looked at his blog, and realized that I used to read his blog ALL the time. I don’t know, exactly, when or why I quit reading his blog. I switched feed readers recently and did a little house keeping. He blogs about a lot of GTD stuff and I have thoroughly fallen off that wagon recently. But he was someone who I knew read my stuff and I somewhat regularly read his stuff. To top it off, he didn’t just live in LA, he lived 4 miles east of Pasadena where I was staying.

So we got together for Sushi.

In my "past life" "coincidences" like this simply didn’t happen. But lately, it is almost starting to feel normal. Meeting Mark, Tony, Cal, my connection with House Blend Cafe… It just doesn’t feel so weird anymore.

Let me tell you. Sushi in LA is so much better than anything I have ever had in Florida. Maybe I am just eating at the wrong places, but dinner was awesome. After dinner we grabbed a coffee (at Starbucks… boo). After coffee we decided that we both really needed to head home and get some sleep.

A couple hours later, we had gotten cold just standing out in the parking lot, so we got into the car and turned the heater on. Eventually I actually did go back to the dorm, packed my stuff, and headed on the rest of my adventure.

We didn’t talk about anything in particular. He asked about the conference I was at. I shared some of my crazy ideas. We talked about guitars (his just got stolen, I just bought a new one).

I have to say, it was a highlight of my trip, and for no real particular reason. It wasn’t part of the plan, and some ways it ended up being a bit inconvenient (have you ever tried packing in the dark while trying not to wake your two roommates who you don’t really know). And twitter made it possible.

I have never really done anything like this before. Would I do it again? Probably. There are so many amazing things and people in the world. We need to take the opportunities we are given and not lament the ones we thought we were going to get.

So Bryan… Thanks for challenge my comfort and for a great evening of sushi, coffee, and conversation. You are back in my feedreader and while my completely unproductive life might not benefit from your GTD tips, I will enjoy your stories of Phantom Scream, your pictures, and the details of life with more enthusiasm knowing that you are more than just some random GTD blogger.

BTW… you can read Bryan’s account of this evening here.

Tags: twitter, origins, Bryan Villarin, sushi, weird

Well…. I think I have this site fixed finally. The whole twitter into blog idea was a bad one, I think. Partly, that’s a misunderstanding of what twitter is all about. Partly, the particular plugin I used and my implementation of all that was the root of some of my bugs.

So…. from this point forward, you will have to track my twitters through twitter. And you will have to track my other blogs at my other blog (or via their RSS). I still think it would be cool to cross post everything back to here, but I think for now I will cross post some stuff to both places and put some stuff here and some stuff there.

…Or maybe I will go back to posting here primarily and posting excerpts there that lead to here.

We’ll have to see. Part of me really likes the whole Voxtropolis thing and part of me misses the experience (and control) of being on my own site. And if Alex can have his own site and only blog in voxtropolis occasionally, why can’t I?

Check out my other blogs at cruciformity.voxtropolis.com and houseblendcafe.voxtropolis.com.