I recently sent an "Intellectual RFI" e-mail to a number of friends, asking for their suggestions regarding books of note, websites, etc. that they recommend for exposure to new ideas. Along that vein, and inspired by Jeremiah Owyang's media consumption diet blog post, here is where I get my regular feeds of information:
Web/blogs: My Yahoo!, digg, and 58 blogs/RSS feeds (and growing!) I subscribe to. These include finance (Motley Fool, TheStreet.com, MarketWatch.com, Frugal for Life, fivecentnickel.com), science (Scientific American, Science Daily, National Geographic News), small-business (Seth's blog, Small Business Trends, The Entrepreneurial Mind), technology (Lifehacker, MAKE Magazine, Engadget, TechCrunch, Techmeme, Wired News), and a category I call "thinkers" (Doc Searls, Freakonomics blog, Guy Kawasaki, Jonathan Schwartz, Tim O'Reilly, David Maister, Salon, Signal vs Noise, Dilbert Blog).
Print: Wired, The Economist, Business 2.0, Entrepreneur, and Runner's World are my current subscriptions. I'll often pick up Scientific American and Discover, but no longer subscribe to them. I recently dropped PC Magazine (get more timely info on web/blogs), Newsweek and Time (replaced by Economist and web). I have a daily subscription to our local newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Books: I tend to read in feast/famine cycles: I'll tear through 6-7 books one month, then not read for a few weeks. My all-time favorite authors include Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, J.R.R. Tolkein, and Stephen King (obviously a sci-fi/fantasy bent). I also love reading history, philosophy, math, and science books, as well as any good fiction. I tend to read quite a few management & business type books as well. Refer to the LibraryThing widget on my blog homepage for a sampling of my recent reading.
TV: I really don't watch much TV any more. I usually watch CBS News (local and national), and the only series I regularly catch is 24. A guilty pleasure is American Idol, but I hate Faux News so much I've actually been debating on giving up on the Fox network entirely. I like Discovery Channel and watch random shows there (I especially like Dirty Jobs). Kinda stupid, now that I think about it, to subscribe to so many cable channels when I really only watch a couple shows (then again, my wife and daughter watch quite a few different channels).
Other: Subscriptions/memberships to McKinsey Quarterly, TPSA, and cpsquare. I also love the TED Conference online recordings. I mainly listen to NPR on the radio.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
RFID Targeted Advertising
After reading mention of a patent Kodak filed regarding edible RFID tags for medical purposes and light snacks, and another story about Hitachi's RFID powder, it occurred to me that someone will create a system for targeted toilet advertising based on what you've recently eaten. Trust me - someone will do it! (Heck, I thought about not posting this at all and instead filing my own patent...but I think I'll save that for a more "meaningful" invention.)
Friday, February 16, 2007
Going Paperless at Home, Part 2
Before I go into detail about my scanning/filing routine, I should probably back up and briefly explain what I'm considering in scope to convert to digital format. Simply put, I digitize (and then shred, if already in paper form) any paperwork I consider "clutter". Initially I've been focused on work-related documents (expense copies, AmEx credit card statements, bonus letters, insurance information, etc.), but I am now starting to turn my attention to interesting magazine articles, miscellaneous mailings (homeowner's association mailings, utility bills, investment statements), as well as more official items (documents related to last year's home sale and purchase, backup copies of my passport and driver's license). Of course, I'm not shredding the originals of those latter items, but I am getting rid of the originals of anything that is not imperative to keep. For this first pass at creating my digital repository, I'm mostly focused on reducing the paper accumulation in my life. I'm not too worried about incorporating music or pictures (I've already ripped all the music I own into iTunes, and my photos are stored in Picasa) and I mentioned e-mail in Part 1. I'll cover more of my thinking related to what to digitize and what subset of that to shred in a later posting.
My ingest routine is extremely simple. First, I launch Adobe Acrobat (the Fujitsu FI-5120C came with a full version of Acrobat Standard 7.0), then I select Create PDF from Scanner.
If I choose the Fujitsu as the scan source, I am then presented with another dialog box, this one asking similar questions (but the only items I typically change is whether to scan in color or black/white and very rarely the scan resolution to use). This dialog is coming from Kofax VirtualReScan (VRS), which is image enhancement software that came bundled with the Fujitsu scanner. I haven't decided whether VRS adds any real capability to my scanning, as the results I'd gotten without it (via the HP) were actually quite good. The annoyance isn't so much that I have to answer a second dialog (although it would be nice to just have one), but that it takes so long for this second dialog to appear before I can get on with scanning. Once the scanning starts, the 5120C tears through the docs - scanning almost faster than you can shred (even duplex it scans black/white about 2 seconds per page...slightly slower for color). You can see how the 5120C physically compares to the PSC 2210 in the picture above.
If I choose the HP as the scan source, I only have the one dialog to contend with as I am then taken to the HP scan utility software. However, the next annoyance kicks in: after the HP scans the document, I am presented with a preview whereby I have to ensure the borders were correctly detected (quite often they are not and I must reposition them). This in itself is a pain in the butt because of the next annoyance: once I am happy with the preview the HP then scans the document AGAIN to bring in the final form. Therefore, I typically have to keep one hand on the document (really only an issue if scanning a book) so it doesn't move while I make the scan border fixes and tell it to scan in the final copy. All this double-scanning is a pain when very many pages are concerned (and again, especially so if scanning in pages from a book).
If I'm scanning from the Fujitsu, I then get a dialog from the Kofax VRS software complaining about being out of paper (I hit Cancel), then from Acrobat to feed in next page (I hit Done). If scanning from the HP, I have to tell the software no more pages to scan, then the same to Acrobat. I understand why this software behavior occurs, but it is a minor annoyance.
Once I have the document in, Acrobat processes the images for each page, performs OCR, then previews the document in Acrobat. I then review the PDF to ensure the quality is OK, that I didn't forget to select duplex for double-sided documents, that all the pages were scanned in OK, etc. After everything looks good, I give the document a meaningful name and save it into my repository folder tree. I then close Acrobat, navigate to the document, and ensure it is still OK (this last step is just my paranoia until I become comfortable with my system), and then when all checks out I shred the original document. For bills, I've written the date paid on the statement prior to scanning, and for documents that I've opted not to shred, I attach a post-it note with "scanned" before filing the physical document (unless it's a receipt for work-related items, then it's sent in for reimbursement as part of my expense report). Of course, receipts for web-based transactions are even easier: I just print to the Adobe PDF "printer", appropriately name, and then file the document.
As for my naming convention, it's pretty simple. For bills/statements I use bill name and billing date:
- "Charter Communications Cable Modem - 04Feb2007.pdf"
- "Charter Communications Cable TV and Phone - 03Feb2007.pdf"
For other documents, just a descriptive name:
- "Passport - Jeff.pdf"
- "MO Drivers License - Jeff.pdf"
- "St. Charles 2007 Personal Property Assessment.pdf"
The directory tree is under My Documents, and then a specific name (not noted for somewhat general security reasons), then organized by year with a very simple directory structure under each year:
[Year]
- Personal
- Business - [Company Name]
- Statements and Receipts
- Home Stuff
I put some oddball stuff that doesn't fit into these broad categories in the year folder. And, under some folders I will have sub-folders when a large cluster of documents is apparent (for instance, I have a sub-folder under "Statements and Receipts" for my bank).
My filing structure probably seems very simplistic, and you'd be absolutely correct. I couldn't find much in the way of guidance on this (but frankly, I didn't look that hard either). I believe Gordon Bell in his MyLifeBits project uses Personal vs. Professional Life as the major split at the top-level organization, but opted against Personal/Professional as being the major organizational choice. The reason for this is something I came across in David Allen's book, "Getting Things Done" - that the line between our professional and personal lives is getting more blurred (especially so if you are self-employed). So, I decided that "when", at the granularity of a year, is the best starting point for my organization, then just break it up from there.
In the end, it doesn't really matter that much at this point since my typical retrieval mechanism is to use Google Desktop to search. Assuming the OCR works, I've named the files reasonably, and I'm using decent keywords for my search, I should be able to find the needed document. From what I can tell, the directory tree really only matters when I want to browse through my repository manually versus searching for a specific document. Frankly, I don't know enough about how I'll be using it in this fashion just yet, so my approach was to take an iterative approach to this project: just make some reasonable choices, start using it and getting experience, then tweak the system as I learn more. Otherwise I'd get caught up in "analysis paralysis" and not accomplish anything (my typical mode of operation, being the perfectionist that I am).
I'd love to learn more about what people think about what to keep and what to shred. I look at all those shoeboxes of receipts (I think I have about 17 years of those) and think there's no reason to keep all that paper (and I'll likely tackle those soon). I have NEVER opened one of those old boxes up after they've been put away for a year (usually the only reason is to grab a tax receipt when doing the next year's taxes). Even if I do get audited or have some other reason to refer back to those historical receipts/statements, I have to believe having them electronic would be much more useful. But some documents I'm really nervous about going purely paperless for - namely the core documents related to my home sale/purchase and other contractual type materials. Part of me says that the real documents that matter are on file elsewhere and that it'd be safer to scan these docs and not worry about losing them or having them physically degenerate over time...but I just don't know yet.
At this point, I realized that I was setting myself up to confront two issues it seems we all put off: backups and security. There's no sweeping these under the rug any more, especially with my document repository becoming so mission-critical. I'll talk about these topics in future entries.
My ingest routine is extremely simple. First, I launch Adobe Acrobat (the Fujitsu FI-5120C came with a full version of Acrobat Standard 7.0), then I select Create PDF from Scanner.
(Quick side note: Has anyone else noticed that the Adobe website performance REALLY sucks? Every time I go there it is horribly slow...hence why the link above is to the Wikipedia entry for Acrobat. I can't imagine why a company that big can't do better than that...and I wonder how many people are turned off their products when they encounter their website performance as a first impression.)Next I have to answer one or two dialogs, depending on the scanner source. The first dialog is from Acrobat asking which scanner to use as source, whether duplex/simplex, OCR or not, etc. Depending on which source is chosen (the Fujitsu or the HP PSC 2210 - you can see the these), I'm led to one of my first annoyances.
If I choose the Fujitsu as the scan source, I am then presented with another dialog box, this one asking similar questions (but the only items I typically change is whether to scan in color or black/white and very rarely the scan resolution to use). This dialog is coming from Kofax VirtualReScan (VRS), which is image enhancement software that came bundled with the Fujitsu scanner. I haven't decided whether VRS adds any real capability to my scanning, as the results I'd gotten without it (via the HP) were actually quite good. The annoyance isn't so much that I have to answer a second dialog (although it would be nice to just have one), but that it takes so long for this second dialog to appear before I can get on with scanning. Once the scanning starts, the 5120C tears through the docs - scanning almost faster than you can shred (even duplex it scans black/white about 2 seconds per page...slightly slower for color). You can see how the 5120C physically compares to the PSC 2210 in the picture above.
If I choose the HP as the scan source, I only have the one dialog to contend with as I am then taken to the HP scan utility software. However, the next annoyance kicks in: after the HP scans the document, I am presented with a preview whereby I have to ensure the borders were correctly detected (quite often they are not and I must reposition them). This in itself is a pain in the butt because of the next annoyance: once I am happy with the preview the HP then scans the document AGAIN to bring in the final form. Therefore, I typically have to keep one hand on the document (really only an issue if scanning a book) so it doesn't move while I make the scan border fixes and tell it to scan in the final copy. All this double-scanning is a pain when very many pages are concerned (and again, especially so if scanning in pages from a book).
If I'm scanning from the Fujitsu, I then get a dialog from the Kofax VRS software complaining about being out of paper (I hit Cancel), then from Acrobat to feed in next page (I hit Done). If scanning from the HP, I have to tell the software no more pages to scan, then the same to Acrobat. I understand why this software behavior occurs, but it is a minor annoyance.
Once I have the document in, Acrobat processes the images for each page, performs OCR, then previews the document in Acrobat. I then review the PDF to ensure the quality is OK, that I didn't forget to select duplex for double-sided documents, that all the pages were scanned in OK, etc. After everything looks good, I give the document a meaningful name and save it into my repository folder tree. I then close Acrobat, navigate to the document, and ensure it is still OK (this last step is just my paranoia until I become comfortable with my system), and then when all checks out I shred the original document. For bills, I've written the date paid on the statement prior to scanning, and for documents that I've opted not to shred, I attach a post-it note with "scanned" before filing the physical document (unless it's a receipt for work-related items, then it's sent in for reimbursement as part of my expense report). Of course, receipts for web-based transactions are even easier: I just print to the Adobe PDF "printer", appropriately name, and then file the document.
As for my naming convention, it's pretty simple. For bills/statements I use bill name and billing date:
- "Charter Communications Cable Modem - 04Feb2007.pdf"
- "Charter Communications Cable TV and Phone - 03Feb2007.pdf"
For other documents, just a descriptive name:
- "Passport - Jeff.pdf"
- "MO Drivers License - Jeff.pdf"
- "St. Charles 2007 Personal Property Assessment.pdf"
The directory tree is under My Documents, and then a specific name (not noted for somewhat general security reasons), then organized by year with a very simple directory structure under each year:
[Year]
- Personal
- Business - [Company Name]
- Statements and Receipts
- Home Stuff
I put some oddball stuff that doesn't fit into these broad categories in the year folder. And, under some folders I will have sub-folders when a large cluster of documents is apparent (for instance, I have a sub-folder under "Statements and Receipts" for my bank).
My filing structure probably seems very simplistic, and you'd be absolutely correct. I couldn't find much in the way of guidance on this (but frankly, I didn't look that hard either). I believe Gordon Bell in his MyLifeBits project uses Personal vs. Professional Life as the major split at the top-level organization, but opted against Personal/Professional as being the major organizational choice. The reason for this is something I came across in David Allen's book, "Getting Things Done" - that the line between our professional and personal lives is getting more blurred (especially so if you are self-employed). So, I decided that "when", at the granularity of a year, is the best starting point for my organization, then just break it up from there.
In the end, it doesn't really matter that much at this point since my typical retrieval mechanism is to use Google Desktop to search. Assuming the OCR works, I've named the files reasonably, and I'm using decent keywords for my search, I should be able to find the needed document. From what I can tell, the directory tree really only matters when I want to browse through my repository manually versus searching for a specific document. Frankly, I don't know enough about how I'll be using it in this fashion just yet, so my approach was to take an iterative approach to this project: just make some reasonable choices, start using it and getting experience, then tweak the system as I learn more. Otherwise I'd get caught up in "analysis paralysis" and not accomplish anything (my typical mode of operation, being the perfectionist that I am).
I'd love to learn more about what people think about what to keep and what to shred. I look at all those shoeboxes of receipts (I think I have about 17 years of those) and think there's no reason to keep all that paper (and I'll likely tackle those soon). I have NEVER opened one of those old boxes up after they've been put away for a year (usually the only reason is to grab a tax receipt when doing the next year's taxes). Even if I do get audited or have some other reason to refer back to those historical receipts/statements, I have to believe having them electronic would be much more useful. But some documents I'm really nervous about going purely paperless for - namely the core documents related to my home sale/purchase and other contractual type materials. Part of me says that the real documents that matter are on file elsewhere and that it'd be safer to scan these docs and not worry about losing them or having them physically degenerate over time...but I just don't know yet.
At this point, I realized that I was setting myself up to confront two issues it seems we all put off: backups and security. There's no sweeping these under the rug any more, especially with my document repository becoming so mission-critical. I'll talk about these topics in future entries.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Going Paperless at Home, Part 1
I've made the decision to go paperless at home. Well, at least as paperless as I can reasonably achieve. (I'll explain why in a future post.) I started off by doing research on the web, and unfortunately I couldn't find much relevant information. There was a great paper about Gordon Bell's MyLifeBits research project at Microsoft, and while a great treatise on creating a Memex, it didn't seem to have anything I could take away for my personal use. Everything else I found on the web seemed to be more related to going paperless in an office environment, but I'll admit that after about a dozen hours of poking around over nearly a week I gave up and decided to just make some decisions based on my own experience.
The more I thought about it, the main aspects of this effort seems to be related to the activities of data ingest/format, organization, and retrieval. I did some quick research on document databases but didn't really find anything useful for personal use. Even the SQL Server database used by MyLifeBits was a mystery - there was a database schema in the paper referenced above, but nothing concrete (or even downloadable) that I could find.
So I started with the input phase and started researching scanners, hoping that while doing so I'd come across something that would help me decide the format/database to use for my documents. I tried various Google searches, used Amazon.com and looked at user rankings, and couldn't make my mind up regarding which scanner to buy. Frustrated, I made a decision that seemed to point to a clear solution for all three activities: just go with Adobe Acrobat PDF files as my main electronic document format, and use a simple directory tree to organize my documents. For retrieval, I use Google Desktop to search (when I don't just browse to the needed file). Sure, I could just have had Windows index my drive (I run Windows XP Media Center Edition), but since I use Gmail (specifically, Google Apps for Your Domain) for my personal e-mail it just made more sense to standardize on Google for the search capability so my e-mail would be indexed as well.
With those decisions made, I revisited the scanner choice. I have an HP PSC 2210 all-in-one that I use as my printer/scanner/fax/copier. While it does a great job at scanning, it is a flatbed and I really wanted a duplex sheet-feed scanner for bulk import. Based on my prior research, I settled on the Fujitsu FI-5120C. It was a bit pricey (about $890), but I felt it would be worth the investment based on how much I expected to use it.
Well, I'm tired of typing tonight...I'll post more details about my experiences going paperless tomorrow. I'd love to hear your thoughts or experiences related to this...
The more I thought about it, the main aspects of this effort seems to be related to the activities of data ingest/format, organization, and retrieval. I did some quick research on document databases but didn't really find anything useful for personal use. Even the SQL Server database used by MyLifeBits was a mystery - there was a database schema in the paper referenced above, but nothing concrete (or even downloadable) that I could find.
So I started with the input phase and started researching scanners, hoping that while doing so I'd come across something that would help me decide the format/database to use for my documents. I tried various Google searches, used Amazon.com and looked at user rankings, and couldn't make my mind up regarding which scanner to buy. Frustrated, I made a decision that seemed to point to a clear solution for all three activities: just go with Adobe Acrobat PDF files as my main electronic document format, and use a simple directory tree to organize my documents. For retrieval, I use Google Desktop to search (when I don't just browse to the needed file). Sure, I could just have had Windows index my drive (I run Windows XP Media Center Edition), but since I use Gmail (specifically, Google Apps for Your Domain) for my personal e-mail it just made more sense to standardize on Google for the search capability so my e-mail would be indexed as well.
With those decisions made, I revisited the scanner choice. I have an HP PSC 2210 all-in-one that I use as my printer/scanner/fax/copier. While it does a great job at scanning, it is a flatbed and I really wanted a duplex sheet-feed scanner for bulk import. Based on my prior research, I settled on the Fujitsu FI-5120C. It was a bit pricey (about $890), but I felt it would be worth the investment based on how much I expected to use it.
Well, I'm tired of typing tonight...I'll post more details about my experiences going paperless tomorrow. I'd love to hear your thoughts or experiences related to this...
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Why "Anecdotal Arete"?
Like many others before me, I've decided to enter the blogspace. I'm not entirely sure why, maybe it's just my desire to be heard...a somewhat narcissistic urge. On the other hand, I believe this may provide me with a forum for introspection; to provide self-validation on my life journey (whatever that is).
So, why "Anecdotal Arete"? Arete is a concept I've been fascinated with since I first encountered it in a graduate-level philosophy course I took at SIU-Carbondale. You can follow the link to Wikipedia to learn more about arete, but a brief definition is that it's a fundamental Greek concept meaning "virtue and/or excellence." It's something I've held as what I strive to be...basically it's my personal guiding principle. One aspect of arete that I respect is that it applies to physical excellence as well. Hence my taking up of running again, and my new enthusiasm for biking.
I decided to take an anecdotal approach with this blog...namely to share eclectic stories about my experiences within, perceptions of, and reactions to the world around me. By doing this, I'm hoping to learn more about myself. But hopefully I accomplish something positive for you along the way, Dear Reader (borrowed from Stephen King) -- by challenging an assumption, providing a differing perspective, or just plain teaching you something new. This is an interactive medium (via comments and/or your own blogs), so I hope to get the same from you.
So read on...and enjoy!
Jeff
So, why "Anecdotal Arete"? Arete is a concept I've been fascinated with since I first encountered it in a graduate-level philosophy course I took at SIU-Carbondale. You can follow the link to Wikipedia to learn more about arete, but a brief definition is that it's a fundamental Greek concept meaning "virtue and/or excellence." It's something I've held as what I strive to be...basically it's my personal guiding principle. One aspect of arete that I respect is that it applies to physical excellence as well. Hence my taking up of running again, and my new enthusiasm for biking.
I decided to take an anecdotal approach with this blog...namely to share eclectic stories about my experiences within, perceptions of, and reactions to the world around me. By doing this, I'm hoping to learn more about myself. But hopefully I accomplish something positive for you along the way, Dear Reader (borrowed from Stephen King) -- by challenging an assumption, providing a differing perspective, or just plain teaching you something new. This is an interactive medium (via comments and/or your own blogs), so I hope to get the same from you.
So read on...and enjoy!
Jeff
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