ElectricLawyer

More Bento stuff - creating Life Central

I started using Bento (now on version 3) to organize my case work, but I've now moved beyond that, and use it to organize every part of my life. I call it Life Central. The main library (that's what Bento databases are called) is my Journal. It has related fields from all the other libraries. Here's a screenshot to give you an idea:

Here's the To Do library shown in the Journal library above:

Just about every library links to all the other libraries. I start out the day with the Journal and move to the other libraries as needed.

Life logging - an experiment

I've been keeping a detailed journal for the last several years, and it has improved my recollection and sense of organization. But after reading Gordon Bell's Total Recall I feel ready to take life logging (that's what Bell calls the process leading to Total Recall) to the next level. No, I'm not going to hang a camera around my neck or start recording telephone calls (my friends already think I'm creepy enough). I've been using the Bento database (now on version 3) to organize my case work, and I'm slowly expanding its use to keep track of all the stuff in my life. It takes time to annotate every action of some importance, and to scan every meaningful piece of paper, then to tie the two together. But I'm already seeing value. I spend far less time looking for information. Today I spent a few hours scanning high school photos my mother had kept in an album. The scanned photos look better than the originals, and I don't have to worry about fire or earthquake.

Gordon Bell's Total Recall

I'm about halfway through Gordon Bell's new book on life logging (not life blogging, mind you). Here are some video interviews of the authors and their work.

Videos

New TypePad Mobile

Checking out the new features.

A CK-12 textbook on the Dell Mini 9

In my quest to prove that we can afford computers in the classroom running free digital textbooks, I took a pic of CK-12 Foundation's Life Science textbook, running on a Dell Mini 9 under Ubuntu. This is the cheapest Dell Mini (now discontinued, but it keeps coming back), with 512 MB RAM and an 8 GB SSD drive. Cost me $199.

As you can see, the book shows up bright and clear, and scrolling is easy. There are other netbooks in the market for about the same price, not to mention refurbished laptops. We can do this.

Ten free digital textbooks approved for California schools

Reporter Jill Tucker of the San Francisco Chronicle writes that ten free digital textbooks have been approved for use in California schools this Fall. Of these, six are published by the CK-12 Foundation, which I mentioned yesterday.

Frankly, after so much bad news lately, knowing that the state is doing one thing right makes me feel positively giddy. Governor Schwarzenegger started this, believe it or not, and even though it will not cause me to register Republican anytime soon, I do thank him.

As I said yesterday, the books from CK-12 can be viewed online, saved to disk, or printed. So no child will be left out in the cold.

I still think the goal is and should be a computer on every desk in every classroom. With Wi-Fi cheap and easy to install, and netbooks and small laptops plummeting in cost each day, there's no reason we can't get this done.

I still expect pushback from the dead-tree book publishers, and will not be surprised to see pressure (contributions?) put on individual school districts to refuse the books. I'll be keeping an eye out. Send me rumors, news, etc., folks.

Turn your iPhone into an alarm clock

Huh? Why not just buy an alarm clock, twit? Because I know a lot of people who already use their iPhones as alarm clocks. I do when I travel, because I hate those icky hotel jobs. But the problem is positioning the iPhone. If you put it down flat on the nightstand, you have to wake up and move it in order to see the time. And, like, wake up or something.

Comes Kensington with their $39 Nightstand. Here are some pics. The app is free on the App Store. One drawback is that because Apple does not allow 3d party push (or very little) you have to switch to the Apple alarm clock to set an alarm, and then switch back. You can change the colors and of course, the city that is used to get the weather conditions.

 

 

But here's another way to go. If you get (or already have) the $49 iPhone dock, you can do the same thing, plus have sync capabilities.

 

 

Sideways the Kensington positions the iPhone better, but all Apple would have to do is angle in the sides of the dock.

The Apple charging plug is smaller and prettier.

 

Bottom line: the Kensington Nightstand is okay, but for $10 more, I'd get an iPhone dock.

The ProClip iPhone holder: a mini-review

The German-made ProClip is expensive, but it holds the iPhone securely to the car's dashboard. We drove for three hours, and there was no shaking or wiggling. The company has bases for most cars, which are very easy to attach and remove (no tools) and holders for different kinds of phones. This is a picture of my iPhone on our RAV4. The holder I chose has a built-in charger, but there are several different types. The hardest part of the whole process was selecting the holder.

Health Care for All: a promising start

The House went home last night, leaving behind the outline of a new health care plan. It's not finished, it's far from perfect, but it's the first step towards a better America. It will provide coverage for about 95% of Americans, and create an insurance plan run by the government that would compete with privately run plans. Insurers would have to accept all applicants, including those who are ill. They would have to provide a minimum set of government-defined benefits. Insurance would be mandatory for just about everybody, but poorer folk would receive subsidies.

Insurance companies will no doubt pass on the added costs of insuring the sick to the rest of their clients. Fine. The government would have a greater say in the quality of our health care. Fine. Perhaps the quality of care for older people, like myself, will slip from Mercedes-level to Honda-level. Fine.

I am prepared to sacrifice in any way required so that my grandchildren, and everybody else, will have health insurance. It's as simple as that. Come on, my cohort. Prove that G.O.P. doesn't mean Greedy Old People.

GTD: RTM for iPhone with Push

Ordinarily I dislike initials and acronyms, but .... GTD stands for Getting Things Done, the title of David Allen's fantastic book and organizational method. RTM stands for Remember the Milk, a GTD task app that I did not immediately grok when I first tried it. Then I heard that RTM had a new iPhone app with push notification, so being an iPhone app junkie, I had to check it out.

The iPhone app is slick and well-designed, and brings all of RTM's power to my beloved little buddy. In addition, RTM has a very nice Google widget, which puts the application right in the middle of my Google home page. I think I have finally found the perfect GTD task list-maker.

 Here's a screenshot of RTM on the iPhone.