It was not one that came easily, though it was one driven by a need for lightness. My bag collection causes my husband some frustration and I realized that instead of slimming down with what I was carrying back and forth it was gaining weight.
Much of it was stuff that I need to have on hand for reference, but rarely if ever actually need (thankfully).
Much of it was magazines that I rarely read in a timely manner, such as The Economist.
Much of it was my beloved A5 filo, crammed full of my calendar and notes.
Much of it was knitting patterns and my stash and queue printout from Ravelry.
Much of it when piled on a scale added up to about 5lbs (2.26kg). That’s a lot to schlep back and forth each day.

So I looked around and tried to lighten my load. I removed a few sheets from my filo and put a magazine in the bathroom, but that was about it. I also was threatened with a few tech books and as they often outweigh me I was skeptical if I could find a solution among the various things around the house.

Wait, don’t I own a netbook? Yes, Akepa is doing well, but is very happy to be an at-home computer and tethered within three hours. He likes to hang out near the kitchen and that works out well for me. The battery life was an issue and I’d get every minute out of him I could, but that technology just isn’t there for my needs.

So I began to look around at the rest of the offerings. Most tablets are 4 pounds or more and that doesn’t seem to be a large enough gain for me to invest in one. I looked long and hard at kindles and queried friends who own them like crazy. I followed CES more than I normally do to see if there was something in the near forecast that begged for me to wait. I didn’t ignore the apple announcement, but seriously, few could.

Part of what I do (new site launching soon) is make an evaluation and decide if there is a good fit between technology and need. Sometimes the answer is surprising and a pencil is sharpened instead of a fancy custom database system, yet sometimes the pencil is put down and code is written. Sometimes after all the pieces are looked at I break down and accept installation a windows server (albeit with sad reservations). Sometimes I need to look at something for me, and I find this harder than advising clients. I try hard not to have them spend their budgets foolishly, but I find myself unable to stand firm when the decision centers around my bank balance.

So how did I end up with the Sony Touch? Size and weight, library book access, freehand and text annotations, and memory expansion. The ability for me to access some of my RSS feeds, and the joy of being able to access my electronic subscription to The Economist while E has the paper copy is priceless (thank you calibre).

Is it perfect? No.

Am I still in love after a week? Yes.

In the coming weeks and months I hope to be able to explain more about what works and what doesn’t. I ask for patience as I get the volumes of thoughts out. A big item that didn’t was my completely ditching my filofax. A trip to the hardware store has me striking back and trying something different. Will it work? I hope so. If it does maybe you’ll be able to buy it soon. If it doesn’t, I tried and had quite a bit of fun in the process.

What follows are two books I completed this past week. There were also two massive tech books in there that shall remain nameless to protect the innocent. If in time I feel they need to be revealed I will do so. There isn’t anything bad about them but there wasn’t anything good or remarkable about them either and I’d rather move on.

The Key of the Keplian: Secrets of the Witch World
by Andre Norton

As I find it difficult to get my hands on any copies of Norton’s witch world series, this was my first foray into that land. I really enjoyed it and am now in the middle of “Secrets of Witch World” which also includes The Key of the Keplian. I guess the fact that I immediately started reading The Magestone speaks for how much I enjoyed The Key of the Keplian. Parts of the plot and character development left me rolling my eyes but overall I found it a fun fantasy escape.
I borrowed them from the library and I’m reading these on my new touch and enjoying the adventure.

Dragon Mage: A Sequel to Dragon Magic
by Andre Norton

This was another $1 bookoff find. ;)
I found it interesting to read and I’d like to read Dragon Magic too. Anything with a lead character with a background like Shilo’s will tug and my heartstrings.

It is a 4G Asus EEE.

So, how do I see this assisting me in my work? In my writing?

Well, it ships with 1.3g free space, a terminal with SSH & vi, open office, a pdf viewer, and is linux. I opted to bring home the one with the webcam, though have not yet played with it. In theory the battery life is over 3.5 hours (more if I am not on wifi).

You see, I bounce around a good deal. I do not have an office (beyond the one at home) and I squat in a conference room by one client (let’s call that point A) whenever possible. I am at point A for 4 hours, 4 times a week. Then I go to point B for lunch (when I remember to eat), Clients often happen at random times in the mid-to late afternoon and twice a week (6-9p) I am on campus (during the term). I have determined that I cannot do the work I need on a crackberry and sadly my filo can’t fulfill all my needs. While I like wifi I don’t always need it. I need access to spreadsheets and a text editor. That I can do basic powerpoint and word is an added bonus. I often have at least 3 hours between appointments, but since it takes about an hour to travel home from midtown (and back again), I don’t really see the point in going home between (though it would mean more knitting).

It needs a name. I’m partial to animals (or nouns) in non-English languages but languages I sort of “know”. To that extent: French, Hebrew, Hungarian, Czech, and Japanese are all open. I was thinking of something emphasizing the small and lightweight joy… I’ve thought (and semi rejected) feather, mouse, lace, humming bird… Suggestions? If you provide the winning name, I’ll send you something within the next 365 days. (I feel bad, Dave is still waiting for his prize).

It’s been a very long week. The past few days have been awesome but beyond insanely busy. Thankfully my RAM and usb2ps2 convertor came yesterday and my wonderful husband installed it for me (we fight over who gets to do the geek things). I came home a short bit ago, and didn’t have to deal with small screws and putting in the chips and I knew that my keyboard would work (a huge relief).

Using my keyboard is a bit surreal, it brings back memories of undergraduate life both good and bad. It is a bit freaky to have my laptop is just sitting there and the words [that I'm thinking] will appear on the screen without my fingers on its keyboard. (I’ve played vnc tricks on people but this is really weird).

I’m not going to show you a picture of my keyboard because I don’t want to be responsible for anyone loosing their lunch. I still have much to do in terms of cleaning before E might touch it. ;) Rubbing alcohol and qtips ar emy friend. That the keys pop off super easy too has always made me happy.

Even with the extreme grime, using it is beyond awesome. It is quite comfortable to type, and to type with dvorak no matter which application I’m in. I have to fix a few things to make everything work as I want but by default? Life is pleasant and can only get better. Some people have complained thath there are a total of 12 keys that only the thumbs (6 each) can use. I’m a bassoonist. This is child’s play and there is actually less reach for me on this keyboard than on a horn.

Having the extra gig of RAM has also been what I needed. When I get a chance to spend more than the half an hour just now (such as the next couple of hours) I’m quite sure I’ll come to realize how nice this present to myself is.

After next week I should be able to catch my breath (famous last words) and maybe start to catch up on email, rss feeds, and cleaning.

(not really in top order…)

• ok.. I’m cheating. There are actually 3 websites in this one. They are all NYC library/information institutions, and I turn to them often. From here I can pretty much get anywhere and anything.
  • NYPL has TONS of resources throughout their many pages. Since I have Cards (for both general circulating and the reference/research libraries), I have access to many electronic databases.
  • Same goes for my BPL.
  • My University Library (of which I have a hate-love relationship and am pretty cranky with right now) has amazing resources available. Additionally, if you visit the individual libraries websites, there are quite often links to wonderful subject research guides. I know many of the individuals who have written these, and they have done a nice job for them. (the bschool one is very well done and useful. Especially if you aren’t a b-school/econ person and have to puzzle out novel terms and concepts).
• BoingBoing. It fits, which probably shouldn’t surprise you if you know me in real life. They’ve recently redesigned and added a separate gadgets blog. The podcasts are nice too.
• Cute Overload. I read this via RSS, but had to “ignore” it for a while when both Cosette and Nibi died as it made me too sad. Overall though I smile greatly while reading.
• I use NOAA for my weather forecasts. There are a ton of amazing things on there which I don’t even get close to hitting the surface of. Here is the current forecast for main campus of my Uni.

What are your favourite websites? Why? (you are not obligated to answer).

I can’t spell, this is a known fact. I can (when necessary) spell complicated things. I can’t spell many common words. I realized this morning that I misspelled (in flickr) E’s instant gratification socks. I wrote grandification. We won’t go into how many tries it took me to get that right. The new feature of firefox which underlines misspellings in (most) test fields is amazing for me. I know I often coin words (trafficated is my famous example) but that was some new weird creation that I didn’t mean. Anyway…. as a segue into socks…

I cast on yesterday morning for the second sock. It is amazing to me how fast this sock is knitting. the foot and leg are 42 stitches, I’m using 16″ Bryspuns, 3.25mm. By the time I got home tonight (without any excessive extra knitting time, and two extra hours at the office, maybe at most 10 minutes after I scarfed down lunch), I was done with half of the heel! Ok, I did the math, I had about 2.5 hours of knitting on Wednesday (yesterday), all but probably 10 minutes of that was commuting (the 10 minutes were for lunch). I made some more progress since 9ish when I got home (early) and hope to finish the heel before I fall asleep shortly (10:30) and set this post to autopublish after midnight. Thursday (tomorrow) I don’t have as much knitting commuting time, but we’ll see what happens.

I’m still really really tired, so all grammatical and spelling errors and just plain weird logic and sentence formation are because of this. If you’ve emailed me and not received a response, I’m getting there. If you’ve commented and I’ve not written you back, I’m getting there. If you really really need to ask me something and require a prompt answer, my suggestion is to find me and ask in person. If you bring coffee (after tomorrow morning) it will probably help. I hope tonight’s sleep will help. Additionally I’ve been doing a ton of research for Friday’s post, so I hope it comes together and am eager to see if I can pull it off with all my random lay-knowledge and information learning.

;)

Ok. While I think that a paper and pencil are often a very good tool, (along with my teeth and fingernails) there are many tools I use every day that are children of technology. So what am I using these days that work FOR me? These might not work for you. They work for me. It’s been lots of trial and error to get to this point. The tools are: Google Reader, Google Calendar, Remember the Milk, and Joe’s Goals, del.icio.us, my crackberry, ravelry, and the camera on my cell phone*.

Google Reader is how I read rss feeds. Pretty much if your site doesn’t have an RSS feed I probably won’t follow it regularly. There is so much out there and I parse through tons each day, I need help and Reader does this.

Google Calendar is my online calendaring app. I use it to see at a glance what’s going on. It’s also my backup copy of big stuff I have planned. I also like the pretty colours.

I’ve been using Remember the Milk frequently and love it. I’m still a procrastinator but not as much these days. Not sure why this app helps where others have failed but it’s good. I wish I could receive a daily email of “here’s what overdue, due today, and due tomorrow” or be able to send either an sms query or email to find out what is on different lists. Overall this app rocks.

Joe’s Goals is a new addition to my lineup, and I’ve taken some things out of RTM and migrated them into JG. It’s fun.

Del.icio.us manages my bookmarks. I float around computers and this is the easiest way for me to *organize* and share (mostly with myself) my bookmarks. Tags rule.

Crackberry is my old 7230 blackberry. Not as fancy as many of the newer ones, but it (mostly) works. Definitely beats schlepping my laptop around. I like that if I have to I can look stuff up. Also my crackberry has SMS and as I’m too cheap to add this to my current cell plan it’s very convenient. If you do need to SMS me in an emergency DO NOT HESITATE. It’s general chatter I don’t want to pay for.

Ravelry is “a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration.” (from the website). I definitely look at my stash differently now. I do hope however I don’t screw it up royally. Since I picked up Itty-Bitty Nursery early and am so eager about it (despite not really having appropriate stash for the projects), I wanted to enter in the patterns so when everyone can buy it, things are just there waiting for them. Oops. It seems I’m doing things wrong, so now I have to go through and figure out how not to do that.

The camera on my cell phone is useful. I’ll take pictures of isbn’s of books if i can’t easily get to paper and pencil. It’s not the best camera phone out there but it’s better than what I had before. It’s nice to have a camera on you if you need it. Note that this list doesn’t include the phone portion of my gadget. I hate telephones.

Inspired by:
- Tips and Tricks to Uncover What Works for You

Not at all packed. Very tired. Much to do.

2) I am currently binding off the first of my father-in-law’s socks. They are super stretchy and I hope he really does like them when I finish them in time for summer. ;)

3) I am happy when it is sunny.

4) Did you see Dave’s beautiful lace weight from his new journey wheel?… He and I have since been emailing (er, I’ve been spamming him and he’s been very kind and responded) and he pointed me to Abby’s wonderful youtube video on spindle spinning. I practiced for 5 minutes today. I’m not suddenly an awesome spinner but I think i grok drafting a bit better. Thank you!!

Question: Information Literacy Competency (also overlap/needs of information technology)… thoughts?

Note: I’ve really not done a lot of research on this topic but it’s been in the back of my head for about 7 or 8 years.. I’m not quite sure how I would go about it.. but (foresight?) a need for literacy in these topics is partially why I chose the undergraduate major I did.

I keep saying “regular posting will resume shortly” .. it will. Classes end next week. I am not currently planning summer courses. That just freed up no less than 12 hours a week (class attendance and commuting estimates).

You have NO idea how happy this makes me. Samba and I haven’t gotten along before — everything would be right but if *I* turned it on? Disaster. Anyone else? Success (with the same bloody command. even often within my login by hitting my command history.) which of course is pathetic and made me annoyed and frustrated for the past, oh, i don’t know.. 9½ years?

Huge happy dance.

** if you don’t understand any of that geek, just know I am happy right now. Which is difficult given everything else in the world right now. And I feel more than a little selfish ..
(there have been some edits to this post for clarification. last edit: 2:42p)

Anyway, lots of neatness (mashups) with google maps.

I think my favourite (as I am a pedestrian the majority of the time) is Gmaps Pedometer, something I’ve been using for quite some time (and have written about here in the past).

What is your favourite maps mashup?

NYC weather was AWESOME today.. I actually could knit on my walk home tonight. :)