January 2012 – Auxiliary Memory

Z-Coil Shoes and My Spinal Stenosis

The arthritis in my L5 vertebra makes walking and standing pain inducing activities. To avoid pain I avoid walking anywhere but short distances.

I also keep pain under control by doing daily exercises my physical therapist taught me, but as things degenerate in my back my walking and standing stamina dwindles. I’m always trying to find things to help and this week I bought some Z-Coil shoes. I looked at them a year ago but was afraid to spend the money on something that might not work. Well, I’ve been avoiding meetings that require walking across campus because even short quarter mile walks can make my feet go numb for a day or two.

Because I don’t want to give up such walks I spent $189 (on sale) for some Z-Coil shoes and I was surprised by how much they helped. My feet tonight are no more numb and tired than than days I don’t have to walk across campus.

I can’t tell you if they will help you if you have back problems, but I can say they helped me. I tried to find testimonials on the web and didn’t find many. So here’s mine for what it’s worth.

Got to tell you though, they are weird looking, and they might even be dangerous if you aren’t careful. Read the warnings.

They come in many styles for men and women, even sandals. Newer models even try to hide the big spring, which act like a shock-absorber. The tension in my lower back started relaxing just hours after I started wearing these shoes. I’ve even been able to cut back on my anti-inflammation medicine. Oh, I’m not cured. Daily activity still wears on my lower spine but I’ve reduced that strain significantly with these shoes.

I can’t promise they will help you with your back problems. My guess is they won’t with muscle problems at all. I have degenerative discs that bone wear is pressing on nerves, so I have numbness, tingling and tension more than pain right now. I think these shock absorber shoes just reduce that wear somewhat – enough so I notice.

It’s something to consider.

JWH – 1/30/12

Update – 2/4/12

Before I tried Z-coil shoes I sometimes had weird sensations when I walked. Sometimes I’d feel like I was stepping in a hole or slipping on ice for a tiny fraction of a section. I assumed this happened when I twinged a nerve. After I started wearing the Z-coil shoes I haven’t had those sensations.

Living in the Cloud: Chrome

I wish I had committed to Chrome years ago and studied its features. Extensions make Chrome so much more powerful, offering a quantum leap in browsing features, especially when you use cloud sites like Evernote and Instapaper. If only I had taken the time to play with Chrome years ago I would have found browser nirvana sooner. Extensions are like apps for the iPhone.

What finally got me started was the Reader button in Safari.

You can click on any of these images to see a larger view.

Below is a web page in Chrome.

Here’s the same page in Safari after pressing the Reader button (the purple button at the top center).

However, I don’t like Safari, so I found Readability Redux extension in Chrome for online reading. Readability Redux offers many layout, printing and email options. It’s icon is at the upper right, the R inside a blue square. Readability Redux creates an ebook-like view for reading on the computer screen. I prefer a medium font, a narrow scan line, and wide margins, but it’s all up to you.

Here’s my extension bar within Chrome. The elephant head green icon is Evernote, a cloud based, free-form database. I’ve created a notebook in Evernote called Books to Read. By clicking on the Evernote extension the page I’m reading is saved on Evernote cloud server.

And here’s what it looks like in Evernote on my PC once that apps sync’s to Evernote’s cloud. I can also read my Evernote clippings on my Mac, iPod touch or iPad, all of which have Evernote apps, or from the web. Think of Evernote as a scrapbook for notes, pictures and PDFs with a search button.

The orange K icon is the Send to Kindle extension for sending a web article to my Kindle. Sometimes I want to read the web from my La-Z-Boy – I’m just that lazy.

The white I icon sends a web page link to Instapaper for later reading and archiving page into subjects. I’m all the time thinking, “Where did I read X?” Instapaper helps me remember by tracking web pages I think are significant. Anytime I see a web page I don’t have time to read I press the I icon and visit Instapaper later.

The icon of an envelope, Email this Page, loads my email program, creates a new message containing a link of the web page I’m reading. I’m big on sharing cool sites with my friends and this is a quick way to do it. Of course I wonder how they feel about me pestering them with cool pages.

Chrome has a “sign into” Google feature that syncs my extensions, bookmarks and settings. Anything I do at one Chrome location, on any of my five machines at work and home are all synchronized to the others. If I add an extension while using one machine and go use another machine, I’ll see it there automatically. If I save a bookmark on my work PC and go home that bookmark will be on my home machines. Too cool daddy-o.

JWH – 1/30/12

Living in the Cloud: A File Structure for Life

I’ve been messing with microcomputers since 1979, but it wasn’t until the mid-90s that I realized I was creating data I didn’t ever want to lose. By the mid-00s with digital music, video and photography it’s obvious to everyone that we had invisible possessions we’d want to keep for life. This presents a number of problems. How long can I preserve photos like this of my great grandparents?

File Formats

My first efforts of writing fiction was on a Commodore 64 – and even if I had any of its floppies, I couldn’t read the discs, nor would I have a word processing program to read the files. When I got a PC I bought Word Perfect, but that was many PCs ago, and I’ve since converted those files to Word. If I live to be 100 (1951) will I still be able to read those files? If by a miracle I do live a century I’m pretty sure I’ll be a sentimental old slob who cries over his ancient snapshots. Will I be able to find the ones I want and still view them? Is it .jpg forever? I’ve been buying audiobooks from Audible.com since 2002, will I still have my audiobook library to play in 2051? Or all the Kindle books I’m buying now?

Standard file formats are critical to long-term preservation of data. How long will Amazon maintain the DRM copy protection on my Kindle books and Audible audiobooks?

Data Migration

I’ve lost count how many computers I’ve own after eleven. Every time I get a new computer I need to move all my files over and that’s a pain. I’m always making a new folder and throwing stuff in it, so the number of files I’m saving constantly grows, and every few years I try to clean things out and it’s a big job. Usually when I get a new computer I just copy everything in My Documents to the new My Documents folder. But what if I got a Mac? Or what if in 2022 they come out with some far out new computer system?

File Organization

If you start with one folder, and organize your digital life into sub-folders, what is the best structure? I sure wished that iTunes hadn’t put ripped audio books into My Music years ago, because that’s causing problems moving my music to the cloud. Is there a way to plan for future snafus?

Is there an optimal structure that will stand the test of time. By structure, I mean folder organization.

\Jim Harris

\Audio Books

\Data

\Ebooks

\Mind Maps

\Music

\Numbers

\PDF

\Photos

\Words

\Essays

\Fiction

\Videos

Let’s imagine a future where we have federally regulated data banks like we have money banks and we can trust them implicitly. In this future, data bank replicates our data in layers of backups, that for anything short of Armageddon, will be completely secure. Should we put all our data in one place? In the above chart I could remove \Music because I have my music stored at Google, Amazon and Apple. I could also remove \Photos because of Picasaweb. I could also remove \Audio Books and \Ebooks because of Amazon.

Because we don’t have data banks and because my cloud storage is limited at Dropbox and SkyDrive, I will let those other companies maintain my media files. But if we did have trustworthy data banks, I’d probably want all my content in one location, which means precise organization is important if I’m collecting files for life.

Data Inheritance

There is another thing to consider – what happens when we die? When our parents die we inherit their papers, books, records, photos and so on. Won’t we do the same things with digital files? When I die I want my file structure copied over to my wife’s data bank, and if I wanted, I’d like to give copies to all interested relatives and friends too. Having a well organize file structure would make it easier for people to go through my digital processions.

Cloud of the Future

Someday we will have data banks. We might even have laws that require our data to be saved for historians. Can you imagine scholars from 2782 AD trying to research our times? I saw a wonderful show on Nova last night, “Mysteries of a Masterpiece” about art historians working to validate a work of art as Leonardo da Vinci. The scientists had lots of physical artifacts to examine. If our world goes digital, what will future researchers have to figure out how we lived?

Moving to the cloud is the first step towards this future where we have data banks and preserving digital data for all time.

JWH – 1/26/12

Living the in Cloud: Dropbox and Evernote

If you access the internet from only one device this article won’t mean much to you, so I won’t mind if you go read something more interesting.

However, if you own a computer and a tablet, or a computer, smartphone and tablet, then reading about Evernote and Dropbox might be worth a few minutes of your time. If you’re like me and juggle a lot of devices then learning to squirrel your digital crap all over the cloud becomes more vital. At home I have both a Windows and Linux desktop, at work I have Windows, Linux and Mac desktops, and between the two locations I have an iPod touch and iPad 2.

What a pain it is to think of something you want and realize you left it in your other computer. Moving to the cloud is in its early stages, so 100% tried and true solutions are in the future. As society evolves towards the day when internet access has five nines of uptime, 99.999%, then we can develop a new paradigm of trusting our files to the cloud, and that will be the difference between life before personal computers and life after them.

Although I’d like to be a cyborg and meld my brain with silicon I’m not quite there yet, but I do think of the Internet as my auxiliary brain and that presents some problems. Before the Internet going to work meant leaving my main auxiliary brain at home – how inconvenient. Sure, someone invented the laptop and it was a good idea at the time, but it was only a stopgap solution. After we got smartphones and tablets it became pretty obvious trying to sync all our crap between every device we owned was a losing battle. The solution was to put all digital kipple in one location and then let all the machines, big and small, fetch what we needed from that primary storage.

What this means is the cloud is our new auxiliary memory and the machine we use is less important. The old fanboy battle between PC versus Mac becomes silly. If I can read my docs, listen to my music and look at my photos from any device, does it matter how big or small it is, or who made it, or even who owns it? Instant access is what counts. Memories are best served fast.

When the cloud becomes our digital memory deciding how to organize memories becomes significant. I’m playing with two tools, Dropbox and Evernote. Both are free to use with an introductory amount of cloud space, but fill up your cloud attic, and you’ll have to pay for more space for your white elephants. That’s cool, but I haven’t committed to either one yet because I’m still evaluating how they store my memories. I’ll probably buy into both, but I haven’t decided.

Dropbox is like having a hard drive in the cloud. You create folders and store whatever kind of files you want. It’s very computer centric. When you join you get 2gb of free space. If you convince a friend to join they give you another 250mb of space. If you get enough friends to join you can get up to 8gb of free space, but after that you rent larger blocks of space. By the way, if you join from this link I’ll earn some extra space.

Evernote is different, it’s database centric. Evernote is a free-form database where you leave notes, either ones you type, or ones you email via a smartphone, or clip from the web, or cut and paste from your own computer documents. You can even embed PDF files. If you spend $45 a year, upgrading to the Premium version, gets you more memory processing features and more storage space.

The neat thing about Evernote is being able to search your collection of notes. Since I’m getting old and the access speed on my biological memory has become erratic, untrustworthy and slow, having cloud base memory with search is nifty indeed. Because Evernote is a free-form database, throw your data in any old way, it doesn’t matter, and let search find it for you. You can be as sloppy or neat as your personality.

Both programs install as programs on your computers, work from web apps, or install as apps on iOS and Android smartphones and tablets.

I can access Evernote and Dropbox from my PC, Mac, Linux, iPad, and iPod touch. If I think of something I want to remember, or read something I want to remember, I can choose to remember it the old way, or I can memorize it in my auxiliary memory.

JWH – 1/24/12

Living in the Cloud: Going Google with iGoogle

I’ve been using Google for years. Then Google gave us Gmail. It’s not my main email client, but I use it. Then Google gave us Picasa, Chrome, YouTube, Music, Picnik, Maps, Earth, Reader, Google+, and over time I’ve become Googlefied.

I started storing content on the net with Gopher and began developing web pages when Mosaic came out. I’ve always kept my favorite bookmarks on a file I coded in HTML and used it as my home page in all my browsers. I had set up iGoogle years ago but never really committed to it because I loved my own homely home page.

This morning I started playing iGoogle again and decided to make it my home page for Chrome. Chrome is my default browser at home, but I also use IE 9, FireFox and on rare occasions Safari.

We’re all moving to the cloud. Some people might not know it yet, but we’re all moving to the cloud. Any device with a IP address is on the Internet. Programs and content stored on devices you own are local. If you store you primary copy of data off your local device you’re living in the cloud. Most people find that scary. I do too, although I’m willing to give it a try, so I’m moving my data to the cloud but I’m keeping backups local. Think of me as a belt and suspenders man, at least for now.

I’m going to write a series of posts about living in the cloud and review programs and services that I find worthwhile. My first step is exploring Google’s cloud offerings. I’ve already put my songs in Google Music. I can play them on my PCs, Mac and Linux boxes at work and home, and on my iPod touch and iPad. I’ve also started uploading my photos to Picasa’s online storage.

The thing about moving to the cloud is committing to a company that hosts the servers. The big choices now are Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon. The first three also have their own browsers. (Maybe Amazon should align itself with FireFox.) I have content with all four companies, and moving to the cloud implies I expect these companies to stay in business for the rest of my life. I’m not sure which company will become my primary cloud home, but I’m going to test them all.

I’m starting with Google, and to show my commitment I’m setting iGoogle as my default home page. It allows me to customize my home page extensively with a variety of widgets. Here’s my first effort.

Because Google is pushing Google+, it’s revamped it’s many separate tools into a toolbar that Googlifies everything.

From this home page I can search Google and Wikipedia, click on links to my favorite sites, see Gmail, RSS feeds, weather info, do math, get driving directions, search YouTube, and every thirty seconds be visually reminded of a different moment of the past. Plus, I have a pull-down menu to a vast array of other Google features. If I click on the photo it takes me to Picasa web, where I can click on a photo edit button that brings up the wonders of Picnik photo editing. All the companies that Google has bought over the years is finally coming together in one command center.

Oddly enough, there’s no widget for Google Music. Google needs to add a Google Music Player widget. If I kept my Chrome window opened to full-screen I could even use 4 columns of widgets. iGoogle provides very flexible screen layout options and colorful themes.

iGoogle is a cloud portal tool, a feature that Microsoft, Amazon and Apple don’t have, and puts them at a disadvantage. This matters a lot if you’re using multiple computers, and too a lesser degree if you’re using smartphones and tablets. I have a PC, HTPC and Linux workstation at home, and a PC, Mac and Linux workstation at work, plus I have two mobile devices, an iPod touch and iPad. This provides a tremendous incentive to put my digital possessions in the cloud. My photos and music are available to all my devices at any location.

I have Microsoft Office on my PCs and Mac, and have a nice Outlook client on my iPod and iPad, and hope to have Office apps on my iPad soon. I’m very Microsoft centric when it comes to productivity programs, and Microsoft offers various Live apps that are starting to compete with Google’s cloud tools, but it doesn’t have a portal like iGoogle. I can store photos on SkyDrive but it’s not the same. Microsoft has no cloud music like Amazon and Apple does. But it is obvious that Microsoft is getting serious about the cloud.

Amazon and Apple are really lacking when it comes to furnishing a cloud home base. They are more like mini-storage rental sites, where they will keep all my junk. Amazon’s portal is it’s front page, and Apple’s portal is iCloud, but it’s home page is very limited compared to iGoogle. (How did Apple let Google have the i-name?) Apple assumes people live on their iPhone, iPad and iMac, and everything else doesn’t matter, but I’m not ready to ditch Windows, Linux and Android.

iGoogle isn’t slick like Apple products. It’s not even as slick as Microsoft programming. I’m hoping some of the technology they bought with Picnik might jazz up Google’s cloud apps in the future. iGoogle is good for people who want to work over the widest range of platforms. If you’re a Apple true believer, it won’t matter. If you’re totally devoted to Amazon and Kindle, it might not matter. But if you live in a world of PC, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android, then it’s well worth a look.

Not only does living in the cloud offer cross-platform sharing of data, it also backs up data. If your house burns down, your digital belongings are in the cloud. Eventually I want to replicate my data across two or more cloud servers to have even more protection, in case one company goes out of business or suffers a prolong outage. Switching to iGoogle is just the start.

JWH – 1/22/12