Ryminate

JOTT -- My "Always There" Personal Assistant

I hate to admit it, but my work life can be a bit email inbox-centric; consequently, I think I've necessarily become quite effective at inbox processing. In fact, I kind of delight in plowing through my emails each morning, firing off responses, dumping some to my task list,  delegating...   until I get to that beautiful moment of zen when my inbox is empty.

Since identifying my proclivity for inbox processing, I've tried to channel as much "stuff" as possible to my email inbox. Enter Jott, a free service that allows you send transcribed messages from your cell phone to your inbox. It's kind of like having an "always there" personal assistant. Since getting on board I Jott on the road, while in bed, and sometimes on bike rides. Check out a video demo:

How a Pocket Audit Saved Me From the Man-Purse

A few days ago I decided I was carrying around too much junk in my pockets. It was getting uncomfortable, and it probably looked even worse--especially in dress pants. While my pocket inventory consisted only of a wallet and keyring, both were getting out of control. It was either simplify, or spring for the man purse; I chose the former.

I began the simplification process by doing a pocket audit. My wallet was a leather, tri-fold model full of membership cards, punchcards, business cards, gift cards, notes, receipts, etc. (i.e., it was a fatty). My keyring had several keys on it that I only used periodically, a sentimental knickknack, a broken usb drive, and the keyless entry fob for my car.

After taking an inventory, I decided to strip down to the bare essentials (See picture). The wallet became a binder clip holding my driver's license; two debit cards--one work, one personal; and some cash. The keyring was downsized to two car keys, an office key, a house key, and a new usb drive (containing PortableApps for the geeks out there).

After making these changes I've been DELIGHTED with the difference. So far I haven't missed any of the extra inventory. I admit, I was a bit apprehensive about going without keyless entry for my car, but it's really not that big of a deal. It's amazing to me how small simplifications in my life can pay such large dividends.

The inspiration for this change was ZenHabits, a great resource on simple productivity.

Spc. Howell at the Broncos-Packers Game

A few weeks ago my brother serving in the Army in Iraq emailed us to say he would be on the jumbotron at the Broncos-Packers football game. Tickets were sent to our family to attend the game and me, my dad, and my two other brothers all ended up going. We had little idea that we would also be on the jumbotron, but when we arrived at our seats midway through the first quarter Miles the Broncos mascot and the cameras were all waiting. Check it out:

Doing Good Via the Internet

What do you do on the Internet? Me... a lot! I do email (gmail, Exchange), read a TON (mostly via Google Reader) , connect with people (LinkedIn, Facebook), do research, check the weather (SimpleWeather), listen to music (Pandora), watch TV, chat (Meebo), talk (Skype), build my family tree (Geni), blog and more.

While these things are all good, (like Google, I try not to be evil on the Internet), if I'm honest with myself these things are pretty self-interested activities. I guess I do send get well emails from time to time, or make charitable donations via the Internet, but I could certainly be better at using  the Internet to "do good."

Here are two great opportunities to "do good" on the Internet, each of which only take a few minutes:

1. Let'sSayThanks - Regardless of your position on the current Iraq mess, you have to give it up for our troops. They are loyal and courageous despite the tough situation. Let's Say Thanks is a site that allows you to send a free printed postcard to U.S. military personal serving abroad. Take two minutes and do this. On a personal note my brother and his new wife are both stationed in Baghdad, he on his second tour. They are both Army combat medics so they see the worst of the worst. I love catching them from time to time on Gmail chat--cool, huh.
2. FreeRice - Want to brush up on your vocabulary and at the same time do something good? Go to FreeRice.com and you will be quizzed on your English vocabulary. If you click on the correct answer you donate 10 grains of rice to those in need. The rice is paid for by corporate sponsors. This site is simple, fun, and good. (Maybe StartupWeekend should take a look at doing something good like this. Andrew...?).

Let me know if you have any other cool ways to "do good" on the Internet.

Passive Shopping on CraigsList

This week I bought a bike on CraigsList. It was an incredibly easy thing to do because of RSS (if you don't know what RSS is, click through to this great explanation).

Here's how I bought my bike:

1. I decided I might be interested in buying a new bike at the right price.
2. I did a search under the "bikes"  category on CraigsList for "60cm." ("60cm" is the bike size my lanky frame requires).
3. There were a few results, but nothing of particular interest. Thankfully, CraigsList provides an RSS feed for this specific search. I copied the RSS feed, (provided in the lower right corner of the search results screen), and then loaded it into my feedreader. From that moment on, anytime a bike with "60cm" in the description was posted on Craigslist, my feedreader pinged me.
4. So I went on with my life, and every few days or so a 60cm bike showed up in my feedreader.
5. The above 60cm bike showed up this week, I called the buyer, and arranged to buy it for a bargain price.

Traditionally, to get this kind of deal I would have had to scour the classifieds at least daily, and then race other  potential  buyers  to close the deal. Now, I use RSS and as soon as a posting is made, I get a ping. This is how I bought my office whiteboard, my car, and could very well be how I buy a house. I love when technology makes a normally labor intensive task a breeze.

Market Meltdown?

If you've ever watched Jim Cramer's CNBC show, Mad Money, you know the guy is over the top. Most dismiss Cramer's tirades as entertainment more than thoughtful analysis, an assessment he might even agree with behind closed doors. Nevertheless, the guy is not an idiot. Cramer graduated magna cum laud from Harvard, later went to law school there, had a successful stint at Goldman Sachs and founded a hedge fund as well as TheStreet.com. Last Friday, Cramer went NUTS in his criticism of the Fed's attention (or lack thereof) to the current mortgage crisis. Take a look:

Great television for sure, but is Cramer on to something here? I'm certainly not an economist, but I do worry about how the mortgage mess will affect the larger economy. Diana Olick, a CNBC reporter who covers the real estate market, tends to agree--at least to some extent with Cramer's assessment. She states:

[Cramer] claims we have "no idea how bad it is out there." I think we do, I just think no one wants to admit it.

The fact is that according to a study by Credit Suisse, the bulk of the adjustable rate mortgages that were sold during the height of the housing boom, that is during the height of the most aggressive lending, will reset this fall, billions of dollars worth, and many many of the borrowers holding those loans will not be able to afford the resets.

This doesn't bode well for the holiday season. The Fed is meeting tomorrow so it will be interesting to hear their outlook on the economy. Expect (more) volatile markets for the next couple days.

How to Use Your Cameraphone as a Scanner

Have you ever had a killer brainstorm session that ended with someone saying, "Alright, who's going to copy all this down?" I certainly have.

Enter scanR. In this situation I just take out my trusty cameraphone, take a quick pic, and then email it to my scanR account. A few moments later, I receive an email containing a link to my "whiteboard" in PDF or JPEG format. I can then forward this "whiteboard" on to the group so everyone has it. I love this because then you are able to record all the meaning conveyed by position, colors, and font (as well as any sketch ups) that are not transferable to a typed up medium.

It also works with books, magazines, and documents.The other day I was doing research at the library, and once I found what I needed I realized I didn't have any change to make photocopies. No worries, I just snapped a few photos, sent them to scanR, and I received a link shortly thereafter. With documents you can actually select to receive them in text format. Yep, all OCRed and everything.

You can also scan business cards and scanR will send you a corresponding vCard. Unfortunately this only works if you have a cameraphone with at least 2 megapixels. My Dash is only 1.3 so I haven't been able to try it.

All this reminds me of an old episode of Mission Impossible, not the old series, but the one that ran from '88 to '89.I remember Peter Graves sneaking into an office and pulling out a document scanner that was about the size of a king size candy bar. As he quickly scanned the "secret" documents the music crescendoed and someone burst into the room. I'm not sure what happened next but I do remember thinking, "Man, that thing is so cool!" Now I've got one of my own. :)

Countries With Universal Healthcare

(Click map for a larger view). This reminds me of the "Nations Who Have Not Yet Adopted the Metric System" map. My mom used to say, "Just because everyone's doing it, doesn't make it right." I agree. Plus, not everyone is doing it. There's Africa, Iran, and North Korea (among others).

Ryminate

I am in the process of changing the title of my blog from "Crossing the Rubicon" to "Ryminate". I originally used "Crossing the Rubicon" because I love the meaning behind the phrase. From Wikipedia:

The Rubicon river is notable as Roman law forbade any general from crossing it with an army. The river was considered to mark the boundary between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the north and Italy proper to the south; the law thus protected the republic from internal military threat. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC, supposedly on January 10 of the Roman calendar, to make his way to Rome he broke that law and made armed conflict inevitable. According to Suetonius he uttered the famous phrase ālea iacta est ("the die is cast").^[2]

Suetonius also described how Caesar was apparently still undecided as he approached the river, and the author gave credit for the actual moment of crossing to a supernatural apparition. The phrase "crossing the Rubicon" has survived to refer to any people committing themselves irrevocably to a risky and revolutionary course of action – similar to the current phrase "passing the point of no return".

I love that. Nonetheless, I am going to file away my domain rubiconventures.com for later use and go with ryminate.com for the blog. "Ryminate" is derived from Ryan's ruminations. A bit corny I know, but I'm OK with corny. "Ruminate" is a great word that means "to chew over; reflect deeply on a subject." Also, a "ruminant" is "an animal that digests its food in two steps, first by eating the raw material and regurgitating a semi-digested form known as cud, then eating (chewing) the cud, a process called ruminating." I think that's a great image of what I do mentally with the stuff I post. (I'm half kidding).

Over the next little while I'll be changing the header, changing the domain mapping, updating some links, etc. Hopefully I won't break anything.

(Oh and yes I did use the Web 2.0 logo generator for the current Ryminate logo :).

Changing RSS Readers: From Bloglines to Google Reader

This past week I changed RSS readers from Bloglines to Google Reader . (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, RSS who?, check out this short video explanation of RSS).  I was very hesitant to make the change because I was a big fan of Bloglines, loved their mobile version, and for the most part it worked how I wanted it to. What pushed me over to Google's solution then?

First the pull factor: I am fascinated with the development of Google Apps. Google's recent acquisition of Postini sends a strong message to me (and to others) that Google is indeed building a enterprise capable application that will be able to replace Microsoft Exchange, a program that is expensive, too complex for most businesses, but offers a few must-haves like PIM and email synchronization, and shared contacts and calendars. Google Apps isn't where it needs to be to get my business, but I will certainly take a long, hard look in early 2008.

What does that have to do with getting rid of Bloglines? Well, in anticipation of a possible move to Google Apps next year, I am using many of Google's applications with more frequency: Gmail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and Google Calendar. Using Google Reader was a logical extension of this.

Second, the push factors: A few little things have really bugged me with Bloglines. One, there isn't a GREAT way to save posts that I would like to file away. You can "clip" a post, but it's really an undelightful process. Two, last year I decided to divide my feeds into two different folders--feeds I want to read a) daily and b) weekly. Since then, I've wanted to get rid of these folders and haven't been able to do so. Maybe this is an easy fix, but I wasn't able to figure it out. Third, Bloglines has been re-serving me old articles as new articles on an increasingly frequent basis. This third reason was the straw that broke the camel's back.

So what do I think of Google Reader? Love it so far.  Very briefly, I love that I can "star" or tag articles and then forget them until later; the mobile version works great; it's easy to email articles via my Gmail account; there has been no re-serving of old articles, so far; and I can catch up on my feeds offline. Don't get me wrong, Bloglines is great, but Google Reader to greater.