Transcending Ordinary

Companies are entities founded for the purpose of making money for their stakeholders, including employees. They are often complex, beyond the typical revenue generating activities that they are associated with. They employ revenue enabling resources like accountants, lawyers, marketers, cleaning staff, security guards, etc.

For many, these activies are considered fluff, or “overhead.” Sure companies have them, but how effective are they? Are they simply added beurocracy to justify being a bonified “company”? Why should the money I make in my revenue generating work go to anyone else but me? How confident am I that the money is being spent efficiently? For most of us, their activies are unknown and therefore not fully justified in our minds.

This leads to the believe that the person could do x, y, and z better themselves, without the seemingly unnecessary overhead of the other business layers. Often they can generate revenue themselves on their own, though eventually they too will hire all those supplementary resources as their venture grows.
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So I have two rooms in the front of the house that could use more space, besides rearranging the furniture, I turned to working on the closet. A while back I had installed shoe racks and more shelves in my closet so I had some experience with wire shelving already. I knew I was going to install a system in one room, but that meant that i would have extra wire shelving, what was I going to do with that? How about use it for another system, designed by yours truly
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Past experiences and habits really do have an influence on future accomplishments. I’m sure you are thinking, “That’s probably pretty obvious,” and I agree, though lately I’ve been thinking of this and see more and more concrete examples of this in real life.
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This article is for those people who want to share input/output from the keyboard/mouse/monitor(s) among multiple systems.

There are two new tools I recently uncovered which I find quite useful. The first is full remote desktop sharing software. The second is input sharing, specifically using the keyboard/mouse among multiple computers with separate displays.
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Ok, so I started my Rails work with Tiger and painfully used rails to get RoR setup with RMagick.

I did the same thing on Leopard, and it also ended up being a pain. However, after some expiremention I’ve decided to roll with the preinstalled RoR that comes with Leopard rather then installing everything with ports. I’ve also got the RMagic install down to only four steps:)

Assumptions: you are running Leopard, you have already installed xCode, and you have Mac Ports.

- sudo port install tiff -macosx

- sudo port install ImageMagick

- sudo ln -s /opt/local/lib/libMagick++.dylib /opt/local/lib/libmagick.dylib

- sudo gem install rmagick

DONE

I’ve taken some heat for my last post, everyone seems to get caught up on me using numbers in my example. It was only to help get my point across as to just how rare it is for two people who are compatible with each other to actually meet at the right time in their lives.

So what’s next, well on the same thread as the earlier post, stages in life, I’ll talk about another realization I had recently in my own life.

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Ok, any developer will tell you, IE6 can be a real hassle to develop for. Now I’ve certainly made my share of concessions, so another IE6 work around is nothing new. Having gotten used to more standards based browsers, I constantly think, why is IE so freaking popular! But alias, it is, so I have to support it.

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Ok, I want to share a service I’ve been using for a while after my VOIP service (Sunrocket) shutdown. Actually there are two services which can be used separately of if combined are great. You can get free incoming phone service to your house land line.

The first is from GrandCentral, a company aquired by Google. GrandCentral allows users to pick a local number, then add all their contact numbers to that account. You can add your mobile, house, office, etc. When someone calls your the GrandCentral number you have selected, all your phones will ring. It also handles voicemail, and you get a log of all your calls. In addition you can listen to your voicemails online, as well as record calls. It is a great service, check it out.

The next service you should check out is GizmoProject. I think it was named after the Gizmo VOIP hardware that came with Sunrocket Service. The Gizmo Project, GP for short, allows you to make voip calls from your computer. I know, I know, there are other VOIP services out there like Skype. True, but with GP, not only do you get an actual phone number and can receive unlimited calls from landlines, but you can also use your Gizmo device to make/recieve calls from your house phone itself.

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In playing with a new 8gig SD card, I took some pics with my SD720 around the house. I also found some old photos of my place before I painted. This layout has issues with picture placement, I’m aware of them, but I’m not going to fix it since my new layout works fine with it. Hopefully I’ll finish the new layout this weekend

My Bedroom

Guest Room 1

Kitchen

before after

Living Room

before after

Downstairs

Garage

This morning, I reflected on a few things that I’ve come to realize over the last few days that took me time to learn. I thought to myself, man, if someone had told me ‘x’ I wouldn’t have made mistake ‘y.’

Granted, I realize that it takes the experience itself to fully grasp the concept/lesson, though even learning from others is better than not learning at all, and certainly less costly then learning by mistakes. So I’m hoping my reflections can help put things in perspective and benefit others.

I realized that there are many things I learn over the course of time that come from diverse areas so I’ve decided to dedicate a page to them. Nothing in particular, just general things I’ve come to realize. I welcome your contributions as well. Hopefully the things I write and you submit can be applied to the general person, though I realize this will not always be the case and will try to be diligent not focusing on my situation in particular.

Ok, I’m in the midst of redoing the layout of my site, so rather then create a separate page now, I’ll make a simple blog post to kick things off. Baby steps right?
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While out in Latin America, I noticed that the photo gallery, while awesome ;), didn’t give users an indication of when pictures were loading. I never noticed this here since my connection is quite fast and the pictures loading quickly. However in Colombia, the pictures would sometimes takes seconds to load.

So, last night I made an update to the gallery. When pictures are loading, I now show an activity indicator. Also when galleries are in “play mode” (via the ENTER button), there is a running green indicator.

Try it out, I’ve tested mainly on my mac so if you’ve got a windows PC, I’d luv to hear how it works for you. Also, any suggestions would be appreciated.

When I have time, I will update this post, though for now I posted the pics from Medellin in the travel pics gallery, click the link on the right and look for Medellin. The pictures are great.

Where do I start : ) Well the night before I was out practicing my salsa at a local club.
I must admit, these pictures were taken with my cell phone, hence the poor quality Hey, you’ve gotta make the best with what you’ve got right? ; )

On New Years I went over a friends house and had a great time, thanks Ximena! Let me start by contrasting the experience with New Years back in the states. Rather then spending it with just family and friends, everyone goes outside and celebrates it with the entire neighborhood. Lots of drinks, dancing, meeting interesting people from down the street and a great tradition.

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On my last full day in Bogota, my friends and I decided to conquer the Cerro De Monserrate. This was the mountain just behind the area we stayed in the La Candelaria district. There are three ways up the mountain, cable car, rail, or in foot. Jessica and I decided to hike it, while everyone else took the cable car. Besides my daily Salsa lessons I hardly had any excercise on the trip so I was eager to let loose on the hike. That was at the start anyway I soon realized just how much of a factor the high altitude can be. The base was 2600m and 3160m at the top. On the way up we passed many others coming down. I later realized most people take the cable car up, and walk down.
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The next day we decided to start early and take a trip north to the Salt Mines. We went to the metro terminal for a lift on the “Transmillenium.” At the last stop we got off and took the bus for another hour. We got off at a town called Zipaquira and made a 15minute walk up north before arriving at the Catedral De Sal.
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