Wednesday, December 8, 2010
9:21 pm
Daniel J. Summers
Here a while back, I had tried to get to Inbox Zero, and succeeded for a while. However, things happen, and with multiple inboxes, Inbox Zero was a memory. While I've been at the hospital with Michelle, while she rests, I've used tools provided as part of Gmail to integrate my personal and two business e-mail accounts, as well as my Gmail account, which I started using a few months ago as my primary e-mail address.
Before we dig in, let's talk about Inbox Zero. It's basically Getting Things Done applied to e-mail. In GTD, you collect everything that's on your mind (which an e-mail inbox does by default). Once you have all these loose ends collected, you “process” them - you either deal with it (if 2 minutes or less will do it), defer it (which can involve prioritizing), or delegate it. E-mail “processing” is different from what we usually do when we sit down to an inbox with 400 message, 285 unread, looking for subject lines with things to which we can respond in the short time we have. Processing's goal is an empty inbox; to look at every thing and make some decision with it. This brings clarity, because a good bit of the noise will be quieted. Then, when you have time to “do” e-mail, you start with your highest priority, and work your way down. (Of course, there's a little more to it - I just summarized an entire book in a few sentences.)
Here's a screenshot, to prove that I got there. :) It also illustrates how Gmail can help you get there and stay there - labels, conversations, filters, and search.
The first is labels. Within Gmail, messages can have one or more labels; in fact, “Inbox” is a label as well. This allows messages to be identified with the topics addressed, as well as a priority. “1 | Pending”, “2 | Follow-Up”, and “Scouting” are labels in the image above. There is an experimental feature (that seems to work well) that shows or hides the labels in that list based on whether there are any unread conversations in that label. Labels are displayed in alphabetical order, so starting the priority labels with a number sends them to the top of the list. With an e-mail folder (or a file folder), you can't file something in more than one place at a time. However, with labels, you can have a single message labeled with several labels; in fact, one of the messages in “1 | Pending” is also the unread message in “Scouting”. Using read/unread as a status is a help, too; of course I've read the e-mail, but by marking it as new after I had applied the labels to it, it increments the number beside the label in the list (and makes the label show). I can then “archive” it (remove it from the inbox), and I have a reminder of what I need to do.
The second is conversations. Gmail groups all e-mail communications into conversations, and sent and received messages are stored together. This means that you don't have to go plowing through your “Sent” folder to find the message; assuming you labeled it, the entire back-and-forth e-mail exchange is right there in that label's list of messages. It works great for mailing lists, personal e-mails, etc. The only thing I haven't found it working well for is Facebook e-mail notifications; it groups them by subject line, so all the “this-person commented on your status” messages get grouped, and they're not in the order that they are on Facebook. However, that hasn't really bothered me too much.
The third is filters. This is where Gmail would earn its price, if it weren't free. Filters are run against messages as they are received. The most common options I've used in filters is “Skip the Inbox” and “Apply this label” - using those two options, you can make a filter that automatically delivers e-mails to your labels, without you even having to take action to process them! All my daily/weekly e-mails and newsletters are now delivered to “3 | To Review” - the only time I see them is when I say “OK, now I have time to check up on news” and click on the label. I've also created filters for all the ads I've started getting for the sites where I bought that one thing some time ago, and now I get all their ads; I decided against completely deleting them (in case I'm looking to buy something and want to see these e-mail specials), but it's easy to click a label, click “select all”, then click “Delete”. Additionally, if I find myself dealing with the same type of e-mail more than once, I take the do-it-in-two-minutes-or-less route and create a filter for that message; instead of working to get one e-mail done, it's work that will enable future e-mails to be done more quickly.
The fourth is search. How many times have you wanted to “Google” within your e-mail? In Gmail, messages can have any number of labels (or none at all), can be read or unread, starred, etc. In fact, archived with no label is the equivalent of out-of-sight, out-of-mind. However, with their search (you can see the box near the top of the screen shot), you can search all of your messages, including archived message, very quickly. You can also use it to search for e-mails from or to a specific contact. Knowing that search is there can help relieve you of the stress of making sure you apply lots of labels; you can find what you need, when you need it. Want to keep an e-mail? Archive it. You'll never see it until it comes up in a search result and you think “Man, I'm glad I saved that!” Also, searches return conversations, so you have your results in their context.
As a side note, you can also see that, even with one of my accounts that collects zipped database archives every day, I'm only using 4% of my allotted space (near the bottom of the screen shot). This is all my processed e-mail from the past three years, complete with messages I've kept for historical reasons.
The one thing I have yet to do is connect my BlackBerry with this account (Gmail supports IMAP), but that's only because I can't remember my login from a year ago. :) And, because of the Facebook issue I mentioned earlier, I have Facebook e-mails still going in the inbox; once I do connect this account, it will let the BB Facebook app use its integration with the BB inbox. However, these messages are labeled automatically so that I can search that label, then delete my search results.
So, there it is - from chaos with 4 different inboxes to a unified, automatically-filtered organization system in less than two days. The filter and label system are a system I can trust to tell me what the next thing is that I need to do. I even found a feature request for one of my websites while I was processing the imported e-mail, and got it implemented in about 10 minutes. Now I'm ready to GTD!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
4:20 pm
Daniel J. Summers
This post has grown out of a discussion I had with a friend over on Facebook, regarding the BCS vs. deciding the championship on the field. I said that it wouldn't be too hard to come up with something better, and below is an expansion of the remainder of that comment.
All bowls must occur by January 1st. I'm still undecided about whether playoff contenders still play in a bowl, but I'm leaning toward yes, as this leaves the “season” as close to its current incarnation as possible. Once these final rankings come out, the AP top 16 qualify for the playoffs.
Beginning the weekend after New Year's Day, there will be regional playoffs for the rounds of 16 and 8, then a final four that rotates from year to year; the higher seeds (1-8) go to the regional closest to them that has a spot open. All playoff venues will be NFL facilities, to avoid any team playing on their home field. This would also have to take into consideration teams who make the NFL playoffs, so they won't lose the use of their home field to use for practice. For the South/East, some venues would be the Georgia Dome (Atlanta) or Raymond James Stadium (Tampa); the West could play at Qualcomm Field (San Diego) or Candlestick Park (San Francisco); the Midwest could play at Cowboys Stadium (Dallas), Soldier Field (Chicago), Reliant Stadium (Houston), or Invesco Field (Denver). For the championship, I foresee NFL stadiums bidding for a chance to host the Final 4, similar to the way cities bid on the NCAA basketball Final 4.
The round of 16 would feature the lower seeds on Friday night, and the higher seeds on Saturday; the following week, the winners would play (staggered Friday/Saturday among regions, to maximize TV time). The round of 4 would play lower seeds on Friday, higher seeds on Saturday, with the championship the following Saturday. This will wrap up the college champion by the end of January, in plenty of time for the Super Bowl, which is usually the first or second weekend in February.
So, how would this play out this year? As of this writing, we would have:
West Regional - Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego, CA
Friday - #12 Virginia Tech vs. #5 Stanford
Saturday - #16 Oklahoma State vs. #1 Oregon
South/East Regional - Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL
Friday - #9 Boise State vs. #8 Arkansas
Saturday - #15 Missouri vs. #2 Auburn
Midwest Regional 1 - Invesco Field, Denver, CO
Friday - #11 LSU vs #6 Ohio State
Saturday - #13 Nebraska vs. #4 Wisconsin
Midwest Regional 2 - Cowboys Stadium, Dallas, TX
Friday - #16 Oklahoma vs. #7 Michigan State
Saturday - #14 Nevada vs. #3 TCU
I don't really see a whole lot wrong with any of these pairings. Nevada/TCU? LSU/Ohio State? Boise/Arkansas? I don't even follow those schools, but those would be some sweet games. And, throw in a few upsets, and there are some really good college football games in the month of January. Boise State and TCU still get to play for the championship; failing to win your conference championship doesn't necessarily keep you from getting a shot at the national championship. Any of these 16 teams could win the championship, by winning 4 games in a row.
I don't know if we're ready for college teams with records like 18-0 (what Auburn's record would be if they won out - 12 regular season games, 1 conference championship, 1 bowl, and 4 playoff games). But, as a college football fan, I'd sure love to stop hearing about “BCS Busters” year after year. (It would also make Tim Brando and Rece Davis find something else to talk about.)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
12:27 pm
Daniel J. Summers
Earlier this year, I wrote about my experience in switching to Family Life Radio as my day-to-day radio station. In that post, I mentioned befriending Dan Rosecrans, their morning show guy. FLR has a national morning program, but in Albuquerque, we got Dan (and Nathan the Station Engineer) from 0600 to 0900. While I'm new to FLR, and relatively new to Albuquerque considering how long others have been here, I quickly grew to enjoy the information that he would pass along during his morning program. It had to be God working through him, as well, because my drive to work is short; how else would Dan have known not only what I needed to hear, but when I was actually in the car?
Dan has been serving faithfully in this position that for over 20 years; however, this past Monday, he announced that this will be his last week on the air doing the morning show. He'll still be involved with the Albuquerque FLR station, and will still have the All Praise show on Sundays (4-12 MT), but as he said this morning, “This means I don't have to get up at 4 every morning.” :) (Congratulations on that!)
So, Dan - I just wanted to take a few minutes and publicly thank you for your many years of service, and to thank you for allowing God to work through you. I know the positive effect that your ministry has had on my life in these past 11 months, and I'm sure I'm not an exception. Your dedication to inspire, inform, challenge, and entertain those of us out in radio land is something for which I'll always be grateful. I'm glad that you're not completely stepping back from the ministry, and I'll enjoy hearing the music you play and the encouragement you give during All Praise. I pray that God blesses you many times over as you move into this new phase in your ministry.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
11:45 am
Daniel J. Summers
I would like to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a Happy Thanksgiving! While I'm sure there will be more about the true meaning of the next major holiday, let's not forget the original meaning of today - praise to God for His providence, and for friendships formed by people of differing national origins. I have seen suggestions of other things to ponder today, and those aren't necessarily bad. But, in all of this, let's keep the intent of the holiday. We have been blessed (in some cases, beyond what is even believable!), but these blessings aren't about us; they are about the grace of the God Who has chosen to bless us. Were it not for His hand on our lives, everything else we do would be absolutely meaningless.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Also, remember that the first Thanksgiving wasn't celebrated as a family holiday - it was a celebration among people who had recently met each other. Gratitude and thankfulness are expressions that are common among all races, nationalities, and political persuasions. While it's probably too late for this year, think about this in years to come when you're planning your Thanksgiving guest list. Why not use it as a time to get to know new friends better?
After months of on-again, off-again work in my “spare time” (heh), I have converted this WordPress blog to BlogEngine.NET. I'll have a post up at some point in the future, probably over on my tech blog, that goes over what I think are the technical advantages of this platform.
In the course of the conversion, I spruced up some of the standard-as-of-two-years-ago things on the site.
The ShareThis area at the bottom of each post now requires no navigation if you want to share content to Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, or via e-mail.
The theme switcher is gone, as this is the only theme I converted; the others will live fondly in our memory. (Maybe I'll put screenshots on the “About This Blog” page.)
The “History Repeats Itself” and “Verse of the Day” items will only appear on the front page.
I've implemented redirection on all the old posts to their new URLs, so the internal links should be good; if you click something and get a 404 (“Page Not Found”), let me know. Also, I preserved the directory structure that WordPress used for images, so they should all be there. Finally, all comments have been migrated from the election of our current administration forward; the others will come along, but they are single comments on older posts; it won't hurt them to take a break from the Internet.
One interesting side note - over the course of this conversion, I ended up writing some code that was accepted into the project. I'm not just a user, I'm a contributor! (Update: CodePlex is no more, so the link to my profile has been removed.)
Saturday, September 11, 2010
7:00 am
Daniel J. Summers
Today is 9 years removed from September 11th, 2001. There is a lot going on today - fall Saturdays are typically sports days, and today is no different. There are lots of big match-ups in college football, and NASCAR wraps up its regular season tonight, locking in the drivers that will be competing for the championship over the following 10 races. There was a lot going on 9 years ago as well, although as a Tuesday, that day's scheduled entertainment was in music, not sports; Michael W. Smith's Worship and Enya's A Day Without Rain were both released on that date. (It's almost as if God knew that we were going to need them in the weeks to come.)
Of course, I'm not writing today to celebrate the 9th anniversary of Worship, though that album did revolutionize Christian music (not the first time Michael W. Smith had done that). It is remembered for the actions of a rogue band of terrorists, who turned that day into a day of great loss for our nation. It is remembered for the collapses in security that led to what is still both the worst terrorist attack on America, and the worst airline disaster in our history.
There are lots of directions that this post could go. I could talk about the absolutely horrendous idea of building a worship center for the religion under whose auspices the attacks were carried out mere blocks from the site of the attack; but, from my description, you probably can tell how I feel about that. I could also talk about the idiot in Florida who wanted to have the “Bonfire of the Qur'ans” today; but, again, I've probably communicated how I feel just now. I am thankful to God that he has decided against this.
But, today, in between games, cookouts, and races, all I'd like for us all to do is remember. Remember the lives of those who were simply doing their job that sunny September morning. Remember the lives of the police and fire personnel who ran into the building when others were running out. Remember those who were left with the choice of staying where they are and being burned to death, or jumping 100 stories to their death. Remember how the only thing you wanted to do was hold your family tight. Remember the over 3,000 military personnel who have lost their lives in the aftermath of this attack, in counter offenses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember the pain. That pain reminded people just how good we have it here, and for a time, united nearly all of us around the defense of our country.
When you're through remembering, turn to praise. Praise God that we have to go back 9 years to remember a successful large-scale terrorist attack on our soil. Praise God for leaders who made some tough decisions that have resulted in our protection. Praise God for the freedom we still have in this country. And finally, praise God that you were not among those who perished on that day, and resolve to accomplish what He left you here to do.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
12:11 pm
Daniel J. Summers
I finished this year's Dam to Dam Run 10K in 1:10:12, which gives me a pace of 11:18/mile. My goal had been 11:00/mile, which would have had me finishing in 1:08:12, so I missed my goal by 2 minutes. While I'm a little bummed, I did take over 3 minutes off last year's time of 1:13:27, and a change to the course replaced a flat portion with an uphill/downhill portion, which increased the difficultly a bit. At the start, I got caught up in a pack of runners that were faster than my usual pace, but because the area across the dam was so narrow, I couldn't find a spot to drop to the side and drop back to let them get ahead. By the time I did, about 3/4-mile in, I knew I had set myself up for a tough rest of the race. Last year, I didn't walk a single time; this year, I had several short walk-breaks to help a muscle stop hurting, or to try to get circulation back into my feet. (Yes, I loosed my shoe laces; no, it didn't help.) Around the last mile, I also got a headache, which made pushing on tough, especially uphill. Interestingly enough, though, once I got back to the first dam, I was able to find a nice pace that helped me finish strong.
I had planned to listen to All Praise on our local Family Life Radio station as I ran; however, when I turned on my music player, the only button that would respond was “play,” which meant I had to listen to whatever was next. It was good music, but it wasn't what I was going for. I think a new music player may be in the cards for me. This isn't the first time this one has behaved oddly.
This year's run was once again sponsored by Great Harvest Bread and Starbucks, so I enjoyed a slice of sourdough bread and a cup of coffee at the end of the race. You wouldn't think that coffee is good after running, but it is. :) At least I think it is! I did start with water. Keva Juice didn't sponsor this year's race, and I also didn't see any mention of Brent's Place, the home for children with cancer that was the beneficiary of last year's Dam to Dam Run. I asked, and it turns out they had a race in Denver back in July that was actually named after them. It's good to know they're still raising money to support their work. This year's Dam to Dam Run supported the iRunFit program, an after-school youth running program.
The t-shirts were black this year! To the right is the front of the t-shirt, and my bib number, 809.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
10:06 pm
Daniel J. Summers
I have registered for this year's Dam to Dam Run. This will be my first competitive 10K since I ran in it last year, and I'm excited to see how I do. My goal is to average 11-minute miles for the run, which will be 1:08:12 - that's 5:15 faster than I ran it last year. It's a challenging run; a lot of it is uphill, and a good portion of the uphill is getting back to where we started. I'll post my results once I've completed it.
This run was exciting! I ended up with bib #76, and finished in 33:25, which is a 10:22/mile pace (the course was actually around 3.2 miles). This was a PR for me for distances greater than 3 miles. I actually passed and came in ahead of one of the NCO academy instructors. (I don't think she was racing me, but I was racing her - heh)
Not sure what my next run will be. We'll be out of town for the Cherry Garcia run, so it may be the Chunky Monkey. It'd be cool to do that a year after I did it the first time, and see how much faster I could get it done.
p.s. Sorry this this is a little delayed - I couldn't get logged in to Active.com over the weekend. I figured Monday morning would fix the problem, and I wasn't wrong. :)
Of course, I'm not writing today to celebrate the 9th anniversary of Worship, though that album did revolutionize Christian music (not the first time Michael W. Smith had done that). It is remembered for the actions of a rogue band of terrorists, who turned that day into a day of great loss for our nation. It is remembered for the collapses in security that led to what is still both the worst terrorist attack on America, and the worst airline disaster in our history.
But, today, in between games, cookouts, and races, all I'd like for us all to do is remember. Remember the lives of those who were simply doing their job that sunny September morning. Remember the lives of the police and fire personnel who ran into the building when others were running out. Remember those who were left with the choice of staying where they are and being burned to death, or jumping 100 stories to their death. Remember how the only thing you wanted to do was hold your family tight. Remember the over 3,000 military personnel who have lost their lives in the aftermath of this attack, in counter offenses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember the pain. That pain reminded people just how good we have it here, and for a time, united nearly all of us around the defense of our country.
I had planned to listen to