When did the ice go out and other personal information problems

Tuesday, April 15, 2008 Middle Lake Jefferson, LeSueur County, MN

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 Middle Lake Jefferson, LeSueur County, MN

I took these photos over this week. They, along with the dates of the pictures, document that April 15, 2008 was the last day that our lake had a substantial covering of ice.

Why do I bring this up?

Every year, year in and year out, the LWW and I have the same damned discussion that begins with, "Gee, when did the ice go out on the lake last year?" And neither of us remembers with any large degree of certainty. (But I am sure I am always closer to the exact date.)

But next year, thanks to this very blog entry, this small bit of personal information that has been so hard to keep track of in the past, will be accessible. I'll just search the Blue Skunk for ice. My blog has become a PIM (Personal Information Management) tool.

Miguel Guhlin and others have been promoting a new PIM tool, Diigo. Miguel's even challenged me to review a video about the resource. (Good video. Not as clear nor amusing as the Common Craft tutorials, but then Diigo seems to be a complex tool. Better production values than Common Craft. Like the lyrics but you can't dance to it. One thumb up.)

As I watch the Diigo tutorial, I started thinking about where and how I store the information I need to find again. When am I successful and when am I less so? How can I improve? I did start reading William Jones' Keeping Found Things Found, but found it pretty slow going. I will persevere. Guy writes like a college professor. Anyway looking at some of my information storage and retreival techniques..

Good
I only use one computer for both work and personal use. Its a laptop I drag home and back - every night. I could keep everything online (e-mail, documents, bookmarks, etc.) but then I would be at the mercy of having an Internet connect all the time. While that is getting more likely, I travel enough that "likely" isn't sufficient. PIM grade: B

I have two e-mail accounts - one for work and one persona. Both download into my Entourage program on my single laptop. I have very good, very extensive filing system so it is relatively simple to find information in an email I am looking for. PIM grade: A-

I keep a combined calendar and address book on the district's Exchange server. I can mark my personal calendar dates private. Exchange/Outlook leaves a copy resident on the harddrive of my computer. I do drag a paper calendar with me to meetings where I don't take my computer and I use an old method called "manual sync!" PIM grade: B-

Electronic files are either on my laptop hard drive or on one of two web/blog spaces. While I've always used a pretty good filing system, I am finding that Spotlight and the web/blog search engines are faster than navigating through hierachtical files. I am not yet dumping everything into one big folder - or worse yet, leaving it all on my desktop. I still have two file drawer of paper "stuff" - one at work and one at home. PIM grade:Grade: B-

 Bad

I have phone numbers stored in Entourage, on my cell phone, on my home phone's memory, taped to side of the fridge, on sheets stuffed in the phone directory by my desk, in my office phone's memory, in my home phone memory and even on business cards in a little holder by my phone. It's a problem of having too many phones. PIM grade: D-

My web bookmarks are scattered among two webbrowsers and a del.icio.us account. Would moving to Diigo add just one more place to have to look for a bookmark or replace each current means of storing them? D

My usernames and passwords for a bazillion online accounts are slowly being beaten into submission using a FileMaker Pro database that is password protected. It seems to be overkill for such a task, but I don't know another solution. They auto-fill in webbrowsers is like the auto-dial on the phone - it is deviously simple to never memorize a username and password. PIM grade: Grade D+

Ugly

I have yet to find a PDA or PDA/Cellphone I like very much. Batteries discharge too quickly. My Treo was too small to be a good calendar and too bulky to be a good cellphone. Too often when I would sych, I'd wipe everything out or create duplicate entries of everything.

Like most people, I am sure I could save hours of downstream time if I took a few hours and just spent it getting organized. Who take the time? From Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part:

74.    Upstream cost, downstream savings.

Now and again, it seems a picture in my house hangs crooked and each time I pass one, I take a few seconds to straighten it.

Conceptually I know that if took five minutes, got a hammer, a nail, a pencil, and a level, I could put in a second nail and never have to straighten the damn picture again.

But like most people, I never seem to have the upstream time it takes to realize downstream time savings. Human nature, I suppose.

That's probably the major reason technology is so difficult to get busy educators to use. Convincing someone that learning to create a ,pdf file of an often-requested document, load it to a website, and create a link to it -  thereby saving all the time it takes to locate, print, and send the document manually -  is a tough sell.

About as tough as it is to convince me to go get the hammer.

Any PIM tips you'd be willing to share?

Comments

[Miguel Guhlin]

Response appears here...
http://www.mguhlin.net/archives/2008/04/entry_6982.htm

I responded to Miguel's very good post here - Doug
doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2008/4/19/
and-you-say-dinosaur-like-it-is-a-bad-thing.html

[teacherninja]

Tip #1--read Getting Things Done by David Allen (and/or check out zenhabits and/or 43folders).

Tip #2--come up with an algorithm for passwords. I use first two letters of site, my memorized string of numers and letters, last letter of site. So for example, my pay pal password would be PAmemorizedcodeAL, where memorized code is something unique for you. This is much better and safer than using the same password for everything and is easy enough to remember that you don't need to write passwords down anywhere.

[Emma]

Nice lake!
I sort of remembered a little about Diigo when I read your post; I just checked - I've had an account since 16th Jan 2007 ... have precisely no bookmarks, and a friendship request waiting from Konrad G. Hope he's not been waiting too long...
I fully agree that I, too, need to sort out things; I have 4 PCs that I use regularly - PC & Laptop basically at home & at work. In theory, all the work related stuff gets backed up to my networked drive at work, so I can access it from any of the 4; while my important home stuff (i.e. photos) gets backed up to an external drive. ... when I remember.
Bookmarks - I use iKeepbookmarks - which is fine until the site is down (as it was yesterday). It's then I remember that I've not downloaded it recently.
Email - chaotic really! I've got several personal accounts (trying to migrate them to gmail, other than advertising stuff); and a work a/c & gmail based work one [v. useful for mail lists as I have to actively go there, rather than sorting out filtering, but still filling up the work folders!]
Phone numbers: Yep. In a mix of the mobile phone, the two landlines, my address book & diary. And, assorted bits of paper...
Calendar ... I do try to keep home & work separate. Work's done via Groupwise - so I can access it from home, personal stuff via the nice old fashioned diary. On Paper. Sitting right next to me on the desk.
I only cross reference trips away/ important evening work things/ important home day things.
Passwords: I've got an access database - which, like you say, is overkill, but allows me to have a bit more info (like, say, making notes of which sites are case sensitive; or which user name I've used etc)

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Jim,

I really like your password algorithm idea! I'll look at the other resources you recommend as well.

Thanks!

Doug

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Emma,

It sounds like you have mess. Similar to mine.

I will argue that keeping personal information (marked private) on the company calendaring system is not just ethical, it should be required. We use our shared calendaring system to schedule meetings, etc., and if an employee is not available even for personal reasons, it should be apparent.

Thanks for writing and all the best,

Doug