Professors and Their Allowances

I watched this YouTube video the other day (saw it on Gizmodo)

http://gizmodo.com/5478032/dont-bring-laptops-to-class-or-else

It brought me back to my university days when professors would go on and on about what was and was not allowed in their classes.

Wait a minute -- aren’t they getting PAID to teach people?

So the students aren’t paying attention to your lecture -- that is up to them. They are a customer spending their money there. As long as they are not disturbing other customers let people do what they want.

I remember throughout my schooling all of the various things that were demanded:
- must be computer printed
- must be hand written
- must be on line paper
- cannot be on yellow paper
- must be 1.5 spaced
- must be double spaced
- templates indicating the margin
- cannot chew gum in class
- cannot drink beverages in class

There were so many different rules in some cases one could lose track of the actual assignment in an effort to keep the rules in check.

Cooking with a Tagine

I was in a cooking store a few weeks ago and I saw this strange shaped cooking pot by Le Creuset that the sales rep told me was a Tajine.

I had never heard of this before!

So some Google searching told me that this is a Moroccan cooking vessel and that the originals are usually made of clay, similar to a Dutch oven. I read some reviews on the Le Creuset one, and found out that it is very expensive and generally people complain about the fact that it doesn’t have a breathing hole in the top of the ‘flute’. Apparently this lets excess liquid escape that otherwise runs down the edges of the bowl.

I ended up in another cooking store (yes it seems that I frequent them in between buying gadgets) and I saw a Maxwell Williams Tagine. It seemed to fit the bill, and was relatively inexpensive (under $40).

So it came home with me.

Now what?

Google was my friend again as I searched the Net for recipes to make in it. I settled on this recipe for spicy chicken tagine with apricots. I started the tagine on the gas stove top on low heat to do the onions, oil, butter and spices. I then chopped up all the chicken bits, threw everything else in, and put the top on the tagine and stuffed it in the oven. About an hour later it was done, and smelled fantastic! It tasted even better than it smelled. Very moist, wonderful combination of flavours.

Pic of Tagine when I took it out of the oven:



















Here’s a pic of what I made:



















And another recipe I did a few days later with squash and sweet potatoes (yams):

Task Managers / To Do Applications

So I have started the search for a better to-do system.

Requirements:
- run on mac, NOT web-based
- need to be able to convert emails into tasks (clip, drag’n’drop, something like that)
- ideally needs to synch with the iphone (or have an app)

All of the notes below are by no means complete reviews. They are the things I have discovered in the hour or two that I have spent with each program and how closely they each meet my own specific needs for a task manager. If your requirements are different than mine, YMMV!!

Here’s what I have evaluated:

Notebook by Circus Ponies - $49.95 USD
- simplistic -- looks like a notebook
- you can drag email to it, but copes the entire text of the email body into it making the task list too long
- the viewing options aren’t great -- you’re basically looking at everything all the time; because of this I can’t see it being that useful -- if I only had a few tasks to manage why would I need a task manager
- program is designed for other things as well; have not looked at these features as all I need at this point is to-do’s

Taskpaper by Hog Bay Software - $29.95 USD
- also simplistic; advantage is the entire list saves as a text file--easy to backup, export, transfer between systems, cut and paste, etc
- seems very easy to use
- viewing doesn’t seem great -- again like Notebook, you end up with these long multi-screen lists without a clever way to filter them
- also seems to past the entire email into the program, rather than a link or option to see/hide the email body
- does have an iphone app, that is a plus
- has good forum and usergroup
- found an AppleScript add-on for this that pastes an HTML link to the email; this could work well
- does not seem to have any due dates or anything -- useless

EasyTask by OrionBelt - $19.99 USD
- looks clean; way too much combination of mouse and keyboard to enter a simple task
- dreadful help file -- spelling errors, broken links, very little actual information beyond the obvious
- no way that I can tell to add an email as a task -- with no forum, support page or decent help file no way to find out if this is possible
- does an online synch and can synch between multiple OS’s (Mac and Windows) as well as has an iPhone app

The Hit List by Potion Factory - $49.95 USD (pre-order, still in beta)
- the look is a bit...well....grade-school-ish
- interface is excellent; dragging emails, setting due dates, etc
- very good ‘viewing’ ports -- see easily what is due today, this week, next week
- lack of iphone version is a HUGE letdown; program works very well aside from this
- seems to have been in beta for a long time with little to no new information on the site from the developer about release, iphone version, or any sort of updates
- bit bummed out by this as I do not want to invest in something that is not supported properly, or discontinued

Things by Cultured Code - $49.95 USD
- seems to be well supported on-line with a good following
- as with Omnifocus, when you add a task and context it automatically puts it in the inbox -- should be a drop down menu for your projects and folders
- seems to be a good compromise of what I want to do

Omnifocus by The Omni Group - $79.95 USD
- odd that when you add a task and context, it still remains in the inbox for you to have to move somewhere
- this seems to be the most powerful one so far, quite strict on GTD methodology
- email integration is very good -- copies the email over using AppleScript and organizes it very well within the program
- you can read email within Omnifocus and respond to it (brings up original message in Mail when you do this)
- I do have an irritating problem that my ‘F6’ hotkey for quick entry from Mail seems to work intermittently.......

Midnight Inbox by Midnight Beep Softworks - $35.00 USD
- makes Omnifocus look unstructured -- VERY strict methodology here
- the UI is literally counter-intuitive -- right click does nothing....ever....
- love the concept of scanning my inbox, but I couldn’t get it to work properly -- could never get the amount of email it saw in the collection to match the stuff in my inbox
- also needs to do...something...with the email once you process it in Inbox -- otherwise everything is just left in a big jumble in your mail program
- really wanted to like this program but just too painful to deal with

Daylite by Market Circle - $149.00 USD
- this is a very powerful program, but I think unless you are networked and using it with a group much of the functionality is lost
- email integration is complete to the point of archiving emails within the program to track who you send things to, etc.
- to do lists good
- iphone integration requires running the program on a server
- would be nice if the offered a ‘lite’ version that was hosted or something

So after all this, I have purchased Omnifocus for the iPhone and for the desktop. I would consider a move to the Hit List if they came up with an iPhone version -- but I am leery of product support with the lack of information on their web page.

E-Book Readers

I enjoy reading.

However, I am a very fickle reader. I do not read one thing cover to cover and then move to the next thing. I typically have 5-8 different books on the go at any given time, along with magazines, and electronic articles. The eBook seemed like the ultimate thing for me as I would no longer have to carry multiple books, or end up having the book I don’t feel like reading in hand. (then but another and carry even more!)

Enter the Sony PRS505.

I got this about 18 months ago and for the first month I was very happy with it. It did not synch with my Mac, but I have a PC at home and could always put a few books on it before I went anywhere. The e-ink greyscale screen works well as does the form factor. The battery life was perfect and the device fit into things well. Except for one flaw -- content delivery. Stupid though it seems, it was a real pain to have to get on my PC, look for books, buy/download them, and then synch them to the eReader. This left the device on the shelf gathering dust.

Enter the International (including Canada) version of the Kindle 2.

The Kindle came out a while ago, but was not available in Canada (and buying one in the US meant that the wireless service wouldn’t work here). Then the Kindle 2 came out, followed by the International Version which works in Canada (among other places).

This may be the ultimate reader. It has all the good points of the Sony unit -- screen, battery life, size, ease of use -- but has the one thing that it was missing -- wireless content browsing and delivery. Now, with the use of a small clip-on LED light from Canadian Tire, I read with the Kindle 2 almost every night -- and with wireless content delivery I can be as fickle as I want!

Here’s a list of what I am currently reading:
The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain
Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better by Gine Trapani
Ready for Anything by David Allen
A Genius for Deception: How Cunning Helped the British Win Two World Wars by Nicholas Rankin
Paperless Joy by George Dimopoulos