March 9, 2016

 

Task Management Tools

One of the most difficult things to do in the creative world is to find a way to organize all of your tasks. There are lots of techniques and applications available, and I have tried quite a few (using post its, creating documents with lists, setting things a calendar appointments,) but it's hard to find one solution that covers all the bases. So instead I use a handful of different apps for different purposes. Here are a couple that I like.

One of the first web-based task list apps I ever tried was The Big Pic (wwww.TheBigPic.com). The interface, which uses gumball storage system, is simple and effective. It's a very visual way to organize projects. The downside is that it runs in flash, so it's desktop only. And considering that Flash is all but a dead technology, and there are other mobile friendly and free options now, I really can't recommend The Big Pic any longer. So instead, I'll recommend …

Google Keep

After trying The Big Pic, I've discovered a similar and better alternative that comes as part of Google's product-line. Google Keep allows you to create color-coded tiles, much like post-its, and also offers a check list function. It's a great general To-Do application. It comes standard with Android as an app, but is not available as an app for iOS (still you can simply save it as a web-page on your iOS home screen and treat it like an app). You can also tag the tiles with a theme – for example: “Beach Trip 2015”. Then when you view only tiles with a certain tag, it' a great way to organize you're projects.

Google Keep is great for the basic stuff, but if you need a task manager with a little more depth I've found two other options that I think offer quite a lot. And since I've used The Big Pic and Google Keep to plan for past vacations, so I thought I'd try out these two new apps to plan this year's upcoming vacation.

ToDoist

ToDoist is a great tool for creating in-depth check lists. The app lets you easily create projects that contain lists, and by hitting the control and left or right keys, you can nest lists within lists, which provides a great way to organize components of a project. The interface is very clean and simple. The app lets you set due dates/reminders so you'll get emails reminding you when tasks are due. The paid version allows for collaboration and added storage for files. Overall, its a great option for managing projects.

Trello

Trello is looking like my favorite overall task manager lately. Like Google Keep and The Big Pic, Trello provides a very visual format for organizing information, it being based on Toyota's Kanban style of task management. Tasks are organized as cards on lists, which are then organized into projects. Note: Trello is from the same people who created Stack Overflow, one of the best web development question and answer boards out there.

Both ToDoist and Trello are great task management applications, and both offer free basic accounts, are availabe as apps, and the ability to share with other users (though, with ToDoist you'll have to pay for that feature). If you prefer clean tidy lists, then you may prefer ToDoist. If you're more of a visual person, then you may prefer to use Trello. The only way to know for sure is to try one out.

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link to this post - posted by Jonathan @ 9:24 PM -

January 25, 2016

 

Retro Gaming with the Raspberry Pi

As mentioned before, there are a lot of really cool things you can do with the recent proliferation of tiny computers. Specifically for me, the Raspberry Pi provides a perfect solution for retro-gaming.

For some time I was contemplating ways to create a simple, easy to use, inexpensive retro-gaming system – a way to play all the classic video games I grew up with. I had high hopes that the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console would accomplish this, and it did to a large extent, however it had some pretty glaring omissions when it came to game and system selection (For example: missing games like Castle of Illusion on Genesis, and the entire Atari catalog). And oddly, it seems to take eons for classic games to get released on the virtual platform, and even more strangely, when the updated Wii U system came out, they started all over again slowly re-releasing games. They should have dumped them all online much sooner for classic game enthusiasts to take the Virtual Console platform seriously, but I digress...

I considered several options to build my own system, but pretty much all them involved a computer running some version of Windows, making them a fairly costly option (unless I was willing to try buying a used computer on Ebay). Ultimately this would result in a fairly clunky experience, using multiple emulators to cover various video game machines, switching back and forth on an outdated version of Windows.

Then I stumbled on the Raspberry Pi, and the Retropie and Emulation Station programs. Retropie, along with Emulation Station, creates a very nice interface for playing classic games across multiple emulators. When you put them together you have one cost-effective, excellent platform for retro-gaming.

For less than $100 you can get a Pi, a couple USB controllers, a micro-USB charger, and a large capacity (not that it would be necessary) SD card and once configured you have the perfect retro-gaming platform. This Lifehacker article does a great job explaining the process of setting up a retro game console on the Raspberry Pi.

Should you choose, you can find all sorts of interesting cases and accessories for the Pi online, including control pads that look identical to the original NES control pads.

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link to this post - posted by Jonathan @ 11:41 PM -

January 24, 2016

 

Tiny Computers

Just a couple years ago a charitable organization was formed in the UK with the goal of creating small, affordable computers, to make hardware more accessible for those interested in learning to build/code. This movement just happens to coincide nicely with the development of smaller processors and electronic components needed for smart phones and all of the increasingly smaller devices in our lives, and with that comes a convenient surplus of available tiny hardware.

Their creation, the Raspberry Pi, is a credit card-sized circuit board with a CPU, RAM, and multiple ports for accessories – basically a computer the size of a deck of cards that costs under $30.

Since the original Raspberry Pi there have been several new releases with updated specifications. The Pi 2 includes a gig of RAM, and faster quad-core CPU. It's actually more powerful than the first computer I ever purchased, which ran windows 98, despite the fact that I could fit the Pi 2 in my pocket. Even at it's tiny size, the Pi can run older Windows, as this video demonstrates,. But it's much better suited for operating systems tailored to its configurations, such as the version of Linux released by the Raspberry Pi foundation.

There is a free slimmed-down version of Windows 10 (Windows 10 IoT Core) available for the Raspberry Pi 2, and paired with the Microsoft Hololens Augmented Reality headset allows you create some pretty amazing things. Learn more about Windows 10 IoT Core here, and get it here.

The Raspbery Pi Zero is a smaller version of the Pi with only the bare essentials, and not much larger than the circuit board itself. It's about the size of a thick business card and could easily fit in a wallet, yet it has the same computing power of the original Pi.

Initially intended as an educational device, the affordability and extensibility of the Raspberry Pi make it a device with nearly limitless possibilities. And with the ever growing Internet of Things (IoT) there will be increasingly more and more ways a Pi, or similar small computer, can enhance our lives.

Other folks have taken notice, and there is an increasing number of Raspberry Pi competitors out there, including C.H.I.P. which is basically a slimmed down Raspberry Pi that costs only $9. And just yessterday I read about a Kickstarter campaign for the Pine64, a more powerful competitor to the Raspberry Pi that runs on a 64 processor, has 4K video output, and can run Android OS, all on a board slightly bigger than the Pi 2, and only costing $15. It blew it's Kickstarter goal out of the water. So it's likely we'll continue to see an explosion of small computers supporting the IoT.

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link to this post - posted by Jonathan @ 12:13 AM -

October 20, 2015

 

Today Catching Up With Tomorrow

We are living in the future!

This week marks a cinematic milestone. Tomorrow, the 21st of October, 2015, at 7:29pm Eastern time (4:29pm California time), will be the precise moment when Doc, Marty and Jennifer arrive in a flying DeLorean from the year 1985 (as depicted in the film Back to the Future Part II). In that movie, there were some really fascinating technological achievements displayed in that 1989 version of 2015. And with a few exceptions (flying cars, hoverboards), we are living, or on the verge of living, in a world where much of that technology is a real part of our lives.

The smartphone alone accomplishes much of what would have seemed unbelievable 26 years ago. There is not much depicted in that film that we have not yet accomplished or are not working steadfastly towards accomplishing. We might be approaching an 'innovation event horizon', where we are no longer able to be innovative, but instead we focus on being efficient.

Some examples: these technological advances which were once considered futuristic science fiction are all part of our reality: Cloning, replicating materials (a.k.a. 3d printing), life extension, space colonization, time travel, flying cars, giant fighting robots, virtual reality, flying robots, hyper personal advertizing (ie Minority report), etc. It can't be long before even flying cars are a part of our reality...when the technology of drones mixes with self driving cars, self flying cars are sure to follow.

If you have doubts that we're living in a radically futuristic age, then here are some recent headlines to back up my argument:

For the time being though, where we're going, we still need roads.

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link to this post - posted by Jonathan @ 10:14 PM -

November 20, 2011

 

Never pay Full Price for HDMI cables again!

HDMI, ethernet, audio-vidual cables are not cheap if you buy them in most stores. That's were they make a lot of their money. The margin on high-end electronics is very small, and stores might even take a loss on selling them, hoping that the customer will buy all the needed accessories where they can make up the difference and then some.

I found a place just outside of Charlotte that sells only cables. You can get a 50-foot ethernet cable for around $5 there (I had to buy some for work). Just recently I stopped buy to pick up some HDMI cables and I just can't believe how inexpensive they are.

As a reference, in one last weeks sales circular I saw a 6-foot HDMI cable on sale for $29. Well yesterday I purchased (5) 6-foot HDMI cables, and (3) 10-foot HDMI cables, all for $30. They didn't come in flashy packaging, but they all have gold-plated connectors, and are capable of providing 3d. Why do I need 8 HDMI cables? A: they make nice stocking stuffers ;-)

Check them out: Firefold.com

http://huffmania.com/blog/uploaded_images/hdmi_great_deal.jpg

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link to this post - posted by Jonathan @ 2:08 PM -