Research Required

This wasn’t undertaken lightly. Even though I have a long background in technology I don’t have a lot of time to spend tinkering. All I needed was another time sink.

It all begins with netbook selection. There are a number of netbooks out there, some work well, others not so well. BoingBoing has a matrix up (last updated July 09) of compatibilities of Netbooks.

Luckily there is a lot of community out there trying to make this possible.

• Gizmodo’s How-to Hackintosh (getting dusty but got me started)
• My Dell Mini, forum community.
• Mechdrew, the guides and drivers (from meklort) you need.

In a Nutshell

With those three sites you can do this in less than 4 hours (being very literate) on a Dell Mini 10v.

1. Install Snowleopard OSX onto USB Key (>=8gb) with NetbookBootMaker
2. Downgrade Bios A06 to A05
3. Reboot Mini onto USB Key
4. Install Snowleopard 10.6 onto Mini
5. Finalize Install with NetbookInstaller
6. Upgrade to 10.6.2
7. Enjoy!

None of this would be possible without the spare time of dedicated individuals who want to see this happen. Hopefully someday Apple will allow others to run OSX without needing the Lexus machinery underneath.

Trials, No Errors

Experiences vary but for myself I have had nothing but pleasant ones. USB, Camera, Touchpad, Bluetooth,  Audio, all work as they should.

The first thing I setup was Dropbox and with their new local-lan sync all my files we’re ready to use in about 20m. I don’t think I’ve ever setup a computer this fast.

Without the extended battery you’re looking at less than 2 hours of work time. Being that my stints go longer than that I went ahead and got the extended battery and writing blog articles and general surfing give about 5h of time.

Going beyond the basics of iWork, OpenOffice, etc I’ve installed photo processing applications Lightroom and Aperture. The computer wasn’t built for them but they do an admirable job and get the process of processing pictures well underway.  Using such processor intensive applications however will suck the power out of your battery at a pretty alarming rate.

Personalizing Your NetBook

The machine is no longer as advertised, it’s mine, and what better way to showcase that than by getting your own skin for it.  Again in the forums there was talk of a number of different skin providers but the designer in me wanted my own creation so I went with UniqueSkins. For a little over $14 I got one of the advanced 3M re-applicable decals and it is so sharp.

The Downside

For what it’s worthy I don’t have much of a con list yet, I haven’t hit my head enough. The trackpad is probably the only thing I am having trouble using from MBP & iBook (now Macbook) experiences. While it works and seemingly without issue, I can’t seem to adapt yet to it’s style. There are a few nice bluetooth enabled mice I’m looking at but the need hasn’t driven me that far yet.  I’ll probably end up using my wireless Wacom tablet as an intermediary.

The Upside

This unit replaces my kick around iBook G4. It’s got a better processor, 1/3rd of the weight, and more HDD than I had for a cost of about $400. This little machine will carry most of what you have to do on an average day well and get you ready to be back at your larger machine efficiently. I even find myself using vnc/screen sharing to it to write things like this article.  Then whenever I pick it up I’m already where I need to be.  That’s pretty cool.

Even though this machine is more or less tiding me over until the next generations come out I think I’ll have use of this machine for many years to come as it’s too easy and able.

It’s a time of year when families draw near and if yours goes beyond the grabbing, ripping, digesting of the season you might get a tale or two from your peers and elders. If not this is for you to work on that.

Is Your Family History Fading?

Here in America I feel we are so quick to move forward we never take a moment to look back. We may know the big picture but do we know the tapestry threads that binds it all together? You may know how your great grandparents made it to this country but what of the shared memory of their lives, and their parents lives, and that of their countries. To many of us it may already be too late to recover much of this.

Remember Storytelling

While we may have lost some of our oral tradition it’s never too late to start telling tales of what you do know and what your parents may have known. The point is to talk, to spin a tale, to encourage a connection to your lineage. Beyond giving the storyteller a moment to enjoy their own past they can hook a younger generation into the tale and give them something to think on as they mature.

Through the Senses

How many of us have family dishes that have been passed down over the years. We can divine a lot of culture from food. The missing ingredient a lot of the time is how the dish came to be. Whose great-great grandmother cooked this and the family so loved they kept it. Or what meager meal got a family through tough times and thus became a cornerstone of the families recipes throughout the years. Many times we are able to enjoy these meals without their connected meaning but how much richer would we be to know it and to pass that knowledge along.

Next time you’re at a family meal and there is something from the past on the table ask about it, inquire to it’s history and meaning to the family.

It’s All About Context

In my own eyes I have a not too distant connection to relatives that extend from America, to Puerto Rico, to Spain, but I know so little beyond the gestalt. Some of my families stories were written down but they stop only a few generations ago. The greater context of our family and our culture is a mystery to me.

If you have a family dish to an heirloom that is being passed on make sure you tell the context that goes with it. Who made it, how many hands has it passed through, do you know their stories? While you may know the context your children do not.

Dying Libraries

Over the last five years I have heard in many different forms how our elders are passing on but their knowledge is not. For every elder that passes we lose a library. Think of your own wealth of knowledge that is in your head and ponder how much you share of it. When you are gone  how much goes with you and how much will be here for others to share and pass along?

Take a moment and look for the precious moments that you don’t want to lose and begin putting pen to paper or telling stories at your next gathering. Think about the stories you were told growing up and do your children know them?

Our lives are very brief in the way the universe works and it’s a shame how much experience and hard earned wisdom is lost from generation to generation. It’s one reason I started blogging so many years ago. I wanted to make a record of moments, of a person, of a family, that can be shared and looked through to understand who I was and what I was a part of.

I write this because I lost both of my grandparents in 2008 and when I reflect upon their photo albums, letters, and memorabilia I realize I only knew a fraction of what I would have loved to know.  Now it is lost within fragments of my parents and extended family but the easiest connection to it is gone forever.

New Holiday Meaning

So this holiday season, this new year, take it upon yourself to rekindle your families stories and culture. Let it be alive once again and writ or told to others so that it maybe kept alive and fresh. Revel in who you all are, where you came from, and the connection from here to there.

If the sky would just open up here, the blazing sun would make it look like the leaves are on fire.. 

But the sky just chuckles and rolls on gray.. gray.. I need to stop thinking about the gray and just integrate it somehow but that’s for one who has more time than I at the moment!

In the meantime down near Chester, SC there is a lot of rural areas with fields changing colors like this one.

Posted via web from IMI Photography

We start the morning at 5:30a. Many farmers we know start even earlier. It can be quite a trial getting up and out the door. Not to mention finding the energy to greet and explain your products to the consumer.

This time of year is a beautiful time though. It can get hot, but there is a good amount of crop diversity of fruits and veggies. It keeps my belly happy!

There are more markets in our region than there have been in a long long time. Part economy, part food security, were just happy to see everyone out. The discussions you can hear out here range from the classic coffeeshop to deep agriculture/agrarian principles. Great way to make new friends.

No matter where you are you can probably find a market. Get out and support them when you can. Every dollar spent is said to be 7 for the local economy. Enjoy the seasonality of your region as it passes too quickly.

From the Tailgate market in Charlotte.

-a

View Larger Map

Now until they trace their paths again Robin and I are a part of Europe. What fun.

“So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish”, penned by Douglas Adams.

For any who know me I’ve been a systems engineer a long time. Being such a creature makes you want to create all your own solutions and keep everything close to home.

I was one who liked to keep his work, his backups, his nexus of it all as close as possible. When you visit me you see a digital heart in my office that contains everything needed to start your own colocation facility. Even though I have an uptime of 300d+ and the cable companies reliability is pretty solid around here there comes a time to find greater reliability and an upgrade path that is a part of a larger networks provision.

After nearly four years running out of my home on some now legacy servers I’ve moved the heart of my home network to a space on our corporate architecture and couldn’t be happier. The site should seem just more poppy due to a better place on the internet backbone.

Now I just need to find some time to redesign. This design has been with us for about two years and it’s time for a change. All designs get dated, or maybe that’s the designer side of me. As new thoughts and permutations of control come out new, higher standards evolve and I’d like to put them in play.

Just not today.

One thing at a time and excising this bit of my life from home was fun enough for now.

The Family that Makes Chocolate Together…

We’ve been told a lot lately that Robin and I (or to Bill & Karen) are very lucky to have family members who can be tapped for work effort. We don’t disagree. While I’d love to hire some of my expert friends in sales the budgets just aren’t a feasible to allow for it in such a bootstrapping fledgling company.

Learning and Overcoming Limits

With the added family and the generally low overhead it comes at an emotion cost and perspectives that are hard to work with.

How do you tell someone who is uncomfortable with a role to just tough it out? How do you put the screws to a father or mother to stop over-thinking and just follow the playbook?

Under the corporate umbrella or even small business you can guess what your manager would have said, or the result that would have occurred if you had stayed on your derisive path. Here though we’re dealing with a lot more intertwined relationships that can’t be met with such a hard stance.

In our cases Robin and I are (relatively) young guns that move fast while carrying extreme loads without much sweat. However, it could be spread more if the same malleability of handling new responsibility was equally met by the greater generations of family. (Like how I kept all that nice? *-grin-*)

All in all you have to have some amazing communication, understanding, and allow for a natural pace to be set. You aren’t working with the bulls of the street, by taking an more affordable path you must find equilibrium within the relationships.

Working Smarter, Not Harder with Google

Many people do not realize that Google offers a wealth of tools for free. Wiki’s, Lists, Calendars, Documents, etc. As long as you have people on board that can be taught a little bit of digital tech you can reap some fantastic benefits that never before have been so readily available.

Calendaring for All

Once you plug your domain into Google’s architecture you can do domain specific ideas. We share multiple calendars with each other from work schedules, market days, & deliveries. We even started a outside of work schedule to track part time employment between everyone so we can make sure to schedule the work or meetings at everyones free time.

General Wiki

While your parents may not know what a wiki is, they’ll quickly adapt to the knowledge base that you can assemble. With Google’s “Sites” tool you can setup an indepth wiki that can source information deep within.

For example, we have a wiki that has everything from a ToDo list, R&D, equipment lists, discussions, ideas, and more. We created a dashboard within the wiki and bookmarked it on everyones computers that gives them a quick overview of the ToDo list, the shared calendar, and the work orders. Need more detail? Just click through or use the navigation to find greater detail.

Shared Documentation and Spreadsheets

Unless you live under one roof you are all co-locating. Beyond the information repository of a wiki you’ll need a way to work and access documents together or play with spreadsheets. We’ve employed Google’s Document manager to help us keep the work orders and inventory straight. I can easily leverage that data and keep our finances up to date.

Sharing Collateral Materials, DropBox

Another young application on the scene, DropBox. Install it on your computers and then share a folder between people. It helps everyone involved have access to logos, pdfs, print materials, marketing, saved emails, and more. This is one of the most critical tools we use to stop the passing of outdated or incorrect versions of materials that would have been sent via email before.

Dropbox even keeps a change log that allows you to rollback an edit or accidental deletion that might occur. Offsite backups, built-in! They have a 2gb cap which is more than most little startups need. Once we grow, we’ll start paying and everyone wins!

Giving Everyone a Voice, Family Blogging

Lastly and most uniquely you can give all involved a voice through blogging. I solicit at our weekly meetings for new articles to put on our chocolate blog. While I don’t always get material and some material takes a lot longer to “bake” than others, it is a very fun way to get everyone involved and able to participate in the dynamic web. It also gives you fantastic fodder for making your newsletters whether online or off.

Winning Takes Time

Even if you have a fantastic family it’s still going to take a lot of hard work, sweat, and tears to get where you are going. Nothing in life is free, and nothing is as easy at it can be thought to be. With an open communication policy, mediation, and thoughtfulness everyone can find their success. Just stick with it.

Please share your own family stories, where they were right, or where they went wrong. Everyone can learn from these experiences.

I invite you to visit my families rising chocolate shop, The Secret Chocolatier. Where we are trying to bring amazing artisanal delights to the Charlotte region and beyond.

It’s a poor excuse then why I am not writing personally. I get to write pretty close to the surface on our homemade chocolate blog. Combine that with a cyclical heavy twitter usage and I’ve been rather equalized. I’d run some digest feeds here but that feels wrong.

Still all poor excuses I can hear already!

I run on coffee!

I’ve been participating in the green coffee buyers co-op and used the new/old roaster George Holt gave me so much it blew out. With some help from the guys at Hottop I received a new heating element and fuses and I’m back in action. Only problem now is I have a gap in my roaster and beans trickle out.

It’s always something.

I think I need an espresso truffle and a cup of coffee. Huzzah!

Watching the Water

My father taught me to know a good sailor was to look at his his wake. A clean straight wake leaving the boat was a sign of someone who knew the water and the way to navigate it. To see a wake that zagged around was interpreted as floundering, slipping along.

The metaphor may be a bit mixed, it’s washing through a child’s remembrance, but I wish my wake were straighter.

With Kind Thanks

With 2008 closing I must give thanks to those who stayed close. Who were rocks instead of runners. During tough times the way people work to support one another shows colors that are hard to forget.

Alpha and Omega, I cannot thank my wife Robin enough. She is both inspiration, support, the embodiment of patience and shares my burdens with little complaint.

Love is the best adhesive.
— Flight of the Concords

Thanks to my family who took my challenges in stride and gave providence during my struggles. To my in-laws for whom good fortune rains with a sweet chocolate future.

To my friends, who many while down on their own luck only look for the smile of others. Self sacrifice and bleeding hearts I know well.

The farmers and their families, connecting with you regionally has been a deepening and gratifying experience. Knowing your land, your animals, and the micro/macro environment around it all to bring us a harvest plenty (and safe) is no easy task. Thank you for feeding us well.

Social networking kudos too. I’ve expanded my network of people I know locally by an exponent. The reward is compounding. Not only do I know more people in my area, they are as diverse as I am. Skydivers, foodies, marketing, PR, designers, comedians, small businesses and more. To connect everyone on a regular basis is instant community. I hope to continue to meet many more people that can be part of and share the experience that each of us create.

Healthy Growth through Improving

Of many things I saw in 2008 it was our ability to not finish the sentence that took the award for most needed improvement. There are so many who will pick up the mantle of responsibility only to never hit the finish line.

It’s Easy to Start,
It’s Hard to Finish.
—Jason Calacanis

I’ve had the discussion lately that I’m really curious what the statistical ratio is since I find the reliable in very very short supply. With an administration where accountability was unknown I hope the new year brings transparency and a sense of integrity again.

My Participation

• Nuance Labs shifted resources to consulting.

With the depletion of capital we’ve had to put our ideas in stasis and work more mechanically. It’s been fun bringing new small businesses into the net and seeing them plug in.

• IMI Photography strives for a piece of the market.

Photography in the Queen City is pretty hard to come by for those new to the market. We have over 6k photographers and some seriously talented and firmly implanted people. With a hung and dried economy, new resources are highly contended. I love the form and am applying my skills more to Nuance Labs imaging & The Secret Chocolatier projects. I’m still available and seeking new bookings for 09.

• The Secret Chocolatier brings many smiles to the community.

With a family idea and some organic planned thoughts we planted a chocolate garden and fed it with love and care. It has sprouted quite well. As a sapling of a company it’s filled with a lot of excitement and hope for establishing deeper roots in the community in 2009. Homemade chocolate for all!

2009, You are Welcomed

With the trials and tribulations from local and national economies, wars and unrest, new starts and learned from failures, I am ready for 2009. Again I cannot express my unending thanks to those who support myself or those I am connected with enough. May we all find successes in 2009.

-andy