erichudon.ca

My Pomodoro Technique Mindmap.

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:02:25 -0500

My Pomodoro Technique Mindmap.

"The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time."

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 13:59:16 -0500

“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.”

- Joe Girard

A (Canadian) look at the Kindle 2

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:35:45 -0500

I decided to spoil myself on last christmas with the Kindle 2. I have been having an eye on it for a while now and Amazon made it available in last november here in Canada. This post describes my experience with it so far.

Buying Confusion

When I fired up my browser at http://www.amazon.ca/ I was pleasently surprised to see that the kindle 2 was now available in Canada! Yay! I clicked on it to realize that I was redirected to the US store here.

There I figured out that the 259$ price tag was in US dollars not Canadian and I had to order it from amazon.com and not amazon.ca as I usally do. Ordering the kindle was as easy as ordering a book. I received 2 days after I ordered it. That was pretty quick.

Unboxing

The packaging is lean, there is no unncessary wrapping and the whole thing is well packaged. The box contains:

the Kindle

a power USB adaptor

a standard USB cable

a getting started guide

The kindle comes preconfigured to be used with your amazon account which is really really neat! It comes bundeled with the Kindle User’s Guide, which is worth reading.

Handling and Carrying

The first thing I noticed is that it is really really small. I was not expecting it to be that small (5.5”” x 8”“) and it is slimer than an iPhone. It is very comfortable to hold in only one hand for a long period.

Many folks will want to buy a cover to protect it. But I did not buy one, I simply it carry it on my bag as it was a regular book. I did not have any problems so far.

Reading

Let’s say I was taking a chance when I bought it, because I had never seen one, so I was not sure about what to expect when it comes to read on it. To my surprise, it is incredibly easy to read on it. I have read 6 books so far on it and I do not get the eye strain that you normally get on a computer.

You can manually rotate the screen in landscape, but I find myself always reading in portrait mode. You can also change the font size which is really great.

You can even have the content read for you through a speech synthesizer, although amazon does not allow it with every book. I did try it and found it acceptable (for a robot voice), but that will never replace an narrated audiobook.

You can take notes, highlight passages, bookmark and search a book. That is very very cool. And wait! There is more: a built-in dictionary that you can use to see the definition of a word as you move the cursor around.

You can even take screenshots! If you disable Wispernet, the battery will last forever (I have been able to get one week and a half).

Of course, the kindle is nice but it has its own issues. The most noticeable is screen glare. Yes, glare. There is subtle glare depending on the light conditions. It can be annoying at times, but still far better than a computer screen.

The 5-way controller is a bit ackward to use. It can be a pain at times if you want to move the cursor on the specific word. I would have preferred a scroll wheel (à la iPod).

If you speed read, simply forget that with the Kindle. It is simply not suited for that at all.

Also, images look from mediocre to poor (at best). So, reading text is great, but don’t plan to read image intensive book on it, you are still better off with a real book.

Content

The is a lot a content available on amazon, that you can buy online or directly from your kindle.

The good news is that you are not locked to Amazon as the kindle supports a lot of format such as PDF and mobi. Many sites such as the Gutenberg project have a lot of free content.

If you already have an extensive collection of e-books, you can use an ebook manager such as Calibre to convert your existing books for the kindle.

Issues in Canada

OK, here is where the Kindle stop being that great, at least from my point of view.

The first problem is that you are forced to buy kindle books on amazon.com. You cannot buy them on amazon.ca. So you cannot take advantage from book recommendations based on previous books, because amazon.com don’t see the books I bought at amazon.ca. That’s really a shame!

The second problem is that Personal Document Service does not work in Canada.
I try to e-mail content to my kindle email and I received a message telling me that Personal Document Service is not available in Canada.

The third problem is that some of the books in the kindle store cannot be bought from Canada. Also, the wispernet coverage only work in major cities. So make sure to load your books before taking a vacation far away from civilization!

The fourth problem is that you cannot put blogs on it. (What? really!)

Even with all these issues, I love my Kindle, but it looks like Amazon was rushing to make it available in Canada for the last holiday season. However, their web site and infrastructure is currently half-baked to be fully usable around here. But that is the price to pay to be an early adopter…

.NET WebBrowser Control: When DocumentCompleted means not completed.

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:21:00 -0500

Earlier this month I was working on a piece of code where I had to use the .NET System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowser control. I needed to set a value on a particular element once the document was downloaded.

I was trying to get an instance of an HtmlElement using Document.GetElementById(someId) upon the DocumentCompleted event and I was not able to retrieve the element in question. The element in question was present in the DOM.

I dumped the document content to disk to realize that the document content was incomplete. What was misleading for me is that the document displayed properly in the browser control.

I googled a bit to find a solution here (via Anthony Stevens). To make a story short, the event is being fired multiple times, thus you have to check the ready state of the web browser using something like:

public void WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventHandler(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e)
{

if (WebBrowserReadyState.Complete == webBrowser.ReadyState)
{

// Do stuff with the “really” completed document here…

}

}

Is it a bug? Well, the control really does not behave as documented on MSDN…

iPhone Pomodoro App Extravaganza!

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:44:00 -0500

The pomodoro technique is a time/focus management technique that helps you concentrate on a particular task for 25 minutes with a kitchen timer. However, there are situations where using a kitchen timer is inappropriate, such as in an open office.

Many iPhone applications can be used as pomodoro timer substitutes. I searched for pomodoro in the app store and downloaded every applications. This post looks further at the experience I had with each of them. I have placed a next to my favorite app.

Built-in iPhone Timer (free)

If you don’t want to bother installing a pomodoro app, you can always use the built-in timer on the iPhone.

Pros
- Customizable ring sound
- Timer goes on even if the app is closed
Cons
- No tick sound

iPomodoro by Surya Gaddipati (free)

This app is as is simple as it can get. There is start/abort button, the hand of the timer updates in real time and it has basic statistics capabilities.

Pros
- Customizable break length
Cons
- Does not work with when screen is locked
- No tick sound when the phone is in vibration mode

Pomodoro by Jani Brezavscek (free)

This app has the most minimalist interface of all, but it gets the job done nonetheless. The added value over the built-in timer is a simple count that resets every 4 pomodoros.

Pros
- Shake your iPhone to start a pomodoro
Cons
- No tick sound
- Unpolished
- Not customizable

Timer by Francis Bonnin ($0.99)

This is a timer replacement for the built-in iPhone timer. It has precision to seconds instead of minutes.

Pros
- Precision to seconds
- Can be used for other purposes than pomodoros
- Customizable tick and ring sound
- Landscape support
- Best value of all
Cons
- Not free

Pomodoro Time Management by rapidrabbit ($0.99)

This app is very well polished, has a built-in task management system and has pomodoro break support. They also have a lite version which is free.

Pros
- Very well designed & highly polished interface and easy to use.
- Tick and ring sound can be turned on/off
- Timer for breaks
Cons
- Not free
- No support for online task management systems such as remember the milk.
Pomodoro Timer by Navel Labs ($0.99)

This app has a very well polished finish. You have to manually rewind the timer to perform a pomodoro.
- Pros
  - Customizable volume for both tick and ring
  - Customizable time (not stuck to 25 min)
  - Highly polished
  - Tick sound when the screen is locked
- Cons
  - Sometimes the tick sound is not there when rewinding. (You have to restart the app).
  - No timer for breaks
  - Not free

Happy pomodorying on your iPhone!

"Either you focus, or you hit something really hard."

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:18:57 -0500

“Either you focus, or you hit something really hard.”

- Jeff Gordon

My Pomodoro Statistics Since I have started using the pomodoro...

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:44:00 -0400

My Pomodoro Statistics

Since I have started using the pomodoro technique, I have accumulated 59 days of data. I mostly use the technique for work, but I sometime use it for personal use when tasks require a lot of concentration.

I’m still analyzing it, but I now know that I perform a daily average of 9.82 pomodoros as well as having a daily average 3.43 internal interruptions and a daily average of 1.70 external interruptions.

Seeing the data on a chart made me realized that I’m pretty bad at planning pomodoros. My consolation is at least that I have the data recorded. Remember, you cannot improve it, if you cannot measure it.

The next steps for me are to:

Increase my daily average of completed pomodoros to 10.
Align the number of planned pomodoros (red line) as much as possible with the completed pomodoros (blue line).
Reduce the number of pomodoros that were not planned for a given task (orange line) and reduce it to one or two if possible.

Apache Velocity 1.6 Nested Loop Bug

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:50:00 -0400

I have just spent two hours of my evening trying to figure out an issue I had with Apache Velocity 1.6.

If you are using the #foreach loop, make sure that you are looping at only one level.

It seems that using nested #foreach on the same variable does not work with Apache Velocity 1.6.

For example:

#foreach ($item in $list)

#foreach ($item in $list)

#end

#end

will not work in 1.6. The issue has been solved in 1.7. See http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/VELOCITY-658 for all the juicy details.

If you are stuck with 1.6 and you are using the java.util.Collection framework, then cloning your list using toArray() will do the trick.

The 7 Laws of Mind Mapping (or how I break them) Eventhough I...

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:18:00 -0400

The 7 Laws of Mind Mapping (or how I break them)

Eventhough I was aware about mind maps for a while, it has not been until recently that I have started to take a look a them thoroughly.

I’m still a beginner and I have yet to master that beast, but I can say that so far it has been only beneficial to me.

Mind maps can be used for a variety of things such as writing, note taking, problem solving, brainstorming, project planning, task lists and so forth.

At its core are The 7 laws of mindmapping:

1. Start in the center of a landscape page.
2. Use an image or picture for your central idea.
3. Use colours throughout.
4. Connect main branches to the center image… … and second-level branches from ends of the main branches or so forth.
5. Make branches curve and flow.
6. Use just one keyword per line.
7. Use image throughout

All the rules make a lot of sense and are the key ingredients to good mind mapping.

Having the memory retention of a peanut, I use mind maps for brainstorming and taking notes.

One keyword per line is definitely not working for me. I don’t use full sentences, but having more than one word helps me remember a lot more.

So that being said, Am I a bad mind mapper? I think not. If something works for you go ahead and break rules (they are meant to be broken anyway).

The Pomodoro Technique is a focus management technique that is...

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:58:55 -0400

The Pomodoro Technique is a focus management technique that is easy to learn and yet very effective. More details here.

My GTD Weekly Review Mindmap.

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 10:35:05 -0400

My GTD Weekly Review Mindmap.

Create a Moleskine PDA: The Student GTD Hack » gathering in light - “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:30:37 -0400

Create a Moleskine PDA: The Student GTD Hack » gathering in light - “Do not go gentle into that good night.”:

(via nakiskine)

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 20:00:00 -0400

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

- Leonardo Da Vinci

Why I chose tumblr.

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:58:00 -0400

I while back I decided to go with my own domain name. At first it was only to be used as a gmail alias. It was fine at the time. As time went by, I wanted to park a web page on my own domain. I did not want a blog per say, because it requires a lot of time to maintain. What I wanted was kind of a digital scrapbook to share pieces of information I think are valuable as well as share my (impromptu) thoughts on topics of my own interest. I stumbled upon tumblr by accident and to my surprise, it was what I’ve have been looking for, for a long time. I like its simplistic and unfinished look. Another great thing is that there is an iPhone app for it. What a bliss :-)

erichudon.ca

My Pomodoro Technique Mindmap.

"The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time."

A (Canadian) look at the Kindle 2

Buying Confusion

Unboxing

Handling and Carrying

Reading

Content

Issues in Canada

.NET WebBrowser Control: When DocumentCompleted means not completed.

iPhone Pomodoro App Extravaganza!

Built-in iPhone Timer (free)

iPomodoro by Surya Gaddipati (free)

Pomodoro by Jani Brezavscek (free)

Timer by Francis Bonnin ($0.99)

Pomodoro Time Management by rapidrabbit ($0.99)

Pomodoro Timer by Navel Labs ($0.99)

"Either you focus, or you hit something really hard."

My Pomodoro Statistics Since I have started using the pomodoro...

My Pomodoro Statistics

Apache Velocity 1.6 Nested Loop Bug

The 7 Laws of Mind Mapping (or how I break them) Eventhough I...

The 7 Laws of Mind Mapping (or how I break them)

The Pomodoro Technique is a focus management technique that is...

My GTD Weekly Review Mindmap.

Create a Moleskine PDA: The Student GTD Hack » gathering in light - “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"

Why I chose tumblr.