The Yamagatas

SetPower

Jay — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:29:20 +0000

I’ve been running an application on my home Win7 PC for the past month called SetPower. As the name hints, it is a power management application. I know what you are thinking, Win7 and most other modern operating systems already have power management built in. SetPower expands the power scheme scheduling on a Windows PC (Xp, Vista, 7).

After installing, a SetPower applet appears in the control panel. From this applet, you customize your power schedules. My goals were to 1: wake up the PC when I wake up, and have it available if I need to check email etc. 2: keep my PC powered on during working hours on weekdays. 3: have the PC available in the evenings, but let it go to sleep if it is not used frequently. 4: put the PC quickly to sleep when I go to bed to save power. 5: optimize the availability of the PC on the weekends when I may or may not be using it.

To accomplish these goals, I created a schedule for every week day to wake the computer at 6:45 am, have the display turns off in 5 minutes, and the PC sleeps after 30 minutes idling. At 9:00 am, (if it is not already awake) wake up the PC and set a power scheme to turn the display off in 1 minute, and never allow it to sleep or hibernate. For the evenings, I created another schedule, this time activating at 6:00 pm. The display turns off in 10 minutes, and the computer sleeps in 1 hour, and once SetPower applied this scheme, keep it up for only 10 minutes (assuming I am not home from work yet). At bedtime, the final power scheme takes effect at 12:00 am: the PC goes to sleep after 2 minutes idling.

Now for the weekends, the only changes made for the day time schedule was to power the PC on later, at 8:00 am (I like to sleep in a little), with the display turning off in 15 minutes, and the PC sleeps after 2 hours of idling.

I can always wake my PC from sleep by moving the mouse or hitting a key on the keyboard to override the settings. This is handy when I am up late and can’t sleep or home sick during the week. I know this may not be a solution for everyone, but it works for me.

It’s been that long?

Jay — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:21:46 +0000

In exactly 8 days, a little over a week, I will be celebrating my 13th anniversary of working at Flexemacressoshield. I have technically worked for the same company since graduating from college. Technically, since it no longer is the same company I started working for back in 1997.

It’s been sold, divested, and re-branded. It went from being privately held, publicly traded and back to privately held during my tenure. I’ve reported to 4 different managers, and had over six job titles.

Yesterday in celebration of employees with March anniversaries, cake was served. Will I be at the celebration next year? We’ll see. Probably.

Getting things done

Jay — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:34:37 +0000

I have been exposed to the GTD – “Getting Things Done” inbox folders a couple of years ago, but I wanted to get the foundation behind the principles themselves. So, for my first ebook on the Nook, I purchased Getting Things Done by David Allen.

I spent a part of today implementing the GTD folders for my inbox on both my work and personal email. I’m just scratching the surface of the book, but wanted to immediately get started organizing my inbox. This is what I have done:

In Outlook (2010 beta in my case), I created some new folders: #action, #deferred, #someday, #waiting, and archive. Why the # mark? Well, it arranges these folders higher than the other normal Outlook mailbox folders like Junk E-mail, Outbox etc. It could be any shift character, and I picked the # sign since I have dedicated the @ sign to my email address labels in mt gmail inbox. (I’ll get to that later).

The object is to keep your inbox empty. You will make quick decisions regarding incoming email and move them accordingly in your inbox. What decisions? Well, if you can act on an email and finish that task in less than a minute, do it, and archive the email by moving it to the archive folder. If you need to act on an email today, and will complete the task today, then move it to the #action folder. Next, for any emails that you do not need to address today, file it in the #deferred folder. Any emails you are waiting on a reply of action from someone else, move to the #waiting folder. Finally, if you want to read the email someday, or possibly act upon it someday, move it to the folder by that name. The rest of the emails, if no action is required, you can either archive it or delete it (in the case of spam). This will get you through the initial “set up” of the GTD folders. Now, you cycle through the folders starting with the #action folder. Respond and attend to the emails in that folder, archiving them when completed. Once that folder is empty, move on to the #deferred folder and move any emails that can become action items to the #action folder and work on them. If you receive emails in response to those in the #waiting folder, you can also move them to the #action or #deferred folders respectively. And finally, if your #someday arrives, tackle those emails and archive them.

My plan is to go through this ritual a handful of times a day. The key is not to get distracted by new email by immediately responding to it as it comes in, but to file it accordingly into these GTD folders and tackle the emails in methodological order.

Confused? Check out some of these resources for a (probably) better explanation:

http://lifehacker.com/tag/gettingthingsdone/

http://inboxzero.com/inboxzero/

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/article.php/3669616

My Reading Investment

Jay — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:53:40 +0000

I finally did it. And it took three months this time. What did I do you ask? I invested in an eBook reader. Which eBook reader? Barnes and Noble’s Nook. The first words that came to mind when the Nook was announced in October of last year were “Wow, that’s nicer than a Kindle. I want it.” Due to the pre-order lead time, then the issue of limited quantities, I didn’t end up ordering one.

Fast forward to last night, when the family visited the local B&N store. Signs were posted in the front windows. ”Nook. Now in stock!” Gee thanks. The rest was history. Now I am an owner of a shiny new Nook.

Fun day at the office

Jay — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:30:38 +0000

The IT Gods were not smiling down at me yesterday. I’ve must have offended technology this past weekend, as yesterday was one of the worst days for system issues I’ve had in a long time. Server infrastructure that had been very reliable had issues, I had a system with a corrupted file system, unresponsive VMware servers, and IP conflicts. Not to mention we had 2 reports of malware on user’s systems. I think I may have to leave an offering and pray for a better day today.

11 years ago, today

Jay — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:14:59 +0000

I was as happy as I could be with the birth of the oldest of my two sons. Delivered via c-section, he was a healthy baby. I cannot believe its been that long since he first came into this world, but then again in some ways, it seemed just like yesterday.

Happy Birthday Brenden!

Windows Phone 7 Series

Jay — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:23:08 +0000

I admit it, I am a gadget geek. I have had the latest in gadget tech – the 1st gen iPhone, the HP iPaq 3630, a Samsung Blackjack, a Palm pilot, a HP 48GX calculator, iPhone color, the list goes on and on. I watched the epic 22 minute MSDN Channel 9 video on the newly announced Windows Phone 7 Series. I was drooling. I had to check when I was eligible to upgrade my phone, and crossing my fingers that these new devices will come to AT&T. I can then replace my aging (lol!) iPhone 3Gs.

Why? Cause from the released information on the new Windows Phone 7 Series (ok, can they think of a shorter and catchier name?) it looks really really.. Apple like? Well, cutting edge. Something I have not seen from Microsoft in a long time, until Windows 7, and the 7 Series. I am hoping as more information comes to the surface, we can get a better glimpse of Microsoft’s new smartphone OS, and how the competitors react.

As I tweeted, I am pencilling in a Windows Phone 7 Series on my Christmas wishlist. But, it’s still very early in the year…

In honor

Jay — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:02:37 +0000

Well, I have spent most of today updating the layout and functionality of this site. I have just now updated my DNS settings and made this site live. If you were looking for the Tumblr site, you can still access it here. For now, the Tumblr site will stay live, but it is very likely I will be shutting it down in the near future.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Jay — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:35:14 +0000

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I actually saw someone abbreviate “Valentine’s Day” in a post, and it looked wrong… Happy V.D.!

Anyway, Wikipedia has an detailed account of the history of St. Valentine’s Day and its practices, for those interested in such things

Welcome!

Jay — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:06:24 +0000

Hello and welcome to the new web site home for Yamagata.net. Please bear with me as I update things around here; don’t be surprised if you come back and everything is different!

If you like something you see, please leave a comment. If you hate something… well, I guess I want to hear about that too. I think…