Nicholas Lindley trumpeter/computer nerd

I got really spoiled not having neighbors for awhile. I could practice at home at any time without worrying about bothering anybody. The neighbors that now live in the other half of this duplex have been known to bang on the walls when the music is slightly over a medium volume, and the banging starts very promptly—before I even would have a chance to turn it down if I realized it was too loud.

Get Stuff Done

Yeah, I know that seems pretty vague, but it's a big one for me. So, I'll go ahead and expand on it a little bit.

While I was musing on possible resolutions at the turn of the year, I had thought that would be a good one for me. It seems as though I have a lot of unfinished work, and with a very light workload for this spring, it seemed like a good opportunity. However, this resolution didn't seem to stand out much from the more typical pledges to eat better, work out more, or getting more organized.

So I decided not to do a post on GPG. There's too much information already out there. Anyway, check out http://www.gnupg.org/ sometime, and start using it.

Now, about the subject, I have ADHD. I've suspected it for awhile, and got the diagnosis the Monday before Thanksgiving. It explains quite a bit, like how I can't seem to finish anything, that is if I can get started. It explains why I have so much trouble keeping my house in order, or why I misjudge how much time something takes, or why I tend to let a lot of time slip away without accomplishing anything.

I think I like the new layout of facebook. A couple of quick observations I made were that it seems organized more like the iPhone app, and that the "Wall" is now more of a combination of the old wall and mini-feed.

I know, I know... I said the next blog post would be on GPG. I haven't forgotten, I just wanted to make a note about facebook, but it will be coming.

Numbers, part of Apple's iWork, is a spreadsheet program similar to Microsoft's Excel. I said once I had a chance to use it I'd let you know what I think, so here's what I think:

Love it. In the platonic way.

iPhoto + Facebook

I actually noticed this plugin for iPhoto a long time ago, but just now got around to trying it out. I've only used it for one picture so far, but it seems like a handy little utility. It's also open-source, so if you want to see how they did it or write your own derivative code, you can. While I haven't been entirely thrilled with the whole applications platform in facebook, they are at least giving something back to the open source community; and for the most part they've kept the design of the site clean.

Since last posting about the new iPhone software, I have done a restore and things are workng much better now. It's not crashing like before, and it can find all my music again. That means the $160 I spent to integrate this thing with my factory stereo wasn't a complete waste after all. I really like the Shazam and Remote apps, and the AIM app seems pretty good, too. I haven't had a chance to play with too many of them yet, but there should be more time for that stuff in a couple of weeks.

First of all, it has been brought to my attention that my post with my initial job impressions may have come off as offensive to some. So, just to clarify, I did not intend to imply that anybody had done a poor job in the past. I even noted that many things had been done well at the end of the post, but the point was primarily to show areas where I felt there could be room for improvement. Anyway, my apologies to those who may have felt attacked or insulted.

I've been wasting a lot of time lately watching TEDTalks at ted.com. Very inspiring.

They release a new TEDTalk each week, and you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Just search TEDTalks in the store.

This is pretty cool. Check out the youtube video linked near the end of the article.

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2008a/080505McCartneyBuild.html

Anyway, that's where I worked for a little while when I was at Purdue. Actually, I was there the summer after my first semester at SWOSU as well. If you want to see more about it, go to RCAC's web site.