Productive Life
As pathetic as it may seem, just being away from a internet connection on my computer at the time of this writing is doing miracles for me. I’m able to devote more focus to doing some writing, and more focus on productivity. Provided, that is, all the people I’m traveling with are still between stages 1 and 2 of sleep, or are trying to return to sleep after being awoken by the sound of me entering the room, retrieving my laptop, and leaving. I am currently typing this in TextEdit.app, which has great support for word processing, especially with it’s ability to save in MS Word Document format, MS Word 2007 Document Format, Rich-text, and Open Document Format. Best of all, TextEdit.app is free with an installation of OS X.
Productivity is a major beast, thus it is locked away. Sometimes, the locks are hard to get through, and you end up procrastinating. I’ve seemed to be doing that as of late with this blog, and for the major part, my life. However, all that I really needed to do was to step away from people, and step away from the internet. With high speeds, and instant connectivity that comes from broadband connections, people begin to focus more and more one technology and less and less on that which needs to be done. This even applies to me. Back in High School, I had dreams on becoming a computer programmer, and that became my justification for sitting in front of the computer all day. Even now, my computer habits haven’t changed: Instead of programming or learning syntax and logic for software development, I am either surfing the internet, partaking in social networking, or typing blog posts such as this one. That was probably one of the reasons why the school blocked the instant messenger feature in Moodle, and social networking websites back in High School. Looking back on those days, and even yesterday, I cannot help but look down on myself.
To step away from all that, I’ve taken different steps. One of the first ones was to simplify social networking, but at the same time, opening up more opportunities through social networking. This process was simple. I was already using a handful of different social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, deviantART, and SheezyArt. I also was a member of several different online forums and communities. My solution was to cut down on what I was doing between Twitter and Facebook. Using an application on Facebook, I set up my Facebook account to updated whenever I sent a tweet, even by SMS. That reduced what I need to only my cellphone. The next was to reduce the amount of clutter that I was creating by hoping back and forth between deviantART and SheezyArt. As I grew, I used my SheezyArt account less and less, until I didn’t use it at all. My art, if one could call it that, moved towards digital photography and rare scribbles with the tablet. In the end, deviantART became just a place to store photos, like flickr. The forums and communities? As I started my own site, FolornWatchers, I just stopped going to the competition.
That was when I took a turn with my life. Instead of laying around all summer and using the internet, I moved to a point where I ended up leaving home more often to be with friends. I was able to experience many new things that I had never thought I would do, swing dancing, sleep overs, even a drive in movie. I even managed to start enjoying rollercoasters, however I still don’t like going upside down at all. In the end, it was completely worth spending less time social networking and more time being productive and enjoying my life.
Hatena
School starting soon, and as a study guide, I’ll be blogging in Japanese at http://d.hatena.ne.jp/CocoaMac/.
Why is that? I ended up creating a Hatena ID through DSi Flipnote, so I thought, why not?
New Posts? Gotcha.
It’s been a few days since I last made a post- On Google and Apple. However, I can say that another “Week in West Michigan” post will be coming up by the end of the week- As varied as the prior one? Probably not. Photo posts are based on how often I leave home, and if I leave home.
A Week in West Michigan 1
The first of a series of photo posts, centered around West Michigan in the United States. This week, I went swing dancing in Grand Rapids, MI, and I went to John Ball Zoo there as well. Photos further in the post.
Welcome, null
Walmart Null
Seriously Walmart- I am insulted. I am not “null”, nor do I even have an account at your website, but you regard me as such anyway. Die.
Seriously, get a fix on your site.
HP vs. The Big World
Moving on in life, radical changes are made.
I’ve watched many old friends graduate from highschool only to return stuck up, believing that they’re somehow “above” Holland, MI. I DO NOT want this to be me. I love this town and the people in it. So this is my way of ensuring I don’t leave behind all those great people who inhabit it.
The mighty words of a good man, Alexander Bush, known to some as Shadow, others as Alex, and many more as “HP”. To commemorate his leaving of this grand city/town/backwater, he started a blog, HP vs. Big World to keep in contact with those that he knows and loves.
So here’s a shout out to him, ENJOY YOUR NEW LIFE. Never forget that I was one of the very few Holland Asians that you knew.
Summer daze
The following is an emoji enabled post. You may need a emoji-enabled iPhone, or other SoftBank phone to view it correctly.
Summer, a time of fun and relaxation for some, and for others: A season of utter agony.
One of the things I hate about summers is being at the beach with my family -My extended family, that is. Populated by younger children, and seasoned with the hot, intense gaze of the sun, the summer beaches have become a haven of boredom. Especially since the cellphone reception here flucates between one bar to zero.
Forlorn Watchers
I’m announcing the initial opening of Forlorn Watchers, a gaming blog and community. Please check out the site, register, and even participate- I’m sure that the members of the community would appreciate a little more Mac in their lives.
Status Updating
It’s been a while since my last post; I haven’t really been active in any online communities either. However, my stay at High School is finishing up on Thursday, the 28th- More time for work. Incidently, that is about the time that my next figure, a figma of Suzumiya Haruhi is coming. Look forward to a review!
On other news, On The Rail is still in progress, and a chapter 1 release preview may be coming in the summer. I’m also going to be working on several Mac applications as well, although release possibilities are quite questionable.
Tonido
It’s been a while again, but I’ve been trying new things- Recently, I’ve gotten into Cloud Computing. For those of you who have no clue to what this means, it’s similar to owning a webserver and running your data from there- Webmail, like GMail, online documents such as Zoho or GoogleDocs are all decent examples of Cloud solutions, but the major flaw with services like these is that they run on someone else’s server. You have no control over how your data is stored and used- After all, you probably agreed to some terms of service that allow your Cloud provider to do whatever they want to your data without informing you or gaining consent. The best part of the story is, you probably agreed to allow them to change the agreement without warning.
For most, you probably don’t remember reading such an agreement, so we’ll just say that it was the long block of text that forced you to press the “I agree” button or circle. Who can understand all that legalese? Bad choice, you probably signed away your soul, life, and material possessions to someone else. While you can terminate these agreements, face it- How many of us can live without these online services? It’s probable that quite a large amount of people can, but at the same time, a large section of the tech-savvy internet and IT community can’t. However, there’s an alternative!
Tonido. A service that allows you to host your own Cloud server. Tonido is available for Windows, Macs, and Linux distros that use the debian package manager. By default, Tonido will offer the ability to use multiple user accounts as well as access any folder on your hard drive for sharing. It has a music player, photo viewer, websharing manager, a notepad/blogging application and a workspace/calendar app. Tonido also has a email-like system for usage with other Tonido users, sending them messages to their @tonidoid.com account. Other than that, one of the most valuable features may have to be the “Groups” feature. Using Tonido, you can set up networks of multiple users using different machines (running Tonido on them, that is) and share information, music, notes and files. It is a great platform for collaboration, making projects easier while at the same time keeping things private. Tonido can be accessed from any device with a web browser, allowing it to be accessed from remote locations (like school), or from an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Somethings, of course, are too good to be true. Tonido lacks many features, such as email to other domains/users outside of the Tonido network. It lacks applications to edit documents and images, and manage files. For someone looking for that kind of Cloud computing, EyeOS offers such ability in an web based format for hosting on any server. The upside, however, is that Tonido is still a new platform, licensed under the GPL and commercial licenses, and the best part? You use C++ to write programs for it. I have no doubt that an office suite, as well as image editting and similar options will appear in Tonido in the future, but for now, we wait.
Tonido, as it is, is an excellent alternative to other services out there. The one feature that I do wish that it had was the ability to upload files onto the computer. While it is a great application to use at home, it is far from being suitable for usage on a dedicated server elsewhere. Speaking of which, here’s the link.
