Something to strive for

Today, did I make someone else's life better?
Today, did I make my life better?

Some days it will not be possible to achieve both.
Some days the order may be reversed.

Still strive though.

Showing my shared Google Calendars on iOS*

Anita and I have a few shared Google Calendars and for some reason they were no longer showing on my iPhone and iPad.
This 'may' have had something to do with me trying to get rid of some phantom events but that's another story.
All my search results were pointing me at m.google.com/sync however that was a deadend as I have my google accounts set up as google accounts rather than exchange.
This was frustrating me for the last few days until I used a slightly different set of search terms which resulted in https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect !

From here you can bypass the whole exchange thing and directly set the calendars (shared and owned) that will sync to all devices.

Happy day :)

*or any other CALDAV device

Standing up for work

After reading a few articles about the dangers of sitting for long periods of time (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/standing-at-work) I've decided to try standing up for work (for at least 1 week to give my body time to adjust rather than just feeling sore).

Week One
Day One - Used a set of shelves for the half day I was working in the town office. Feeling fairly good at the end, although mild aches. The top of the shelves was a great height for my laptop but with no monitor I found myself with a sore neck by the end of the day.

Work office setup - fairly makeshift

Day Two - My first full day, this time used a different set of drawers (in my home office) and stacking a box on its end with a bunch of heavy books inside (to prevent movement) and putting my monitor on the very top. VERY sore feet at the end of the day and a few twinges in my neck until I got my posture right, but generally feeling a lot better than I was expecting :)

Day Three - Another half day, this time in my home office using the same set up as Day 2. By the end of the day I had very sore feet once again and I'm really looking forward to the soreness going away!

Day Four - Another full day in my home office and by the end I have sore feet and lower back. Very much hoping that tomorrow things start to come right.


Day Five - Another full day in the home office. Started with quite a sore lower back but that has gone away over the course of the day. Also an on/off numb spot behind my left shoulder blade. My feet have only just gotten sore in the last hour so much better then the past few days. This may actually be working.

Weekend - normal activities

Week Two
Day One - another full day in the town office with sore feet by the end of the day. Various people have commented that ALL day on your feet may not be a good thing so starting to consider perhaps splitting my day between sitting and standing.

Day Two - another full day in the home office

Home office - also very makeshift while I trial this

2 weeks after last post above
I now routinely stand all day for work with only minor sore feet at the end of the day :)

Interested in leaving paper behind?

Ever since the iPad started making news I'd been considering whether or not to get a tablet (didn't have to be an iPad). I'd read a bunch of reviews on how cool and productive they were but I just couldn't bring myself to take the leap even though I've been wanting to interact with computing technology ever since I stumbled across Project Oxygen (http://oxygen.lcs.mit.edu) back in 2001 I think it was.

Last Christmas my beautiful wife gave me an iPad and my dilemma went away :)

So far it's been great and I'm now heavily using an excellent handwriting and drawing app called NotePlus.

A good friend also introduced me to the concept of Visual Thinking which has tied in perfectly with the drawing capabilities of NotesPlus.