Writings

The best GMail application for iOS just got updated to be optimized for the iPad.

As I’ve been slowly honing my abilities at writing here I’ve also been working on discovering the voice and purpose of this site. I’ve had blogs in the past but they’ve always been too personal and had little focus on anything in particular which made them feel more like my journal left open for the world to see.

If you’re like me then your schedule lives in Google Calendar and the computer you always have on you is running iOS. While Fantastical is my go-to calendar app on the Mac and iPhone I find that Calendars+ from Readdle is the best iPad app for Google Calendar as I need to see what availability I have before committing to an event or meeting.

An interesting look behind the scenes of one of my favorite podcasts. If you’ve never heard of Radiolab it’s something you must check out.

 Throughout my career thus far I’ve grown from being an Apple employee to managing the Apple side of an consulting group to leading IT for a growing network of schools with thousands of users. Around a year ago I lost the ability to have mental clarity about everything I was managing. My work had grown from managing a single campus with a 1:1 computing, a flat network design and Apple Airports providing wireless for 450 users to implementing the plan I’d been working on. This included:

From a great self-reflective piece by Charles Edge: I need to stop reasoning crap to myself. When your alarm goes off in the morning and you hit snooze, you’re reasoning to yourself that you have a little more time. When you decide to eat that last slice of pizza knowing that even if you have Lactaid that you’ll have heartburn tonight you’re reasoning yourself into some good old fashioned acid reflux. When you work an extra 10 minutes rather than go buy flowers for your significant other, you’re reasoning yourself into divorce.

Sam Spurlin writing about embracing being an idiot and procrastination: That’s why I created my Weekly Review Checklist, why I have a recurring reminder to think about my longterm goals and overall vision, and why I put things I don’t want to forget directly in front of my door. I’m working on embracing the fact that I’m an idiot instead of fighting it. By embracing it I can take steps to mitigate it and that’s much more preferable than feeling smart but doing dumb things.

Having switched from a 2011 MacBook Air to the Retina MacBook Pro I can really appreciate this ingenious creation. I just hope it gets funded. If not you can buy one without the bells and whistles now at Shapeways.

 Update: If you’re upgrading from the alpha I would recommend clearing out all support files using a tool like AppZapper, Hazel or CleanMyMac. My favorite podcatcher for iOS has been in alpha for the Mac over the last few months and as of this morning is out in public beta. Martin and his team at Vemedio have been working hard and iterating quickly on the Mac version of Instacast and it’s really matured throughout the alpha. The initial design was scrapped and they’ve been listening closely to users for feedback and to make the best podcatcher for OS X.

On more than one occasion I’ve had the following conversation. Big Fan: So what do you do? Me: I’m the IT Director for a non-profit charter management organization (CMO). BF: What’s a CMO? Me: We’re a non-profit organization that helps lead and manage charter schools. BF: Oh, I’m not sure how I feel about you guys. Me: What do you mean? BF: Well, charter schools take my tax money and do the minimum with it in order to keep as much of that money as possible. You’re not as responsible for the growth of your kids and you don’t have any proof that your model works any better than the local school districts. Me: Well, actually I have some information here on this digital publication that I can share that shows our growth, our story and from that you can see how we’re using tax dollars. BF: I’m really not interested in that. You can put your iPad away.