become more organized

And to organize the TV shows I’ve recorded, I need to have an episode guide so I know what episode number to assign to the show.

Also, TheTVDB.com does not support sports events to be registered in their DB, leaving a gap how recorded sports events can be cataloged in XBMC. This is a thread which brought up this topic and in the recent release of XBMC, they support custom “nodes”. The discussion starts here and refers to the XBMC wiki here.

List of recordings I had to adjust for the movie/TV scraper to find the right one:

• A Guide to An Unmarried Woman

• Atsuhime (2008) – All uploaded?
• Yoshitsune (2005) – All uploaded?
• Shinsengumi! (2004) – All uploaded?
• Gou (2011) – Up until #20
• Tenchijin (2009) – Missing #1-8
• Kyomo ga tsuji (2006) – All uploaded?
• Yae no sakura (2013)
• Taira no Kiyomori (2012)
• Ryomaden (2010) – Up until #24
• Furinkazan (2007) – All uploaded?
• Science for Everyone
• Morning Market
• The Moment History Changed
• History at Hand
• Ando Natsu – #1 not uploaded

1. Rename source to match uploaded source, copy to own subdirectory
2. Copy files over again or use SyncToy

List of TV shows to be moved to Deleted directory:
*

In general, process for moving files to Bitcasa.

1. If there is a local drive with data and network storage drive with data, get them in sync:
   
   1. Run SyncToy to get them in sync.
   2. Use DVArchive to rename as necessary.
   3. Run SyncToy again to get them in sync.
2. Copy to Bitcasa drive
3. If temporary, can remove files from both local drive and network storage drive.

is so I can be more productive.

Another way to become more productive is to treat your life like a game.

This article from Lifehacker suggests you can assign points to various tasks, and your goal is to get rewards from your accumulated points. As the author says, it’s not for everyone, and likely not for me, but it is an interesting concept.

• http://lifehacker.com/5975824/gamify-your-life-a-guide-to-incentivizing-everything

Similarly, HabitRPG is a website which tracks your habits where you can build or lose points, similar to a role playing game. You can find an intro at http://habitrpg.com/splash.html.

and by “we”, I mean “me”.

It seemed only last year, oh, it was last year, that I realized I needed to put my to do’s in a linear list. OK, forget about the part I said about linear lists are not a good way to capture information. That part is still true. However, when I need to do something, then I need to have a priority and sequence in which to do them.

While I’ve enjoyed (relatively speaking) using Any.DO because it allowed me to keep my to do’s close to me with my phone but also provided the convenience of maintaining them on my computer, I found that tools like Any.DO and MindMeister help me keep track of things, but don’t help me get things done.

Well, you could say nothing can help me get things done except myself… but I’m looking for any help… even a little.

That’s when I ran across by chance a calendar tool called Zime where you schedule your time. They say:

Stop listing tasks… Plan your time!

Of course, planning your time is what all calendar tools do, but this one allows you to define tasks and it will automatically assign the time to do those tasks. Thus, you need to define and prioritize your tasks in like I had previously concluded. If you do not complete your tasks on time, it will automatically adjust your calendar.

Previously, I would try to list the things I wanted to get done in the day, and highlight the ones which were more important. In the end, I had so many things to do, it was difficult to get motivated to do them or even just get started.

With Zime, I only need to focus on the one which it says I need to do. And since my day is planned out, I have motivation to get things done ahead of time… so then I have some extra “free” time!

Warning: It is beta, so there may have a way to go before it can be refined. However, in just a couple of days use, I’m seeing the benefits.

but managing non-linear lists was not easy either.

So I’ll continue to use Any.Do to keep track of more concrete to do’s, and I’ll use a MindMap to capture more general things I want to do at some time in the future, but no concrete timeframe required.

A free account at Mindmeister allows 3 Mindmaps and also supports an Android app so I can keep track on my phone or on the computer.

so I’ll use this entry to keep track…

In the meantime, now where did I put those earphones…?

• Possessions
  
  • Computers, software, gadgets
  • Clothes
  • Golf clubs, accessories
• Documents/manuals/receipts/correspondence/information/media
  
  • Hardcopy
  • Softcopy
  • Finances (expenditures, etc)

1. Garage
2. Media room
3. Home office
4. Closet / dressers

• Home
  
  • Touch up painting
  • Soap holder in guest bathroom
  • Ice maker
  • Window in guest bedroom
  • Blind in game room
  • Potential leak
  • Rotting wood in garage door frame
• Yard
  
  • Trim all bushes around house
  • Check all sprinklers (coverage, leaks)
  • Wiring for Mitsukaze
  • Transplant bushes
  • Brick lawn edging around trees
  • New sidewalk
  • Path to backyard
• Home media
  
  • Syncing media between all devices (phone, etc)
  • Syncing media library with mom
  • Restore recorded shows from old Replay drives
• Home automation
• Home security
  
  • Consider Smith Thompson as a replacement for ADT
• Golf simulator
• Computers
  
  • Old computers – Determine if they can be repurposed by installing an OS which does not have as much overhead as Windows. Some options are:
    
    • Joli OS (from http://www.jolicloud.com)
    • Chromium OS
    • Android x86
    • Ubuntu Light
• Phone
  
  • Determine best way to lock the phone

• Home media/wiring
• Bathroom
  
  • Redo vanity
  • Molding
• Kitchen
  
  • Fluorescent light
  • Circuit breakers
• Car
  
  • Passenger door handle
  • New headliner

• Dallas condo
  
  • Thermostat
  • Refinish bathtub / tiles using Rust-Oleum 1 qt. White Tub and Tile Refinishing Kit
  • Redo walls / get rid of popcorn ceiling
• Mom’s rental condo
• Expansion of rental properties

• Health
• Self defense
• Golf
• Skills
  
  • Programming
  • Electrical, plumbing, DIY
• Languages
  
  • Spanish
  • German
  • Japanese
• Volunteer
• Political activism
  
  • Blog
    
    • Tumblr?
• Other sources of income

As far as organizing my digital storage, Amazon offers offline storage for 0.01 cents per GB per month. Let’s say for 12TB (12*1024GB), this is $122.88 per month. To get a 12TB NAS costs about $1000, so it would take 8.13 months to recover the cost of the NAS device for my backup purposes. Note that this offline storage is not for frequent access but more for backup purposes. Thus, this doesn’t quite seem like a good deal. Services like PutLocker.com offer $45/year service, but I’d have to see what space limitations they have. Bitcasa (beta) offers infinite storage for $10/mo.

• Non-work data: Backup: MediaPC and SkyDrive… or Google Drive?
• Each year’s archive: Terastation (with RAID as redundant backup)
• Music: MediaPC and Google Music
• Pictures/videos: MediaPC and Flickr (?)
  
  • Note that Flickr likely won’t store non-standard image files like Photoshop files
• Movies: Linkstation and …?

• A/Assets
  
  • Health & Insurance
  • Inventory
    
    • Shopping
      
      • [Category]
    • Software (downloads)
      
      • Android
      • Development
      • [Software provider]
    • Manuals
      
      • [Company]
    • How To
      
      • [Device]
  • Finance
    
    • Tax
  • Condo
  • House
  • Mom
    
    • Condo
    • Tax
• C/Communication
  
  • Correspondence
    
    • Personal
    • Business
    • Work
    • [Person]
  • Confirm
    
    • Finance
    • Internet
    • Purchase (invoices)
    • Travel
  • Articles
    
    • Health
    • Politics
• I/Info
  
  • Travel (general)
  • [Location]
• Work

Next: Archiving strategy

I don’t know why it took me so long, but I tried http://www.mint.com. I had been using http://www.pageonce.com, but not really actively using it anymore. However, thanks to Pageonce, I found out that Capital One has a credit card which does not charge transaction fees for overseas purchases… Could easily save me over $100 per year.

Anyway, with Mint.com, it allows you to organize all your transactions, whether by credit card or check. That’s the big difference with Pageonce. The UI for Mint.com is very smooth so that you can actually get a good overview of your transactions across many accounts, rather than just one account at a time. In addition, you can categorize your transactions.

Now I know how much how much I am spending eating out… or more importantly how much more I should be spending on my beloved tech gadgets…

From what I can tell so far, Mint.com is exactly what I’m looking for.

quit procrastinating is something I need to dearly accomplish.

Usually, for people who do not necessarily take care of everything right away, when there’s something which is a bit of an annoyance, we put off doing something about it until it gets so annoying, we finally do something about it.

One example may be on the computer where there’s some default setting you can use to make your life easier, but it’s “easier” to just go ahead and keep doing it every time… But at some point, you may get fed up and decide to find how to set the default. (Hopefully this made sense.)

At any rate, I’ve now gotten fed up with procrastinating. It’s now left me with way too many things to do because I kept putting them off. This doesn’t mean I can suddenly do everything at once, but at least I have come to the point where I need to change the way I do things. I think my recent inspiration to put everything in a sequential list will help me. I am able to slowly cross items off, but I also know that I need to put everything on the list which I need doing, or else, I may forget. And I know I need to put it on the list right away… so even if I put it on the bottom of the list, I know it is there, and I can forget about it until it’s time to work on it.

Wow… Being organized… This is pretty exciting!

Not yet sure how this will be organized, but likely by projects.

• Update with Flashback
• Order new tablet stand
• Find HDMI cable (only one seems to be LinkIT)

• Security camera / motion triggered lights at side of house
• Motion triggered lights over garage
• 2nd camera at front door
• Motion triggered recording for front door
• Decide what to do about front door intercom
• Have door bell button moved?
• Put warning indicator for first front door step
• Shorten bed for bushes to not obscure front entry way
• Determine best lock for gates
• Smart lock for front door
• Notification for mail
• Fireproof box
• Safe / safe room
• Fireproof hard drive / server

• Compare difference in interest using current rates vs current proposed rateRates range quite a bit from 3.148 from no name companies to 3.598 from ViewPoint, 3.598 is only $2000 different of life of loan to planned rate
• Why does WordPad no longer show recent files?Caused by some corruption in C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations, also used tip found at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-desktop/want-to-change-wordpad-defaults-for-font-type-size/a99d61f2-1bc7-4f98-ba98-a30acc932e16 to pin template upon right click.
• Why does Skype phone in Japan not appear as active on Android app?For some strange reason, if Skype is also logged in on computer, then Android will not report as the phone in Japan as being connected
• Multi-person Skype, Google+, ooVoo, Windows Live Messenger video call
• Recipes to mix with Gluhwein (not gluhwein recipes but given a bottle of gluhwein, different ways of making drinks with gluhwein as an ingredient)
• Does old SlingPlayer still work?Yes
• Can the hard drive from Mom’s previous ReplayTV be recovered?
• Selling on Amazon