personal

serendipity

Posted in personal on January 24th, 2010 by John Cummings – Be the first to comment

Whatever life presents you, commit to making the best choice

Whatever choice you make, make it for the right reasons, from deep within

If you follow the wrong path, don't seek to blame someone else

Take your own advice, before you give it to others.   Follow your own way.

Set your own objectives.

The obstacles in your path are your responsibility.

No one will live your life for you.

Do the living on your own.

Make it a joyous experience for anyone who chooses to join you.

The choices you make today will affect you forever.  

Appreciate the seriousness, but don't allow it to weigh you down.

There are a million roads, but none are marked.

A Voice From the Past

Posted in personal on January 15th, 2010 by John Cummings – Be the first to comment

I was going through an old notebook this evening, and I came across something I wrote over 10 years ago.   What struck me was not how poorly written it was (it was me after all, who authored it) but rather how much the content still resonated with me.   My life, of course, is in a much different place than it was at that time – but even still, it was like I was giving myself a piece of advice from the past.

 

3-26-1998

 

The Simple Things

 

I can remember when I was very young how simple the things were that made me happy.   I loved to go outside on a beautiful day and ride my bike.   I couldn't wait for it to stop raining, so I could splash around in the puddles, play in the mud.    Like all other kids my age, I'd spend time laying on my back staring up at the clouds, making pictures in my head from there changing shapes.   I used to love to do these things.   They made me happy.   Really happy – in a way that isn't that often realized as an adult.   When I think back on these things, it's with fondness, but also with a  sense of loss.   As you grow older, do things that provide genuine happiness get harder to obtain, or do we more easily forget what they are?

What tech tools make your life easier?

Posted in personal on January 2nd, 2010 by John Cummings – Be the first to comment

When you find a truly great technology, gadget or service that makes your life easier, it’s natural to want to share that with others.   Sometimes the benefit is apparent to the people you’re evangelizing to right away.   Other times, it might take a little more explanation.

As 2010 begins, and everyone gets prepared to head back to their professional lives in earnest, I thought I’d take a couple of minutes to share a handful of items that I’ve come to depend on, and that truly do make my life easier or more enjoyable.    In turn, I’d love it if you’d share some of yours with me.
  • Dropbox – Sign up for a free account, install the very lightweight client, and you’ll get a folder on your local PC/Mac where you can drag/drop any kind of file.    Move to another machine, download/install the client there, and everything syncs up.    Get the iPhone app (if you have an iPhone, and get your files there as well).   A practical example – you have a Word document you start working on at home.   Save it in your Dropbox, and when you get to work, it’ll be there with your latest changes.   As a bonus, a copy is kept available in the cloud, serving as a convenient off-site backup.    It’s hard to understand how nice this service makes things until you’ve tried it for yourself.
  • Evernote - Evernote is a free application and website where you can store all types of files, notes, audio recordings, etc.   Anything you want to remember and be able to retrieve at a moments notice is a great candidate for Evernote.    Like Dropbox, anywhere you install the app, everything is in sync (including your phone).     One of the coolest features is the ability to snap a quick picture, and have any text content in that picture be indexed/searchable.   Imagine leaving a meeting and snapping a pic of the whiteboard.   Send that picture to Evernote, and retrieve it later by searching for any of the text you can remember from the whiteboard.   It’s very cool, 21st century stuff.
  • Nutshellmail – Sign up with Nutshellmail, and you can connect your Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and other Social Media accounts with your email box.    You’ll get “digests” of all activity as often as you want.   Each service is highly configurable, allowing you to specify exactly what, and how much of it you want to see.    The actual email digest that comes to your inbox is incredibly feature rich, allowing you to do much of what you would do on the sites right from your inbox.
  • Google Voice – Get a phone number with Google (yes, you can get local numbers) and then manage all of your other numbers (home, mobile, work, Skype, the in-laws) through a convenient web interface.    There are a ton of features that are available, including the ability to set up rules like “if Grandma calls make sure you ring all three of my lines, but if Uncle Harry calls, always send him to voicemail”.    You also have the ability to send/receive SMS directly from the site, you’ll get voicemail transcribed to text and delivered in your email, and best of all, all activity with be searchable through the site itself in a familiar Google search interface.    It really is the future of personal calling.
  • Twitgether – bring Twitter completely in to Facebook, Gmail, mySpace, etc. using this great gadget that comes in quite a few varieties.   The most impressive thing about it is how feature rich the Twitter client is in all it’s forms.   When you use the Facebook app, you’ll get the full Twitter experience, but in the familiar Facebook interface.    When you use the Gmail gadget, you’ll still have all the features, but in a way that’s completely complementary and natural to Gmail.    All in all, it’s a great tool to round out your Twitter experience.
These are a few of the tools that I love and use daily.  What do you have that makes your life easier that you can share with me?
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