All the stuff I need is on my desk

The Hour

Currently I am:

• A fulltime (5 courses) student in the School of Business at the University of Alberta
• Also the IT Director (glorified webmaster) for the Business Students Association at the U of A.
• The sole owner of 3rd on Whyte, an Internet Cafe located at 201, 10351 Whyte Avenue, in Edmonton, Alberta.
• The founder of the Free WiFi Project which is slowly slowly starting to bring free wireless Internet access to public spaces in Edmonton. I’ve almost finished the payment system for that so check back soon and get a router!
• On the Old Strathcona Business Association Board of Directors.
• Involved in various web development projects and I am looking at starting a web development firm with my best friend Rob.
• Playing rec league ball hockey with my buds, even though I played basketball all the from elementary school until my second year of college. Our ball hockey team sucks isn’t that bad, btw.
• Still finding time for my amazing girlfriend, Megan.
• Oh, and I’ve started swimming a kilometre a day to try and get back in shape!

Busy busy!

For the last few hours we’ve watched a group of people across the street in front of Starbucks holding up “free hugs” posters. I’ve seen this before around town and at university. From official home page for the Free Hugs Campaign:

Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.

In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

I’ve always liked the idea of the FHC, it’s something I think that brings everyone involved closer together, mentally and physically. I personally wouldn’t go and stand on a street corner because I have other priorities, but I have hugged a person or two in the past.

Travelling Forever has an old post about keeping everything on a USB key instead of a computer. I think this is interesting, but outdated. I wouldn’t want to rely solely on my USB key when I know I’m screwed if I lose it. I prefer to rest easy on the fact that I can do the majority of my work with simply an internet connection.

For the last few months I’ve basically not needed a personal computer. This began when I moved all my email accounts to the IMAP format. More specifically my personal email at my own domain is hosted by GMail so I just have to log in from wherever. The best part about this is I can use my main computer if I wish and still use Thunderbird, but if I want I can jump on a computer at school or even use my cell phone to check my email. I was originally going to set up my own IMAP server and try to fiddle around with everything myself but I figure it’s simpler to just let Google do it for me. It’s free and reliable and I don’t have to play tech support for myself. Read Google’s Email Switch Guide.

Along with Google I use their calendar system. It’s a great program that I can access anywhere there is an internet connection. I use it to schedule almost anything I do, and using a service called GooSync I can sync all my calendars with my phone. I haven’t found a better calendar system that lets me easily share my events with other people. I’ll admit the GooSync site looks a little unprofessional but it’s straight forward and any reviews I read called it legit. It hasn’t failed me yet

A major problem I had in the past was having my bookmarks around when I wanted them. I tried out Foxmarks for a little while but I didn’t like the whole syncing idea. Now I use del.icio.us and it works amazingly. If I’m going to be on one computer for an extensive period of time I’ll install the add-on in Firefox, but otherwise I can just log in and search my own bookmarks. del.icio.us is also a great alternative to your regular search engine. See my del.icio.us bookmarks here.

As far as homepages go I used to make my own little link filled page that I’d write in HTML. Now I use Netvibes exclusively. It aggregates all the RSS feeds that I want and keeps track of what I’ve read and it doesn’t force me to leave the page. Netvibes has got literally hundreds of custom written widgets that you can plug into your homepage and all you have to do is log in. Comparable to Netvibes you have iGoogle, Pageflakes, and MyYahoo. I’ve introduced several friends to Netvibes and they have mostly converted away from iGoogle. Netvibes also lets me keep a little list of handy links that I use often, such as banking and school websites. It also has nifty plugins for Facebook and GMail which will update themselves automatically.

Another huge obstacle you’ll face with leaving your laptop behind is how to access your files! You could leave it running at all times and set up some sort of server or VNC to your machine whenever you need something. This is pretty technical and it doesn’t leave much redundancy of your data. What I’ve been doing for the last several months is keeping a copy of any relevant documents on a USB key. I used to have a nifty Swiss Army knife that my dad gave me for high school graduation several years ago. This had a small 128mb dongle inside, but unfortunately I left it in a school computer one day Now I have an awesome SanDisk Cruzer micro 4GB stick on my key chain. Unfortunately it comes with this pesky U3 Launchpad software, you can get a removal tool though.

For the record I’m not a big fan of syncing anything. I’d much rather have a static copy available remotely at any time, but for the sake of redundancy I have been syncing my personal files.

The best way I’ve found so far to sync important folders is to use Microsoft’s own SyncToy v2.0 Beta. I use this in for two reasons, 1. to keep a copy of my important data with me at all times and 2. to keep a backup of my important data. Every time I use my laptop and I’ve made changes to either work or school documents I plug in my USB key and run the SyncToy shortcut I pasted in there. I simply hit Run All and in a few seconds SyncToy has made a carbon copy of any files that have changed. I try my best not to change both locations are the same time but if that happens SyncToy politely asks you what you want to do. You can create as many folder pairs as you want. Tom’s Guide has a rough introduction to different syncing programs.

I’m finding it’s really nice to not worry about lugging around a laptop or when I’m next going to be able to come home to check my email. It’s really freeing to know I can go to almost any computer out there and work just as I would normally at home. I even did my cafe’s payroll on a computer I’d never used before simply because it was convenient for me to do so. The only limitation you’ll face is whether the computers you’re using have the software you need, like the Office or Adobe suites.

My friend Mack suggested that this I’m some sort of “internet nomad” because of this. Does anyone else have similar experience distancing themselves from their computers?

Wow, that was the simplest update I’ve done for a piece of software online before. Just copy a few files and go to the upgrade page, super simple.

I really like the new WordPress layout. It’s smart looking and a big improvement over the outdated layout they previously employed.

My favourite part is the write page: it’s a lot easier on the eyes and the options are grouped in a much my organized manner. All the common tasks are on the right while most of the extra junk you’ll never use is pushed below the post.

What really looks awesome is the new built in gallery part. You can upload multiple files at once and it will catalogue them in the nice gallery for you. Matt Wullenberg, WordPress’s founder, has a great example of a fully functioning gallery.

My biggest gripe with WordPress to date has been the speed and the stats. Right now my installation is pretty sluggish, and I don’t think it’s DreamHost. I’ve read a few comments and it’s one of the top ideas in the Most Popular Ideas section of WordPress Ideas. On that note I think it’s awesome how WordPress includes the highest rated ideas in their upcoming releases. Most community sites might do well to implement something along these lines

So far I haven’t been able to get my stats to work with WordPress, but that’s ok because I’m using Google Analytics as well and I think it’s a bit more accurate anyway.

Screencast of WordPress 2.5

You can grab the latest WordPress release here: http://wordpress.org/download/

For at least a year I have been using Netvibes as my homepage. It’s a great tool that I use as my RSS reader and it keeps me posted on all the news I’m interested in. Netvibes is an awesome tool because of all the widgets. Right now I mostly use the Digg and Facebook widgets, but you can add tons of things like your Flickr, Twitter, or any Web 2.0 account. Also available are maps and even Pac Man!

There are thousands of types of content you can add to Netvibes, and with RSS feeds the options are limitless. It’s a really smooth interface that doesn’t require you to ever leave so I have it permanently in my browser as the first table (collapsed using FaviconizeTab, a great FF extension).

One thing that has been boggling my mind for a while is how Netvibes manages to make money. I never see ads and they never push any sort of premium product at me… hopefully they are doing it somehow so I don’t lose their service! Netvibes also recently introduced the next phase of their product codenamed Ginger.

You can browse through my public Netvibes “universe” here: http://www.netvibes.com/ericwarnke

So I voted… The Alberta General Election was held today. I voted conservative based on the party platforms I read here at Mapleleafweb. This is the first election I actually did research for. The deciding factor for my vote was their bit on free enterprise economy:

• The Party believes that the creation of wealth and jobs can best be achieved by a free enterprise economy. The Party is committed to fostering policies that encourage and respect entrepreneurship and innovation.

I’m a firm believer in global capitalism and I hope to pursue something along those lines as a future occupation.

School has been doing well: I took 5 classes last semester and passed them all, although my GPA was poor because I decided to focus mostly on things like Chillin’ 4 Charity, a business case competition which we won, and of course my Internet Café.

The cafe has been doing well also. I’m not exactly rolling in money but I’ve been in the black every month and paying all my bills so I can’t really complain. Right now I’m waiting for two huge edge lit LED signs to arrive from Carmanah. It looks like they do good work but they’re definitely taking their time. In the next few days Van Houtte is installing a nice Keurig coffee machine, I plan to make a post about that endeavor later.

In December I officially stopped being a paid employee for Nexopia.com. I spent two years with Nexopia, initially working out of Timo Ewald’s – our founder – kitchen. Since then I’ve watched the company grow to 30+ employees. I helped move offices twice, and built walls, painted, and whatever needed doing. I was treated extremely well and I grew a lot both emotionally and professionally while working there. I had to leave because my commitment to school and my side business need to be my priority (in that order) and I don’t have time for two jobs and school. I suppose that’s three jobs. I plan to post more on Nexopia and social networks in the near future.

Once again my attitude toward blogging has shifted. I recently set up a WordPress blog for one of my good friend’s, Andrew. Andrew is getting married on August 16th and he wants to use his journalism experience to write a blog chronicling the journey towards the big date. You can find his blog at 227days.com. Hopefully he gets his rear in gear and catches up with his posts!

I also bought a new Nokia N95 8GB smart phone. It is hands down one of the best hand held devices I have ever used. First of all it’s made by Nokia, the cell phone masters of the universe, which means it’s durable as hell. My last Nokia phone was run over by a car and dropped in bars so many times I can’t count and it always worked when I pieced it back together. My Blackberry Pearl had the scroll ball break so I could only scroll down and after a few months of hot-keying around the phone I decided I needed a change. Much research (and money) later I ended up buying the N95 off of a great power seller on eBay. They also run importgsm.com. Nokia makes amazing phones, and amazing software which I will post about later.

I’ve also signed up for a Flickr account which I hope to use often. I previously hated Flickr because it was slow and the browsing interface isn’t the friendliest but I want to give it a shot.

Last but not least I ported my old posts into a WordPress blog. I know I previously posted that it was too verbose but I seriously don’t have time to fiddle with my own code, especially the security aspect.

Keep on truckin’.

A lot has happened since July. I’ve been running the cafe for a whole month and I have two great staff members holding down the fort. I recently hired a third girl who will take some shifts starting September. I was accepted to the University of Alberta and will be starting the third year of my business degree. It will be interesting trying to finish school and running this business. I am hoping to get some credit towards my degree for running the cafe.

I’ve decided to major in International Business, which my uncle refers to as “a slogan”. He believes there is just “business”, not wishy washy labels attached to it. As part of this major I’m going to learn German. I know a tiny bit already and I have been to Germany. Ideally I will be able to study abroad and take an MBA in the future. Germany offers a fine MBA at some of their universities and I would love to get out of Canada for a while. I still have a little more than two years left before I finish my undergrad degree.

Business here is picking up. I had 5000 4″ x 6″ flyers printed and I have been slowly distributing them around Whyte Avenue. They seem to be working because the place is making more and more everyday. I’m really happy that this is turning out how I expected it. Hopefully it will be self sufficient enough that I don’t have to worry about it as much in the future.

In other news, my BlackBerry Pearl’s trackball only scrolls up, down, and left. It’s too bad almost all the functionality of the phone requires me to scroll right. I will need to look into getting something different soon. I can’t see myself getting a phone without Wifi though, I’m sick of paying through the roof for data from a wireless provider.

Well that’s all for now, I’ll try to post more regularly.