Adventures in home working

I may be stange but I scan all of my feeds online and then read a small subset - generall about 20-30 a day offline.  I do the scanning while watching TV on my laptop and the reading on my Tablet.  I scan the feeds in FeedDemon and then read the associated web pages in Maxthon as a series of 20-30 tabs.

I noticed recently that there was a real buzz about Google Reader, so I gave it a go.  Since I scan online it worked pretty well, I really liked the single keys shortcuts for navigating between posts, however for me it was too slow,  when scanning it just could’nt keep up with me :-(.  So I went back to FeedDemon, the speed was good but I missed the shortcut keys.  FeedDemon does have keyboard shortcuts but they are all multi-key combinations, which I find a real pain.

I started to get annoyed,  in fact I was going to write a post asking for people to describe how they managed to efficiently scan thousands of posts a day in FeedDemon because it seemed to me that no end-to-end working practice had been developed that worked for people who scanned on one PC and read on another. 

Then I discovered Control-K which opens a dialog that leys you define single keys for anything you want to do in FeedDemon,so here is what I did:

N - takes me to next unread post,  I just press NNNNN until I see a post I want to read and then I press

L - which opens up the link in Maxthon.  If Maxthon is minimized and set to “not activate” when a newpage is opened it just sits on the task bar opening up tabs in the background

so here I am NNNNN and then my brain catches up and says you missed one so I press

P - which opens up the previous unread post, this works because I don’t mark posts read as I read them,  I wait until the end and then I press

R - which marks all posts Read.

So this is great however there are two minor issues - which hopefully Nick can fix:

1. I could not see a way to define a key to download a PODCAST
2. When I press L to open a link in an external browser I need to click back on the FeedDemon page to return focus to it before I can start to press NNNNN again.  The same thing happens if I click a link in a page or download a podcast.  This takes my hands off the keyboard - not desirable

So now I have loads of tabs open in Maxthon,  all I do is click Groups > Save Windows as Group > I have a group for my Laptop so I pick that (3 clicks).  Then back on my Tablet (via remote desktop, 1 click) I open that group (2 clicks) and I am done.  I can now read away on my Tablet closing tabs as I go.  If I don’t read them all I just save the few I have left back as a group and open that group up on my laptop before I start my next scanning session.

Actually my workflow is slightly more complex

1. I open up tabs in Maxthon because many feeds don’t contain the full text
2. After I have finished scanning I scan the tabs, because quite a few web pages have articles spread over multiple pages so I need to open up the other pages as well or show in print view
3. Quite a few web pages turn out to be a few lines of comment and then some links,  its often the article or articles then link to I want to read so I click to open up those
4. Sometimes I come across new sites I want to subscribe to, so I generally subscribe to them while online.
5. Sometimes I have opened links to files I want to download,  so I sometimes initiate the downloads there and then,  or if I am offline when I come across the download then I add the site to a Maxthon group called Action and come back to it later.

Ricardo from El Salvador just emailed me asking me how I managed to install the Palm Desktop on a Tablet PC.  Palm say it’s not supported, but it’s worked fine for me, once I managed to get it installed, which seems to work fine provided you follow these instructions:

1. uninstall any earlier version of palm desktop
2. restart Windows
3. make sure nothing else is running (i.e. don’t start any applications)
4. install palm desktop
5. when it hangs at ‘removing backup files’, bring up task manager (right click on the task bar) , go to process tab and kill any and all ‘idriver.exe’ instances
6. Installation should then continue

IF this doesn’t work first time, give the process above another try, some people report that it doesn’t always work first time, although I have never had to repeat the process myself.

I have just installed Vista RC1 - build 5600 - and want to use the trick I posted a while back that allows me to disconnect from a remote desktop connection to my Tablet, without my tablet locking (i.e. presenting the login screen).  On XP to do this I would run a batch file that contained the command:

tscon.exe 0 /dest:console

Under Vista to achieve the same thing the command needs to be:

tscon.exe RDP-Tcp#0 /dest:console

this command needs to run as administrator, so in my case I right click on the shortcut on my desktop and pick “Run as administrator”

when combined with synergy, this allows me to:

1. use my tablet display but my desktop keyboard and mouse for casual tasks
2. click on a saved RDP config file that brings up a full screen RDP session to my Tablet on my left hand screen when I want to do some more serious work, I prefer this because I get a lot more screen area to work with and because under Vista UAC prompts can not be responded to using synergy, but they can be responded to over RDP
3. right click disconnect.bat when I have finished with my RDP session, which leaves my tablet just where I started and without having to login etc, I can just continue working with it using synergy.

I am a really big fan of the Tablet PC slate format,  its so quick and easy to pop it into my rucksack and drag it out again a in a meeting, in a cafe, on the beach, by the pool etc.  In these environments I don’t want to be typing away, I just tend to read, listen, watch and review/take notes so the slate format is perfect.  Of course I am lucky that when I get back home I have a high powered desktop for my writing work, and have a dock for the Tablet.  This hybrid situation works very well.  I was promoted to write these words of support after seeing this post - also in support of slate mode - on the Student tablet PC blog.

This afternoon – whilst on conference calls - I cloned my old 40GB disk onto a new 100GB one and installed Vista beta 2 on my TC1100. The experience seems significantly improved compared to my previous attempts.  I had to install the XP versions of button driver and Q menu to get anything like a decent experience.  In my first hour of playing around I have noticed the following issues:

• The keyboard, journal and orientation buttons are not working.  However I can change orientation from the Q menu so that’s no big deal
• I don’t appear to have any bluetooth support, I have tried installing the XP drivers
• Searching and folder view changes still take a while,  hopefully that gets better as the indexes build

I haven’t installed much software so far, but its been a good experience:

• Maxthon
• Lotus Notes 6.5.2 (integrated login doesn’t seem to work)
• Foxit Acrobat Reader
• Synergy (doesn’t work when the user account protection dialog opens up, but works fine after you clock allow)
• OneNote 2007
• Office 2007
• Roboform
• VistabootPro
• FeedDemon 2
• eWallet
• Kcorp pre-n wireless network card drivers

The nVidia drivers and network card drivers were updated using windows update

Frustrated at the manual work needed to keep multiple machines in synch,  then try Allway Sync,  I use it to keep my Desktop, Laptop and Tablet in synch and it’s working great so far,  what follows is a much longer description that might be worth reading if you like detail!

To give you an idea of scale – 15GB of data in 20,000 files and 1,500 directories.  Full synch takes less than 5 minutes!  Quick synchs take a few seconds.

I use synchronization extensively to keep my Desktop, Tablet and Laptop in synch and to create backups of my main data disks.  For many years I have used a combination of robocopy scripts to achieve this synch, and it has worked well except for one scenario;  if I delete files in any of the three replica’s these deletes are not propagated, in fact what normally happens is that the deleted file is copied back to my machine from one of the other replica’s.  This happens because of a limitation with robocopy which is that it doesn’t maintain a database that records the synch state of three replica’s, without a database it has no way of knowing whether a deleted file is in fact a missing file.  I now have a solution to this, which I will describe in a minute,  however first a few more details on the robocopy method that has worked for so long.

For backup I have a batch file that runs every night,  it does a replication with the /MIR switch from my desktop working disk  \\desktop\d$ to my backup disk \\desktop\e$ and from the backup disk to my server \\server\d$ this allows me to recover quickly from a disk or a system failure.  /MIR ensures that my backups are exact replica’s of the original \\desktop\d$ it’s easy to avoid backing up files I don’t want to keep by using the /xf and /xd switches which exclude files and directories from the backup.  For backups I will continue to use robocopy as it has served me well for thousands of backups without ever failing!

However for synchronization I have three scripts which run from my quick launch toolbar which you can see to the right.  These scripts are called synch, tidy and Maxthon sync.  These work as follows:

• Synch.bat copies the latest versions of all files to all three machines,  ie it copies the latest versions (including new files) from \\tablet\d$ and \\laptop\d$ to \\desktop\d$ which means that \\desktop has the latest copies of everything and then copies the latest versions from \\desktop\d$ back to \\tablet\d$ and \\laptop\d$ this means that all three machines end up being exactly the same, and that they each contain a superset made up of the latest versions of any files that existed on any of the machines.  Normally this is what you want, except that if I have been working on \\tablet for a few hours by the pool and have renamed, moved and deleted a whole load of files then all of these will be copied back to \\tablet from \\desktop and all of the renamed and moved files will be duplicated of \\desktop and \\laptop, not exactly my intent.
• Tidy.bat is designed to get around this,  tidy.bat uses the /MIR switch to make \\laptop and \\tablet exact copies of \\desktop, which is useful but means that I need to make sure that moves, renames and deletes all take place on \\desktop.
• Maxthon sync.bat is essentially the same as synch.bat but just runs on the Maxthon directory and synchs up the Maxthon groups between machines, I run this separately because it is quick.

I have lived with and been annoyed by this for years and tried loads of solutions which all failed for one or more of the following reasons:

• Poor support for auto-discovery of new subdirectories (of which I have loads)
• Poor performance
• Poor support for filtering files and directories I don’t want to synch (again I have quite a few of these)
• Poor handling of the fact that both \\tablet and \\laptop are frequently not connected to the network when the synch tries to run, and that the synch should wait for them to connect and then carry on
• Poor handling of the fact that some directory sub-trees need to be synched at a much greater frequency than others.

I finally have a solution Allway sync is free for personal use and meets all of my needs (it had a few bugs – but within a week of me reporting them they were all fixed, the version that works for me is 3.42).  These are the features that made this just perfect for me:

• It supports multiple jobs, these jobs can each synch different sub-trees of the same tree, or operate on the same tree but at different frequencies.
• Each job can be scheduled to run with a different frequency and with different include and exclude filters at the file or directory level.  These filters are very flexible
• Jobs can replicate multiple devices, in my case 3
• Each job can either do a one way replication, ie makes the targets exact replicas of the source, or can synchronize, synchs can optionally propagate deletes and modifications. In my case I want to be able to make changes on any of the three devices and the changes to be reflected seamlessly on every device, so I synchronize with modifications and deletes enabled
• You can preview the changes it will make,  which is great for designing your jobs and for testing.
• You can copy deleted files to the recycle bin, just in case you deleted a file by accident
• It copes with devices being disconnected from the network
• It only needs installing on one devices, in my case \\desktop
• It is very visual and easy to use,  for example you can select the directories you want to sync by navigating to them, which reduces errors

At the moment I have 4 synch jobs:

• Every 2 minutes synch favourites on all three machines
• Every 2 minutes synch Maxthon (my browser) config and group definitions on all three machines
• Every 3 hours synch all of my dynamic data, which is my full data tree with all “static” data filtered out (for example archive areas)
• Every day synch the whole data tree, but with temp data and un-synchable data (for example databases) filtered out, (database backups are included).

With this config I am finding that I can work pretty well seamlessly on any of my machines and never have to worry about which one I am using,  since each one is configured for different tasks this makes things pretty efficient.

I can run any of these synchs on demand as well with a 3 mouse clicks.  Now that it all seems to be working well I will probably start extending the jobs to refine things a bit more.

I decided I no longer wanted to compromise when it comes to interacting with audio,  I wanted a very easy way to switch seamlessly between the following activities:

• Record audio notes in OneNote
• Listen to music
• Take phone calls
• Listen to podcasts – mainly from IT Conversations

And I wanted to be able to do all of the above:

• From desk
• Walking
• Swimming – I already have a solution for this
• Chilling out at a Cafe or health club
• Shopping
• etc

I knew the solution needed to involve Bluetooth, and a headset that could switch from audio player to phone headset to microphone as required.   I think I have found the solution – Sonorix Bluetooth Audio Player –  its £50 off right now because it’s an old model.  I friend of mine had one about a year ago and loved it.  I have ordered one,  should arrive in a couple of days.

It may be an old machine, but it is still in many ways a near perfect design.  I have listed before the problems I had with my original TC1100, and why I changed my mind, but at the end of the day fixing the problems would introduce new weaknesses.  jk of jkOnTheRun documents his decision process.

so I have ordered the HP tc1100.  The tc1100 has a 10.4″ screen and only weighs 3.1 pounds without the keyboard attached which I really like.  This is the closest device to my dream mini-Tablet in both size and function.  The tc1100 is a true hybrid Tablet with a keyboard that can be attached or detached at will so it will be the best solution for the way that I work.

My daughter has recently inherited by old Tablet PC, a TC1000.  She has an auto-immune disorder and secondary Raynaud’s and these conditions mean that she suffers from cold hands, is very stiff and not that strong.  As a result she often struggles to carry her bag around and with writing.  About a year ago I wrote an article explaining why I thought a Tablet would help here and a few weeks ago I demonstrated my Tablet to the school teachers and her assessors.  As a result they have agreed that they will try and get her a grant for a Tablet ready for high school which is great news.  In addition they will get her a book scanner.  Although scanned books are not perfect, nor many eBooks, as I mention here, they are often better than paper.

In preparation she is taking her Tablet into school 3 days a week to get used to the logistics and the envious kids and how to deal with them.  Since she got the Tablet I noticed that she has started using the computer at home a lot more as well.  I often find her sitting in bed browsing the web, writing her journal etc.

In this context I was interested to see this report on a trial of Tablets for kids of Jen’s age group, some interesting quotes are:

Carnegie Mellon University is conducting an experiment at The Ellis School and one of CMU’s own classes in which traditional textbooks are replaced with a Tablet personal computer. The HP Compaq 1100 Tablet PCs weigh 4 pounds and have been adapted so students can highlight key passages on the screen and write on the e-text with a digital pen. Students also can send their homework on the Tablet PCs and get material from their teachers.

They mention an important caution, which is especially an issue for A4 content, not so big an issue with text books:

“Nationally, students have not warmed up to e-texts at first because they saw little advantage in them,” said Diana Oblinger, vice president of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit group in Boulder, Colo., interested in technology in higher education. She said the print on the screen used to be harder to read than regular texts, and the software lacked features to encourage people to use it.

That is beginning to change as new software lets students do more things than they could do with a textbook.

Others have Jen’s problem too:

Before this experiment, Chao said her 6-year-old brother Bobby could not even lift her bookbag, which often contained four textbooks and three binders. The bookbag of her classmate Heather Acuff, 14, of McCandless, was so heavy that she used to roll it around on wheels.

It has changed the way teachers work:

Nine eighth-graders at Ellis have replaced their hardback geometry and earth science texts with Tablet PCs. The geometry class uses software developed by Shadyside-based TextCENTRIC that allows students to highlight passages and trade material with their teacher.

Math teacher Russ Schopper presents a problem on a computerized blackboard. The same image appears on the students’ 8-by-10-by-1-inch computers. A split screen lets the students solve the problem on one side and refer to the textbook on the other.

Kids have the same problems we do with PC’s:

Ellis students complain of long startup times for the PC and the danger of computer crashes, but the benefits, they say, outweigh the disadvantages.

At last Microsoft seem to have decided to deliver a portable document format for distribution and archive.  It’s code named metro and was demonstrated at WinHEC.  Here is a snippet from an article in Computer World:

The format, based on XML, will be licensed royalty free and users will be able to open Metro files without a special client. In the demonstration, a Metro file was opened and printed from Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s Web browser.

Printers and printer drivers can include support for Metro and deliver better and faster printing results than with today’s printing technology, Microsoft said. On stage, a Xerox printer with Metro built in was used to print a sample slide.

It’s going to be an open specification, so says Jancology:

Metro is build on top of an XML based page description language similar to Adobe’s PostScript. This happens to be tied into Avalon — Longhorn’s presentation subsystem. Microsoft is releasing publicly the specification for Metro on Monday royalty-free.

What do I want from this format:

• The fidelity we have come to expect from PDF when we want it
• The reflow we have come to expect from HTML when targeting different screen formats
• Full support for anything that can be printed
• Full support for Office Information Rights Management capabilities
• Support for multi-user annotation as used in document review workflows
• Intra document navigation, eg word bookmarks and PowerPoint hypertext links and navigation buttons
• Inter document navigation, eg to a specific word bookmark from the URL passed to metro
• The ability to bookmark locations, as in Reader which will hopefully go away
• Ideally the ability to distribute a document, eg an office document with a metro rendition embedded, or in a separate stream, or vice-versa.
• Slick integration into the shell, so that a metro rendition can be auto generated on save and displayed without needing to open the native document when browsing the shell.
• Great Tablet PC support when navigating documents and annotating them
• Maybe support for InfoPath forms

This article in betanews implies IRM functions will be included – great news!