Book Review #13

Book #13 Successful Time Management for Dummies
Disk Zeller

The first thing I noted is that this is the "Portable Edition", whatever that means. Apparently there are more specific information on the full-size version, but as long as this is good, then I don't need the full size version, do I? The good news is, this is good, and I don't need the full size version. The bad news is, there remains some personalizations or customizations necessary. However, the basic ideas listed here are sound and is an excellent place to start.

The first chapter, although extremely brief, does touch all the bases needed to be covered. That's good. Too often, writers would wax poetics on how time management would save the day. I don't like that. Just tell me what I need to know, and we'll go from there!

The second chapter is the obligatory chapter about valuing your time. This is important. Too often, people are too focused on the dollars, but not the hours spent in getting those dollars. This, here, is a form of Return-Of-Investment calculation necessary in order to put a value of your time, and once you have successfully put a value to your time blocks, it's time to prioritize them. That's chapter 3. I really appreciate how this little book is organized! The book mentioned how difficult it is to adhere to the set schedule. The good news is, a little productivity goes a long way.

Let's put it this way. Supposed that you are only productive 20% per day. If you managed to increase productivity only by 10%, then you just increased your productivity by 50%! Of course, you get diminishing returns, but that only happens if you have some kind of schedule to begin with. If you haven't, then a little can go a long way, and this book tells you that. That makes me so happy! Truly, these are the most important points that you can make in teaching time management.

The author stumbles here with Chapter 4: Organizing your workspace. Although he recognized the difficulties of properly managing his workspace, the system that he presents is the old "Process a paper only once", which is the boon of professional organizers anywhere, and the doom of non-professional organizers everywhere. That is, the system is easier to say, that it is to do. There is nothing wrong in trying to achieve the ideal, but this is where personalization can work wonders for you. In my case, not only my work is varied (just look at this blog!), but also some of them requires some sizable materials. In the end, I put the filing cabinet next to boxes of projects, one box per project. It looks ugly, but it works. So, yes, read the chapter and follow it the best you can, but don't be afraid to personalize it to suit you.

Chapter 5 outlines various strategies for organizing your files. Just like Chapter 4, the information presented here is old-school. Well, as old school as new electronic gadgets can be. The importance of backup (safety redundancy) is missing, though. I know for certain that electronics can break, and papers can be eaten by your dog, so back up in as many places as possible. Make sure to restore the backups and check periodically. Also make sure that everything is sync. Personal note: The best device for organization is the old Palm Pilot/Handspring device. I'd be carrying it if I didn't run out of pockets!

Chapter 6 goes back to form, discussing the relevant issues is dealing with obstacles. This treatment is in fine form. It's obvious that the author speaks from experience, instead of rehashing old ideas. I'm happy to see it here.

Chapter 7 is the big deal for me. Procrastination. Over time, I managed to set up what I call "Productive Procrastination". That's not this chapter. This chapter deals with different solutions to get over procrastination. Although I'd probably fail with these methods, these are good methods to try nevertheless. Who knows? You may be better at it that I am. The information here is concise, useful, and comprehensive.

The rest of the book deals with little things that trips you, and little things that helps you. I find that the information presented here is perfect for the size of the book, and will gladly recommend this book to anyone who needs a little help organizing their time.

Cooking Journal #13

Potato chips

For a time, Lays was selling Sriracha potato chips. It's somewhere between BBQ and SuperHot. I love it. I just bought multiple bags of them. Well, Lays stopped selling them. Unfortunately, now that I know just how good potato chips with sriracha sauce can be, there's no going back! BBQ is not good enough anymore! So I cook my own.

 Regarding potato chip, I can tell you that the thinner you can slice it, the better! It's helpful if you have a slicer, then you can just set it up to the thinnest section. Paper thin is just right!

Frying them is simplicity itself. Just deep fry them until they float. You may even wait until they go slightly brown for extra crispiness.

It's okay if some of the chip "bubbles". It just makes it that extra crunchy!

Make sure to drain the oil with paper towel. Salt to taste, although personally, I never bothered. Serve with sriracha sauce. Delicious!

Nintendo Journal 13

Trucker's Mug

There's a Big Man restaurant in Amarillo Texas that serves 72 oz Steak. Somehow I kept thinking of this 64 oz Big Mug to go with it. No comment. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Raspberry Pi Journal #13

Installing CUPS for Printer

So, I have an old Samsung ML-2525W laser printer laying around. Naturally, since I'm looking for more gadgets to be connected to my Raspberry Pi, it got the job. The first shock of the day is that there is no standard printing spool. It took some digging to come up with lpr, and lp. Both of these program are old. The new one, after much digging, is CUPS (Common Unix Printing System). That one threw me out for a loop, because Apple made it.

Anyway, having CUPS makes life tremendously easy. There is a gotcha with permission, though. Let's go through the process.

The first thing you do is to install CUPS:

sudo apt-get install cups

After some heavy duty downloading, everything is set up. The installation starts cups daemon server automatically. You can check it out by opening your web browser to localhost port 631

http://127.0.0.1:631

If all goes well, you will see the browser showing CUPS Administration page.

Everything is browser-based, so it's really easy. Just add a new printer and you're home free.

You need to login and enter your password. The browser interface allows you to administer the printer completely, including moving printing jobs, or even cancelling them. You don't want just anybody to be able to do so.

Did I say adding a new printer is easy? Well, there's a gotcha. You cannot add a new printer without proper permission. Didn't you just entered your password? Yes, you did. So, what's going on?

This instruction should be with all printer installation instruction, but some missed it. You need to add yourself to printing administration group. Do this:

sudo usermod -aG lpadmin username

where if you're the default user, that should be "pi".

Success! I see my printer name there. After selecting it, would you believe I still have to choose my printer from a long list of names? Anyway, set up your defaults here. I set my page size to "US Letter".

That's it! Do a test print and see if it works! Congratulations, you just added a new printer!

Petit Computer Journal #13

Importing Data Into Petit Computer

One of the most important aspect in computing is data. In fact, I would say that the most important factor in computing is data. Everything that is important in computer can be traced to a database. Whether it is searching book titles such as Amazon.com, email, or managing your finances, data is usually the most important part of computing experience.

This has not always been true. Such early computer, say, having only 4 kilobytes of memory, downplayed the importance of data. However, without a good data reader, such as tape recorder, or worse, punch cards, such computer capability is wasted. Sure,there was Pong, but what good is it? The seminal early program was Adventure, or Collosal Cave, modelling the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Data is very important!

How can we enter data into the computer, specifically Petit Computer? Well, we can use the DATA keyword and type it in. But what if we already have it in our main computer? Here are the steps I use to import stock market data into Petit Computer.

1. Download the Historical stock data into your computer as CSV (Comma Separated Values)

Goto Yahoo.com and download a historical stock prices of your favorite stock. Make sure to save it as CSV format.

2. Open the file into your spreadsheet.

I use Microsoft Works, a cheaper alternative to Microsoft Office. Whatever works. Import the CSV file into the spreadsheet. Remove any unwanted columns. Insert column in the beginning. Fill it with "DATA". Save.

3. Open the file into Text Editor

I use Notepad. Replace all "DATA" with DATA, where you type a space character right after the text DATA. Add DATA "End",-1,-1,-1,-1,-1 at the end. This is assuming you're keeping the same data as me. Adjust accordingly.

4. Open up PTCUtilities.

Open up PRG Editor. Copy and Paste the text into the window. Comment out the first line. Make QR code out of it.

5. Scan with Petit Computer

Pick up your Nintendo DSi. Run Petit Computer program. Select "Scan QR Code". Import it to your Petit Computer. Let's call it STOKDATA.

6. Open up your main program.

I'm using the stock candlestick chart. The source code is at the end of the file. Load the program. Then on the RUN window, type "APPEND STOKDATA". This will add the content of STOKDATA to your current program. Save accordingly.

And there you have it, an easy way to import data to your Petit Computer Program.



'Stock Chart
@MAINLOOP
ACLS
GPAINT 6,6,6

C=0:MN=9999:MX=0
RESTORE @STOK
@STEP1
READ A$,OP,HI,LO,CL,AD
IF OP==-1 GOTO @STEP2
C=C+1:?C
IF MN>LO THEN MN=LO
IF HI>MX THEN MX=HI
GOTO @STEP1

@STEP2
RESTORE @STOK

FOR I=C TO 1 STEP -1
READ A$,OP,HI,LO,CL,AD
X1=C:X2=I:X3=1:Y1=247:Y3=24
GOSUB @MAP:DX=Y2
X1=MN:X2=HI:X3=MX:Y1=190:Y3=20
GOSUB @MAP:DHI=Y2
X1=MN:X2=LO:X3=MX:Y1=190:Y3=20
GOSUB @MAP:DLO=Y2

X1=MN:X2=OP:X3=MX:Y1=190:Y3=20
GOSUB @MAP:DOP=Y2
X1=MN:X2=CL:X3=MX:Y1=190:Y3=20
GOSUB @MAP:DCL=Y2

WAIT 1
GLINE DX,DHI,DX,DLO,8
IF OP>CL THEN GFILL DX-1,DOP,DX+1,DCL,15
IF CL>OP THEN GFILL DX-1,DOP,DX+1,DCL,14
GBOX DX-1,DOP,DX+1,DCL,15

NEXT

FOR I=BUTTON(3) TO 1:I=BUTTON(3):NEXT
GOTO @MAINLOOP

@MAP
Y2=(((X2-X1)/(X3-X1))*(Y3-Y1))+Y1
RETURN



@STOK
'DATA "Date","Open","High","Low","Close","Adj Close"
DATA "2012-12-10",11.41,11.58,11.03,11.1,11.1
DATA "2012-12-03",11.56,11.7,11.18,11.48,11.48
DATA "2012-11-26",11.05,11.6,10.97,11.45,11.45
DATA "2012-11-19",10.65,11.1,10.65,11.1,11.1
DATA "2012-11-12",11.03,11.16,10.38,10.5,10.5
DATA "2012-11-05",11.15,11.59,10.71,10.93,10.93
DATA "2012-10-31",10.7,11.38,10.6,11.17,11.17
DATA "2012-10-22",10.14,10.49,9.97,10.36,10.31
DATA "2012-10-15",10.11,10.57,10.09,10.18,10.13
DATA "2012-10-08",10.06,10.26,9.95,10.12,10.07
DATA "2012-10-01",9.89,10.28,9.71,10.16,10.11
DATA "2012-09-24",10.3,10.4,9.81,9.86,9.81
DATA "2012-09-17",10.27,10.66,10.26,10.4,10.35
DATA "2012-09-10",10.08,10.57,10.06,10.53,10.48
DATA "2012-09-04",9.37,10.23,9.35,10.14,10.09
DATA "2012-08-27",9.51,9.52,9.25,9.34,9.29
DATA "2012-08-20",9.58,9.7,9.4,9.49,9.44
DATA "2012-08-13",9.35,9.67,9.25,9.63,9.58
DATA "2012-08-06",9.13,9.46,9.09,9.35,9.3
DATA "2012-07-30",9.04,9.42,8.82,9.09,9.05
DATA "2012-07-23",9.08,9.24,8.83,9,8.91
DATA "2012-07-16",9.22,9.52,9.12,9.21,9.12
DATA "2012-07-09",9.46,9.55,9.12,9.27,9.18
DATA "2012-07-02",9.5,9.79,9.3,9.5,9.4
DATA "2012-06-25",10.13,10.18,9.46,9.59,9.49
DATA "2012-06-18",10.35,10.74,10.18,10.19,10.09
DATA "2012-06-11",10.77,10.8,10.21,10.35,10.24
DATA "2012-06-04",10.15,10.78,9.91,10.66,10.55
DATA "2012-05-29",10.69,10.88,10.06,10.12,10.02
DATA "2012-05-21",10.02,10.68,10,10.6,10.49
DATA "2012-05-14",10.41,10.53,9.96,10.01,9.91
DATA "2012-05-07",10.53,10.86,10.4,10.58,10.47
DATA "2012-04-30",11.42,11.47,10.63,10.67,10.56
DATA "2012-04-23",11.15,12.04,11.15,11.6,11.43
DATA "2012-04-16",12.01,12.05,11.39,11.41,11.24
DATA "2012-04-09",12.26,12.29,11.65,11.92,11.75
DATA "2012-04-02",12.5,12.95,12.32,12.47,12.29
DATA "2012-03-26",12.45,12.61,12.18,12.48,12.3
DATA "2012-03-19",12.52,12.68,12.18,12.32,12.14
DATA "2012-03-12",12.57,13.04,12.37,12.51,12.33
DATA "2012-03-05",12.67,12.73,12,12.58,12.4
DATA "2012-02-27",12.11,12.94,11.99,12.72,12.54
DATA "2012-02-21",12.74,12.76,12.16,12.23,12.05
DATA "2012-02-13",12.74,12.88,12.33,12.75,12.57
DATA "2012-02-06",12.85,13,12.37,12.44,12.26
DATA "2012-01-30",12.06,12.84,12,12.79,12.6
DATA "2012-01-23",12.69,13.05,11.79,12.21,12.03
DATA "2012-01-17",12.2,12.72,11.96,12.59,12.36
DATA "2012-01-09",11.83,12.18,11.63,12.04,11.82
DATA "2012-01-03",11,11.8,10.99,11.71,11.5
DATA "2011-12-27",10.87,10.98,10.43,10.76,10.56
DATA "2011-12-19",10.25,11,9.99,10.95,10.75
DATA "END",-1,-1,-1,-1,-1