scott

First Day Back in The Office

by

Today was the first day back in the office since before Sandy.  I got up early since i was concerned about the commute as well as the fact that I had an early meeting.  The trip in to work was fine.  I even got a seat for part of the way.  The guys I work with in NJ didnt fare as well.  Some had 3 hour commutes.

Before I headed home I went to get a hair cut.  That delayed my leaving Manhattan till after 6pm.  I am not sure if that was the reason why the subways were packed, but I had to wait a while for the train and then it was super crowded.  The train also moved a lot slower than normal.  Due to the storm projected to happen tomorrow I am going to work from home tomorrow.  My mom is supposed to come over and watch the baby while MC has a doctor apt.  If she can’t get fuel I want to make sure MC can still go.  Add the storm to the mix and I think its the smart choice to work remote.

The Story Why I Can’t Watch The News

by

I am not a fan of TV or radio news.  I used to be as my mom likes to say.  She is right.  I used to love the news and current events and would soak it up on TV.  I have been quoted at 5 years old giving opinions of who I thought would presidential race at the time.  Reagan vs Carter if you are wondering.  By the time I was in my 20’s In the 90’s I started watching less regular news and more financial news like CNBC.  After a while I couldn’t even watch that.  Back then I am not sure what made me stop.  I think it was just that news was depressing and repetitive on TV.

 

It turns out that if you blog long enough you will cover the same or similar topics again.  I found a post I wrote in August 2005 about another reason why I don’t watch the news.  For the record that post confirms I was reading the news from Reuters long before I worked there so I think its ok for me to say I think they are a great news source even though I work in there.  As always the opinions expressed on this blog are my own and not those of my employer.

The Decision To Get Another Mac Mini

by

I know that I waffle on what approach I take with regards to my computer equipment.  I have been known to swing between wanting one laptop I use for everything to a laptop and desktop, to just a desktop and using works laptop.  Right now I have a semi-new 2012 Macbook Air.  I sold my main desktop, a 27″ iMac that I bought and tricked out in 2011 over the summer.  I also am selling my old 2011 Macbook Air because I wanted one computer, a laptop.  At the time my thoughts were I wanted a single machine so I can go between work and home and have my stuff with me.  I had the iMac because I previously worked from home 2-3 days a week and having the more powerful desktop made sense.  Since I am in the office most days as of early summer that didn’t make much sense anymore.  I also have a 2010 Mac Mini I have been using as a media center.  Its no longer plugged directly into my TV but is hosting all my media and acts as a headless server that my Apple TV or Macbook Air connects to.  I can’t use it as a desktop since the Thunderbolt display I have is not compatible with the older Mini.

Flash forward to now, and I am happy with my Air however I am finding myself wanting a desktop that is always on.  I still need my laptop for now for if I need to work from the bedroom or anywhere else if the baby is in the area were my computer is, but having a desktop for me and the family has its advantages.  Having a super powerful iMac still doesn’t make sense.  My current solution is to get one of the new Mac Mini’s that were just announced.  It is 1/3 of the price I paid for my iMac, and if i need to I can unplug the Mini from my display and plug in my laptop as needed.  The 1TB Fusion drive looks like a good compromise for speed and storage space.  The new Mini’s looked good enough that I ordered a new one on the 5th.  It arrived Friday.  So far the Cinema Display and the Mini is a great alternative to a laptop or an iMac.  I still have to carry around a laptop to work but I like having a flexibility the mini provides vs an all in one iMac.  Only time will say if I remain happy.

 

Surprisingly Keeping Time Can be Difficult Sometimes

by

Recently there was some communication snafu of some kind at work.  No damage was done but it highlighed the point that people don’t always take into account that we work on a global team.  You can’t just say something happened today at 6.  What day? 6AM or PM?  What time zone are we talking about?  Those are all the questions that come to mind when you make a generic statement like that.  After that my boss suggested people set their computer clocks to UTC.  If you don’t know UTC is basically the renamed version of GMT.  Almost everyone dealing with global locations from the military to most major corporations keep time in UTC.  Otherwise scheduling is a nightmare.  Servers, and other devices are already keeping time in UTC, so my bosses suggestion was that we set our local computers time to UTC.  He offered a way you could setup outlook to display two time zones as well so you could see your calendar in local time as well as keep UTC time.  Both were good ideas.  When I used Outlook on Windows I actually did use the two time zone option but apparently that isn’t available on the Mac version of Outlook.

I thought setting your computer clock to UTC was a good idea but would cause other issues when trying to keep time out of work.  The idea did remind me that I had a clock app that i could run and keep in my menu bar that would list out multiple time zones.  Not quite the same thing but it is very useful.  What I ended up doing instead was set my watch to UTC.  I forgot that I had the option to have two time zones on my watch.  The dial hands can display normal local time and I can have the digital display show UTC time.  That minor realization has already paid off a lot when coordinating calls this week durring the big storm.

I have apps on my iPhone and iPad that also help me with world clock calculations.  I do use them often, but instead of having to do the time zone math, thinking in UTC is a big help.  I have written a bit in the past about keeping time in a global team.  I am writing again because of this minor adjustment to using UTC on my watch had a pretty big impact and I am always amazed at something so simple as keeping time actually can be very difficult sometimes.

 

UTC on my watch

Work using UTC for everything

Scheduling meeting and events accross time zones

My First Smile

by

Today was a first for me.  Teagan gave me a smile, and it wasn’t gas!  She has been giving smiles here and there to MC and her parents last week but I have not gotten any love till today.  I was working from home and when Teagan was getting up from a nap I had some time so I went in and was the one to wake her.  As she was stretching out after her nap (thats a thing she does) she was totally giving me smiles.  MC thought it was so cute, and I was a happy father!

Other than that it was a normal day except for the fact that I worked from home since I was concerned about the subways conditions after the storm.  MC’s parents left to head home today since they were working during at the election.

2nd Date Night

by

With MC’s parents still with us tonight they suggested we go out again yesterday and let them baby sit.  At first we weren’t going to go but then we realized we should get out when we can.  We wanted to go out and do something quick so we headed to Austin St. to grab dinner.  We were going to goto Aged steakhouse, but we didnt have a reservation and it would have been 30 minutes wait.  instead we went to Sante Fe Steakhouse.  My steak was good, not great.  MC’s dinner was less stellar.  It was nice getting out but it wasn’t as nice an evening as last night.

Dinner and a Movie

by

MC’s parents are staying with us for a few days  since they are without power due to the storm.  It has been a bit cramped since I am working from home due to the storm but it is nice to have them.  They help with taking care of Teagan, and MC doesn’t get to see them as often as I can see my parents since hers lives about an hour and a half away.

Since they are here and they dont know when they will have power, MC had the idea that they could watch the baby Friday night and we could go out and grab some dinner and catch a movie.  We haven’t done that alone since Teagan was born so it is almost 7 weeks.  We were both excited since we would love a night out and we have wanted to go see Argo.  Up until her parents came to visit we figured we would never get to see  it in the movies and would catch it on DVD.

We opted for an early movie and dinner afterward.  The movie was great.  Probably one of the best stories I have seen in a long time.  It was very well done and worth it as our first date out.  We went to the theater on Austin St and then went to a Sushi Yasu place across the street from the Theater   We wanted to try a new place and we were in the mood for sushi.  The restaurant was nice but the sushi was not as good as our favorite place in Woodside (TJ”s) or the more upscale Moca Asian Bistro around the corner.  After dinner we went to Martha’s for coffee and desert before heading back home.

It was a nice quick night out.  We were both glad to get away even though MC talked to her mom 3 times while we were out.  We might go out again tonight but we aren’t sure.

Surviving Hurricane Sandy

by

Like most people in NY & NJ this week has been a bit unreal.  I heard about a possible storm as early as last Wednesday.  It wasn’t until Thursday or Friday when I realized that this wasn’t just any old storm.  My mom was planning a trip to Europe and was going to depart Monday night.  On Friday she was concerned she wouldn’t be able to get out in time.  By Saturday she had canceled her plans.

Saturday afternoon I got brought into my first disaster planning call from work.  Saturday we got a walk in with Teagan and we also went and did some grocery shopping.  We typically order Fresh Direct but when we tried all slots were sold out.

Sunday the weather wasn’t horrible yet but it wasn’t too great.  I only got out to get some formula since we weren’t sure how long the storm would be.  I got lucky at Walgreens and the guy who unlocked the case were the formula was locked up (yes formula in NYC is behind lock and key) pointed out that there was a check out person at the cosmetic counter.  i rushed over there and avoided the 20 or so people at the front check out.  Others quickly found out that trick and I dodged the line.  Most of Sunday was taken up with disaster prep calls.  I had calls every two or three hours all day from 9AM on.

I was going to take a day off Monday to watch Teagan while MC had an appointment.  By Saturday I realized that the appointment would probably be canceled and I would need to be working to make sure we had no issues with the storm.  I was right, the appointment was canceled and I ended up working from home all day.  It was my first day working from home with MC and the baby being home.

Monday night was interesting with the storm hitting.  It was odd that there was no cars on the road.  It was super windy but in this apartment we didn’t really hear it that much. We watched the news briefly but I got most of my news from Twitter feeds.  For real time information durring an incident like this it actually was helpful.  I was following the NYC Mayors office, FEMA, MTA, National Weather Service, Reuters and teh BBC.  I was pretty well informed and didn’t have to watch allot of the sensationalism, fluff or people standing in dangerous stormy areas for no reason.

We were extremely lucky and had no damage at all.  We never lost power and up and down my street I didn’t see any downed trees.  I know there was some damage south of Austin St but nothing near me we could see.  Very lucky is an understatement when my sister is without power, and a cousin’s apartment is totally destroyed.

Tuesday at work was part listing to updates on any affected systems from the storm to trying to find out what was happening with the rest of my team in the NY region.  On top of that I was trying to get normal work done.

Wednsday was a little bit more normal, but half my team in NY/NJ were not working.  No one else on my team had power, but 2 of them were able to get to an office in NJ.  My mom came over to help watch the baby, and MC and I went food shopping since my in laws were coming over.  They lost power Monday and we asked them to come over.  They finally took us up on the offer Wednesday when they still didn’t have power.  Her dad cooked dinner for us all, and they both got to play with the baby.

Thursday I was able to continue to work from home and I tried to get back into a normal routine.  Overall I was able to.  I had several calls in the morning, and then a one on one with my boss in the afternoon.  After that I took off the rest of the day since I wanted to help MC out with Teagan a bit since I had to work Sunday.  My dad called the night before to offer for all of us to come over Thursday night for dinner.  It’s his cooking night and he knew we were hosting MC’s parents.  We all headed over after Teagan’s 4ish feeding.  It was the first time we used the car seat without the base.  It worked generally well.  It was also the first time I used Siri for navigation.  I didn’t really need it since i know how to get to my parents place but I always like having the navigation running.  MC’s dad drove us all over.  We had fish for dinner.  It was a good meal.  Teagan didn’t sleep at all when over there.  I think it may be because of all the grandparents over stimulating her, but what do I know.

When we got home MC’s parents watched the baby as I made formula for the coming day, and MC tried to nap.   I then feed Teagan and just got her down for a nap.  I write this post Thursday night as everyone else sleeps.  I have Teagan up on the Dropcam on my Nexus 7 making sure she still is napping.  MC is in our room trying to nap and her parents are in the living room sleeping.  I am in my office area (aka what should be the dinning room) hoping that this light typing isn’t annoying to anyone.  Watching Teagan on the monitor all warm in her crib sitting in front of a computer with power it reminds me that not everyone was so lucky.  I have friends and colleges without power.  A cousin whose apartment is ruined and doesn’t know when she can move back in, and there are countless other horror stories to go around.  I am glad we came out of this ok, and hope for a speedy recovery or else I will be working from home for a while until they fix the train tunnels.

The Case for Two Tablets

by

On last Wednesday Apple announced several product refreshes as well as a new iPad mini. It was very funny that a company as secretive as Apple had this product announcement predicted so perfectly weeks before. I for one was hoping the rumors were true since I really wanted a smaller iPad even though I love my third-generation iPad.

The dilemma for me has been I want a tablet to use in multiple situations. MC and I use my iPad around the apartment, usually on the couch to do all sorts of things. We will order take-out, fresh direct, browse the web, or just look up where we know some actor that were seen on TV using the IMDB app. We use it when we travel as a map, research tool, email checker, reading a book, watch a movie, and probably lots of other things I’m not remembering. At work it’s what I take to go to a meeting. I have a notebook and a pen but I barely ever use it. With the iPad I can take notes with Evernote, jot down a task with remember the milk, or quickly pull up a story on our Jira system via the web browser.

For all those situations the iPad is fantastic! The screen size is beneficial and it’s either sitting on a desk or not being held long enough for the weight to matter that much. If there were no other use cases for me one device would be perfect. Problem is I also want something that I can use on my 45 minute commute each direction to work. I could use my smartphone but the screen is still pretty small and sometimes it’s difficult to read for long periods of time. If I’d better vision maybe that would be in, since plenty of people just use that. A Kindle is a great idea, but the regular ones you can only read books on. I would love to catch up on just by reading but during the commute time I want to be able to get up to date on all the overnight email at work (I get up to 100 overnight). I also want to review my tasks for the day, read news stories, books, and watch movies or podcasts. I don’t do that every day but each day in the mood to do something different. Using my full-size iPad is difficult since it’s hard to hold in one hand while standing on the subway. If I get a seat it’s usable but still not the best option. Let’s face it I don’t always get a seat anyway.

When Google announced the Nexus 7 I was excited because I thought that form factor would be perfect for my commute to work. I was right. Reading on it perfectly fine with one hand for less than an hour at a time. The screen size was okay. I would’ve liked bigger but I understand the need to be aware holding one hand was more important. The problem is it’s low and kind of buggy. This is an about the Nexus 7, so not going to all the details. Let’s just say I got what I paid for but the experience is still lacking. So much so that I do not always take it with me each morning.

I am hopeful that the iPad mini will be as well built as the larger iPad. There’s no reason to believe otherwise. With the smaller device I’ll be able to use it on my commute to and from work, possibly in meetings, when empowered about in the city for the day, and as a second device when MC and I both want to use it at the same time. That last one has happened several times when we traveled even though she’s not wanted to get her own.

I will admit that it’s an expensive device for specific purpose, however that aside I see need just by looking at how much I’ve tried to use the Google tablet. I opted to spend the extra $130 to get the LTE model. I’m not sure if I will activate it but I have seen the limitations of just Wi-Fi only in both the original iPad and the Nexus 7 slut want the option. Now all I have to do is wait three or so more weeks and give it a testdrive. Worst-case scenario is it gets eBayed. The unlikely but possible best case scenario is I eBay my iPad three.  More likely is I end up keeping both, but we shall see.

I will end this post by saying that no one really “needs” a tablet computer.  There are people out there who can’t afford food so having one or two niche devices that didn’t really exist before 2010 is not necessary   Whats necessary and what people want or makes their lives easier is a totally different story.

Thanks to Quicken 2013 I am Now Using iBank

by

I would like to thank Intuit for releasing Quicken 2013.  It was what I finally needed to ditch Quicken (hopefully for good) and try a native Mac application.

I have been using personal-finance software since my first year of college. I remember getting a free copy of Bank Street writer Pro. From there I moved to a copy of Quicken. I’ve been using various versions of Quicken since.  Things were easy for almost a decade. That all started to change after I bought my first Mac in July 2002. At that time I still had a Windows machine and didn’t switch to a Mac as my primary computer until late 2002 or early 2003. Back then I still had several machines so there was always a Windows box to run Quicken. At that point I’m using that software for so long there was no way I was going to stop. Microsoft Money didn’t appeal to me. By then the ability to download transaction data from banks and credit cards locked me in.

The problem turned out to be was using Windows less often as the Mac dominated my computer use. As I transitioned from Windows to Macintosh try to identify all the pieces of software that I used on Windows so I could find the equivalent Mac software. This is where I ran into a problem. Quicken for Windows is great. On the Mac not as much so.

After a time I made the decision to export my data from my Windows Quicken import into the Mac version. That was a generally painful process but I did succeed. I happily used the Mac version of Quicken for a year or so, maybe longer. The limitations became pretty painful. I am not going to go into the limitations of Quicken for Mac. They are well-documented all over the Internet. Let’s just say I wasn’t pleased. The only viable option I had which was to bring all my data back into Windows Quicken. That process was equally painful than the previous conversion. After moving back to a Windows version for a time (somewhere in the area of a year or more) I had a laptop or desktop basically for the sole purpose of running one or two pieces of Windows software. One of those was Quicken.

By the time Apple came out with Intel-based Macs most of my personal computing was all Mac except for some pieces software like a mentioned that didn’t have a Mac equivalent. For work however I was very dependent Windows centric software. Parallels and then later VMware fusion allowed me to consolidate down to one computer. I was able to use a Mac running a VM of Windows. That was a huge win for me and probably millions of other people. To this day I have a Windows VM on my MacBook Air. The reason I bring all this up is after the Intel Macs came out I was able to transition pretty much every application I use to a native Mac Application or to a web-based application. At my current job they have a bring your own device policy which allows me to bring my Mac and use it on company networks. I stopped needing a VM for work a little over a year ago when the exchange server was on got upgraded and outlook for the Mac work perfectly with it.

By this point the only reason I need a Windows VM regularly was to allow me to use Quicken. It is the last piece of software that I rely on Windows for. The problem was I really liked it and I hadn’t been able to find a replacement for it that was a native Mac app. I had used mint, the web service ironically owned now by Intuit but without the ability from you import almost 2 decades worth of data I was never going use it full-time. No other Web service allowed me the ability to import either. That got me looking at Mac programs that did personal finance. Surprisingly there were several I tried a few of them but none of them have the features that would equal Quicken. I probably went back and forth trying out applications on all for the past year or two with no success. During this time I had a growing desire to be able to use my smart phone to sync with my desktop bank software. It bothered me that years ago I could do this with my Treo and Quicken yet I couldn’t with a modern smartphone.

In late June hyper down and force myself to try iBank. It had the smart phone thinking that I wanted and the major features I was looking from Quicken. It wasn’t perfect but I thought it was a better choice than Moneywell or Money Dance.  I spent several hours exporting my data from Quicken importing it and cleaning it up in iBank. I was all set to cut the cord from Quicken when I ran into some reconciliation issues using iBank. Turns out if you have transactions in your register with iBank that are from the same payee and for the same dollar value as a new transaction being downloaded the software will sometimes get confused and think you’ve already downloaded it and not suggest that it’s a new transaction even know the date may be different. I’ve never really had a problem with Quicken doing anything like that. The first time it happened with iBank it took me about 45 minutes to figure out what happened and fix it. It spooked me to the point where I didn’t really trust the software and fell back to Quicken.

That brings us to this month. By now I accepted the fact that I would be stuck with my one holdout piece of Windows software. I figured I have been using our virtual machine for years and it wasn’t such a huge deal to continue using one. It bothered me to do it but it was something that worked even if it was not very elegant of an option. I also figured at some point into it had to offer a smartphone app.

I got excited when I read about Quicken 2013 and the option for using your iPhone just as I had wanted.  I went out and purchased a copy, and downloaded it right away.  I didn’t do too much research online because they offered a 60 money back guarantee. I should’ve looked at reviews and forum posts before I bought it. Downloading and installing the new version was trivial. The problem was you it wouldn’t sync to the iPhone, or technically to their cloud service at all.  I wasn’t a fan of the fact that they needed to sync my data to their systems before it could goto my smartphone in the first place, so it totally aggravated me to find out that because of that the data wouldn’t sync at all. At that point I went online to check out the forums and noticed lots of people with similar problems. There didn’t seem to be a solution other than Intuit was hard at work fixing the bugs. I deal with software development and if a major function of the software doesn’t work you don’t release it.  I personally wouldn’t have purchased the upgrade without that function.

I was really pissed off. First I thought I should just downgrade. Then I decided enough was enough and it didn’t seem like there ever really was going to be a stable solution from Intuit so I decided to sync up my iBank file again with my current Quicken data and give it another try knowing the limitations that I learned in June. I also immediately requested a refund from Intuit.  The only positive out of this experience was intuit was true to their word and I got a refund without any hassle. Now they might fix their bugs but at this point their lack of an up-to-date Mac version of their software that isn’t crippled and the fact that their new Windows software is still so buggy they convinced me to use to finally go all Mac and use iBank.

It has been only three weeks or so and I am still getting used to the new software.  There are things I liked much better in Quicken but now that I have a handle on the transaction download issue I am pretty happy.  Some of the bulk edit and change functions of Quicken I miss but I don’t use them that often to have that really be a reason not to switch.  Am I at the point of no return?  I hope so but don’t know.  After 3 months you can’t retrieve your data from banks online anymore (typically so wanting to switch back after that will be problematic   For now and hopefully for good I running all Mac.