Month: October 2009

GeoCities shutting down today

For many of us who first started using the World Wide Web back in the day (around 1995-1996), our first web site was often hosted on GeoCities (for more information, read the Wikipedia entry on GeoCities) It was truly a novel concept back then and everyone took full advantage of having their own web sites with blinking text and MIDI files everywhere. That made me quite sad to learn that GeoCities is closing its doors today.

archive.org has a copy of my first web site. It was called From The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah and was a fan site by a young 14-year-old Nirvana fan. Looks like it was created in the Fall of 1996 judging by the news page.

Thanks to archive.org it should be available permanently through the link above. I have also archived it myself. Not sure if I am going to throw the HTML files onto a subdomain somewhere on my site, but it brings back some good memories. R.I.P. GeoCities.

Organizing my life

It has been awhile since I have written on here. I have tried to keep up with the hectic pace of life. Yet the more I try to keep up with the everything, the more I realize how unorganized I am.

Right now next to me at my computer desk, I just have a pile of paper stacked on my multifunction printer. On the floor below is a stack of paper laying next to my shredder. Below the printer is yet another stack of paper. Below is a picture of this unorganized mess. Part of it is that I don’t really have anywhere to put my paperwork. The little stand that my printer sits on has a file cabinet drawer, but it is only one. Ideally, I need two. Plus, I desperately need to go through and clean out old paperwork.

Another part is my digital life. My wife and I share a MacBook for home use and I have an employer issued MacBook Pro for work purposes. Given how I am on the computer all day at work, the last thing I want to do is spend time at night figuring out what folder to put a file. Then sometimes I am too organized on my computer, with several layers of folders that can make me easily create unneeded folders since I can’t find the one I am looking for. I need to figure out a system that works and that I will not feel like is too much of a burden.

Getting an iPhone last year fixed my chronic problem of not remembering what is going on thanks to the calendar on it. Now when I have something I need to attend or need to check to see if I am available one day, it is just a couple of finger taps away. Revolutionized scheduling in my life, but I need to make better use of it. Many times my calendar looks empty, when I really can be doing something productive around the condo.

This gets to down where I jot down some ideas here and see if I can get working on them. Some I have experimented with over the past week with great results.

  • To-do List – I need one, I don’t understand why Apple hasn’t integrated it into the iPhone yet, but I found a possible solution. Thanks to Remember the Milk with its web site and iPhone app, it is showing lots of potential. The other day I accomplished a task that I had delayed for 6 months in 10 minutes! Today I took an old TV that we had meant to recycle to the dump, something that has sat in a corner for three weeks!
  • Shredding day – Tomorrow I plan on going on a shredding extravaganza, going through and ditching any unnecessary paperwork. I am also going to look for a filing cabinet that has room so I will actually use it.
  • Finances – I was doing well with this, but have slacked off a bit. I signed up for Mint.com, plan on redoing the budget, and figuring out how I can pay the $2800 left on the Subaru Forester car loan soon.
  • Computer Files – I need to go through my computer’s Documents folder and clear out old junk. The other day I found a letter to my old landlord from 2004 telling him we would be leaving the apartment in 1 month. I don’t know about you, but that is probably not needed anymore.

It is a few small steps, but hopefully one in the right direction.