Oh No! Now I’m an Unhappy Tablet User!

Saturday, May 20th, 2006
I can't believe it. Just 3 days after my YABHTU announcement, my Tablet PC is really dying. This disappointing news does not change my position on Tablet PCs - I still think it's an ideal computing platform. And, optimistically, I still think that the Tecra M4 is the ideal Tablet PC for my needs. (At least until I can get my hands on one of these.)

My next challenge: Getting Toshiba to repair my M4. Quickly.

20060520 - Toshiba Tecra M4 Dead Screen.jpg

I'm not as concerned that my Tablet PC is showing its last pixels as I am concerned with how difficult it could be to get it repaired. As you may recall, my last call to Toshiba tech support was not a happy one.
The outcome of this experience will influence whether or not I purchase another Toshiba product and whether I allow my clients to do the same. I hope that Toshiba comes through for me and for my clients.
The fact that many dissatisfied Toshiba customers have been sending me their Tecra M4/Toshiba support problems, is not encouraging. James Stewart, of Otaku software, even blogged about his Toshiba Repair experience, stating that he will never buy Toshiba again.

I'm not ready to go that far. I like the M4 and I think it is an excellent tablet. I love the large screen, built-in multi-drive, and the overall design.

Continue Reading "Oh No! Now I'm an Unhappy Tablet User!" »

Completion. What a wonderful feeling!

Friday, May 19th, 2006
This past week, I graduated  with a business degree in Organizational Management. I worked hard, and I managed, with God's grace, to keep my grades up throughout the entire program, graduating Summa Cum Laude, with a GPA of 3.988.

I want to publicly thank the Lord for this opportunity and I want to extend my thanks to the many people who have helped, encouraged and supported my efforts.  My next action is a significant one, I will be working toward my Master of Information and Knowledge Management degree.

20060512 - _Graudation - Eric and Family.jpg

I could not have managed the demands of family, clients, business, and my education, without a great deal of determination, love and support from my wife and children, and my extended family, friends, classmates and clients. My suite of eProductivity tools, along with the Getting Things Done skill's that I've acquired while serving The David Allen Company, also came in handy for managing the multiple projects and actions I needed to complete along the way.

A brief narrative of my journey follows ...
Continue Reading "Completion. What a wonderful feeling!" »
I now consider myself to be YABHTU. It feels good to say that. After a year of working with the Tablet PC in a variety of applications, I'm ready to join the ranks of the blissfully happy tablet users. (By the way, none of the wild guesses about  this announcement even came close!)

A year ago, I approached the Tablet PC platform with great interest but reasonable skepticism. Since then, I've had the opportunity to conduct a number of intense 8-week challenges - some public, some private - that lead me to conclude that the Tablet PC platform offer a significant number of productivity features that will be of benefit to any kind of user. As a management student, I believe that every student, young or old, needs a Tablet PC.

Why did I put so much effort into evaluating the Tablet PC platform and why did this evaluation take me 12 months?

Continue Reading "Drum Roll, Please ... My Tablet PC Announcement" »

James Kendrick Taunts Mac Users

Wednesday, May 17th, 2006
I opened up Skype, today, to find this comment in my Skype contacts list:
20060516 - James Kendrick taunts Mac users.jpg
I'm particularly excited about my Organizational Management capstone project - a start-up business plan. I have 10 weeks in which to develop this plan, at which time I will present it to my management cohort and a group of potential investors and bankers that my management professor has invited to evaluate our research and presentations.

For my capstone project, I've decided to take my ICA eProductivity Template for Lotus Notes - a productivity tool that I wrote many years ago to help me personally implement the GTD methodology using Lotus Notes  - and develop it into a commercial product. The ICA eProductivity template has been around for many years, and during that time it has undergone many changes based on feedback from my eProductivity clients who use it daily. Several of the staff at one of my eProductivity clients, The David Allen Company, have used this template as well and it's been fun to get feedback from a group of highly productive and organized people. Still, there's much that I want to do with it, including a new design for Notes 6.5x and 7.x and a general product release. I'm in the process of assembling the software development and management teams for this new adventure.

Continue Reading "Organizational Management Capstone Project" »
People are posting their guesses at what I plan to announce. There have been several interesting comments, so far.

I fully expected that Michael would have the first comment, and he did not disappoint me. Rob Bushway didn't miss a beat, either,

I much prefer Cary Phillip's guess at what the announcement might be:
You've finally found a 70 inch touch screen with 1024000 x 768000 resolution (perfect for mindmapping)?
Cary, I wish it were so!  (I actually built one, but the resolution was very low)

Dave, took the analog productivity track and suggested that my Tablet PC adventures might be pointing in the "paper-based challenge" direction.

No, my announcement will cover my experience during the past year of working with a Tablet PC and the Toshiba Tecra M4 in specific.

Here's a summary of my Tablet PC experience. I will review this and comment, soon.

Continue Reading "Wild guesses about my Tablet PC experience" »

Tablet PC announcement coming

Monday, May 15th, 2006
It's been a year since I received my Tablet PC and almost a year since I opened the box. During that time, what I intended to be a very small part of my focus, has become a large project, with over 100 blog entries in my Tablet PC category.

I'll make a statement in the next few days. Meanwhile, if you want to review my experiences and podcasts, click here and read from the bottom up. See if you can guess what I'm going to announce.
I'm looking forward to taking a few items off my projects list and moving several Someday/Maybe items to my active projects list. For those of you that find my blogging challenges entertaining (or amusing), stay tuned, I have a few new ones coming.

On the completion front, I've recently completed my last final exam in managerial accounting & finance. While the A that I earned in this course only raised my GPA, by  .001, I know that the information I learned will be invaluable. I wish I had taken this course many years ago. That knowledge would have saved me more than my tuition.

I'm presently working on my capstone management project, which I will present this summer. Once I mark that project off as completed, I plan to move several projects from my Someday/Maybe list over to active status.

These include:
  • The next release of the ICA eProductivity Template for Lotus Notes
  • My own 10-week start-up school adventure
  • A Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) project
  • A few other interesting projects, some using MindManager and ResultsManager.

Continue Reading "Completion on the horizon. New challenges ahead" »
God is truly the source of all skill and the goal of all labor.

These opening words, spoken by music director, D.J. Jackson, at the 2006 Baccalaureate Chapel, gave me pause to think about what I've accomplished and how thankful I am for the opportunities I have experienced.

The Baccalaureate Chapel was a powerful opportunity to assemble with the other graduates to give thanks and celebrate what God has allowed us to achieve. We sang traditional hymns, reflected on our achievements, heard some words of encouragement, and prayed for our future.

2006 Baccalaureate Chapel with Dr. John MacArthur.jpg

Dr. John MacArthur admonished the graduates:
You will be a product of your influences. Choose very well, those whom you allow to shape your life. "... everyone when he is fully trained, will be like his master." Luke 6:40
He went on to discuss how we should carefully consider our goals, and how we approach life, allowing God to work through us.

As a computer geek, allow me to describe this in geek notation:
OUTPUT = INPUT * PROCESSING

Continue Reading "All achievements should remind us of the grace of God" »

Get Mack a Mac campaign tag

Wednesday, May 10th, 2006
Michael's getting bolder with his get Mack a Mac campaign. Today, he added a Technorati Tag to his blog:

20060510 - Michael's get-a-Mac campain.jpg

Truth be told, a client came in with a 17" widescreen powerbook. Very elegant. It's not a Tablet PC, though.

I'll wait a while longer.

72 Minutes to productivity on a Mac

Monday, May 8th, 2006
Did the title of this get your attention? It got mine. I'm always on the lookout for productivity tools and the Mac continues to show up on my radar. Meanwhile, Michael continues to taunt me; he's just blogged about 72 minutes to productivity with his Mac.

But wait! I thought this never happens on a Mac?

20060508 - MAC BSOD.jpg

Not that it would prevent me from trying a new Mac. Michael certainly hints often enough. It just tarnishes the image of a computer that is supposed to never crash.

GTD and the Ironing Board

Friday, May 5th, 2006
Well, you would think being the wife of David Allen's "Technology Guru", Eric Mack, that I would have attended countless GTD seminars over the years.  Due to child care restraints, it just never happened for me.

In March, a dear aunt stepped forward to watch our children, and I headed with my husband to Santa Monica for David's RoadMap seminar.

The night before David's seminar, Eric told me about some of the questions that David would ask in the seminar.  He asked me..."If tomorrow's RoadMap seminar were a wild success, what would that look like?" He wanted to know what I could walk away with that would make my life easier/better/organized, etc..

Continue Reading "GTD and the Ironing Board" »

An Elegant DominoBlog Video Solution

Thursday, May 4th, 2006
Two weeks ago, I asked for help posting a flash video movie inside of a web page. There are many ways to do this, and I've successfully used some of them in the past. The problem was that they required that I paste or edit many lines of code for each video clip. I wanted something that would let me do this in one line. I plan to start posting videos and screen movies regularly and I know that if it isn't easy to do, I won't do it.

Several people generously posted suggestions to my blog, and I want to publicly acknowledge Jeff Crossett, Carl Tyler, Tanny O'Haley, and Michael, for their helpful input.

Continue Reading "An Elegant DominoBlog Video Solution" »
I decided to pull the plug on ICA-CORP today. What is remarkable is that this server has been running almost 24x7 for 11 years!

Continue Reading "Notes (Domino) server retired, after 11 years" »