A blog dedicated to
ORGANIZATION:
Hardware, Software, Self
Would Buddha would use OmniOutliner?
Is organization the key to 'enlightenment'?
What if, instead of calling myself stupid, I just use different software?
Sandvox seems to be the perfect web-site creation software for me. Obviously, I am not compatible with html and java script and I-don't-know-what-else that's involved in making actual web pages on the deep side of programming. I can't go to the deep end of programming; I can barely function in the shallow end of computer use!
Dan Wood at Karelia Software, makers of Sandvox, got back to me super fast about my sad, sad loss the other day. No luck on recovering it. I've decided that as I blog, I'll repeatedly "save a copy as" of my Sandvox, using the date and a number after it (7/4/6 1, etc.). I'll stash the versions in my Sandvox folder and then later I can clear the old ones out.
I've been having trouble publishing my site too, but if I run the 'Setup Host' before I try to publish, that usually works on the first or second try. A bit annoying, but Sandvox is working for me. Therefore, I'll give real effort to it before I give up!
Some people ask me why I like Sandvox instead of iWeb. Here's a list:
1. Sandvox has a more 'published web site' feel and look while I'm working in it.
2. I like the designs for the site a lot better than the iWeb designs.
3. Sandvox has fun-looking functions. For instance, if I want to link something in this page to another page in my site, I can drag a little bulls eye ("drag target to a page in the site outline") over to where I want the link. It creates this flying line that connects the bulls eye to the target. The line actually wavers slightly! It's hilarious! I couldn't find a picture of the line connecting the target to the bulls eye, but I found a picture of the bulls eye (in the "link destination" window that Sandvox uses for making links.) Really, though, you have to see it to understand its hilarity.
4. I'm a mac zealot, but that doesn't mean I use every iota of mac software in the world. iWeb is simple, accessible, and empowering. It has a modern, spare appeal -- I don't mean the pages you make, I mean the buttons, functions, names for actions, etc. Overall, it has a somewhat 'neutral' tone, which befits a wide-distribution application. On the other hand, specialty software gets to have specialty flavors, and Sandvox is tangy, funny, and juicy. Sandvox "pagelets" are a great example. Sandvox' insanely detailed, easy-to-read Wikipedia-based user guide explains: "We are all familar with web pages, but Sandvox introduces the concept of pagelets. A pagelet is in effect, a miniature webpage that you place alongside a page's main content to display supplemental information." I dig Wikipedia, I dig the way Karelia has organized their user guide, I dig the concept of pagelets, but above all, I deeply dig the zestiness of the word "pagelet" itself. With such happy flavors available to me, in many of my dealings with Sandvox, I'm quite willing to contend with some underdone areas while it simmers...until it emerges hot off the stove, into its own perfection of being.
5. Finally, the name "Sandvox" whispers, "When you're working on your web site, you're really playing in a cyber sandbox." The icon for the site's home page is a sandbox with a castle in the middle, and a red flag flying from the top. Wave the red flag, Remus! I'm writing a web page on a holiday, writing North America. Wave your flag!
Deep Trouble with Organizing! (saved portion of the lost blog)
I've been struggling to get my house organized, my computers organized, my life organized...
"Organizing a 21st century life = Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
The genesis of Operation Organization in four easy steps:
Step 1: Writing my first blog entry!
Completing my first blog entry heralded a new era in personal productivity for me. Until writing that entry, I never fully understood how I interact with software. I never understood why I had so much trouble with computers. I never understood some of the underlying causes of ongoing frustration that have plagued my life. But no more!
Step 2: Giving myself permission to use ONLY THE SOFTWARE THAT WORKS FOR ME!
After writing that entry, I could see, in aqua blue, black and white, the ways that my associative mind works. I could stop beating myself up for being 'dumb' in some way, and start giving myself permission to seek out and use ONLY THE SOFTWARE THAT FITS THE WAY MY MIND WORKS.
Step 3: --End of original blog entry, boo hoo!
Step 3: After using OmniOutliner for a while, I find 43 folders, which brings me to Getting Things Done, which revolutionizes my mind!
See my OmniGraffle on how it revolutionized me to understand the difference between open and closed loops: (in last blog entry). (I'm working on publishing it in a more readable format, but I'm new to Sandvox, so it may take some time).
Step 4: Operation Organization is born!
Today, with my life coach, I tried to start talking about how I want to organize my work spaces more effectively. As we talked, huge piles of language built up around us, until I felt like I had created the Pentagon of Language about Organization. It had wing after wing, layer upon layer... perhaps this imbroglio of language was as complicated as the Franklin Cover-Up, the PVC situation, or trying to understand how fires melt steel buildings ... take your pick, we live in a world of confusion and cover-ups, don't we? But I digress. I realized there are a massive number of variables involved in a thorough, dynamic, creative, committed overhaul of how I organize my life. After reading Getting Things Done, I KNOW that how I organize my life is the basis of my personal productivity. And productivity is my middle name!
Intellectual work ahead!
All these variables meant only one thing: I need to do some very deep thinking work about the issues, and there are too many issues to hold in my mind at one time. It is time for either a blog entry, an OmniGraffle, an OmniOutliner document, or all of the above! I think I'll start with an Outliner list. But, tomorrow. As usual in the world of writing blog entries, it's way past my bed time.
Wouldn't you know it, the day I actually pay for Sandvox and get all excited to write another blog entry, I lose all two hours of the work I did on it!
How very disappointing. I was trying to write about Operation Organization, and I had links to 43 Folders and jokes about conspiracy theories and pictures and everything.
This is the moment of sad, sad feelings when a computer eats your work. All I did was create an OmniGraffle. Here is the offending Graffle: Well, weird, now it won't paste in. There it is:
After I pasted it in, I realized it's impossible to read, so I created a new test entry blog page to try to make it larger. Oh why oh why did I ever do that??? It was called "Text" just like this entry is called "Text," until I put my cursor on it, that is, when it turns into the name of my title, "Sad B...Loss."
Loss of work = Loss of motivation to work!
I swear to God, I checked the name of my page versus the "Text" practice page, and I deleted the practice page and not my page. But no, my page is gone. I checked my trash, and couldn't find it there. Regardless of whether I did something right or wrong, it is gone, gone, gone... until I get help. Meanwhile, I am sad and forlorn. I was in the middle of being so excited about Operation Organization. I had delineated all the steps involved, with links and pictures, and I was very motivated to keep investigating the issue... but now, I have NO motivation. Why can't my deleted file just be in the trash, like a deleted photo, or a deleted word document? Is this the dark side of using web-creation software that I didn't know about?
Is mourning lost work healthy?
I e-mailed Karelia, and told them of my sad, sad loss. I'll see how long it takes for them to get back to me. In the meantime, can I get excited again to pursue the thoughts I was so merrily pursuing only minutes ago? No, I can not. Am I respecting the loss that parts of me feel, by taking time off from the project to acknowledge their sadness and feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and defeat? Am I naturally incorporating grief into my work process? Is this emotionally healthy? Or would another perspective be, "It's no big deal, you worked for over two hours on it, but get back on the horse! Don't sit around being a crybaby!'
I say 'yes'!
Somehow I'd rather be on the side of being the 'crybaby' than on the side of the critic.
Lost work = Fear of Software!
This is the kind of thing that makes me afraid to venture into new realms of software, for sure. I really thought I could feel comfortable using Sandvox, but... if I can't get my work back after making one error, I don't know... I won't trust it...
Re-thinking how I safeguard my blog
Well, the good news is I did actually save a portion of it during the writing of it... so I have the beginning of the blog back. But do I really have to save it constantly? Maybe I need to rethink how I approach this blogging. I invest a lot of time into this, and it's really not worth it if I can't trust the application to withstand my own massive human-error prone-ness. Hmmm...
Back it up in another application?
Maybe I should make notes of things I want to enter into it and do the actual writing in a mail document. That is one program I never experience any problems with, in terms of losing information, and it saves constantly as I go. Don't even talk to me about Microsoft Word, that program crashes out my stuff just whenever it feels like it! Hmm...
Mail with .mac is super-safe!
Then I could write my blog in mail, and paste it into Sandvox, and that way I would be assured that I would not lose my information. Plus, I would have a back-up in case somehow all my Sandvox stuff crashed... and my mail is secure on its .mac server, so it's not going anywhere!
I'm a sucker for the main Apple page
I love the little stories of how Apple helped so and so with such and such. I read that one article about Paul Hanson and now I absolutely can't get the "create link" button to work, what is THE problem here??
My ease-of-frustration when using software is a health hazard!
I see, I have to underline something, I can't just make the link appear as text, because it's cool and hyperlinked. Wow. It is amazing how, if I can't get something to work right away, I get so incredibly frustrated. This quality of my mind is not the most helpful quality to my PEACE of mind. Anyway,
.Mac saves man from losing research data; it can save me too!
Paul Hanson had research data that Hurricane Katrina would have killed, had he not been saving it to iDisk on his .mac account, with its remote servers storing everything.
Backup is a "no" for me
Maybe I should just think of my .mac mail account as a remote server for backing up my important documents. I know Backup exists, but let's face it ladies and gentlemen, backup is supposed to be easy, but -- software is not one-size-fits-all! I just wear a different size than Backup. I tried it, and I liked the umbrella, but the software itself was not a fit.
THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE OF WHERE TO WRITE, SAVE AND FILE COMPUTER STUFF
Mail is stable
So back to my blog entries. But really, back to "THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE OF WHERE TO WRITE, SAVE AND FILE COMPUTER STUFF." I can't write important documents in Microsoft Word unless I save constantly. It crashes too much for me to feel comfortable with it as a primary writing space. Although it's only crashed a few times, MacJournal gives me the same pause. It once created double lines of everything I wrote. That leaves me with the only other writing program I use-- mail. Why not use mail as my primary writing space? My god, it's super stable, I've never had it crash, it backs up to remote servers, I can start writing something in the computer in my computer room and then pick up where I left off in the computer in the kitchen...
I have 2,885 messages in my inbox
But on the other hand, the horror of mail is that I have 2,885 messages in my inbox. You know I'm not making that number up, because it's too random for me to make up. Yes, I have (2885 messages, 3 unread) in my inbox. Hmmm.
Well, ostensibly this blog is supposed to be a place where my stuff gets published to the web, and then it is also saved on remote servers. The question is just, while I am writing it, will it be secure at that time? That is the question!
If anyone knows of, or has made, an Apple Script to export a mail message into a microsoft word document, please contact me!
It is evident that filing information in Microsoft Word is a good idea, once I make a document it is useful to have it saved in Word. I tried to find out if there is an Apple Script that would export a mail document into a word document, but I had no luck finding that. Ideally it would be as easy as selecting the title of the e-mail, clicking one button, and having a word doc with the same title as the e-mail created. I know I can use 'services' to export it to MacJournal, but it shows up by date, not by title of the e-mail. If I used MacJournal to write e-mail, that would be another story, since it has one-click "send as e-mail" capabilities, but alas...
It is time for me to deal with my mail inbox!!
Now that I'm writing all this, though, a solution is appearing to me: What if I learned about how to use folders linked to my .mac account to organize my mail? The last time I tried to do that, I was miserably unsuccessful. No new mail went in to them. Depressing, after creating a million rules to get stuff into them in the first place.
Are there such things as 'mail documents'? If not, I want them!
What about just saving the mail as mail documents? Is there such a thing? That would be great! That would be the easiest thing to do. Hmm. I don't know.
Writing and filing documents is a difficult task, with many intermediate steps:
1. Figure out what software you want to use
2. Figure out what you want to do with the information
3. Figure out how to file and store the information for future retrieval
Each of these steps is not easy! I do know that I really need to find programs I trust, that can be easily archived. Mail is the most trustworthy, and I use e-mail constantly, but the issue is that my inbox is a ... 2,885 headed hydra... and I need to find a way to archive my mail. That is the rub. How can I archive my mail effectively, while still maintaining access to it? I could easily store the old files on my iDisk so that if I needed that registration code or password from some software from two years ago, or the purchase date of my Aerobic Mouse, I would have it right away, and anywhere.
Well, now it's time for bed. But this has been some productive meandering, leading to a serious problem area in my life-- the glaring horror of how I use Mail!
M, the MacHappyNerd! (scroll to middle of entry for software reviews)
Non-linear = Non-nerd-o-riffic
Up until buying this new Intel iMac, I was a basic computer user. I'm the kind of person that finds Excel a bit daunting. I tried to learn Final Cut Express and had to give up. Although my algebra teacher in high school, Jeff Buxton, was one of the best teachers I've ever had, that didn't change my basic problem with math: I'm just not linear. But computer programs have a certain linear aspect. You frequently have to know how to do one thing in order to do another thing. The horror! I just want to do what I want to do, right now!
Your worst nighmare: Teaching me Final Cut Pro
My problem with most computer programs is not because I have some kind of patience deficit. It's because my mind doesn't track information in linear sequences very effectively. Imagine trying to teach me Final Cut Pro. You tell me five steps to do, but I get confused by a small detail in step three. Then I forget steps two and four. You tell me what steps two and four are, but then I forget the small detail in three, so when I get to two, I can't make three work even though I know four. By that time, I think, SCREW STEP FIVE! In other words, I usually fall off the learning curve for most new applications, never to get back on again.
Computer software isn't Jeff Buxton!
Don't get me wrong, I am capable of linear thinking. Mr. Buxton once asked me if his Algebra II class were too easy because I had a 100% average. I said, "No, you just know how to teach 100% of the material." I guess if all programs were as well-explained as Mr. Buxton's algebra class, I could do any program in the world... but on the other hand, it took me nine hours of studying to get a 100% on each individual test, and when it comes to computer software, I just don't have that kind of motivation or patience. Computer software doesn't walk around the gym on a cold day during winter exams, lean over your shoulder, and say, "You got a lot of knowledge in there, huh?" while you're taking your final. When Mr. Buxton did that, it was one of the most inspiring things a teacher has ever said to me. I had always seen myself as pretty defective in the math arena. I knew there was something slow about how I process linear sequences, and compared to my stellar performance in all non-linear areas-- winning the English prize two years in a row, and the three-dimensional art prize, and the French prize-- I had a bad feeling about myself when it came to math. I'm still profoundly un-linear in my thinking, and alas, I've forgotten most of what I learned in Algebra II-- but the feeling about myself that Mr. Buxton gave me is something I'll always have. Confidence.
100 Paths
For me, one aspect of confidence is accepting my limitations. If I can accept that I'm not good at something, I can stop beating my head against a wall and I can start using my energy in areas where I'll be rewarded, make progress, feel good about myself, and be productive. As part of my non-linear approach, when I come up against a block, I just pick a different route. Because there are always 100 different routes presenting themselves to me in my associative mind configuration, that's the easier method for me. I also like the feel of taking the path of least resistance. I find a block, I take a different path, I find a block, I take a different path... it's dynamic and exhilerating. Being stuck for too long in one dead-end place just drains my energy and annihilates my motivation for the task.
Losing the Magic
Even when I know how to do step A to get to step B to get to step C, by the time I've plugged in my videocamera, plugged it in to my computer, turned it on, opened iMovie, opened a new file, named it, and pressed the button I need to press to capture my video...the magic is gone.
Finding the Magic
Not so with a built in iSight camera! Ha ha! Open iMovie, click play, and suddenly, I'm making a video! And it's being captured in real time! No more waiting for the capture to finish! No more extra cords, no more nothing! Oh, the delights! But it doesn't stop there!
Waaaay more magic
With iWeb, I can click "video" for a web page, pick my video, click upload, and it's a web site!
The Force CAN be With Me!
After making a video iWeb site in fifteen minutes, without having to read one sentence of one manual, I was INSPIRED! I thought, if I can do this, I can do anything! All the shut-down, fallen-off-the-learning-curve dreams I've buried about being a competent computer user-- no, about being a highly-effective computer user-- suddenly sprang to life. This new Intel iMac with built-in iSight and iWeb said to me, "Melissa, YOU are not the problem. Computer programs just haven't been easy enough for non-linear thinkers until now... but finally, YOU ARE INCLUDED in the computer world! Come over to the side of the Apple Jedi, and the Force will be with you!" Was this voice really right? Could there be a world out there, a world of Mac-based applications, that I could finally understand and really use? My long-dead dreams of computer productivity sprang to life... what about a to-do list-making application? What about an applicationt that helps me figure out movies-I've-seen, movies-I-want-to-see and movies-I-hated? (For some reason I forget movie titles, and since I see about 200 movies a year, it gets a bit frustrating and makes it hard to communicate with other people about them). What about mind mapping software? Ah... mind maps, the associative thinker's ultimate visual organizing tool!
The Lists Winner So Far: OmniOutliner!
So I started to do some internet research ... (how associative is the web? The joy!) I found OmniOutliner and even though it's a heavy-duty program, they weren't lying when they said their goal is to create fun software that works right out of the box! I still don't know how to easily change my fonts, but I can indent rows, create new columns, and work my way around Omni well enough that I'm sold! Being able to make a list with check boxes, collapsable and easily movable sections with e-mail and web links built-in took me about an hour of use... and I was motivated during that time, because if I couldn't make one thing work, I could easily move on to make something else work. Most importantly, I could get the basic elements of the program up and running PRONTO (even if I'm still deeply clueless about some of the more advanced functions).
Lists Tries that Didn't Succeed on First Use: Notebook & MacJournal
I thought I could improve on OmniOutliner so I tried ponies, something ponies... dancing ponies? singing ponies? Oh, circus ponies, I tried Circus Ponies' Notebook. You know, I thought it would really be great for me, and it's not complicated. It's like a real-life notebook on your computer. I found the buttons on the bottom of the notebook way too small for me to use though, and I didn't find where I could make them bigger fast enough to try it with bigger buttons (if they can be made bigger). But the problem with a notebook is, you have to flip the pages, and the pages come one after the other... in short, they are linear. Even though they're not really linear because they're on the computer, I perceive of them as linear because of the metaphor of the notebook. I really do get the fact that they're not technically linear, they're just metaphorically linear, but ... even the concept of linearity is too much for me to handle, when I'm using the software to MAKE LISTS in the first place!
Who can top OmniOutliner lists?? Not MacJournal
The other thing is that Omni lists aren't stuck in the order you make them... just press two buttons (control and apple) while pressing one of the arrow keys, and the list item goes in the direction on the arrow key. Oh my god, how great is that! The list is LIBERATED from its linearity! It is set free to fly to the left, to the right, up or down, to be indented, or un-indented, to be a child of another list item, or then suddenly the parent of that very one! After being able to do that kind of list-making in Omni, I don't know how any other list software could compete. But, I tried MacJournal. I have two computers, and I downloaded it on my iMac PowerPC. It was SLOW. So slow that I had to wait for the cursor to a pear bef ore I c o uld typ e some t hi n g. Obviously that was not going to work.
Notebook & MacJournal Defense & Assistive Technologies I use
In Notebook and MacJournal's defense, they're both great! Notebook is also able to publish to .mac (it says) and that might be a pretty cool thing to be able to do with it. In MacJournal's defense, the current version is a Beta, and also, I use assistive software called McNib Clickless software that clicks the mouse for me so that I never click when I am using the computer. (I fell off a twelve-foot high rock when I was six and broke my arm in five places. It healed wrong so it's got issues, but nothing that McNib, the Quill Mouse, and the SafeType keyboard can't compensate for! Thank you to all three of their creators!!) McNib might be a conflict with MacJournal and maybe that's why it was so slow. Nonetheless, MacJournal looks great for organizing journals, but it's not a specialized list-maker, so to do a fair comparison, maybe I should do an internet search of specifically list-making software...
Well, in one way I did.
Specialized List-Making Software: DVD cataloguer winner: DVDPedia!
Flushed with my Omni success, I moved on to DVDPedia success. What an easy program to use! My god! I tried a few others but they were either somewhat insane or a bit too easy or a bit too difficult.
The Goldilocks Approach to Computer Programs: iWeb is too 'small'
I'm basically Goldilocks in my computer program needs. Some things, like iWeb or Delicious Library, are just too small for me. I was going to write, "some things are just too easy" but THERE IS NO SUCH THING!! iWeb inspired me like nothing else, so I am 100% grateful to it forever, but I have to admit I need to move on from there. iWeb won't allow me to create a template web site entry that I can re-use; I have to re-format each and every page I make, so unless I LOVE their template, I'm stuck. That's a bit too small for me.
What is 'just right'? Sandvox, so far!
And what am I using to create this website? Sandvox! So far, I love it. How easy is it? Soooo easy that I opened up the application, started typing, dropped and dragged photos, opened web links in Safari, hit "create link" in Sandvox and it automatically entered in the URL that was open in Safari... need I say more? Adding pictures and little areas of the page is easy with their 'pagelet' tool... and I like the interface and color schemes better than iWeb. Plus, it was click and publish as well... I hit a few buttons, it connected to mysterious things I do not understand, and then suddenly it was published to my .mac account! Creating this web site took half an hour plus editing the text time, and that included learning how to use Sandvox!
The "customize toolbar" approach to learning new software
The only thing I did in terms of helping me to learn how to use the Sandvox site, which I do for all new applications, is click "view" then click "customize toolbar" and add every single tool to the toolbar. Then I just click them, one by one, to learn what they do, and go from there!
My fantasy of how to learn a new program: the 'Visual Mania' button
What if there were a 'visual mania button' in every program, that contained an icon that performed every function in the entire application? Oh my god, that would be heaven! Since I am CLUELESS about computer programming, I have no idea what kind of effort it would take to create this or what kind of havoc would ensue upon its use. But I would love this 'visual mania button'!
Circus Ponies' 'Just Right' Documentation
Speaking of fantasies, I have to say that Dancing, I mean Circus Ponies' documentation was really amazing and outstanding. It was eminently readable and perfect for Goldilocks computer users like me.
Delicious Library is too 'small'
Speaking of Goldilock... I WORSHIP Omni and all things Omni, so I think Delicious Library is a great program, it's just not right for me because, like iWeb, it's 'small' in the sense that I can't customize it enough for my needs. For instance, I don't play computer games, and I don't know how to take the computer games folder off of it. I also don't own DVD's-- I want to catalogue things I've seen and want to see, not things I own-- so I don't use the 'loan' function.
Some things are too 'large': Movie Collector
Some things, like collectorz.com Movie Collector and a lot of the blogging and website creation software I've seen, are too large. Movie Collector made me go into the individual custom frame of each movie to customize the program enough to create columns that I used my own personal code to interpret-- if it were 'in my collection' that meant I liked it. I figured out a way to have a screen with a list of movies, and two columns with check boxes either checked or unchecked, "in my collection" (I liked or didn't like it) and "seen it" (did or didn't). But the filters seemed complicated, I couldn't make the folders or lists or some way of organizing them work, and it was too much hassle to go to each individual custom frame to check the check boxes. Also, using McNib, it is not the world's easiest thing to check very small check boxes, let me tell you. So although Movie Collector seems like a pretty large, feature-packed program, it was just too big for me.
Just right: DVDPedia
What more can I say? When something works, it works. DVDPedia makes me happy. It does exactly, exactly what I need it to do. Its lending feature is easily interpreted to mean "things I am borrowing FROM someone" instead of "loaning TO" and that is helpful for me, because I have two Facets yearly passes, I rent from Blockbuster when I MUST HAVE a movie that day, and I borrow movies from my friends and boyfriend. It looks like iTunes and works a lot like it too. It is E-Z. E-Zier than a 1040 EZ, that's for sure! You can click and download movie info from IMDB, you can publish your movie list to your .mac account in one click, or to your iPod!, and you can just be happy because movies you want to see have a little star beside them! They even have smart collections. Oh boo hoo, I still don't know how to make smart mailboxes work in Mail. But I will soon! I have confidence!
Conclusion: I am finally a Nerd! Wahoo!
After finding DVDPedia, OmniOutliner, and some other truly awesome software like AppZapper, I am convined the voice speaking from my new Intel iMac was right. There are Mac Programs in the world that are the equivalent of Jedi Knights, programs that are capable of wielding the Apple Force with grace and power, even for super-non-linear thinkers like me. The built-in iSight camera and this Intel iMac, combined with iWeb, did something I never expected in my life: they finally gave me the confidence to enter the world of power computer users-- the world of greater creative and quotidian productivity through fearless new software adventures (made truly pain-free by AppZapper-- once you hear the Zap sound, you'll never be the same!). After over twenty years on a mac, I'm finally a nerd. A machappynerd! I wouldn't be a nerd without you, Apple. Thanks to you and all the mac developers out there who finally found a way to reach me. And thanks to all my great teachers along the way, particularly Jeff Buxton and Mr. Underwood at Blair Academy whose pre-Jedi mind training helped prepare me for this long-awaited nerd-o-riffic day!
Non-linear mind + new Intel iMac + JediMac Software = M is one with the Force! In other words, I am a MacHappyNerd!
