OmniFocus

I need to reboot my GTD (Getting Things Done) system. Last August I started using Thinking Rock as my trusted GTD system. After several months I had accumulated tons of "stuff" and stopped using it. I found that Thinking Rock gave me so many ways of slicing and dicing my "stuff' that I often got overwhelmed looking at it.

I continue to read and research GTD tools and methods, and I discovered OmniFocus. I used the trial version for a couple of weeks. One thing I liked about it is the Quick Entry window which integrates with Mail and other applications. No longer do I have to copy and paste information into my GTD system; with OmniFocus I just highlight the relevant text in an email, web page, or whatever text in whatever open window, hit a hotkey sequence, and the information goes into the a Quick Entry window and from there into my GTD Inbox. From here on this is a new must for me; any GTD application I use has to integrate with other Mac applications in an easy manner.

OmniFocus has a Review function, and by trying it out I have learned one of the areas of GTD where I need to improve. I need to learn that the Review activity is separate from the Process activity. The Process activity is a stage in which I decide what each email (or other item in my Inbox; not everything comes into my world through email), decide what it means. Do I need to respond, take action, can I delete it, do I just need to read it and delete it, or do I want to file it for future reference?

I need to keep in mind that the Process stage is separate from the Do It stage. When I am muddled about which stage I am in then I get overwhelmed by the numbers of items that I process. When I remember that I am in Process mode and am intentional about it then I am more effective and productive.

Process mode is about deciding what an item means to me. Review mode is about making sure each project has a Next Action associated with it and is generally moving along. Some projects are my front-burner projects. I review them more frequently, perhaps every day, or every two to three days. For these projects I need to have a clear Next Action. Review mode is about making sure that my front-burner projects have a clear Next Action and that my back-burner projects have a scheduled Next Review date.

Multi-camera editing

I'm running out of space on my Elephant drive.

I've had my Mac for almost a year now and the external media drive that I bought with it is almost full now. I analyzed the drive to find out what was taking up the most space. Last November we had a guest speaker, Claude Robold, at my church. I videotaped him - those files have been sitting on my drive since then taking up space. I had to delete the files or do something with them so that I could complete a project and archive the files in order to reclaim the space. I wasn't willing to delete the files yet, not without doing something with them first.

I ended up editing what was about a one-hour message down to 18 minutes.

Chuck had videotaped the speaker as well. Something I've wanted to do was a multi-camera edit, so I asked Chuck if I could get a copy of his video, which he let me.

I also had an audio track which did not come from either of the two cameras. I had recorded the audio off the soundboard, so it was not synchronized with the video. I was working with two non-synchronized video tracks and one non-synchronized audio track. By non-synchronized, I mean that the moment at which the speaker's mouth moved (in the video track) did not line up with the moment at which he uttered a sound (in the audio track). The first thing I did was manually synchronize the audio with each of the two video tracks separately. Once I did that, it meant that the two video tracks were also synchronized to each other.

At this point I had about an hour or so of content which I edited down to 18 minutes. The next thing to do is make an edit in which I select the points in time where I want to switch from one camera to the other.

Video journalling

I saw the movie Avatar a few weeks ago during the Christmas holidays. Saw it in 3D from the fourth row. Cool movie. The story was predictable, basically a science fiction remake of Dances With Wolves, but I thought it was told well. Awesome scenery and it all looked great in 3D. Even the subtitles appeared to float in the air in a space of their own. I don't know if I was supposed to return my glasses to the receptacles that they had by the exit, but I kept mine.

One thing about the story that I found inspiring was the idea of keeping a video log. I've done a lot of journalling through handwriting and on my Palm PDA, on various PC's, and I even kept a voice journal for a brief period. After seeing Avatar I got excited about the idea of keeping a video log. When i got home I did some googling and discovered an application called MacJournal. I downloaded and installed the 15-day trial version and started using it. I like using it, it's got that whole "Captain's Log" feeling, right out of Star Trek.

The 15-day trial period went by quickly. Did I really want to fork out the forty-something dollars to buy a registered copy? Well, three or four days after the trial period ended I was missing it. i had gotten into an almost daily ritual of recording into my video log and I missed it. Oh my gosh, it was like having withdrawal symptoms.

I bought it. Paid for it, got a license key, and resumed my video journalling. I got my fix.

GTD revisited

I've never really developed a consistent system or consistent set of habits for practicing GTD (Getting Things Done).

I've experimented with various applications which I've tried to set up as my trusted GTD system but eventually I fall way behind and I stop using it, or I stop trusting it. As a result I have numerous lists of things to do that I have begun to set up in various partially trusted systems.

Still, I'm attracted to the idea of a trusted system that will help me manage my work flow, keep me organized, be fun to use, and function in a way that works for me.

My most recent discovery is Thinking Rock. One thing that I like about it that differentiates it from other applications that I've tried is that it separates the step of Collecting Thoughts from determining Next Actions. One reason I do not keep up with my GTD process is that I sometimes do not know what my Next Action should be. Then things start piling up in my list and I start ignoring it and just doing what I need to do instead of keeping a system up to date.

Thinking Rock is an open source application so it's free to download and use. I like open source software.

A string of wins

I've had a string of recent wins in the past few weeks and I've been so busy and working intensely that I haven't had time to celebrate them until this week.

My successful presentation and completion of Phase III; the completion and delivery of my "Final" business plan; a successful completion of Legacy Discovery weekend as Training Team Manager; the sale of one of my rental properties. These are all some big wins that I've had lately.

Last week was an intense week for me. My business plan was due on Monday and I knew I was going to not have time on the weekend to work on it, so I was scrambling to finish as much of it as possible last week. I handed it in yesterday and went to Booster Juice to treat myself to a smoothie as a celebration.

Today I was in decompression mode. I felt the need to feed my creative side. I spent some time doing the layout for a photobook in Scribus, and in the evening went to High Park with my digital camera to shoot some more pictures. I only took a few before the battery in my camera ran down.

Batteries running down seems to be a theme this week. The battery in my Palm Pilot won't hold a charge for very long anymore, so I may need to look for a replacement soon.

I need to charge up my Palm Pilot, I need to charge up the batteries for my digital camera, and I need to recharge me.

Won bid for laptop

I found a laptop. A Dell Latitude D620. Found one in Alberta on eBay. There were zero bids on it (I counted twice to be sure) and the starting bid was US$300. Why the price was quoted in US$ when the seller is in Alberta I don't know.

I picked the Dell Latitude D620 because it's a model I've used before. I'm familiar with it and I'm comfortable with it and I like it.

Despite there being zero bids initially, I did get into a bidding skirmish. It was a minor scrap and I came out the winner. Yeah for me. I'm expecting to receive it within the next two weeks. Once I get it, I'm back in action for my recording project.

Cover concept for Let It Rain

This image depicts my concept for the CD compilation I am producing with my church worship team.



The recording project went into a bit of a stall in the summer; gas prices got so high and the musicians were reluctant to travel to the studio, which for some members of the team is quite a drive.

The solution - when musicians won't come to the studio it is time to bring the studio to the musicians. How? A Profire 2626 audio interface, a Firewire interface, a laptop, and some digital audio software should do the trick. In theory.

I've got the Profire interface, I rented one from Long & McQuade. I've got the Firewire interface - I bought one at Best Buy. What I don't have is the laptop. I'm looking for one on craigslist. Once I get one, I'm back in action again.

A vision for ODO

When I set out to clean up ODO (see ODO bloated) I recognized that I am not very good at cleaning up clutter. I tend to get caught up in the question of should I keep this or let it go? and when in doubt I tend to stay on the side of keeping it. This behaviour defeats the whole purpose of cleaning up.

I decided that a more effective strategy would be to focus on all the things I actually wanted to do with ODO and build that system or systems. By using this approach I would be using the Law of attraction to move towards something - a vision - instead of moving away from something - a cluttered system.

I realized that all the things I wanted to do with this machine, I could fit into one of three environments. The first was Administration & Communication. This environment is the one I would use for email, for word processing, speadsheets - in essence for office applications or for administration use. This would be my most stable environment, for once I have my preferred applications installed I would rarely install or experiment with other applications.

The other two environments I wanted to build would be subject to more experimentation and I want to keep my experiments and trials isolated from my Admin & Comm system. One is a Video Production environment and the other is an Audio Production environment. To date I have built my Admin & Comm system using Windows XP as base operating system, and I am looking at Ubuntu or Ubuntu Studio for the Video and Audio environments.

ODO bloated

I got my current computer four, maybe five, years ago. That makes it a senior citizen, about eighty years old in human years. It's sill strong and healthy, despite its age.

I named this computer ODO, after the shape shifting character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Knowing how I like to tinker with technology, I anticipated that I would take this machine through various upgrades, several stages of evolution throughout its life cycle. And I have tinkered with its hardware and software configurations over the years.

Over the course of four years the software side has become bloated. I've downloaded and installed various trial pieces of software, some of which I've kept and some I discarded. It's time to clean up.

LifeDrive kaput

Got a message from the Best Buy service centre where I sent in my LifeDrive about three weeks ago. It won't turn on (like, duh, that's why I sent it in). They want to replace the mainboard. The cost will be $470 and it's not covered under warranty. Sheesh - is it worth it? Well, that depends. I had some documents on its microdrive that I hadn't synced with my desktop computer, so if fixing it means I'll be able to access those documents then maybe I can justify the cost. Instead of looking at it as the cost of repairs, I could look at it as the value I place on the intellectual property I have on that device.

If they replace the mainboard, will the files on the microdrive remain intact? I asked.

No. When they replace the board they need to perform a factory reset which will reformat the drive.

In that case I might as well spend my money on a new PDA. Too bad. I had the thing for less than two years (see My palm pilot died).

A Weekend in the Life Of, Part II - Sunday

8:10am Decided to do an easy Mile this morning. I set an alarm last night, a Sat-Sun alarm on my cell phone, and it worked this morning. I probably would have slept another hour if it had not gone off.

Noticed I had a new voicemail alert on my phone. Checked my voicemail, found a message from Pastor Hardy timestamped 9:30 last night, asking if I could do the song sheets for today's service. It's kind of last minute-ish, but I can do it.

I came to the rescue last week. Cindy and Steve both realized on Sunday morning that no one had thought to print up the song sheets. What with all the excitement and preparation that went into the Saturday event, Vern & Angie's wedding anniversary, this just fell through the cracks. Steve usually does the song sheets, but he was busy sorting out a problem with the sound board he'd rented for the event, so I stepped up to do them. Steve gave me the instructions; they were easy to follow and I whipped up the song sheets in about 15 minutes. Hardy was impressed that I did them so quickly. I don't think it is right that only a handful of people know how to do this stuff and I don't think it's right that Steve had to do everything. So I offered to be an additional resource for doing the song sheets, now that I know how.

Wasn't sure if Hardy had already found someone to do the song sheets for today and I wasn't sure how early I could call their house in the morning, so I did my Mile first. Did an easy Mile. What with doing two laps jogging yesterday plus the laps I did swimming, I decided to go easy, give my body some regeneration time. I walked one lap, jogged one lap, walked a third lap. When I got home it was eight - I figured that was a reasonable time at which to call Hardy. He was relieved to hear from me.

I downloaded the song lyrics from the CCLI web site and pasted them into a Word file. Took about half an hour to do, sent the file to Hardy so he could print copies, and got on with getting myself showered and dressed.

What a feeling of team, what a feeling of community, what a feeling of family. I arrive at Hardy and Cindy's house for home church - there is a pile of song sheets all printed out. I pick one up for myself, taking pride in my work.

A few weeks ago I was in this house for a home church service. I was exhausted that day. Burned out, and nodding off. Not today. This morning I am energized. Like I just did my Mile.

1:53pm Just got home from home church. We had a congregational meeting to talk about some proposals for where we are going to meet going forward. The church offerings have not kept up with the expenses and we cannot continue to operate in this mode. The proposals are for not renting the big room, the cafetorium, at the school where we hold our services throughout the year, but to rent the smaller classrooms either once a month, twice a month, or three times a month.

I jotted down some phrases I heard from various members of the congregation. These are phrases that I heard that spoke to me about what is our congregational vision for what a church is:
- studying the word,
- praying together,
- breaking bread together (like we did at Vern and Angie's wedding anniversary; more than just a bread crumb at communion)
- worship,
- intimate time together learning about each other's lives

Some concerns I heard come up:
- wheel chair accessibility,
- consistency - when we invite someone to come as a guest, where do we tell them we meet? "Well, that depends on which weekend you come".

I talked with J about what her ideal church experience is. What does she need that would get her to come more often? (I'm thinking like a leader here, thinking "how can I create a church experience that Josephine will want to be a part of"). Some of the things she wants - a place where she can go for solitude, a place where she can go to talk to God.

She asks me what keeps me going back to JCC. Being on the worship team. A sense of community, a sense of family. Being in service. Feeling like I am a valued and contributing member.

9:40pm We got the laptop. J came with me to Best Buy to pick it up. The plan was we go to Best Buy, get the laptop, then go get our groceries and come home. After we got the laptop J says, I'm not comfortable leaving it in the car while we do our groceries; let's take it home first. Sounds like she can't wait to get her hands on it. When we get home I ask, We're just dropping off the laptop and going back out for groceries, right? Quick in and out? Yeah, she says. Then takes it out of the box, powers it up, starts checking out all the features. Yeah, this is not going to be a quick in and out operation. Usually she's the one dragging me out to go for groceries and I'm the one who wants to play with the new toy. Got a little role reversal thing happening today!

Eventually we get our groceries and come home for dinner. I put groceries away in the basement and do some work on my computer (the one we don't need to fight over any more). When I come up, dinner is ready - and the laptop is in the kitchen, J and her mom are using it to watch a DVD. A Filipino rock band video.

It's like having a television in the kitchen, J says. Thank you! she says, unprompted, a big smile on her face.

Accentuate the positive - that smile, the smile that lights up her whole face, her eyes crinkle a bit around the corners, that's her When you smile the whole world smiles with you smile. That's one of the best things I've seen in this relationship in the last two or three weeks.

We watch a few Filipino music videos, J, her mom, and I. When was the last time the three of us did something together like this? Spend quality time. I feel some anxiety, thinking I've got some homework to do and I'm not doing it. But I remind myself that this is family time that we're sharing; that this time counts as being productive and on purpose.

A Weekend in the Life Of, Part I - Saturday

6:48am My alarm did not go off this morning. My PDA is gravely ill so I've been using my cell phone as my morning alarm. It did not go off today - I look at it to find out why, then realize that I set the alarm for Mon-Fri only. I miss my PDA.

Besides the alarm function, I miss having my PDA with me for writing. So I've decided to write a "Weekend In The Life Of" series this weekend. I am using a small blue notebook that Jan gave me in 2003. In it she inscribed To capture your thoughts in... a lot classier than serviettes. She gave this to me in 2003 but I haven't written in it much, I've used mostly PDA's for writing. The first couple of things I wrote in this notebook...

Feb 18, 2003 Boldness means giving expression to the whispers of my dreams rather than the shouts of my fears.

Feb 19, 2003 God never says goodbye.

I recall what was going on in my life when I wrote those two notes. I was living in my own house at the time. Jan was dating John then, John was renting a room in my house. I was working with a coach named Colleen to define my Vision for my life, and my Life Purpose statement. Jan was finalizing her divorce. It was a late night and the three of us, Jan, John, myself, were sitting in the kitchen at my house. Jan was very emotional, filling out the paperwork for her divorce. John and I were there to support Jan.

I'm writing this in a notebook, writing by hand. I can write a lot faster by hand today than I can type on my PDA. But it means I'll have to type all this into my computer if I'm going to post this.

Well, it's a Saturday morning, which is often the only day of the week where I get to sleep in. Sleeping in today means I'm still getting up around 7, it just means I wasn't awakened by my alarm at 6, didn't go through the snooze cycle.

My relationship with J feels off track again. Feels like no one is leading it. Feels like there is just no energy in it at best, and an energy drain at worst. Time to ask What is leading in this relationship going to look like? What is it going to look like this week? Think accentuate the positive - what was the best thing about this relationship in the last two or three weeks?

7:13am It's Mile time!

8:45am Mile is done, shower is done, paid a bill online. I did my standard Mile, what my current standard is, which is two laps jogging and third lap walking. My cool-down walk. Plan to go to Best Buy and/or Tiger Direct. I'm going looking for a laptop for J, and to find out if I can get my LifeDrive (PDA) fixed. J wants to come too, she wants to return something to Best Buy.

2:02pm Back from Best Buy. J didn't end up going with me; I was ready to go at ten and she didn't think she'd be ready to go so she said to go ahead without her. I dropped of my LifeDrive for servicing. It's not under warranty; there's a diagnostic charge of $40, which is cheap compared to the cost of buying a new PDA. The turnaround time is a month, which is a long time to be without a PDA. I'll just have to be open to all the learning opportunities this presents.

I've also ordered a laptop for J - this was one of my 21CL commitments. Tenet #3 - As a leader I keep my word and honour my commitments.

Best Buy is installing some software on it and making a Recovery disk for it, and it should be ready for pickup tomorrow by six.

7:25pm I had a big nap in the afternoon. I had thought to take J for dinner to Penelope, downtown, but she decided she wasn't feeling up to that. She's feeling some back pain. She decided she wanted to go use the hot tub at her condo, so I went with her.

I balanced my time in the pool between doing laps and talking to J. I did a set of four laps then took a break. (A lap, my definition, is there and back, because the pool is only half length). Did another set of four laps, another short break, then set of two laps. All in total I did ten laps. Between doing the Mile and doing laps in the pool, I'm two thirds of the way to becoming a tri-athlete!

Sat in the hot tub with J for a while. Just having a relaxing ole time.

There is a lounge here, overlooking the pool, with a bookcase. A small library. Nice ambiance. Great place to come to, do a workout, some swimming, spend time in the hot tub, the sauna, then sit in the lounge and write!

10:29pm Driving home from the condo, one of the roads was closed. There was a street festival on. J parked the car and we went for a walk, checking out the festival. Got gyros at one of the booths. J said it was the best gyros she ever had. Her back was feeling better after the swimming & hot tubbing.

We walked past the Second Cup and J asks me if I want to go in and get something. No. I got something there about four years ago and I still have it. This Second Cup, it's the one we went to on our first date. We go in, J has an apple cider and I have a Berry Boost Smoothie. We watch people come in and out of the store. Finish our drinks, walk back to the car and drive home. I had paid for only one hour of parking and we were now one hour past the expiry time. No parking ticket - the parking angels were looking out for us.

So back to my question from this morning, thinking positive, what was the best thing about this relationship in the last three weeks? Dancing at the Vern and Angie's wedding anniversary celebration last week, and being noticed for it (recognition!). Dancing is one arena where we have gotten along well. I remember the first time I took J to a dancing event. I didn't have any of that first time we're dancing together, gotta get used to a new partner kind of awkwardness. I just led her to the dance floor, we danced and we looked and felt natural doing it. I like to polka, she likes salsa and latin dances. We did some of both and we both had fun that night.

My most memorable dance event with J was when she invited me to her company Christmas party a couple of years back. I had requested a polka from the deejay. We had the last dance of the evening; the song was Who Stole the Kishka. I remember that she wore her red dress that night (there's that red dress theme again! The lady in red is dancing with me.) We had almost the entire dance floor to ourselves - only one other couple dared to share the floor with us. By the time the music finished, we were the only couple on the floor. I didn't even notice when the other couple had left the floor - must have been after I started spinning J around in double time.

Ha ha, I just googled Who Stole the Kishka and found a few hits on You Tube. Watched a few of the videos. Some are funny, some are weird, but I did enjoy hearing the music - even if the tempo was slower than what I'm used to. Note to self - start making some content to put up on You Tube.

That's all for today.

Technology, music, physical challenges

The RA I have in my hands is making it difficult for me to learn to play keyboard or guitar or bass well. That's been getting me to thinking - there must be people out there in the world that have a passion for making music but are limited by severe physical challenges. So why not use technology, bring together all the necessary components (they already exist!) and put it all together in a way that a person who has physical challenges can overcome their limitations and be able to play a musical instrument? The way that hand and mouth artists are able to paint despite no limbs.

I know that hardware can be expensive so maybe there is some venture capitalist or philanthropist out there who would find it worth their while to finance such an undertaking.

I feel inspired by the story of Diane Dupuy, the founder of Famous People Players. She created a venue for people with mental and physical disabilities to express themselves in a theatrical context. She had a powerful vision.

So how about a similar vision, a vision of a world in which people with physical ability is not a handicap to being able to express oneself musically.

Thoughts on combining signal delay with pitch bend

So I'm familiar with the technique of using a Delay effect in audio production; this allows a signal to be played back after a slight delay from the original signal. This technique can be used, for example, to play quarter notes and have them sound like eighth notes.

What I'm thinking about is the possibility of running the delayed signal through something that will change its pitch. Reason does not have a pitch-bend device that I know of, but some devices do have a function that can change the pitch. The Subtractor is one that comes to mind. If I lowered the pitch by 4 or 5 semitones, then the delayed notes would actually be played back as a different note in the same chord as the original note. I would expect that this could produce an interesting arpeggiation effect.

LifeBalance and TLI's

A challenge I have in using LifeBalance most effectively is deciding how to set up the TLI's (Top Level Items). My intution is that the number of TLI's I use should be between 8 and 12. I figure if I have much more than that then I am starting to balance too many things and starting to spread myself too thin (then again, J already things I am doing that, so maybe this is a sign for me).

An example: Should I have one TLI called Real Estate, with two subordinate items called Property 1 and Property 2? Or should I have two TLI's called Property 1 and Property 2? Another example: Should I have one TLI called Creativity with subordinate items called Music and Creative Writing (and maybe one called Blogging?) Or should each of those subordinate items be its own TLI?

If I use the design that has Real Estate as a TLI with each property as a subordinate item, then here is what happens: as soon as I check off an item under the Property 1 branch, LifeBalance adds the credit to the Real Estate slice of pie. Then when it re-prioritizes my tasks to balance my TLI's, items under the Property 2 branch get pushed down the list. In essence, LifeBalance is saying You already got your Real Estate slice of pie.

Fine, that's what it's supposed to do. The problem comes up if I have things I need to take care of for both properties. As soon as I take care of something for one property, LifeBalance automatically reduces the priority of the second property, and that's not good.

If I make each property be its own TLI instead, then I end up with two TLI's instead of one. If I follow the same approach for Creativity then I will end up with even more TLI's, and then the list becomes difficult to manage. I can only see so many items on the screen and I would have to scroll around too much to find the appropriate TLI when I want to add a new item.

Maybe this situation is telling me that I've got too much stuff going on in my life and that I should pare down my life. Yeah right - as if I would do that.

ET phone Vonage

In an attempt to head off the umpteen arguments I have with J about sharing a phone line, sharing a computer, sharing an internet connection, I went out and picked up a Vonage phone adapter from Best Buy. According to my understanding of this technology, it should be a simple matter of bringing it home, plug it into my router, plug my phone into the adapter, go online to activate my account with Vonage, and voila! N'est pas?

Well, no. I had hoped to get everything all hooked up this evening before a call I thought I was supposed to have at eight. Online activation, one would expect, means I can activate my account instantly and be able to use the Vonage line for my eight o'clock call.

Except that I used the wrong activation option on the Vonage main page. Since I had already bought a phone adapter through a retailer (instead of ordering one through Vonage and waiting for it to be shipped), there was a different link I should have chosen off the main page. C'est la vie.

So now I'll have to wait around 24 hours until the free device that comes with the package I activated becomes provisioned. After that happens I can reassign the phone adapter I bought at Best Buy to work with my account.

Fortunately, the call I thought I was supposed to be on tonight at eight, was cancelled. No Vonage, no call at eight, no conflict with J.

LifeBalance

I've discovered a new organizer for my PDA. It's called LifeBalance. I've downloaded a trial version of the application and started enjoying it in the first couple of days of using it.

One feature it has that I like is the ability to tag each task with a Place. A Place is like a Context in the GTD system. It allows me to filter and see only tasks for a given place. For example, Home or Work. This means that when I am at work, I can see a list of tasks that I can do only at Work and not be distracted by all the tasks I need to do at home but can't when I'm at work. Filtering by Place takes away a lot of frustration.

LifeBalance also has an outline editor which allows me to set up my projects and tasks in a hierarchical fashion. The top items in the hierarchy are called, appropriately enough, top level items or TLI's.

The really cool feature about LifeBalance is that it will automatically prioritize my tasks in a way to make sure I am balancing all my TLI's. Every time I check off a task, I get credit which is displayed in a pie chart. I get a slice of pie! If I check off a lot of tasks under, say the Music TLI, then the Music slice of pie gets fat. LifeBalance will determine which slice of pie is too thin and move the corresponding tasks higher in priority. So tasks will percolate up to the top of my list where they will get my attention, rather than getting stale at the bottom of the list.

Two weeks into my trial run, the LifeBalance crashed horribly and erased everything I'd put into it. I was really out of sorts when this happened because I'd carefully built up a hierarchy that worked well for me and I'd really come to depend onthe automatic prioritization (not to mention that I like getting my slices of pie). Since then I have built up a new hierarchy and continue using the application. I will definitely buy a licence when my trial is up, but I want to be sure that I can restore my data in case it crashes again.

Photo-shopping

Not too long ago I saw an ad - from a distance it looked like a picture that was very grainy. From a closer look, the grains were actually smaller pictures that were arranged together, like a mosaic. Depending on what you focused on, you either saw one large picture, or hundreds of small pictures.

I was curious to learn how to do this technique, so one sleepless night I experimented with Photoshop for a few hours using several pictures of my new baby niece. It's not exactly like the ad I saw, but in the process of experimentation I learned to use a few more features of Photoshop.

My Photoshop experiments are yet another way in which I can express my creativity.