Peter Fisher's – Phyn3t

Well as of late I’ve heard a lot of bad things about the iPhone application approval process and I must admit I’ve never had to go through it.  I understand developers could be very frustrated and pissed at how Apple does it, but it seems to me to be exactly how things should be.

The App store market is clean and contains mostly apps that function properly and I don’t have to worry about running a malicious application. Unlike other app repos that contain out dated, crappy, and potentially malicious apps; the app store is clean and fresh.

Apple has always had one thing in mind, and that’s the customers experience. They don’t want to give us something that doesn’t work or that we might potentially get frustrated over. They want it to just work, and well. They would rather have the consumer NOT have a product then to give them a half ass one… I think that’s something some people miss.

Just like with Flash and the iPhone, sure they could get flash on the device but they wont until the hardware can support it well enough to where the user experience is enjoyable and reliable.

Comments? Is there a side I’m missing? I’m sure there is =)

So every week now I’m going to post my must dos for the week. Well not just for that week but hopefully if I do it for a week straight it will stick and I will do it for along time! =) Yes thats right! It will totally stick…

DOs:

• Get to work before 9am
• Use omniFocus and Calendar every day and actively
• No useless purchases (includes starbucks, I still love you starbucks!)
• Drink one cup of tea a day

I thought I would make a blog post to blab about what’s going on in my life and what I’m spending my time on these days / interest me.

Most of my time goes towards working and attempting to get everything done on time and just not end the day with outstanding issues. But it never seems to happen there is always just so much work to be done. My company is still growing so there is always to much work for everyone, at least for the support team and internal IT matters. For the past few months I’ve only been involving myself in IT matters and internal projects but starting next week I’m going to be spending only half of my resources in IT matters and the other half back in support again. Customer support is #1 priority…

Having a full time job you learn how to really work affectively and efficiently. I’ve found many ways and tools to achieve a calm and productive work flow. Some of the tools I use are:

• Evernote – I use it to collect ALL information (see my other post on it)
• OmniFocus & OmniFocus Mobile (Store all task and projects)
• zenDesk (all IT related tickets)
• MobileMe & GoogleApps (Storing my Calendars, I use both for some reason)

Using all of the above I achieve a good level of efficiency while retaining everything I do for later retrieval.

So now on to personal stuff going on currently!! The biggest thing going on is that I’m moving out! Well I’ve moved out of my parents house almost a year ago but I currently live with room mates which kinda sucks because I cant take over the apartment and do what I want. Plus there are always those underlying rules you have with room mates that I will be happy to be away from. I’m moving to a really nice (and large) one bedroom apartment in Costa Mesa right next to a large mall (South Coast Plaza) which hopefully Brian can find a job at.

The apartment I found is one of the only that had what I wanted and more! I was looking for an apartment that was only two stories and not one of those super large 100 story buildings. It had to have a AC that actually used vents to blow cold air through out the house not just one that blew in one area like my current place (it blows against the wall -_-).And finally a washer dryer hookup on the balcony or in the apartment which I think is amazing because who wants to use a public washer dryer!!! It will be so nice to just take the laundry to the balcony rather than to the community washers!  My apartment also has a lot of bonuses which I really am looking forward to.

One thing I hated about moving from a home to an apartment was the walk from the car at the end of the day all the way to your apartment, but with my new place my !private! garage is right below me so I don’t have to go far and I get extra storage for all my old bulky stuff (yes I can actually use my closet again!!). Another huge bonus of my place is the floor plan. The kitchen isn’t in the living room which I think is ugly and annoying plus my bathroom isn’t connect to my room! There are two doors between it. Which means no annoying hot stuff room after showers and no cat box smell when I’m sleeping! And finally just a simple coat closet! I’ve been missing one for so long! Now I have to throw all my jacket all the way in my closet over the HUGE TV that’s taking up 90% of my closet because I’m lazy and still need to throw it away (its been there since I moved in a year ago).

College is starting nice and slow but is going to pick up very quickly. I’m taking two 8 week courses which was some what of a mistake. I didn’t notice they were 8 weeks until I signed up but hopefully I can just grind through them no problem. I’m also taking a normal 16 week course and a pre-calculus math class. All of which I hope to do well in if I have any chance of transferring out of Golden Waste and making my way to UCI. I plan to move on over around 2011, which is a bit late which is due from me not ramping up fast enough when I started working. A lot of school work got set aside and I ended up not doing so well last semester but now I feel more confident that I can do it. And I think I’ve proven it a bit now by completing my work on time while still working more than I did before.

To stay up to date with what I’m doing you can follow me on twitter @thursdaisy and also my micro blog here: pwf.me . Also you can check my photos here: flickr.

Well that’s it for now! Hope everyone else is doing well! Stay safe everyone!

Cheers.

I wanted to spend a few minutes on how I use evernote and maybe give some people ideas on how they can use it as well.

The first thing I should let you know about how I use evernote is that I use evernote for EVERYTHING. Not just for work, or for a specific area in my life but for my whole life. I store every bit of information I need in evernote as it does a better job of categorizing (if inputed properly) and later retrieving then my brain can do most of the time.

So for example I will use evernote during meetings to write down what people want done and at the same time ill use evernote when I go to a restaurant and want to remember the menu (such as when they serve a certain soup). I just take a picture of it with my  iPhone and store it for later.

One thing that I love to do with evernote is to use my tangible note books to write and draw things in and at the end of the day just scam them to a USB and upload them into evernote. It allows me to access this data from anywhere; I don’t have to lug around all my different notebooks. And evernote scans through all of my written data and when you search evernote it can sometimes (most of the time it fails) find words in your writing.

So to conclude use evernote for everything, no matter how little some piece of information might seem at the time just throw it into evernote add one simple tag and maybe later you will really need it. Also note don’t attempt to make tons of tags for everything and spend time adding titles just add a tag or to and be done with it.

@thursdaisy with any tips you might want to share about evernote =)

If you are like me when you purchase software you want to save as much as possible since times are pretty hard right now economically and I’m a college student.

I’ve been drowning in projects and todos at both work and in my personal life and I found that using remember the milk just wasn’t cutting it anymore. It’s a nice free service but I wasn’t liking the yearly fee of $25 to use the service on my cellphone. I would rather pay a one time charge for such a service.

After reading a few things I found omniFocus which is a todo / remembering application that has a unique style. I’m not going to explain how it works or what’s the best way to use it since I know there are a few books and tutorials out there on how to use it. There is also a great iPhone application that syncs up with your desktop client that’s very helpful when you are out and about and need to check what you need to purchase or do a certain store that you might be at.

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page: http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/ you will find more information on how to use omniFocus.

You can also find two screencast here:

http://www.screencastsonline.com/index_files/SCO0178-omnifocusbasics.php (basic)

http://www.screencastsonline.com/index_files/SCO0180-omnifocuspt2.php (advance)

There is a book here that details some things about omniFocus:

http://books.google.com/books?id=WXcHwzaUd4MC&pg=PP1&dq=getting+things+done&ei=hc-iSv64OJSQlASmhsyHCA&client=safari#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Today I went out and got some cowboy boots, I was so sick of purchasing shoes and just going through them in a month. I always seem to have a great skill in destroying the souls (lol) and also the fabric in under a month of use. I truly don’t know what it’s from, maybe its because I treat my shoes like shoes rather than a delicate baby like some people I know! =p

Here is a pic of you are interested on what they looked like: http://twitpic.com/e1gs9 @thursdaisy if you want to follow me on twitter!

So I did a 6 mile hike today with my brother and my mother, it seemed to be uphill forever but in the end it was down hill thank god. It was very pretty and hopefully by Monday I will have updated my flickr stream with photos from the hike. You can check out where the hike was here: http://bit.ly/4FRV34 . From the top of the mountain there you can see the radios on top of Norad which was very cool =D I know they have tours and I would defiantly like to check it out one day next time I come up here. But I know they have to do a huge background check on you and it takes a lot of time, which means I have to plan well which I never do ^^. For example on our defcon 17 trip this year was planned two days before the event ^^.

Their are a lot of deer here which is very pretty, but the damn things are so dumb. We saw one today holding up traffic just standing in the road looking at the car, even when you honk they wont move… This would explain why you see a lot dead on the side of the road =( Sad I know!

Out in Colorado Springs o this weekend to see one of my grandmothers. She lives on a hill top over looking the city it’s very nice and Ill be uploading a lot of cool photos to my flickr stream as soon as I get to a place that has decent connection or back home one Monday, which ever comes first…

When you drive around out here there is a lot of farm land and what seems to be a lot of houses built in the 20s or 30s. Most of them have seem better days, and you would think the network infrastructure too would be pretty old or just now being updated. But from what I’ve seen wow it’s amazing, not just for one reason but it seems the whole spectrum of network services is up to date and pretty decent. Since I left the airport I’ve had full 3G service with ATT and in most parts T-Mobile. Even through random farm land that lasted forever, I remember driving through here years ago with an old blackberry and being stuck on slow 2G network it was no fun. But I will have to admit they could use some umbrella towers, I would go from full 3G service to none in just a second while driving…

Also not only was the cell network up to date I saw a lot of what seemed to be brand new fiber “bboxs” if that’s the correct name, I know that’s what the telephone version of the box is called, it looks the same so Ill call it that someone please correct me with the correct word! =)
Anyway just a random thought, I found it pretty interesting that the town might look old and outdated but its infrastructure certainly isn’t.

Check out my photostream on flickr if you want to see some photos from my trip: flickr.com/thursdasy

Well summer is coming to an end for this year. I remember when summer used to be great fun and something really looked forward to all year but that feeling has really gone away the past couple of years ever since I’ve been done with high school (I skipped a few years of high school). And it has really changed since I started working, with working you don’t get a summer anymore unless you are a teacher. =p

Back in the days summer used to be full of traveling, camping and hanging out with friends until you were so bored you just did nothing but wish you had something to do!! Ohh the good old days!

But summer this year wasn’t all booo I’ve had fun at working with Tim (he started this summer) and I was able to go to defcon 17 which was different to say the least! I’ll also be going to see my grandmother this weekend Friday through Monday which should be fun (even though i hate flying). I will be going up to see her with the whole family which will be cool, I hope to get a lot of photography done and go hiking with my mother. Oh and I guess there is a 92 year old guy that will be going hiking with us… I guess he hikes on a daily basis on very long hikes through the mountains which is amazing but I just hope he doesn’t hike to slow!

Oh and lets not forgot the beginning of the summer started off with a trip to San Francisco with Brian which I haven’t been up there in along time for GoogleIO which was just amazing and I will definitely be going next year.

Another random cool thing I did / got this summer was a goped which me and Tim took all over the city through the dirt and down a lot of fun streets you can find some videos of one of the rides on my vimeo here: http://vimeo.com/peterfisher/videos just look for stuff tagged with goped.

I’m planning on next year spending a lot more time camping / hiking on the weekends instead of just hanging out around where I live, which dont get me wrong isn’t boring but I would like to do a bit more out doorsy stuff as well.

So two weekends ago I went out with my dad and we searched around for a new car. Ealier that week I went around to some dealerships and looked at cars; mostly the Lancer Evolution. I was suprised to find not a single one for around $22,00 out the door. Even after haggaling for days nothing, I was very suprissed especially noting the economic times. I think though if I looked longer and broader I would have found one but I didn’t and I’m very happy I didn’t because I found a far better car. This car is an Ininity G35 Coup.
After having to deal with all of the salesmen at all the different dealers I went to and called I decided I was done with that crap and wanted to just buy a car. So I went to car max and was very surprised that I found a car on my first visit.  The car is in great condition and so far I’ve only found 2 real problems and both have to do with the interior.
The car came stock except for a new exaust system, it sounds very deep and smooth I really like it. The only downside is that I cannot hear the engine at all, the exaust over powers it. The car handles VERY well around corners and just on the road. The supsention is very tight which allows for great handling around corners but can be a bit bumpy on damaged roads.

EDIT:
So far after a few months the car has been great, took it back right before the 30 day warrenty was up and got everything fixed that was messed up with the interrior. Carmax was very good about this there was no hassle just took it in and they fixed everything in a day at no charge. Unlike most dealers their warrenty is 100% not 50% or less like other dealers.

The other day I came home to a kitten on my door step. It followed one of my room mates home from down the street. So we left it out there thinking it would go away after a few hours but no. It went from just sitting in front of the door to sleeping in front of the door back to sitting. It refued t0 leave even after five hours of sitting out in the cold. So we decided to keep it. We batheed it and gave it fresh food. It was really dirty and smelled really bad, but after giving it a bath and letting it settle in it started to smell better =p

It’s funny how much it eats, its never had a constant supply of food before you can tell. We have to really watch how much it eats otherwise it just eats and eats. This week alone its eatten a whole bag of science diet ^^

Ninji and Pixel (the new cat) didn’t get along to well in the begining Ninji would constantly hiss and growl at Pixel. Its funny though because Pixel wouldn’t care at all. It would lye down right next to the hissing, growling Ninji. It seems Pixel lacks any social abilties lolol.

The two cats get along great now though, it only took two days for them to become friends. They chase each other around in the morning and play hide and seek with each other. I think having two cats is far better than having one. They can play with each other when we are busy doing other things.