Day 96 – Transition – Software Update

Right before leaving Boeing, I did a two part blog post call moving on (part 1 and Part 2) where I covered some of the computing issues I had been dealing with as I left Boeing.  Having a Boeing laptop for many years had negated the need for a personal computer and associated software.

In this blog, I would like to review the changes and see what ones have lasted, additions since then, and which ones haven’t worked out.

Gmail is still my official mail for work related correspondence.

Boeing used Outlook and the only feature that I miss was the use of signatures.  Over the years I had built up a library of quotes that I could use as my signatures.  I haven’t found anything to replace.  I have an older version of outlook on my machine for only two purposes.  The first is the quotes and the second is just in case that I need to retrieve old information from my archive files.

One program that I have not used much is Thunderbird email.  This is a free email solution.  I stopped using it because it doesn’t do so well at bringing in my Comcast email.  This may just be a configuration problem I’m having.  With it only bring in my Gmail account, it is a just as easy to work directly in Gmail instead of layering only software on top of it.  Recently, I have been taking another look at this software wondering if I have missed some functionality.

Google calendar is what I’m using for calendar functions, it works great.  I have some trouble in that I have so little use of a calendar now, that I find I miss things because of the lack of structure centered around the calendar.  This is a recurring theme with me, having a regular structure is required in order to keep on top of things.    I have Mozilla Sunbird, the calendaring program, loaded on my computer and it is in the same category as Thunderbird.  It is good software, but I’m having a hard time understanding why I would use this over Google calendar.

Google now has off line versions for all of their products.  I haven’t been disconnected or working offline, but if I was, my information would still be available offline for both mail and calendar.  Both of these Google products work seamlessly with my android phone.

Remember the Milk has been great for tracking my tasks.  It has the ability to set up recurring task.    This has been great for setting up the cleaning tasks around the house and being able to adjust the recurrence as I have tried to bring down the amount of time being spent on cleaning.  Again this is only as effective as my own self discipline and ability to keep myself on track.  Google calendar has a task capability that is built into their products, but it is not near as capable or friendly as RTM.

For browsing I have both IE and FireFox; I prefer FireFox but some sites just need IE, most notably Microsoft and Expedia do better in IE.   There is a lot of small apps that I’m using within Firefox and this customization has made it the center of my computing.  One that I will mention because it stops a lot of clutter is AdBlock.  This strips much of the advertising off web pages allowing more focus on the information.

For Job searching, I am primarily using Simply Hired.  I love how it interfaces well with LinkedIn.  It also has an interface with FaceBook which I think needs some work.  I now have my searches loaded into FireFox so that I can go into a job search folder and open all tabs and it goes off and opens 15 tabs which take about minute to complete.  The first tab is Boeing, then I have a set of company searches, and then a set open ended searches on different specific search terms.  I have the company searches set up that they only bring in information from the companies website (here I am assuming the all the jobs a company puts out will be on their site which I think is a good assumption).  Also these searches bring up all the jobs that the company puts out.  This allows me to understand what jobs the is putting out.  Sometimes their language is for a job is different than a search term would pick up.  The down side is I have to go through all the jobs posted; for Microsoft, Expedia, UW, and Starbucks this can be quite a few, but I can go through these pretty quickly especially after I get familiar with a company’s specific language.

For networking I’m using LinkedIn in a number of ways.  Keeping track with my contacts activities, researching links to jobs that I want to apply for, and through the use of groups and commenting in group activity.  I am also using Facebook as a way to stay connected with people.  I have been using Twitter to gather interesting information, to post articles, and to get news.  I have been trying to learn how to use twitter for more job possibilities but haven’t developed a good understanding of how to use this as tool for jobs. 

Instead of using adobe postscript reader I have switched to a product called Nitro that allows better taking of notes and highlighting.  It also seems faster.

A product that I just started using but like is a note taking program and interfaces well with phones, Firefox, the internet and a stay alone program.  This is called Evernote and is great for gather information from many different sources and bringing them together in one common database.  I’m looking at storing all of my job requisition information in here. 

Another product that I have just start using is called Zemanta.  It helps with blog writing and automatically brings up resources as you type.  This can also be used in constructing email.  This is nice because it makes the  writing process even more of the learning process, makes the blog entries more graphical and provides more take away information.

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