Divergent Thought

         by Josh Barfield

There is a Clear Channel billboard right outside my office window. I enjoy watching them change it out every few months. Sometimes they even change it once a month. I thought it might be interesting to share a picture whenever they update the billboard. This one has been up for quite some time now. I can’t exactly remember but I suspect it’s been about 6 months. Seems like it’s about ready for replacement.

Photographed [not very well] with my iPhone 4.

I’ve decided the previous theme was too chaotic. I liked the scheme and some of the elements but I really just want to present content to be read. Working out some new kinks but I’m liking this so far. How do we feel about blue links though? I’m not sure. Going to leave it for a week and see.

I’m a big fan of Apple’s Time Machine. I love how simple they’ve made it to backup your data. I’ve struggled in the past keeping copies of my family’s data and now my mother can handle a backup by herself. Wonderful technology!

I have some inconsequential qualms with Time Machine for my personal day to day use. Most of them are small technical issues like ease of multiple backup disks and such. My biggest frustration isn’t really a problem with Time Machine, but more of a problem with the way I think about disk space. Let me explain.

My MacBook Pro has an 80GB SSD and 640GB HDD with about 400GB combined usage. I backup to a 1TB FW800 drive. Of that 400 something gigabytes used I want to backup maybe 200. Aperture data, music, documents, settings. The stuff that’s hard to replace. I have “scratch” folders that I use for projects. When I need to edit an image for a quick laugh or gather a number of different file types for research I usually put that info into sub folders in my Projects directory. Some folders I want backed up, others I don’t. Usually I’m pretty good about Time Machine exclusions and folder sorting and only get the files I want. But just today I noticed Time Machine calculating changes and preparing to backup 18GB of new data. Not good! I had to hunt down the changes and exclude those additional folders. Well, I didn’t have to.

That’s my problem. Even though I have a roughly 5:1 ratio of backup space to content I’m still paranoid about backing up things that don’t matter. I’m very meticulous about maintaining archived backups for as long as physically possible. I still have local and offsite copies of archives from when I first started saving files. I think I’m just worried that my 1TB drive is going to fill and start removing archives of data I’ll probably never need again.

How do I get over this?

 

 

It’s time for a new watch. I’ve grown quite accustomed to checking date and time via my iPhone 4. I always have it with me, it works. It just feels clunky. I feel like I’m missing an accessory. My wrist is bare. The last watch I wore was my old Luminox 3602 Titanium steel-titanium dive watch. I was really excited about it and wore it on and off for a few years. But now the watch but the battery is dead and I want something different.

I decided I’m not too interested in an analog watch. One of the things I missed on my Luminox was stopwatch and countdown timer functionality. So out of the gate I knew I wanted both of those features and while there are analog options I feel like digital is the right path to head down.

I took a look at Timex’s offerings first. Initially I was thinking a simple Ironman would do the job. Then I saw a solar variant and realized that could be quite cool! But Timex has very little to offer in that area. The one interesting watch I saw didn’t have the look I was after so I headed off to check out Casio’s options.

Casio has a lot of watches. So many different categories and models within those categories that seem to overlap with no clear distinction. I got a bit overwhelmed but I decided I was most interested in the G-Shock and Pathfinder lines so I went through each watch in those categories looking at features and style.

I had thought I wanted a nylon band (or at least the option for nylon) but after talking with a buddy and remembering my past experiences with nylon I realized it’s probably just going to get dirty and smelly. It looks like most Casio watches have replaceable bands anyway so it’s something I could modify after purchase.

When I research things I typically do a process of elimination. I gather up all of the possible candidates for purchase and knock them out one by one until I have a reasonable amount to compare. This helps me to finalize my decisions. Looking at the G-Shock line I ignored anything missing a countdown timer. I then saw some other really neat features and, of course, rewrote my original checklist of requirements. I was now looking for:

• Minimal design.
• Stopwatch.
• Countdown timer (larger than 60 minutes).
• Atomic Timekeeping.
• Solar powered.
• Resin band.

Determining that these were the features I was interested in really helped narrow down the list. For some reason (I suspect memory) a lot of the countdown timer variants only have a 60 minute timer. If I’m putting a countdown timer on my list of must haves, it must have more than 60 minutes to countdown from. There are plenty of times I’d need to countdown from several hours. Unfortunately the lack of countdown timer eliminated some models I was really interested in such as the GW530A-1V and the GW800-1V. I favored those due to the larger time font. But I don’t think I can compromise in the countdown timer area.

I finally narrowed it down to one G-Shock and one Pathfinder option.

 

 

G-Shock GW2310-1 – $75 at Amazon. Looks very sturdy and I’m fond of the bland colors. It has every feature I want and the price is pretty good. The only downside is the display looks a bit small. Certainly usable, but not optimal if I were designing from scratch.

 

 

 

 

 

Pathfinder PAW-2000-1 – $228 at Amazon. More features than a dollar theater. This thing has digital compass, barometer, altimeter, thermometer, and recording/graphing for all of the above. The crazy thing is it’s not that much bigger or heavier than the other options and it still has solar charging. The big pro here is the display has larger numbers for time which is something I wanted. Mildly concerned that the Pathfinder wouldn’t be as sturdy as the G-Shock. And then there’s the downside that it’s $150 more than the G-Shock.

Heading to the mall tonight to see these in person before making any further decisions. Will report back.

 

EDIT: Stopped by Macy’s and they had a G2300EB-7 which is the same form factor as the GW2310-1. I like the feel and the weight.

EDIT2: Ordered the GW2310-1 from Amazon this morning. Should be here by my birthday!

 

UPDATE 04/25/11: Watch came in over the weekend and I’ve been wearing it for a few days now. It feels good on my wrist. Size is just right. When it first came in I did a manual atomic sync which took about seven minutes. Per the instructions you are supposed to leave the watch face up on a window sill over night for the sync to work. I don’t have a window sill near the bed so I left it on the night stand. It failed to sync over night. Interestingly though, the following two nights I left the watch on my wrist when I went to bed and both nights it synced within 4 minutes of 0000. Maybe my body is acting as an antenna?

When I pulled the watch out of the box and tin can it shipped in I was surprised to find the charge indicator was at high. I can’t think that Amazon would expose the watches to light in the warehouse so I’m assuming it was shipped in some sort of power save sleep mode. Messing around with the watch as one does with new toys I got the charge indicator to go down to mid but after 10 minutes in the sun it was back to high and hasn’t left. I think between the drive to and from work, the natural window lighting at work, and the ambient lighting otherwise, I’ll have no trouble keeping it charged.

Very happy with it so far. Would recommend!

 

I do believe I’ve finished tweaking things here and there and am finally pretty happy with the way things turned out. I some Minecraft distractions in the middle of the process but everything is now very close to the way I want it. Now if I could just come up with some content.