Google voice is one of those things I have been waiting around for with high expectations. When I finally got the invite, I tried to hook it up, but when accessing the www.google.com/voice page from where I live in France, I was greeted with “We are sorry but this is not available in your country.” What to do? Since I was moving back to the States in less than two months, I wanted to start giving out a number I could use for job prospects instead of my French number. Finally, I got my friend to log into my account and set it up using his phone. Pretty simple. Now, I can access the interface and mess around and even receive messages send directly to my email! Pretty slick stuff. Can’t wait to start using this with a new cell phone.
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If one absolutely HAS to run Microsoft Windows because one is more familiar with it, then it is a good thing to optimize it for use on older crappy computers. I could not do this blindly, but have found some sites that suggest all the tweaks one can do to Windows. The most simplest, safest though that I found was here. This is something even my mother could do and not screw things up. There are others that are more in depth, but this is great for quick and dirty optimizations on your old PC.
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Tags: technology, tweaks, windows
Death of shopping malls
You wouldn’t know it by looking at this picture I took in Bordeaux this month, but shopping malls are dead. This WSJ article would rather spread FUD about the recession than look at the hard cold facts of the changing habits of people.
So what’s going on? People are socializing more online for one. Why hang out in the mall when you can collect 100’s of “friends” online? Online retailers also cut down the need to spend time in malls. Finally, and this is just a hunch, but people might rather go downtown now instead of some boring mall. When is the last time you have seen an empty downtown shopping area?
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I like slick modern technology. I like linux. As a mac user, linux doesn’t normally hold a candle to the Mac OS with regards to user experience. Even to this day with compiz and its wobbly windows is nothing but eye candy on a linux box. I want something that is functional yet elegant so I can just work. Enter the world of dynamic tiling window managers. On first blush, they look quite intimidating. They are usually text only (which means watch out for uber geekness) as the screenshot below:
But I like my web browsing dynamic like the tiling windows, and occationally to use the mouse. Wmii seems to have everything that I need. It’s geeky enough to have the satisfaction of something to customize but makes things more simpler. Say I want tons of information as in the above shot, then one could do that. Alternately, one could simplify and have two columns:
I also like how it uses workspaces. At the bottom, you can name work spaces on the fly or just use the default numbering scheme. So I start out with 1, press the modifier key (which I use CMD since that is rarely used in linux) and a number and it switches me to that workspace. In Mac, I never used Apple’s version of workspaces. Ironic as it may be, I felt the spaces were not very helpful (included the other linux window managers utilization of workspaces).
In Mac OS, I became addicted to using Quicksilver to launch applications in a flash of a second. Two or three key strokes and bam, there I am at the application I want. No clicking and scrolling for it. They say, once you go Quicksilver, you never go back. Well, wmii has a program launcher that scans all the installed programs on my computer. So it is as if I never left my dear Quicksilver. This is what has sold me with wmii as others don’t have this. I could install gnome-do which is linux’s version of QS, but why?
So that is the quick version. Maybe I will write more about wmii another time, but here are a couple more screenies. The first one is with no windows open and just showing the desktop with conky my system monitor. The next one shows a bit more window column use and a distraction free workspace. Oh if you want to see my config file it is here (helpful for mac users to bind the apple key to something useful in linux). Have fun and good luck.
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As my time winds down here I have been thinking of what I have appreciated about living here:
1. Driving – I don’t know why I assumed that French drivers would always be screaming at me while running running someone over. It is quite the opposite: they drive more like senior citizens. I mean that as a the greatest compliment one could give. Never have I experienced road rage. Rarely do people honk their horn. This is quite a contrast to driving in an American city. Granted, this is rural, but even driving in Paris, one shrugs to wonder why people say Paris drivers are the worst.
2, Small cars – When I use someone’s car it usually is a tiny hatchback. Now in the US, this can be scary. But not once have I been afraid of some oncoming giant Hummer clipping along towards me because everyone else is driving the same sized car. I also feel like a responsible human being because my car isn’t going to take up all the fuel in the world. Yay for me.
3, Lack of visible police – Yes, this is a positive as well. Aside from the occasional speed cameras, Gendarme random stops, one rarely sees what one would call a patrol car. If there is a siren, it is an ambulance or a fire vehicle. It is very rare to see a roaming squad car. And strangely enough, I have never felt like I have been in danger like the paranoia one feels being in the US.
4, Landscaping – There are very few places here that look like someone woke up and decided to randomly plant a tree somewhere. If fact, every where one looks, the landscaping seems to be a work of art.
5, The weather – I like having four seasons, but brutal extremes is a little exaggerated. A little nip in the winter, sleeping with windows open in the summer. The great thing about where I have lived is it doesn’t snow much – The only time it snowed this year was a dusting. Sure, if you are sentimental for snow then you would be disappointed. But I grew up in Minne-snow-ta where it snowed three feet and stayed until March. Thanks, but no.
So there you have it. I am sure there will be more things that come up, but this is just what I thought of in these moments. Stay tuned to my list of things that drive me crazy about France. ;)
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Chicago
Admittedly, I am a bit homesick. I keep on looking at the calendar and it is eternally six more months to go.
Yes, staying in the lush countryside with “frost” being the only extreme winter occurrence. Life is good in the big château. But I miss pizza, carry-out thai food, tall buildings, a real big lake, the Jewels at 2 am, “ethnic people”, running trails, and so on. Of course the constant feed in facebook of the horrors of winter kept me from feeling too nostalgic: “snow…again,” “when will this end?” “trying to enjoy the ice still.” Could I really move back there? It seems that every place that I look at has some major issues: it smells, or costs too much, or is too small, or rainy or is going to fall into the ocean. I keep on coming back to the relative ease it is to live in Chicago. And the long winter.
But now, for the time being, most of my friends are there. And it is simple: it’s my home. After being a foreigner for a while, it is nice to just come back to something more familiar. At least until the next travel bug bites!
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Blissful weekend in paradise
This weekend (which include Monday for me because I worked Saturday and partially Sunday) has been one of the most relaxing weekends in a long time.
Saturday night was an impromptu card night…whisky, chatting it up, music, frivolity, oh, and cards. Had to made it an early night because in the morning I did the fire for the lhasang starting at 7 in the morning.
As the spring dathun (month long retreat) begins here, they start with a lhasang which is an outdoor smoke offering in the field below the chateau. It was a nearly perfectly still day so the smoke went in a strong column as far as one could see. Having done this like countless times, rarely am I satisfied with how it comes out so it was nice to have it perfect.
After I did my usual day off activities such as cleaning, practice, laundry, long nap. It was quite warm; laundry hung out in the budding french countryside air. Then in the afternoon played soccer with 4 other guys from here and met up with some neighborhood kids…about 15 years or so. It was so exhausting but wonderful to run around and kick some balls. I sucked but hey, I never played. By the time we were done, none of us older people could barely run across the field. Then went back and did sitting practice and it felt so grounding.
Nighttime was pretty chill as we were all exhausted. I went to bed early and slept late. Today was not a cloud in the sky and 70 F so went to Limoges and me as tour guide showed a few places where to go. Unfortunately Monday morning (let alone, Easter week) most shops are closed and the center deserted until after lunch break. We went to Quick (burgers) and regretted the food, but was still decent to sit outside and eat and not have french food for once. Then went to FNAC and looked at the gadgets, walked around the center again, then back to the plaza and sat in the sun drinking diet coke watching people.
So that was about it…summer is here, though it is going to be cold and rainy this week…but there is not stopping the leaves from the trees now. I am ready for my last summer in France!
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My commitment of my job here in France is actually coming to a close. In fact, I have been here one year longer than originally planned. So where does that bring me but to plan for my future; and I have been thinking very hard about this for the past month. In short – my decision has come to leave 1st of October and land back in Chicago.
The next thing is career. I have had two really kick ass jobs in the past decade. Previously, for six years developing website, online education, user training in Central America, Bosnia and Afghanistan, and research in e-learning and telemedicine for an international non-profit. It was somewhat grunt work but it was managed mostly by me as the “expert in technology” and still working with other researchers as a team. Then I decided I needed a bit more leadership experience so spent the past few years as one of the leaders in a buddhist village in France. My responsibility covered health, security, safety of everyone who lived here as well as the 1000’s of participants and teachers of programs coming through here a year. This also included training and working with people, coordinating programs as well as living in a somewhat intense situation where there is program after program happening. It has been the toughest job one could have, but also super rewarding at the same time.
But now, I want more.
My plan is to pursue a Masters/PhD program for autumn 2010 in what is called Information School (location still TBD). This is a program that is designed to work with technology and communications in a societal setting. Many of the issues with technology that I dealt with in the past were related to what I feel would be covered in this sort of program. I want to go back to working with NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) but more at the level of directing organizational choices and so on. Also on my mind is how to bring technology into the developing world…for better or worse.
So that is where I stand for the next year or so. I have some projects in mind including a directory of internet use around the world. But for the time being, I have my final six months here and there is still lots to enjoy! Wish me luck.
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Have empty space… will park
When coming from a city where there are more places you can’t park than you CAN…I sure do love how the French way of parking. In the photo, for example, this car just parks in the middle of the round-about in front of the train station. Having done that a few times and I can just say with glee how liberating it is. Parking lot full? Just park on the sidewalk!
Although this is user-friendly, it takes a bit of getting used to seeing cars parked on either side of the road facing either directions. I still get shocked every once in a while turning down a street and I see a car on the left side of the road facing towards me (parked in the opposite direction).
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Well into spring
The past few weeks have been 50-60 degrees (+10 C) and sunny. There are at least 10 different blooming flowers right now. Almost everyone here are nearly floating on clouds (though we have not seen a cloud in the sky except for a couple in the evening giving the sunset a nice pink glow contrasting from the bright blue sky.) As we prepare for summer, our first group of summer volunteers have been arriving. We enjoy for now because it will certainly change (since it is known to rain here endlessly for weeks as well.)
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