Finishing Up – Grunt Work – Mobile Computing

Looking Down the Road

As I was trying to decide what to write about today I couldn’t help but think about my current reality and state of affairs.

I’m trying to complete a list of tasks before I move to Atlanta for (at least) a number of months. As the time for my leaving gets closer the list is getting shorter, but there are still things to do.

As usual I have done most of the easy and “funner” type things already. They have been checked off… now all that is left is the less fun things.

Things like changing the oil in my car, cleaning my car, moving everything out of my house, talking to my landlord, etc…

How to Get “it” Done

One of the best ways that I know of to get the “less desirable” things done is to do them. Yeah, literally it is that easy (or difficult).

At some point you are better off simply starting on the thing that you don’t necessarily want to do. I often find that when I just dive into something and do it, it often takes much less time and is much less frustrating than I thought it would be.

So… I’ve got some things that I need to “just do” this afternoon and tomorrow.

Moving Towards Computing Mobility – Desktop/Laptop

As I’ve considered the change that will occur as I move south, one of the things that I’ve been working on is making my computing workspace more mobile.

The biggest part of this was moving from a desktop solely to my laptop for all things. I used to work on photo and video stuff on my desktop. The laptop was then used when I was on the road or when I simply wanted to write or make small tweaks to documents.

So… I cut out my desktop. I actually have two laptops now… one for development classes at the Iron Yard (a MacBook Air) and my PC Asus Zenbook 32VD (or something like that).

The MacBook will be mostly used for development classes and homework. Keeping it separate from my “other stuff” seems like the most painless thing to do right now.

The Asus Zenbook then will be where I do an photo or video work. It is a bit slower than my desktop was, but not by much.

Moving Towards Computing Mobility – Data

To keep my data a bit more mobile I’ve also changed a couple of things.

First off, all of my iPhone pictures get backed up to Google Drive using a nice little recipe from IFTT. At the same time Dropbox is also syncing these same photos to my Dropbox folder in the cloud and those files are getting downloaded to my Dropbox folder on my laptops.

As far as actual DSLR photos and videos go I’ve gone the route of external hard drives.

I’m using four external drives. Two of them are for “live work” and the other two are mirrors of those original two drives. The drives I’m using are USB 3.0 and you can find them over at Amazon.

Now… one of the coolest things that I’ve discovered as I’ve been moving everything off of internal hard drives and going to external hard drives is a bit of free software called Free File Sync. Seriously, I’ve been looking for something that would do this type of syncing for a number of years. I’ve tried quite a few things, but Free File Sync works better than any of the alternatives that I’ve tried.

Remembering that it will Happen

One thing that I’ve been trying to keep in mind through this whole bit of change, completing tasks, moving files, doing random stuff with friends… is that I will eventually get to Saturday morning. At some point Saturday morning I will get on the road and head south towards Atlanta and the Iron Yard.

Knowing that this will happen gives me a good stopping point. A due date if you will. That means that all the things that must get done will be done. If they don’t get done then they must fall into the “would be nice if they got done, but don’t necessarily have to get done” category.

So here is to two more days of completing tasks, trying to finish some Ruby on Rails tutorials, saying goodbye and generally not letting myself panic!

Have a great weekend friend!