the way I blog

1. get an idea: basically, whatever springs to my mind;
2. write it down: on a piece of paper, if on the move; if connected, open my gmail account, write a new mail with subject something like “[blog] how to spit like a lama”, then save as draft;
3. leave it standing for at least a couple of hours;
4. copy & paste it on the blogger edit page, do some minor cosmetic modifications, change the publishing dates to avoid embarassment (“yes boss I’ve been working for hours on this project, what do you think I’m sitting up on my ass in this office ?”)

Sidenote: basically the great thing is to use online tools as much as possible.
Drafts are kept in my gmail account until I finish them. When they’re well cooked, I post them online on Blogger. I have setup my Blogger account to email me back to my gmail account the newly inserted post so I have at least the first copy of them kept in two separate places.

What if Gmail crash, Blogger goes nuts, the world suddenly ends, I’m transferred in Nigeria and have no broadband connection ? Oh come on, at the end of the day it’s ony another stupid blog…

italian gtd

Some time ago I stumbled upon this thing, the Getting Things Done thing, aka GTD.
How do you wanna call it ? A geekish obsession ? A lifestyle idea for nerds ?
Anyway, the Hipster PDA post was pretty cool (and fun to read). I have experienced myself the pleasure of having a toy like a palm (used to have the transparent Palm IIIe, upgraded with a IIIx motherboard, then switched to a Sony Clie), only to realize it was a useless and timewasting piece of equipment, and switched back to post-it notes and my trusty old mobile (6310i) to keep the phone numbers and passwords.
Now I read all these things on GTD (I’ll give you only a link where to look at: 43folders, enough said !), and even though I’ll never plan my life according to a book, I still like some of the ideas that float around the GTD concept..

Just for the purpose of sharing, here’s a list of my tools to do the lowlevel italian implementation of GTD, let’s call it iGTnD (italian’s getting things nearly done):

1. gmail: invaluable to keep my personal ife separated from my work. I always have my browser opened on gmail even when I’m in the office, so I can distinguish between work and pleasureand when I’m back home I wait 8pm (my broadband flat rate goes from 8pm to 8am), launch BitTorrent, then Safari, point to gmail, zap.
   I use labels a lot: have some filters to automatically label ebay messages and emails from my best buddies, others that archive the rss feeds coming from novatorrent so I’m updated on the new torrents available; an “info” label is for messages with information on my online accounts (forums, photo.net passwords etc.), “foto” is for emails containing photographs, “banking” is for my e-banking needs, “blog” to hold the posts that Blogger automatically sends me whenever I update this site.
   I then use the Drafts to keep a series of messages with to do things, blog drafts, web links to follow, and so on. To create these posts you only need to compose a new mail, leave the to-field empty, write a descriptive subject (e.g., “blog: my own gtd implementation”, or “movies to check” and then fill in the body).
2. gigantic todo.txt: following something read on an O’Reilly weblog, I decided to get rid of my HTMLs, my tiddlywiki, my sticky notes, my info stored as Excel or Word documents, and get back to text files. At the same time I also deleted all the fancy power-user text editors that I was trying (Textforge, BBEdit and so on), and rely on the very basic Text Editor that is part of OS X (same thing as Notepad, for you Windows folks out there). So now I have one todo.txt to keep everything, and I’m thinking to keep information already consolidated in separate files (e.g., unix.txt for everything related to the command line, such as scripts, tricks and hints). Other useful discussion about the big-ass text file:
   • discussion on 43folders
   • about remind, geektool and text files on macosxhints.com
3. mini hipster pda and assorted pieces of paper: I’ve absorbed the idea of collecting together pieces of paper with a paper clip and then tear the notes off when I’ve completed the tasks, that’s right. Since it’s difficult to get hold of the 3×5 sheets as originally suggested in 43folders, I use either a stack of my old business cards, or something similar which I usually “borrow” from my office. The good thing is to lay these papers on my table back home and “fill in the blanks” (inserisci la foto qui).
4. post-it: well, difficult to get rid of these yellow things ! The grocery list is for example something that invariably comes up in my mind while at work, so I write down on a post-it which I then put into my wallet for later use.

All of this is pretty simple and straightforward stuff, but to actually read how many people are bothered by these side-issues and the way they deal with them was a little revelation and a big help to sort out my problematic approach to “do things”.

intermezzo (about blogs)

I know, I said I was going to talk about cars, motorbikes, photography and other crap… then my first ‘real’ post is about TV shows.
Well, I suppose that’s the beauty of blogging, the reason why I’m comfortable with it, the fact that I can write about pretty much about anything even if I don’t have a ‘master plan’.

And then, at least for the moment, these pages are read by me, myself and I (cit.De La Soul).

tv shows (1)

I don’t watch too much tv.
My beatiful LCD widescreen TV has a quiet life with me; not too much zapping (surely a source of stress not only for the zapper -me-, but also for the zapped -the tv-).
Every once in a while, when I’m stuck at home during the weekends (a rare event), I watch MotoGP or Superbike races. News, and what goes on in the world? I prefer the internet or the good old radio. Anyway I never dig too much in those subjects.
It was different when I was living in the UK, I must say; BBC news was at first a great way to learn spoken english (then I realized also the true meaning of unbiased news, a luxury that we don’t have here in Italy).

Anyway, I’m digressing. The point is that, even if I don’t like TV, I love good TV shows. I love them for the same reason I love long, lengthy books such as The Stand or Crime & Punishment. I love them because I fall in love with the characters, and I like to see them and follow their lives for more than two hours.

My first show has been Friends (thanks to Sabrina, who’s the only person I know with all the 10 series of Friends in DVD, all original !); then I got to know Sopranos, this time after Daniele’s recommendation. And then other shows, but I’d like now to spend a few more words on these two shows.

Friends is light; incredibly funny, I can watch any episode over and over again, and still have fun and laugh or at least smile. True, the characters don’t evolve much; but I take it as feeling-good pill, just to laugh and smile and sometimes even cry (well, close to it).

Sopranos is dark; I love the guys, I love the dark humour, I love the way it’s beatifully crafted and directed, almost as much as a full-feature movie, and more importantly I’m deeply in love with the characters; Paulie, Chrissie, Sil, Adriana, Meadow, not to mention Tony of course.

la versione in italiano

Riprendo quanto scritto poc’anzi e lo passo attraverso il mio
transl-o-matic cosicche’ possa essere compreso anche dal cane di mia
cugina (che essendo di Andria, non capisc l’ingleis).
La mia intenzione e’ di scrivere, anzi chiacchierare, di:

• motori (auto, moto, e qualsiasi cosa abbia le ruote; per cui sono
  inclusi anche mountain bike, pardon, rampichino come dice Dylan, e i
  pattini in linea o rollerblade — come vengono comunemente chiamati);
• montagna, anzi alpinismo (roba nuova nuova per me, molto affascinante);
• mac (intendo quei simpatici computer bianchi della apple… quella
  roba tipo iPod, capito ?)
• fotografia (cercando di stare alla larga da quel geekish instinct
  che mi porterebbe a parlare della mia attrezzatura fotografica, a
  discapito delle foto in se’).

Statv bbun.
Stay tuned.

back on track

So now I was thinking “hey should I write this in english or in italian” ?
Will I have more english or italian readers ? Kind of silly question, isn’t it.
So I decided: no rules on the language here. Anyway, the content is what really matters.
And I agree, there’s no content here (yet).
So let’s move on. This is what I plan to write on:

• motorbikes & cars (and everything else that’s got wheels, i.e. mountain bikes and rollerblades);
• mountaineering (kind of a new thing, have a look at my page on flickr to see where I got the bug);
• macs and other tech-related stuff (let’s say I was born as a computer geek and then evolved with time to become a full-sided person; but I am still one that prefers reading Wired as my news source)
• photography; after motorbikes, my only other long term passion