Month: September 2022

Technician Tuesday — Learning easier tools

On Monday I wrote about the mindset of always looking for simpler or easier ways to do something.

I got a strong reminder of this last week. I was watching a training video on how to repair or maintain a type of machine. Part of calibration requires a 3 mm spacer. On another similar machine, a 6 mm spacer is required. The degree of accuracy is plus or minus 0.1 mm. If spacers are not available, a person can try to measure if the part which is moving has moved 3 mm (or 6 mm, as the case may be).

I’ve tried measuring the amount of distance the moving parts have traveled when I didn’t have gauges. It was a bit frustrating.

Or, I can now do as the video narrator suggested and use 3 mm and 6 mm Allen wrenches as stand-ins for the gauges. I have 3 mm and 6 mm Allen wrenches. If you’d asked me, I would have said “Of course they are 3 mm or 6 mm between two parallel sides.”

It took someone else to point out to me I can use those 3 mm or 6 mm parallel sides in other applications where I need 3 mm or 6 mm parallel sides.

Yes, I did remind myself humility is good for the soul.

Always be looking!

Mindset Monday: Always be looking.

There’s nothing I do which is new in the history of the world. There’s a lot I do which is new to me. (Or it was new to me at one time.)

There’s always new ideas on how I can do things. Sometimes I find new ideas in unexpected places. Sometimes the new idea is something I was pretty sure I knew and then I find out a much simpler easier way.

The task might be new to me, but there’s someone out who’s done this for years and has tons of experience. I should go find that person, or find something they wrote, and try to learn all I can.

Another way to put this: “I’m completely self-taught!” is often not the bragging point some people think it is.

Technician Tuesday: Finding a way to regularly backup my files.

For many years I backed up my files by creating copies on other disks or other drives. I only did this when I remembered.

This is still the method many people use.

Over ten years ago I went to a presentation by a woman who was speaking about data, electronic files, backups, and so on. She said that she had talked to multiple parents and grandparents who had lost many early pictures of their children because the pictures were on a cell phone, and nowhere else. The cell phone died, and so did the pictures.

I broke out of my own bad habits after reading comments about businesses destroyed by computer crashes. That finally made me appreciate the difference between time and money. The money to buy a replacement computer probably can be found. The time to recreate all the lost files probably cannot be found.

I did install a program which regularly backs up my computer files, some time last year.

There are multiple ways of creating file backups. Currently I’m using Macrium Reflect which creates a disk image. I can also use a program which will only back up certain files and directories I choose. Maximum PC magazine had a recent article listing various useful programs for Windows, including a backup program. I will start going through that list and seeing what I like and what I don’t.

(That decade-ago lecturer also said if you really want to save photos for posterity, print them out. Nothing digital will be as reliable. I believe that, yet that is something I haven’t yet done myself. That will be a project for late this year or early next year, to start picking which photos I want printed and looking into how to get them printed.)

Mindset Monday: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I subscribed two years ago to a service which requests my name and address be removed from people finder and data broker sites.

I’ve received unsolicited advertisements for two similar services within the last few months. The new services are from different sources, one is a VPN company and the other is a credit card company.

Clearly, after the initial proof-of-business-model time, other companies decided this is a viable business. And they created their own versions.

I’ve seen many articles and guides discussing whether a person should be on the bleeding edge of technology, a first adopter, or something else. Usually, it comes down to your personality type. The earlier I adopt new technologies, the greater the chance I’ll find something useful. And the greater the risk I’ll find something which isn’t viable. The service I used had been around for a while before I signed up. At the same time, I’m the only person I know who uses that type of service.

It’s a nice service and I’m glad it’s available. That it’s now being copied reassures me that it will be available for a while.

I looked for something to reference if anyone reading this wanted to know more about adopter types. The best I found is “Diffusion of Innovations Theory” from November 2021 on Investopedia. It has the longest list of creator credits I’ve yet seen: author, reviewer, and fact checker are Clay Halton, Robert C. Kelly, and Yarilet Perez respectively. The theory of diffusion of innovations was created in the 1960s.

Technician Tuesday (a day late): Check every single menu on every single page.

A month ago I wrote a post about adding HTTPS and SSL to this blog. At the time, I had not yet figured out how to do that.

The option was on a page I hadn’t seen at that time. I found the page where I could activate it, slid the slider to “On” and now this blog has HTTPS in the header.

I forgot one of my own habits that has served me well in the past:

When I start using a piece of technology with menus or pages, check every single page and every single menu to see what options are there.

Mindset Monday: Technology will change. Human nature does not.

Each major change in technology brings about claims that it is a new day for civilization and mankind. “It is different this time.” Both you and I have seen those claims about smartphones and the internet today. The same things were said about the industrial revolution and about the rise in literacy after printing press became more common in Europe. I can probably find similar statements written about every single technological advancement in every single field and industry that exists.

All of those statements were wrong. Human nature did not change. Technology changed, and it changed some parts of the world. Technology did not change human nature.

Things which haven’t changed.

We all have limited amounts of time, energy, and attention. We are all unable to trade those things with each other.

  • I cannot buy an hour of your day so you have 23 hours and I have 25 hours in my day.
  • I cannot sell you my ability focus so today you can focus for 12 hours instead of 3 and I can’t focus at all for the rest of this week.
  • There is no millionaire or billionaire who can say “I really ran myself down last week, can someone sell me some of their energy so I keep working on my product launch this week?”

Technology is still created by humans who are very human.

  • Some inventors and creators will create something because they love it and they are creating it for other people who love it.
  • Then there will be inventors and creators who love getting paid above all.
  • And there will be inventors and creators in between those extremes.

How I choose what I use

How much time, energy and attention do I want to spend on this?

Which options are made for my level of expertise?

What is my goal for using this?

Technician Tuesday: Some interesting information about LibreOffice

I just finished reading the 2022 edition of LibreOffice Expert. In yesterday’s post I wrote that “Everything comes somewhere.“

This is definitely true of LibreOffice. It was designed as an alternative to Microsoft Office and it’s gone through multiple incarnations over the years: StarOffice, then OpenOffice, and now LibreOffice.

Because of that, it will in many ways resemble Microsoft Office, with occasional differences. In places the Microsoft Office had definite flaws, LibreOffice has been explicitly written to avoid those flaws. One of those flaws was the ability to apply multiple templates to MS Word documents, which often resulted in file corruption. To avoid that, LibreOffice Write does not allow the user to apply multiple templates to a file.

Overall, LibreOffice Expert is a very good magazine. I learned a lot about how to use LibreOffice. And I learned a lot about why LibreOffice is designed the way it is.

Mindset Monday: Everything comes from somewhere.

Whenever I use a piece of technology, I try to keep in mind that it came from somewhere. Someone created it. Whoever created it had an idea or an ideal in mind when they created it.

So, if I want to use to use a piece of technology, I figure out what my goal is for using it. And then I figure out if the piece of technology was actually made for that use. If I want to record music, I need to use an audio recorder that is made for music recording. Voice recording has different microphones and is designed with different concerns.

Even different devices from the same manufacturer, sold at the same time, can be designed with different purposes.