Cinnamon Update #2

I switched a week or so ago to 1800 mg in the morning and 1800 mg at night.

Today's blood pressure reading: 124/73. This is about what my blood pressure is normally. So it appears that cinnamon does not affect my blood pressure. I'll go to the doctor in a few weeks and get my cholesterol checked.

Good Habits of Regular Givers

Tonight in our annual church business meeting I shared the following "Good Habits of Regular Givers" with our church members:

• Whenever the Lord gives to you, you always remember to give some back (Deut. 16:17, Prov. 3:9-10, Mal. 3:8).
• You commit to regular giving (I Cor. 16:2, Mat 23:23).
• You give to special needs as the Lord leads and the opportunity arises (Luke 7:37-38).
• You cheerfully (I Cor. 9:7) give a personally substantive (Mat 12:44) offering.
• You pray about your giving (I Thes 5:17).
• You order your finances to make it possible to give (II Cor. 8:12).
• You work to get, and you work to give (Eph. 4:28).
• You get in order to give; you don’t give in order to get (Prov. 11:24-25, Luke 6:38, II Cor. 9:11).
• If you want to give more, you pray for God’s increased blessing (Jas 4:12, II Cor. 8:5).
• If you want to give more, you work harder to earn more (Prov. 10:4).
• If you want to give more, you make a financial sacrifice (Acts 2:45).
• You give because God is pleased when you give (Heb. 13:15-16).
• You give because giving yields treasure in heaven (Phil. 4:17-18, II Cor 9:6, Mat. 6:19-20).
• You give because giving results in thanksgiving and praise to God (II Cor. 9:12).

Toddler's Creed

This is credited to Elisa Morgan, president of MOPS International (Mothers of PreSchoolers).

Toddler's Creed

If I want it, it's mine.
If I give it to you and change my mind later, it's mine.
If I can take it away from you, it's mine.
If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
If it's mine, it will never belong to anyone else, no matter what.
If we are building something together, all the pieces are mine.
If it looks just like mine, it is mine.

Boy that hits close to home. :)

Favorite OS X Gizmos & Gadgets Redux

In my other post below I said "SoundSource" by RogueAmoeba but I've since discovered a better freebie utility called "Detour." It does the same thing as SoundSource, only you can set the input audio and output audio on an application-by-application basis. Very cool, and it has instantly replaced SoundSource.

Another gizmo I use that I forgot about is "Mouse Locator" by 2point5fish.com. This little gizmo does one simple thing: when the mouse has been inactive for a specified amount of time, and you move the mouse, it puts a large bulls-eye over the mouse so you can locate it visually immediately. Since I installed it, not once have I lost the cursor on my screen. That, combined with the built-in OS X ability to increase the size of the cursor, has greatly lessened by frustration with moving the mouse round and round in a little circle in order to find the crazy thing.

Digital packrat

I have a 100 GB hard drive in my PowerBook.

I have an 80 GB hard drive in an external enclosure. I use it for long-term, live archives of student work, digital photos and other things.

I have a 60 GB hard drive in an external enclosure. I use it for daily backups of my documents and applications folders.

I have 20 CDs and DVDs with digital photos that I've taken.

I have 30 other backup CDs and DVDs.

I have an information bank on my computer with 100 MB of text information gleaned from newsgroups, email, etc. all about computer programming, running servers, computer software, etc.

I have several huge websites.

I have 421 little notes/memos on my PDA about all kinds of things, ideas I'm working on, things I don't want to forget, little informational tidbits, etc.

Who is ever going to look through this stuff when I'm gone?

Who is ever going to know the programs on my PowerBook and how to use them efficiently when I'm gone?

Who is ever going to know how to run my server when I'm gone?

Who will take care of my websites? Who will care what I've written in my blog?

No one. No one will care about my photos, my programs, my server.

But that's fine with me because all of these things enhance the quality of my life. Occasionally I cull stuff out. Occasionally I consolidate. Occasionally I compile.

There's little difference between this kind of digital packratting, having 5 or 6 file drawers or boxes filled with clippings, or having drawers and shelves filled with occasionally-used tools. In fact the analogy is quite close, in my opinion. One type of packratting is analog, the other two are digital. I'm pretty good at the analog kind--my files and workbench are fairly neat. I'm getting better at the digital kind--tools are improving, I'm getting better at keeping things organized. There's a sense of satisfaction in being able to lay hands on the information or tool whenever I need it for my work or recreation. In fact, I am immensely satisfied when I can search at will for information and lay hands on it within seconds or minutes.

It's a lot of fun.

My Favorite OS X Gizmos & Gadgets

There are some software and hardware gizmos for OS X I can't do without. Some are free, as noted, and some are shareware which I have paid for. I always pay for shareware I use. Here are the top 7.

1. XMenu adds a menu to the menubar that can be configured however you like with folders aliases & file aliases. I don't have to run to a finder window and access the Applications folder to find any app I want to run. I like to have a list of aliases of my most-used apps, and then aliases of my most-used folders (like Documents), for handy access. Freeware, from devon-technologies.com.
2. iSeek from ambrosiasw.com. Allows you to define searches that can be accessed from your menu bar. Kind of like Spotlight for the Net. Shareware.
3. SoundSource from Rogue Amoeba Software. This handy gizmo allows you to switch between input sources and output destinations. Handy if you have things like a Griffin iMic and a powerbook, where you might have the iMic plugged in with speakers attached, or a mic in the iMic, or you might be completely portable and want to use the internal speakers and the internal mic. Plays well with the Sound preferences pane in System Preferences. Freeware.
4. Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard. I have a 5-button mouse (actually, 2 of them, one for home and one for work). The Microsoft Mouse preferences panel is outstanding for allowing you to control the mouse buttons and functions.The Microsoft Wireless Ergonomic Keyboard is also outstanding. I don't use the wireless mouse because it doesn't have forward and back buttons for browsing, which I find indispensible on the mouse. The Mouse is Intellimouse Optical 1.1A USB. I'm not a Microsoft fan, but they got this one right.
5. TinkerTool and TinkerTool System. Indispensible. TinkerTool is freeware, TTSystem is shareware. Highly recommended for both setting hidden systems prefs and settings, and for performing periodic system maintenance. By Marcel Bresink Software-Systeme.
6. Synk. I don't hear much about this backup utility, but I find it performs flawlessly for what I need. I need to be able to plug my external hard drive in and backup certain folders. I need to be able to either archive the changes or throw them away. I need it to work in the background. Works perfectly. From http://www.decimus.net/synk/.
7. There's a little gizmo that I have forgotten the name. It's somewhere on my hard drive. But what it does is so important. It switches the function of apple-N and shift-apple-N in the Finder. When I remember where it is, I'll post it.

That's it. My top 7. Enjoy.

Managing info Digitally

I used to have all my little "pieces of info" on pieces of paper, spiral notebooks, etc.

Then I graduated to a Franklin Planner, and used that during the mid-80s well into the late 90s.

Then I got a PDA and incorporated all that into my trusty Handspring Pro, which I still use. I wore out my first one, I'm on #2.

Managing information in my computer is another issue. I've tried several things--word documents, FileMaker Pro databases, Entourage, and now a nice program called "DevonThink Pro."

All those emails I want to save, bits and pieces of info related to education, business, personal, etc. all are stuffed in a DevonThink Pro database. It's 100 MB but now it's finally all consolidated (been working for some months). I still have a few things to sort and split (to transfer from FM Pro to DevonThink it was necessary to export multiple records as long text files, and now they have to be re-split into records). Ah well it give me a chance to cull out unimportant/outdated stuff.

DevonThink Pro is by devontechnologies.com.