Efficient E-Mail

I spent last week traveling around the United States. I had to go to Los Angeles for work during the first half of the week and then to visit my son with his family in Ohio. During that time, I built up quite a bit of e-mail and so I spent today going through all the messages I put off until I got home.

While in Los Angeles, I got to spend some face-to-face time with my boss and could see that he has very few e-mails sitting in his inbox. I consistently have over 100, and that is much better than I used to be when I had close to 1000. I could still improve and so I hope to share a few tricks that I hope to use more myself.

Growing up my dad always counseled that you should try to touch an item only once. He generally meant that for cleaning up the house but it also applies to efficiency with e-mail. When you get and receive an e-mail, you should try to deal with it immediately instead of going through all of your messages and then going back to respond to the important ones. This is an area where I could use some help.

My wife is someone that likes everything put away. If she sees something out, she will put it away. If it is a new item and there is no home for it, she will make one, sometimes without telling me where it ended up and so I have to hunt for it. I tend to let things rest on a shelf or counter for way too long. The same holds true for my inbox. Most e-mail programs have folders to help you sort and keep those important messages. I have started creating folders but could probably be better at it. Then so many e-mails won't clutter my inbox.

Finally, not all e-mails need to be saved. This is one area I am great at. I have my trash folder set to delete messages after 1 to 2 months depending upon if it is my personal or work e-mail. Should I accidentally delete something, I can always rummage through the trash and find it for a short time. There are a lot of unneeded e-mails that can be deleted and so don't feel bad throwing them away.

I'm sure there are a few more ways to keep your inbox down to only a few messages. I would be interested in finding out other tricks so don't hesitate to leave a comment and let me know what works for you.

Web Browser Troubles

A few weeks ago I went to Disneyland with my wife and oldest grandson. We found an incredible deal at one of the Disney hotels and booked the trip for a huge discount. I bundled my park tickets with the hotel and all seemed to go well. Then I tried to make park reservations. Unfortunately I couldn't. I thought maybe because I didn't fully pay for the trip and so I paid for everything. A few days later I tried to make the park reservations. I ended up calling a reservation specialist. She told me to try using Chrome as my problems were related to my browser. I didn't believe her but did as she said. Guess what? She was right.

A few days after getting my Disney reservations sorted out, I tried reserving a rental car from Hertz. I attempted to log in using my favorite browser only to have it spin endlessly and never get to the login-successful page. At first I thought it might be because I used the wrong password. Then I remembered my experience with the Disney website and pulled up Chrome to see if it was the same problem. Changing to Chrome worked and I was able to log in. Ultimately I went with another rental car company as they had a less expensive option. It isn't always the case as I have a great discount with Hertz.

It used to be that Netscape was the standard browser and everyone tried to be bug-for-bug compatible with it. That means that they tried to mimic all aspects of the browser, including the bugs. Netscape became Mozilla and is now known as Firefox. Now it seems that Chrome has displaced Firefox as the browser that everyone uses as a baseline for compatibility testing. If you go to use your favorite browser at a website and it doesn't seem to behave correctly, try Chrome. If it still doesn't behave then its not you, its the website.

Playing with Spotify

I know I have compared Spotify and Pandora in the past and so I don't need to do that again. I am currently doing a project at work that ties in data from Spotify. Any time I look at data, I try to use the tool that generated it so I am more familiar with where it comes from. While normally I like to listen to Pandora, I have spent the last week and a half listening to Spotify.

Ultimately we are all prefer using tools we know. As I have more experience with Pandora, that is pretty much what I have stuck to. I felt like Spotify was way more complicated and felt like it took way too long to get configured correctly. Part of that is because I didn't understand how playlists are created. With Pandora, I could pick my favorite band and similar music from other artists automatically appears on the channel. With Spotify, only that group's music is on the channel. What I ended up doing was listening to one group for a while, selecting my favorite songs, and having them added to my "favorites" channel. Then I would do the same thing with another group. Once I felt like I had enough music, I could listen to just my "favorites" playlist.

While that is one way to create your own playlist on Spotify, it isn't the only way. Yesterday I discovered that I could just search for my favorite songs and add them without having to wait for them to appear. Now I can just think of a song I like and instantly add it to my favorites. That is a big win for me as I don't like every single song from my favorite groups. Let's be honest, some songs do not illustrate the best talent of certain bands. I watched an interview with Eddie Van Halen once and he admitted that he hated playing "Dance the Night Away" and just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible every time it came up at a concert. So I guess I am not alone in this area.

There is a problem with only listening to your favorite songs: your list never grows because you never hear anything new. I guess the solution is to try other playlists every so often. While I generally only listen to artist-specific lists, they do have general categories as well. I'm not a fan of popular music and so I will avoid those.

After a week and a half of listening to Spotify, I have it set up with the right songs currently. Unfortunately I ran into a technical issue this morning during my daily bike ride. I rode indoors because of the rain and like to listen to music when I am not outside. I started Spotify only to have it freeze on me. I restarted the application only to have the same problem. I tried a number of fixes but ultimately went back to Pandora for my morning ride. The sad thing is I prefer Spotify now as my playlist is perfectly dialed in. Oh well.

Not a Fan of Samsung Laser Printers

Before I thrash on Samsung, I have to point out that I work for Sony and the two companies compete with each other in a number of areas. That means my opinion is not unbiased. Fortunately I am not writing about a product that Sony makes and so I hope this comes across as a bit more objective.

Several years ago I needed a color laser printer. I had gotten tired of using color inkjet printers and wanted to try the laser technology. I shopped around and found a great deal on a Samsung CLP-315W printer. It worked as expected for a while and then the print quality went downhill. I tried cleaning the printer and various other solutions. The one that actually worked was replacing the toner cartridges. Then it started working great again.

I am getting low on toner and so I looked at getting new cartridges. Samsung recommends using only theirs, as you would expect and so I looked all over the Internet to get name-brand replacement cartridges. I found some on Amazon and ordered them. It surprised me when they shipped out of the UK but I waited patiently for them to arrive. They showed up a week later and I immediately loaded them into the printer. They didn't work at all.

Any time something doesn't work on the first try, I do a bit of Internet searching and make sure it is not a user error. I found a number of articles that talk about resetting the page counter. I thought that might be necessary and then I discovered how to get the page count via the printer's web interface. I just had to know the IP address of my printer and point my browser at it. The page counter showed me that each of the cartridges had no pages printed but also that the cartridges didn't have any toner. After playing around with the printer for a week, I decided to send the cartridges back.

Amazon is a great place to order stuff because of their return policy. The catch is if they send you something from abroad. In order to get my refund, I had to ship them back to the UK and was only allotted  $20 for shipping. While Amazon may be able to ship overseas for that price, it cost me significantly more than that. While I will get some of my money back, I am out $60 because of shipping costs to return the defective toner cartridges. I have learned my lesson with Amazon and will not order anything from overseas ever again. I am actually going to cut back what I order from them because of this experience.

So now I am stuck with a laser printer that either needs to be replaced or I need to find replacement cartridges for it. My gut feel is to take to the top of a really tall cliff and watch it explode after I throw it off the top. Unfortunately the responsible person in me doesn't want to have to find the million little pieces it will become as leaving any of them is littering. E-wasting the printer is probably more socially responsible.

I could also try off-brand cartridges but am not sure that is the right choice as I have not had great luck with them. My experience is that they work for about half the life of the cartridge and then the print quality starts suffering. I really would like to get the full life out of whatever I purchase.

Ultimately I am thinking of finding another brand of printer that doesn't have nearly as many problems as I have had with my Samsung. I have always had great luck with Hewlett Packard printers and may pay the premium for their product. At least I know their printers work when you replace their toner cartridges.

It's Just a Number

This morning I couldn't go on my usual 9am bicycle ride because of a meeting with some people in London. I had to wait until the end of the meeting and then quickly changed before heading out. We are having a heatwave here in the Western United States and I felt it today. Normally it is about 75 degrees Fahrenheit but today was closer to 85 on my morning ride.

I thought about the temperature as I rode delirious from the heat. It really is just a number and means different things depending upon circumstances. Think about being outside in 68 degrees Fahrenheit which is the same as 20 degrees Celsius. In the middle of a winter month like February, someone from Boston might think it warm enough to wear shorts. In the middle of a summer month like July, someone from Phoenix might put on a sweater. It validates that if you really want to know what the temperature is, go outside and see for yourself.

Now think about the different scales we use to determine temperature. Daniel Fahrenheit decided to base his numbers with 100 being the temperature of the human body. Yes, he was off by a degree or so, but back then accuracy left something to be desired. He set 0 at the lowest temperature he could get a salt-water mixture. I always thought it was the extremes for human comfort. Knowing the real origin now makes more sense as modern humans are only comfortable between 68 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. That is why we invented air conditioning and central heat.

Contrast the Fahrenheit scale with the rest of the world that uses Celsius. Celsius is very scientific in that 0 defines the temperature that fresh water freezes at sea level and 100 is the temperature it boils. Notice all of the qualifications. That is because water boils at a lower temperature at higher elevation and freezes at a lower temperature if there is salt in it.

So what does this have to do with anything relating to computers? That is a great question. Computers are really good with numbers. They can add and subtract with amazing speed. In order for those numbers to make any sense, they have to be assigned units of measure. Before Italy replaced their currency at the beginning of 2002 with the Euro, there used to be a game with a local radio station called, "Who Wants to be an Italian Millionaire?" At the time 1 million lira used to be worth something like $20 and if you answered a few questions correctly, you received enough winnings to buy lunch. In other words, units of measure really matter. While my computer may tell me the value of a recent calculation, it only makes sense in the context of what was asked. If the result doesn't make sense, then look at the units of measure. Remember that when you look at the temperature outside if it ever says 293 degrees. The unit of measure just might be in Kelvin, yet another way to describe if it is hot or cold outside.

Nostalgia with Funimation

One of my new projects at Sony is working with the Funimation team, which is part of Sony Pictures. I've known about Funimation but never played with the anime site until now. In an effort to understand the business, I've been doing some research. I have to say that I love my new job.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was in middle school, I watched about 6 episodes of the Japanese anime Star Blazers. I never really got into anime except for Speed Racer and Star Blazers. At the time, I didn't know anime was anything other than cartoons. Anyways, I really liked Star Blazers and was sad I never could find any more episodes . . . until now.

In the United States, cartoons are generally for kids with a few exceptions. Anime can be found for all ages and so you have to choose your shows carefully. Some shows contain rather adult content. Rather than watch just any anime, I went back to my childhood and started watching Star Blazers. I wish Funimation had existed back when I was a kid as I am sure I would have enjoyed the content a lot more. It is still fun to catch up on the story as well as earlier episodes I never got to see.

Sony recently purchased Crunchyroll and has similar content. The two services are in the process of being combined and you will be able to get all of the anime content you want from a single place. I doubt it will change my entertainment habits much as I prefer live-action movies. If you are already into anime then you already know about Crunchyroll. If you are looking for another choice in streaming entertainment, then feel free to check either service out.

Please remember that I work for Sony and so this isn't an unbiased opinion about anime content providers. It is not meant to be. I just discovered both services and wanted to share.

Book Review: Clean Code

At KLAS Research I had one of my employees recommend that we get a bunch of copies of the book Clean Code by Robert C. Martin and give them out to all of the software developers on the team. Having never read the book, I picked up a copy from Amazon and it arrived at my house that very evening. I didn't even have to go to the local bookstore, which actually is one of my favorite activities. I wanted to read it before I recommended that the company purchase the $50 book.

I immediately started reading it and felt it had some great ideas that every software developer should learn. I recommended it to one of my engineers and she checked it out from the library before I even made the decision if it is worth getting for everyone. She found value and wisdom within its pages.

Ultimately I decided not the purchase copies for everyone on the team because it had a number of ideas that I disagree with. The book uses Java for almost all of the coding examples. It then goes on to say that there are very few differences between computer programming language choices and the principles in the book can be applied to the vast majority of them. I completely disagree. I am not a fan of Java because I think it requires too many lines of code to do anything useful. You can do so much more with Python in significantly fewer lines. Furthermore, while some of the suggestions in the book will help with Java, they are not needed for Python.

Computer programming languages all have their pros and cons, which is why there are so many of them. When it comes to data science, which is what I am doing now at Sony, most people choose between Python or R. Even then R is better for statistical computations while Python is better for machine learning and general-purpose programs. Java has its place too, but I wouldn't use it for data science as it is too cumbersome.

Going back to the book, Clean Code. I found it to be very helpful and it outlined a lot of concepts that will help you become a better coder. It talks about tried-and-true things like self-documenting variables and that if you have to use extensive comments to describe what your code is doing, you may want to rethink what you wrote. I also like the concept of when you fix bugs, to take that time to make the code simpler and easier to read. If you are looking to improve your own coding skills or are just getting into coding, the book will help you a lot. I'm not sure I can justify the high price for the book though and recommend finding it at the library or looking for a great deal on a used copy.