iPhone Document Scanner

I’m a big fan of the iPhone, and I frequently try to find new and interesting ways to use it. I frequently take pictures because it’s always with me. The images aren’t as nice as a dedicated camera, but it helps me remember things I see. The best part was the pictures would eventually end up in my iPhoto library, which I back up regularly. In theory, once the pictures reached my computer, they would never be lost. So far it’s worked extremely well, as even after several replacements, and an upgrade from 2g to 3g after my iPhone was stolen, I still have every picture ever taken on my iPhone.

A couple weeks into the first quarter of classes last year, after already failing to be organized, i realized I could snap pictures of assignments, throw away the paper, and keep a little bit of my sanity. Here are some of the first scans (click for larger view):

There was more than one occasion when I had to ask someone for the entire document because mine was blurry, but it served as a permanent reminder that i had at one time had these documents in my possession. One step above losing something I guess.

As I started to use my technique at my co-op job I was still frustrated by the inconsistency in taking pictures of documents. After some sketching, prototyping and experimenting, I developed a stand that would help take a perfect picture of 8.5″ x 11″ documents. Here’s how to put together the mdf version, which is available for sale in my Ponoko Showroom, and some resulting images:

A cardboard version of the iPhone Socument Scanner is also available for sale in my Ponoko Showroom:

Because you are taking these pictures using your iPhone, they are instantly available for emailing, uploading to flickr and facebook, twittering, or even capturing to Evernote. Check out more about how I use this with Evernote in my next post, Capture to Evernote with the iPhone Document Scanner.

The Internet Thinks You Suck

I made a decision that this week would be different. I would get more things done, in less time, and have more time for family, fun, and side projects. I arrived at work, and there’s nothing that has to be done until something is passed along, so what’s the first thing I did? NOT open google reader, like I usually do. I opened my email to check for anything pressing that came up over the weekend. Nada. I decided I needed to read one little blog post, or find something that would spark my motivation to push through this week.

And so, I re-read a couple short posts regarding “How to use 43 Folders”. More specifically, I quickly glanced over Making Time to Make, Whining, Blue Smoke & the Mechanics of Getting Unstuck, and Cringe-Busting your TODO list. Then, something clicked:

I came to the realization that I never thought I sucked until the internet told me so. I said to myself, “Self why do you think you need so much help. Remember when you used to function without everyone else’s advice? Because I sure do.” And with that, I closed all of the windows I had open, and walked away from my desk.

During the short period of time where I completed some real work involving fumes which may or may not eventually damage my kidneys, I felt amazing. It was as though I had finally been able to block out all the noise thats been bugging me. I listened to some music, instead of a podcast. I love me some podcasts, but good grief, how many reviews about gadgets, games, movies and technology that you’ll never own, play, see or use can you actually stand to listen to?

I came back to my desk and sat down to write about my recent realization. I decided to take one more look at 43 Folders, just to see how Merlin described his site in his own words. In the hour I was away, I was surprised to find 43f Program Note: The Week Our Gears Shift had been posted, and I quickly read through Better.

It’s kind of ironic actually. I had thought some of the same things while I let my brain clear. With all of these blogs about productivity, hacking your life, and Getting Things Done, the wide reach of the internet has tricked us, and made us think that our own way of living and doing things isn’t good enough. I thought of some rough guidelines for what I could do every day, but Merlin has already thought this through:

• identify and destroy small-return bullshit;
• shut off anything that’s noisier than it is useful;
• make brutally fast decisions about what I don’t need to be doing;
• avoid anything that feels like fake sincerity (esp. where it may touch money);
• demand personal focus on making good things;
• put a handful of real people near the center of everything.

I’m glad that I came back to see how Merlin described his site, because in the hour I was busy, he decided to say something different. I had actually sworn off most websites, including 43 Folders, but I’m glad to know someone is on the same page.

This quote just popped in my head, and seems appropriate:

“When you have good people, doing things right, success is only a matter of time.”

- Mike Mueller, Varsity Basketball Coach for Lakota West High School

P.S. - Merlin,  it’s quite obvious that your personal site has inspired the basic design for this site, and changing it is on my to do list. However, I have some other things that are making me cringe. For some reason, I think you’ll understand…

Hannah Montana and Identity on the Web

I remember when I first discovered that Hannah Montana and Miley Ray Cyrus were the same person. I was watching happened to catch an episode one day and was so confused when the same girl was called two different names. Then, my wife sang the lyrics to “The Best of Both Worlds,” and it became clear. She wanted to keep her rock star life and normal day to day life private, save for close friends and family.

After reading Louis Gray’s post How One Would-be Web Friend Turned Into a Stalker In Months, I felt extremely uncomfortable. What if this situation happened to me? Am I doing anything on the web that puts my family or I at risk?

One of the problems with the web, as opposed to reality, is that you can’t tell when people are shady. The guy with a beard and big dark sunglasses with a weird smirk is someone you would probably walk away from in real life, but on the web he may be able to portray himself as a friendly ice cream truck driver and lover of puppies who collects rusty staples. Although not the best example, you get my point.

Often times, its easy to look at someone’s profile and get an idea about the kind of person they are. I’d like to think that crazy people are less successful at making themselves appear normal than actual normal people, but sadly, i know this is not the case. I recently questioned my own stalker rating when on my way to pick up an AC unit from a twitter friend who offered to let me borrow it. She left it on the porch, and it was about 9 pm when I picked it up. I wondered if I should knock, or call, or anything to let her know I had taken it. As I was afraid of scaring her or sending the wrong message, I settled on a text message and a tweet. I seriously hope this was not viewed as an effort to be unsocial.

A couple months ago, a friend came over to our apartment and showed me stickam for the first time. He set up his macbook pro, and in minutes we were streaming live on the web. I watched the numbers steadily increase, as we continued our normal conversation. I was then introduced to someone that wanted to help bring an idea of mine to fruition, as my friend talked me up as the head of a crazy cool hip new company. I thought what are we doing? I’m not this guy, won’t he be upset if he finds out? And then, it clicked.

“We’re in Japan right now,” I said. “You should come if you ever get the chance.”

The room was abuzz as people thought we were actually in Japan. And for a moment, I knew what it was like to be Hannah Montana.

I used to view the internet as a place to escape the real world. Through videogames, meeting unknown people, and using screennames that only hint at what you’re really about. But when twitter came along, it made it easy to meet new people, online, as myself. If they found me or what I had to say interesting, they could follow me, and vice versa. About this time, multiple members of my family and church started joining facebook. I let the invites sit for a couple days as I questioned wether I wanted my online life to be seen by everyone, but then I realized that this is bringing us one step closer to an actual world wide web of connectivity, and the fact that my family wanted to join was amazing.

I really don’t want to rely on a false identity to share my ideas or content on the web, as it really seems like we’re moving towards a more internet friendly world, where everyone can be themselves and find a place that feels like home. After writing a couple paragraphs about how I plan to protect my privacy, I don’t even know if thats a good idea… How do you protect yourself when interacting with people you’ve never actually met?

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

While taking a break from the stream of projects here at work, I came across a post titled Already Worrying written by Kyle Dylan Conner. To sum it up, he’s considering applying to colleges but is worried about living on his own in New York or Philadelphia. It got me thinking about my experience applying to colleges UC.

Yes, I applied to one school. I always feel like an idiot  (or some type of a douche) when people ask where I applied, and respond simply with UC. Kids in highschool gave me crap about it, and even a couple teachers seemed let down. Why would I leave my entire future up to a single piece of paper? Because for the first time in my life, I knew exactly what I wanted to be.

I went through the majority of my highschool career thinking I wanted to go the University of Cincinnati, and become an engineer. I liked math, because I was good at it, and it came to me pretty easily.  Because engineering requires math skills, the easy decision was to become an engineer. UC was the obvious choice for college because it was close to home, has a great co-op program, and my parents are alumni. So it was settled, I would become an engineer… or so I thought.

I attended an information session about engineering at UC, and was so bored out of my mind I didn’t know what to do with myself. Nothing felt right. The students up front talking about their major, and all the cool things they were doing were not people I wanted to be like. Nothing against engineers, my cousin is a great one, but it just wasn’t for me. I felt like I was lost, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.

Looking back, its quite obvious to me that I should have considered some alternative careers. By sophomore year in highschool, I would rarely complete math assignments, just enough to get the concepts (or the grades, if completion was required) and would constantly find myself figuring out new concepts on actual tests and quizzes. Yet my favorite classes were journalism and web design. I had already ruled out journalism as a potential major because I didn’t really enjoy writing about things around the school, but I found my niche in the school newspaper as the graphics editor my sophomore year. The following year I became managing editor and we put out some great issues with well-written articles, interesting spreads, and fantastic opinions/reviews. I decided not to return to the paper for my senior year after some internal censorship issues regarding a cover illustration I did and the unrelated resignation of our advisor. And so, senior year began, with no clear career in sight.

I knew UC had a really good design school, and arcitechture seemed like the perfect balance between art and math. I signed up for another information session at UC , and made the short trek to see if I could create buildings for the rest of my life. I made it through the entire presentation, including question and answer, before I realized I hadn’t seen a single model, drawing, or picture of a building. This was not the architecture tour. I had been on the industrial design tour the entire time. Everything was so cool, and interesting, and the student giving the tour talked about his co-op at hasbro, and other cool jobs his friends had. I liked what these people were doing, who they were, and I wanted to be one of them.

Explaining to my parents that I wanted to be a designer, based on this tour that I fell into because I got lost and was late getting to UC, was kind strange. Although it wasn’t quite what they had in mind for me, they were extremely supportive, and based on the early application process and my current grades and test scores, I was almost guaranteed a spot in the program. So I mailed in one application, and felt all the worry about what I wanted to be just melt away.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that you will find your place, possibly when you least expect it. Or maybe its not even about finding your place, but finding the confidence, inspiration, or ideas you need to succeed and do what you want to do.

I can’t help but think about Will Smith’s character in I am Legend and how he drove around listening to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” all day, even though he was living in the one of the worst situations imaginable. All he had was his dog, surrounded by a lot of nothingness, but he still stayed motivated. He kept doing what he was good at, despite the fact that his future was as unclear as everyone else.

GTD, Evernote and Me

This morning I made the decision to go with evernote as my primary method of storage for information such as links, ideas, lists, and anything else that I may need to remember later. Being able to access the same bank of information from my mac, iPhone, or any other computer connected to the net is quite interesting. The ability to capture relevant information from a website along with the URL is nice too, in case the site changes, is unavailable, or I just want to have all the info i found related to dog training or an upcoming vacation in one “notebook” or entry. The transition to evernote will take some time, but I hope to be in full evernote mode by the end of the week.

I was quited excited as I tinkered with evernote this morning, storing clips left and right, until i came across this story from IT Wire, discussing the imminent release of Del.icio.us 2.0. I don’t have the time to look for potential new features in the new delicious just now, but I’m starting to question my current method of marking sites for later reference. Why would I want to store a link to important information, which I may never go back to, when I could just store the important information in a resource that is always accessible? This isn’t to say that I don’t find the community aspect of delicious extremely helpful, as I have come across quite a few helpful sites that i would not have found without it.

For now I’m going to go with evernote full time, and see if it comes through as it claims, but I plan to continue using del.icio.us, and I’ll wait and see what the new upgrade brings to the service.

Real Artists Ship (or don’t fall in love)

I have a problem: I like to spend a lot of my time fiddling with things that are unimportant. I’ve been spending way too much time focusing on the technical aspects of a blog and how to set it up that I have been ignoring the most important part: creating, posting and sharing original content. 

This morning as I started looking for things to distract me during my day here at work I considered upgrading my wordpress install. I thought about backing up my posts, going through all the steps and making sure everything was ready. Instead, I trashed it. All the old stuff is gone, it’s not that important.

My design communications professer this past year would often say “don’t fall in love with your designs.” I was confused. Why wouldn’t we want to love the things we produce? Because there comes a point when “loving” what you make isn’t the right thing to do. When you fall in love with what you’re working on, you get too invested. You waste too much time. You skip over problems and glaring mistakes that have been there from the begining. Granted, content and products will always have problems, but that’s what revisions and new models are for.

When people fall in love with something, they are often heartbroken when something bad happens: a dog eats your homework, or your hard drive crashes, or you lose all your followers on twitter. People went bat guano crazy over the whole twitter thing! And for what reason? They had invested too much time, and “love” into a service they had no business trusting or loving that much. I’ll admit I’m a big fan of the twitter, but there are periods of time where I stay far, far away, just because it can eat your life… sometimes when life is happening right around you.

The important part of creating content is creating the content. Getting out there, and getting seen with cool, new original ideas on a consistent basis is far more important than making that one thing that people may or may not like.

The basis of these thoughts was seeded to my brain while listening to a past episode of “This Week in Tech,” there was mention of a Steve Jobs quote, “real artists ship.” I couldn’t find the exact story, but i don’t think its important. Looking at Apple and their success with computers, iPods and now the iPhone, its quite clear that their products are never perfect (iPhone 3G launch for example) but most of the glaring issues can always be fixed later.  

This blog isn’t perfect, and it never will be. It’s just a blog: a place for me to share ideas.