fplanque: weblog - English

First cool thing that everybody knows already: Mac OSX is based on Unix so you get ssh out of the box.

Second cool thing you may not know: OS X 10.5 actually also comes with an ssh key agent (ssh-agent). That means that, without any additional software (like PuTTY Agent on Windows...), Mac OSX can actually load an encrypted private key into memory and remember it for all subsequent connections...

Third cool thing that almost seems too good to be true: ssh-agent can store the passwords of the encrypted keys into your keychain. Than means that you have to tell it once to remember the decryption password for your key(s) like this:

ssh-add -K .ssh/id_whatever_your_rivate_key_is

And next time you log into your mac and try to ssh somewhere, your private key will be loaded automagically (as long as your keychain is unlocked of course).

Very groovy!!

How many times have you heard "Time is Money"? It's getting pretty old and boring, isn't it?

Well here's a new thought: Time is just like Money! Especially: you can't just wait until you find it... if you want some, you have to make it! And in both cases: you have to develop skills to do that!

Think!

I just finished reading "the dip" by Seth Godin. I actually didn't really know what the book was about and I basically picked it up just because it was less than $10 and because I loved previous books by Seth Godin (no doubt he's one of the greatest marketers of our generation!)

Well I'm glad I did. This is a small 76 page book, so it was pretty easy and fast to read! Actually, it could probably be even shorter and still make its point! But wow! More than making a point this book will actually pep you up and motivate you to hang in with your projects... or to quit before wasting any more time. Basically it tells you that the worst thing is to stay on a dead end track...

But for me, the most interesting part was the motivational part about how the dip before success is a normal thing to experience. If a project didn't have that painful phase where nothing seems easy and where you feel like you want to quit, then that project probably wouldn't be worth pursuing anyway... since just anyone else could do the same.

This is exactly the kind of stuff I want to read right now, with the down economy and everyone around loosing their energy.

Of course, the book also made me realize that a couple of my projects were sort of dead ends and that I should quit them right away. But that's part of the process! Reading this book over the last 2 days made me feel better about prioritizing my projects and cutting dead branches!

Minimum cash & time investment. High motivational return. Check it out!

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) — Buy it now at Amazon.com

I have complained a couple of times that there was no decent GTD software available for Windows... to the point I'm actually considering switching to the Mac just for that!

People keep advising me to just fall back to the real life method of using 43 folders. For the record, that is: 12 folders for all the months in the year + 31 folders for all the days in a month. You then rotate the folders in a way that will make them pop up whatever you need on a specific day.

I so disagree with 43 folders being a replacement for GTD!

While the 43 folders are part of David Allen's GTD method, they do not replace software. GTD software presents you with a list of next actions you can do in a specific context and you can choose from them what you want to do without forgetting anything important. It has nothing to do with dates and deadlines.

The use of 43 folders on the contrary lets you easily pop up whatever needs to be acted upon on a specific date.

Granted some GTD software also copes with dates and deadlines but that is not the gist of GTD.

Now... I bet the confusion has a lot to do with Merlin Mann's site, named 43 Folders (which is a cool name indeed) and talking a lot about... GTD!

I live in L.A. but I don't own my car; I rent it! Furthermore, I actually turn it in every time I fly out to a conference and then get a new one when I fly back. This gave me the opportunity to try out quite a few different car rental companies located at LAX.

First, they all have a shuttle from the airport terminals to their facility. What you need to do when you get out of baggage claim is locate the curb segment that has Purple signs saying "Car Rental Shuttles" and wait for your shuttle there. The other colors are for Hotel Shuttles and parking shuttles.

Here's my experience with several of the car rental companies (Note that I am typically renting Compact cars):

• Avis: I've had a "dirty car" experience with them in the past. I've been avoiding them ever since.
• Dollar: probably the best deals on the cars. You can choose your car within a category section. The problem is with the shuttle. You sometimes wait for quite a bit more than the advertised "every 15 minutes". WARNING: After like 20 rentals with them I needed some documents for my insurance and they never sent them to me. Actually, the people who work at their claim dept are either trained to be disingenuous or they are genuinely retarded. Either way, their customer service is an outrage. Don't go there!
• Enterprise: expensive unless you have a coupon. Car had no wiper water.
• Hertz: Very expensive
• Thrifty: Rude front desk. You can choose your car within a category section. Car had no wiper water. Took 20 minutes to turn in the car instead of 2 minutes everywhere else.
• Fox: Shuttle runs more often than many others. Efficient front desk. Dirtiest car ever; all seats severely stained with God knows what. You cannot choose your car (and you can end up with an ugly PT Cruiser).

I will come back here and edit this post as I rent more cars at LAX.