Fast forward a few years and I find myself with a much different outlook. Gone are the days when a mess is acceptable to me. In some sick twist of fate I can now hear my mother saying “I told you so” as I find myself craving order and cleanliness in my work and home life. I CRAVE clean spaces, especially work spaces.  I’ve found that nothing promotes inspiration and productivity in me better than a nice, clean, well organized space in which to BE productive.

A messy space never used to bother me – and I think I know why.   I had no basis of comparison, as I never had (or I should say, maintained) a really clean and ORGANIZED place in which to work.  Sure I would clean every now and then, but it was still far from organized.  My recent forays into GTD however have bestowed upon me a new found skill: organization.  While I’m far from perfect at this new art form, I still see lightyears of difference from the way I used to operate and how I now do.   It’s helped my overall productivity enough that going back to an unorganized and messy workspace just isn’t an acceptable option for me.

I’ve found inspiration from websites such as Lifehacker and Unclutterer – both founts of useful tips and tricks on getting the most out of life.  I’ve found inspiration – and guidance – from David Allen’s books on GTD.  I’ve found useful insights from my own reactions as I implement these tips, tricks, and guidance. They all point to a pretty clear conclusion:  A clean and organized workstation is perhaps one of the most valuable things a person can have.

In my current house, I have a nice cozy home office.  It has oscillated between messy and clean since I built it. More recently it’s stayed on the cleaner side of the spectrum and I’ve found myself happier because of it.  I spend more time up here because it’s welcoming, comforting… and I can be productive. The same can be said for my office at work.  There have been times when it was quite messy and disorganized.  More recently, however, I’ve taken to keeping it clean, organized, and free of distractions (the exception to that last part being co-workers, who are often distracting but whom I cannot rid myself).  A little work to keep it clean goes a long way towards keeping my productivity at it’s peak,  as well as vastly improving my sanity and reducing stress.

As I write this I am wrapping up a relaxing evening in my home office. I’ve spent some time reading on my kindle,  sipping wine, and listening to music – all free of the frequent distractions and frustrations that usually accompany a “mess”.

When I was growing up I had no idea who I would be as an adult. In grade school I thought it would be neat to be a fireman, or an astronaut, or a police officer.  I wanted to be a hero – just like every other kid.  In high school I was involved in the dark and subversive counter -culture on the internet.  I found cracking (hacking) to be fun and it stimulated my mind to deal with new and advanced technology.  I was also a rebellious teenager, so the underworld on the Internet was a perfect fit for me.  If you told me then what I would ultimately end up doing with my life, I would have laughed you out of the room.  It seemed unfathomable at the time.

But… then I changed.  It was a slow evolution from punk teenager – often with hair dyed weird colors and wearing ill-fitting clothes – to well adjusted adult with a wife, house, and career that doesn’t involve illegal activities.   It was so slow that I didn’t even realize it had happened until I found myself wearing a sport coat, button down shirt and nice pair of properly fitting jeans (of my own free will) and realized I LIKED it.

That realization made me consider what else about me has changed.   The easiest to recognize was that I don’t really like loud, and badly put together, punk music anymore.   I can tolerate some of it,  but for the most part it no longer interests me. That was a very big shock, given that I used to absolutely LOVE it.  What *do* I like?   John Mayer, Jack Johnson… even some Coldplay.   Stuff I would have ridiculed only a few years ago.

I also am not so much a fan of the underworld of the internet anymore.   I still know about it and keep up with it, but only so much as I have to in order to properly do my job.  It’s not the fun place I used to go to hang out with like-minded people – it’s very much changed to be a place full of enemies – hostile territory.

Another sure sign that I’m growing up and getting old:  I love HGTV.   I enjoy thinking of new ways to put together a home office.  I read books that I previously would have never touched (about business,  organization, security) – for fun.    I enjoy going to home improvement stores like Home Depot – just to look at the stuff and get ideas for projects around the house.

I look at all of this – and more – and wonder:  when the hell did I get old?!

I can already hear you asking yourself “why did he write it like that?!”.  The answer is simple – while we ARE moving, we are NOT moving out of state, or even to a different city.  After several weeks of discussions with my parents, we have come to an agreement to buy their house.

This is a pretty exciting move for both Ann and myself.   Not only is this the house that I grew up in, but it’s also the place where we had our wedding reception.  Above and beyond the value of a larger house that’s perfect for raising a family – it also holds an immense amount of sentimental value for both of us.

While we had always planned on getting a larger house at some point, I can admit this is a bit sooner than we had intended to do so.  It feels like we just finished settling into this house, and now we’re going to be moving.  It’s a fair bit of additional stress as we plod forward making and finalizing plans,  making lists of all of the things we’ll need to do,  and planning for “The Big Move”.   We have also made arrangements to sell our existing house, and have all of the pre-closing things that need to be completed for that as well.

I think we’ll be quite happy when the whole process is completed and we can settle into the new house.

If you look at technology that’s been wildly successful – like Twitter or the iPod – you will see examples of things that are dead simple to use and understand.  Nobody has hours to spend learning how to use or configure new technology,  we just want something that works, out of the box, with little or no configuration.

You can see this in pretty much every successful social media outlet – Twitter and Facebook are both easy and intuitive to use (I would argue Twitter moreso than facebook, though more people get and understand the idea of facebook than understand what Twitter is for).  This simplicity and the ease of which you can use them has helped them become wildly popular and successful. In most cases you don’t think about how to use them, but rather you think about and consider the content you want to provide.  The use of the technology frees you from the how, and enables you to consider the what.

When designing new technologies – whether they’re gadgets and devices, software, or websites  - it’s important for the designer to keep it simple.   Think like the end user and pretend you are them using the program/device/site.  Is it easy to use?  Do you have to think about HOW to achieve what you want to do?  If so – go back to the drawing board and rework it until it’s intuitive.  This is one lesson I learned first hand from my day’s working on Proxito.   Our interface was not easy or intuitive, which ended up being a huge hinderance.  We made a lot of strides on that front, and had a much higher degree of success with Bouncepad, but it was too little too late.

Linux has also suffered greatly in this regard – it has consistently failed to take hold in the desktop computing space because it’s not intuitive or easy for the average end user.  Nobody wants to learn a new way of doing things – especially on the level of a new operating system – because it’s just TOO complex for them to invest much time in it.  Ubuntu has made great strides in this area – making desktop linux much more accessible for those who take the plunge,  but it’s still not 100% there.

Apple owes at least part of it’s success to making beautiful looking products that are also incredibly easy to use and work great out of the box.  That’s what made the iPod a huge success,  as well as the iPhone, newer Mac’s and the iPad.  They look great, function great and because of that lots of people want to use them, and enjoy the experience.

Technology is a great and wonderful thing, when applied appropriately.   If designed to be easy to use and intuitive in it’s purpose it can, and likely will, go far.  It will also likely make doing something a whole lot faster and easier than otherwise would be possible.  It’s when these criteria are met that I choose to use technology.

Late last week one of my coworkers needed some information to write up some firewall rules for one of our branch offices.  I happened to have already written up such rules for another office and had all of the requisite port and IP information in a reference file I created when I did that work. Within a matter of seconds I was able to pull out the file folder and hand it to him, providing him with all of the information he would need.

A comment he said at the time has caused me to do quite a bit of thinking about technology, and when and why I use it.   His comment was a somewhat innocent: “Hey, this is pretty cool!  But, you know, you should really put this stuff into Sharepoint so we can all see it and use it.”

Brushing aside the fact that this was a file from my own personal general reference system, and not something ordinarily intended for consumption by my entire team,  I found myself still feeling a not inconsiderable amount of internal pushback at the idea of putting this on Sharepoint.  Since then, I’ve been considering the big question:  why am I so opposed to that?

It wasn’t the fact that it was a personal file, and not a file for our department – I knew what he was getting at was that we should use technology to allow us to share and have the paperless office of the future that we’ve been promised over and over.   I get that what he was hinting we needed was an office system that allows us to easily and effortlessly share information between each other.   The pushback was the knowledge in my head that using Sharepoint to share information between us would be neither easy, nor effortless.

Let’s compare, shall we?    To share the information with him in the manner that I actually did, took me a matter of seconds.   I opened a drawer, pulled out the file and handed it to him.   To share the SAME file with him on Sharepoint would take at least twice the time,  as it would require loading a browser, navigating to sharepoint, logging in to sharepoint, navigating to the file itself and either downloading or checking out the file and then opening the appropriate program to read the file downloaded .   That seems like quite a lot of work to read a few notes on what ports need to be opened for a particular piece of technology.

The deeper questions this led to, for me anyways, revolve around when and why I use technology.   The answers I came up with are that I use technology whenever it can enable me to do something faster and easier than if I were not to use it.  I use an MP3 player because it makes listening to music easier, and faster, than listening to CD’s.   I use Twitter because it’s faster and easier than writing a full length blog post.  I use IM because it’s faster and easier than making a phone call (same with texting).

I don’t usually write notes on my computer, though.  It’s not faster, nor is it really easier for me.  I’ve found that – as much as I dislike writing by hand – I actually prefer taking notes with a pad of paper and a pen.  I get more out of things and feel more connected to what I’m taking notes about.  I can scribble little notes and reminders in the margins.  It allows me just a touch more freedom than using my laptop, phone or even an iPad would allow.  In essence – it’s faster and easier.    And afterwards, I file it in my general reference system for when I need it.

This came a little bit as a surprise to me.  I’ve always been a technophile.   I’ve ALWAYS been one to use technology whenever possible.   It surprised me to take a good hard look and realize that technology is not always the answer.   It’s great and good and I love using it… when doing so is easier and faster than the alternative.

It’s not for a lack of desire to be motivated and inspired, or a lack of desire to get things done.   Quite the contrary – I feel anxious and uneasy that I’m not getting as many things done as I want to get done.  I’ve been re-reading “Getting Things Done” from David Allen,  the father of the GTD movement.   I’ve even recently started reading “Making it All Work”, his followup to GTD.  Part of the hope there is that I can jump-start my productivity again, get back on the wagon and start getting things done again.   Some days I do great and feel like I get a lot accomplished,  but the next day I don’t feel as though I really accomplished anything and the motivation that built up the previous day disappears.

I find myself desperately wanting, NEEDING, to have a string of productive and inspiring days.  I have so much I want to do, so much I want to accomplish that I just can’t afford to lack the motivation and inspiration I need to do them.

I’m looking for ways to rekindle the motivation and inspiration that seem to have fled me of late.  I’m considering a good deep cleaning of my home office,  or trying to find a geeky project to tackle saturday or sunday to try and rekindle the inner geek and energy that I know is lurking untapped under the surface.

Have suggestions on finding motivation and inspiration?   Leave them in the comments and I’ll give them a try!

Currently I am lugging around a 17″ Macbook Pro w/power cables,  external firewire hard drive with FW cable,  half a dozen flash drives, two notebooks, one folder, one pad of paper, a couple books and an external hard drive connection kit to use to collect forensic images.  For the most part it all fits in my Timbuk2 messenger bag which I got a few years ago.  I am, however, now looking for a new bag to hold all of my stuff.   While I love my Timbuk2 bag, it doesn’t have enough carrying capacity for me – I need something that can carry all of this stuff without it feeling cluttered and.. well… FULL.

I quite like the bags from Timbuk2, and am considering trying to find another messenger bag from them that can carry everything and not feel so cluttered.

And now I ask you, dear reader, if you have any suggestions.  If you were in my position, what would you buy?

I don’t usually do fresh installs anymore.  With the advent of Time Machine I usually end up having all of my applications, files, directories, etc there waiting for me after a restore.   This time, however, I had no easy way of doing that as the SSD is not large enough to house all my files.  This gave me the excuse, and opportunity, to clean out the cruft, start with a clean slate and have only those files and programs that I know I’m going to use.

That, of course, got me thinking and considering what programs I would need to download and install.   What programs do I feel are essential?  Thankfully, I found that to be incredibly easy to answer, and decided I would share my list of apps I can’t live without.

1. Dropbox:  Many of the applications I use are able to be kept in sync between my different computers by using Dropbox.  Beyond that, it provides me with a place I can put things and have it appear on all of my machines.  Since I started using it in early January it has become absolutely essential for me.
2. 1password:  Like most people, I find it incredibly difficult to remember many 15+ character passwords.  I found myself greatly sacrificing password integrity and strength, and using the same password everywhere.  Enter 1Password by Agile Web Solutions. Never before has an app made it easier to have large, complex, secure passwords,   but also can help you easily identify which sites of yours are using the same password, and easily help rectify that.   If you use a Mac, you should use 1Password.
3. Things:  Prior to using this beautiful app from Cultured Code I struggled to become, and stay, organized.  I was never able to find anything that clicked quite right with me until my friend Jason recommended I take a look at Things.  I’ve been smitten ever since,   and now entrust Things with nearly everything I have to do.
4. TweetDeck:  For those of you who are big into Twitter, I probably don’t have to explain why TweetDeck is great.  Aside from the fact that it runs on Adobe Air (a sin I can forgive it), it looks fantastic, works fantastic and just plain is fantastic – it makes managing Twitter a lot easier.
5. Kindle for Mac:  We all need down time, and this allows me to read my books from the kindle store on my mac over lunch.   Stays in sync with my Kindle, and my iPhone,   pretty damn awesome.
6. CoRD:  If you find yourself having to do remote desktop sessions into Windows machines often then you can benefit from CoRD.   The main benefit I see over Microsofts RDP client is that this makes it easy to “save” servers with the appropriate settings so that you just click a server and are logged in.
7. Alfred: This app launcher is still in beta but has performed incredibly well for me over the past few weeks.  Faster than quicksilver ever was and just seems to… work.   Added ability to initiate several web functions (wikipedia / google searches, etc) make it just a little bit more useful without adding in an intrusive amount of clutter.
8. Adium:   This is, by far, the best IM client I’ve ever used.   My only complaint is that its not available on Windows/Linux.    If you have a mac and use IM with any frequency,  you owe it to yourself to try Adium.

There are other programs that I use, naturally, but these are the apps that are my go-to apps for any Mac that I own.  I like Safari, so generally don’t NEED to have another browser (until Chrome is more stable I’ll stick with Safari),  I use Feedly in my browser for RSS and Apple’s Mail.app for email.  These 8, though, are guaranteed to be on any Mac I own.

The easiest fix for this is to tape a piece of white paper (cut to size) over the cliff sensors (four of them).  While this works fairly well,  I found with my Roomba that often this taped on paper gets torn up and dirty over time, requiring it to be replaced – which means further upkeep and maintenance beyond the fairly high routine maintenance you already have to do.  I often would not have the motivation to re-fix the cliff sensors,  meaning my Roomba would be benched for weeks.

Last night I got tired of fighting with my Roomba over this, and decided to implement a more permanent fix.

The way the Roomba’s cliff sensors work are that they fire a beam of IR at the ground with an IR Transmitter,   which bounces off and is received by a separate IR receiver.   These are kept separate from each other in the sensor housing.   When a “cliff” is encountered, the IR signal doesn’t bounce back, and the Roomba backs off.   This also occurs with dark colored flooring.

The fix involves an almost complete dis-assemble of the Roomba (following directions found here: http://www.pottsland.com/roomba/Roomba_5xx_Cliff_Sensor.html), an effort that is not difficult assuming you’re comfortable taking apart and re-assembling electronics,  and taking the IR transmitter and Receivers out of their housings, taping them together, and putting them back in the clear sensor casing.   This way – when the IR Transmitter sends its signal, the receiver always sees it.

For obvious reasons you should not do this to a Roomba that will be operating where it can fall down stairs or where it needs to avoid falling from heights.  Mine cleans the ground floor of my house, so I don’t have to worry.

The fix worked great – no more worrying about cliff sensors for me.

Now if only I could get the Roomba (his name is FloMar by the way), to clean his own brushes….

Back in January, PGP Corporation released a much anticipated update to their PGP Desktop lineup -PGP Desktop 10.0.  This update was much anticipated because it finally added support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.  The great benefit here is that those who would be so inclined to utilize whole disk encryption on mac, and choose PGP as their platform of choice, could now upgrade to Snow Leopard and have their drive encrypted.

In testing this new software I discovered a bug, however.  When utilizing PGP Desktop 10 for Mac in an environment managed by PGP Universal Server (2.12), I was frequently asked to re-enroll my Mac with the universal server.   Until I was able to re-enroll, PGP Desktop was unavailable.   Whole Disk Encryption was thankfully NOT affected.

After working fairly closely with PGP support on this issue it was determined to be a bug,  and after providing them a wealth of information from our environment they were able to reproduce the issue on their end and provide a list of steps that would reproduce it 100% of the time.

Thankfully,  we’ve also been able to determine a successful workaround for this issue.

The underlying cause for this behavior appears to be on-access scanning by antivirus products on the Mac interfering with the PGP plist files in ~/Library/Preferences/

The workaround that has worked in my testing so far has been to create exclusions in the scanning policy for:

~/Library/Preferences/com.pgp.pgp.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.pgp.desktop.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.pgp.admin.plist

~/Library/Preferences/com.pgp.engine.plist

With those four files excluded from on-access antivirus scanning, I have been unable to get PGP Desktop to prompt me for re-enrollment,  indicating that this does, in fact, provide a workaround for the issue.

A huge thanks goes to the PGP Support team who worked this issue hard and were a pleasure to work with in finding a resolution to this issue.

(note: I am in no way affiliated with PGP Corporation.)