Hamlet in the Office

I'm not too sure how to organise this blog,

I have tended to just aggregate stuff together, running through whatever I have been upto in the week, with the odd stand-alone item.

I did start using the tags and categories, but I've rather given up on that as I don't particularly like how I was originally tagging and catagorising, but I might go back over the blogs, because I can see that using them properly does make a mass of blogs vastly more useful.

Anyway, running through the usual virtual standing items

IT
In my folly, I thought that getting an extra computer would make life simpler. It has in that I can now use the laptop as my personal computer, and get on it when I like. However version control, and all that is starting to be a major pain. I'm well covered for backing up, both computers are backed up to external hard drives, the desktop running tiger - using SuperDuper, and the laptop using leopard - using TimeMachine.

I think that I need to do some creative thinking on how to tackle this. I asked a friend who is pretty techie, and he suggested looking at it on an application basis, which seems pretty practical. Asking what folk did on a Forum, suggested that .mac be used to synchronise the usual addresses, and calendar stuff, with one computer simply being designated the main one, and stuff living there.

There seems to be a lot to be said for this approach, I've long taken the view that running parallel systems is just asking for trouble.

Accordingly, I have taken out a free trial of .mac, and I'll see how that goes. I suspect that I will simply treat my laptop as a slimmed down typing machine, and maybe use iDisk to share a few key documents. Though ideally each application will have a lead computer, that it is used on.

With applications like DevonthinkPro, there is scope to aggregate information together into a single database, rather than trying to mirror file structures.

Anyway, a little thinking required, but I think I am working out what the problems are, and possible solutions.

Work Personal
I have deliberately tagged this section as work/personal, because in a way they overlap. As I only talk about work in the most general of senses, it is more about me than anything else.

Anyway, new job, a sideways move to a new part of the office. I'm not sure if it is the fact that there are slightly more men than women, or just a different culture, or subject area, but the atmosphere does feel completely different. Not saying anything against where I was before, I liked them a lot, but I get the feeling that I'm going to enjoy where I am now. Folk seem positive and businesslike, just getting on with stuff.

It feels like a good move for me. I suppose I should really decide what I want to do, there is a bit of me that would like to run the entire office, while another part of me, would like to slope off and do other things. Maybe I should think just how ambitious I want to be. As I get more experience, and more work under my belt, the opportunities appear to get on.

Having already tagged this as work/personal, there is also my perennial dabbling, which I enjoy, though I do keep coming back to the thought that if you want something done, you ask a busy man. I'm certainly busy, though I do wonder that I'm over-stretching myself sometimes. Some interesting meetings coming up, and some useful work in hand.

LifeHack
I did make a concerted start on Detox Your Desk a few weeks back, and while it went splendidly as I was trying to clear my desk for my old job, on arriving at my new job, I've been hotdesking, so

Creative
One of the benefits of having the laptop, is that I can now spend more time typing and writing. I use a little policeman's notebook to capture ideas, and generally I seem to be coming up with ideas quicker than I am transcribing them to the computer, and transcribing them, quicker than I can work them up fully. However these things are like the tide going in and out, liable to shift. So I'll push on jotting down ideas, and typing them up and seeing where it all goes to.