Blackberry REACT March 2009 NewsletterQuick ClicksEvernoteI rediscovered a program I’d initially dismissed. I had been looking for an outliner, and Evernote is not an outliner. I’m not sure how to describe it; maybe it’s a collector of your stuff: URLs, quotes, notes to yourself. It all resides in a searchable freeform database. But what really sold me on it was recipes. I keep recipes in a Mac program called Yum. I find a recipe I like, I open Yum, type in the name of the recipe, how many servings, pre-heat the oven, all the ingredients, then the directions. Then I type in some tags—chicken, slow cooker, rice. Sometimes I end up with a pile of magazines with pages marked, stuff torn out of newspapers, coupons with recipes, all sitting on my desk waiting for me to type them in. Typing recipes is a drag. With Evernote, I take a photo of the recipe. Then I crop the photo so that only the relevant stuff shows, copy the photo and paste it into Evernote. It creates an item that is the photo, with the name of the file, so I rename the file as the recipe. I add some tags, drag the photo to my recipe folder, click on sync, and quite Evernote. The file is synced from my desktop to my space on Evernote’s computer in the clouds. Sometime in the next hour or so, Evernote OCRs the photos I’ve synced to their Web site. That makes them searchable by chicken or rice or “ridged grill pan” or whatever is in the ingredients or instructions. Every word in the photo is now indexed. Sometime later, I sync my iPod Touch with Evernote’s online computer, and all the stuff now resides in my Touch without it being online. Evernote works on Mac and XP or Vista desktops, iPhones and Touches, and Windows Mobile phones. So far, it doesn’t run on Linux, so I can’t use my little EEE PC with it. You can create notes to yourself on your cell phone, or take photos of things with your cell phone, upload it to Evernote, and then have access to it on your desktop. You can record audio and upload it for syncing, photograph whiteboards and search the photo for the text, take a picture of that fine bottle of beer you had with lunch, capture text or other data from Web pages, email notes directly into your account – however you find it easiest to get stuff into Evernote. Then when you’ve synced your computer, cell phone, and the Evernote server, you have access to everything whether you are online or not. Evernote is free (limit of 40MB per month uploads), although they would like you to buy their premium service (500MB monthly maximum, more file types allowed): http://www.evernote.com/ Ma.gnoliaSpeaking of keeping data on the Internet, take a look at
Magnolia. Everyone lost all their links. If this was the only copy, it appears to be gone forever. Our lesson is never to have only one copy of anything, and especially never to have your only copy stored online. If you don’t know about this type of service, take a look at
delicious. (Evernote syncs your files with your own computer and on the Web, providing some reassurance that if one fails, the other remains.) Magnetic TapeAdhesive on one side, magnetic on the other. Put an inch or two of the tape on the back of your photo, laminated paper, or whatever, and the magnetic side of the tape will stick to your fridge, truck, file cabinet. Unfortunately, it costs a fortune. Various sizes from 0.5” x 100’ for $59 and up. If you haven’t been to Uline.com before, now’s a chance to browse around: http://www.uline.com/Index.aspx Light My Fire Outdoor Meal KitI have no clue about the name. This is a mess kit made of plastic: 2 plates, spill-free cup with lid, cutting board, spoon-on-one-end-fork-on-the-other, in a waterproof box. If you’re right handed, the fork can also be used as a knife. I have no idea why it’s “light my fire,” since it’s plastic. All the contents pack into a watertight box that floats, so you can’t use it as a lunchbox (it’s just the mess kit), but you’ll be able to keep your kit clean after washing it. Portable water purificationThis is a summary from the January 2008 issue of The Journal of Family Practice, and it relies on an army study no longer available at the given URL. It is very useful information. Blackwater changing its nameI’ve suggested that Blackberry REACT change its name to Blackwater REACT to see if we can’t get some government grants. The real Blackwater is changing its name to Xe (pronounced Z, according to the Times), “to shake the company’s past in Iraq.” I think it’s time for us to pick up the name before people realize there’s a change. “Quality” ham radio linksI haven’t looked at all these yet, but here’s a page with tons of links for radio modifications, learning Morse, blogs, scanner software, frequencies, and feeds, ham nets, and much more. Heater Meals EXWe mention Heater Meals occasionally. We use them at Burning Man and volunteer events; they have magnesium filings that you add salt water to and get heat. The unit heats a meal for you in a quarter of an hour or so. Normally, the shelf life is up to three years, but the new EX version has a shelf life of up to five years. A 12-pack costs $55.08 plus shipping. Check out their other offerings for a variety of entrees and complete meals. Heater Meals provide around 400 calories per meal, which I much prefer to official MREs which have 1,200 calories per meal, including a full day’s sodium and fat. During my years in the Air Force in the early 70s, we got what was officially Meals, Combat, Individual, but what everyone still called C-rations. We kept a few boxes in our winter survival bag in our cars and on our way to the launch control facility somewhere in the plains of North Dakota. They weren’t bad if you didn’t have to live off them, and you got a P-38 can opener and two Pall Mall cigarettes in every box (along with canned meat, canned bread, canned dessert, and some other stuff). If you don’t know about P-38s, I recommend this WikiPedia article. I carry a P-38 with me on every trip to this day. The IntertubesBack before the internet was wires, it was the pneumatic tubes. I remember going into department stores with a couple of tubes by every register, and they’d sometimes sent things off to the aether for no reason I could ever fathom. So OOBject has put together links to a dozen or so pneumatic tube delivery systems for meals to mails. Today’s steampunk computer case modIt’s from a church floor vent that’s 8 feet tall, lovingly distressed wood, and tons of brass. Steampunk lights?Analogue lighting made from recycled computer parts, et al. Why we don’t go the people’s homes to help with DTVIn Joplin, MO, a 70-year-old man shot his TV set in anger when he couldn’t get his digital converter to work. His wife said he had been drinking. Nanotube radio receiverSeriously. A radio that is visible only in an electron microscope. And they played Layla by Eric Clapton. How old do you think these guys are. :-) How to sharpen your pencilYou may think you know how, but trust me, you’re wrong. Doing a gross preliminary assessment of traumaYou’ll get to see a guy do a quick once over of a trauma victim, looking for broken bones. Safety during rescue attempts – electricityNOTE: This shows a man being shocked by a dangling live wire. The story here is that a man fell from a tree. A limb broke and brought down a live electrical wire. A neighbor helping carry the man to the street brushed the wire and fell to the ground. People recognized the problem and moved him off the wire using sticks and other non- conducting materials. All on video tape. There is no information on whether the shocked man survived. In this video, no humans are seen being hurt. A bucket truck (cherry picker to some) came into contact with power lines with exciting results. The problem though is that it shorted several wires and seems to have fed very high voltage into the electric wires coming into a house, causing the house to catch fire. In our CERT courses, the firemen who taught us said they always do a walk around the house before beginning to fight a fire so they can spot problems like downed electric wires and also to look for fires where the support of live wires can come down. If you are at an emergency scene, practice STOP* and be sure to include a search for live wires and other problems that may kill or hurt the responders. *Stop Think Observe Plan Mr. Potato HeadThis will contain a surprise for younger persons and a reminder of things of old for us oldsters. What a capacitor isRemember Leyden jars? Michael Faraday? Here’s a Make Magazine video explaining capacitors and demonstrating the construction of a Leyden jar with a plastic 35mm film cannister. Remember 35mm film? I recommend browsing Make’s Vimeo channel at http://vimeo.com/make for video of making paper, motorized wheelchairs, soldering, LEDs, resistors, and much, much more. Events
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