This Is My Place

A few months ago I met Michael Calanan at a Photowalk Utah meet-up. I follow his Flickr account and find him to be an excellent photographer. Not too long ago he started a project called "This is their place". The basic premise is, he invites someone to give him background on their favorite place in the Salt Lake valley, he meets them at their place, and takes several portrait shots. I thought it would be fun to participate, and so I volunteered. Michael graciously said yes, and although it took us several weeks to get our schedules to meet up, we were finally able to complete the shoot.

Here is a link to Michael's site where he posts the results. He did a fantastic job. I hope Michael didn't care I was a motor mouth. I was standing there letting him take pictures, so I thought the least I could do was say something. I also had a hard time deciding what to do with my hands. I see in the pictures I have them in my pocket a lot. Now I wonder if it's something I do when I'm nervous.

I've never had my picture taken this way before. And while Michael is using this project to improve his skills (and he has plenty of skill), I appreciate the end result. A nice set of photos I can use anywhere. Thank you Michael for taking time to do this.

Learn more about Michael, his photography, and the "This is their place" project.

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Backing Up Your Trusted System

I'm finding that most people never think twice about backing up the things they write in a notebook. They feel secure in the fact you can't break a notebook. This gives them a false sense of security. You can just as easily lose your analog trusted system as you can a digital one.

I spent some time last night and today searching for someone who had a backup problem with their trusted GTD system. There's plenty of hack information available, but I tried just about every possible method I could think of to find something someone may have written or suggested. I just couldn't find anything. So I decided to create a list of things I do (or should have been doing) to back up my notebooks and other documents.

• If you are carrying your trusted system with you on a trip, store the notebooks in a plastic baggy of some kind with n airtight seal.


• During your weekly review make sure you are transferring important information to a backup notebook (which stays in your home or office) or an electronic device like a computer or PDA.


• Take a digital photograph of each page in your notebook. You can store these pictures on your computer, your PDA or online with a service like Flickr.


• Scan each page of your notebook. This has the same affect as taking a snapshot only you probably get a cleaner image.


• Put a trusted system backup on your schedule. Typically you schedule a backup of your computer, make sure you add a trusted system back up too.

These are just some options you can take to prevent complete data loss if your trusted system disappears.

What are your suggestions for backing up your trusted system?

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Private: Private: How Do You LifeStream Part 5

This is part 5 of a 5 part series on LifeStreaming. Here are links to the previous post in this series; 1, 2, 3 & 4.

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Private: Private: How Do You LifeStream Part 4

This is part 4 of a 5 part series on LifeStreaming. Here are links to the previous post in this series; 1, 2 & 3.

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Private: Private: How Do You LifeStream Part 3

This is part 3 of a 5 part series on LifeStreaming. Here are links to the previous posts in this series; 1 & 2.

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Private: Private: How Do You LifeStream Part 2

This is part 2 of a 5 part series on LifeStreaming. Here is the first post in the series; 1.

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How Do You LifeStream?

This is part 1 of a 5 part series on LifeStreaming.

Let me start off by giving you my explanation of Lifestreaming. To me, Lifestreaming is the collection and presentation of all the footprints I leave on or off the Internet. Things that may be part of a life stream are RSS feeds from your blogs, you bookmarks or photos. You may also collect things like web clips, video, audio, presentations, other blog feeds, chats and more. The amount of data you can collect in your life stream can be incredible.

My first introduction to LifeStreaming was justin.tv, this crazy guy who wears an always on video camera and streams it out to the Internet. I still think its a little over the top, but that's because I would never do it. But what I did learn was people are voyeurs. They want to know a little about you. They want to see what you do and how you do it. They want to see where you've been and what you did there. They might even find some type of social connection because of what you present in your life stream.

There are hundreds of ways to capture and present your life streams. I'm currently using Tumblr, which isn't 100% reliable, but does what I want. Together with Yahoo! Pipes I've created a Tumblr blog that reads a single RSS feed that mashes up all my blogs, links, social chats and photos. It's currently the number one offsite link on my blog.

So the question I'm asking, Do You LifeStream, is really something I want you to evaluate. First, is this for you? That's the big question. The second question becomes what will you present in your life stream? If you decide to create a life stream, you need to look at several things:

1. Where will I present my life stream?


2. What will I include in my life stream?


3. Who will I let see my life stream?


4. What can I do with a life stream?

Let's take #1. I suggest you take some time to look at lifestreamblog.com and learn about the various platforms available. It can be as easy as adding the links to your existing blog or building something completely separate. Depending on your blogs focus it may be worth creating a different site just for your life stream.

Item #2, What are you going to include? I would say start off small then build up from there. Include you blog posts, flickr posts, and maybe your Twitter tweets. Once you've had a chance to see how it works then you can expand to other options.

Item #3 is pretty important. If you are building a life stream that is public, you need to make more secure decisions on what you present. If this is a private life stream, maybe something only your family or friends have access too, you may be a little more liberal. In either case, just be careful what you present because once it's out there it's hard to remove it.

Item #4 is a great question. The initial thought of a life stream was just to collect all the various bits of information I created or was interested in presenting. But now I see people creating life streams on social sites where advertising or other monitization exists. If you're ok with someone else making money off your data great, if not find a solution you control.

LifeStreaming can be fun. I've learned a lot and am now expanding my life stream to include other data bits that create something I can make available as a personal journal for my family.

In the next couple of series we'll look at specific solutions and where you can find your bits to include in you life stream.

If you are already LifeStreaming, post a comment here with a link to your stream, or tell us how you life stream.

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Get my Tumblr theme

I use Tumblr as my Lifestream tool of choice. I'm making my theme available for download. You'll have to load the text into the Custom theme area. You will also want to update the location of the images and maybe add your own menu options.

Let me know if there are any problems with this, and I would also like to know if you use it. Thanks.

With background image: download
Without background image: download
With white background: download

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