Author Archives: Scott

Drafts Recursive Email Actions For Appigo’s ToDo App

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Drafts is a great app for automating tasks on iOS.  That is, saving a few screen taps and/or loading seconds here and there on tasks you do a lot to make yourself more efficient.  Drafts does this through “actions”.  More complicated recursive (looping) actions are harder to create but do more than simple actions.  That said here’s what my problem was:

emailaction

I love Appigo’s ToDo as my task manager.  It’s ability to share a (grocery) list with someone is worth price of the premium service alone ($20/yr).  However it only has very basic x callback urls for use in Drafts actions and while the email importing of tasks are intelligently parsed – the ones passed from Drafts are not.  Solution: use an email action. Just add your Appigo import email and any task options you want as the default.  In this case I have it set to use the HEB list and set the priority to none. Note: HEB is the name of my local grocer.

This works great for single tasks, but I often wander around the kitchen adding several food items at a time.  Solution: a recursive email action on each line of a draft.  Problem: no one tells you how to do this online. There are several examples of recursive actions with another app action and a draft action, but none using two drafts actions.  The reason is you can’t do an email action inside a custom action.  So first create email action to only use the first line and then add this code as a custom URL action. Note: make sure the name in the code matches the name of the email action you create.  This will email off each line separately to be parsed and added to your ToDo.

drafts://x-callback-url/create?text=[[title]]&action=HEB&x-success={{drafts://x-callback-url/create?text=[[body]]&action=ToDo%20HEB&afterSuccess=Delete&allowEmpty=NO}}

 

Many thanks to geekswithjuniors.com and theaxx.net for posting about their actions so I could figure out mine. UPDATE: theaxx has moved here: unapologetic.io

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Depending of the college you’re assisting, student loans are important because of the federal student aid given for them, such as Pell Grants and other financial aid. If you are the student who is eligible for federal student aid, you are eligible to receive student loans at that institution.

According to the BLS, the average amount of student loans held by college graduates in 2013 was $30,835. The average amount of student loans held by high school graduates was $7,919, and $14,400 for those with a 4-year degree.

Why Do Students Need Student Loans?

Students are often going through difficult financial times such as getting married or applying to a graduate program. Many times, a student will borrow money for both. However, you can only be charged interest on student loans while enrolled in school.

Most students take out student loans in order to pay for college costs, but there are students who choose to pay for school by taking out a loan, as well. This can work well for students who want to be financially independent later in life. This is particularly important for people who go into the workforce after graduation, as student loan repayment often means a lower income after graduation. To be a successful student, you should always seek to do as much as you can with your time. If you are a student who takes on more debt during your time as a student, this may be an indicator that you are taking on more debt than you can afford to repay. Many students end up defaulting on their loans, and this means that the interest that your loans accrue on your behalf gets paid by the federal government. The fact that your loans are defaulted can impact your ability to find a job. A common misconception is that if you default your loans, you will not be eligible for student loans from other financial institutions. This is not true. Once you have defaulted your loans, you will have a defaulted-loan record. This will stop your application to participate in certain programs, like the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program. If your loans are in deferment or forbearance, you will be allowed to continue to pay them down until they are completely paid off. This is not a free ride. If you leave an institution before they complete their repayment process, you will be unable to access the remaining balance. However, if you complete your repayment process within six years of your graduation, you will be considered to be making continuous progress toward making your student loan payments in full.

Loan consolidation is another way to consolidate your federal student loans. If your loans are consolidating with another bank, consider making sure that the consolidation company is registered with the federal government as a “servicer.” In most cases, this will require submitting your application in writing.

Avoid paying too much interest

Make sure you are not paying too much interest on your student loans before you decide to refinance.

It can be easy to feel that you’re “doing it right” when you’re getting a great deal on a home purchase or a car loan, and not having to pay the interest or fees until it is paid off. But while you’re paying the interest, you may not be able to afford to continue paying for your student loans. Do some research to find out if you are paying too much interest on your student loans.

Other Considerations If you’re thinking about refinancing student loans, look at student loan interest rates.

Begun This Tablet War Has

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After several minor skirmishes the tablet war is finally upon us!

Apple

Dominating the mindshare and market with 15 million iPads sold in 2010, it seems almost laughable now to look back at when Apple announced their tablet months early in an effort to pre-empt the Adroid tablets that largely never appeared. Creating a new market is somewhat unique position for company known for reinventing existing markets. It will be interesting to see how well Apple can leverage this position over the next year or two.While it was beginning to look grim for consumers – team android was able to beat the iPad 2 to market. Just barely. But the iPad 2 will do little change the state of this war. Many are calling this latest revision the “iPad 1.5” as it will be more like a 3GS than the iPhone 4 upgrade. Sure it will get faster – when has that not happened in tech? A front facing camera and a thinner profile are equally boring upgrades. Unlike a more pocketable phone, such slight portability differences are of little consequence.No the best chance for Apple to wow us will come from the software upgrades. Currently the iPad is nothing more than a large iPhone. Which is probably why its popularity caught everyone (including Apple) by surprise: who would have thought millions of people could use a phone as their primary computer. Apparently those at the shore of the tech pond found the water fine, while the rest of us were left scratching our heads or picking one up as a toy. To keep the sales rolling, Apple will need to add some aditional functionality into iOS and expand the number of users that could leave their PC or at least their netbook behind.

Retina or No

No, the iPad 2 is merely a bandaid to hold back the android army that has finally shown up at the gate until the iPad 3 can capture our collective imagination. For once, Apple isn’t maximizing profits with countless revisions but waiting for the right tech to hit prime time. For instance, a rumored retina display resolution of 2048×1536 would need to push 4 times the pixels of the current iPad’s 1024×768 which could choke even the fancy new dual core processors. However, quad core processors are set to hit this fall – right in time for the iPad 3.While a tablet could certainly step up to the somewhat odd resolution of 2048×1536, I wonder if Steve will limit the iPad 3 to a more familar “Full HD” (1920×1080). This is both easier to market and lines up well with content consumption while still being 2X as good as the latest Android tablets (and 2.6X better than the iPad). Apple could also shrink the 9.7 display to 8.9 and thus achieve both a “more portable” iPad and a “retina” display. I think you can see how the slides and commercials are basically writing themselves…

iPad 3

  • 1080p “Full HD” 9 inch screen (2X Droid!)
  • Quad Core processor (2X power!)
  • Smaller & Lighter! (screen + carbon fiber!)

One other important background point in this war. While the $499 wifi iPad was most certainly a shot at the netbook market, it had the effect of being the best strategic decision Apple has made thus far in tablet war. While the free and open droid allows for a proliferation of cheap tablets (among other devices), the price ceiling created by Apple left little room for third party manufacturers as it was difficult to ask more than $300 for a less powerful tablet.

Google

Google extended this price barrier last year by refusing the Android Market to anyone excluding the expensive 3G hardware. However, while Google’s insistence that Android was designed for phones at not tablets was a drag on 2.x tablets it will be a boon to the 3.x ones The timing has been somewhat down to the wire with Android 3.0 – in fact, most reviews point to the need for a 3.0.1 release to fix some quibles. But that is of little consequence in the war. The fact is that Google delivered what was needed to take on the iPad: an OS built for tablets not phones with a big screen. This is the area that Apple needs to catch up on. While iTunes boasts 60,000 iPad apps to the Markets dozen or so, few of those extend the functionality in any meaningful way. Displaying a little more content on a 10″ screen than 4″ one is not a real feature.And that is where the real arms race lies: iOS adding real tablet thinking and functionality to both the core OS and its existing apps verses Droid adding such tablet apps to its sparce offerings.

The Future

The iPad 3 will be impressive this fall. The Droid equivalents will no doubt be equitable once they show up a bit late to the party again. 2012 will equalize if not commoditize the hardware race. The RIM Playbook and the HP TouchPad will both face an uphill battle, but I think the latter has a better chance to gain some traction as the third player.Perhaps what I’m most excited about however is the future of the little guys. That’s right players like Archos who is currently producing one of the best tablets under $300. Imagine next summer when you will be able to get a 7-9″ capacitive touch screen, dual core, Android 3.1, tablet for under 300 bones. That’s a market revolution!

Roku XDS Review

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roku-xds-1080p-video-streaming-device.jpgroku-xds-streaming-player-1080p.jpgAfter owning a Roku for about a month, I thought I’d post a brief review for those considering the Cadillac option.  I opted for the XDS for the ability to play movies from a USB as well as Hulu & Netflix. (Or when Comcast decides it’s internet should go down because it’s a Tuesday…)

Setup is simple but somewhat slow with needing logins and device codes for every channel you add.  You’ll want your laptop handy when setting up your Roku to somewhat speed up the process.  But its not that bad, as most people are only really going to care about like 6 of the channels.  I really don’t need another way to get short, random, useless internet videos in front of me (sorry indie channels).  In fact, I might pay you to keep them away from me.  ;)

The real difference for XDS over the other Rokus is the USB. I have been moving my large (legally obtained) movie collection from DVD to computer files and thought that would suppliment the streaming options. Unfortunately, I can’t get the Roku to even read any of my several flash drives.  I have tried reformatting them every way I know how – including some random Western Digital tool suggested on the Nets. Since the Roku won’t recognize the flash drives, I can’t see how movies from USB play (if at all). So at this point, I paid $40 extra for a feature that doesn’t even sort-of work – even with an evening dedicated to making it happen.

Engadget in its Roku review claimed the USB option would come out of Beta “this fall” which seemed optimistic at the time. I figured end of the year would be a good target for Roku what with 100,000 Rokus getting unwrapped around that time.  Sadly, the year is ending without so much as hopeful PR statement from Roku.

Sure the Netflix streaming works great but you can say that for a thousand other products today, so I wouldn’t buy the more expensive Rokus until the extra features move out of “coming soon” status.

Slide Rule Musings

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sliderule.jpg

Recently, I have been doing some consulting for a large organization with a large engineering contingent.  Walking through one of the buildings there, I saw a huge slide rule hung on the wall like art.

For those of you that don’t know what a slide rule is or what it is used for here is an image and a short explanation.   Back when computers were the size of buildings and the calculator hadn’t been dreamed up yet, engineers needed something to help them with their constant calculations and the abacus wasn’t cutting it: the slide rule was born.  Using logametric scales, this ruler looking device somehow makes complex calculations easier much like MS Excel today.  As historical proof, the Apollo missions to the Moon were powered by slide rules (and rocket fuel) since the average smart phone is more powerful than the sum of NASA’s computers at the time.

Anyway, you can now see why an engineer might consider a slide rule a clever piece of work place art.  Seeing said artwork made me think “Oh Dad would love that!  I need to send him a picture text…” and I started to take out my iPhone before I remembered that Dad can’t get texts anymore. I’ve actually made this mistake a lot lately, so I began pondering why that was the case.

After some thought, I realized it was because I truly believe that Dad is alive (in heaven) that my brain doesn’t really see him as dead like most might conceptualize but really just “out of cel range”.  I liken it to how we were out of range when we went on one of our Manly Man Trips to Boundary Waters.  This manly fishing trip involved us taking a plane to Minneapolis, then takinboundry-waters-sm.jpgg a two hour taxi cab to the near the border.  From there we took a puddle jumper into Canada to a small Lodge, then took a speed boat as far out as it could go, at which point we grabbed our gear and canoes and took a short hike to the next small lake.  Using the canoes and taking short hikes over the land separating the many lakes that make up the Boundary Waters, we made our way into the Canadian wilderness where we would setup camp and start fishing.  Now before leaving for this trip, I had finished all the paperwork to buy my first home.  As always happens with banks, there was some small snag they wanted to go over with me while I was on this trip… the bank being told I was on vacation and unreachable by cel phone was like no really we need to talk to him… to which they were told no really, he is really outside of cel phone range.

During the time I was pondering these things, I heard a famous preach ask “what happens to us when we die?”. “What happens?” he continued, “Everyone knows what happens – they have a service they put you in a box and they put the box in the ground. And yet mankind by and large continues to ask what happens when we die…”

An interesting question when you think about it really.  Is it that we just need to attend more funerals to see if there is any variation or is it that something in our soul whispers that there is more to come?

After going through my father’s cancer battle and death, one of my biggest realizations is that I couldn’t imagine going through it and not “knowing that I know”. I am still young enough that I haven’t had to attend many funerals or confront death that often. Even still I have seen and heard many people talking about a recently deceased relative being “in a better place” without much confidence in the statement.  The words are all right but there is something in their voice that questions the truthfulness of their own statements.  For some it is just a touch of doubt but for others it almost seems like wishful thinking.  A shaky hope that the dead are in fact continuing on in heaven (or equivalent nice or at least tolerable place) and that they by extension be ok as well.

Growing up, Dad would talk about “knowing that you know” describing the level of your belief in your faith. (the object of your faith is an important discussion for another time) This is not some external measure of “enough” faith but merely: do you really believe what you say you believe?    For many people the answer is no or at least a halfhearted yes. (funny how we often have trouble being honest with ourselves about our own beliefs)  Growing up in a family where faith was built on facts, the idea of “just have (blind) faith!” was a foreign even pitiable concept. We will never know anything 100% in this life or make any decision with perfect and complete information – that’s just life.  However, it doesn’t mean we have live with 0.01% information – that’s not faith, its simply being lazy or stupid (or both). But I digress.

Having investigated the facts and tested them with experience, I know that there is a God & a heaven & how one “gets in” and I know these things with same certainty that I know the Sun will come up tomorrow.  As a result of this, I know that while my father died and his fleshly body is buried near Big Ed, I know that he is still alive (enjoying his mansion & discussing deep topics with biblical figures & cracking jokes with the King of the Universe).

I hope this post doesn’t come off as too preachy, but again I can’t imagine going through something like a cancer journey without “knowing that you know”.  This Christmas, if you are unsure of what happens when we die or if you are not thoroughly convinced that what you believe is really the reality – take action!  First, realize that you can know.  It is not a matter of just believing more, it is a matter of learning more so that you can actually believe what you believe in.  Second, find someone that can answer your honest questions.  If best answer someone can come up with is something along the lines of “just believe!” ask them “in what exactly?” and then find a new spiritual mentor.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got.  I can tell you that knowing what I know has given me a lot peace in this recent storm and I hope that all of you can feel that peace instead of doubt in your next storm.  Merry Christmas!