Last Friday, Covid-19 mask mandates were lifted. Where I live, these were previously enacted by the Provincial Government. Masks are optional anywhere in British Columbia. Where I live, masks now are worn by less than half of the population when out and about. I hope that the virus got the memo.
Read MoreAs business services increasingly go online and become subscriptions, more and more businesses must have call centres. I'm sure managing a call centre isn't easy, particularly with a pandemic and work-from-home regulations. However, I doubt anyone who sets up, runs and manages a call centre has ever had to use it from an outside line. There is a special place in hell, with scarce exceptions, for call centres.
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We’ve all seen the stereotypical Hollywood Christmas movie where disaster threatens Christmas for the protagonists. These movies always seem to resolve in the middle of a small town with Holiday lights, snow, rousing music, and hugs all around. I live in a town that is straight out of a made-for-tv movie!
Read MoreSometimes people surprise you. And sometimes, that surprise is just incredible.
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I hope that we, as a society, have learned positive lessons from the Covid 19 pandemic - even if the narrative we see in the news can be divisive. I remember the early days of the pandemic, where people were trying to get used to living with new social rules. People were polite, kind, and respectful. At least, until you got to the toilet paper aisle in a grocery store. Then all bets were off.
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In my podcast, Stationery Adjacent, I often talk with my cohost, Stuart Lennon about our technical setups. We both work from home and are always looking for the most productive arrangements. We are both, admittedly, Apple Fan Bois, and we do enjoy working with cutting-edge (and often bleeding-edge) technology.
Read MoreIn 2005 I spent some time working in Iqaluit, the capital city of Nunavut in Northern Canada. With its arctic location and remoteness from traditional freight channels, people were different. People help people. A handshake means something, and your word is your bond. Perhaps helping your neighbour was about survival rather than just getting more toys. Still, I've never worked in such a collaborative fashion.
The people of Summerland have much of the same positive attitude, despite the threat of nature. The local Shopkeepers are friendly. Unknown people who are walking in town wave as you drive past. And I find that my new neighbours are extremely friendly.
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Summerland. With vineyards and orchards. A beautiful lake. And warm, pleasant temperatures ideal for drinking wine in. In my past visits, getting into air conditioning was the main environmental concern. I mean, it says it on the tin, right. Summer-land….Tl;dr: Never believe the label on the tin.
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When one has lived in a metropolitan sprawl for many years, one gets used to certain conveniences. A Starbucks close to one’s house. 24-hour grocery stores (or at least a Wal-Mart with a grocery section). And a choice of restaurants for any civilized hour. In the last year, like many in the world, I've come to rely on fast deliveries of both essentials and random Amazon purchases that I've only bought because of late-night shopping.
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I made my recent home move backwards. I sold my house and then had to decide where to move and find a place. Which wasn’t easy in the hot seller’s market of 2021!
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Moving is hard. And not something I like to do. I lived at my last house for 22 years. And, if you stay in a place for that long, you begin to accumulate things. In my case, a lot of stuff! And those things have to be moved.
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2020 brought a lot of things, arguably many of them harmful. Working (primarily) from home certainly affected how I felt about where I was living in the suburb of a large metropolitan city. And so, I joined the great migration of 2020/2021 and decided to leave town.
Read MoreIn a weirdly coincidental series of unfortunate events, I ran into problems with both of my Macs this week. The displayed effects didn't show an apparent cause. It was only through a lucky and logical conclusion that I found the problem, which was basically the same on each computer.
Read MoreLast year, 2020, was a horrible year for many. Even for those not sick or losing friends and family, lockdown life often impacted people negatively. One of the brightest spots of the year was an originally little-known streaming series on Apple TV+ called Ted Lasso.
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My M1-based MacBook Pro started throwing errors this week. It warned me that I was running out of disk space, and my poor 16GB computer couldn't generate the large swap files it needed. The culprit - heavily edited podcasts were downloading onto my hard drive.
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I've never seen such a marked example of the difference between an introvert and an extrovert until last night. And it was my dog that showed me!
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Stationery Adjacent is a new weekly podcast hosted by myself and my international colleague Stuart Lennon at the intersection of analog and digital productivity.
Read MoreEverything has an app these days. Some useful. Many distracting. And some are just trying to harvest your data with the promise of a free widget. And occasionally, you'll find an app that is unique and life-changing. Of all the weird uses I've seen, my latest game-changing tool is an app that talks to my water bottle. Preposterous!
Read MoreAs a fan of fruity-labeled technology, HomePod is one of my favourite accessories. Yes, it’s obscenely expensive, and its digital assistant can’t hold a candle to other manufacturers. Still, as a high-end audio speaker, the sound is divine. Apple recently canceled it, and I think that is a bad omen for Apple’s possible direction.
Read MoreCloud-based storage works very well and is extremely convenient. Until it fails and you loose data. This cautionary tale will encourage you to reconsider your back up system.
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