Software

Helping Myself to Ensure Better Productivity

I find as I get older, I am not so great at remembering everything that I really should be doing regularly. Not just necessary things, but things I want to to. I’ve been working out some better systems to push myself to keep up with all of these sort of little tasks.

Microsoft ToDo

Any ToDo list app works here, I use Microsoft ToDo. I used to use Wonderlist, but Microsoft bought them out and it’s essentially folding into MS ToDo. I try to keep my lists somewhat streamlined down so it doesn’t become a cluttered mess. For example…

The Reminders List. All of my regular reminders go here. Every week I get a reminder to take out the trash after work. The same goes for Recycling. I get daily reminders in the morning for taking my vitamin and just before lunch to take my Acid reducer medicine. I get weekly reminders for other regular tasks as well, such as redeeming my Forza Rewards in the game Forza, checking on the free PDF of the week on Drivethrough RPG, and redeeming the free game of the week on the Epic Game Store. I also have Monthly reminders for checking on several auto-withdraw bill payments, or changing the furnace filter. I’ve got an irregular reminder to change out my pajamas every few days because I can never keep track of how many days I have worn the same pajamas.

The Grocery List. It’s called Grocery, but it’s more of a general list of more pressing things todo or purchase. It is often, just groceries though.

General ToDo Lists. I have lists for movies or TV I want to watch, books I want to read, projects, and I might want to do someday in the future.

The Calendar

I have also started using my calendar a lot more aggressively. I have several sub calendars going on different types of events as well. I do keep some reminder style tasks on the calendar instead of the ToDo List app as well. The general difference is that ToDo List reminders are effectively “never ending”, while Calendar Reminders are more ephemeral and have a set period of time. For example, Hasbro was running a contest on their Instagram for ten days, I used the calendar to schedule ten days of reminders.

The calendar has become extra useful during this COVID-19 time as well. A lot of musical acts are doing online shows. And since my plan to go to more concerts clearly isn’t going to go anywhere at this time, I can at least set up events to remind myself when live shows are going on.

I also use it to mark out generic blocks for work events, so I can better keep track of what I might have going on for scheduling other activities like Doctor’s appointments.

Send To Device

Something else I have been trying to push myself on, is taking care of things *now*. Or at least soon. Often I would come across things I want to download, or little projects to set up and try, often while browsing on my phone. This used to end up in one of two things. I would leave the tab open forever on my phone, or I would book mark it and forget about it.

I use Firefox on my phone and my PCs, so the bookmarks all sync, but I still have to remember to check them.

What I have discovered that I’ve been doing more is the “Send to Device” feature. I can take a tab on my phone and send it to either my Laptop or Desktop, instead of book marking it. This way, when I sit down and open up the appropriate device, that tab will show up, and be in my face as a reminder of “Do this NOW”. It’s really helped with actually taking care of some quick tasks that I may find while on my phone, but aren’t convenient to do immediately.

Track All the Things

I am going to keep this short, because it really needs to be it’s own post, but I have started heaving tracking a lot of aspects of what I do with my time. I don’t really DO anything with this data, but it motivates me in two ways.

The tracking itself is a thing that pops up as a reminder of something that needs done. Not having anything to fill in, makes me feel a little guilty about my productivity. It’s sort of an angle of negative self reinforcement.

Two, I like doing it, even if nothing comes of it.

Like I said, I will probably do a separate post, but I have been tracking:

  • TV I watch
  • Movies I watch
  • Music I Listen To
  • Books I’ve read
  • Online Courses I’ve done
  • My Mood, 2x a day
  • How much Duolingo I do each day
  • Fitness (Steps, Push Ups, Sit Ups)
  • How often I shave or get my hair cut
  • General Health Issues
  • Gas Consumption
  • Basically everything

I use several apps for this and some spreadsheets. But more on all that later.

Tools I Use: Netscan and Fing

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I wanted to do some occasional posts on some tools I use for various technical tasks.  Partially just to suggest some useful stuff, partially so I have some posts to reference anytime I reference said stuff.

I wanted to start off with Netscan and Fing, which serve the same basic purpose on two different platforms.  Both of these tools will scan the local IP range and return a list of every device connected to the network.  Netscan is what I use on windows, Fing is what I use on Android.

I use these tools very frequently, several times a week on average.  So what use is scanning the local network anyway?  I have two main uses, though both come down to Device Discovery.

Firstly, basic device discovery.  I’ve hooked something new to the network and I need to access it.  A lot of what I connect is headless with no easy way of discovering the IP aside from a scan.  An Arduino, a Raspberry Pi, a networked Webcam, all of these things need to be found once connected.  The scan is also useful for getting the MAC address of devices on the network.  The IP is dynamic on a network by network basis, a MAC address is a unique identifier.  Knowing the MAC address is useful for building firewall rules and setting up static IPs assigned by the router for devices like phones or laptops where assigning IPs on the device can get hairy.

The other reason for doing a network based scan is intrusion detection.  Generally speaking, I don’t expect to see hackers or anything on my home network.  This is more for checking things like “if my kids’ devices are connected” or occasionally if one of my kids has a new device borrowed or whatever that I am not aware of on the network.

Ultimately I want to set up a little network monitoring system on a server to do these sorts of checks in real time but both of these tools have served me well for years as doing the job quickly and simply.

Both are also useful for poking around foreign networks.  You can see what machines are on an open WiFi hotspot and see if they have any open shared files.  Though some open hotspots are smart enough to block such scans.

Security Cameras Part 2: The Software

So, I recently, basically ran through my plans and such for my recently acquired security cameras.  The physical cameras are only half the equation.  I only ended up making one box, and the other two I simply mounted up under the eaves in the appropriate positions.

The second step is the software.  I’m currently using three pieces of software to monitor these cameras.  First was the included myDlink service/software.  This software is most useful for accessing the cameras from outside the house.  It includes some basic notification ability but it doesn’t have an easy to way to record based on those notifications, at least not that I can tell.  The cameras themselves can push files to an FTP, but it’s sort of an all or nothing deal based on a schedule.  Running 1 shot a second creates a TON of files that are mostly useless.  The Phone app is good though (works with Windows Phone even!)

So I set out to find a better solution for capturing during motion.  I already run a private in house web server for testing, so I set out to find something that I could host there, on Ubuntu.  I came across a nice piece of software called Zoneminder.  It’s an OpenSource solution that will monitor cameras for motion and save files based on this activity.  I believe it can also record actual video though I am just doing short term recordings.  It may be a feature that I have not found, but my main issue is that I can’t bring up a view of all three cams at once.  I’m also having the usual issues with the server and IPs, internal vs external, etc.  It’s also tricky to set up.

cams

For multicam monitoring I’m using some Windows Software called IP Camera Viewer.  This simple software allows me to add IP based cameras and view them in a grid as desired.  Simple, and effective.