Keeping Tabs

Disclaimer: this is not a sponsored post for Google. However, I do use a shit ton (official measurement) of Google products because they work for me! Please use at your own discretion and I will not be held liable for any issues you may have in the present or future due to reading this post. Also Google, if you are reading, I would not mind if you sent me free stuff. Thanks. 

I have a confession to make. I am a hoarder. A Google Chrome tab hoarder. I have a set of ten tabs that I open on startup (or keep open if I am just putting my laptop to sleep) that I always keep open. Due to this, if I am researching something, I can often have twenty tabs open, since I have my normal ten plus whatever ones I am opening along the way. Right now I have these ten plus two others that I am using to look stuff up as I write this post. 

I can feel my work buddy (G-Money the Kiwi) and my hiking buddy (Bugsy) both rolling their eyes at me as they are both inbox zero types of guys. Get this, G-Money even deletes his text messages once he reads them. Yes, deletes the entire string! So sometimes I will send him something and he will ask about it later and I will tell him that he should already have it and he will say that he already deleted the string. Sigh. However, I probably go way too far the other way, and have never deleted a string since the day the dinosaurs walked the earth, or at least as long as we have been able to port texts over to a new phone when we switch (again, thanks to Google!) Also, in my defense, I am a super sleuth at finding the info I need within these old texts, so it is not all in vain! 

As a side note, if you don't already do this, you can set up your Chrome to always open the same tabs upon startup. It can done by opening the tabs that you want to have be your defaults --> going to settings --> on startup --> open a specific page or set of pages --> use current pages. Or you can manually add addresses by clicking --> add a new page. 

I am also a bookmark hoarder. I am guilty of having way too many bookmarks saved that I probably will never return to. I think I feel like I will want them later and then something new comes along (squirrel!!) and I use that information instead. However, I have found that the Chrome Reading List really helps me to cut down on this, as you can put it on the list and then once you read it, mark it as read and then you can dismiss it. 

In my defense though, I do sometimes dislike the attitude that instead of saving things in an organized way, we can just look them up again, essentially doing the same steps over and over that we have already done (definition of insanity?), which can sometimes be a waste of time. Again, I do feel like I have organized them so I can find them easily; however, in some cases it may just be faster to look them up a second time. Also, I do have a favorite pizza dough recipe that I have made dozens of times, so some things are worth saving. 

Side note: you can find the reading list under --> more (three dots) --> bookmarks and lists --> reading list. If you then click reading list, it will open a side tab, where you can click --> add current tab (#3) to add the tab you want. Alternatively, and I would suggest this, you can click --> the pin button (#1), which will pin the shortcut to your browser (#2), and then you can close the side tab and only open it using the shortcut when you want to add a tab. 

I feel like this is similar to the "one touch" principal of decluttering; rather than moving something to a new place and then going through it again at some point in the future, we are supposed to decide right away and just put the thing where it needs to be (the trash, goodwill etc.) So with my bookmarks, should I take notes? Take the info that I need from them and then close the tab? I probably should, as my return rate is probably below 50%. However, it only takes a click to save it, so what do I have to lose? I guess there is a point of intersection where brain power and efficiency are optimal, and then you can go way too far over to one end or the other otherwise. 

Since this is a Google oriented post, I will also say that of my ten saved tabs, eight of them are Google related. You want to know what they are, you say? Okay here we go! 

Feedly: Blog reader (non-Google). Fun fact: Feedly actually used to be part of Google Reader. Does anyone remember that? 

Gmail x 2: Need I say more? Actually, a side note: when I got my first Gmail address, you had to request an invitation! Does anyone remember that? 

Google Calendar: This I use for calendar, tasks and contacts (which can also be accessed on the Gmail tab). 

Google Maps: I use this every day, multiple times per day. This is also probably one of the top ten apps I use on my phone. 

Google Messenger: This is the texting app on my phone, which can also be used from my computer. I find if I am sitting at the computer anyway, it is much easier to answer texts with a keyboard. 

Google Keep: Notes, lists, ideas, thoughts... Also used multiple times a day and often on my phone when I am in the middle of something and have a thought. This can also be shared with other people when planning a shopping or a camping trip etc. 

Blogger: Blog creator. This is probably the least used tab, as I only post once a week, so I may use it twice a week(*obviously not at the moment). However, it is nice to have it at hand for when I get ideas and often I will just start a draft with some notes and then come back to it later. 

YouTube: I use this a lot for research. In fact, I almost never use it for entertainment, unless you call watching travel destination videos entertainment, which I guess you could. However, I am mostly doing it to find out the answer to something. 

ChatGPT: This is a new addition, and my second non-Google tab. I don't use this very often (despite all of my posts about this recently). I do also sometimes use Gemini (which is a Google AI platform) to create images (like the Canadian Thanksgiving Beaver or the cat at the top of this post). 

A runner up and one I don't have pinned is Google Photos, which I not only use to look at photos, but sometimes to remember certain trips or times. Often when I am doing a travel recap, I will go back and look at my photos and/or GPX (map) files to remember dates, names, places etc. Also, if you have your location enabled, you can see all of the photos you have taken on a map, which can be quite handy. Wow, making this list really makes me see how much of the Google Kool-Aid I have drunk! Bottoms up! 

Are you a Google user? Do you keep any tabs open all of the time? What method do you use for bookmarking or saving things to read or use later? 

If you haven't already, you can fill out this form with any questions you want answered for my upcoming ask me anything post!!

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here. 

What I Learned

I know I talked about technology last week, but I have recently been shopping for a new laptop and I went down the rabbit hole trying to decide which one to buy so I have some things to share so that you don't have to do the same thing. I have only ever purchased one laptop in my life. It is the one I am using now, and I bought it in 2015 and I spent what I considered too much on it. The reason for this is that my boss, who is very impetuous about some things and liked to treat his family to nice things, told me that he was not going to give me a bonus unless I spent it on something "frivolous." I think he meant a fun trip or a nice hotel room or something, because when I showed him the receipt, he told me that my purchase was too practical. I am practical, but I spent nearly double on it than what I would have spent otherwise, so it was a splurge! Anyway, this has worked out, as I am still using this computer 10 years later, and it is still going strong. (PS many of the computers I looked at are well over what I paid 10 years ago! Sigh, inflation sucks). I cacluated that based on the amount of time that I have used it, it has cost me $0.27/day, well under the $1 per use rule!!

So why am I buying a new laptop? My current one is good for using the internet and word documents and things, but last year I bought a GoPro so that I could take some videos of my cycling and hiking adventures. This was great and the photo quality is excellent. However, it is so excellent that my poor old laptop does not have enough oomph to watch the videos. I will get into the details now. 

What does "oomph" mean? It means several things, and I will tell you now. There are three important things to look at, CPU, GPU and RAM. An honorable mention is disk space, but this is not as important as the first three. 

CPU (Central Processing Unit). Example: 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX You have probably heard of Intel or AMD, and you probably have a little sticker on your new laptop that looks like this (or if you have a Mac, it may be ARM). 

What does this do, why is it important and what do all the numbers and letters mean? This processes data, and is often referred to as the CPU and is measured in GHz. If you are just using the internet, you only need like 2.5 GHz; if you are gaming or editing videos, you may need more like 4 GHz. 

The i9 (i7 etc.) is the model number and the higher the number after the i, the newer it is, so if you have a choice between i5 and i9, you may want to go with i9 (same thing for AMD, but it is Ryzen 5, 7, 9 etc.) The 14900HZ is a SKU, but the letter(s) at the end do matter, as it is power efficiency and goes in this order from least to most efficient: Y, U, P, H, HK, HZ (you can see them all or read more here). 

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) Example: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. This processes graphics and other visual data on a computer, so if you need fast moving graphics, you need a better GPU. NVIDIA GeForce is known to be one of the best, but also Intel and AMD have options. The numbers at the end are higher quality or newer as the number goes up, so 4050 would be older than 4060. The least expensive NVIDIA which would still be good for games/video editing would be the 3050. 

RAM (Random Access Memory) Example: 16GB RAM. This stores data that the processor needs to access quickly to run applications and open files. It allows for both reading and writing data. The higher the number, the better the performance. My current laptop only has 8GB of RAM, but it is pretty standard for most new ones to have at least 16GB and if you want to do games/videos, you may want at least 32GB. This is my current computer. You can see from the "memory" section that I am using 5.6/7.9 GB of RAM, and what I have open is only a few Chrome tabs and Excel sheets. If I want to do anything more complicated, I will soon run into issues. 

So let's talk about the honorable mention, disk space! Most computers now have SSD (Solid State Drives) which store data for you. What does this mean? If you have ever bought an external HD in the past, you will note that they whir a lot and make noises and sometimes sound like they are spinning and spinning. Those are probably HHD, which have a lot of moving parts. SSDs don't have moving parts (hence the "solid") and so not only are they faster and quieter, but I can travel with one without worrying about banging it on something and one of the parts breaking (and then ALL of your data is gone!) I have carried both my computer, which has an internal SSD, and an additional external SSD with me on my bike trip with no issues. 

Most computers now have at least 512GB of SSD disk space, which is probably enough for most people who just have documents and some photos stored on their computer. If you need more space, you can either buy a computer with 1TB, or you can buy a 1TB external SSD drive for under $100 (I like this one by SanDisk) and I just bought a 2TB for $129. So if you are buying a computer and it is an extra $300 for a 1TB vs a 512GB, just buy the 512GB and you can buy an external SSD when/if you need more. 

In case you are wondering, my current computer is a Lenovo Yoga Pro. Since it lasted me 10 years without any issues, I decided to go with another Lenovo and ended up getting the Legion 5i 16" Laptop 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 -  32GB RAM. And now you know what all of that means! The only downside to getting better components is that they make the laptop a lot heavier than I would like. But you have to pick your poison! 

Oh! One last thing; I ended up getting mine at Costco because they have a 90 day return policy (vs. 30 days for most of the others) and the price includes a two year warranty (plus one of the perks of the credit card I used is an extended one year warranty), McAfee for one year and technical support. They also ship in 4 days vs. 9-14 days for many of the others. I have had great success with Costco electronics and my family has bought three other computers and a television from them in the past! 

To summarize, in case you fell asleep, do you just want to blog, save some photos in a file, watch YouTube videos and read the internet? If yes, just get whatever, but maybe be sure it has at least the highest "i" number you can find within your budget and 16GB of RAM. Probably GPU won't really matter as much. 

If you want to do any games or video editing, get an CPU SKU with H or HZ at the end, an NVIDIA GPU, and at least 32GB of RAM. (PS You can also buy a Mac, which do not use any of these, as Apple is making their own versions of all these things as a combined unit now, but information about that is beyond my pay grade). 

If you haven't already, you can fill out this form with any questions you want answered for my upcoming ask me anything post!!

Have you ever bought a new laptop? What aspects did you consider? What did you end up going with in the end and why? 

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here.

What I Learned

I am a very curious person, or so I have been told. Some people like that about me, but I am sure that I annoy the crap out of others by asking too many questions. I just want to get to the meat of things, and if I have a problem to solve, I do not quit until I find the answer. This can lead to some pretty grim rabbit holes, and some frustration on my part, but the maximizer in me will oftentimes not let go. Many times, these searches or questions come because something goes wrong. Other times, it is my need for perfection that drives the search. I will give you examples of both. The first one on my list is the latter, and the second one on the list is the former. The third is one I learned a long time ago, but one that I find useful for blogging or journaling. So read on for what I learned, the computer shortcuts and blogging edition. 

Putting a hyperlink in a comment. I wanted to link a pair of shoes for Rick in Nance's blog about buying shoes for her husband, but I did not want that super long annoying link to show up; I just wanted a tidy hyperlink. I have done this before, but it is one of the things I promptly forgot afterwards. One thing that I am trying to do (#lifegoals) more is to keep track of things in an organized way so I can either find them later or use them again or not look up the same thing over and over (definition of insanity, right?) So now I (and you!) will have notes on how to do this right here: 

In the area you want the hyperlink, type this: <a href="PUT WEBSITE ADDRESS HERE">PUT WORDS YOU WANT DISPLAYED HERE</a> 

For example, you would type: why not hop over to <a href="https://www.travelspot06.blogspot.com">this excellent blog</a> for more information about coding? And what will show up will be --> Why not hop over to this excellent blog for more information about coding? FYI: This will work on both WP and Blogger blogs. 

Copy + paste clipboard. Sometimes I am commenting on blogs and when I click submit, I get an error and then sometimes I cannot go back and resubmit, so I have to type out the entire comment again and that is frustrating! So I researched how to get my clipboard (aka previously copied information) and it is super easy on a PC (sorry Mac users, you have to figure out your own issues). 

Just click the Windows Button + V, it will ask if you want to start saving your clipboard, say yes. Then what I do is right before I hit submit on the comment, I use CTRL-A, CTRL-C to copy the comment and then if I need to access it again later, I click Windows-V and there I have my list of saved items. To use it, just click on the one you want and voila! No repeating comments or other things. You can also pin ones you use a lot! This also works for clipped snippets (like the Excel clips pasted below!!)

A quick warning though: The Windows clipboard history is available until you restart your computer, except for any items you've pinned. The clipboard history only stores the last 25 items you've copied, and when you copy a new item, the oldest item is deleted.

Excel formula of the week. I love Excel; I use it for travel and packing lists and organization, collecting information, keeping track of things and obviously for adding up costs and doing budgets and things like that. The IF function is one that I use in various forms! You all may know how to use these already, and if so, yay! If not, here they are. And if these seem exciting, just wait until we get to nested IFs! Prepare to be wowed! 

SUMIF --> Used to sum by category when you have a list of numbers or costs etc. In the below example, I want to sum up costs by category. I am telling it to sum the list in column C if the category in column B matches the word in cell E3. 

COUNTIF --> in the same example, I now want to count how many of each category there are. So basically count how many in column B match cell E3. 

IFERROR --> Now that I have my counts, I want to calculate a per day cost. This all well and good but if I remove the word Motel, now I have an error (#DIV/0) for Motel because the count is zero. To fix that, I put the words IFERROR before the formula and then tell it what phrase or number I want it to return if there is an error. In this case I am being silly, but usually I just put 0, or "", which will return a blank. 

Once that formula is done, here is the result. Isn't that fun! 

Oh you want one more you say? Fine! I also love the shortcut ALT = (ALT and equal key) which is used to sum up a column instead of typing out =SUM(H3:H9). Just put it where you would normally put the formula and you are good to go! Okay, admit it; did your eyes glaze over? Or are you excited to share your favorite Excel tip with me? 

Do you use any of these tricks? Or do you have any other shortcuts you use while blogging or commenting? Do you have any fun Excel tricks you want to share? If you are a Mac (or cell phone) user, do you know where to find your clipboard? 

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here. 

What I Learned

Welcome to the technology version of What I Learned. Over the years, obviously I have done a lot of things wrong for a long time and then I find out a trick and I am floored and I never look back. Here are a few things that I have found that make things so much easier when using the phone or computer. 

VPN: This is good for when you are using a lot of public networks and need security, or...if you are traveling and you want your app or website to think you are still in your country of origin. I have a good story about this which I will tell in another post but for now just know that your Netflix account does not have the same shows when you are in a different country. So if you want to have the same shows, or same subtitles etc. your IP needs to be in the country you come from. Also banking is much easier if you are "not" abroad! I use NordVPN, but there are several different options and they are not expensive, and it has saved my butt a few times!! 

Feedly Boards (Categories). I started using this when I first started using Feedly, but at the time, I only had a "favorites" category. Once I started having to use my phone to read articles, I quickly found that I needed more categories, as I like to go back to posts I have commented on to see if the author has replied to my comments. When I am on the laptop, I used to just leave the article open, then revisit it when I went back on the computer. 

However, with my phone, this is not as feasible. So now I have boards for the following: 

Commented: posts I commented on

Returned: posts I commented on and returned to and read the reply (once this is done, I remove the commented category)

Past due: posts I commented on, returned to and there is no reply after a certain amount of time (then I remove the commented category and don't go back again and waste time checking).

Book ideas: articles or posts about books that I want to add to my holds/loans on Libby

Vacation ideas: articles or posts about places I want to research more, go to, or review

Ideas: articles or posts about something that I think would be fun to write about at some point

You can bring up just the one category and see a list easily and you can also add or remove the category from the list or within the individual article or post. 

Google Reader Mode. If you use Chrome and you have any websites that use a lot of ads or photos and take forever to load or scroll, you will love the Google Reader Mode Extension. It breaks down the post into words only, and gets rid of all the pesky minutia. This also often works for posts where you can only see some of the post and then need to log in; if you hit the Reader button right away, you can get the entire article in Reader view. 

Here is an example: Purple travels a lot and retired early and I like reading her stories; however, I do not have the patience for the site to load due to so many pictures and inserts and ads! 

Big pictures! Too many ads and Instagram links!

So I pop it into Reader and voila. In Reader, you can also save, print, and read aloud. You can also change the font and size and things, but I have just left it on the default for this. 

So much cleaner! See top right for options.

Camera shortcut for phone. This may seem obvious to some but when I was on the Tour Divide, a guy I was with told me how he wasn't taking a lot of photos because it was a pain to get his phone out, swipe to open, push the camera button and then take a photo. I told him that he should have a shortcut to enable him to do it without all that fuss. For my phone (Pixel), you have to double click the power button. You can then take the photo using the volume button (either one) therefore enabling you to do it fast, or when it's wet outside, or when you have gloves on, all without touching the screen. My parent's Motorola is a quick wrist twist back and forth to activate. Also, in case you are scared, if a stranger does this, they cannot access any prior photos or other things on your phone, so you can have someone take your photo at Yosemite without worry. What is your phone's camera shortcut? 

Schedule send for text messages. Since I am often up at the buttcrack of dawn, and this is when I have time and motivation, I often set up a bunch of texts to go out later in the day when normal people are actually up. I also do this for birthday texts if I think of it the day before, I will schedule it for the next day so I won't forget. The only downside of this for me is that if I am not in service at the scheduled time, it won't go out, so it doesn't help me in that case. In Android you hard press the send button and it will give you an option for times; once you choose your date and time, you hit the send button again and it will be set! I am certain iPhone has something similar; can anyone confirm?  

What method do you use to check responses on comments if there is no auto email feature? What tricks to you use to keep track of ideas, future books to read or vacations to research? What tips and tricks do you use to save time with technology, the internet, or your computer? If none of the above, do you have any tips or tricks you often use in life? 

Feed Me!

Hello readers; I need your help. You may have noticed that I was having trouble with my blog feed, and it was driving me nutso. I was posting posts but they were not showing up on Feedly for three days. The last one I posted (Minneapolis) actually did not show up in my feed at all, and that is when I knew that I really had a problem. I tried all kinds of things and posted a bunch of test posts (sorry if you got these) but I couldn't seem to figure it out. 

I removed all of my widgets, messed with my HTML code a lot, searched for errors and tried to fix them, removed code, added code, etc. If you know me at all you know that I do not like to leave things undone, so I spent several days patiently (??) trying to fix this issue. Then I kind of gave up, and decided to transition to WordPress. 

I spent several days staring at this

I downloaded everything in Blogger, uploaded it to WordPress and was still in the process of fiddling with the settings when my Minneapolis post showed up in my feed finally (about a week after my original post date). Clearly something I had messed with  had worked! I then posted a test, which worked, and then I scheduled the gadgets post, which worked. 

Now my conundrum is, should I stay or should I go now? From the few hours I spent working on the WP blog, it seems like there are definitely some features I like more (the commenting seems better for example) but some things that kind of confuse me (the set up of the template - I cannot seem to get my header font smaller without also decreasing my post header font and vice versa, also my side menu options seem more limited, but maybe I just need to fiddle some more). 

I need your help! 

WordPress people: What do you like/dislike about WordPress? What is the commenting like? If the person commenting is not on WP, does it make it difficult? Do you get an email if someone comments back (that is something I wish I had now. When I comment on a WP blog, I have to go back and check to see if they replied sometimes), can you comment back via email (you can do this on Blogger if the person is on Blogger too, but I can only do this with some WP people). 

Blogger people turned WordPress: Why did you convert? What things were hard during the conversion? (I noticed all of my comments came over but they are all "anonymous" now) What things do you like better or dislike more? 

Blogger people: Why do you stay with Blogger? Have you ever considered converting?

Additional questions for all: What feed reader do you use? How do WP vs Blogger posts show up on your reader? Do you have a preference for the aesthetics of one over the other? What day did you get this post? (FYI, I am posting it on February 18th) Alternatively, if you subscribe by email, when did you get this post? Also, if you have had this problem, how did you fix it? 

If you are shy, you can email me at travelspot06 at gmail rather than commenting. 

If you don't feel like answering any of the above questions, at least tell me...what are you up to this weekend? 

Thank you for your help! 

Telephono

So I guess there is a reason after all that we have cell phones. I sometimes wonder why. But today when I was waiting - by the way, I HATE waiting - for the boys, I realized, cell phones really have done at least one thing for us. They have allowed us to spend our time more economically.

The situation was this. I needed to get money from AMEX; Grant needed a sleeping bag. I was going to ¨pop in and out¨of the AMEX office... That didn´t happen. I ended up spending about an hour in the office and Grant ended up spending about 2 hours getting a sleeping bag. However, I couldnt get out of line to tell them that I was going to take longer than expected and they didnt know why I was taking so long. So we both ended up waiting longer than expected for each other.

So being here has made us all learn how to plan. Well, I use that phrase lightly...Plan. We have tried to plan, but sometimes it doesn´t work. But it has been interesting...Remember when we didn´t have cell phones (gasp). What did we do!?
I kind of like it. People can get ahold of me, they just have to wait. And the same goes for me...So we learn patience and planning. Maybe. Well we are trying to!

When "Face to Face" Does Not Compute

We had a meeting at work the other day and one thing that was discussed was the fact that too many emails are going back and forth. A suggestion was made: instead of shooting someone an email, get up out of your chair and walk over to their desk and talk to them. This made me laugh because our office is not large; when they said get up and go talk to them, they are talking about a 20-50 foot walk. The longest you may have to go is down or up two fights of stairs, or in the case of many, down two floors on the elevator.

Which brings me to something else: I was reading Shape magazine on the plane last weekend and one of the articles was about small ways to start losing weight. One suggestion was to get a pedometer and make sure to take at least 1000 steps per day. To do this, Shape Magazine suggested getting up out of your chair at work and going to talk to your coworkers rather than emailing them. It also suggested taking the stairs rather than the elevator.

Is this so hard to understand? Do we need bigwigs to explain it to us in a meeting? Do we need Shape Magazine to tell us? Are 1000 steps really that hard to do? If you have a 2 foot stride, for example, 1000 steps would only be 2000 feet. NOT EVEN A HALF A MILE!!! What is happening to us that we can’t even walk a half a mile a day?

I blame it on technology. Not only is this great world of email, text messaging and Internet robbing us of our friends and a real connection with people, but it is also robbing us of our health. Why go out and date when there is eharmony.com? Why walk over to so-and-so’s desk when you can email them to ask what they want to do for lunch? It saves time, right? If your eharmony.com match doesn’t work out, you didn’t even have to put on makeup and get all dressed up. If your friend has other plans for lunch, you saved yourself a walk. We are getting lazier physically and mentally.

I admit that I too have gotten sucked into this vortex of emails and texts. At this very moment I sit here and blog when I could be discussing this issue with a coworker or friend. I tell my problems to the faceless masses but withhold them from my friends. I send out mass emails asking coworkers what they are doing for lunch. I send texts to people instead of calling them. I too am mentally and physically lazy.

Can we avoid this downward spiral? We are in a constantly changing world and technology is getting more and more prevalent. Kids these days are much more technologically advanced than I will ever be. I just hope that we can continue to teach our technology laden children the value of a long walk on the beach rather than another episode of Friends, a face to face chat with a friend rather than a text, a thank you note rather than an email or…taking the stairs instead of the elevator!!