Tag: Life

It was a crisp, fresh November day in Edinburgh. I surprised Kirsty with a trip to Edinburgh Zoo.

Mostly to see the pandas who are, in real life, just as adorable and fluffy and cute and ohhmygodcanwetakeonehome as you’d imagine. Smaller than I thought though…

Anyway. I took the camera and, despite the railings, fencing, plexi-glass and other such screens, managed to get some pretty good photos.

Have you ever shared a Word document with someone only to find the images it included didn’t get sent over?

This is probably because the images you had were linked rather than embedded. You now have two options:

1. ZIP the entire folder with the Word document and all the images (and hope that the links are relative and not absolute). I use 7Zip for such things (it’s free).
2. Change all the linked images to be embedded within the Word document.

The latter option will result in a larger file size, but means you are only sending one file. But how do you do it? Microsoft haven’t made it very easy but the key is locating the Links dialog. This shows all the linked images and allows you to break the link and embedded them. The tricky bit is finding this elusive dialog.

Here’s how it works on my version of Microsoft Word, Office Professional 2010.

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If you don’t see the Edit Links option, here is how to add it, once it’s added, it should appear as per the video above.

I’ve written about this twice already, but as they continue to be amongst the most viewed I thought it was worth updating the information.

• How to embed linked images in Word 2010
• How to embed linked images in Word 2007

• Activity: Walking
• Distance: 8.53 mi
• Duration: 00:59:48

Dear neglected blog,

I’m sorry I struggle to find the time to talk to you these days, I really am. I don’t do much writing elsewhere either so please don’t feel I’m cheating on you, although.. well that saucy minx Twitter is always good for a cheap thrill but I know that is just a bit of fun and won’t last…

OK, the truth is I have been writing somewhere else, somewhere more private, and I guess that’s distracted from what I’d usually talk about here.

Don’t worry, whilst life continues to have ups and downs I’m taking care of myself and fundamentally I know I’m a very very lucky guy. I’m happy and glad to be here on this thing we call Earth. After all, as you already know, there are many many things in my life to be happy about and only a few things that aren’t quite so happymaking. I’ve got good friends, the circle of which has recently increase, a well-paid job that I don’t (always) loathe, and a wonderful woman in my life. I’m also using the word OSSUM a lot, that can only be a good thing (apart from the fact it’s not actually a word but I’m not going into that now).

I could tell you how I’m enjoying using my MacBook Air (it’s still all new and shiny), or how badly my efforts at teaching myself guitar are going, I could waffle on about my recent weightloss/fitness regime changes, or about how the acquisition of the company I work for might be a good thing for me in the long run. But I won’t cos they are just things that are happening. Just life.

Ohhh and I’m off to Singapore soon, that’s good but again, just another thing that is happening. OK, I’m excited about that one but it’s still just a thing, just another transient event in my life.

The thing is, I’m increasingly I’m finding my view of the world becoming that of a journey. I know that’s cliche but it is what it is. I’m still doing my best to be positive, or to at least bow out of negative situations with a little humility and my (admittedly shaky at best) integrity intact. I’m letting go of as many worries as I can, even though some flutter back to annoy me from time to time. Life continues regardless, so what’s the point in placing value on things that skip past in the blink of an eye.

The bottom line is that life is good and whist I know I’ve neglected you in all of this, I know that deep down you understand why.

Your erstwhile owner,

G

The Olympics are over, and whilst we wait for the Paralympics to start, I think it’s fair to say that the Olympics were a much bigger event than I realised. I’m sure the successes of Team GB contributed but even without that, the coverage by the BBC, and the overall feeling of euphoria and pride that built from that amazing opening ceremony was genuinely moving.

It was a funny thing, watching that opening ceremony and finding myself hugely moved by it and then to find those emotions carried through whilst watching the events. Whether cheering on cyclists, swimmers, runners, jumpers or people shooting things, I found myself bought in to the whole concept of Team GB. Most odd.

But good!

The one thing I’m taking away from the Olympics, is that it showed that we can do great things, that the great British approach of “ach we are alright I guess” CAN be “We are AWESOME!”.

I’ve spoken before about focussing on positives, and keeping clear of negativity wherever I can, and this is all proof positive of what it can achieve. Of course all the competitors train hard, are dedicated and will push themselves, but hearing the members of Team GB thank the crowds for spurring them on suggests there was more to it than just training.

Someone I work with, when asked how he is doing, will always say “I’m great!” or “I’m fantastic!” and whilst he may be feigning those emotions, I’ve started trying it myself (although with words like “good”, I’m not quite ready to say I’m fantastic yet) and it works. A little bit of PMA (positive mental attitude) goes a long way it seems.

I enjoyed the Olympics immensely, I always do being a bit of a sport nut. I like seeing sports you don’t see much coverage of getting the spotlight, I like those special moments that bring a sporting victory into sharp relief (c’mon, who didn’t shed a tear at the story of Gemma Gibbons looking heaven-ward and saying “love you Mum”), I like the underdogs take part knowing they won’t win but can say they competed at the Olympics.

I’ve also been a little saddened that the disparity between men and women still exists, that amidst all the fervour there were moments of tragedy, and that even as the closing ceremony reached its end, the view seemed to be that we would return to previous values of ‘good enough’.

The stories make such a big part of the events, it’s not just about a piece of metal for so many of the competitors, it is about a life event, the completion of a long hard journey. Just being an Olympics competitor is an achievement few people will experience and that to me is a great message to take from watching some of these people.

You don’t have to be the best of the best to achieve, as long as you are pushing yourself and doing the best you can, you are already ahead of the game.

The Olympics continue to conflict and amaze but I bloody love them!

More for my own notes than yours, and because I’ve done this before and it was useful to some other people, here is what I have running and installed on my MacBook Air. I’m not done yet but for the most part I’m happy enough with this lot.

My workflow is dominated by Apple devices, MacBook Air is my home computer, I have iPhone and iPad, but all of my personal tasks, email and calendars need to be accessible from my work machine (a Windows laptop). That’s very easy these days and I rely on Google to host most of that, pulling the info into various apps on my different devices.

For now.

So here is the list, and this time round it’s not all free. That’s one thing I’ve realised in my time with iPhone and iPad, some apps are well worth paying for and I’m happy to pay for them (same as some services, Instapaper being an excellent example).

• Moom – gives me Windows 7 style window positioning options which I’ve grown used to.
• Growl – still THE notification engine it seems, highly configurable.
• Caffeine – one click to stop your Mac going to sleep until you say so, handy for viewing movies etc.
• FuzzyClock – change the time to an approximation, seems to help me be less ‘minute’ obsessed.
• Alfred – quick launcher, file finder, all round awesome tool. Seems to have overtaken QuikSilver.
• The Unarchiver – deals with most archive file formats, nice and simple.
• Witch – window switching made easy, a must have if you are moving from Windows.
• TimeMachine Scheduler – lets you schedule timemachine backups… obviously.
• Air Display – extends my screen to my iPad or iPhone (still playing with this one).
• Microsoft Office  – much as I love the Apple versions (Excel still rules though), most of the files I work with are Office formatted. Home Use Program got me this for £10!
• Twitterific – Twitter Client. I have Tweetbot BETA installed but prefer the lighter design touch of Twitterific… however Tweetbot has a MUTE filter for hashtags which may sway me.
• CyberDuck – FTP client. Transmit gets a lot of plaudits but this one has a duck as an icon. It also now supports WebDAV and Google Drive.
• Notational Velocity – stores and retrieves notes. I use this primarily to access SimpleNote notes (a web app) as it’s synced to Dropbox.
• Adium – IM client. Another duck.
• Carbon Copy Cloner – used to create a bootable backup of my machine.
• Dropbox – quite simple, I don’t know where I’d be without this service. Hosted files, apps on all my devices. Drop something in a folder and it’s synced everywhere.
• TextWrangler – powerful text editor. Looking at Tincta for something a bit simpler though.
• uTorrent – for downloading torrents. Duh.
• VLC – video player, supports a multitude of formats.
• Google Chrome – I use it on my Windows box, so syncing keeps my ‘web environment’ the same wherever I go.
• Day One – Journal app, only downside is no web app, syncs with iCloud and/or Dropbox.
• iA Writer – a ‘focused writing app’, clears the screen of distractions. Syncs with Dropbox and/or iCloud.
• Reeder – already on my iPad and iPhone, my RSS reader of choice. You can post out to InstaPaper, Pinboard and other services from there.
• Read Later – an Instapaper client for the Mac. A nice companion to Reeder (you can use it for Pocket as well).
• Skitch – fantastical app for screenshots and image tweaking.
• Postbox – current email client. Hooks up to GMail well. It’s not as nice as Sparrow though, which Google has just bought so still not sure what I’ll settle on.
• HandBrake – video transcoder, for converting video files. Simples.
• Calibre – eBook management, for my Kindle.
• Spotify – because sometimes listening to random playlists created by someone else is all you wanna do!
• CamTwist – bit of a daft one, but lets you add effects during video chats. Also lets you share your screen on a cam session so potentially useful? YMMV!
• BetterTouchTool – I love the touchpad, multi-touch gestures are changing how I work, this add-on lets you take that to the next level, still figuring it all out!
• ControlPlane – context based configurations, change your setup depending on where you are, what you have plugged in and so on.
• Bartender – file under, why didn’t Apple fix this? Removes a LOT of visual clutter (it’s the small bar on the top-right of my screenshot above).
• Fantastical – I’d be lost without my calendar, but iCal is less than great, this makes using the calendar quick and easy.
• Skype – because it’s Skype..
• Crashplan – web based backup. Still trying to figure out how to include my NAS drives in my plan but feel much more secure already!
• Cobook – fed up managing your own Address Book? This will hook into FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter (more services on the way) and keep things up to date for you. Sync to iCloud.. sync to devices. SORTED.
• Last.fm scrobbler – cos I can’t stop logging what tracks I’ve listened to now!
• AppCleaner – for when I want to remove some of these apps, it’ll find all the related files and get rid of them too.

Still to find

• Image Editor – iPhoto is fine for tweaking photos but I need something for when I’m building out websites. Seashore is a likely candidate.
• To Do – I use Astrid these days, but they don’t have an OSX app. I’ve flip-flopped on To Do list apps on my iOS devices a lot recently so expect this to change again (been through RTM, Orchestra and a couple of others).

One thing that struck me, whilst writing this up, was how loyal I am. Not to Apple, but to services or applications that I like. I know there are other RSS apps out there but I will not budge from Reeder, same for InstaPaper, Chrome and a few others. Once I find something I like, I tend to stick with it until I don’t have the choice (Sparrow being the most recent example).

Still a couple of things to sort out, I need a nice thin sleeve for my MacBook Air, but I’m very happy to have made the switch.