Regarding Productivity Tools and My Life

It has been quite a while since I have last blogged and for very good reason.  These past couple of weeks have been quite the transition for me as I reacquaint myself with my former life (a University student), and make the rather painless adjustment from PC to Mac (more on why I ditched PCs in a later blog).

First and foremost I am taking three rather challenging courses this term at University:

Operating Systems (CS350)

User Interfaces (CS349)

Numerical Computation (CS370)

These three courses should complement and supplement my knowledge in areas that are critical for the type of software I am producing.  I have found the adjustment and transition back to University to be harder than I anticipated.  Apparently sitting in a hospital bed for a couple of weeks screws up your concept and value of time.  Nevertheless I will do what I can to catch up and stay up to date with courses and otherwise.

Another big change for me, something that I prefer not to do, has been that I have purchased a lot of new pieces of technology,

I purchased a Macbook Pro, Time Capsule, a fair amount of Apple software (iWork and iLife), a new blackberry (my blackberry decided to go meet its maker yesterday), a colour network laser printer designed for SMBs like myself.  While this has incurred me considerable expense it was certainly worth it.  The boost in productivity alone has been felt and much of the items will be taken full advantage down the road.  

In any event I would suggest that everyone have a Blackberry  because they are the ultimate productivity tools.  It is the perfect convergent mobile device that you can carry with you everywhere.  I say this because often times I want to send e-mail without having to pull out a notebook (especially when traveling).  Staying organized while you are on the go is also an essential that blackberry handles exceptionally well, with a good set of synchronization tools to keep all areas of your digital life synchronized.  It is nice to know that I can have all my calendars staying the same regardless of where I am.  Staying on top of things is something the blackberry excels quite well at.  I have chosen to use Google to handle the wireless synchronization from my laptop to my Blackberry as it is the only **nice** way to wireless synchronize a blackberry without much effort.

Anyways, that has been how my life has been like for the past few weeks.  I have been preparing a decent amount of time a major meeting I will be having with a prospective client in February, as well as catching up with business related tasks that couldn't be completed at a convenient time.  I will update everyone onto the specifics of the major changes I have made in my life (the change to a different Blackberry model isn't a huge change for me as I already had a Blackberry).