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First AeroPress Coffee
This is the big mess I made a few days ago, when preparing the first coffee in our new temporary home. I don’t like this type of coffee maker, but this is a furnished house; it was also our first morning here, and after searching the cabinets, that’s what I found.
It was the perfect excuse I needed to finally order an AeroPress, which just arrived.
Palo Alto Flash Tour
Another company I was eager to visit this time was Flipboard. I keep a relatively popular magazine on the platform and have collaborated with them on some blog posts. It was nice to finally meet some of the people I have been in touch with via email for a long time.
And since I’m here, why not stop by the HP’s garage?
What I wasn’t expecting during this Palo-Alto flash tour was to accidentally walk by a door with Pebble’s logo. I love my Pebble, and as I write this, I’m already regretting not having approached and requested a tour. The worst thing that could happen would be them saying it was not possible.
Visiting Evernote
I decided to stay in San Francisco for a few more days after the Evernote Conference to visit Evernote and some other companies.
Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures inside the building, so these and other similar photos are all I have from my visit to Evernote headquarters in Redwood City. Fortunately, I was given a full tour.
At the entrance there is a small cafeteria where employees can make their own coffee and drink it in Evernote cups. There’s also a small shop selling items from the Evernote Market and the famous chalkboard wall.
The first floors of the building are empty. In fact, they are quite raw; there isn’t even any finishing to the space. I was told the size of the building was thought to still fit everyone when the company grows. The upper floors are where people actually work and where I had the opportunity to meet and talk to different teams. One thing that surprised me was how many people knew who I was.
One interesting detail I noticed were the many walls pained with a special paint that makes them work as a whiteboard. Sometimes, people meet in front of a wall, have a conversation about a project, write or draw something on the wall, and then take a picture with Evernote. Pretty cool!
Before heading back to San Francisco, I had lunch with the marketing team at the cafeteria.
It was a nice experience to see where my beloved app is being built.
More present than his other suppliers from across the city
When I began consulting for Amaral Maia Sociedade de Advogados, located over 1.000 km away from me, many of my customers were already remote. But this was the first time a CEO told me something so special.
Even though it was a long project, the CEO and co-founder, Antonio Maia and I only met in person at the 2014 Evernote-Conference. That’s when he told me that I was always more present than his other suppliers from across the city. I always believed in building strong relationships with my clients, regardless of distance, so this was such a lovely compliment to receive.
The consulting project with Amaral Maia Sociedade de Advogados was selected by Evernote for my presentation at the conference, which you can watch below.
Weaving the Web
Weaving the Web is a fascinating journey into the history of the creation of the World Wide Web by its inventor. I read it for the first time when I was very young, probably as young as the Web itself.
Jokes aside, this is a must-read. Even after so many years from its publication, it’s still worth reading as it tells us how the Web, this integral part of our lives, came to be.
Furthermore, this book illustrates how many technologies are usually used together to innovate. Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee created the Web on a NeXT computer while working at CEARN. Isn’t that intriguing?
What Technology Wants
I found “What Technology Wants” by Kevin Kelly a fascinating read because it beautifully connects two of my biggest passions: technology and evolution. The “technium” is this evolving, self-organizing system that represents all technology, past, present, and future.
However, unlike species, which can become extinct, he presents the idea that old tech simply finds new purposes or persists quietly in the background. I loved it because I’m constantly repurposing old tech myself.
But what blew my mind was the parallel between evolution and technology. He argues that just as natural selection favors solutions best suited to an environment, the technium’s “natural selection” favors technologies that efficiently address human needs. There are several examples in the book of humans in vastly separated regions facing similar challenges and coming up with responses, often with similar designs. Just like how diverse species in similar environments develop comparable traits.
By the way, that’s the same argument we use when looking for life on other planets. If we find one with similar conditions to Earth, life there might have evolved in similar ways to what happened here.
Evernote Trunk Conference 2012
There are so many good things happening currently in my life. Not only am I currently writing a book about Evernote, but I was recently selected to join the companies’s Ambassador program. And then the unimaginable happened. I was invited to the 2012 edition of the Evernote Trunk Conference. This is such an honor.
It’s great to be here, but it could have been an entirely different outcome. My US visa was valid, but my passport was expired. The issue I faced was that Evernote’s invitation was extended just a few weeks before the event, so I had very little time to go through the process of renewing my passport. I got it two days before the trip, so I think you can imagine how stressed I was.
Anyway, after that holster of emotions, there I was at the Concourse Exhibition Center & Trade Show Facility. It was great to be among so many enthusiasts like me.
Blending Analog and Digital
Listening to Phil-Libin share his ideas and vision for the product was a fantastic experience, but there was more. The announcement of the Moleskin partnership happened in such a clever way. When we got back to the conference room, we found this envelope with the words “Do not open.”
After listening to Arrigo Berni, the CEO of Moleskin, we were finally introduced to this new product. The Evernote camera will “understand” stickers that come with the Evernote Moleskin, automatically save them to a preselected notebook, and even add tags. I can’t wait to use this and share my thoughts.
And to top it all off, I managed to snap a pic with Phil-Libin before I headed out. It was such a great day. Thank you, Evernote, for inviting me! I loved every minute of every moment of it.
MacGyvering a broken suitcase.
The plan was to contrast two realities that couldn’t be further apart by spending a couple of days in Berlin after our long journey across India by train.
It’s January, and since the weather was the opposite in both countries, we had to bring two very different types of clothes. That’s why we are traveling with a suitcase that isn’t the appropriate size for trains.
Long story short, always dragging it sideways on train hallways and then pulling it on the rough terrain around the stations damaged the wheels and turned it into a limping suitcase. Although it was like driving with a flat tire, it didn’t make sense to fix it because it would break again. But now that we are in Berlin, I decided to take a look at the situation.
I thought the wheels were just jammed, but that wasn’t the case. Two of them lost almost all of their bearing spheres, and there’s no way I can fix that with the tools I brought with me.
After some investigation, I was able to dismantle the axle and reposition one good wheel on each side. I was happy to have a working rolling suitcase again, but the wheels were too loose and that was not going to last long. The solution was to MacGyver it by cutting pieces of a pen barrel, which I used as a spacer. And that worked like a charm.
Freedom at Midnight
I came across the book Freedom at Midnight while browsing the shelves of used bookstores. At that time, I was searching for everything I could read to help me learn more about our next adventure. So, finding a book about India before our trip to the country was no coincidence. However, it was a great surprise to come across this book in particular.
This is an exceptionally well-written account of the touching life of Mahatma Gandhi and the history of India’s independence. It touched me so deeply.
Update: I learned so much about the country and its most significant historical figure that I wanted to give it to my friend, who was also planning a trip to India. But I couldn’t help it and recently bought another copy to read it again.
The intricate task of replacing the iBook G4 hard disk.
First, I connected the new disk to the Mac via USB, and with the help of Carbon Copy Cloner, I created a perfect copy of the old disk, which was still inside the computer. Then, after many layers and countless screws (pictures below), I finally reached the disk and replaced it.
The operation took me a good number of hours, and despite the flawless boot, the sleep and wake function was not working when closing and opening the lid. It took me a while to figure it out, but the culprit was one of the magnets not being correctly aligned. Here we go again. To get there, I had to take off some layers and screws one more time.
The next problem on the list was the Wi-Fi not working. I checked the Airport Extreme card, which is easily accessible below the keyboard, and everything looked fine. After several hours of troubleshooting the operating system without any success, I realized how late it was and went to bed.
By the way, when you feel stuck, it’s a good idea to take a break or switch to a different project. It always works for me, at least.
The Next Day
I’m not going to lie to you. Throughout the day at work, I wondered what could be wrong with my computer. If everything was fine with the operating system, maybe I have damaged the Wi-Fi card.
Back at home, I decided to check the card again, and when I touched it, I noticed that the antenna cable connector was not completely pushed in. The moment I pressed it and heard the click, I knew the Wi-Fi would be fine.
Wow, what a mission!
First 15K (using my Nike+iPod hack)
Yesterday, I completed my first 15K!
It was very difficult, and my time was terrible, but I am so happy to have completed this race. It has not been that long since I started jogging, with my first small victory being running around a park with less than a third of this distance.
I’ve been using the hack below almost since I bought the Nike+iPad and I never had a problem. I’m pretty happy with it.
Nike+iPod hack
Even though I don’t like Nike running shoes, I love running with my iPod, so I got the Nike+iPod tracker as soon as I could. But since it was announced, I have been trying to figure out how to attach it to my non-Nike shoes. Inspired by some adaptors being sold online, I came up with a simple hack.
These are just two sides of a velcro trip attached to each other on one end. Because one is facing the other, the attachment sides will also meet on the opposing end, closing the loop after passing it under the laces. I don’t really think it was necessary, but I stitched the center part just in case. As for the Nike+iPod, I glued it using 3M double-sided tape.
Odyssey
Reading Dealers of Lightning sparked a curiosity to learn more about the history of technology, and that’s when I started looking for other similar books.
I see Odyssey as an autobiography by Sculley, centered on his trajectory at Pepsi and then Apple. But it is a fun read nevertheless. Especially because I understand things better when I have a clear chronological sense of the timeline of events. While Defying Gravity, Startup, and Piloting Palm helped me with the mobile computing industry context I was immersed in at the time, I needed more.
So, even if the narrative is from the perspective of John Sculley, it helped me add some more pieces to the broader historical context I’m trying to understand.
Piloting Palm
Piloting Palm was the first book I read on my Palm. It couldn’t be more appropriate: a book about Palm, read on a Palm.
But the most interesting part is being able to look at the device I’m reading the book on and see some of the details being described in the book. As a person super passionate about this device, it’s really difficult to put this down. Not to mention that it’s not even technically possible, as the Palm is always with me! LOL.