Mackenzie's Weblog

Friday Catblogging!

At long last, it returns.  Basically, my life the last couple weeks has been a combination busy (writing a brief, law review things, regular classes, etc.) and no good cat photos (I'm never home).

But I'm caught up on (and waiting for more) law review work, and my brief is now under review, so things are a little less pressing.  We had a bunch of snow yesterday, and my evening class was canceled.  It was actually nice to stay home and make soup.  Very leisurely.  Plus, I have no work other than classwork for the weekend, so I may actually take Saturday off to clean and relax a bit.  It's bliss.

But now I do have a few photos, thanks to MackenzieMom.  Here are the first in the new series:

And now, maybe I'll have the chance to do a bit more reading.

What I'm Reading:

Mr Sammler's planet by Saul Bellow

Have a great weekend!

Email System

I was going to post this as a comment to this post on divine angst, but I think it's a bit long for that.

Like Kristine, I get an awful lot of emails in a day.  Lots of them are various newsletters and e-periodicals, but there are also quite a few that require some more involved action.

The first email-management layer is a program called Popfile.  This nifty little program is designed as a spam filter, but because of its bayesian processing, can categorize emails into all sorts of "buckets."  For example, I have categories for spam, newsletters, financial, knitting, Google alerts, and more.  The program takes a bit of teaching at first, but before too long it's categorizing emails just as I would.  I occasionally have to do a little more teaching when a new spammer technique rears its ugly head, but, again, this doesn't take much. (To use Popfile with Exchange, check out Outclass.)

Popfile puts the classification in the message header, so next I configure Outlook to find the classification and automatically move messages to particular folders.  Generally, the Inbox is reserved for strictly personal messages.  Other email clients should be able to do the same thing. (I know Outlook is a hog, but I like it anyway.)

On a daily basis, I simply use Outlook's ability to have dynamic folders: I simply view that day's mail.  If an email comes in that requires more than a quick action, I flag it for follow-up, which means I can get it through my task list any time, until I finish what I need it for.

Finally, I have Outlook set to archive messages every three weeks or so to keep the bloat down.  But I can still get to all my old messages easily.  I can easily find anything through a desktop search program (Office 2007 is a vast improvement in native search capability, and Google desktop search or Copernic work great, too).  The categorization that happens with Popfile allows me to review recent messages on a particular topic (they're all in a folder) or narrow down any search for a particular message.

The daily email view keeps me from being overwhelmed, and if I want, I can review the day's emails at the end to make sure I responded to everything that needed it.  You can also configure other search folders in Outlook, such as everything in the last three days or however long you'd like.  (I'm sure other clients have similar functionality.) From time to time, I check out the spam folder to make sure nothing got caught that shouldn't be (it's a rare occurrence).

Best of all, I spend very little time any given day on email organization, yet it is all available and easily accessible.

It's certainly not the only way to do it, but it works great for me.  Questions welcome.

Excellent Reading

 I just finished reading the article Logic for Law Students: How to Think Like a Lawyer.  Every law student should read it at the start of law school, and I tend to agree that it is a shame the framework is not taught as a routine matter.  I am aware, of course, of the basic frameworks mentioned in the article.  But it's great to see them applied to legal reasoning, complete with examples and useful advice.  It serves as a great springboard for further study.

Speaking of which, it makes me that much more excited to start working.  I really love learning this material, and I already have a bunch of resources lined up to continue learning once I'm done with school.  I'm extremely glad I chose the law; it's a great fit.

Special thanks to The (new) Legal Writer for blogging about the article.

WordPerfect Must Die

I hate WordPerfect with the power and passion of 1,000 suns.  I find myself having to use it for a particular project, and I would like nothing better than to utterly and completely destroy any trace of the evil, cloven-hoofed software from my computer.  It's a disease.

At the moment, it can't figure out (despite the fact that I've told it many times) that I do not want everything I type to be boldface.  I don't like boldface.  I have no need for boldface.  We've discussed it a number of times, but my message is just not getting through.

Ok, that's all the rant for now.

Woes of the Red Envelope

Aah, Spring Break!  I love it.  I get to catch up on work and actually have significant time for leisure activities, all at the same time.  It's a week where I get to remember what it's like to have a day job, since I get up early, work during the day until four or five, then retire for the day, reading movies or watching movies.

I was really excited yesterday to begin watching Firefly.  For those who haven't been paying attention, I'm a sci-fi geek from way back, and I'd been hearing good things about the series for a while now.  I also enjoyed the film, Serenity.  I had the first two disks, plenty to keep me busy after a rather pleasant a marathon law review editing session.  'Cuz I'm that kind of geek, too.

I've been a happy Netflix subscriber for some time now, and I've watched quite a lot of movies and TV shows since I started.  Aside from wishing the mail were faster (one or two days to Denver, two days back), I've never had a problem.  I did have some trouble when the last disk of a TV series was broken last week, but after the report, Netflix immediately sent me a replacement.  That's good service.

I enjoyed the first Firefly disk a lot.  It's a nice blend of themes from two settings (Western and sci-fi--they're not genres, they're settings!) that really work.  I wouldn't say it's perfect, after three episodes, but I could definitely see the potential there.

So then I opened the second disk, and the universe twisted just a tiny bit to whack me upside the head.  The sleeve for disk 2 contained the wrong disk: Fargo.  Don't get me wrong, Fargo is a great movie.  But I already own it.

I've reported the problem to Netflix, but it appears I have to manually add the disk to my queue again, which is inconvenient since the later disks are on their way and Netflix won't let me add a movie to my queue when it's already listed as "At Home."

There's a nice little stopgap, though.  Netflix has started it's Watch Now program, allowing me to watch some movies on my computer without waiting.  Given the limitations of computers, I don't know that I'd pay more for it.  But it's nice to have to fill up the gaps.

Lesson: check the disks right away to make sure the right one is in the envelope.  Still, though, I've had Netflix for almost ten months now, and this is the first time I've had this problem.  If this rate continues, I'll still be a satisfied customer.

Now, on to today's work, then knitting group this evening.  I might take a walk, too--the weather looks to be gorgeous today.

Fixed!

Guess whose laptop is fixed? You got it!

What I'm Reading:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

mmm . . . tasty.

Lately--last night in particular--I've been cooking up a storm.  It's really nice, since I'm now set on food for a while.  I've stockpiled loads of soup, stew, pasta sauce, chicken stock (forthcoming), you name it.  I should be set on food for quite a while.

Besides, it was fun!  I love having a full freezer.

Another Death in the Family

We have yet another death in the family.  This time, it's my trusty Dell Inspiron 1150 notebook computer.  It's my workhorse, my school computer.

I still have my desktop, thankfully.  But I'll be out the laptop until the local Dell technician gets a replacement motherboard and replaces mine.  I'm looking at probably half the week without a laptop.

This means I'll have to do more work from home.  Unfortunately, the school computer lab PCs won't allow me to change the keyboard layout to dvorak, which I use exclusively.  It's very inconvenient.

Anyway, it won't slow me down too much.  I have access to nearly all my files on my desktop (because I keep the two synchronized), and I handwrite my big projects first.  So the brief I'm working on will keep going without a hitch.

The lesson from all this?  Buy. Extended. Warranty.  I have a 4-year warranty on my notebook, and I may extend it further.  For notebooks, I think you should get a warranty for as long as you think you'll use the thing.  It's just too easy for things to go out that turn your PC into a brick.  This is the second motherboard replacement I've had.  If it were a desktop, I could get the part and handle the replacement myself.  But a notebook isn't so easy.

Trust me, the warranty will probably more than pay for itself--in peace of mind, if nothing else.