4 posts tagged “management”

I think it's about time 3 months into the Western New Year of 2009 and 1 month into the Chinese Buffalo Year that I make a public declaration on the 2009 goals that I am 90% confident that I will not fail to accomplish. 

In the previous post I wrote about how omniplan will hopefully solve all productivity problems in my life. Well here comes hopeful solution #2 - DROPBOX!

I FREAKING LOVE DROPBOX!!!!!!

dropbox has now changed my mobi-fobi mobile la-la-la-life.  It's a free online file storage system that just acts like another folder on your computer  so it can be your virtual back up for your most important files without having to do a intense "backup." Cuz I'm always working on papers and I can't always work in google documents.

And now I'm not stuck to carrying my USB drive everywhere (although I still do cuz i'm paranoid like that).  I switch between a pc and mac and also friend's computers. I have been trying to figure 1.) what is the safest and easiest way to access my important files and 2.) how can I share files with others?

well dropbox is the new answer because:

1.) your files are stored online so if you aren't with your computer or usb drive it's ok!
2.) it saves a copy of every VERSION of your file - so you can always access that older version with important changes that you thought that you had deleted
3.) it allows you to share a URL of the file so that someone else can download it!  see in the picture I've circled in yellow this nifty trick - so if you have a big powerpoint to send to someone you just drop it in your dropbox public folder and you share it public url with them - so they click on it and download it!  this has been great for getting my powerpoint to conference presentations.
4.) it's not blocked in china
5.) it works with PC's and MAC's

try it out through my referral - I get extra storage space for you trying it ou and you get a whole new way to manage your life!

Natural wildfires regenerate the soil with nutrients and burn away potentially super-dangerous brush.  Some tress, like pines, depend on fires to spread their seeds in their cones! Stephen J. Pyne, an ex-firefighter and Prof. of Ecological History - is a specialist on the social mis-management of fires in the US.  He has written extensively about different societies over time have used actively used controlled fires to develop the land or to practice cultural rituals.   From national geographic: 

"Today's fires can grow unusually fierce because Smokey Bear went overboard. For decades, the well-meaning policy of suppressing all forest fires allowed too much fuel—dead wood, underbrush, small trees—to build up on public lands, especially in the fire-prone West. What might have once been a minor grass fire now turns cataclysmic, like last year's Hayman Fire in Colorado." 

 This is also a chance for us to think about how much control we have over nature - people build homes right in the middle of forests and lands that are prone to fires. Is there anything logical to that? When we don't let natural fire happen, suburban homes on the edges become the unnatural barrier.  I hope these San Diego fires get people  to think more about ongoing fire management than fire suppression.  


I took this picture this morning of the fire at UCSD  - 8am and it's fire sky already.  In the meantime - I am safe from the fires.  The air is just horrific though - my eyes, nasal passages and throat burns.  I worry about those who have asthma. 

You can read my other thoughts about the racial class politics of San Diego fires here, National news coverage of SD fires here,  distortion of wildfires here, emphasis of LA over SD here, and what a Sociologist would do during a fire here.    this was photo overlay was created by tim