Category: Tech Moments

Epson XP-860 – My new printer/scanner!

I got my hands on a printer/scanner a few days ago, and I’ve have checked it out some… so far it seems to do what I want.

I have a pretty good photo printer from before, so for me to go out and buy a new “printer”, this product had to tick a few boxes.

  • It had to do duplex scans – for my paper monster project
  • It had to do good quality photo prints – for when I create photo albums
  • It had to be Wi-Fi  – for me to be able to print from pc/Ipad/phone
  • It would be nice if it did duplex prints – I have info that needs to be printed on a regular basis
  • It would be nice if it would scan wirelessly to my computer – saves me from having to use cable
  • It would be nice if I could print on CD/DVD’s – don’t use this feature much anymore, but…

I looked long and hard, and it turns out it’s not that easy to find a small home product that will do automatic duplex scans, and have a document feeder that can take several documents in one go. They do a lot of office related machines, but they are often bigger, more expensive, and don’t do really good photo prints (which was a big thing for me.. as I do print a few photos now and then).

I found that for home use it seems like HP, Epson and Canon have a couple of products (that will do both duplex and decent photo prints). I’ve always used Canon before, but I find the newer models not as sleek as they used to be (they need more flat space for placement), and I decided on Epson this time around.

I bought the Epson Expression Photo XP-860, which covers all the items on my wish list, and Epson are supposed to be good on photo printing and it gets pretty good reviews, so it’s worth a try…

If I’m not happy? Not a problem, as I can return it! They have brilliant return policies on a lot of electronic shops here in Norway 🙂

And if I’m happy? Then it’s a keeper, and my old one will be an item “out-the-door” – given away to a printer needing person 🙂

 

Expression Photo XP-860

So, guess there is no excuse anymore! I have a scanner, now I just need to get going with my sorting, shredding, scanning and archiving 🙂

Stay tuned.. you know I’ll keep you updated 😉

PC nicknack’s

I have this “box” full of chargers, hard drives, computer cables, network cables, converters and a whole lot of other computer related nicknack’s. You name it, I’ve got it 😉

I just installed a couple of drawers in a Ikea unit – the drawers are going out of production so they put them up on 50% sale! I’ve been thinking about installing some drawers in the unit for the last couple of years, and I realized, that if I was ever going to do this, it was now or never!

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the drawers can not hold as much stuff as the boxes I used before… So a clean up was unavoidable (and desperately needed if you ask me) 😉

I pulled all the data related “junk” out of one of the boxes, and went about decluttering… All the stuff in the pile of mess picture came out of that red box, I can not believe how much it held.

I’m sad to say I did not manage to get rid of, as much as I’d like. I always keep all the belonging part to a item, that I own (if I ever give the item away, I like giving it as a complete set), even if I might not strictly need all the parts belonging to the item.

There is still a lot of computer stuff left in the house. But for now at least, there is a small pile of stuff, that is going out-the-door 🙂

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March tally!

Month three! My gosh I thought I had spent February focusing on my digital clutter, but February don’t even hold a candle to the month of March.

Unfortunately, getting that focused on digital clutter, have taken away some of the focus on tangible decluttering, and it’s time I step it back up in the month of April!

Looking at my monthly tally this month, you’d think I’ve done nothing. I might not have been decluttering to much, but I have still been up to a couple of things 🙂

MARCH TALLY of things “out-the-door” =  12 items and 7535 emails

  • 1 ice cream spoon
  • 1 leather vest
  • 10 bottles of hotel “candy“
  • 7535 emails at my work mailbox

So what else have I’ve been up to? Well let’s see, there is:

 

2014-04-02 15.36.19  2014-04-02 15.57.30

7535

It’s been a month since I posted my email declutter challenge article, where I stated I would try to de-stuff my email at work by at least 7000 emails in 30 days.

Actually, it’s probably been closer to 10 000 emails de-stuffed, you see I did a little “boo-boo” in the middle of my clean-up. I wasn’t sure if I had consolidated all emails into my outlook mailbox, so I moved the folder I wasn’t sure about.

Turned out I had already copied it before, so suddenly I had two examples of a bunch of emails! I sure really appreciated getting another 2100 extra emails to clean up… (yes, that me being ironic!)

But anyhow – I did it, I did it 🙂

There were moments it didn’t look like I would make it, I was forever staying put at about minus 1500 emails, but I just carved away some dedicated time, and this morning, I managed to sort out the last ones, that got me past the 7000 mark.

I went from 19592 email down to the current 12061 emails I’m at right now. Thats 7535 less than when I started. Yu hu!!!

Email declutter challenge picture - result 1

As you can see – I’m still not done, and I don’t think it’s going to get any easier, but since I’m on such a good roll right now, I think I will continue with fase 2 of my email declutter challenge.

What is Face 2 you’re asking? Well, let me tell you, it’s another 5000 emails be-gone!

And when am I gona be finished? Another 30 days from today…!

I can’t believe I just promised 5000 emails in 30 days – oh well, now it’s down on paper – so I guess I’m commited 😉

Bookmarks

I have a serious bookmark issue –

Having had pc’s both at home and at work, like forever, I have collected a few bookmarks to websites over the years. Throw a few smartphones and iPads to this mix, and you can see my problem 😉

How bad can it be, you might ask?

Between all my devices I have somewhere in the vicinity of 2500 bookmarks!!!

I found that the work pc alone have close to 1000 – whoa!!!

My new personal computer have around 300, and I have backup from old ones, with close to another 1000 – 949 to be exact.

Android phones/iPhone/iPad? Don’t have a clue – I can’t even think, to have to, manually count them – but it’s looking like at least 200+

Adding this to the email challenge I’ve started, it looks like I’m getting into a bit of digital clean ups these days.

So what did I do? Well – I’m proud to say, I got around 1900 of them deleted 🙂

It’s time…

You are the cutest little thing, and I love you dearly. You have served me well over the years, and I’m really sorry, my “little red one”, I think it’s time…

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article “I’ve got my weekend cut out for me“, about setting up a computer, and some of the work involved in moving from an old to a new.  That weekend I spent my time swapping over from a computer I had borrowed, so I could get it out the door 🙂

Today (and the next days) it’s time to tackle my cute little red 13,3” laptop!

Copy everything off the old and start the hard work of sorting out what to put on the new. I’ll pretty much be following the same procedure I wrote about last time.

So far I have moved about 56 GB of data, and it’s still going strong. Turns out there is loads of photos, videos, oh yeah, and music…

I already have backups of most, but for the job at hand – I’m copying everything to a separate folder on the external hard-drive, just in case.

I can see my next task, of sorting my external hard-drives, looming in the horizon 😉 I’ll be needing at least a month, at some later time, sorting out my external hard-drives (I have several). I have to consolidate my backups and make sure I don’t have a zillion copies of everything. But, that’s another task, for another day 😉

So what am I doing with my “little red one” when I’m done? Well…

I could clean it up! It might be useful as a backup (if I could make it work properly) but it’s 7 years old, and setting it up with the latest updates and drivers, would take a bit of time.

Or, I could send it out-the-door as an items in my decluttered pile.

I haven’t really made up my mind yet, it’s a cute little computer, I really like it, and it’s hard to part with 😉

I might keep it a little longer, until I’m sure my new one works the way I want it to. I’ll let you know when I’ve had a think about it, and by the rate the backup is going… I have several days to mull it over 😉

Email declutter challenge

I believe I need an email declutter challenge.
I’m completely into email overload, especially at work. I have lost all control, and looking at the 1211 unread email is just about to drive me nuts (yes, even more so, than I already am 😉 ) Talk about stress factor.

Enough is enough, I’m going to give myself an email declutter challenge for 2014. I’ll be deleting and archiving as best as I can. I know I can’t delete everything since I need to keep some for work, but hopefully I’ll be able to archive most of those, to our digital storage, so that my personal mailbox at the office no longer overflows. And I definitely have some old and “mouldy” emails I should be able to loose with not too much elbow grease 😉

As I write this I have 1,45 GB worth of emails in my work mailbox, amounting to 19592 individual emails! What on earth!!!!

My goal for this year – reduce to less than 500 MB worth of emails – how many individual are this? I don’t have a clue! Guess we’ll find out as I go along. I’m hoping that brings be down to less than 2-3000. That’s loosing 17 000 emails.

How? – Using the Inbox Zero concept.
I will be implementing the Inbox Zero system by Merlin Mann. What is the Inbox Zero, you might ask? It’s a simple but great concept of how to handle emails that comes your way. In short it is an system to help you take your email box from overstuffed (like mine) to zero – and then keep it that way. The system cover the skills, tools and attitude that helps you to accomplish this.

I just about “kissed the ground” when I came across this system a while ago. I had ever intention to start my 2014, implementing this system, but as soon as I walked into my office that first day after new year’s, all “hell” broke loose, and I have not found the time to actually sit down to do this yet. But tomorrow a new day is born – and it’s finally happening 😉

This concept might, or might not, be for you – but regardless if you have a small or a HUGE mailbox, I strongly recommend you reading about it anyway, even if you believe you have everything under control 😉 There might be an idea or two that could help you in your everyday email life!

I could do a quick write up of the concept, but I think I’d rather leave you in Merlin Mann’s capable hands on Inbox Zero instead.

My plan
As part of implementing this system, I need to de-stuff my horrible 19592 mail mailbox. So through 2014 I’ll give myself a couple of 30 days challenges to accomplish this. I’m starting tomorrow, and my goal for the first 30 days is no less than 7000 emails. “Starting a Tuesday in the middle of the month? Why not start the first of the month or at least in the beginning of the week?” You might ask. Well, why not? There is no more perfect day to start, than NOW 😉

Since the intention is to get rid of old emails all together, any new emails will not count against the 7000. By the time my 30 days are over I have to be down to no more than 12592 email left in my mailbox. (Oh my!! That’s a whole lot of deleting and archiving…)

Keeping track
For the fun of it I made myself a template, that I printed out. It is just a simple sheet, that you can easily make yourself, or you can print mine 🙂

Why don’t you join me? I’m sure you have one or two, to many…

Lets get started!!

Email declutter challenge – downloadable PDF

Email declutter challenge picture 1

Backup of data – is one enough?

One computer out-the-door 🙂 Remember I told you my weekend task was to clear out a computer, well it’s done and tomorrow morning it’s leaving the house with me.

I’ve removed all the software I installed, and all the documents I created. I used it for a video project of mine, and it turned out there was about 66 GB of data, to transfer. Since my new computer only have a 128 GB solid state disk, there wasn’t really room for all my video projects. So to make sure I have “redundancy”, I stored the files from the borrowed computer on two external hard-drives.

Why two? Well, I want to make sure, that if something happens with one of the hard-drives, I have one more chance 😉 I know this sounds excessive, but having been around computers for a few years, I know that hard-drives can go “belly up”. There are, after all, moving parts in most of them.

A lot of people, do save backups of pictures, video and documents, on a CD/DVD, memory stick or an external hard-drive. And this is a good thing to do, you never know what’s going to happen to you computer, and having a backup is great.

But if you have that picture, video or document you don’t want to loose, on only one device, I would recommend that you consider making one more copy, on a separate unit. Wouldn’t you just hate, if something happened to your device, and you no longer could access that priceless picture of a family member, that are no longer here, or that video, of your child walking for the first time…

I know I would!

What about you – do you have backup of your “would-hate-to-loose” documents?

My item out the door:
2014-02-09 11.35.58

I’ve got my weekend cut out for me.

You know how sometimes to get rid of one item, you need to do a lot off work first. Today’s item falls into that category.

I got a new laptop computer for Christmas. My old one do not function properly any more. In addition since I’m the designated computer help for my mum and step-mum, I need one that works. So what does this have to do with decluttering you might ask.

If any of you have ever changed over from one computer to another, you probably know there is some work involved. Like transferring stuff between the computers. That takes time. Well today I’m going to throw one more computer into this mix.

In addition to my old worn out one, I’ve borrowed a computer for one specific task that needed to be done a while ago. And that’s the computer I will “clean” out of my house during this weekend. My old one I will have to get back to after I’m done with this one 😉

This weekends’s task is – transfer my installed SW and documents from the borrowed computer to my new one. Clean up the borrowed one and get it out of the house. I know, it doesn’t sound much.. but I can promise you, it’s a bit of work, especially since it’s also two different operating systems and I might have to change some stuff around to make everything works as intended.

How do I go about this? 

I do a little preparation first:

  • I move all documents I want to keep so they are located in under the “My documents” folder structure
  • I make sure all my pictures, videos, music are located in their respective “My Pictures/Music/Video” folders. You’ll find all these under “Windows explorer/Desktop/Libraries….”
  • I put all downloaded software (SW) files into my “Downloads” folder
  • I go through the Start/All programs overview and write down the SW programs I use that I need, to make sure I install these on the new computer
  • If I use outlook or any other mail program that downloads the mails to the computer, I make sure I have a copy of the e-mail file, and the address book, so I can import it onto the new one
  • I make a copy of my “Favorites” folder, so I don’t have to recreate this later
  • When I have everything sorted and I’m sure I have everything I need, I use an external hard-drive as my transferring media. I use this type of transfer media because I think it’s easy. It gives me a copy of everything just in case. And it means I can choose what to install on the new one right now, and I still have everything on a drive, should I need it later.
  • When I’ve gotten a copy of everything I want to keep, on my external hard-drive, then I’m ready and

I start the work on my new one. 

  • Depending on how much space is available on my new computer, I transfer the most important stuff from the external hard-drive I just copied everything on to. I put the copied files into a similar folder structure to where I saved them (Documents/Pictures/Music etc.)
  • I install the programs I need, hopefully I can use the SW I already have, if not I try finding updates online.
  • After installation, I activate whatever needs to be activated, so that I can use the programs I’ve installed.
  • I add the old “Favorites” to the new “Favorites” folder
  • I set up my new email program and import my old emails and address book
  • Then, if there is any bits an pieces left that needs sorting. I’ll do this

And then I’m ready to go…. I hope!

As you can see.. there is a few things to do. So, I better get started 😉

Wish me luck will you…