Shaine Mata Blog

This week, I got my first Shrinkage discount from Boost Mobile . I have a simple phone, so that means that my monthly service went down from $50/month to $45/month. You might be thinking, "oooh! A $5 savings." This is the first of several discounts. In another six payments, I'll be paying $40/month. In one year, I'll be paying $35/month. At that point, I'll probably upgrade to an Android phone, which costs an extra $5/month. But, $40/month for unlimited calling, texting, and data seems like an awesome bargain to me. All the while that I am a customer, I can't help thinking that this is a great marketing ploy. It's a great way to attract and retain customers. Can you imagine leaving a $35/month unlimited plan for a competitor that charges $50 to $70 per month for something somewhat comparable? You would need a pretty damned compelling reason.

The Evernote website recently announced Meshin Recall on their blog. Unfortunately, I missed it. Otherwise, I would have known right away that it was available. What Meshin Recall does is connect your Evernote account to your Android calendar, which in most cases means your Google Calendar.  At first glance, it seems like a neat little way to keep notes for meetings, either putting them there in advance of or after the meeting. However, it is more than that. Meshin Recall adds the missing piece in making Evernote your organizer. Without calendar functions, Evernote is merely a place to dump notes. You could annotate your notes by date and subject; but, it's messy unless you're a stickler for consistency in annotating.  What is not obvious, at first glance, is that once you create a note attached to your calendar item, you can add To Do items to that date's note. You can add images, files, tables, audio notes, and all the wonderful things Evernote allows you to do. 

Recently, I have begun unplugging from the Internet for the sake of my son. He is 10 years old and has not exactly seen me as a great male role model. I have a tendency to spend a great deal of time in front of a computer, or be away from home. I think, in all ages, the absentee father is the norm; but, that only works when the mother understands and encourages her boy to go do boy things. He has an older sister; but, raising a girl is different from raising a boy. I have a younger daughter too. For them, it is sufficient to hang around me and talk. This is very similar to what their mother does; she wants me to be around to talk to me. She is not the athletic type. So, having observed my son, now that he is a preteen, it is like watching a caged animal. He talks a lot; but, I can't identify with what he talks about. I don't know anything about gaming  or the gaming culture. He also wants to do something physical; but, he doesn't know how or what to do. This is where

3/20/12

Back when I first learned about the tech and content community, circa 2007, I saw Whurley and Giovanni Gallucci use Twitter as a way to announce upcoming speakers at Barcamp Austin. After that night, I started delving more and more into Twitter. That same year, Facebook was on peoples' radars; but, we could not join. It was limited to universities and businesses. When Facebook opened up to the general public, I signed up to see what all the fuss was about. I have to say that it was nice; but, it would not take me away from Twitter for some time. I remember spending a lot of time telling people about Twitter and Facebook, and they'd look at me like I was some kind of geek. Once the celebrities started using the stuff, all of the sudden everybody started joining in droves. I find myself in the same situation with Google+ these days. I still pop in and out of Facebook on occasion to check messages. I still tweet on occasion. But, for the most part, Google Plus is where I spe

A question has been weighing on my mind as of late. What if I never reach retirement age? The men in my family, as far as I know, do not reach retirement age in any useful shape. Given that longevity tends to be somewhat hereditary, it makes sense that I should think about my mortality. This isn't some morbid exercise finding reasons to give up on living. Rather, it is a practical perspective on what I ought to achieve in the potentially short time I may have. This is somewhat related to the ideas by Tim Ferriss's question, "what would you do differently if you knew you could never retire?" There is the question of planning ahead. Obviously, retirement planning would be done with a grain of salt, a tongue-in-cheek exercise. I'd have to stash money away for retirement on the off chance that I do survive to retirement age. On the other hand, wouldn't it be more beneficial to stash money away for use today? Have money put into investments that produce incom

I have an old Dell Vostro 1000 laptop running Ubuntu 11.10 for desktop. It originally came with Windows Vista Basic, got upgraded to Windows Vista for Business, and proceeded to get slower and slower with each Windows Vista update. The hardware only supports so much memory, so I hit that limit long ago. It was taking several minutes to boot. I considered ordering a recovery disk to restore it to factory settings; but, decided that after all the Windows updates installed again, it would probably not be much faster. Given that I had been avoiding use of the laptop due to the long boot time, I went for it and installed Ubuntu 11.10 for x86. In retrospect, I should probably have chosen the 64 bit version. The laptop has an AMD 64 bit Athlon X2. I don't know what difference running the 64 bit version will make. Tonight, I noticed that Ubuntu is now testing 12.04, Precise Pangolin. So, rather than doing a straight upgrade, I'm downloading the 64 bit version. I'll be insta

Tonight, I went down to the store with the intent to buy kettle bells to help with my recent interest in CrossFit workouts. I'm going into the fitness routine a bit slowly. I'm 37 years old and weigh 173 pounds at 5 feet 8 inches and shrinking. Sitting in front of the computer for hours on end has left me a round shadow of my glorious self. It's to the point where carrying the 20 pound dumbbell to the checkout was a struggle. I've really let the tech weenie bit go too far. I was shopping around for prices on weights. The kettle bells are more expensive than I imagined. A 20 pound kettle bell costs a little over 30 dollars. That's just one. A set of kettle bells could very easily set you back a few hundred dollars, if you were to buy them in pairs at each weight increment. If you intend to use them often, I can see where they may be worthwhile to own, if you buy them as you go. However, kettle bells are like that one great clothing ensemble that doesn't

I like hands on projects. I enjoy doing stuff in the field rather than sit around planning. I think I'm an outdoor geek. It just dawned on me.