Signpost at the southern edge of the Rainbow Lake Wilderness
Finally, I’ve gotten a chance to get out backpacking and hiking. It’s something that I’d meant to do quite a few years ago, but somehow it never worked out. Either something came up, or people would back out, or that nobody was really interested in hoofing it with me out in the woods.
A couple of weekends ago, September 14th-15th, 2013, I headed out to the Rainbow Lake Wilderness in northern Wisconsin. It’s part of the Chequemegon-Nicolet National Forest, which part of the North Country Trail runs through on its Wisconsin section. Very remote, very thick forest.
asdIt was a simple solo overnight trip, and I got a lot out of it. Quiet contemplation, and a chance to test out a lot of the equipment I’ve gathered over the last year or so, specifically for this purpose. I’ll be doing more of this next year, but wanted to get one short trip in yet this fall before the really cold weather to test out my new mens hiking boots compared super well to all my other, more expensive pairs. Of course, I just might try a solo overnight yet this winter, but use my snowmobile rather than try to pack along everything in the middle of winter.
There simply isn’t a very good way to describe how relaxing and calming it is to get away from all the noise, the interruptions, and stress of our hectic modern lives and just listen to the wind in the trees. I you like getting away like this, then you know what I mean.
Here’s a few more pictures from that weekend:
Trailhead of the North Country Trail at the southern boundary of the Rainbow Lake Wilderness in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.
Map of Rainbow Lake Wilderness area.
View of Reynard Lake from the trail.
On the North Country Trail, Rainbow Lake Wilderness.
Don’t forget to check your six from time to time.
View of Reynard Lake from it’s boardwalk on the marshy north-east side.
View from the Reynard Lake boardwalk, facing east.
I took a lot of pictures around Reynard Lake. This one was from a fantastic campsite on the northern tip. I’ll stay there next time.
Another pic from that good campsite on Reynard Lake.
Always need to have a campfire. This was at Bufo Lake, where I ended up.
Here’s the view of my campsite that weekend on Bufo Lake. Great view all around.
The other half of Bufo Lake from my campsite.
Another view from the campsite looking back into the forest to the north.
This was actually the first set of pictures I took as a panoramic. I was only about 1/4 mile down the trail and hit Wishbone Lake. Simply gorgeous.
I’ve honestly not been interested much in Steve Jobs, or Apple to date. I watched the Apple/Microsoft/IBM ‘wars’ when I was a teen back in the 80’s and had always been interested in what a ‘real computer’ could do.
I didn’t really ‘get’ the idea of computer clubs and the passion hobbyists had for Apple at the time. I understand it today, but still don’t connect with Apple fans.
In reality, the world did loose a visionary when Steve Jobs died. I respect him for the work he did, and the passion that drove him to greatness. I miss the contribution and the competition that he brought to the technology world, and hope we can achieve as much as new people and new ideas continue to stream into the industry.
It seems I haven’t covered this in quite awhile so I thought I’d give it a go again. After all, what’s more important than what we’re running on our mobile devices?
Ok here’s my current Top 10 list, drum roll please:
I can’t talk about top ten without the number-one thing I look at every time I turn on the phone. Maybe it’s not what I’m after whenever I hit the power button, but it’s my favorite clock/calendar/weather widget for phones (not so on tablets – but that’s another post).
Even though BW has weather in the widget, I still count on a really good forecast tool, and WeatherBug has been my go-to weather app for years. Heck they even updated it in the past day with a nifty new UI. Clear, concise, fast, detailed, and with animated maps.
This is a fairly new addition in the last month.  While I wasn’t a big Google Reader app user on my phone, I was a gigantic Google Reader user on the desktop. Now that we see some forward innovation on the RSS reader front, I’m happy to report that Feedly brings innovation in megaton quantities An absolutely gorgeous UI, fast, easy to navigate, and most important of all – they listen to their users and respond to suggestions, ideas, and criticize criticism very quickly (and constructively). Highly recommended!
Many people love Facebook, and I do to an extent as well. However, Google+ is where I’m spending most of my time reading and posting. It’s easy, it’s fast, and it does more than just tie into the rest of Google’s services. Since I’m a big Google user, it really does work better for me, and all the people that I interact with are more active there in any case.
While the default Twitter client is quite nice, it does fail at showing me the information from my streams that I want to see. With the demise of TweetDeck, I needed a Twitter client that could show my lists as well as the main stream and mentions. Plume does this very easily. I’m sure there may be others out there that do this as well, but the three other clients I tried just didn’t make it easy. Plume does.
I’ve been using Pulse for a couple years now, and it’s been evolving quite well along the way as an all around great news aggregation app. Recently purchased by LinkedIn, I see Pulse becoming a very important and powerful tool for reading and sharing news with peers in my industry. Â Great little app that keeps getting better.
Ah, Pocket… one of my favorite read-it-later tools. In fact, Pocket used to go by the name Read It Later, then figured out how to make this type of tool/service even better. I can save things to Pocket from my phone, my tablet, and just about any browser that exists. They make it super simple, and very lightweight. Ties into Android like it was made for it.
What can one say about Evernote? The all-around great note taking tool that runs on simply everything. It took me awhile to get into Evernote, mainly because I was a huge Microsoft OneNote user and, of course, they have no equivalent anywhere else (though there is a OneNote Android and iOS app now). Since I use Windows, Linux, and Android, I need apps that are on all these platforms. Evernote is  this as well as one of the best note taking apps that exists.
LinkedIn on Android used to be a pain to use. This past year, they seem to have gotten serious about the user experience and really worked on their app (much as Facebook has on theirs). The latest rendition of LinkedIn on Android is a joy to use. Fast, intuitive, and easy to connect with or respond too my industry peers. LinkedIn is growing in importance for me as a consultant, and a quality app like this one helps immensely.
Finally we get around to something more mundane, like listening to music. Unlike most people, I never seemed to accumulate a lot of music. This was true of CDs as well back in the 90’s as I just didn’t have the money then to buy every CD I wanted. Somehow this translated to MP3s as well. In any case, subscription models seem to work well for me and I really enjoy Rhapsody on my phone and my Nexus 7 mounted in the dash of my truck (hey, I’m a true tech nerd). Easy to use, good UI, and the ability to cache anything in my library locally.
Last but not least is an under-sung hero of the phone and mobile movie scene, check out the Movie Box App. Well, that’s my list and I hope I’ve helped answer a question you may have had regarding any of these apps. If not, don’t hesitate to jump into the comments and ask me about them. Or simply let me know of a better app or ones that I should check out.
Now, before you drop down to the comments to blast me as a Microsoft basher, and that I have my head up my ass or that I don’t have a clue about how the world runs on Windows… hear me out.
PC Dominance Is So 1995
The problem with Microsoft today, and historically, is that they base much of their business around Windows. This worked really well over the last 30 years as the PC gained dominance in computing. Our current enterprise Information Technology industry’s growth and success is a testament to that.
In fact, my entire career of 25+ years in IT is built around and upon Microsoft technologies and how they’re implemented in large and small businesses. I depend on the quality and success of those products to make a living. Moreover, I like them – Windows included.
While Windows is still a strong OS, and will continue to be a significant player in the server and personal device space for years to come, the future is not about the local operating systems we use. Â It’s about what your “PC” can do.
As we continue down the path of cloud computing, Microsoft has huge potential to be so many things for many people. Their online productivity services are strong, and will likely outpace Google’s in the long run. As many of us are already invested in Microsoft Office, it’s not much of a leap to follow the progression to Office 365 and beyond.
Microsoft Everywhere
What Microsoft needs to do is to embrace every platform. From Linux to Mac to Windows. From BlackBerry, to iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Firefox OS, and Ubuntu Touch. If there is an emerging or popular platform, Microsoft must be there. Period.
This includes browsers too, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera need to be first class citizens with IE as they develop and roll out all their products.  Microsoft must be pervasive. Development tools as well need to adhere and participate in non-Microsoft standards. Why can’t there be a variant of Visual Studio that focuses on LAMP development, or Ruby, or many other new technologies instead of just C++, C#, etc…
Two Paths
I also see to divergent paths for Microsoft.  One continues to be their “bread & butter” enterprise products and services.  The other is consumer-focused, with an emphasis on providing secure services (without being arrogant like they are today with the ‘Scroogled’ campaign). With Microsoft’s background in enterprise, and meeting many strict compliance requirements for business, this can be an asset to many consumers that worry greatly about online security.
In any case, I do see a bright future for Microsoft, but only if they put less emphasis on the PC and more on providing the services that our growing data hungry, instant satisfaction world demands. The stake in the sand for Windows was important 25 years ago… not as much today.
The original pocketable, highly mobile personal assistant: the notebook.
I’ve owned many notebooks through the years, and not until the venerable Moleskine came along did I give them any thought. Most of the notebooks I’ve used through the years were simple, generic, disposable note-taking devices from the big brands. Filled with little more than random scraps of daily to-do’s, phone numbers and forgettable minutia, I never thought much about them.
Computers though, that was where my mind and thoughts could go wild and find unobstructed paths to creativity. That was, until I saw the Moleskine notebook.
While the Moleskine isn’t super unique today, after all there are many, many copies of this rugged simple little notebook.  It’s still the best at what it’s for.  I bought my first one back in 2008 and immediately had visions of keeping a journal, or writing scraps of my Great American Novel in it, with visions of Hemingway-esque quotes in my head.
Of course, I prized it too much to write that much in it. Not to mention thinking so much of it that I kept it either in my desk at home, or a quiet pocket of whatever bag I would carry, not daring to bring it out and deface another page with my silly thoughts of the day.
Of course, when I got this one, money was tight and I didn’t want to ‘waste’ it. I’ve since moved on from such thoughts, but I still haven’t filled it up as I thought it would.  Perhaps in time I will (I have another waiting to be unwrapped and pressed into service). I have a couple of others that I use more often now, mostly for notes at work and things like that.
Unusually, I’ve been thinking more of pen & paper of late, mainly because I miss blogging like I used to (used to be a post a day). I’ve been thinking that I need to do more random thoughts in a notebook like the old Moleskine rather than in OneNote, Evernote, or JotterPad on my tablet.  Something more permanent, where I need to focus on what I’m writing and can’t backspace my way out of an unfinished thought.
That’s why I need a notebook today. Sure, I need someplace to jot down the quick note or reminder that can pop up on my smarphone, but it’s the Moleskine that I will keep going back to for putting those longer thoughts together. Â It’s there that I need to tell stories for the first time, and keep them as inspiration for the future.
I’ve recently discovered another great little notebook called Field Notes, made right here in the U.S.A.! Â I’ll be picking up a set (or three) of these for the day-to-day notes, phone numbers, to-dos, and more that fit right in any pocket. Â Nifty little notes indeed, with very high praise (just search for them online – you’ll see).
Anyway, it shouldn’t surprise me, though it sometimes does, that a simple device like the classic pocket notebook is still, like a good watch, an indispensable item for the daily carry.
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