This afternoon, I drove over to David Allen's house to do some work with him. When I got here, he and Marian Bateman were sitting at a table in the yard, working on a coaching project. The neat thing was not that they were working, but where and how they were working. David had set up an 8' projection screen, propped up with rocks, and he was projecting from his wireless ThinkPad. (And I thought I was a geek! )

Actually, I was quite delighted to see this. You see, 6 years ago I had a discussion with David about the benefits of unplugged computing and I shared my vision that someday, he would be able to work while connected, from anywhere -- even under his favorite Sycamore tree.

Image:Backyard computing. Connected to the great indoors.

While many executives spent their Monday afternoon indoors, perhaps in a stuffy conference room, dressed in suits and isolated from the outdoors, David and Marian were able to enjoy the outdoors and have a delightfully productive meeting while connected to the server indoors.
I love it when technology works for people.


Now that summer's here, I can take my wireless laptop and VPN/VOIP Kit down to the lake to get some creative work done in the tranquility of the outdoors.

Image:Backyard computing. Connected to the great indoors.

So, If you see some propellerhead sitting at a picnic table with his laptop, solar powered battery back, and a tripod with a yagi antenna pointed up at the mountains, that's me. (A blog for another day)

Eric

P.S. I almost forgot. David showed me a low-tech method that he uses to add animation to an otherwise static PowerPoint presentation.

Image:Backyard computing. Connected to the great indoors.Image:Backyard computing. Connected to the great indoors.

Apparently, this is a trick he's mastered during the breaks at his seminars.  
I think I'll go home and teach the kids. :-)

Discussion/Comments (9):

Backyard computing. Connected to the great indoors.

I can't believe how *bright* the projection is. I would love to be able to work on my balcony. I've tried many times. Unfortunately, I can't read my laptop screen in the sunlight outdoors. Is there some trick to this that I'm missing?

Posted at 06/29/2004 15:38:36 by Scott


re: Backyard computing. Connected to the great indoors.

Scott wrote: " Is there some trick to this that I'm missing?"

Yes, it's called a 2200 Lumen projector.

Sweet

Posted at 06/29/2004 16:11:28 by Eric Mack


Your blog doesn´t render correctly on Safari :-(

Eric,

I enjoy reading your blog but have difficulties doing so on my iBook and iMac using Safari.

Bruce

Posted at 06/29/2004 22:04:44 by Bruce Elgort


Blog doesn´t render on Safari

Bruce wrote:

"I enjoy reading your blog but have difficulties doing so on my iBook and iMac using Safari."

Try Firefox. Works great.

Posted at 06/30/2004 0:53:15 by Scott


I don´t want to have switch browsers just to read Eric´s blog :-)

While I do use FireFox on my PC's I stick to Safari on the mac. As I move more and more to the mac I have standardized on the Safari browswer. I guess I will stick to RSS.

Also one other thing to note is that comments may be eaiser to follow having the first comment on top and then subsequent ones below it. In the current format I have to read bottom up which is awkward. Just my two cents.

Also please realize that I am legally blind and probably a special case :p)

Posted at 06/30/2004 11:27:23 by Bruce Elgort


re: I don´t want to have switch browsers just to read Eric´s blog :-)

Thanks for the feedback, Bruce. Always appreciated. I am moving to a newer template, which will fix some of the issues. Safari remains a challenge, and we are trying to determine the reason that our design does not work with it. Thanks for your tip on the comments. Again, the new template will resolve that.

-Eric

Posted at 06/30/2004 13:05:51 by Eric Mack


Thanks Eric

Posted at 06/30/2004 14:52:00 by Bruce Elgort


Camino works on Mac well

Hi Eric- I wrote previously about the problem with rendering on Safari. On Safari for me, the first page is blank which is disconcerting. However, I just tried the new Camino .8 which came out in late June and it works perfectly. Running the latest Panther version of OS X 10.3.4. Camino is pretty nice. I'm using it for Gmail which doesn't work that well with Safari and it works well as a browser. Well done.

Posted at 07/04/2004 23:12:04 by Janet Tokerud


re: Camino works on Mac well

Glad to hear that you have something that works. I've been puzzled about the Safari issue for a while. Ultimately, I'd like to have a site that looks good on both Mac and PC. - Eric

Posted at 07/05/2004 0:33:26 by Eric Mack



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