My ToDo list become so much more with Google Keep

For so long, and I have written about it her and in other places, but my todo list have gone through so many different formats, and for a long time this been a series of paper lists that were rewritten as new item appeared and old items completed. It beat electronic versions, in as much as I just like the feel of pencil and they are always there, as I use my Moleskin to keep the lists with a sort of yellow sticky note-it as a label for the current page that had the latest list.

I even went as far as copying the page to Evernote, my goto place for all storage for a while, well a long time,,,,,, that is till I found Google.Keep.

And keep for so many reasons has transformed a lot of my note keeping and todo lists ot tasks or as Keep describes their version, a Reminder.

So its so Keep that I moved, not so much as a complete goodby to Evernote, but more a trial, and I just clicked with the whole thing, ok so I am a big Google fan, and use Gmail and all it offers, Drive plus a lot more, so surprise, surprise, keep fitted better than I had hoped.

So I used keep to store information, the tagging worked and apart from not being able to drag in pdf documents I like every thing it offered, the small way-round the pdf was to store it in a folder within Drive and just gather a link for it and post that into the keep document, it works well.

Then I started to experiment with some of the functions, the best and one I want to promote here, is the reminder. Clicking this within any note allows me to add a date, and get this a time for any action, which appears in Google Cal, yes I use Cal as my main calendar, you have to switch the calendar from Task to Reminder, and low and behold they appear as a small blue icon, if you complete it then click the icon and mark as done, this leaves the note created in Keep intact, and ready for search to loo over it if needed, try and do that in Tasks or my old Moleskin list, almost impossible.

Also, the note in keep is tagged, with a variety, if needed, specific tags if the note applies to more than one project.

One word of slight warning, you can add a reminder straight from Calendar, and it works well, but there is not a note made in Keep, and I just found that adding notes to a keep note reminds me of things I need to know for that task rather than delving into my moleskin, or scraping the depths of my memory, so I make my reminders in Keep, and add my reminder from there.

So there it is, Keep is my new reminder to do things, a repository for my notes and links. The video below is my short overview. As for Evernote, sadly I don't see a use for it, except that I have a lot of notes stored in it, so it remains, that is till I sort a way of transferring it to Keep,,,, let you know !.

Google not Apple

I have made the first of many moves I expect to make as I set up my computer system for the next few years. I have been Apple mostly from about 1985, with the odd lapse into Windows at some one else behest, namely an employer.

But now I am setting up for a life with Google, I have transferred all of my emails over to gmail and I now use this as my main email services, I have moved my calendar over. Both these were remarkably easy to do, next was all my main files, again this was no more than a drag and drop, plus a short wait for it to complete a large move. Adding Google to my mac as an account on Mail, and pulling folders across made this job so easy, as for my calendar, I just had to add google tags to my Apple cal appointments and all was good, I could see them is Google calendar.

Next were my photos, again Google made this easy and for some time I have had them copied across, I use Chrome for almost all of my surfing, and google drive for my slides and now writing, Blogger is my preferred domain, and sheets my spreadsheet of choise. I now prefer Keep to Evernote, simple because it just as easy to use, and easier to find stuff.

It's not that I don't like Apple, I have a Macbook Pro 15" and an ageing iPhone 5s its that they are a closed wall system, and don't like me sharing as much as I want, Google on the other hand do. Attending a google show in Excel London a few weeks ago, did little to sway me away from this, in fact its was the final nail. As for the phone thats going soon, I fancy a Google Nexus, but could so easily take the Samsung 8, its just down to the best deal.

For the time being, I will stick with my Mac, its a good machine, and I need it for my CAD software, plus a couple of items I like, such as Skype, although I am fast liking google Talk and hangout. but there is little else to keep me on such an expensive machine, even CAD is migrating over to a web based environment, both Sketchup who are still in Beta, and more so Autocad who are in a different league, Which brings me back to my Mac, I don't need it if I go on a trip, I can so easily go online via a Chrome book and do most if not all of what I want to do, take into account the way airlines seem not to want us to travel with laptop, then hiring, or even buying a chrome book at the destination seems feasible.

As for my office phone, well thats linked to Skype, but outgoing land line calls via Google are easy and good quality. Google just have to get the UK sorted.

I look after several web sites and use a Mac based program to do this rather than hard coding, but I will eventually move even this to Google Drive. As you might imagine I have rather a lot of files, and what not, in Drive, so had to upgrade to 1Tb, in doing this I seem to have all the benefits of a G Suite account. My existing Dropbox account will go as I migrate all my files across to Google Drive, but here lies a small problem is the way I share this drive with my business partners, I will have to trial it with Google drive and make sure they are happy with the syncing before I go ahead.

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Keep and Evernote battle for my attention

In December 2016 I compared Google keep to my then, usual data repository, Evernote, and microsoft's one note plus apples notes. Since then, some three month have passed and I have kept up a duel usage with just Evernote and keep. The other two just lack  in there use with me, apples product is a good note keeper but lacks some how in comparison. And one note, well t just would not sync with my iPad and iPhone. So it was keep and Evernote.

Evernote is huge, I have so much tucked away in it, but finding it was sometimes a chore, it searches just to well, and I could never remember how to limit the search engine enough to weed out all but what I wanted to see. Keep is well simpler, easier to search, but what gained my attention was the simple way it now integrates with Google Dock as a side panel, allowing such an easy way to drag all or a portion into the doc.

I will stay with Evernote, I have so much tucked away, but in the Lastweek, I find myself using keep more and more because it's so simple to use. I have even used the Evernote link for some documents I want in both places and a stack of british standards I use regularly together with my PDFs copies of the building regs, downloaded to my keep folder in google drive linked to keep.

So there it is, keep is not the final winner, but it's getting a lot more use than I thought was possible, I still write most of my major papers and articles in Apple pages, but given keeps influence now that might change. I pay for Dropbox and Apple iCloud as storage in the cloud, both work well, I recently went on a long cruise and at one stage was it not connected to wifi contact for almost 7 days. Apart from email this was not a problem writing in Apple pages, or watching the films I had purchased, the ship collection lacked any good SciFi !!, using Google products without wifi just seems a waste of effort to even try. But come any port and link to the net, Google came to life, in all its glory, picking up mail and sending files I had made as attachments to gmail. Apple mail on the other hand just did not play well, downloading ok but failing to send anything.

I travel infrequently outside of the U.K now, so the cruise wifi problem is not the norm, but it made me realise just how good Google is when wifi is good, and I wonder how long it will be before I move entirely over. One draw back is the CAD package, I use Vectorworks, the version I use is Apple and it will be a long while before I even want to leave it, but Sketch up is looking interesting, and their beta that works within a browser is gaining function and is looking pretty dam good. If it is progressed, then a chrome book might swing it and Google becomes all I want, to both write, draw Plans and detail. But that's for another blog post, which might not be that long in the future.

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2017 awaits - what will it bring

As I write this first blog for 2017, I am suffering, all self inflicted I might add, they say never mix your drinks, I didn't, all were consumed separately, beer first, then red wine, followed by a small night cap to welcome the new year in.

I have so many projects building up in my head, some are just floating, some are a little more than this, I need to expand my notes and see if they might be viable, some are, so the notes I have made need to be expanded, and things put in place, to trial them. I never have had a problem with failure, without it  i just don't learn, but it would be nice to get one or two paying wins !.

I can see that 2017 is going to be a busy year, its going to involve travelling a lot, something I enjoy enormously, so the Mac is going to get a new bag, my trusty Kensington is showing signs of wear, to the point of failure. So I an looking, as yet nothing stands out, but I can't delay to long.

My Mac is still ok, its not due for replacement just yet, although I am reviewing what I need to make it work better when traveling, spare cables, a new power cable and spair video dongle and mouse, plus travelling keyboard, I like to sit back from the screen and type.

For so long, I have used Dropbox as my main storage in the cloud, thats not changing, but I am separating my private life away from business, and all my personal files have been moved to Apples iCloud, it works and its as safe as anywhere, perhaps a little safer. I made several different dropbox accounts to do this, but seeing them all at the same time evades me, so Apple iCloud wins. I tried Google Drive, and again it works, but as most of my files are Apple, it kind of needed more time to convert than I wanted to give.

Evernote still remains my archive library, it works so well, and although I tried out the others, it still remains the best.

My photo's are still in Apple iPhoto, its so good, although for sharing I tend to allow Google Photo to take a copy, and its here I let people share sets I have made, I an using Pinterest, don't ask why, it's just easy to use and it has a lot of really interesting users.

Apple pages is not the best writing program, but it works for me, so most of my papers, articles and general writing start here, ok I often export to word, simply because its the medium most other are using. Google Docs just keeps being there, is easy to use and if I asm writing lectures then this is what I prefer to use, my personal lectures I use to consult with remain as Apple, but the University lectures remain Google Slides.

Whilst I talk Apple, my iPhone is definitely up for renewal, I have an iPhone 5s, but articles on the new iPhone for 2017 sound so good, I'll wait.

Vectorwork is, and will remain, my CAD package, this year I will get to grips with 3D, I use it, but not in anger, so my next job no matter what size, will be 3D. with all the bells and stuff of BIM. I need to get to grips with Revit, but I feel a conflict might arise with Vectorworks, i'ts one or the other, and Vectorworks will probably win.

I have a huge list of academic papers I want to write, so head down. I want to complete at least two before the spring, plus get my book into shape.

Thats it, no great revelations, just getting things in order and making a few plans

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The End of 2016

I sat down this Boxing Day morning to tidy up my desk, and files a few bits away. I normally do this small, in brackets, job at this time of the year, its seems right to start the year of to a clean plate.

But as always I get side tracked, and its hard to stay focused on the job at hand. So after a full morning, dodging tasks handed to me by my good lady, and incoming text messages from my sister who also seems to think I have nothing better to do, I have got my filing more of less done, a book shelf sorted and my computer cleaned, and I mean that in the literal sense, as the screen looked like it was in need of a dam good clean, so the glass cleaner cloth was used to a big effect.

Next is my year of CPD, as a lecturer, I can not be accused of not full filling my 35 hours, I read constantly and often, a lot of my notes and photos get logged into Evernote, I tried Microsofts OneNote, and dabbled with or is that continue to dabble with Googles Keep, I just want it to succeed, but how can it against Evernote. it just works, and works well across all my devices, the same can not be said of the others in this respect.

I want to update my spreadsheet for CPD hours, but i fear this is going to have to wait, I have just found my list of papers and articles I want to write, or finish, my web site needs updating with my latest paper, and I have the notes on my recent Professorial lecture to update and bring together into an article.

Saldey 2016 has not been a pleasent year, my father died in August, so a lot of things I had planned were put on hold and other things moved or did not get my full attension, whilst I dealt with this, but as I speak, dad is in a small plasic bag on my shelf awaiting a final resting place with his father. I know roughly were he is, but need to spend time finding his old plot in Aston Parish Church.

I live on the cusp, let me explain, I run a Mac, and for the best part, its fine, but I use Google for lectures, and writing, Drive is so good at being on all the machines I have to work on, here at home and at Uni, Mac just does not like sharing like Google does, Pages is ok for short writing, but I prefer Google Docs, for my longer papers and articles, and Chrome, I have set up with a few nice little apps, that Safari just does not have. You may ask why not move to a chrome book, I might in the new year, but my CAD work with Vectorworks is firmly placed on the Mac and I will not move from this, unless Nemetschek, come up with a web based app like Auto cad. I want to return to Gmail, after moving to Mac mail some time back, but the pain I will have to endure in doing this just is not worth it, so here i satay mostly Mac, with more than a little Google.

So there it is, end of another year, I have so much to do in 2017, my list of things I want to do grows longer, I shall be 65 this year, and thoughts of retiring just don't form any part of my plans, but a change in work just might, as I write more, blog more frequently teach better, and add to my mentoring, the future is not me, its the youngsters who are waiting in the wings.

Consultancy now seems more viable, as I concentrate on developing my futurist side, our industry is changing, CAD is morphing into something else, point cloud looks so inviting , but the real interest for me is all the data we generate, how we use it as we delve into AR and VR,  plus data has to involve Algorithms, and online data from so many places and things, hence todays photo. Oh and not to forget how spreadsheets and Google are going to play such an interesting part in all of this.

2017 is going to see all of these melt into MR, or Mixed reality. How it will be used is an ongoing development, there are several camps, which  track , one looks interesting, one has promise, and the rest, well we will see !. At the right time, I will expand my thoughts on this, but until them  watch the blog.

Talking of which, the blog has been a little quiet I know, but now, as I enter 2017 I have so many lined up to write about, expansions of several lectures, more videos to post and if I can some trial live lectures. As I write my abstracts for papers, I will use the blog to air thoughts and discus the paper before going to print.

So there it is, the end of 2016, and a whole new year looms,

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My data bank - Shall I stick to Evernote

For as long as Evernote has been in existence, I have been adding articles, pdf files, meeting notes, just about anything I thought work keeping, in the great archive Evernote.

I scan letters, articles I see in magazines, and my trusty Moleskine pages, I take photos within Evernote of bookshelves. The OCR will, if I have taken the photo close enough, will mean it's searchable.

I use it as part of my research, as the little app I have on both safari and Google Chrome Web Browsers, shows any links in my Evernote account as well as the internet. Very usefull for my private notes.

But in the last few month, Evernote has increased the premium fee, there is a free account, but my use means I need to pay, so is the increase justified,

I sat back and wondered,t has anyone else got a similar product that does all of what Evernote does and more.

My list is simple,

• Google Doc notes
• Google Keep
• Microsoft OneNote
• Mac Pages - Spotlight

I have alway used Mac, so have a lot of notes pre Evernote in Mac format, mostly “pages”, Searching can be done via the Spotlight search button, but is not easy and only brings up the file name

Microsoft OneNote has for some time been gaining ground on Evernote, but after using it to trial its ease and sharing I find on the Mac it's not really ready yet, the iPad version has a hit and miss approach to sharing the main account, and search is therefore limited, but I like the layout and methodology.

Google Keep, has quietly, been adding features to this simple yet so easy to use product, and sharing across all my devices is very google like, easy, it just works, I like the way I can add data, even on the Mac its simple, but it can’t save PDF files, there is a simple work around involving saving the pdf to Google drive, getting the link and pasting that into Google Keep, but any search will only read the link and notes you might have made, unlike Evernote that saves a complete pdf, and makes the entire content searchable. And the search is limited to Keep, searching on my browser does not bring in my keep notes unlike Evernote.

Making notes in individual Google Doc’s is so much like Apples Pages, it is so easy to use, but searching is so limited to the file name.

So after a month of trials and frustration, I am back to Evenrnote, well I never went away, I just duplicated my notes, it took time but showed me that Evernote still has the edge, by some considerable margin, sharing is so good, across all my devices, and almost everything I do is available for the search withing my browser.

Is the extra worth it, answer, yes, will I do the same trial again, yes, but I’ll wait a year and let the other programs mentioned, try and catch up, Google Keep seems to be the one I will watch, Google's ability to both store for free and search this information is well known. However they need to up the ante on pdf and photo import.

There is so much to talk about I blog, toweet, and add notes to various places, so to clooect all of these into a readable archive, I have created an email News letter

This first newsletter. Essentially it's going to be an alternative to my blog, with the current article, plus side issues.

I have for some time wanted to add, my side research and findings, like my Twitter  uploads, but not limited to the letter limit. I want to explore this newsletter design, so it will change.

I use a Google App called “Convert Google Docs to Gmail drafts”, which as the title says, I create this as a google Doc and transferred to gmail to send out. Taking a copy to add to my blog. So if you want so recieve this, try this download link to the PDF. or alternativley fill in this google form with your name and Email and I'll send as an Email. ( This is in trial so hang in there as I sort )

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CIAT CPD Officers Meet 20-06-2016

In about five weeks, or on the 20th June 2016, all the region CIAT CPD officers will meet in City Road, London, to discuss CPD. As yet I have seen no agenda, but you know me, thats not going to stop me making a list of things I want to talk about, from manufacturers presentations, to real study time, to reading lists, to note taking to building up some sort of personal archive of information. to just an electronic record system.

I also want to discus the way BIM seems to be taking hold of CAD, not that thats a bad thing, just the way the "CAD" bit is being dropped and I hear only I am going to BIM this up, not CAD or draw it up. Yet BIM surely should be on the list as it will and is affecting the way we draw, and also with it huge potential for data rules base, or internal / external algorithms, and how it will be shared via IFC.

Evernote, or anything similar, is there anything!, should surely be discussed, as the personal archive I mentioned before.

Is there a place for online lecture, or hangouts, I attend several and find then just as good, with no travel time.

I wonder if the way academic papers are written and viewed, might be discussed, its a major way to learn and research a subject, but for many its a system that might be unknown, thinking its only for academics, yet its not, and so many of the AT universities might well help is reading and advising on a papers format and subject.

So there it is, if you want to add to my list,  drop me a line and  will raise it, or contact your local CPD officer.

Todays photo is of the old Queens Hotel that was built onto the side of Curzon Street Station Birmingham the subject of much discussion as HS2 becomes more of a certainty,  and pulled down as part of the saving of the main station entrance building. I have never seen any other photos of the hotel building, one of the other lecturers who was heavily involved in the work says there are some, so watch this space to see if they turn up. This shot was from the rear of the site looking south West wish.

Dessau Bauhaus Video

You might well take some time from modern construction methods and Architecture, to view this video on the BauHaus movement.

I have long been fascinated by the ethos and the way it was set up and funded, sadly the outcome in terms of actual construction was not as good as you might expect, but its so worth the time to watch.

I have watched this twice now, which together with my past reading, I have made my private notes in Evernote.

Should we aspire to this again, I think not, but the example of some of the thought process and idealism yes, a greater understanding of materials and a more hands on approach to the physical use and assembly of materials, yes.

The Bauhaus which operated from operated from 1919 to 1933, and closed by the Nazis rise in power,  was first founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. In spite of its name, and the fact that its founder was an architect, the Bauhaus during the first years of its existence did not have an architecture department. Nonetheless, it was founded with the idea of creating a "total" work of art in which all arts, including architecture, would eventually be brought together.

As it happens, A cool €25M has been set aside to build a major Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, Germany, the second headquarters of the influential design movement started in 1919 by modernism's grandsire Walter Gropius. The new museum in Dessau City Park, which will have a permanent collection of nearly 40,000 Bauhaus objects, will ready in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the rigorous architecture and design school. At the same time, the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin will be spending €56M to open a new museum on the site, and renovate its historic Walter Gropius-designed building.

Book index saved to Evernote

Scan to PDF

One of the things I am doing at present, is cataloging my construction books in Evernote, so I can include them in any search I do.
This I do by scanning the front page for the title, and then as part of the scan, which I save as a pdf, is to include the index pages.

The picture today is a screen grab of PDFpen, the program I use to operate my scanner, where you can see the title page followed by two index pages.

I also tag the pdf with several tags like construction, Book, and the title, I also will be placing them into a separate folder within Evernote so I can share as required, with my students.

Data, Data & more Data

As Technologists, we are being inundated with data, lots of it from almost everything we do. The easy route is to just delete, or make a folder on your hard drive, and dump it in there thinking you'll sort it later.

But there are a few simple tricks that will solve you problem and make it easy to retrieve.

First is Email, I use gmail its still the leading service, despite its age,  I get so much, some important and these get tagged and put into a correct folder, the rest just get marked as read, I never ever delete emails. Important ones that I want to keep out side of Gmail, I send to my Evernote account, via the secret email address they give, more on this later.

Never ever rely on your hard drive to store important things, I have, like so many done this and lost it all when the disk failed, and it will. With the cloud now so easy to access, I store all items in one of two places, first Google Drive, this has to be a no brainer, its easy to set up, easy to use, and you get so much free space, and is so well integrated with gmail, next comes DropBox, a paid for service, well there is a free service and its quite large, but my needs have gone beyond this, and it's here I store almost every working file, most are cad files and project documents we use daily, the beauty of DropBox is the sharing, I share all my business files with my partner, and he sees the updates almost instantly.

Now lets get back to Evernote, a product with a difference, here I store any document, scanned or otherwise, my new printer has such a sweet scanning facility, and used with PDFpen, if I get paper in the post, I scan it, and use the builtin "send to Evernote" function and dump the paper. Evernote has the best search ever, the OCR scans the pdf ready for me to search, I pay for the premier account, so its almost instant, free accounts wait for a while, but its done. Don't forget to add the app to your browser, searching for anything from say Chrome will show whats on the web, but also whats in you private archive in Evernote. Your private archive of data will be the subject of a more detailed blog later.

Books I have a problem with, I buy so many, I am a sucker for a good book, my collection, and I will not pass on any book, sorry, is growing, my construction books in particular I scan, not all of them, but the index, and important pages, these I send to Evernote, ready for search, I'll write a new blog on this very soon as there is more to this than just scanning, Kindle and ebooks spring to mind and my highlights.

Photos and my video's used to be a problem, but now I have four different safeguards, Google Drive, Flickr, dropbox, and iPhoto on my mac, all store any electronic photo I take, its automatic and I just don't ever have to think about it, most of my photos are taken with my mobile, the quality is just fine for most things, it auto syncs with all the above, and best of all, it has lat long embedded so search is so easy, which brings me onto my favourite, which is Google Photo, is was with no question iPhoto, but the service google offers is so much better. so all nicely backed up. In many practices, I used to get stinging emails from the IT department, saying I had yet again filled up the server with photos, not any more.

I still have to keep paper, its a pain, and defies the new search and find I am so used to in computer land, and is hosted in an old filing cupboard in my garage. Most are scanned, but the law seems to say keep, so I do.

With all the above, its hard to say no to data, now its more the better, OCR has opened up search to all the content, learning how to use this now becomes the next holly grail, tagging and to some extent, adding files to folders, although I do this simply to allow sharing specific sets of data.

I write profusely, with this blog and the others I looks after, a service I find invaluable is ifTTT look for it or follow the link, its an automated service thats free, which has rules, if I write a new blog it will copy the blog to Evernote, same goes for a lot of other services like diary events.

Todays photo is a vey old detail I like, neat and so full of design.

Feedburner Email Link

To day I have added an Email link which will let you know if I post any new articles, please sign up, and you'l get an email to let you know.

I thought when I discontinued the Wordpress site, thst the export I got of all my past blogs would be easy to import into Blogger, but it seems after due trial and a lot of research, that its not going to be. Seems I have to break it down into very small lunps to import, so rather than waste time doing that, I will repost some of the more interesting posts, with obvious updates.

So signing up might just be a good idea.

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Evernote as part of your research

A few days ago I posted a new blog, talked about an alternative way to recognise the value of CPD using proper research instead of sitting for an hour listening to a CPD lecture.

Well today I want to extend that article, by describing a way to add notes to your CPD list. I keep mine in a google Spreadsheet, and have all sorts of formula to add up and show the time I have spent on a subject, I also have a cell thats a link to an Evernote Folder thats got the research I made for that subject, its an easy way to organise notes, web links and articles you find. Not only is it easy to create, a folder link, but in your notes on the spreadsheet an individual link can be made to a specific article.

This is so easy to do, just right click on the folder in Evernote, choose publish and follow the "create link" for adding to your spreadsheet. I have tried this in Google Keep, but the links just don't work well, and as for saving web pages it only saves the URL, where Evernote saves the page complete.

A new Blog " hoffou framtioar"

I have started a new blog, as if I don't have time for this !, but I think its important to separate my futurist ideas and concepts away from my CPD blog, so head over to" hoffou framtioar" which I hope is reasonable translation from Icelandic for "look to the Future".

Why this name, well it was available, second I like the idea and third, I think I have Viking stock somewhere in my past lineage, so it all seemed a good idea at the time.

There are many things  I would like to write about, but they tend to blur with my CPD, so this is an attempt to isolate these thoughts and allow them room to grow and develop.

If I can I will save links and items connected with a particular subject in a public Evernote folder.

Mind Maps

I so often take my iPad into lectures or meetings and start Evernote to type notes re the meeting, and end up using my Moleskin to add notes that I find difficult to typer. They are links doodles and mind maps if concepts, ideas and just abstract thoughts that come into my mind. I so often then add the pages, there is always more than one, to the end of the evernote typing.

Tere are no rules to taking note, much lime my rule for Moleskins, I just make notes, scribles, links, pictures, sketch, all the time. I can look back and see thoughts long forgotten, if I write neat, then Evernote can find it, but sketches and doodles are still a little much for it, but hey, there is time.
I read several article over the weekend, and found a link to an excellent article on mind maps, How to use mind maps and a follow up, Mind map art, mine look nothing like theres, !! also an excellent article on "The Nw Yorker"

I still keep looking at Google Keep, but its so lacks behind Evernote,

It's Raining

OK, it's raining, and going out dog training, looks increasingly a bad option, the coffee shop and pastry, looks like a much better option.

In one of those office conversations, I had the idea for overcoming the problem of ceating sections, in Vectorworks where the wall has no detail, no brick coursing or for that matter material heights, I'm trying to work it out, so the moleskin is going to get a bashing today as I sketch and pull idea together.

I had an Architect mate of mine make contact with a new job, so it looks like I shall be busy for a few weeks creating two house types and a site plan, plus all the usual details.

I have had my paper for ICAT accepted, so its a race to get the paper written, well finished, I have had about 10 pages fleshed out with notes and research needed, so its just a case of head down. I have an appointment with one of the professors who lectures in big data at Birmingham City Uni, next week, so questions pilling up.

The CIAT AGM is looming, and guess what, I have to teach on the 27th, so looks like I shall not get the Scotland till late on Friday night, the flights do not work, so its train or Drive, currently driving is the cheapest option, although it's a long old haul, so looking at the train times and cost before a decission is made.

Google Keep has introduced more function, but it still lags behind Evernote, notably the way I can so easily save a site, or the way I can send scans, and photos , the OCR is just so useful, see my notes on reading my Kindle, saving a page, and the OCR putting the photo into the search, so nice try google, but a way to go yet. Search from the Google home page is great for evernote, it shows all the internet, and what I have in my Evernote account, Google keep has yet to add this simple function.

Thats it, Saturday sorted, I have the FT weekend to read, and a couple of films I want to watch. oh and did you see Rachel Welsh on Pierce's show, 75 and not looking a day over 50, dam fine lady. As for Sunday, well the garden is full of leaves, and our new dog, a Flat Coated Retriever, is keen on digging so some repairs the make, walks to be done and perhaps the FT weekend to finish.

Structure lecture - First Year

It's so hard, how to teach the basics of Foundations in less than an hour, so this presentation set is my stab at introducing the subject. There is a load more to teach, so this is meant as the opening salvo.

I have one on Piling, water tables and an intro into Walter Segal, and his pad foundations, plus more on the Building Regs Part A, and more on the effect of trees.

Its also a chance to see if I can import my presentation into Blogger from google Docs using the link code.  Which I am please to say seems to work well. One of the benefits of using Google Slides, is that as I see more info on the subject, I can add it to the slide set, and my students will see it, as the link as in this case is direct to my account.

I am also using this as a test to post date this blog, so although your seeing Wednesday, I wrote it late Tuesday afternoon.

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• Architectural Technologist - The Architectural Grid
• Pile Foundations and the DPM
• Architectural Technologist - House on stilts
• Architectural Technologist - Structural Grid
• Architectural Technologist - Walter Segal - Time animation of build
• Architectural Technologist - Water table drops