Getting familiar with MS Teams and MS Live Events

I spent the whole day figuring out how MS Live Events would work for an event for my company, and if MS Teams would be preferred for our purposes.

I did not have the chance to host the Zoom meetings for my church but from my limited view, I can see how much better and versatile Zoom is compared to Teams.

Except that for Zoom's capabilities, it has compromised its security and we are not allowed to use it for work anymore.

We have to use the more secure MS Teams and MS Live Events and it looks like I will be spending the whole day again tomorrow testing it and getting it ready for use next week.

pearlie

I am obsessed with my phone storage space

I don't know why but I'm so obsessed with maximising my phone storage. I keep clearing its cache and clearing media in my WhatsApp.

Maybe it's all because of that, my WhatsApp.

I have been receiving so many photos and videos it's really clogging up my phone. 

And since I'm home, there are a few apps I don't use much. So off they go.

So from this...

...I reduced it to this.

I need to stop online shopping and window shopping with Shopee and Lazada. Off they go.

I have my Kindle Paperwhite with me and since I started working from home, I can't find the time to read anything anyway. So Kindle app, off you go.

The Facebook app is huge, second to my Outlook app. It went up to the size of almost 800MB. It had to go. I shouldn't spend too much time there anyway. Without the app I'll be logging in via Chrome. 

And finally my Outlook app. It's crazy huge. It went up to a whopping 1.1G! 

I can't remove it since I need it for work as I can't always be sitting in front of my PC every minute and every second. I did a search online but couldn't find anything that could help reduce the size, until I figured out something. 

It has to do with what I have in my Outlook. It syncs across all my devices and what I have in my PC Outlook is what I will have in my Android Outlook. 

So what I did was to clear my folders, i.e. my Sent, Clutter, and Junk folders. 

 

And voila! it reduced in size. Not by much though. It went down to 756MB but it went up to 897MB and now it's at 767MB. Not by much but I'm so glad that I figured it out at least. 

I'm not sure how long this obsession gonna last. I only have 64G internal memory, with a 128G SD card. But not all apps will automatically store documents externally.

And so probably I will be still obsessed, until I get a new phone with more memory.

pearlie

Play Triple Town and learn to be strategic

I don't play much games on my phone and have given up on what I was addicted to previously. I used to like games in the Candy Crush genre as well as Plants vs Zombies and Tower Defense.

But I've found this one recently which I do like and found myself spending a bit too much time on.

It's Triple Town and the objective of the game is build as many high level buildings as possible. It takes three small bushes to build one big bush, three big bushes to build one tree, three trees to build one red house, three red houses to build one house and so on and so forth until you get a big castle.

It's a strategic game and you need to know your moves ahead of time before planting anything. 

And since I'm not very strategic myself, I wonder if this count as good training.

pearlie

Take Notes to Think Well: Apps you can use

I am still reading Sören Ahrens's How to Take Smart Notes and this topic has been filling my mind these few days. 

I have shared it with my colleagues and friends and some of them are looking forward for me share insights from my study, which I will definitely post a review here soon, when I'm done with the reading, note-taking and thinking.

But one thing that I also find interesting is the many apps and platforms out there for us to use for note taking and journalling. 

And I use quite a few of them. You would think that I should just settle on one but I found that using different note and journal apps for different purposes serves me rather well.

Here are the ones I use and I highly recommend them.

Evernote

I used Notes in my iPhone when I was using my Apple gadgets but when I went full-on Android, Evernote is my choice for all my notes. I store them in separate Notepads for easy reference. I even take photos of my pen-and-paper notes and store them here for easy access. The only problem is since I did not pay for it, I can no longer send notes in via email as much as I like. 

Journey

I use this as a prayer and journaling app. I was using Diaro before but when I travelled to Seoul in December last year, I wanted to use a different app as my travel journal but ended up just sticking to one. Journey and Diaro is somewhat similar but I prefer the feel and user interface of Journey. I write in my personal thoughts and my prayers here. It is also very useful when I need to vent and when I need to sort out my thoughts and emotions. 

Diarium

I started using this a learning journal to note down one thing I learn every day. It started off well but soon I found myself forcing the daily learning points and so I stopped. But I stuck on with the photo calendar. I can view all the days in all the months in thumbnails and it does give me a big picture of how I spent my days. And with just a glance, I can see the significance of every single day. I like the feel that I have spent my days well. Well, some days at least!

Trello

This is what I am excited about now - Trello. It all started when I needed to sign up for an online conference next month that will last for 4 days with a crazy number of podcasts to listen to. I started to Google for smarter ways to take notes which was when I found Trello, which was also when I found Sönke Ahrens's book on How to Take Smart Notes. I have started to practice using the Slip Box in Trello and so far so good. If you want to know how a Slip Box work, wait for my blogpost on it. But in the meantime, do check out Trello. While the other note and journaling apps are straightforward linear ones, Trello is nothing but. You can create boards and lists and cards, and move them all around, which work perfectly well for a Slip Box. And if you check it out online, you will also see people using it for Scrum and sprints. It's quite powerful.

And here I must quote Niklas Luhmann (again), who created the Slip Box: one cannot think without writing. 

So we all do need to write, to take notes, to journal. It's the only way we can think good and think well. 

pearlie

What happened to the ebook revolution?

I read this article today: What happened to the ebook revolution?

And I thought it was interesting to note that about 10 years ago, around the same time when I picked up on my reading again, experts have confidently said that, "in the dim and distant future of 2020, print books will be largely relegated to the role of decorative shelf fillers, and we would all have a personal pocket electronic library."

And this comic from the year 2010 certainly alludes to that. 

But the article says that it's not quite the way it turned out. 

I can attest to it that the Gen Z loves reading print books. I had a hard time convincing my son to go electronic. He prefers the print version and would drag me to Kinokuniya to get him the books he wants. 

Apparently, only 20% of book sales are electronic and the main users of e-readers are the Gen-Z's parents and even grandparents. 

I know the statistics would be different for us here in Malaysia (don't even get me started on the extremely low percentage of readers here, let alone electronic or otherwise) but it looks like it applies to me. 

As much as I rather not admit it, this library of mine has become decorative.

And this is where my entire library is displayed now: in Goodreads. 

Yeah...another decorative library but virtual. Except that I do post book reviews there once in awhile. However, it's not my complete library because I don't add the ebooks I buy until I have finished reading them. 

And I have not been reading all that I have purchased. I still have the habit of buying books but not reading them!

At the last count, I probably have 1700 books and if I can read 30 in a year--that is a comfortable number for me--it will take me 57 years to complete.

That is provided I can live that long and if I can stop buying books. Both of which I can't.

Anyway, my son has a Kindle now but I'm sure he still buys print books from Amazon once in awhile. 

pearlie

116 apps and counting

I was searching for an app in my phone when my colleague commented, "wow, you've got so many apps!" 

I know I like to look for apps when I want to get something done using my phone but I thought it's a norm that phone are filled with lots and lots of different apps. There are so much you can do with them!

I download a lot of them but since my Razer Phone 2 only has 64G memory, I try to cut down on the apps in my phone and remove those I seldom use. 

Right now I have 116 apps installed.

Too many? Too few? Or a norm? 

How many do you have?

Oh yes, a shout-out to Quimchee, the webtoonist of I Love Yoo, from where I took my phone wallpaper from as you see in my screenshot above. I love her work!

pearlie

TNG eWallet went berserk today

I wanted to buy some stuff from Watson's during lunch today but I didn't bring much money with me and so I thought I'd use my TNG eWallet.

However I only had about RM70 in it and so I had to top it up. But it tells me that connection is bad and it kept asking me to retry. I have no idea how many times I did that, and before I knew it I had RM670 in my eWallet!

I hope it stops there and I don't wake up tommorow morning with the connections improved to have RM4000 in it. 

On top of that, 5 minutes after paying for my purchases and leaving Watson's with the stuff I bought, the payment was cancelled and I got the RM110 back. What?

I walked back to Watson's in the evening to report the matter but the problem is not solved. 

Nothing like that will ever happen with cash and credit cards. 

I could not talk to anyone from TNG and the email I sent is still sitting there without any replies. This is not a good thing. For a financial service provider, they cannot remove the human side of service, like we can still call in and talk to a banker because money is involved here. 

pearlie

After so many years of iPhones, this is a very frustrating phone to use

Some of you would know that I have always been an Apple person since I owned the iPhone 3G in 2009; followed by the 4 (2011), 4S (2012), 5S (2013) and 6S (2016). 

I even became the go-to-person among my friends when they need help on Apple and iOS stuff. I don't know why but I suppose I always make myself available to help them and I'd always try to figure things out for them. 

It all changed when I started to use the Razer Phone 2 and Android in 2019, when I run into so many problems I can't solve.

Maybe it's more the phone than Android. 

Android is alright. I find it hard to compare between iOS and Android because one is simpler and more intuitive while the other is more accessible and practical. I don't mind using one or the other now that I have used both. 

The problem I think is my phone. 

I keep having problems with it. My latest problem is that I have now lost access to my Internal Storage if I use the native Files app. I can no longer move my files to my Internal Storage because I can't get to it.

I wrote to Razer for help and I just got a reply to factory reset my phone. I don't know. I don't want to do that afraid that I will lose my stuff. I have never needed to factory reset any of my iPhones before. 

So now to move my files around, and particularly my photos, I am using three, yes three, apps. Google Go as a gallery app (yup, believe it or not, the Razer Phone 2 does NOT have a native gallery app to view photos), File Manager by Xiaomi to move my files and photos around and Files by Google to easily view where all the files are. 

That's too many and I'm bound to ditch one. So far File Manager by Xiaomi looks good except that all the icons and thumbnails are so small. I am sure the designers of the app are all in their 20s who do not realise some of their users would need a magnifying glass to use their app.

Let me go buy one now...

pearlie

Update: ah, I found the solution! I fixed it and in a way where the Razer people should know since it's their product! And not ask me to unnecessary factory reset my phone!!! 

I started a learning journal

I started a learning journal and have been recording what I learnt for the day every day for the past week.

I got this idea when I attended Deloitte's seminar on the latest HR trends. 

Among the things I picked up was that we need at least 100 days of learning in a year to remain relevant. 

With that, I wanted to learn something every day and I thought it'd be a good idea to start a journal to record what I learn on a daily basis. 

I downloaded Diarium, a journaling app and I have been doing it for a week now. Some days were hard whilst other days I have loads to write about. 

Since I kept it a point not to miss even a single day, some days are quite forced, but I would still write something, however irrelevant or trivial that learning item is. 

And it's a good thing because by the end of the day, if I have nothing to write about, I had better go do something useful before the day is out. 

pearlie

Tried the Eatigo app?

Have you used the Eatigo app before?

I don't use it that often but I've used it several times on restaurants that offer 50% discounts.

And this is one of the places I have been going to quite often: Mr Dakgalbi at Pearl Point Shopping Mall. 

It isn't too far from home and my son really likes the cheese ring version. 

He will be going back to uni soon and I won't have anyone to go with me after that. 

Too bad my husband doesn't like the place and I find eating alone in restaurants a bit too weird. 

Probably I need to get used to it, eating alone. 

pearlie

Source of photo: The Double Eaters

Do you mind map?

I use mind maps a lot to help me think.

In my IOS days, I have purchased a lot of apps but settled with MindNode5 which in my opinion is the best. I can't remember what all the other apps were. I had iThoughts and Total Recall and one more I think.

But I could not find MindNode in Android and so I need to hunt for a good alternative and settled with SimpleMind Pro. I got the PC version as well.

Why mind map works for me?

I suppose my brain does not work in a linear way. Stuff in my mind are all over the place and I sometimes have a lot of stuff hidden and forgotten. So I use mind maps to associate, connect and trigger my thoughts to help me think and put everything on paper, and in this case, an app.

I use to stick to paper but since I started using the PC version, it is meeting my needs. I do have the freedom to move things around and disconnect and reconnect as I see it in a bigger picture, which I can't do on paper.

Just that on paper, it looks much more visual and vivid, which I really like.

But sigh, we cannot have the cake and eat it too.

pearlie

Listening to music in the car

My car does not like my new phone. I drive an old car and it does not have Bluetooth built-in.

It's funny that I still remember 10 years ago when I went shopping for a car, the one question I kept asking all the car salesmen was that if their cars came with a USB port.

Anyway, my car does not like my phone. I plug it in and it says "unrecognised device".

Since I cannot not listen to music, I need to find a solution and my hubby suggested I go find a Bluetooth dongle with a AUX adapter.

I found and bought one from Lazada for only RM15.

And it works.

Except that now I want it to do more. My iPhone plays my music the moment it gets plugged in. With my Razer, I had to tap it so many times to get to it play something.

That's when I found out that there are automation apps in Android. Apparently I can automatically get my phone to perform actions depending on the trigger. 

I did some search, or rather, I got my son to do some research. 

We tried Autoroid, Tasker and Automate. All of these are good automation apps, but none of them seemed to work with Apple Music.

Until my son found the MacroDroid app. He built a macro and voila! It works.

I start my car, my Bluetooth announces, "Connected", and my last played song starts playing.

I'm happy.

Though now I need to learn how to build those macros myself. For example, in order to save battery, how can I get my phone's WiFi to switched on only when I'm at home. 

pearlie

Are password manager apps safe?

I am on leave at home and with all my devices with me I suddenly realize they all carry different passwords and I keep keying the wrong ones for the different devices and applications. 

Our lives are so full of passwords these days that I have no choice but to use a password manager app. 

But a very important question is how safe is it?

Check out these articles and let me know what you think:

- A Skeptic’s Guide to Password Managers and Security

- Is it safe to use a password manager?

- Password Managers: The good, the bad and the ugly

I think it is both good and bad but where we are now we really have no other choice. 

One of the articles claim that “Despite fears, most experts in the field agree that password managers are still the safest way to secure online accounts.”

pearlie

Do you know how you use your time everyday?

In my current interest in the topic of health and lifestyle, I found a very interesting app called Life Cycle. 

I have uploaded it before but to begin using it, it needs to run for 48 hours. 

I remember when I first did that some time ago, nothing happened after waiting for 48 hours. And so I deleted it in disappointment not realising I should have just wait it out a bit more. 

I tried it again. This time I let it run for 48 hours and then I left it be and soon it started kicking in and now that I see what it does, I really like it. 

The app tracks my time automatically and at the end of everyday, I will be able to see how I have spent my entire day. 

For a person who loves big picture and who almost always think about the purpose of life, this helps fills my curiosity and brings me some sort of a simple understanding and order to my life. 

pearlie

I do actually walk more than I thought I would

My hubby got himself a FitBit recently and he is quite obsessed about accomplishing his desired number of steps every day, and he was quite infectious. 

But I did not do anything about it until very recently when I was introduced the BookDoc app that gamifies it all - apparently if you can achieve a minimum average of 3000 steps a day, you can retrieve rewards through the app. 

It was only then when I activated my step counter in my iPhone. 

The BookDoc people told us that the norm in Malaysia is only at 2500 steps per day. And I half-jokingly told my colleague that I will be terrible at it, that I will probably only walk 200 steps a day!

However, I was quite surprised that I actually did manage an average of 3000+ steps over the past few days. And what’s amazing for a person who hates to walk is that I am better than the Malaysian norm. 

The trick now is to walk like what I have been doing for the past few days.

This is a good motivation for me - not so much the rewards, but the fact that I can and do actually walk more than the norm, more than I thought I would. 

pearlie

How much does your music streaming contribute to the earnings of your favourite artistes?

I have been enjoying music streaming for a year now through Apple Music and I started to wonder today how do artistes make a living these days. How do the replay and the many, many times that I listen to their music contribute to their income?

Gone were the days when they can really earn by selling copies of their albums or CDs. But most people do streaming these days, or worse, illegally download bootleg copies of music without paying.

So how do they make money to survive?

I googled it and found this very interesting infographics from Information is Beautiful (what an interesting sounding site, I shall be checking them out more soon). Do go check it out in the website since it’s not so clear here. 

But we can see, as pointed out by YourEDM that:

Highest revenue per play

1st: Napster / $0.0167 per play 

2nd: TIDAL / $0.0110 per play 

3rd: Apple Music / $0.0064 per play 

4th: Google Play / $0.0059 per play 

5th: Deezer / $0.0056 per play 

6th: Spotify / $0.0038 per play 

7th: Pandora / $0.0011 per play 

8th: YouTube / $0.0006 per play  

To reach minimum wage of $1260

Napster / 90,000 plays 

TIDAL / 130,000 plays 

Apple Music / 230,000 plays (this will take me more than 2 years of continuous non-stop listening!)

Google Play Music / 250,000 plays

Deezer / 260,000 plays 

Spotify / 380,000 plays 

Pandora / 1.2 million plays 

YouTube / 2.4 million plays

And according to this article, buying CDs from the store may no longer be the best way for artistes to earn. What is best these days could well be buying downloads or CDs directly from their websites.

And for me who always would vie for the underdogs, what I could do is to stream their music as much as I can, as far as my data package and phone battery(!!!) will allow me.

Music has come a long way but it may not have caught up yet to the digital world of business. 

pearlie

Why are things called 东四 dòng xi (east west)?

I have been using the Decipher Chinese app everyday since I found out about it and I'm happy with it even though I have not paid to subscribe, which I don't think I will. 

This is because I'm quite invested in using Anki and I don't need another SRS app to complicate my learning of the language. What I need to do now is to figure Anki out a bit on its technical side and use it more effectively. 

For example, now I can add words and phrases from Decipher to Anki and reposition it to appear first without having to wait until I reach the 6000th card!

Decipher does have some interesting articles, like this one. I wondered before why are "things" in Chinese called 东四 dòng xi or literally east west, and not 南北 nán běi or south north. 

It is because of the Chinese 五行 wǔ xíng, which is the five phases of Chinese philosophy vis-à-vis wood, fire, earth, metal and water, the five elements that are believed to represent everything on earth. 

And these elements are represented by the directions: east being wood, south fire, west metal and north water. 

And because the only two items that can be held are wood and metal, things are therefore represented by east and west, hence 东四 dòng xi. 

pearlie

Isn't life a bit easier to manage with apps but...

I have just updated my iPad with the latest iOS 11 and I'm very happy with it but since there are not many big changes for the iPhone, I've decided to hold on to it first for the phone. 

This is because I do have some apps that will be rendered useless if I do the update:

I am not worried about any of those apps except for Xiezi HSK-3. I just bought it for RM17 in June! And I don't think there are any plans for them to upgrade it. 

I am still so far away from writing any Chinese and I have to give that app up when I upgrade. Looks like it's back to paper and pen then. 

The other app I paid money for that will no longer work is Travel Pocket but I suppose I've got my value worth of $1.99 for 5 years. It's a good app but I should be able to find something free to use. 

It's trivial but these days my life seems to evolve around what apps can do for me to make life easier. 

pearlie

Learn why things are what they are

I have been using the Anki flashcard app for language, and it is very well suited for that, but when I read this article, Anki Tips: What I Learned Making 10,000 Flashcards, I created another deck entitled Learn Anything.  

The tips that the writer provided are very good ones, including the advice to put everything in one deck, regardless of topic. He quoted the theory of Hebbian learning - "neurons that fire together wire together" and that "mixing everything is superior". He says that when everything is carefully partitioned, we limit the opportunity serendipity, and that applying ideas across disciplines is precisely where the insights are likely to be most fertile.

He also advised to add whatever, anything that interest you, whether you think useful or not.  It can be anything you find interesting, any random thoughts, anything.

I have created my Learn Anything deck a week ago but it was empty until today. I was watching a criminal drama and the central topic was the Statute of Limitations, which one may find unfair to put a maximum limit of time to initiate legal proceedings. The drama did irritate me a bit because the limitation to the murder case was just missed by mere minutes and the murderer walks free even though there was clear evidence that was comfirmed minutes after the limitation period. 

I stopped the drama and did some reading in Wikipedia and thought hey, this could be my first Learn Anything entry.

And unknowing I did what the writer of the article implied as one of the most important tip: "Cards that answer the question “Why?” are more valuable than factual cards." It's easy to memorize the what but it is better to understand the why. And that was precisely what I put into that card entry, because I was more curious as to why should there be statute of limitations. If you are curious, check out its purpose here.

There you go, my first Learn Anything card when the writer already has 10,000 or more by now. But we all have to start somewhere. And now is good. 

I need to also build the habit of noticing things to add into my deck. There are so many things to learn and remember and connect.

pearlie

I'm seriously addicted to these language apps!

Clockwise from top left: StickyStudy Chinese (HSK Hanzi SRS Flashcard), AnkiMobile Flashcards, Clavis Sinica Xiezi HSK Levels 1-3, TrainChinese: Dictionary & Flashcards

Since I started getting more serious in learning Mandarin, I am now addicted to these apps! I cannot go by one day without using them. And that is amusing since I have always hated studying Chinese. 

The catalyst to it all is the Anki app. I uploaded 5 pre-built flashcards decks from Chinese Audio Flashcards and these flashcards worked for me because they come in sentences giving context to the words I'm learning. 

HSK Flashcard in Anki

I progressed so well with the decks that I re-downloaded the StickyStudy app to help me view it character by character and word by word as and when I like. I can't do that with Anki, with it being a true Spaced Repetition System (SRS) app, where you will only see the cards when it's time for you to see the card. You can't call it up by choice. 

HSK Vocabulary Cards in StickyStudy

I have also began to use a lot of TrainChinese which I find is the best of all Chinese dictionary apps. The free version allows you to keep two lists of words in flashcard form. I wonder if there is a word limit to the free version. 

Screenshots of TrainChinese

I blogged a few days ago about Chinese writing being at risk. About a week before reading that BBC article, I did start using a notebook to practice my Chinese writing, but I found carrying a physical book with me quite cumbersome. 

So me being me, I naturally went hunting and found the Clavis Sinica Chinese character trainer app. In just 2 days, I have already practiced and put to memory 153 characters, compared to just 22 words I have in my notebook after one week. 

The only thing I'm not happy with it is that the app has not been updated since 2012. I hope they will update it soon with the upcoming iOS 11. 

Screenshots of CS Xiezi Character Trainer

These apps are money well spent, since I am not taking any classes or hiring any teachers anyway. 

They only cost me:

- StickyStudy RM16.90/$4.99

- Anki RM104.90/$25

   HSK Flashcards RM45/$10 with 

   a promo-code

- TrainChinese is free but it comes with

   an annual subscription for premium use

- CS Xiezi HSK 1-3 RM16.90/$4.99

Total = RM183.70/$44.98

pearlie