Category: Technology

Great cautionary tale for these early days of cloud computing and new forms of marketing/advertising…

Dumped! by Google : The Last Word On Nothing: “I returned to the Google fold with eyes wide open to my responsibilities as a user. In relationship terms, I am no longer monogamous. I store my data on other servers maintained by providers like Evernote, Dropbox, and WordPress, and the cloud is my standby, not my steady. I’ve swapped convenience for control: I back up my email and what I care about most on physical hard drives.

I’m also back in touch with my first love—spiral notebooks. Unlike Google, they will never come close to containing the world’s information, so no one but me will ever want to access them. And to encrypt my data, I just rely on my handwriting.”

Again, be like the fox.

We’re looking for a great intern or two (or three) to help us out with day-to-day operations of Harrelson Agency, Harrelson Press, Harrelson Racing, Harrelson Autos and/or Thinking.FM.

It’s a fun role for a young person to fill either in our Columbia, SC offices or even virtually if they’re tech savvy enough. Plus, you’ll gain incredible experience and have some great references and lines on your resume for the future.

Here’s the formal announcement but feel free to email sam@harrelson.co for more details or if you have any questions…

“Harrelson Agency and Harrelson Press are offering a joint summer internship for high school or college students interested in design, publishing, and where those two fields intersect. The internship period will run for six weeks beginning July 8, 2013. The pay will be a stipend of $500.

Interns are expected to maintain a professional attitude and work schedule, which includes working remotely, meeting with clients, and individual weekly progress meetings. The internship will include website coding, copyediting, e-book design, and other related services.

Interested applicants should submit a 500-750 word bio and/or a link to your blog or Twitter profile to merianna@harrelson.co for consideration.

Let’s get started!
Sam Harrelson and Merianna Neely”

I love my Epson XP-400. I picked mine up at Best Buy but you can find them on Amazon (linked) for about the same price of $70.

It’s not a fantastic picture printer, but for crisp documents or archives or tickets etc, it’s all I need for my home office and our Harrelson Corps office.

The biggest benefit is that for $70, we can print straight from an iPad or iPhone just by connecting the printer to the wifi network in the office. It’s magical to print a document or contract from your iPhone in five seconds.

Secondly, with the printer’s support for Google Cloud Print (takes about 2 mins to setup), you can print any Google Doc (from a laptop or device) from anywhere in the world as long as you’re logged in to a Google account or domain (harrelson.co in our case). That’s awesome.

We don’t print a ton of things at Harrelson Corps, but having the ability just to tap a button on the iPad and make it happen makes me feel like I’m finally living in the future.

Highly suggest.

I’ll post later on why I love my Merkur razor, but this is the greatest tip I’ve ever read on how to get the soap part of using a razor like this just right (found deep in the Amazon reviews of my next brush)…

Amazon.com: Parker Safety Razor 100% Silvertip Badger Bristle Shaving Brush (Chrome Handle) and Free Shaving Brush Stand: Health & Personal Care: “Everyone has his own method, but if you’re new to this game, here’s mine: Fill half the basin of your sink with the hottest water you can get out of the tap, and place a mug full of this water in the basin. (this allows the mug itself to heat up, which will keep the lather warmer longer.) Let the mug and the brush soak in this water for about two minutes. Squeeze most of the water out of the brush, and swirl your brush in some shaving soap, 4-5 rotations, like you’re mixing with a paint brush. No need to overdo it. Then empty most of the hot water out of the mug, saving just enough water to coat the bottom of the mug, and work up a warm, thick lather in the mug, adding water as needed. Then come back and write a review of the best shave of your life.”

Shaving snobbery is one of my little joys in life. The process takes way too much time in the morning and is expensive upfront but the joy it brings to my life and my pocketbook (do you know how much those Gillette blades really cost??) make me happy before work.

Still hurts:

We’re pretty amazing creatures…

Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves | MIT Technology Review: “Earlier this year, OLPC workers dropped off closed boxes containing the tablets, taped shut, with no instruction. ‘I thought the kids would play with the boxes. Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch … powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android,’ Negroponte said. ‘Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera, and they figured out the camera, and had hacked Android.’”