Replacing Dropbox Pro with Amazon Glacier, and other services

Recently I've started auditing my tech spending to save some money.  One of the things I decided to drop was my subscription to Dropbox Pro, costing me $99/yr for 100 GB.  (really 140, because they double your free-space with a pro account). Here's what I did. Photos: Amazon S3 Glacier Backup A big chunk of my data in dropbox was photos:...Read More

Tool of the Week: Stack Exchange

Over the past few months I've gotten a handful of requests on this blog to help write a custom piece of code. There are a couple reasons I don't do this: Ain't Nobody Got Time For Dat! One of the most valuable parts of my 10.5 years of higher education was learning how to learn. If I just gave you answers,...Read More

Reflections on Grad School: Tools and Tricks I wish I knew all along

I've done it! I've gotten my Ph.D.!  Here's a few things I wish I had done from the very beginning. Enjoy Yourself. You're going to take 4-8 years investing in yourself. This is time you've set aside to educate yourself about a subject you're hopefully passionate about.  Along the way, you'll learn a tonne about a multitude of subjects! Besides...Read More

Smartphone App: MTB project

[caption id="attachment_1413" align="alignleft" width="300"] This is an awesome woman. I'm very very blessed.[/caption] Courtney and I recently took a trip for our 1-yr anniversary out to summit county.  If you didn't know: Summit county is awesome in late september because the aspens are amazing: Also, everything's cheap because it's the off season: from being able to get a condo for...Read More

Tool of the Week: Resetting PRAM and SMC on mac

[caption id="attachment_1317" align="alignright" width="300"] I realize my battery probably is getting old...[/caption] A few weeks ago my mac started showing a "service battery warning." The charger would behave erratically, sometimes charging, sometimes not, and sometimes only showing a dim green light.  In addition, when charging sometimes my computer would seem a bit hotter than I remember it. So, before heading...Read More

Tool of the Week: Google Cloud Print

Google cloud print is a cool tool that lets you print from any of your mobile devices, tablets, or computers to any of your printers, anywhere! It's awesome for me because if I get emailed a PDF I need to print, i can send it to my printer at the office with just one click. To set-up google cloud print,...Read More

Monitoring Progress in Matlab

There are a lot of pre-made codes out there to make progress bars for your code.  A lot of these work fine, but some will slow down your code.  The last thing you want is a progress bar that hampers progress. I like the built-in waitbar function in matlab.  It's pretty easy to use following the help dialog, with the caveat that it...Read More

Matlab Tip: Change the color-scheme to be easier on your eyes

Hey Matlab users, here's a quick tip that I hope is helpful.  If you stare at MATLAB for long hours, espically late at night, then changing your color scheme is a quick an easy way to reduce eye strain (and maybe help you sleep better). Our eyes never evolved to stare at a bright white light all day, and research...Read More

Freeing up space on your iPhone: Deleting the "Other" category that takes up space

[caption id="attachment_1161" align="alignright" width="300"] What is this 1.3 GB of "Other" On my phone?![/caption] I get a little irked sometimes on my 8 GB iPhone when I can update an app or download a podcast because I'm out of space.  I usually try deleting some old apps I don't use, or old photos, but what's really annoying is the mysterious "Other" that...Read More

DIY Microwave Popcorn

[caption id="attachment_1154" align="alignright" width="300"] Mmm... Home-made microwave popcorn.[/caption] I love popcorn: It's great brain-food. Popcorn is healthy and light: Pretty much the perfect snack. Store-bought microwave popcorn is usually full of preservatives (unhealthy), and in addition the bag is coated in cancer-linked chemicals.  In addition to that, store bought popcorn normally costs a minimum of $0.60 a bag. I prefer to make my popcorn at...Read More