Back before Columbine, when it was still cool to wear a black trenchcoat, carry a shotgun, and threaten people.  A great glimpse into Bill Gates’ true personality.  <BLAM> “Don’t interrupt me.”

“Difficult things we do quickly.  The impossible takes a little longer.”

–David Ben-Gurion

Last time I studied for the bar I reviewed several different flash card programs for your cell phone and said which one I liked the best.  (The answer was MobilePrep, but not by much.)  Now I have a BlackBerry, and things are different.  The problem with my old phone was that although it was a real smartphone, it used a rare form of Linux that no one else used.  The result: very few people were writing software for it.  With the Blackberry, there are tens of thousands of programs available (plus java, of course, but it’s usually better to run native code).  The problem with the BlackBerry is it’s aimed at the business market, where people have expense accounts and lots of money, and so most of the software for BlackBerry is not free.  Still, there are some delightful exceptions.

The new hotness is gWhiz.   Even in “pre-beta,” the software is slicker than anything else out there.  It’s visually attractive and stable.  The best part: it can get its flash card stacks from a spreadsheet stored on your phone or–ready for this?–from a Google Docs spreadsheet.  So all you have to do is create a spreadsheet and the phone will import it.  Wirelessly.  Automatically.  It can then email your flash card stacks back out again, to whoever you want.  Cool.

It also comes with a “reference” program which takes your flash card stack and displays all the questions and answers in one big list.  Actually rather handy for reviewing.  It also comes with a graphing calculator that can do algebra, metric conversions, etc.  Not something I would have downloaded on its own but now that I have it I have to admit it’s pretty handy.

I discovered that “gFlash+” (why does it already have a plus?) had trouble displaying some of my flash cards because some of my cards go on and on (hey, you try fitting a comparison between 1st degree murder and 2nd degree murder on one square inch).  So I emailed the company . . . and they got back to me within hours, asking me to share my stack with them.  Within half a day they had a new version of the program, with a custom feature designed just for me (the ability to scroll through a large flash card).  The designers have given me an incredible level of customer service for a free product; when I reported that the new version had a new bug, they said they’d come out with another version in a day and asked me if I had any more feature requests.

Compare that to my own company where fixing software bugs can take weeks or even months . . . I’m impressed.  And I’m totally sold on this product.  If you have a BlackBerry and need good flash card software, this is your program.

It’s been a while so here’s a brief update.

Because I failed the bar again (see previous post), I’m scaling way back at work so I can focus on studying.  Still, work is going well so it’s nice to hang on to that and not lose it completely (having a paycheck during bar study is also nice - so I’m still gaining money instead of losing).

Today is my first official day of bar prep.  The first few hours have been taken up with scheduling.  The last couple times I ended up using the “shotgun strategy:” concentrate on one subject until I have it, then move on to the next.  The problem is if it takes too long to learn one subject then I don’t have enough time for the ones at the end.  Just like using a shotgun; your primary target will get demolished, but it takes too long to reload and you don’t end up getting as many shots off.  This time around, my first priority is to set a realistic schedule and then stick to it.  This way I can ensure I’ve got enough time to do everything I need.  I’m also going to start studying my first subject, the one I did the worst on last time.  It’s criminal law & procedure, believe it or not.  It was my very first class of law school, and after a year interning in the DA’s office you’d think I’d be a better expert on the subject.  The problem is the bar exam is not a practical exam; it’s a different kind of beast.  And to be honest working for the DA gave me bad habits; even if I know something is probably not constitutional, I know the autobrief argument saying it should be admitted anyway.  That’s good in the courtroom (and works most of the time) but bad for the bar exam.

(Disclaimer: I’m not saying the DA habitually makes specious arguments to convince the court to violate the constitution.  I’m saying my DA training has slanted my perspective.  I’m sure the same thing happens on the other side.)

“Jordan, what about your photography?”  Yeah, I’ve got photos going back almost a year that I haven’t even sorted through yet.  Photography is a nice source of procrastination, but I’m doing less of that this time (and I do still have a part time job - most of my procrastination will go there).  So, the photos will probably have to wait until after the bar.  Same thing with changes & improvements to my website (other than the occasional post).

And that cold is still hanging on.  It’s been almost two weeks now.

J<

No luck.  Now I know how the SF Giants feel.

(See?  Even in adversity I can maintain my sense of humor.)

Now I’m going to go dancing with my wife.

(See?  I can still engage in life-affirming activities too.)

Translation: “Pravda (the official Russian Communist Party newspaper) is always right.”  This is an old Russian expression.

The latest example: a sophisticated, in-depth, thoughtful, and undoubtedly correct analysis indicating that sexy female outfits lead to male impotency.  See how the decadent West is sliding into corruption and ruin:

Men become impotent because of women’s low-cut dresses and bare legs

I need to start reading Pravda more often.  Yelena will be thrilled.

Fear the docx.  It’s from Microsoft.  It’s new.  And it means you harm.

Docx is Microsoft’s attempt to dominate the word processor market once again.  OpenOffice.org has been turning heads as a new, free, compatible alternative to Microsoft Office.  There’s also Google Docs which is likewise a contender.  Microsoft’s answer: Office 2007 uses a new document format which claims to be open but is not open at all.  Still, they were able to do enough of a sell job to convince the W3C, so that Microsoft’s “open” format will supposedly become the new industry standard.  The bad news: it’s not compatible with anything other than MS Office 2007.  (And I’ve already ranted at sufficient length about how much I hate Office 2007.)

So when a business contact sent me a sign up form in the new format, my computer (running Microsoft Office 2003) was unable to open it.  And since the IT guy isn’t in today, he can’t install the converter for me.

The solution: Linux (again!).  Novell has released a plugin for OpenOffice that lets it read Office 2007 documents, something even Office 2003 can’t do.  Of course, it’s a little tricky to install, but really not that bad.  And it’s a lot better than asking your sales contact to resend the file.

Working with .docx files in PCLinuxOS

The San Francisco Soup Company has matzah ball soup.  This week only.  With a slice of matzah instead of a hunk of bread.

Heck yeah.

J<

I just finished my taxes and upgraded Wordpress (my blog software).  You probably won’t notice the difference, although my blog should be a little faster and more stable.  But this is important because it’s the gateway to a bunch of other website improvements I’ve been planning for a long time.  Of course, most of my time is spent on my company’s websites (www.getincnow.com and www.pcf-inc.com), so I don’t have much time left over for my personal website.  But it will happen, slowly but surely.  And upgrading WP was the first major step.  Hooray.

J<