Episode: 1450
Title: HPR1450: My Mobile digital life
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1450/hpr1450.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 03:10:22

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Hello Hacker Public Radio, this is Nywise from nywise.com calling in with a car
cast. Yep, like the great ones Dave Yates have also hooked up on my
microphone in my car and decided to record this little audio skin as I'm
driving to work. It's actually quite fitting because the topic that I want to
mention today is how to have a geeky lifestyle when you are overly mobile. Now
overly mobile for me means that I spend about three hours in the car every day to
work and drug work. I live at about a hundred kilometers from where I am in
point. It's because I work in the tech industry and I live in a quite rural area
so I have to drive about an hour and a half to work an hour and a half from work.
This takes up quite a bit of my day. I also work quite long hours and that means
I don't have a lot of time left to tinker and geek out when I get home. One of
the things that I do want to do of course is you know enjoy technology and
enjoy information. I mean I still want to know what is featured on that how to
geek article in my RSS feed but I don't have the time to read it. I would like
to learn about stuff regarding Linux or how to mount SMB files or SMB
shares from the command line. You know all of the geeky stuff that we do when
we sit at home behind our computers but because I'm in the car three hours a
day I had to adjust my lifestyle. Now I've been doing this for quite a while. I
have been doing long commutes for about five to seven years now so I've gotten
used to it. One of the things that I want to talk about today is what my
routine actually looks like and I'll take you I'll take you through my morning and
evening routine and show you how I devote my time during my you know morning
and evenings when I'm going to work coming from work and how I have actually
tried to weave the information age into that while still staying safe. Let's
face it when you are behind the wheel of the car there is no way that you're
going to be able to read something that's online or watch a video. You can
try but you will probably end up crashing and I think that although smartphones
and tablets give us the ability to have connectivity wherever we go and are
easily interacted with in the car it's quite easily to watch a video in the car
if you really want to. You can send a text message or an email or a tweet but I
have promised myself that I won't do such things. I will not only endanger myself
and you know if something happens to me the people who I love will be left
behind but I am also responsible for the safety of other drivers. If I swore
off the road and hit a cyclist who's on the bicycle lane because I want to
tweet out this greatest new article that I've found I'll never be able to live
with myself. It's just not done. It is our duty as geeks to make sure that we
use technology wisely in the car to it safely but still be able to you know use
technology to our leisure. So just give you my morning routine. Now when I get
up which is about at 5.30 I try to exercise because I sit at my desk a lot I
try to keep fit and one of the things that we have at home is a stairmaster. What
I do is I get up and I hop on the stairmaster. I have an iPad and I take that
with me on the stairmaster and I put my headphones on and I take the 20 minutes
that I'm on the stairmaster in the morning to make sure that I've watched some
interesting content. Now this is one of the moments in time where I actually have
my you know my eyes free as so to speak. So I watch some video podcasts like
for example short ones like CNET today or 90 seconds on the verge just to get
a quick news update about what's going on. Sometimes I watch some longer
podcasts like for example Hack 5 and sometimes I just like to say informed and
watch a TED talk because I love the TED app on my iPad. That way I can quite
easily select whatever talk I want to listen to and what I find interesting and
because TED talks are about 10 to 18 minutes that kind of fits in perfectly with
my time on the stairmaster. It makes the time go swiftly and before you know it
you've exercised for 20 minutes and your brain has been occupied and if you
take a look at TED talk or stuff like that you would have actually learned
something. So that's actually the first piece of information that I consume
during the day. Then I do my push-ups, then my sit-ups and I go downstairs. I have a
shower and I eat breakfast. On the breakfast table I have my Android tablet
with me because I have an Nexus 7. It's quite small and I carry it around
mostly everywhere and what I have on there is feedlead to read my RSS feeds and
all decode which is an app that I use to read books. I've been reading
electronic books for let's say five years now and I haven't read a paper
book since I always enjoy having something to read on my tablet so while I'm
having breakfast most of the time the tablet or in this case the Nexus is
popped up right in front of me and I can read whatever book that I'm actually
reading at that moment. So it's time to go to work so I put my tablet down, I walk
over to the counter and I disconnect my smartphone. My smartphone is a Galaxy
Note 2 with 32 gigabytes of onboard storage and 64 gigabytes of extra SD
storage which is ridiculous but I got the 64 gigabyte SD card for free so that
is actually a main source of all of my content because when I'm at the
breakfast table and I'm not reading my book I'm reading through my feeds, my RSS
feeds. I cannot of course read every article so what I do is tag the articles
that I find really interesting and add them to pocket. Now it's time to go I pick
up my Galaxy Note 2 and on there are several applications that I use every
single day to keep me informed and entertained during my commute. So I snap on my
smartphone, take my headphones with me and I'm off to the car. In my car I have
a mount, I have one of those suction caps that is mounted to the windshield at
the front so I can easily reach my phone to do controls like you know up and
down the volume and skip tracks when I'm listening to music. I put my phone
into its mount because when it's in its mount I cannot hold it and like for
example use the keyboard to type tweets and messages and stuff. It kind of keeps
it kind of out of arms away from arm's length and I think that that is
something that helps me be or have some discipline in the car so I won't play
with my phone. Once in the car one of the first applications that I launch is
a pocket because of the fact that my phone is wired to the Bluetooth
speakers in my car the audio from my phone is played through the car
stereo. Pocket is automatically synced all the articles that I just
start that are just safe to pocket at the breakfast table and I love using
pocket because it helps you get through a selection of content that you made
earlier and if you're bored or if you have to do whatever and you're waiting for
something you don't surf around aimlessly on your phone or check Facebook for
the thousandth time. If you're craving for some information or for example if
you're offline which happens regularly for me because I am a broad almost 50
percent of my day I work in the Netherlands I live in Belgium and I don't have
a container connection in the Netherlands because roaming charges in Europe are
ridiculously high so whenever I find myself online I use pocket to browse through
the articles that I've actually marked as interesting or have tagged as this is
something I want to read through. Now why do I use pocket in the car? Well not to
read the articles then as I said I would run into lampposts and cyclists and
other vehicles but pocket does have an interesting feature that is called
text-to-speech you can actually have the pocket articles read through to you. So
as I'm driving away I have already selected one or two articles that I really
want to listen to that I just start at the breakfast table. That way I am
actually using my ears in the car and have my eyes on the road. Pocket is one
application that I use and then there is of course the need to communicate. Yes
there are plenty of geeks out there and if you if you are like me and you live in
Belgium you are in a different time zone than a lot of the geeks and friends
that I know online. These are in the US and in Canada and in Australia but my
morning commute is actually quite ideal because then I catch the guys on the
US side in their evening of the previous day and I catch one Aussie friends in
the evening of the current day while I am in the crack of dawn of the current
day. It's kind of like being a time lord but it's really nice. Now how do you
communicate with them? Yes there is Twitter there is Facebook there is Google
Pause there is chat no not a good idea in the car as I said eyes on the road
and hands on the steering wheel but there is a great about there called Voxer. Voxer
lets you talk to people as if it were like a walkie-talkie you can send a
voice message there is a voice message coming back. It isn't a real-time
conversation because you cannot talk both at the same time but it's actually
very convenient to do it that way because I tried using Skype but when you're
in the car and you're driving around you are going from cell tower to cell tower
and Skype has a very hard time keeping the connection alive but with Voxer
because it's an asynchronous transmission of audio files it's actually quite
possible to have a very good conversation in the car with multiple people. Voxer
is easily easily operated by just tapping a button a big button at the bottom
of the application and start talking and tapping that button again when you're
done that is something I can just do in the car without endangering me or
anybody else. So Voxer has become a lifeline to do some communications voice
communications with all of the geeks and the nerds that are out there
and because sometimes they're asleep when I'm awake and the other way around
it doesn't matter if we are awake or online at the same time the messages get
delivered and I think that Voxer could be called the ICQ of voice
communication. The mobile client is available for Android for iOS and I
and actually for Windows Phone and I really really love it. I
incidentally also use Voxer to talk to my beloved wife because when I am
in the car on the way back and I'm running late sending her a text message in
the car breaks the card and will rule hands on the steering wheel
eyes on the road and I can just send her a Voxer message honey I'm running
half an hour late or baby I really really love you like sunshine or stuff like
that. I know it's cheating but hey and so Voxer is also a very important app.
Then of course comes the most important part I need to be entertained in the
car. I like to listen to music from time to time but
mostly I am I've been listening to podcasts in the car
for the last seven years I think or even more yeah seven or eight years.
I started out in the very very very beginning when
when you know the daily source code a show of which some of you will not even
remember that it ever existed was still in double digits so that's when I
started listening to podcasts on a variety of topics mostly
technology. For me podcasts have always
been a source of information and I must say that over the last
couple of years I have learned so much from podcasts.
If there is something that if there is one thing that you want to do to change
your life and to better yourself is stop listening to stupid morning radio
and start listening to podcasts on a variety of topics.
I listen to podcasts on topics from technology to history to politics to
paranormal things to people who are going to hunt or on a ghost hunt
all kinds of stuff and I have not only because I'm a podcast for myself
found it invaluable to listen to podcasts but I've also learned
so much when I get when I get to work I have colleagues who are just you know
barely barely coming from the breakfast tables they have no idea
what's going on in the world I arrive at work I touch down at work I am
completely up to speed about what's happening in the technology world because
I've listened to some kind of technology news show like
technology today or 90 seconds on the verge and I immediately know what's
going on and they go like if you heard the thing about
blackberry and and I go like yeah it's this and that and that and they look at
me and they go like how do you know this thing
and that is because I use those 90 minutes in the car to
learn stuff and to be entertained now please have a balance don't
listen to one super heavy podcast after the other
because your brain will explode so I've got some music on there as well I've
subscribed to some music podcasts as well and I kind of like to shake things up
I also listen to things like escape pod that give you a story
so and some comedy central stuff just you know to keep myself entertained but
also to take the time that I'm in the car to learn something
the application that I use for that is dog catcher
I have said it to automatically update and download my podcasts at home
before I leave so every morning when I grab my smart phone
everything is already set up and I'm good to go
now podcasts are one thing but I found that there is
I also can use this time to do something else to listen to something else than
just podcasts I don't have the time to read
and I love to read so there are so many books out there that I would like to
read but I can have the steering wheel eyes on the road
but I can listen so I regularly download audio books on a variety of topics
and I've made a deal with myself to listen to one
audiobook about fiction and one audiobook that lets me learn something
and audiobooks are the things I listen to when I drive back home
so currently I am reading the biography of Steve Jobs
I've just finished Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
I've also listened to Rama from Arthur C. Clarke
and you don't have to have an audible account to get interesting books
I mean there are a lot of books out there that you can download for free
and listen to just go to podiobooks.com
and you can download all of the audiobooks to your leisure
the great thing with listening to a book that has a real story and it is that you get
really you know you listen to the story and part of your mind is imagining
what's going on while you're going through traffic
but still you are entertained and it makes time go so much faster
I used to dread commutes but sometimes when I'm in the middle of a very
exciting chapter in a book and there's a traffic gem
I go like oh yeah great wow I can actually finish off this book which is
really nice and podiobook is a great source there are some
classics out there if you haven't and your hacker
your hacker public radio listener you probably know what I'm talking about
please take a moment to listen to some of the books
by Scott Sigler which who writes fantastic sci-fi horror novels
like infection and contagion I got when I got into podcasting these were one
of the first audiobooks I listened to I still
love them JC Hutchins and seventh son a fantastic book to start you
out in the magic of listening to an audiobook in the car
Jake Bible and dad mech is also a fantastic sci-fi book there are so many
books out there in the podiobook collection that you can just
download for free now I also use dog catcher to listen to audiobooks and the
way you can do that in dog catcher is by creating a virtual feed
pointed towards the folder where the files are in of your audiobook
and you can just browse or play through them just as if they were a podcast
that way I have all of my audio content in
one single application I really you know like using it
now I know if you say oh nightwise I've got an iPhone don't worry
downcast is also a very good standalone podcast
player slash client on your iOS device which will give you the same
functionality if you're strapped for time
and you've been doing this for quite some while
quite a while you can use the functionality on your favorite audio
slash podcast player whether that's downcast or
dog catcher to up the speed of some podcasts and some audiobooks I am
currently with some podcasts I listen to them on double speed
and on some pod and some audiobooks I listen to them on one point five
times of the speed this is like really pumping data into your brain and
you have to kind of train yourself it's very very
fatiguing if you keep it up for long amounts of time
but over the years I've trained myself to
to actually be able to do that it's kind of like
I always compare myself to being neo in the chair on the nebuchadnezzar
that and more fuses just pumping information into my brain
and it sometimes feels like that when I listen to podcasts on double speed
but you know that's that so podcasts and audiobooks
very very important part of my day now there is also the option of
creating content well I'm not enjoyed I'm using an application called
easy audio recorder let me just double check because the app is open
right now it's called easy voice recorder and I use that one to
actually record audio in the car the audio that you're listening right now
is recorded on the galaxy note too with a pair of apple ear buds
who come with a speaker now they're they're about 30 bucks
but they're absolutely worth it great quality but what is more importantly
they have a great um
lanyard microphone that is dangling from the wire of your headphones
and you can record audio just like I'm doing right now
I use easy voice recorder to record quick pieces of audio
which I then save to drop box those get automatically
synced to my drop box folder and when I get home
they're waiting for me to post produce into whatever I want to record
so those are just a couple of the examples of what I do
in the car every day and how I tune information and technology into a very
mobile lifestyle if you have any tips and tricks that you want to share with me
and that I would like to also share with other people from
hpr and the people on the nightwise.com blog please don't forget to
go over to www.nightwise.com and send me some feedback
or you can also subscribe to the nightwise.com podcast which is not recorded in
the car all the time but we also talk about
tips and tweaks for cross-platform geeks until then if you are craving
technology information and communications in your
mobile lifestyle remember the golden rule
eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel you are responsible for your own
safety you are also responsible for the safety of other drivers
you might be very safe but you always have to watch out for that one truck
fearing off the road and if you are on a bike
and you see the car fearing off the road towards you and you see the driver is
sending out a text message or a tweet that's something you don't want to see
as a geek and a technology enthusiast you are responsible for your own
safety but you are also responsible for the safety of
other people on the road so remember the golden rule
eyes on the road hands on the steering wheel
and your mind can be wherever it wants to be as long as you drive safely
i am nightwise and this was my little view on technology and the mobile lifestyle
for Hacker Public Radio
you've been listening to nightwise you can find more articles and the nightwise.com
podcast at www.nightwise.com that's kn-i-g-h-t-w-i-s-e.com
the podcast with hacks tips and tweaks for cross-platform geeks
nightwise.com
tired of choosing between NAS, Linux and OSX
listen to the nightwise.com podcast and learn how to decide from operating system to
operating system using our hacks tips and tweaks for cross-platform geeks
to tack into your way of life and let technology work for you instead of the other way around
www.kni-g-h-t-w-i-s-e.com
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