A song I created for mum with help from Suno

I've always wanted to be able to create special songs for people I love. Now it's possible.

 

AI Podcast about Life Trove

I've just discovered the wonders of Notebook LM, an AI resource powered by Google's Gemini.

I gave it the URL of Life Trove and it created a wonderful, interactive podcast that provides some profound reflections on it. It's so wonderful, it had me close to tears at times. 

I particularly liked how it described my life as a combination of external adventure and internal introspection and how these two activities can create a virtuous circle. I'd never thought of it that way before but it resonates as beautifully true.

Listen to Podcast here

Chat GPT and the explosion of AI

Utterly ground breaking.  Ever since Gavin alerted me to this, I've been utterly hooked. It's become my 2nd brain to which my real brain plays second fiddle!  It's power to generate new ideas as part of the creative process is phenomenal. So useful for my writing. 90% of the time I now use ChatGPT to find out information rather than Google. Prompting, not searching, has become the new art.

Topaz Photo AI

This amazing software allows one to sharpen images, remove noise and increase the resolution of an image. It has proven invaluable, especially on my trips to Antarctica, The Arctic and Iceland to really make my images pop. 

Using Scrivener for writing a book

 I've discovered some wonderful software for writing my book "Life is a Movie" called Scrivener.

Benefits

• Organized Writing: Combines drafting, research, and notes in one place.
• Flexible Structure: Rearrange sections easily with drag-and-drop.
• Outline view: See outline and book structure clearly.

Using Google Sheet and Google Docs

For some time now, I have been using Google Sheets and Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word and Excel.

There are a number of reasons:

• Google Docs can be setup so there are no page breaks; just continuous scrolling. This makes so much sense if you are planning to read the doc online and not print it out.
• Easier to share content with others and collaborate if required.
• Easier to provide a link in Evernote than attach a file.
• No need to remember to save; it automatically saves for you.
• Past versions automatically archived.
• Easier to embed onto Life Trove if I want to share the contents.
  
  

All in all, I much prefer it. I have migrated all my documents now to Google.

Google Sheet

Google Docs

Fotojet Collage Maker

Picasa was discontinued so I needed to find another app to create my collages on Life Trove.  Fotojet has been a wonderful find.  It gives me far more control than Picasa in determining the layout and what photos show where.

Using Evernote for Compass and Wisdom Trove

This year, I moved all my information relating to Compass and Wisdom Trove to Evernote. Previously I have been using Mindmanager and Excel.

Evernote is really powerful and flexible. It provides some great benefits as an information management system

Benefits

• Facilitates dashboards for tasks and life management.
• Favourite notes, notebooks, and tags accessible in the left column.
• Note links for seamless cross-referencing between notes.
• Organisation by notebooks and tags for flexible categorization.
• Powerful search, even within PDFs, images, and attachments.
• Access across multiple devices for on-the-go productivity.
• Ability to attach various file types, including PDFs, docs, sheets, and mind maps. Best of breed apps for different needs all integrated.
• Collaboration features for shared notes and teamwork.
• Note history archive for tracking changes and restoring versions.
• Scalable: Wisdom Trove ended up having 1000's of notes.
• Ability to create tables.

Using Excel to create a life dashboard

 I would later use this idea extensively in Evernote.

View

Playing with Picasa's movie maker

It automatically identifies photos of you and creates a movie all in two minutes flat. Very cool.

Photo make-overs with Lightroom

I have become as passionate about processing photos as I am about taking them. Its amazing what you can do with the digital darkroom - much of the information is already in the RAW file (that's all I shoot now, no more jpegs for me); its just a case of knowing how to retrieve it. I've become an Adobe Lightroom addict (it is the best software ever). Here are some of my more recent before and afters. Hopefully you'll think I've improved on the originals!

Movavale Morning Rush


Lion Portrait

Forrester Morning

Turrimetta Rock

Clone stamping with Photoshop

I've been trying it out in photoshop - its a pretty cool tool. Of course, it can be taken to excess as perhaps I have done here!

Before





After

Editing photos with Viveza

I love this amazing software. It allows me to make localised adjustments to parts of the photo to really make parts of it pop or bring out details. It integrates with Lightroom.  I like it so much I did a presentation to the Mosman Photography Club on editing photos and included it, along with Lightroom.

 

Editing photos with Lightroom

Craig introduced me to this amazing software and it has revolutionised by photo management and editing.  It is built by photographers for photographers from the ground up and is so much more intuitive than Photoshop. 

Peer pressure made me join...

...and I must say it's pretty cool

Facebook Me!

Picasa Collages

I love Picasa's ability to create collages automatically. I used it extensively from 2005 to 2019 to create the collages on Life Trove. Picasa is owned by Google.

Mind mapping with Mindmanager

I love mind mapping.  Mr Suttle, our Latin teacher, taught us how to do it at school. I used it extensively in both senior school and university. Then at Volvo, I discovered the wonders of MindManager, mind mapping software that took my mind mapping to a whole new level. I used it extensively at Volvo and Blackglass and in my English teaching. Most of all, though, I used it in my own life and it created the start of Compass (My life management system) and Wisdom Trove.  Much of the content in the maps also became parts of Life Trove (this blog).

I don't use mind mapping so much anymore since moving to Evernote, but I'm very thankful for the role it has played in my life.

Purpose 

Vision

Life as an art     View large

Values and Life Pillars

Focus
 

Self-knowledge

Affirmation

Habits

Compass

Taking action

Decision making

Life design

Insights

Humour

My life in review

Life highlights

2005 Highlights

Work experience

Guiding wisdom (that would become Wisdom Trove)

Decision making

English teaching