Mérida blog posts have moved

Some of my US friends have asked me to keep a blog about my new life in Mérida. I doubt that they also want to read about feral working, so I’ve set up a blog just for the Mérida stuff.

Thai food every night!

I’m about to leave Washington DC after enjoying the satisfaction of telling several government agencies what to do. But even more satisfying is the pair of restaurants a short walk from my hotel: Thai and Pakistani on the same block.

Culture shock: “green” consumerism

After my 5-month test run, I’ve decided to move to Mérida. So I’ve signed the lease on a house there and am now back in my midwestern community to sell all my stuff. But first I have to pause to let the latest culture shock wash over me.

Every time I come back to the States something different stands out for me. This time it has been the irony of “green” consumerism.

The local whole-foods grocery has a bulletin board that displays comments from shoppers. Here are a few comments from people who apparently don’t share my sense of irony.

And here are some of the “healthful” products for the “mindful” consumers:

Alas, nothing has been done to protect the vegans from themselves.

Presenting with a Mac? Brace yourself.

You might think that the staff of high-tech conferences would have no trouble hooking your Mac laptop up to their projectors. You might be wrong.

Based on my experience at 9 recent technology conferences, I can say this to Mac users:

• Give up right now and convert your Keynote presentation to PowerPoint.
• Put it on a thumb drive.
• Watch the setup people try and fail to get the projector to work with your Mac.
• Wait for the setup people to say, “Can’t you use our PC?”
• Sigh quietly and stick your thumb drive in their PC.

I have the correct video converter. My Macbook Pro has been hooked up without a hitch by some conference teams. But the majority can’t do it for whatever reason. This has been true at talks in Australia, the UK, and the US, so I can’t even blame any particular culture for Mac backwardness.

The quickest way to convert Keynote presentations to PowerPoint

Polish cookies that for some reason I always find in Turkish groceries

Here’s the method I discovered one memorable night in Melbourne when I was told at 5 PM that my talk for the next morning had to be in PowerPoint for simultaneous webcasting. I use a lot of images in my talks, so that meant converting 87 slides.

I knew from experience that fonts, arrows, and changes in opacity didn’t come out of the conversion looking at all good, so after some desperate experimentation fueled by an entire package of Polish cookies, I ended up with the following process, which has served me well ever since.

1. In your Keynote file, don’t use any transitions or animations. They don’t add anything, anyway.
2. Instead of building on one slide, put each build on a separate slide.
3. Use File > Export to export the slides as PNGs. You’ll get a separate PNG for each slide.
4. Open PowerPoint or OpenOffice (I use the latter).
5. Create a new presentation using the same dimensions as the Keynote presentation.
6. Create a lot of empty slides.
7. Drag each PNG from the finder onto an empty slide. The PNG should snap into place.
8. Flip through the slides to check everything.
9. Save it and you’re done.

You lose a little sharpness, but you save a lot of slide-tweaking time. You can go out for a relaxed Indian dinner instead of, say, sitting on the floor in an “artistic” B&B that has no usable tables or chairs, stuffing yourself with Polish sugar while muttering at your laptop and cursing Microsoft.

Why I now avoid flying in the US

I left the US on the first day of the new “enhanced” security procedures, and I haven’t been back yet. So for the last four months my parting memory of my government has been this:

I’m in line for the metal detector. A female TSA officer tells me I “need” to remove my (not bulky) overshirt and put it in the bin, leaving me in just a soft t-shirt. Now that I’m halfway stripped, a male TSO comes up and tells me that I “need” to leave the metal detector line and instead go through the new strip-search scanner.

At the scanner I say I “need” to opt out, and I’m told to wait in an unmarked but apparently very special spot. I’m scowled at and pointedly corrected when I don’t instantly understand where I’m supposed to go. From the very special spot, I can’t see my things on the X-ray belt. After I complain, the TSO lets me move slightly to the right. Now I can see the bin that I think contains my laptop, but I can’t see my laptop inside. Other passengers are passing by and often block my view of all of my things.

A female TSO comes to give me the “enhanced pat-down.” Other passengers watch as she rubs my butt and breasts.

Potential quality of life as an expat in Mérida

To keep this blog on topic, I’ve moved my Mérida posts to their own blog. You can read this post here.

Bad childhood? Maybe that’s why you’re a stir-crazy entrepreneur

From The impact of childhood experiences on the development of entrepreneurial intentions:

The childhood experiences of entrepreneurs have been found to be difficult, characterized by poverty, insecurity and/or neglect and personal tragedies, such as parents’ divorce, a parent’s death, family financial difficulties and/or serious illness. Clinical studies of entrepreneurs suggest they are often affected by poverty, poor relationships with their fathers, strong controlling mothers, and feelings of rejection and remoteness, which result in hostility, guilt, anger and suspicion of people in positions of authority. Difficult childhoods are also posited to increase one’s self-reliance, which in turn increases one’s ability to cope with the risks and uncertainties of self-employment.

A study comparing managers and entrepreneurs has confirmed that managers and entrepreneurs do indeed tend to differ in their family background. Entrepreneurs have a much poorer relationship with their fathers than managers, greater identification with their work, more willingness to take risks, and a higher level of initiative and independence.

See the citations and lots more in the full paper by Judy Drennan, Jessica Kennedy, and Patty Renfrow at the link above.

Arrogant American quote of the day

During this interview, Chris, an American living in Mexico, mentioned that he left the US because he was “completely disgusted with the ‘might makes right’ approach of the USA government toward the rest of the world.”

A comment to the site reported that Chris had died after a long illness. The next comment said this:

I wonder what this American who hated America died of… such a pity, to die in a country far from anyone who may have loved him. Was it poor health care because he was where health care is not that great? Was it an incurable illness like Aids that one gets from not being careful with whom one has sex with? After reading Chris’s diatribe on how he hated
America I said to myself, ‘Well, great. We got rid of another discontent’. I am an American. I wouldn’t want to ‘live’ anywhere else but America, but I’d love to visit Mexico for the colorful places, people and history. I do hope all the malcontents like Chris will move off and take residency in other countries. God rest your soul, Chris. Bye.

Let’s review today’s patriotic lesson:

• If you move to another country, no one there will love you. You will be forever separated from love.
• If you don’t like US foreign policy, you’re likely to cause your own early death by careless behavior.
• The US is better off without people like Chris.

Potential cost of living in Mérida, Mexico

To keep this blog on topic, I’ve moved my big Mérida posts to another blog. You can see this post here.

How to sign documents virtually

Wondering how you’re going to print, sign, and scan contracts while on the road? Don’t schlep a printer and scanner with you. Instead, scan your signature before you go, then use PDF editing software to add it to documents.

I use PDFpen, and I assume there are several other programs out there. Clients and I usually exchange PDF versions of contracts, so once it’s time to sign, all I have to do is open the PDF in PDFpen and drag my signature onto it. Then I email it back to the client.

What if they require a fax?

When clients fax me something, the US phone number they call actually belongs to Maxemail. Maxemail emails me the faxed document as a PDF attachment.

I sign the document using PDFPen and then “fax” it back by attaching it to an email addressed to Maxemail. In the email I tell the service what fax number to send the PDF to, and my client sees the document emerge magically from their fax machine.

What if they send me an actual piece of paper?

In the rare moments when I find myself holding a carbon-based form, my first reaction is to scan it. But if I’m on the road, I don’t have a scanner. Happily, I do have an iPhone 3GS with JotNot Scanner Pro. JotNot takes a picture of the document, makes the text crisp, and emails it to me as a PDF. Then I can sign it with PDFPen and “fax” it. This has the added advantage of giving me a digital copy for my files.

But is it legit?

Clients and I have been using PDF contracts without hesitation for years. Even the IRS accepts completely electronic signatures. For a list of laws to read for yourself, see the Wikipedia entry on electronic signatures.