bitful

I have lately adopted a very responsible attitude towards backing up the files on my main computer at home.
Every Saturday an automatic backup kicks in. I configured it to be an incremental backup of all my image files (I would be devastated if I lost any of the pictures I have been taking during the [...]

During the last six months I have developed an interest in social network aggregators (solutions to bring together all activity performed on several sites online, in one single location that people can subscribe to).
While performing my investigations I signed up for nearly every single available service, until I lost track of what I was feeding [...]

Today I decided to stop logging my food intake. I have done so on and off all my life, and without interruptions since August 2005.
This is a very big step for me, and there are three reasons behind it:

it is taking up far too much precious time to maintain it,
logging what I eat does not [...]

Over the last six months a reminder has been going off every Saturday to prompt me to go over my del.icio.us account and rename similar tags to avoid duplication.
Another reminder has been prompting me every month to delete tags that I only used once, and therefore considered to be too detailed and of little use.
I [...]

You know, the kind of stuff that you keep just in case, or that you got for free:

The stuff in the left half of the picture can go.
Stuff in the middle can go in my opinion, but it's not mine and I need to ask Dr B. permission to throw away (I so want to [...]

At the top in the photo below, the four mobile phones I have donated to Oxfam today. Dr B. wanted me to sell them on eBay, but I did not think it was worth the hassle. Besides, they can help Oxfam raise some money.

At the bottom in the photo, the three phones I am keeping. [...]

A bit of a long story, and one where I don't come appear to be particularly bright. Bear with me.
During the Christmas break 2002, the friend I shared a flat went to see his family in Ireland and came back a captured leprechaun in a can for me:

I only had a vague idea of what [...]

Not so easy, this one, because of the memories involved:

In September 2002, when I moved into the flat I shared with a friend in Tooting Bec, a friend from NYC came to see us. He is an artist, and after an afternoon spent sightseeing he came back and gave me three postcards that I put [...]

This was an easy one.
On the left in the photo below:

Contact lens solution travel size bottle that has been opened since September 2007? Gone.
Several spare contact lens cases that come with every new bottle of solution? Gone.

On the right:

Solution and case that are currently being used, and a spare case? Kept.

I just keep a black pen, some sticky notes and a ream of printer paper next to my desk, and that's all I need for day-to-day needs.
However, we have a briefcase full of paper, envelopes, staplers, glue… and a few unidentified objects of the stationery kind:

I have simply removed everything that was double (or sextuple), [...]

The Royal Vauxhall Tavern will always a special place in my heart.
It is probably the single venue I have visited most often since I moved to London in 2002, a place where I made new friends and met Dr B. too.
I started keeping the wristbands issued by the RVT (it's the kind of place where [...]

Last September I got rid of half of my clothes. So howcome today I managed to select another third of what was left, to be given away too?
I did the same with footwear yesterday: I thought that last September I had only kept a few pairs, but I ended up counting 21, of which I [...]

This was an easy one. I'm keeping more recent, less tatty shoes (that fit) and getting rid of older stuff. Fron 21 pairs to 12. And they all fit in my three shoes drawers.
All the footwear I own

Click on the photo above to see an annotated version with date and place of purchase, and price.
The [...]

This was a tough one, because I had very recently taken a lot of books to charity shops, so those that were left were probably there for a reason.
The reason was that they were gifts, and even if I had read them and was unlikely to read them again in the next ten years, I [...]

I was thinking of giving up something for Lent but nothing came to mind.
Then suddenly I saw the clutter that I let into my life and that I am not happy with. Clutter that I cannot get down to reducing because it is too daunting a task. Clutter that is completely useless and bothers me.
I [...]