Kyle Tolle reading ‘Twikini Releases v1′

Update:

As per the instructions on the Twikini website, I emailed CJ about this blog post. Within minutes he responded and sent out my serial number for v1.0. I can also happily say that it installed and connected to Twitter perfectly. I entered the serial number and am good to go. Very excited to test out all the new features I’ve not had a chance to see yet!  I take back what I said about the customer support: I’m quite impressed.

Twikini is a Windows Mobile Twitter client written in C++.  It’s lightweight, quick but is decently powerful. Twikini v1.0 just released and I’m hoping to give it a try soon.  I had downloaded v0.6 and really enjoyed it, but v0.8 never did work. I had upgraded because of DM (Direct Message) support.  Same bones with v0.9. Keeps saying there’s no network to connect to. I am hoping that I can get v1.0 to work.  I’d recommended Twikini in a tweet and Aoss tried it out.

A screen shot of Twikini

Trinket Software, the people who make Twikini, just introduce a pricing plan for the product, and I’m hoping to get a copy for writing this blog post. Did I mention I’m crossing my fingers that it works this time? I’ve @’d Twikini several times about my issues, but haven’t ever heard back. Customer service could be a bit better…

Have you heard of Twikini? Have you tried it out? What are your impressions? Have any of you had the same issue with getting it to connect to the internet? Please tell me I’m not alone!

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Update on OSU Email’

What Happened

Last night I wrote the post “Forwarding BuckeyeMail” and tweeted it to 8Help, OSU’s IT service desk.  In just a few short hours, I got a tweet from 8Help, a comment from Chuck, and a detailed email from 8Help, which is included at the bottom of this post.

From the email, we see there is actually an article about forwarding BuckeyeMail, but it’s not listed on the main FAQs. Instead, it’s listed on a page of a huge number of other articles, which is why I missed it.

I’m a bit confused because they say BuckeyeMail isn’t required, but if they’re getting rid of WebMail, what other choice do you have? I guess it’s not required in the same sense that WebMail isn’t required: You can forward your email to another account, so you don’t have to use it?

What I Learned

From the feedback, I’ve gathered some insight on this whole process.

• OSU still uses your name.##@osu.edu address for all mailings. Whew!
• Setting up BuckeyeMail changes your osu.edu email redirect policy, and forwards all @osu.edu mail to @buckeyemail.osu.edu automatically. I really wish they would have an option to keep this from happening when you’re actually setting up BuckeyeMail, or at least a more apparent notification that this user-given value will be overwritten.
• Forwarding BuckeyeMail isn’t as clean a process as I thought it was.
• There’s still hope, because we can avoid most of that mess by just changing where our @osu.edu address forwards.

What To Do Now

So here’s a list of new steps to take:

1. Again, forward @osu.edu email to another account of your choice. This re-establishes the  forwarding you may have had before. It bypasses the BuckeyeMail system all together.
2. Since there is a chance someone could decide to email your BuckeyeMail address, there’re a few options.
   • Have Gmail check your BuckeyeMail. Since there won’t be much mail going here, it’s okay that Gmail only checks once an hour.
   • Set up an autoresponder in BuckeyeMail to tell the sender you’re not using that address. This feature only works in IE though, which is stupid. (I hate MS and their IE only garbage. It doesn’t even “degredate” to other browsers. It just doesn’t work.)
   • Send your BuckeyeMail to another account. There are a number of caveats with this method that I didn’t know before:
     1. Forwarded email is sent as a “Fwd:” from your BuckeyeMail account instead of transparently passed along, as I’ve come to expect Forwarding to mean. This archaic “Forwarding” is automating you opening up the email, hitting Forward and typing in the other address – so it comes from your @buckeyemail.osu.edu account. Addresses from the original email are in the body of the email, but it kills the work flow of just hitting reply, since it’s sent from your buckeyemail.
     2. Redirected mail completely kills the email headers, so you can’t tell if it was sent to anyone other than yourself. Not sure why this would even be useful since it modifies the original message by killing the headers.

Why I Screwed Up

I thought forwarding from BuckeyeMail was a transparent process, because before I set up the inbox rule I had resubmitted the @osu.edu forwarding form, and then tried sending test emails to my @osu.edu address.  I thought this form was obsolete, however, meaning I thought all OSU mail went to BuckeyeMail regardless. Since this isn’t so, the test emails never actually reached the BuckeyeMail servers, so I didn’t see the wonky forwarding setup there.

Here’s the email I got from 8Help. Very detailed and concise – These guys rock!

The Email from 8Help

Kyle,

Thanks for sharing your blog post with instructions on forwarding Buckeye Mail. We have a similar article we’ve had available for just under two weeks at http://8help.osu.edu/4093.html that goes into a little more depth and includes some warnings.

Just to clarify – students are not required to use Buckeye Mail – all official university communications should be going to your tollename.##@osu.edu address for you to read, and from there forwarding to @gmail.com.

If someone (another student, perhaps, or someone you e-mailed from Buckeye Mail hitting reply, etc.) “guesses” and tries to mail you directly at tolle.23@buckeyemail.osu.edu, however, that wouldn’t be forwarded using that process. There are a couple options for taking care of messages that might be missed due to this.

One is setting up Gmail to POP your messages from Buckeye Mail, per http://8help.osu.edu/4070.html

Another is to set up an Automatic Reply in Buckeye Mail basically saying “I don’t use this address, make sure to mail me at name.##@osu.edu (or even Gmail directly if you prefer).

Another is to setup Inbox Rules that automatically forward or redirect all incoming mail to another address, per http://8help.osu.edu/4093.html

The warnings for this are spelled out in the article – but because of your blog post, I just want to make sure you’re aware that messages *forwarded* int his manner will appear “From” your Buckeye Mail address – NOT the original sender, so you won’t be able to just hit This option behaves just like hitting forward on a message from an e-mail client. The Subject is also appended with “FW: ”

If you choose to Redirect instead of Forward, there are other issues – the original sender and subject are preserved, so that you can hit reply and have it go back to the sender … BUT… if there were other recipients on the message (other To or Cc addresses), those are NOT preserved – so hitting reply-all would only reach the original sender – you won’t be aware of other people who may have been a part of the conversation.

That’s a lot to digest, so hopefully it all makes sense – let me know if you have any questions.

–
Max Treboni
IT Service Desk, OSU Office of Information Technology
Request forms and knowledge base articles are available on the web at http://8help.osu.edu
Service hours are available on the web at http://8help.osu.edu/1691.html

Kyle Tolle reading ‘So I Called a Sex Line’

So my undergraduate career is coming to an end. Luckily, I have a job for after I graduate, and seeing as it is out of state, I have to orchestrate my getting out there.  So I was calling around to some moving companies today, trying to get quotes.  I’d heard about one through a friend and looked up their number on their website.

I call the number, hear a voice but the call was dropped or something. So I call back. This time the call doesn’t get dropped. I’m a bit confused, because the lady reading the recording I hear sounds a bit too excited to be a moving company voice.  She keeps talking, and that’s when I hear, “You’ve come to the right place for nasty talk with big busted girls who love to get off. Shoot your load between a pair of double Ds…” And that’s when I notice, I’ve reached a freaking sex line?!

So it turns out I was one number off on the moving company’s phone number, which lead me to that sexy sexy lady… recording. Only $1.99 a minute? That’s definitely better than how much it’s going to cost me to move my stuff. I’ll definitely enter my credit card number.

And that’s when I decided to dial the correct number and get that quote.

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Forwarding BuckeyeMail’

UPDATE:

Please see my ‘Update on OSU Email‘ post for the feedback I got on this post and what I learned about how the BuckeyeMail system works. Fixing the forwarding is way easier.

Ohio State is rolling out it’s new BuckeyeMail service. They’re releasing it in phases, and I only just got the chance to sign up for it.  Annoyingly, I had to muck around with resetting the password and wait several days for my account to unlock (from trying what should have been the correct password too much).

When I finally logged in today, I found that I had missed several days of emails because the @osu.edu address now forwards to the @buckeyemail.osu.edu address, which I couldn’t log in to.

For the webmail system, there was a web form you could fill out to forward your email to another account. The settings are not migrated from webmail to BuckeyeMail, however. You’re going to have to set it up on your own again.  It’s not overly hard to find this or set it up, but there is no 8Help BuckeyeMail FAQ for this. I decided to write this tutorial to show you how to set up BuckeyeMail to forward to another email account (like Gmail).

This is not the same as setting Gmail up for POP access, which 8Help does have an article on. Forwarding the email allows you to get it instantly in Gmail instead of waiting for Gmail to check the BuckeyeMail servers for new mail. It’s my preferred method. Now, on to the tutorial!

1) Go to “Options”, in the upper right hand corner of the page.

2) Go to “Organize E-Mail” in the left side menu.

3) Under the default “Inbox Rules” tab, click the “New” button.

4) In the new window, select “[Apply to all messages]” in the first dropdown.

5) Select “Forward the message to…” in the second dropdown.

6) A new popup appears. Type the email address to forward to in the “Message Recipients”, “To—->” field. Click “Ok”.

7) The email address is turned blue and underlined. Just click “Ok” again.

8) The popup closes and you’re brought back to the previous window. Click “Save” to save the rule.

9) The rule is saved and now all your email is forwarded to the address you supplied!

Now you’re ready to go about your normal business. Gmail beats Microsoft’s offering anyway.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!  Please leave me feedback on whether you were able to follow these steps, if you encountered any problems along the way, or you just love me!

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Outcast Offshoot’

Walking rings around the outcast
third of all the men.
Tearing strips from their gear to
mark them as lesser ones.
Then we ate the strips out of spite
with just a pinch of irony.
They’ve become a cantankerous splintering of the glorified whole;
a mutinous and strangling growth.
We stood their dreams on their heads
and slit their ghastly necks in two.
A bowl to catch all the fluid to
reduce, reuse, recycle.
Cold compress and a drainage ditch to squeeze
out and away all the treachery
from their decentralized veins.
A horrid, pleasant smell which you have never known
until you have drained those dreams
and watched the remaining men sour.
Can you say you’ve never tasted rotting hope?
Never snipped the clutching tendrils?
Ahh a few men did outlast many others,
but an hour in a frozen lake thawed their resolve.
We see the way you glance and scoff our duties.
I’m only here because I don’t feel what you can.
I’m only here to do the job you are “too good for.”
I’m only here to trim outcast offshoot.

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Ohio State University is Obsessed with Swine Flu’

A few days ago, OSU sent out three emails to every one about someone maybe having swine flu on campus.  New emails have been consistently showing up in my inbox since then.  They’re basically updates any time someone new is either suspected to have it, probably has it, or definitely has it.

I’m tired of these emails.

Why should I get an email every time someone gets sick?  Yes, I know how to cough into my sleeve so as to avoid getting myself and others sick.  I know to stay away from someone sick.  I’m not stupid.  These emails make me feel that OSU believes the students have no common sense.  Such advice as “Make sure to wash your hands” doesn’t really add anything to my knowledgebase…

Today, after getting what has to be the 4th or 5th email regarding Swine Flu from OSU, I decided to reply.

Do you send out an email for every person who gets the flu each year? No. So why is this any different?  I really don’t want to get an email 3x a day telling me about someone else getting sick because they were either in the wrong place, or didn’t follow common sense about health and wellness.  Will you soon be sending out messages when someone has the sniffles?

These emails are sent from the Emergency Management email address of OSU. I have no idea if the email address is monitored, so it’s likely the email didn’t ever reach anyone. But it still felt good to send.  Is someone getting sick with the flu honestly occasion to break out the Emergency Management system? Their use of the “H1N1 flu” makes things sound much more dire, because it’s cryptic and therefore SCARY!  I really wish they would have sent an email last winter when someone slipped on ice and hurt themselves so they could tell me to be careful because ice is slippery and falling down means you could hurt something. I couldn’t have guessed that myself.

What are your thoughts? I’m particularly interested in hearing from Ohio State students who have received these same emails. Anyone else who has been inundated with the swine flu media barrage is welcome to comment!  Shoot, even if you’ve not even heard about the swine flu, you can say so!  I have honestly not heard that much about it, mainly because I don’t watch the news, but the little I have heard is really annoying. Scare tactics for the lose.  Can we punch the government for inciting a riot over this illness?!

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Establishing Myself’

My start with computers came around 8th grade; back when you could still do stuff on a computer without the internet. Today, if there’s no internet, the computer isn’t even worth bothering with!  I played some video games, signed up for some writing websites, and even experimented with my own websites, but hiding my identity was paramount.  I always remember hearing people talk about how dangerous it is for people to know who you really are, where you really live, etc.  I would say that’s true for kids, but maybe it was also more about the times.

In the early 2000’s, the internet was mostly static.  You went to pages for information that other companies produced.  Some user generated content was out there, but there weren’t many platforms to enable mass adoption.  On anything I signed up for, even writing websites, I made sure to hide my identity because there were so many evil evil people.  If anyone dare find out my first name and the city I lived in, that was the end of the world!  Skip forward to today (2009, in case you forgot), and the internet is insane! A huge percentage of the internet is user-driven and user-created.  Not only that, but the internet is an area for personal promotion. Blogs, Twitter, portfolios, websites, photo albums, video, and tons of other things are rampant.  Don’t get me wrong, there are still bajillions of people who go by handles, but an ever increasing number of people are going around signing up for these services with their own names.

Since I am a developer (software, art, writing) whose career is centered around the computer and internet, I’ve started using my own name on these websites. Not only does it help make me #1 on the Google search for Kyle Tolle, but it allows me to create a consistent personality across all these services.  My name’s Kyle Tolle and if you want to find me on Twitter, I’m kyletolle.  12seconds: kyletolle.  Personal website: kyletolle.com. Goodreads: Kyle Tolle. You get the picture!  It does really help when there are only maybe 3 Kyle Tolles across the whole USA.  If you see a Kyle Tolle somewhere on the web, it’s quite likely me.

It still wasn’t too long ago when I hid behind other aliases, but I’m definitely moving away from that.  Makes me sad when I can’t change my username on websites like Digg and Last.fm, but oh well.  It feels good to establish myself on the web.  I’m definitely me, and I am now making it known on the internets!  Creating a consistent, recognizable presence across all these different services is a cool experience, especially when I’m known by my name instead of ChalkBoi980090288AJF87.  Hello, webosphere, Kyle Tolle has arrived!

There are times when I’ll sign up with a pseudonym, but those instances are mostly relegated to one-off signups: to get some quick help, or see an article.  If I’m not actively involved with a website, I’m just going in as anonymous.  A side effect of using services with your real name is that you think more before posting. If you’re a douchebag online, people will be able to see that, and will rightly think you’re a douchebag in real life.  Without that wall to hide behind, it’s more important to not be an idiot.  Then again, the types of people who’re abusive on the internet aren’t likely the ones to be interested in developing anything of value in the first place. Oh burn!

Kyle Tolle reading ‘TV Shows I Enjoy’

This post is a chance for you to get intimate with me. And by that, I mean I’m going to tell you what TV shows I watch!

Currently Running

• The Office – Started watching this show back in the second season, I believe. I’ve followed it pretty closely ever since (currently in season 5).  I really enjoy the mockumentary style, humor and characters. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with Michael Scott. Sometimes he’s an oblivious ass, and other times your heart really goes out for him.  Pam is freaking cute; Jim is a very cool guy.  I don’t like the direction they’ve taken Dwight. Now I feel that he’s purposefully being mean and hurtful instead of it being his personality and so not really intentional.  I think the show was better in the beginning, because I feel I laughed a lot more then.  It’ll be interesting to see how the show goes.
• 30 Rock – I recently started watching this show from the beginning and am now caught up to the current season three.  I laugh a lot at this show. The characters are awesome and I love Jack! I’ve been laughing a lot at the episodes, but I’m afraid it’ll go the same way as The Office and just lose its steam. Oh well, I’ll stay hopeful.
• The Big Bang Theory – The opening song is by Barenaked Ladies; need I say more?! Yes, you say? Well, the humor is geeky, intelligent and right up my alley!  The characters are awesome and map to my own life pretty well.  The show’s in its second season and looks very promising!
• Dexter – Started watching this show from the beginning over the summer.  I haven’t seen anything like it before. I really enjoy getting inside Dexter’s mind and getting to know what he sees, thinks and feels.  A dark passenger is something most of us can probably attest to having to some degree.  I think the show was much more about the killing at the beginning and has slowly moved to character/plot development, which isn’t necessarily bad, but I hope they don’t forget about what drew me to the show in the first place (my odd fascination with horror/gore).
• Burn Notice – This show is an action/comedy hybrid and is fantastic! Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen is great. Completely believable, awesome voice/narration, and kickass stunts! It even has explosions like you’d expect from an action film.  The filming feels really high quality, probably due in part to it’s location in sunny Miami.  This is a kickass show, and I recommend it to everyone!!
• Psych – Along with Burn Notice, I think this is one of my favorite new shows.  Shawn and Gus are a fantastic pair!  This show probably makes me laugh more than any of the others.  The humor is awesome.  The only thing I do not get are the random movie references, but that’s okay with me.  My favorite episode would have to be Tuesday the 17th because it blatantly rips off the Friday the 13th movies, which I also like!  The show is now in the third season and I think it’s gaining strength!  I’m even considering buying the show on DVD… that’s a serious indication I like Psych.  I barely buy anything anymore.
• The Flight of the Conchords – Initially heard of this show through my friend Emily when I visited her at Kenyon College.  The first season was absolutely fantastic! I am a huge fan of the silly-lyrics-to-funky-music idea!  Hilarious stuff you can actually bop your head to.  I’ll be honest and say I am not so sure I like the second season as much.  Not sure what it is about it, but something just feels off. I’ve heard this from several others as well. There aren’t many episodes in a season, which confuses and saddens me…

No Longer Running

• Leave it to Beaver – This show really resonates with me. Maybe it’s because the Beave is just so freaking adorable and mischevious (like me!). Maybe it’s because the show’s a throwback to a different era that seems really cool (at least on TV).  The characters are great, lessons are wholes0me (something rarely found in any modern show), and it makes me laugh!
• The Shield – Chuck got me watching this show probably about two years ago now.  I blew through the first few seasons, took a bit of time off and then blew through the other ones.  That brought me to the beginning of season 7, which is also the final season.  The show was actually difficult to get in to because it was so fucked up.  Vic and the Strike Team always blew my mind with the twisted shenanigans they pulled.  Season 7 was also incredibly insane and ended really well.  I still can’t believe all that happened. Wow… This show really absorbed me.  I don’t usually do police or drama, but this was a great balance of them all.  It was sad to see the show end, but at least it didn’t just end without some sort of resolution.  I’d recommend this to anyone who likes a good mindfuck.
• Get Smart – The slapstick, silly humor of this show is great! I mean, it’s created by Mel Brooks, so how could you not like it if you like his other stuff?  Don Adams is perfect in the role of Agent 86!  Again, this is one of those classic shows that is a window to what life was like back in the day (except this time with color).  I got the box set of seasons for Christmas and am working my way through them now. Fantastic show!

I do believe this is an exhaustive list of shows that I have watched or watch now.  And now that you have know a bit about my viewing habits, how about yourself? What shows do you like, and why do you like them?  I swear there won’t be any judging on my part, so feel free to open up! I want to get intimate with you… not like that, you perv!  But seriously, I’m waiting.

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Without Mirrors’

One of the first things I do when I wake up is look at myself in the mirror.  It’s right there in the bathroom, and I use it after I get out of the shower to put in my contacts and brush my hair.  I use a mirror several times a day, every day.  I’m sure it’s the same for most Americans.

But what would it be like if we had no mirrors?  What was life like before we had mirrors?  Did we have messier hair and non-perfect makeup?  Maybe we relied a little bit more on other people because we couldn’t get our hair just right without someone to help. Men would still commonly use barbers, since it would be difficult to shave yourself.

More deeply though: would we have less an idea of who we are?   Maybe we’d have a more accurate picture without the superficial layer?  Is the way we physically look really that important?  Self-awareness is a big issue.  We can tell we exist as individuals by recognizing ourselves.  Babies don’t have that ability though, because it takes time to develop.  The test for this is actually called the “Mirror test“. Few animals have self-awareness, but we’re one of them!

Body image issues are largely a product of culture, but I wonder if women back in the days before mirrors were that concerned with looks.  They could have used still water to see their reflection, I guess.  The Wikipedia page for mirrors shows that the earliest were made around 8000 years ago. That’s a pretty long time back!  So maybe they were invented so long ago because it was important to get a sense of what your face looked like.

What about foreign countries or groups of people who live without our lifestyle and have no mirrors? I wonder if there are any profound differences between how they perceive themselves, other individuals, or groups and how we do the same?  It wouldn’t surprise me to learn an anthropologist has already looked into this.  It would certainly be interesting to see the findings.

I wonder if lovers spend so much time gazing into one another’s eyes because they can see their own reflection there!?

What are your thoughts on the issue? What would life be like without the mirrors. How would it impact you if they were suddenly gone? How does looking into a mirror daily affect your self-perception? Do you like what you see? Do you you hate what you see? Do you not care? Let me know!

Kyle Tolle reading ‘Mental Skills’

As I mentioned in my Let’s Talk Workshops post, I have been doing two workshops related to stress management.  I am interested in these sessions, because the information will be good to have as I prepare and make the large transition from undergrad life here in Columbus, Ohio to a full-time position at a large aeronautics company in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

This week has again proved to be a struggle to do the Mindfulness homework, but I did attend the first session of Mental Skills.  I enjoyed the Mental Skills session a lot.  I will admit that when I met the guys who were leading the workshops, they struck me as a bit odd.  After sitting with them for a while, I realized that they just have a different way of dealing with things than most people.  The Mental Skills started off with us going around the circle introducing ourselves and saying a bit about why we were there. (NOTE: Graduating PhD students were all over the place! I can only guess how stressful that is.)

First thing we talked about was a helpful picture to have.  Where we are right now is the Present State (PS) and where we would like to be is the Desired State (DS).  We get from PS to DS by using Resources, which look like arrows pointing from PS to DS.  In actuality, we may try some resources that don’t get us to the DS.  Instead of viewing that as failure, we can use it as feedback and try another resource to get where we want to be.  Resources are the things we’ll be talking about more in the second and third sessions.

Next, we talked about how it’s easier to be nicer to others than it is to yourself.  When something goes wrong, we usually think we’re stupid for doing something wrong, but we can tell others that it’s not that they’re stupid, but a mess-up that can be learned from. Or if a friend is stressing out, we can help them see a different, calmer side of things.  There’s nothing that really keeps us from doing that for ourselves though.  This is the concept of a mental coach.  A part of your brain that sits a little away from the situation and can give you another perspective on things.  If things get stressful, you can talk with your mental coach and see what’s going on, why you feel the way you do, what you can do to get from the PS to the DS.  I think it’s a really interesting idea!

You can actually pick a location where your mental coach “sits”.  Mine is just off to my left side, right up by my head.  I’ve not  had any lengthy dealings with this mental coach yet, but I am trying to take a step back and analyze my feelings more.  Is the way I am feeling appropriate? Is it what I want to/should be feeling? Can I manage this stress better?

We then talked about mental frames.  These are perspectives we can use to look at a situation.  Instead of getting weighed down by despair or some similar feeling, we can try these frames of thought and help ourselves out.  They do not minimize the situation or the stress, they simply help one look at the situation a little differently.

These are the frames we covered:

• Learning – “I’m allowed to discover and figure it out because I don’t know it now.” “I am where I am, but I can develop myself and my skills.” “Do the best I can with how I am now.”
• Opportunity – We all have disappointing and discouraging things, but there is an opportunity in every situation.  See how things can be positive.
• Challenge vs Threat – Instead of seeing things as threats which activate stress, see them as challenges to work on. They’re easier to handle then.
• Healthy – What is the healthy way to respond here? Is the way I am currently responding the healthiest way?
• Curiosity – Look at feelings or situations with curiosity.  Stepping back a bit and analyzing the feelings you have now.  Seeing how to better cope/handle them. Why do I feel the way I do?
• Process vs Outcome – Be present for the moment, but do the best you can in the moment. Don’t worry so much about the outcomes, since all we have control over is the present.

We also talked about writing as a frame.  Writing can be used to later look back at a situation, which gives a different perspective.  I think this is one way of implementing the Curiosity frame.

The second session of Mental Skills will be this week, and I am looking forward to it.  This feels more concrete, practical and “now” than the Mindfulness class.  We’ll see how they both develop though.

Have you heard these ideas before?  If so, where have you heard them?  Do you use any of these frames? Maybe you don’t think of them as such, but maybe you try to look for the opportunity in a situation, try to focus more on the now than the later?  For the most part, this is just a formalization of things I have heard before.  The power is having them all together and making the conscious effort to be aware of them at all times.