I had signed up for this a while back, because I liked the idea of a “lifestream” as they say. It’s basically an aggregation of your online social content. Much like Posterous, Flavors.me has this aggregation as well. One thing I like though Flavors.me is that it incorporates Foursquare. Those of you that don’t have an iPhone or haven’t heard of this app, it’s what I like to call, a real-life video game. It’s a geo-location type of app where you check-in to a spot that you are currently located. Each check-in gives you a point value and there are bonuses for various type of check-ins as well. GoWalla is another one of these types of apps with a bit of a different spin. In GoWalla, you check-in to places, but instead of points, you pick up and drop off items.
At first, these sort of apps are a bit disturbing since you can broadcast your check-ins to Twitter and Facebook and the world can see exactly where you are at that given moment. But then again, you don’t have to tell anyone either where you are and can play in “single player” mode. It’s fun though to see other people checking in to places that you goto, discovering new places that you haven’t been to, and even chatting with those that have been to the same places as you and making new connections.
I suppose that was my intent in the first place of having a lifestream. To make new connections and meet some really cool people. I’m not sure if these applications will stand the test of time on the web, but while they are here, why not take advantage of the outreach to the many types of people that you can possibly connect with.
This is so true and I know it’s being put all over the web/twitter right now, but I can’t help but to spread the wealth to those that may not have seen this. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell
I personally hate it. But it does serve a good time to listen to some tunes and plan out the day. GTD happens anywhere and when practiced, everywhere.
I try to think about the next tasks that will take my morning so I can get right to it when I get in. I also use this opportunity to listen back on my Evernote voice recordings and even brainstorm ideas on projects. Bottomline here is we all are busy and get pulled in a hundred different ways all day, cease those times during the day when it’s just you with little or no distractions to get things done.
Zero Inbox — one of the great accomplishments of any productive day. I’m a big fan of the Zero Inbox methodology. The theory in a nutshell is when you process your email, read the email and think of “what do I need to do with this email?” If it’s something that can be answered right away (less than 2 minutes), then reply directly and then archive the email. If it’s something that I need to look something up, talk to someone else about it, or would just take too long to reply back, then I mark it with a date to process later and archive it. If it’s something like a response to a question that I had for someone, an advertisement, or just something that I don’t need to deal with, then I just mark it with a keyword and archive it.
The idea here is to clean out your inbox, and then when you come to your review of your tasks for the day, you will be able to see what emails need addressing at that time. Before I adopted this method, I found that there would be a few emails that would slip through the cracks. Someone would inevitably call me asking about something that was referred to in an email 2 weeks ago. Then I’d be stuck, because I knew I read it, just forgot about it because something else came up. With this method, each and every email gets dealt with in its own way. I will go into this with more detail later, but if anyone has any questions on this, feel free to ask. It’s something that has totally changed the way I handle my email and just makes things SO much easier.
Ok - so I’ve got my invite. I signed up. Watched the introductory videos. Started a new wave. But who to share it with?? I don’t think I have any invites to anyone else that I know. If I do, I don’t know how to send them out :(. Anyone out there????
Ever feel as though things just aren’t going your way, or you are having a string of bad luck, or that you are having a rough week? Anyone who knows me, knows that I’ve been at times a pretty pessimistic type of person. But I’ve been trying to stay positive lately, just seems to be hard when things continue to go in a down direction for a period of time. This seems to be true in sports, relationships, even just in pure everyday tasks like getting your car fixed for one thing, then 2 days later, something else goes wrong. How does one stay positive?
I try to look at the positive side of things by looking forward to something, by thinking about some goal I’m trying to achieve, or simply by trying to relax with a nice cup of tea enjoying a TV show, or reading up on something that puts me in a better mood. I’d love to know how everyone else feels about this and how people stay positive.
Mac Tip: PathFinder and replacing the Reveal in Finder
I’m a big fan of PathFinder, the finder replacement for Mac OS X. One thing I always found a little frustrating was that pesky option “Reveal in Finder”. I always thought, I’m not using Finder, I want Reveal in PathFinder instead. Now I’m not sure if this option is new or something I overlooked. But knowing myself and how I dissect an Application and it’s preferences, I find it hard to believe that I over looked this great feature. But you can turn the “Reveal in Pathfinder” feature by going into Preferences -> Reveal.
Now let’s say in the dock, you right click on a folder, such as Downloads. It will Open that folder in PathFinder and not launch Finder to show you the content.
As most of you know I’m into sports. I’m on several softball teams, I’ve played hockey, baseball, football, and coached or managed several of these teams as well. My fall league softball team is the first softball team I’ve managed. With that being said, me and my geekness decide to make a team website and a use my iPhone to keep the book. Now I know there’s a lot of you that read this from overseas and baseball/softball isn’t your sport, but I must say, if you run a team and have a smartphone, check the apps available to you, it could make for a more involved and enjoyable time for all that’s involved.
I downloaded Faster Than Monkey’s iScore Baseball Scorekeeper (iTunes) for like $5 and it’s great. Anyone can keep the book now, although we have a fantastic scorekeeper that does it for us each and every night, cold or hot. Thank you so much Jill! It will keep the stats for each player throughout the season, career stats as well. During the game it’ll show you where the person last hit the ball if you so incline. It’s one of those life savers that you come across during your lifetime that you say “It was totally worth the money!” Once the game is over, I then email myself the boxscore and stats for that game and BAM! put them up on our website and everyone on the team can rip each other and compete with each other to hopefully drive each other to do better.
Now we really haven’t shown much this season, but it is the first time we’ve all played together and with the fall season coming to a close, we are looking forward to playing next spring. But with that being said, the umpires have commented on the fact that we are “just using your phone to keep score?!” or “how does that work?” Well as managers and coaches get younger and younger, we’ll find a way to advance the ways we do sports. Even if it’s just your average beer league softball.
I guess there always comes a time when good things come to an end. Yahoo announced that Geocities will be turning the switch off permanently on October 26th. It’s been a long ride for the free web host. Starting back in the mid-90s, pretty much at the advent of the internet as we know it. My first site we a Geocities site, and from reading the article, it makes me wonder why I haven’t kept that first site. Oh yeah, I remember now, because it was horrible :) - animated Simpsons characters, horizontal rules that were yellow and black construction type signs, an “LED” Welcome sign, all center aligned. At the time I loved it and spent a lot of time on it when I should’ve been in economics class, and was proud to have my little place on the web.
Anyway, thank you to Yahoo for keeping the “first apartment” alive and well these past several years. But we all need to move out and move on with our lives as you do as well. Goodbye and Farewell Geocities, it was great while it lasted.
