Category: "Productivity"

Ultimate daylight awareness wallpaper

Ultimate daylight awareness wallpaper

I just bought this cool gadget app for $19.95: EarthDesk.

I may have bought it only because it looks cool, or only because it gives you a sense of global awareness. But the real reason is, I guess, because it's 100 times more effective than having a series of clocks on your wall or on your desktop! ;)

I'm in contact with quite a few development and business partners around the globe (+ special thought for the evoTeam members! ;) ) and I'm constantly looking at clocks to know what time of day it is in their region.

Now I'm just gonna look at my desktop and get a sense of global time much quicker! It really makes a difference!

Besides showing day & night (with city lights), EarthDesk also does "real time" updating of clouds as well as real moonlight rendering. And you can choose from a dozen different map projections, set your viewpoint where you want... The only thing missing is being able to drag your desktop earth around as if it was Google Earth ;)

Note: rectangular maps look best on widescreen monitors (Even with a multiscreen span, you won't match it). Also I very much prefer the "feel" of the Mac version... and it's really hard to tell why, since the look is pretty much the same. I bought a license for the Mac... I'm still unsure as to whether I should buy one for Windows or not...

Steve Job's commencement speech at Stanford (2005)

I've been meaning to post this for quite a long time. But I guess I needed the excuse of b2evolution's new video plugin to actually do it...

In case you haven't seen this yet, watch it!

It is so inspiring! Steve Jobs at his best! ;)

Leveraging work time

I guess many people spend about one third of their time at work.

Remove sleep time and people spend half of their awake time at work!

Yet they tend to focus more on the other half. The half that they feel is their "free time". The half they spend in transportation; the half where they shop for food, where they pay the bills, clean up their home... well "free time" you know :roll:

Wouldn't it make an lot of sense to devote substantial energy on taking advantage of the work time? Make the work time fun?

Some people do, but so many don't even try. They just take work as a necessary burden and they wait for it to be over. |-|

I don't get it.

Efficient vs. effective

Guy 1: I am so efficient I can fold 100 parachutes in a hour.

Guy 2: I am so effective I can fold 100 parachutes and every single one of them will open right.

Would you rather give your parachutes to the efficient or to the effective guy?

Now what I'd like to know is why all these programmers we interview pride themselves on being efficient?

I'm so sick of their industrial strength bug generating skills... :/

IM sucks... (and so does email)

Over the last 6 months I have refrained as much as possible from using Instant Messaging, if it was not for scheduled conversations. I mean, IM is cool in a "netmeeting" kind of way. But having an IRC/MSN/Yahoo/ICQ/Whatever Messenger open all day, poping up alerts every 10 to 20 minutes, is definitely a major disturbance!

I got into arguments about this with friends. They were arguing that "you don't have to answer if you don't want to" and I was arguing that "you cannot focus on what you're constantly evaluating whether or not you're gonna reply to the latest interruption".

It's been hard to come to an agreement... but now... I have scientific evidence to back up my position! :>> You think you're too smart to be subject to attention disorder? Check those out:

Those actually articles talk about email, but email is only the ancient, slow, lightweight form of the Instant Messaging disturbance! ;)

I do actually tend to close my email client as well when I need concentration. I try to only open it every 2 to 3 hours or so. And even if I leave it open: I have turned of new mail alerts and sounds! You oughta try that someday ;) You wouldn't believe how much better you'll be able to focus!

Now, I still need to deal with that pesky phone which always rings at a bad time... and maybe I'll eventually get my work environment optimized for efficiency!