If I don’t wave back…
Michael | August 20, 2008
I’ve come to the realization lately (there was no real lightning bolt moment, it was a discovery that dawned upon me slowly) that I have some of my best, most lucid thoughts while driving around.
Many of my “Ah HA!” moments come to me somewhere along Steel Street; about the half-way mark on my drive home.
I don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s true. Maybe it’s the fresh air (I drive with the windows down typically) or empty mind state (by your 30’s driving doesn’t take much thought, esp. on a well travelled route), or some combination of other factors…
Whatever it is though, I drive with a notepad and a digital recorder lately!
I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you see me on the road and wave, don’t be upset if I don’t wave back, I’m probably deep in thought.
Where’s your ‘Thinking Spot’?
| 2.5 (1 person) |
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Topics: Errant Thoughts, Lifehack | Comments
The Ant Wars
Michael | July 17, 2008
Once a month (or so) a colony of very small red ants and a colony of equally small black ants rise to the surface and go to war in an epic battle of miniscule proportions!
They carpet my front walk to the extent that we enter and exit through the garage for about 24 hours.
Then they disappear, I hose away the dead ones, and I don’t see them again for another month.
This is a picture of roiling ants fighting a smallish skirmish just off the front walk:
In previous summers, I tried killing them by placing ant traps, poison (or jumping up and down over and over) but it doesn’t seem to deter them, and they do a great job of killing each other anyway. So now, I just sit on the front steps and enjoy the spectacle.
| 2.2 (2 people) |
Topics: Errant Thoughts | Comments
GTD - Step 1 - Prioritize
Michael | July 11, 2008
On Tuesday I talked a little (ok, maybe a lot) about GTD.
To reiterate… Step 1 is all about taking care of the important things first.
And doing it is easier than you may think. I made this little image, printed it out and hung it on my wall (There has to be a name for this, I know I didn’t invent it!):
(* update - sorry, it won’t let me embed it! so I linked to flickr)
(* update 2 - added the image!)
That’s it.
Now EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) gets a label of 1 to 4. Everything I need to do that is going to take me more than 15 minutes goes on an excel spreadsheet and receives a rating of 1 to 4; then:
Things that receive a # 1 Get Done First.
Generally things that receive a # 2 Get Done Next, followed by things that receive a # 3.
And of course things that receive a # 4 get thrown out right away (very little gets a number 4).
It’s easy, it’s helpful, and it makes a huge difference.
| 2.1 |
Analysis of a Golf Swing
Michael | July 11, 2008
I went golfing this morning and played with a couple of guys who were essentially new to the sport.
| 2.1 |
Topics: Errant Thoughts | Comments
Getting Things Done
Michael | July 8, 2008
I am Zen… I’ve discoverd my Tao… I GTD (Get things done)
Oh wait, reality’s setting in, yup, work’s still piled up to my eyeballs.
-sigh-
I love dabbling in new things & I love multitasking (I get bored if I’m not busy), but I have a problem.
Lately… ok, for years now… I’ve had some issues Getting Things Done. Not that I don’t get things done, I do, but my list of things that NEED gettin’ done seems to grow faster than my list of things gettin’ done.
And I can’t stop. Everyday brings new things to look at, play with, test, tweak, fix, and before I know it I’ve yet another thing on my GTD list.
Unfortunately, at least for me, a really long GTD list is a little depressing. I know I can’t realistically get through it ALL, and if I try I won’t be able to really dig in and get it done in a way that would make me happy. Pretty soon I stop doing the basic stuff (like trying to stay organized) because it all starts to feel like too much work. And the snowball grows.
Eventually I get frustrated with my list of half completed projects, crumple my GTD list into a little ball (metaphorically speaking) and toss the whole thing out the window so I can start fresh; generally losing some things that really SHOULD have gotten done in the process!
So what do we do?
Todays world demands us to do things bigger, better, faster and more frequently, and many of us are happy to try and oblige. But at some point it starts to feel like we’re going to, crack, explode, go crazy or otherwise expire.
Maybe it’s just me? Maybe I’m the only one trying to fit way too much into way too little (time)?
I doubt it, most people I know are in the same boat to some degree or another. Very few people are really good at just one thing, love to do that one thing, and spend all their time and effort concentrating on that one thing… It’s just not human! 
So again, what do we do?
Well, in the infamous words of Bob “Baby steps to four o’clock”.
Starting today I’ve decided (this has been building for awhile, I’m not making a rash decision 
to make some changes:
- Less clutter
- Fewer superfluous activities
- More directed effort
- More ‘work smart’ effot
- More GTD!
- More zen in my life
I’ve been agonizing over where to start for a while and am in the process of making a list of steps, but I think the best way to start is One Thing At A Time! So, as of today, I’m going to be exrutiatingly meticulous with Step 1:
Taking care of the MOST important things first.
I already try for the most part, so it should be a relatively easy transition. It’s funny how so many of the less important things seem to take care of themselves eventually!
Step 2 will be:
Wake up at a consistant hour
I know this may sound like an irrelevant thing to worry over, but I get out of bed anywhere between 6:30 and 9:30 and the fluctuation really effects my day to day patterns. My goal is to get up everyday between 6:45 and 7 am.
Step 3 is Declutter
Both work and living spaces. I’m bad. Really bad. Not unorganized, but definitely cluttered (my parents, were they present during this conversation, would likely chime in right about now with some kind of ‘PackRat’ type comment)
But before I can get this far I need to deal with Step 1.
Starting now.
And right now the most important thing I can do is go home and spend a few hours with my kids! Tomorrow I’ll talk a little more about How I plan to go about Step 1.
Wish me luck!
| 3.6 (3 people) |
Delicious Del.icio.us
Michael | July 7, 2008
I’ve been alternating between Firefox 2 and 3 for a few weeks now and I have to say, it’s really frustrating.
I love Firefox, and especially version 3… unfortunately I also love my addons.
One of the issues I’ve run into through the beta of Firefox 3 is that most of my addons wouldn’t work… I found a hack, but it causes some stability issues So I’d rather the makers of these addons would update them!
Am I being demanding?
The Frustrating
I realized today that Del.icio.us has finally updated their Firefox plugin to be compatible with Firefox 3. They may have done this a while ago for all I know, unfortunately, for some reason, the automatic update addon function wasn’t finding the new version.
I don’t know why it was released in this way, but despite already having the older version installed I had to go to the Firefox addon site and search for the new version and install it manually. Not a big deal really, but if Firefox (or del.icio.us for that matter) had informed me that I may have to reinstall the newest version manually, I would have done it long before now and been less frustrated (the Product Manager in me would like to take this time to explain Usability 101… Don’t make the customer think! Make it EASY to get upgrades and new products and hard to leave!)
On the other hand, now that I know (.5 of the battle my childhood hero used to say), there is a beacon of hope for all the other addons I have installed that aren’t currently working with Firefox 3. But now I’m going to have to go down my addon list and check one-by-one… not a big deal… but frustrating.
The Good
The good news is that Del.icio.us wins in a big way. Once I recovered from the frustrating realization that there really was a new plugin available, and spent some time poking around the new features I have to say I’m really happy!
1 - Speed
This is what it’s all about now-a-days right? In our clones of clones online world there’s often little to distinguish one service from another… So if you can’t make it unique, make it fast! Maybe it’s just me (I work off two monitors and a laptop; and rarely visit myspace or facebook because they are in the annoyingly slow to load category), but I leave sites if they take too long to load, and the del.icio.us plugin in FF2 was, at times, painful.
I have a system to naming my del.icio.us bookmarks (likely one only I would understand at a glance, but it works for me!) and I found typing in categories in the old plugin tended to take a loooong time to filter.
Not so on the FF3 version! Type in your category and the expanded results appear instantly! No waiting, no frustration, awesome!
2 - Sidebar Bookmarks
I reference my Del.icio.us bookmarks all the time and this is the first FF sidebar that I’ve really found useful; sortable, searchable bookmark results - by both category and individual bookmark - I doubt I’ll have to visit my del.icio.us account again!
3 - Status Bar Icons
Del.icio.us drops a few useful icons down in the status bar. I listed this as good, because it was a good idea, but for me, it falls into ‘the bad’ for a couple of reasons (see below)
The Bad
1 - A Toolbar!?
A toolbar!? for 2 buttons? Arg - kill it! Thanks but no thanks Del.icio.us! If you only use Del.icio.us periodically, you could just turn the toolbar on and off when you are ready for it, but I bookmark everything! toolbars take up valuable real estate and this one is frivilous. Using the Customize feature (right-click your toolbar and click ‘Customize’) I just dragged the new Del.icio.us buttons to another toolbar I already have open and then turned of the Del.icio.us toolbar (right click the toolbar again and choose “Delicious toolbar”)
2 - Status Bar
While I applaud the use of Status bar icons, I would prefer the ability to customize them. I use the Del.icio.us ‘Tag’ icon most frequently and that’s the one I would want in my status bar… but I can’t do that (yet anyway… anyone from Del.icio.us read me blog?!
The Score
The Toolbar is silly, but easily thrown out and the status bar additions were a good idea, but not flexible enough.
Realistically though, I use the Del.icio.us addon mostly for tagging and in this Del.icio.us has seriously improved (in my opinion). And I’m pretty sure I will be making use of the new sidebar in the near future!
Verdict : If you use Firefox, have upgraded to FF 3, and you use Del.icio.us (even once-in-a-while) you NEED to get the new plugin!
Technorati Tags: FireFox Addons, Delicious Firefox addon, Delicious review, browser-firefox-addons
| 3.6 (2 people) |
Topics: FireFox, Social Media | Comments
Farmers Market Withdrawl
TheCanadianFoodie | July 7, 2008
We’ve missed out on Farmer’s markets two weekends in a row now for various reasons and I’m starting to go through withdrawl.
I’ve pretty much run out of produce (except for lettuces and radish which we pulled from our own garden this week) and am dreading having to put in a visit to the grocery store to buy their ‘fresh’ product.
I’m not sure why Saturday mornings are becoming difficult (3 kids under 3.5 years old) but we’re having a hard time getting out of the house in time to make the markets.
I think this week we will visit the Eco-market at Hempola farms. We’ve been talking about it for a year, but Friday nights come and go and we always forget!
Ack - a note from the tech side of my personality… Apparently Hempola Farms haven’t updated their site since 2004! The good news is their Eco-Market will be up and running again in the spring of 2005! Doh! I missed it! Come on Hempola, I know farms aren’t always thought of as being part of the most tech-savvy industry, but try to make at least ANNUAL updates to your site if you are going to go to the trouble of having one!
| 2.8 |
What does your garden grow?
TheCanadianFoodie | July 4, 2008
Garden specs :
The 2008 garden is a little below 25 X 30 feet, or ~850 square feet.
Biggest pests so far:
- Mosquitos - Installed bat boxes and spray on repellent
- Ants - Don’t know what to do about this menace!
Grown:
We’ve planted the following:
- Corn
- Eggplant
- Various Heritage Tomatoes
- Ground Cherries
- Various Peppers (green, red, orange etc)
- Jalapeño
- Horseradish
iPhones and Rogers
Michael | July 3, 2008
There’s quite a bit of talk passing around the interwebs of Canada lately regarding the coming release of the iPhone on the good ole’ Rogers network… and little of if it is positive.
What has been, essentially, a great play by Rogers (the iPhone makes a perfect flagship product) is starting to turn ugly; and Rogers has no one to blame but themselves.
Before I continue, I’ll say that I’m not anti-Rogers, in fact, most of my technological life is powered by Rogers currently. Yes they’re expensive, yes their customer service is spotty, yes they lock you into crappy contracts, but I’m happy enough with the service and the competition really isn’t any better.
Rogers has never had a shining history of customer friendliness, but then they didn’t have to. They only had to be a little better than Bell, and that wasn’t hard (as a past Bell customer I’m talking from experience here).
So Rogers kind of sucks, but so does their competition… where does that leave us?
On familiar terrain.
Canadians should be used to being dictated to, and over-paying for things… oh, and for taking it all sitting down. There’s a lot of talk online right now, but I hold no delusions that it will actually change anything. Even worse, Rogers knows the same thing and is so confident in their power to do whatever they feel like that they’ve been brazen enough to throw it back to the Canadian public:
Rogers… has sharpened its pencil. It is watching this very closely. If this starts to truly negatively affect significant opinion — and you have to be careful about 5,000 on a blog versus what’s really meaningful — we will be on top of this thing to ensure that we manage that tension between responsible pricing and not [upsetting] customers.
- Luke Sklar, of Sklar Wilton & Associates - from the Globe and Mail.
In other words, Rogers has decided to gouge the Canadian public in order to try and drive their share prices back over $50 (they’re sitting around $40 right now), and have no intention of changing their behaviour unless it looks like they may come out losing in some way.
Or, in OTHER other words, Rogers really doesn’t care about their paying customers as long as their stock prices aren’t suffering as a result.
Excuse me a moment while I try to shake off my disgust.
I want an iPhone. Really. But I won’t buy one.
Firstly, I’m not big on text messages or mobile data consumption. Not for lack of interest or savvy, but because I’m in front of a computer far more than the average person (12 hours in a day wouldn’t be unusual), so I just don’t need a mobile phone to duplicate what my desktop/laptop can do.
Secondly, and by far more importantly, I believe that in today’s ever more transparent commercial world, companies should be open and honest with their consumers, that they should listen to what their customers have to say and that they should tailor their products to the NEEDS of their market. And I don’t believe that Rogers is doing any of that with the launch of the iPhone.
Despite the fact that I am only one person, I have to make a stand somewhere and I cannot justify forking out any more of my money to support a company like Rogers, in an endeavor like this.
Rogers, if you are listening (no, don’t laugh), and want to win me over, how about offering a package for people like me.
I want to use the iPhone like I use my current phone.
- I don’t make a lot of calls
- I don’t send many texts
- I don’t use much data
- I want to use the iphone as it was intended, as a gadget (ipod, camera, tv, etc) that happens to also be a phone and mobile internet connection
- I would be happy to use wi-fi – there are plenty of hotspots around
To sum up the above, my usage would be, over your network, no different than it is now. But, to do exactly what I currently do, you want to more than double my monthly rates!
Why? I really don’t understand!
The Good (if you can call it good)
- The iPhone is coming to Canada
- You can switch your pricing plan without penalty
- You can switch your pricing plan without resetting your 3 year contract
- You can switch your pricing plan up and down the scale
- Rogers will notify you when you are approaching, and have reached the data limits for your package
The Bad
- The iPhone is coming to Rogers
- Most of ‘The Good’ revolves around switching your pricing plan to another crappy pricing plan
- You will probably have to switch your pricing plan a few times
- You will pay through the nose for this fun gadget
- Rogers considers this ‘Responsible Pricing’
- You will be supporting another gouging of the Canadian Consumer
| 3.2 |
Topics: Conversations, Technology | Comments
Some new stuff
Michael | July 1, 2008
MichaelValiant.com is undergoing some changes… all for the better.
First, this site was never intended to be a strict ‘Internet Marketing’, ecommerce, or social media type blog. MichaelValiant is me, literally (obviously) and I get bored writing about the same thing all the time (sorry, blame the gemini in me).
So, in order to try and regain my center (refind my Zen as it were) MichaelValiant.com is about to shift more towards my original plan. Feel free to let me know whether you love, or hate the changes that will be occuring over the next couple of weeks.
The good news is that I will be posting more often. Actually, I will be posting just as often, but now, the posts I do on other blogs will be syndicated back to this one, which will continue to be my main ‘home’ online.
The bad news (at least for some, I anticipate), is those posts will vary in topic along with my interests. I will continue (and actually increase) my writing on ecommerce, SEO, social media, internet marketing, blogging, etc. etc. etc. but you will soon see more posts that are ‘off-topic’, especially food related (I like talking about food).
I also plan on delving more into productivity and life-hack type topics, parenting, and other things that I like to do, see and talk about (like music and movies!)
In the end it’s all good news and broadening the scope of this site will allow me to spend more time talking about the things I love (like Reputation Management… yeah, I know, I’m a geek) and less time worrying about whether or not a topic is applicable/right for this blog. From now on, it’s ALL right.
What I WILL try to do is this: While I will continue to show full posts for everything I write specifically for this blog (as I’ve always done), I will use the ‘More’ tag and only show snippets for everthing that is syndicated in from my other blogs (and therefore, a little more off-topic).
I installed the FeedWordPress 0.993 plugin to help me with this, and I love it so far!
You may notice that I’ve already setup my Food site to syndicate content to this blog. I have to work out a few display quirks (spacing and blank lines seem to be missing in the syndicated content), I really like the plugin so far.
Thanks for your patience in advanced while I try to get organized over the next week or two.
Michael
| 3.6 (2 people) |
Topics: Uncategorized | Comments
