Push & Pull

Posted by lemiffe in Literature, Random Poetry on Feb 24th, 2010 | 0 comments

I push and pull and push and pull, I must look like a fool,
I push and pull and push and pull, like when I was at school.
With all the lines I’ve made in life, and all the time I’ve sacrificed;
I push and pull and push and pull a lifetime like a mule.

Weekly Highlights (22/02/2010)

Posted by lemiffe in Art, Photography, Weekly Highlights on Feb 22nd, 2010 | 0 comments

A photo from Croy Railway Station. One train was waiting on the left rail, one was arriving on the right-hand side. I took it with prolonged exposure to be able to capture the movement. Taken about 3 days ago on my way back from work.

This place reminded me a lot of a Mexican patio. The old fan sitting around, unused. The type of patterned wall. The small storage shed on the left. And specially, the iron grid with spirals used as protection on the window where I took the photo from. Very Mexican indeed.

So I went out for a walk around Glasgow city centre yesterday. I found this sign which caught my attention. Deep fried Mars bars, heheh… Had to give it a try!

Cooooontinue…

Posted by lemiffe in Google, Internet, Learning, Life, Microsoft, Products on Feb 21st, 2010 | 0 comments

Are you consistent with what you do? Do you finish everything you start? No, I didn’t think so, but if you do… Congratulations! You may skip this post.

Otherwise, I have a story to tell you…

Once upon a time I was just like you. I had many ideas, some of them quite good, and I tried to carry them out only to realise I couldn’t finish all of them. Sometimes I would get bored halfway through and leave the project incomplete. When it was something socially-related and I did not achieve an immediate response, I would leave it incomplete and/or get frustrated with it. Sometimes I simply couldn’t be arsed to continue with it.

What made matters worse was the sense of guilt I would sometimes build up after a week, a month or a few years after starting a project and not having been able to finish it. A sense of being incompetent. And the more things I left that way, the worse I felt. A constant buzz in the back of my brain telling me that I didn’t finish it, and I could have.

One example was Zyborg, a computer game (Clone of ZZT) I started developing around 10 years ago with Saxxonpike in Qbasic 4.5. We abandoned the project a few months after we started, however, I always felt a tingling sensation of having left it just standing there. I still have the code.

I also used to start (and not finish) hundreds of songs, paintings, poems, lyrics, books, ideas, scripts, computer programs, drawings and many other things. I even started a company once, and we were really motivated. But after stumbling a few times into problems, we just silently gave up on it. But the tingling sensation must have lasted ages in all of us. The sense of not having been able to accomplish our goal. The feeling of failing.

When and how did things change for me?

When I started adding a little bit of organisation into my life.

I started off by writing task lists and project ideas down on paper. If I couldn’t get through them in one go I learned not to stress about it and leave it for a later date, whenever I felt more confident or motivated about the project. Then all these ideas and tasks stopped being burdens on my mind and were converted to sentences in a notebook (later replaced by Google Docs).

Then I started printing out calendars in Microsoft Publisher, and using them to keep track of future events. I have never liked daily based diaries as I hate the format, I hate carrying too many notebooks, and I hate wasting too many blank pages. But a monthly calendar format suited me, with 30-31 rectangles on a sheet with just the right amount of space to keep track of my main tasks per day.

Further on, seeing the success this brought me in organising my life, I looked for a computer solution for my needs. I needed to be able to view it from any PC where I were at, so Microsoft Outlook was out of the question. I found comfort in Google Calendar which I have been using for over 2 years now. It was great, I could view it in any style I liked! I started out using the monthly style, however, lately I have preferred using the weekly view as I plan and use it on a daily basis.

Google Calendar, however, wasn’t the solution to my problem in storing my project ideas. One day one of my best friends introduced me to Remember the Milk. A pot of gold! Accessible from my iPod touch, updateable from anywhere, it was pure glory!

Since then, I have never had a problem remembering what I have done, what I have to do, and what are my plans and ideas for the future.

So if you have ever had one of these problems I have had, give it a try! I mean, it’s free so you have nothing to lose. And if it’s just not your cup of tea, stick around and give the net a look, there must be something ideal for you! The important thing is not giving up on projects or ideas just because you have no time for them at the moment. And if you started one, but haven’t finished it, just keep track of it and leave it for a later date. Don’t scrap it… Remember it.

Review: HD 215 Sennheiser Headphones

Posted by lemiffe in Products on Feb 15th, 2010 | 2 comments

With a frequency response of 12 Hz to 22000 kHz these headphones stand tall and powerful in the market.

I recently owned a pair of Sony MDR V150 headphones which are at the lower end of “studio quality” sets. I liked those headphones because they lasted quite a long time, but it didn’t have the outer noise cancellation nor the boost that I require to listen in detail to the music I make to make the necessary fine tuning.

So I found this pair sitting in a discount store the other day. It is a used pair which cost 20 GBP, and as far as I have seen they go anywhere from 30 to 55 quid online, new of course.

Despite the cost, this set will not disappoint you. It has an excellent sensitivity, a great solid plug, a beautiful frequency range, they are comfortable to the ear, it lowers external noise by (I would say) at least 6 db or more. So if you are thinking in buying a quality pair of headphones, without going crazy on the price, I dare suggest this pair.

* Disclaimer: In no way was I payed by Sennheiser or Sony to publish this post.

Why Google Buzz is brilliant | Christopher S.

Posted by lemiffe in Business, Computers, Internet, Marketing on Feb 15th, 2010 | 0 comments

I’ve been wanting to post something about Buzz for the last few days. It has been generating so much buzz, first of all with its instant appearance on the scene. Then with its privacy issues (that are being worked on). I wanted to write a detailed post about the pros and cons, however, I think this article I just found via Chris Brogan’s shared items details what I think much more clearly.

Why Google Buzz is brilliant and deadly to social media 1.0

From the moment it launched, Google Buzz generated buzz:

• OMG another social network to manage
• OMG there’s too much noise
• OMG this is so redundant

And for the early adopters, it’s exactly that and more. It’s noise. It’s clutter.

It’s brilliant.

Here’s why. Google wants the best of the best data. Remember this. They are a data company. They are a data quality company. They are algorithmic in their approaches to solving problems.

For a lot of the social media crowd, the moment Buzz turned on, our valued inboxes became insanely cluttered as we linked up all our social media sites, networks, and properties. We discovered that frankly, we didn’t want the firehose of social media in our inboxes.

We realized quickly, if we didn’t already know, that most of our “friends” are in fact valueless robots spewing garbage at us all day. On services like Twitter and Facebook, we don’t really notice because it’s bite size garbage that passed by quickly. When it piles up in the inbox, we notice. Fast.

So for the early adopters, those who keep Buzz on, we’re pruning back hard. We’re not following back. We’re dropping auto-follows. We’re down to just a handful of people, close friends, that we REALLY want in our inboxes. How many of the self-proclaimed social media gurus are you actually allowing inside your inbox, in Buzz? Exactly.

Continue reading @ Why Google Buzz is brilliant and deadly to social media 1.0 : Christopher S. Penn’s Awaken Your Superhero.