Archive for February, 2006

Limit Creativity, Get Innovation

Go create something. I don’t care what, how much it cost, the purpose, or the form, but the result must be supremely innovative, worth every penny, and profoundly significant to the human race. Take your time.

The reasonable person finds this overwhelming. Creativity’s root is the tension filled conflict between the imagination and the physical: input and output, insight and achievement, learning and performing. Remove conflict and there is no need for creativity. Imagination v. reality – like a courtroom battle — negotiation leads to creative solutions. In onerous jargon laden corporate speak: look for the win/win. » Continue

February 28 2006 | By Bruce | Tagged: creative, creativity, performance, photo, photography, writing | 8 comments»

Interesting Software to use Noise to mask Noise

Blackhole Media has written a software for Mac OSX which it claims to “drown distraction”. The software plays a signal called Pink Noise, which is “natural” to our ears, can mask background noise to help you concentrate. Here is a big background of pink noise:

… In the natural world, there are many physical processes which produce noise with what is known as a “pink” distribution of power. “Pink” noise… » Continue

February 28 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: osx, software | 6 comments»

Tips for Long Public Speaking

Dave Shea at mezzoblue (I like this designs) has a good article on how to do public speaking with ease, even if it is a long presentation. He has couple of issues when he delivers his one hour presentation. Sometimes he doesn’t not plan the time well, he will ended up to use longer time in the first few slides and then rushing at the end. He developed couple of… » Continue

February 28 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: presentation, tips | 1 comment»

Time To Discard The Portmanteau

Taking on too much, and not discriminating between what you can do and what you should, stops you from accomplishing what matters most. » Continue

February 27 2006 | By Adrian | Tagged: balance, delegation, development, life, planning, prioritization, Productivity | 2 comments»

The Hipster PDA Keychain

The posting about Hipster PDA seems far less than last year, but I am able to find another cool implmentation on this index card todo list system. David Kadavy has came up a variation on combining his key chain with the hipster PDA.

Key chain suits this hipster PDA well as you always need to carry around your key - you wouldn’t forget to bring your todo list:

… Now when I… » Continue

February 27 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: gtd, hipster, pda | 5 comments»

20 Book Reviews - The Love Affair with Books

Our friend Rosa Say has organized an blogging event called 2nd Annual Love Affair with Books which is a effort of gather some great bloggers to review different books - to share their view and knowledge on the books. All the books are related to the business, management, leadership, and self-development - and trust me, they are great collections. In addition to this event, Rosa also has organized a surprise… » Continue

February 27 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: book, list, review | no comments»

Improve Your Life By Following A Schedule

Some people may go on and on about how schedules or routines don’t allow for creativity or spontaneity - and that may certainly be true in some circumstances. However in overall situations, people who don’t follow a schedule are prone to miss appointments, procrastinate, live or work in an disorganized environment, and haphazardly complete assignments. It’s a complete formula for disaster. If you want to succeed however, you must understand… » Continue

February 24 2006 | By Guest | Tagged: Productivity, schedule | 4 comments»

MIT Lectures in Videos

With yesterday’s link on UC Berkeley Lectures Web Cast, many people sent me great words about them. There is a news spreaded out from digg.com that MIT has similar archive with video files you can download for classes. There are 309 classes - so have fun on learning!

MITWorld Distributed Intelligence via [digg.com]… » Continue

February 24 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: download, studying | 4 comments»

Google Dashboard Widgets for Mac

For Mac users, download the latest Google Dashboard Widgets! Currently there are three favors on the widget - One for Blogger for easy blog posting. Second, Gmail to check and view your inbox quickly, and Search History to search and view your search history. Not a earth scattering software, but it is a pretty fun one.

Google Dashboard Widgets for Mac - [Google]… » Continue

February 24 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: gmail, software | no comments»

How to Write a Killer Resume (for Software Engineers)

Niniane Wang, a Google software engineer, has given some tips to write a great resume and impress your interviewer. Resume is important, especially at the screening process, to make your resume shine among the pile of resumes. In the case of software engineers, this is extremely important to highlight your achievement correctly. In the article, there are some tips:

Don’t be vague on technical details of your past work.
Don’t go into

» Continue

February 24 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: job, resume | no comments»

Literal Life Hack: Cut your window of time in half

Isn’t it alarming how quickly Father Time ages? That cute, plump little newborn of this brand new year is already showing signs of having a midlife crisis, when he’s got to chill… good grief, it’s only February!

Where did his youthful exuberance go?

What happened to his recklessness, his rebellion and cocky confidence?

These thoughts come to me working with some truly great, dynamic people who are turning their strategic plans for… » Continue

February 23 2006 | By Rosa | Tagged: focus, Lifehack, motivation, time | 4 comments»

UC Berkeley Web Cast on Lectures

This is a great find. UC Berkeley has a page on courses with feeds which you can subscribe as a podcast. After you subscribed to the class RSS, you should see different lectures for the class which has mp3 you can download as podcast. If you follow the link, you should be able to download the video stream as Realvideo as well.

It is good to see more universities are… » Continue

February 23 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: education, Podcast, studying | 3 comments»

8 types of meeting attendees

Jonathan Grubb has an interesting post to describe 8 types of meeting attendees which he has identified. I recongize some of the types and also agrees with his funny comment. Here are the 8 types that he mentioned:

The Talker
The Boss
The Sigher
The Lurker
The Stealth Lurker
The Meanderer
The killer
The productive, reasonable contributor

Not only the post is interesting, the readers have contributed some meeting attendees type as well, like:

The Asleep
His job , he feels… » Continue

February 23 2006 | By Leon | Tagged: meeting | 1 comment»

Learn To Manage Your Anxiety And Stresses In Your Life

Do not let your anxiety and stresses overwhelm you during your every day living. It can be tough sometimes to deal with your anxious moments but they will eventually go away. In the meantime, the best thing that you can do is to find those ways that will manage those stresses whether at work or at home.

For instance, many people get stressed out when they have to meet deadlines… » Continue

February 22 2006 | By Guest | Tagged: anxiety, life, stress | 6 comments»

9 tips for running more productive meetings

If meeting is not done right, it is a single killer for your productive time. Over at 43 Folders, Merlin Mann offers some quick tips to make your meetings worthwhile and more productive: