I love that an audience member commented that Kara sounds like a broken record. So true! Seems the comment got to her too.
You’d die from alcohol poisoning if you drank every time you heard:
Wrong song choice
Too safe
Pitchy
Artistry
Dog
You get the point. Kara just makes it worse.
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Huh? Well it seems bloggers can't wait a day and post their "fools" tomorrow. How lame. Note: if you had to do it a day early to fool anyone, your trick was stupid. I might not open my feed reader tomorrow. Twitter will probably be a stupid trick sesspool tomorrow too.
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I’ve written about productivity a few times before. For me to adopt something new it has to be easy to use and available everywhere. Also there has to be a real need for me to try it. And when I try it, I need to commit to really trying it out.
I have one problem with bookmarking services. I currently use Google Bookmarks and Delicious. The problem for me is context. A lot of times I want to read something later, or remind myself to do something later. With traditional bookmarking services, I’m limited to the tag. And although with both you can write comments, it’s not nearly flexible enough. So I end up never getting back to what I’ve tagged as “actionable.”
Since I’m now using Chrome full time, I’ve lessened my addiction to Google’s toolbar (not fully however as I still want it badly for site search and other things). Instead of toolbars, I now rely on bookmarklets.
I don’t want to get into a full comparison of features among Evernote, Google Bookmarks, and Delicious. Rather, I’ll just explain why I’m excited about Evernote, which I’m going to give a serious test drive.
What Evernote allows you to do in one swoop is highlight a part of a webpage (images and/or text) and use the bookmarklet to “clip” it. You can then save what’s clipped, the url, and the page title (which can be edited). You can add a tag and note to the clip as well. So where this picks up from where the other bookmark services leave off is the ability to easily add in why I’m saving it (like what I need to do), along with the “clip” of the site I’ve saved. Delicious is close, but not as robust.
Evernote also has a mobile phone interface which is nice. According to their blog, they are planning and developing an app for Android (they currently have one for the iPhone). If all goes well with my test, I’ll be psyched to have a native client on my G1.
Now lets see how it goes.
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Professionally it suites me well, and may not be true. I am a specialist in internet marketing. And I’m happy that I have a diverse background in it (retention, acquisition, B2B, B2C, e-mail, merchandising, testing, social media, PPC, SEO, SEM)—ok let me stop bragging.
My dilemma is personally when it comes to hobbies, interests, and the like. It can get frustrating. It has nothing to with my ability to become a master at anything (cough, cough), but rather my interest wanes before committing to anything fully. It’s not ADD, I don’t think as I am able to concentrate on a given task at a time and complete it.
But it goes like this:
It’s not isolated on doing things either.
I can go on and on and on. It’s kind of like I have such diverse interests that there isn’t enough time in the world to devote to them all. And if I do devote a lot of time to one, that means I take away from others. It’s like my brainpower is wrapped around a million little things instead of a few big ones.
This all sounds fine probably, but I kind of feel like I’m missing an identity. Whenever I bring up an interest in a conversation, there is always someone who’s uber-indulged in it—whom which I can’t carry on a meaningful conversation about that subject.
Person: “Oh you like the Simpsons. Hey remember that Simpon’s episode, when…”
Me: “No.”
Person (to self): “This Matt guy isn’t a real Simpson’s fan.”
Maybe I shouldn’t use the word dilemma. This doesn’t really case any emotional strife. But I do think about it from time to time.
Also, sometimes I’m not without the focus to devote to something, rather I’m put off by the fanatics. Take for example biking. I love to ride my bike. But I’m NOT going to deck myself out in a spandex uniform or get pedal cleats and the whole nine yards. Can’t a guy just hop on his bike and casually ride? I sure can, yes, but all bike events (like Bike NY which I did a few times) are ridden with weekend warrior types who turn me off. Speaking of Bike NY, I have a funny story about being in the front of the pack along with the Saturn race team (on my 15 year old hybrid bike, wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and sneakers). I’ll write up another post about that soon.
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I touched on this topic few times before.
Maybe I’m getting crankier with age. I dunno. Or maybe I’m following too many “experts’” blogs and twitters. Because I find myself getting angry at harebrained thoughts and opinions from said experts and thought leaders. In the blogosphere and twitterspere, things seem to either suck or are Godlike, and nothing in between.
My latest pet peeve comes from the backlash Microsoft is getting for their ads that say PCs are more affordable. They are!
The backlash comes from real techies, Apple fanboys, and Microsoft (“big guy”) haters.
Sidenote: I despise haters. Sounds hypocritical, I know…
Guess what? It all comes down to value.
A graphic designer is going to value Macs. Apple fanboys would value a pile of garbage if Apple put it out–which it wouldn’t, I admire Apple’s quality. Techies are going to value any machine that is nanoseconds faster than the other even if the speed isn’t apparent to the naked eye.
There are many more people who value a Mac over a PC. Good for them. As long as you find value, then you’ll pay up until what it’s worth for you.
But you need to shut up and understand why people value PCs.
There is a great remainder of computer users who simply want to boot up, jump on the internet, e-mail, use Word and Excel, save some pictures, and do a lot of other basic things. A PC is of tremendous value to them. Why spend a grand on a mac when you can do what you want on a PC for less than half the cost? Maybe I can take a sip of coffee with the 10 seconds that a PC takes to boot up longer than a Mac.
And about viruses. Knock on wood, I’ve never gotten any. And in the 15+ years I’ve owned and used PCs, I had only one major crash that resulted in some lost data. Hey I learned the importance of backing up–which can also be important in case of theft, fire, flood, etc. Yeah, so there were plenty of not so serious crashes, but they seem to be in line with other devices I’ve owned (gaming systems, cell phones, G1 phone, vcrs, DVRs, DVD players, even cars!). Everything hiccups from time to time. EVERYTHING! Hey didn’t an IPhone update brick phones a while back?
And let me be clear. I’m not loyal to Microsoft (except for Excel which I can’t live without). If something more VALUABLE TO ME comes along, I’ll be on it. Also, I’m a Google junkie (seems like there aren’t a lot of Google junkies who have the same view of Microsoft as I do). So if Google came up with something of equal or greater value, I’ll be on it (Google Docs and Spreadsheets are light years away from Word and Excel).
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Browsers should have a setting to allow multiple profiles.
For example:
I have a Google profile for personal (bookmarks, gmail, calendar, reader, etc) .
But I also have a Google profile for work (adwords, analytics, etc) .
Since I use both throughout the day, I have to use Chrome for personal and general browsing and Firefox or IE for work. Otherwise I’d have to log in and out all day depending on what service I need (work or personal).
I wish Chrome (or the other browsers) would offer a way to maintain different profiles (e.g. work / personal / testing ,etc) where cookie settings and storage, bookmarks, etc. would be unique for each.
So you can use one browser without having to log in and out all day.
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I admit, I fell for a little hating on AIG employees getting bonuses. But something about the anger didn’t smell right. Usually when there is an “outcry” over anything, I usually take a step back. Especially when the outcry is politically charged. I despise politicians when they step their high horse onto their higher soapbox.
Here is a letter from one of the “evil” AIG employees in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&ref=opinion
See. Not responsible for the collapse. See how it went down? I wonder how many of the screamers and yellers will read that and be embarrassed over the lambasting of all AIG employees. Kinda puts things in context when there is a name and face, no?
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