To Do Lists
This probably has to be the #1 thing you should do when you are trying to manage your time effectively. Setting up daily to do lists really helps you get things done. It is hard to stay motivated when you don’t know what all you need to get done and when you have a list setup you feel like you are getting things done when you start making things off the list. I usually setup my daily to do list either the night before or when I wake up.

Timed Lunches
I work from home and for the most part I usually make my own lunch rather than going out. Sometimes when I have lunch I tend to sit around and watch TV after eating. This is not a good thing because I can’t be sitting around watching TV all day. I try to make my lunches right around 30 minutes. That gives me time to eat and a little time to relax. I try and pick shows to watch in the afternoon that are 30 minutes long so I know when the show is over I can go back to work, Entourage is a great show for that.

Somewhat of a Schedule
While everyday can be different for me I do have some structure to my days. Having a simple schedule really helps me get things done and in good time too. I know each day I will have to post news on ThinkComputers, most likely write a review, etc.

Turn things off
Everyone knows that there are some things that can just eat your day up. For most people it is Facebook or YouTube. They can just sit there all day on those sites. When I’m working I usually never have Facebook up and for the most part I have an away message on my instant messenger. I don’t need to be sitting there all day talking to people or creeping around on Facebook. It’s just a easier to get work done without distractions.

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Vietnam’s Pho is located on Penn Ave. in the Strip district and by 8PM we were able to find a parking spot right in front of the place. Inside we were greeted by a very helpful staff and to my surprise it was very nice inside. The staff was nice enough to pull tables together to fit our entire group. I ordered the #11 which is the Pho Tai-Sach, which has beef and tripe in it. I’ve really come to enjoy tripe in my Pho. In no time at all our food was done and we were served. Just like most Vietnamese places the portions were quite large and the food was great. It definitely contends with Pho Minh, but I haven’t been there in quite some time so I really cannot compare the 2 yet. I would recommend that anyone looking for good Pho in Pittsburgh try Vietnam’s out. I need to go back and try some of their other dishes! Here after some photos of the food and our group.

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1. My 2009 Year in Review

The show is those 2 sitting down and talking about pretty much anything, hence the name The Random Show. There really is no schedule of when new episodes will come out but there are 8 right now. I have embedded the first 3 episodes below, but you can check out most of them here and here is the link to episode 8. Enjoy!

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Bob Buskirk, who attended the electronics show and owns a Web site, ThinkComputers, that reviews hardware and software products, said he had “never been kicked out of a hotel room or even heard of companies being kicked out.” But this January, he said, two of his meetings were disrupted when the vendors were ejected by hotel security. “From what I’ve heard anecdotally, the amount of unlicensed vendors was certainlly the most it’s been in recent memory,” said Mr. Reese of the Sands.

Mr. Buskirk, who has been attending the show for five years, said that the show’s exhibits seemed to take up much less space this year. A spokeswoman for the association confirmed that the show’s size dropped to 1.4 million square feet of exhibit space.

The article is online here and appeared in print in the February 16th New York Edition of the Times. What is interesting is that most of the things I write are for a reason, a company sends me a product I have to write the review etc. I just felt that this was something that needed to be talked about and interestingly enough it got a lot of attention.

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1. My 2009 Year in Review
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3. The 2010 PC Race For Charity
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Sports
Pittsburgh is definitely a sports city! The Penguins and Steelers are both great teams and have won championships in the past few years. The Steelers rarely have a bad team and the Penguins have built their team up over the past few years to really be one of the best teams in the league, they have been to the Stanley Cup finals 2 years in a row now!

Small City
While Pittsburgh is a major city, it is a very small city as far as actual size goes. The downtown area is very small and you can drive through it in just minutes. Most people do no live in the city, they just work there. They drive in from the suburbs, which gets to the reason why I enjoy the small city. It is very easy to get around anywhere in the city! I rarely drive more than 20 minutes to get anywhere in the city!

The Rivers
Many people call Pittsburgh the city of bridges, that’s because we have 3 rivers that go right through the city and form the ever famous Point, where Point State Park is located. The rivers are not only interesting, but also provide for some great activities in the summer. There is the Regatta, which I went to for the first time this past summer. Also there are tons of watersports that can be done on the rivers as well. If you have a boat the rivers are a great place to relax and party, especially in the summer!

Inexpensive to live here
One thing that I’m sure many people enjoy about the Pittsburgh area is how inexpensive it is to live here! The cost of living is extremely low, especially if you live in the suburbs around the city. This is another reason why many people come to Pittsburgh to work and live.

Blue Collar Town
Pittsburgh really is a working-class city. Many people here work for large corporations like UPMC and Highmark. These people work 40 hours a week if not more and are ok with that. Remember Pittsburgh was a Steel town and I think that’s where most people get their work attitude from. People who live in Pittsburgh have a great attitude towards work and I think that’s one thing that makes Pittsburgh special.

It’s a developing city
If you’ve lived in Pittsburgh over the past 10 or so years you have really seen the city change a lot. Years ago not a single person lived in the city, but now they are turning old office buildings into lofts and developing many new residential areas in the city itself. Also we have seen many changes recently with the new casino being put in and all of the new development on the North Shore. I really like what Pittsburgh has done over the past 10 years and it will be interesting to see where it all goes from here!

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It was pretty late at night and Colin, Jack, Ramzi and I were originally going to go to the Pho place at Treasure Island, but it was closed. So we walked across the street to the Palazzo and ended up at Sushi Samba. Sushi Samba isn’t just a Japanese sushi place its a mix of Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian cuisine. The inside of Sushi Samba is very chill and relaxing. I started things off with a Mojito, which is becoming one of my favorite drinks.

The menu was quite big, they seemd to have a lot of things that I might have wanted to try, but I was here for Sushi! They had most of the normal Sushi you would find most places but they had many unique rolls that were a mix of Japanese, Brazilian, and Peruvian all in one. I first ordered the BoBo Brazil which is comprised of seared american kobe beef, avocado, kaiware, shiso, red onion and chimichurri. Then I was about to order a shrimp tempura roll, when our waitress told me they had this special which was a shrimp tempura roll topped with seared Japanese Kobe beef and avocado spread. So I decided on that instead.

When the Sushi was brought out I tried the BoBo Brazil rolls first and they were just great! One of the better rolls I’ve had in a long time, it had quite a lot of different flavors to it. After trying to BoBo Brazil roll I tried one of the special rolls. When I put it in my mouth it just like melted! The Japanese Kobe beef was so tender and had a taste that I never experieced before, it was amazing! There have only been a few times in my life when I ate something and was like, “Wow this food is just AMAZING!” this was one of those times. There is definitely a difference between Japanese and American kobe beef too! This was the best Sushi I’ve ever had in my life and would fly to Vegas just for it! Thats how good it was! If you are in Vegas you definitely have to check out Sushi Samba!

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3. The 2010 Night Before CES Party
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The ads this years were really not that impressive at all, some of them made we wonder why the companies even paid the money for the spot. What was really surprising was all of the Budweiser and Bud Light ads. They had a total of 8 ads! One that’s sure a lot of money to drop on ad spots and two all those ads are not going to make me choose Bud Light over Miller Lite! Out of all the ads the one that stuck out the most was the Google Search On Ad. This ad marks Google’s first major push into TV advertising. It just showed how powerful Google is and what you can do with it.

The Motorola phone ad was funny, it’s like if you create a crappy phone just put a hot actress in the commercial then people will buy it!

This year’s ads were not that impressive at all!

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On Sunday we decided to finally get the cars out. That was an adventure since no one at either of the 2 houses here had a shovel. So we were using buckets, trash cans, and even hockey sticks to get all of the cars out. It was actually a lot of fun and gave me a workout! All of our neighbors helped and we got everyone out safely. Here are some pictures I took during the 2 days…

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Popular Posts
So what was everyone checking out this month? Let’s take a look…

1. My 2009 Year In Review
2. The CES 2010 Swag
3. Tracking Events on Twitter
4. In Vegas for a Week
5. The 2010 Night Before CES Party

Awesome that the PodCamp articles are getting some traffic!

Traffic Sources

1. John Chow
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. Jon Waraas
5. Mahalo

Nice to see some new traffic sources up there!

Top Commentators

The Top commentators for January were Caterers Sydney, Voyage Montreal, Bathroom Wall Floor Tiles, Colin Dean & Michael Kwan.

Stats

RSS Readers 959 (+96)
Twitter Followers 6042 (-59)
Facebook Friends 1471 (+94)

I’m sort of disappointed that my twitter numbers went down.

On to February
As I said I still have a few CES and Vegas posts to publish and I want to blog about a ton of other things so let’s see if I can get February’s post number in the double digits!

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1. My 2009 Year in Review
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