Another year and another birthday, today I turn 27. 27 is much different from 26, at 26 I was just a year older than 25, at 27 I am getting closer to 30! As I get older I have been realizing a lot, but at the same time I have seen myself make the same mistakes over and over again. You have to remember though that each mistake is a lesson learned.
Anyways this past year has been a little tough, but the fun times have definitely outweighed the bad times. One thing I haven’t been doing as much is blogging. I have been saying I really want to blog more, but it just has not happened. As I have always said as you get older you realize who your real friends are and over the past year I have learned that lesson again. But at the same time I have met some really amazing people over the past year and I can call them my good friends.
One thing, which I had planned on doing for the past 2 years was branch out and start a new company. I’m not going to say the same or tell you about it (that’s for another post), but it is going well and it is really exciting to be working on something new. ThinkComputers is doing well and over the past month we have really done some great things to improve the site and ThinkComputers Community. Sometimes it is still hard to believe that something I started in highschool is my career. What is ever crazier is that I still love doing it and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
So what does this next year of my life mean to me? I think it is really time to put my foot down and take things to the next level. With everything that I am doing it seems like things are at a stand-still at times so I really need to put in the extra effort and take things to the next level. Here is to another year with great friends and running my own business’s!
A few weeks ago Pittsburgh hosted the I Am Still Music Tour featuring Lloyd, Keri Hilson, Far East Movement, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne. Recently I have been working with a local rapper named Frzy and he was picked to play at the VIP tent so of course he asked me to come along. I had no idea Live Nation was going to hook us up with a VIP box to watch the concert! The seats were perfect and I was really excited because I am a fan of most of the performers, especially Rick Ross. I really like Far East Movement’s “Rocketeer” song. They performed it as their last song with Lloyd.
My favorite performer of the entire concert was Rick Ross, I’ve been listening to him for the past 4 years and it was great to see him live. Here are 2 of his songs…
Lil Wayne went on last as he was the headliner of the show. His set was the longest and the stage effects and setup was really cool. At one point in the show they lowered a bridge down so he could come up in to the crowd. He was literally 5 feet from us!
The concert was awesome and a great was to relieve some of the stress of getting ready to move. More on that in a future blog post…
So for the longest time I had been looking for a to-do list app for my iPhone. Not only just an iPhone app, but something that I could use on my desktop or pretty much anywhere. So many of the apps that I found were not simple to do list’s and have so many unnecessary features that makes things confusing and do not get the job done. A couple of months ago my friend Pat told me about TeuxDeux.
TeuxDeux is a simple to-do list. It is web-based so all you have to do is create an account and you are good to go. TuexDeux is so simple you just create a list for each day of the week. When you complete a task just click on it and it will be crossed out. That is it, it is that simple.
It is awesome that something so simple works so great. To give you an idea of how TeuxDeux works check out the video below.
The fact that I can use TeuxDeux anywhere is probably why I like it. I can use it on my iPhone, Laptop, tablet, or any public computer really. This is made possible because it is web-based. TeuxDeux does offer an iPhone app for $2.99, but if you do not want to shell out the cash you can always just use TeuxDeux on the browser on your phone. Give TeuxDeux a try and let me know what you think!
I started using the Cloud a few years ago and now it seems I do everything on the cloud, like right now I am using the cloud to write this blog post using Google Docs. Using the cloud is such a convenience because it makes it so I do not have to have a ton of different programs installed on my system, but also in the case that I do not have my laptop with me I can use any public PC to access my data. So how exactly am I using the cloud?
E-mail – Gmail: I’ve been using Gmail for years, but up until recently all of ThinkComputers e-mail was run through Outlook using POP3. This was simple enough, but I could not access my e-mail from anywhere and when I went on trips I would have to transfer my e-mail from my desktop to my laptop, which was a pain. Setting up Gmail to work with the ThinkComputers e-mail was very simple and now I have everything in one place, easy to use and even search-able.
Office – Google Docs: Installing Microsoft office on every system I have is just annoying and purchasing Office is just expensive, especially if you are only going to be using Word. The Google Docs suite is comprised of a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, form and drawing. I use the word processor the most, even if someone e-mails me a .docx file I am able to upload it to Google Docs so I can view it.
Files – Dropbox: Dropbox is a simple service that allows you to have a unified folder across multiple systems. So if I put something in the folder on my main PC it will show up on my laptop, tablet and even iPhone. I used to carry a flash drive around with me that had important files on it, but now I just use Dropbox so on any PC I can have all of those important files. Dropbox also allows you to view and download files via a web interface so if you are on a public computer you can still access your files.
Photo Storage – Flickr: I have been using Flickr for quite some time now. It is probably the only Yahoo service that I still use. Flickr is a photo sharing / storage service that is very easy to use. I try to upload all of my photos to Flickr because who knows when a hard drive will die (I’ve had 2 die this year already). I love to go and look back through all of the photos I have stored on Flickr since 2007!
Music – Google Music & Pandora: If you are anything like me you have a lot of music. Having all of this music makes it difficult to take with you, especially on multiple devices. Recently Google launched the Google Music beta that allows you to upload all of your music to the cloud and play it back in any web browser or Android device. This means you don’t have to transfer your collection to your laptop or device every time you get new music. Pandora is great, it is a streaming music service, but it does not use your music collection. You input an artist or song and it creates a station around that. It is a great way to discover new music.
Photo Editing – Photoshop Express: I do not do a lot of photo editing while on the go, but if I need to use Photoshop, it is not only a resource killer, but a battery killer as well. Using the online version ala Photoshop Express easily allows me to do quick resizing and edits to photos if needed. Not to mention the service is free!
So how are you using the cloud? Let me know in the comments!
A couple of weeks ago I started to plan out how I would hack my sleep. Making it possible to fall asleep faster and easier and being able to wake up refreshed. As I said in my earlier post I’ve always had trouble sleeping, especially falling asleep. After doing some research I found some methods that would help me and I have been testing them over the past couple of weeks. Let’s start with that I am doing…
Take a Cold shower 1 hour before bed – This has proved to be the most effective way to help me actually relax and fall asleep. Taking a cold shower is not the most pleasant thing, but it is worth it. If I take a cold shower about an hour before I go to bed I fall right asleep!
Avoid late night planning – I don’t plan anything out for the next day after 5PM. I get all of my planning for the next day done during the afternoon so I’m not up thinking about what I have to do the next day.
The other things on the list I haven’t been doing on a constant enough basis to really see if they are effective. So I am able to fall asleep very easily, which is a relief since I was laying in bed for hours trying to fall asleep before. I’ve still had a problem actually getting up. Some days I will let my alarm go off for hours before I actually get up and normally I don’t feel that great when I get up. So now it is time to work on that aspect of hacking my sleep. Here is what I plan on doing to make sure I wake up feeling refreshed.
Wake up after a Sleep Cycle – Sleep cycle’s are normally 90 minutes long. The best time to wake up is right after a sleep cycle is over. I am going to shoot for 4 sleep cycles, so 6 hours of sleep. I’ve actually been testing this for about a week and I am waking up about 5 minutes before my alarm goes off!
Put the alarm clock out of reach – My big problem when I wake up is that I hit the snooze button immediately as my alarm goes off. If I put my alarm clock out of reach I will actually have to physically get up to turn it off.
Hydrate – After a long night without fluids your body needs to re-hydrate. A glass of water will kick start your metabolism and as such you will wake up faster and feel more alert.
Take a shower – Taking a shower as soon as you wake up should help you feel awake. Also alternating between hot and cold water will really get your body going.
Eat Breakfast – This seems like a no-brainer, but lately I have not been eating breakfast at all. This is not a good thing as by lunch time I feel exhausted!
So I will be testing these methods and continue to tweak hacking my sleep until I find the perfect method!
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