Playing in Traffic: Speed Demons

Anyone who has driven a vehicle has encountered a driver who has a touch of road rage or is just highly impatient. These are the people who change lanes repeatedly and for no apparent reason. They try to blow through every yellow light they can. They follow dangerously close, hoping you’ll move out of their way. They seem to have no earthly idea that there are actual legal speed limits posted along the side of the road.

You, on the other hand, cruise along patiently (unless you are the speed demon). You may exceed the speed limit, but only by a bit and you don’t swerve in and out of traffic like a maniac. You know your destination isn’t going anywhere. So, in all that dodging, speeding, switching, changing, and endangering that these speed demons are doing, what always happens? When you pull up to the next red light, or the one after that, guess who is sitting right next to you?

You don’t have to always be doing something to get what you want out of life. You don’t have to always be rushing around like a chicken with your head cut off tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, developing, marketing, vlogging, parenting, downloading, uploading, meeting, greeting, and checking in so that you can reach your goals. Notice, I’m not saying you never have to do things, but most of us are just doing too much to actually be productive.

Your creative mind, that magic piece of genius where the good ideas come from, cannot operate if you are never idle. John Cleese, Brian Eno, and others agree that being idle is essential. Most people might be paying the bills and probably feel like they are getting the job done, but they are merely running in place. While you are actively doing things, your genius is on hold.

So, go sit your ass down somewhere and chill out. Let your mind be at ease. While you relax, that spark of genius grows, new ideas form, the things you really want move closer to you. Stop speeding, kick back, and enjoy the scenery.

I leave you with a quote from The Matrix:

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?

Morpheus: No, Neo. I’m trying to tell you that when you’re ready, you won’t have to.

Tech Week in Review 06-17-2011

Restart to Safari

MacRumors reports an interesting feature in Mac OS X Lion called Restart to Safari. This feature is reminiscent of Google’s Chromebook, which cuts away your operating system and puts all the focus on accessing the Internet via a web browser. In Apple’s case, though, the motivations are different. They are probably not planning to dump Mac OS X in favor of providing a lightweight, browser-only interface.

This feature seems to be part of the “Find My Mac” feature set which allows users to get access to the internet. Though the premise appears to be to give your Mac a chance to phone home, the feature seems very useful for day to day use.

Updates to Google Sync for iOS

GoogleSynciOS

Google Sync is the technology that keeps your phone’s native mail and calendar apps in sync with your Gmail, Calendar and Contacts. Google has released 3 updates for Google Sync that should make some iPhone and iPad users more productive:

  • Now, you will be able to search all your emails in Gmail, not just the ones stored locally in your iOS Mail app.
  • Accept, decline or edit calendar events from the iOS calendar app.
  • Send email from the address you want. Many of us manage multiple addresses and Gmail’s “Send Mail as” feature was not available on your iOS device. Now, you can keep things more consistent as the iOS mail app will respect those settings.

Lady Gaga and 50 Cent All About Bre.ad

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Bre.ad is a custom link shortener funded by Lady Gaga’s manager Troy Carter. There are many…many link shorteners already out there, but Bre.ad seems focused on big brands and those looking to promote themselves. Promoting online requires strategy. There is a delicate balance between promoting your own stuff and helping others to shine. Bre.ad sort of allows you to do both at the same time. Clicking a Bre.ad link takes you to a splash page where you spend five seconds reading a custom message and viewing a branded image before being forwarded to the actual destination. Sounds annoying as all get-out, but Lady Gaga, 50 Cent, and Pepsi have all already signed on. With most users not willing to wait any more than a few seconds for a site to load, it will be interesting to see how Bre.ad does.

via BetaBeat

Facebook Moves in Against Apple and Photo Sharing

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Two major leaks from Facebook this week. The first is a photo sharing app which has the potential to completely change the game. Photo sharing is a hot area right now with apps like Instagram and PicPlz exploding. Facebook, still quite popular for sharing photos with friends, apparently has no plans to be left behind. Their leaked photo sharing app seems to do way more than just share photos, building on features from Color, Path, and even Path’s new side project, With. Check out TC for a healthy helping of screenshots from the mobile app.

SPARTA[1]

Facebook has made a commitment to support HTML5, which powered their recent upgrade of the mobile Facebook site and is likely behind the upcoming photo sharing app. Development using HTML5 also happens to be one of the ways to get around Apple’s lockdown. One could distribute apps across most mobile platforms using HTML5 web apps. Facebook’s Project Spartan is allegedly going to do just that, and more. Instead of simply using HTML5 support in the Safari mobile browser to bypass Apple’s App Store, they are rumored to be planning a full on attack by distributing mobile apps and games through the mobile browser. I have long been a supporter of HTML5 as a mobile development platform as it gives the developer full control, but I never thought Facebook would leverage it in this way.


Gingerbread a Double-Edged Sword for HTC Evo. No More Netflix.

Excited about Gingerbread?! Loving the fact that you can stream Netflix?! Well, too bad you can’t have both on your Evo. The latest update to the Evo, which includes Gingerbread, apparently renders the device incompatible with the Netflix service. Netflix has even removed the device from its supported list. But you can get netflix in other countries just click here to see how to get american netflix.

Having this service available on Android is great, but it has also been a great disappointment for Android users. The fact that it is only compatible with a few devices is definitely a big issue in and of itself, but it seems like OS updates might be bringing issues as well. One does wonder if this problem will rise up every time a device receives an update. What do you guys think? EVO users, are you upset about this?

Am I upset? Nope. I’ve been running Gingerbread for quite a while using CyanogenMod 7. Rooting was painless and CyanogenMod with Gingerbread is a beautiful thing. Reminds me why I love using Android: Control. Not being controlled by a wireless carrier or a hardware manufacturer, but the ability to control my device and do whatever-the-hell I want with it.

via Android and Me

Tech Week in Review 6-3-2011

Samsung and Apple Trade Prototypes

Apple filed suit against Samsung a while back, saying that Samsung is basically biting Apple’s style with their line of Android phones and tablets. As part of this suit, Apple demanded to see pre-production samples of the upcoming Droid Charge, Infuse 4G, Galaxy S II, and Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 so that they could evaluate any similarities. What does Samsung do in response? They demand access to the upcoming and unannounced iPhone 5 and iPad 3. A pretty ballsy move by Samsung, with the goal being to get Apple to move on and resolve this lawsuit. Are Samsung devices similar to iPhones? I’d say so, but so are all the other touchscreen smartphones out there. Apple was the innovator, but I doubt they can really stop other companies from leveraging that innovation. Check out the full rundown at This Is My Next.

Tupac and Biggie Alive and Living It Up in New Zealand?!

No, not really. Just a prank pulled by a group called LulzSec. They hacked into the PBS.org website and, among other defacements, posted this fake story about Tupac and Biggie staying in some unnamed town in New Zealand. Besides defacing the site, they also compromised network, server, and database details, and user login data for some PBS staff and contractors. In a statement, LulzSec sort of explains why they attacked PBS:

Greetings, Internets. We just finished watching WikiSecrets and were less than impressed. We decided to sail our Lulz Boat over to the PBS servers for further… perusing. As you should know by now, not even that fancy-ass fortress from the third shitty Pirates of the Caribbean movie (first one was better!) can withhold our barrage of chaos and lulz. Anyway, unnecessary sequels aside… wait, actually: second and third Matrix movies sucked too! Anyway, say hello to the insides of the PBS servers, folks. They best watch where they’re sailing next time.

via BoingBoing

Twitter Launches Photos and Follow Button

Twitter had two interesting announcements this week. The first being a revamped search interface with tighter integration for photos and videos. This comes in part via a partnership with Photobucket, one of the first photo sharing sites in the game. See relevant photos and videos right alongside your searches at Twitter.com. We will also soon see the rollout of a feature that lets you add photos directly to your tweets. Yes, you could do this before with 3rd party services, but it’s a feature of the official Twitter.com interface now.

Next up is Twitter’s new Follow button. This makes it a snap to follow people and brands on Twitter instantly from their sites. It’s almost exactly the same as the Facebook Like button, except you’re actually subscribing to someone on Twitter. In addition to integration across sites like About.me and MTV.com, you can integrate the follow button into your own site.

Klout Introduces +K for Topical Influence

Speaking of buttons, the popular social media influence monitoring site Klout has announced a feature they call +K. This allows you to vouch for your peers on specific topics.

  • Give +K on topics: If a user has recently influenced you in a topic, give them +K in that topic
  • More topics: our topics model is even more accurate, and now surfaces up to 10 topics per user
  • Hide topics: You can now opt to hide your topics from public display
Introducing such human input to the Klout algorithm should immediately raise red flags, but there are some limitations that should keep the potential abuse to a minimum. You get 5 +K’s to give out each day and you can only do so by visiting the Klout website. Unlike Google’s +1′s, Facebook’s Likes, and Twitter’s Follow, you can’t just drop a +K button on your site. People who want to give you props have to visit the Klout site to do it.
via Klout