Jason Calacanis is an entrepreneur who started a blog publishing company in the early days of blogging. He started the company with nothing and eventually sold it to AOL and made millions of dollars. One of his blogs, Engadget, is a hugely popular tech blog. He has since started several other businesses himself and he works to help others start companies.
Jason appears on several podcasts that I listen to and I have always found him an interesting speaker. He recently gave a talk to a group of college students about the importance of choosing your own path and “being responsible for your own destiny”. His message is that you should be a Samurai and not a rice picker. Jason reminds me of my Uncle Bill who was also a successful entrepreneur. He always said that you cannot get rich if you work for someone else.
While this video is a little long, I think it is really worth the time. Now I just need to go out and find my Sword.
I have reached a point in my life where less is more. I have little tolerance for unnecessary clutter or excess stuff in any area of my life. I am working to reduce and recycle anything that is not earning its keep or adding significant value to my life. While this is an ongoing and possibly never ending battle, I find the small successes along the way to be very satisfying. This redesigned and simplified blog is another small victory. I wanted to come up with a clean and clutter free site that will inspire me to post here more often. I hope you like it.
After spending a little more time on my new Mac I have started to add other applications that I use less frequently, but still find extremely useful. I will be posting about some of them in the future. I have also taken a little time to explore a few applications that I have been wanting to try. At the top of my must try list is Tweetie.
I started using Twitter about six months ago, but I have not been a heavy user. However, one feature that I use frequently is the option to post Tweets automatically to Facebook. I use this method to streamline posting from my blackberry. Now that I have discovered Tweetie, I will probably become a more active Twitter user. If you are not yet a Twitter user you should give it a try, but I recommend using Tweetie from the start.
Twitter out of the box is simple, but some of the more advanced functions can be a bit confusing. Tweetie takes all of the confusion out of it. While Tweetie is fairly intuitive I found this screen cast that explained everything I needed to know. I would recommend this screen cast especially if you don’t yet use Twitter and want to get up to speed quickly. By the way, this site contains many other useful instructional videos. I have bookmarked it and I expect to be using it frequently.
When you do sign up for Twitter don’t forget to add Birddog10 as a friend.
Tweetie is free for the add supported version, but also has a paid version sans the adds. There is also a version for the iPhone.
I am now the proud owner of a new 13-inch MacBook pro. One of the things I always look forward to when I get a new machine is tricking it out with my favorite applications and tools. It will take me a few weeks to get the machine exactly like I want it. However, there are a few tools that I installed immediately. These are the gems that I use everyday, the stuff that I would not even think about doing without. I thought it might be interesting to share these with you. Maybe you use a few of these tools yourself, or maybe you will want to try them out,
Some of these are Mac applications so if you have not yet seen the light you may not benefit much from this post.
1. Qucksilver
Quicksilver is a free application launcher that lets you quickly search for and launch programs and files just by typing in the first few characters of the name. You launch Quicksilver by hitting cntrl-space. Then, as you type in the name of the program or file you want to launch, it appears. You simply hit enter and the program launches. In most cases you can launch a program with 4 or 5 keystrokes. This is much faster than clicking through the finder hierarchy. Using Quicksilver becomes a habit very quickly. The problem is that I often find myself hitting cntrl-space to no avail on my windows machine at work.
2. Evernote
I just started using Evernote for recording notes, web clippings, to-do lists, and just about anything that I would normally jot down on a piece of paper. Notes are stored in the cloud so that you can get to them from anywhere. Evernote has many different ways of capturing information. For example, you can highlight text on a web page and convert it into a note simply by clicking a button on your browser menu bar. Another cool feature is the ability to send a note to yourself vie email. I use this when I am on my blackberry and don’t have access to a full sized browser. I am still finding amazing ways to use Evernote.
3. Marsedit
I use Marsedit to write all of my blog posts. While it is not free, it’s ease of use and pays off in reduced time and frustration.
4. Gmail
While my primary mail application is Mac Mail, I have started to use gmail and the other google applcations more and more. I love google reader, calendar and google documents.
5. Flickr Uploader
Also free, the uploader allows you to drag and drop pictures for loading to Flickr. It makes it easy to add descriptions and tags to your pictures before they are uploaded. If you upload a lot of pictures it is a must have tool.
There are others tools that I use everyday, but these are the ones I can’t do without. If you have tools that you think are special I would love to hear about them.
I was surprised to find out that there is no Flickr group for Worlds of Fun. I took some pretty interesting pictures last weekend and so I decided to start a Flickr group. Right now I am the only member!
Aaron and I are season pass holders, so I will be taking a lot of pictures there this summer. Here is the first set.
I had a great time at Planet Comicon last weekend. I met a lot of comic book artists and writers, got a some autographs and even had one of the artists draw an original sketch for me. I also picked up some hard to find comics for my collection. This was the first Comicon I have been to, but it will not be my last. What a great time!
I hope you enjoy the movie that I put together from my clips of the show.
About RideOnAhead
One parents thoughts, ideas and experiences while raising two wonderful children, one of which has Asperger's syndrome.
Our family loves to travel. I will use this blog to share our many adventures.
Please feel free to share your thoughts by adding comments to any of my posts.
