Have a look at the GeekDad blog entry, excellent pic by Hoffer Photography .
How awesome!
Something I’ve learned this week, is how to utilise Evernote (what is Evernote ?)as a ToDo list management tool.
It’s quite simple … 
In you note, just hit Ctrl+Shift+C, and voila, a checkbox appears…. which is clickable to change the state of the checkbox.
Where it gets exciting is where you call up all the notes where a checkbox is in (obviously you can build quite complicating queries), and here is a simple example:
Search Queries:
- todo:false
- Returns a list of checkboxes where the checkbox is not ticked
- todo:true
- Returns a list of checkboxes where the checkbox is ticked
- todo:*
- Return all checkboxes of both states
Now you can really get nifty and use Saved Searches to get ToDo lists globally or juse for certain notebooks or sections. A definite win.
I’ve only really been using Google Maps for the last 2 month, although I’ve blogged about Latitude about 2 years ago.
Since 2009 the Google Maps application for windows mobile has improved immensely, especially the layers of build on top of it.
Some layers that are available :
- Buzz
- Buzz from your current location, and add images
- Traffic
- Unfortunately no real data available in South Africa yet for htis
- Satellite
- Wikipedia
- Points of interest, and information about points in the immediate area.
- Latitude
- Share your location
- Driving directions
- The driving directions layer is one of my favorites, as you can now select a start and destination and Google Maps will very neatly show you the route, and what makes this even more amazing, is that you can change points on the route and drag the route around, and the route will adjust to you changes.
- My Maps
- Share you maps with other people or pull in your MyMap as a layer.
Another quite nice feature, is that you can log into Google Latitude online and view a history of where you’ve been, if you gave Google permission to do this, not the way Apple did without one’s permission.
Each day I spent around 1-2 hours on the road, a royal waste of time. Usually I would use this time to catch up on some people I have to phone or things that I needed to sort out during the day, quickly phoning the relevant people.
About 5 weeks ago, I discovered the magic of Audiobooks whilst driving to work with an old friend as my car was in for a service, and she was busy with an audio book in the car. So, that same evening I went onto Amazon, and ordered myself my own audio book.
So after I got my new book, I started “reading” it in the car. Being that my first book was Warren Buffetts’The Snowball
Right after experiencing “the Buffett”, I decided to read a light technical book, and found Linus Torvalds’ Just for Fun
audio book, which was a nice “read” and very light and humaristic and not so intense, a nice breather before my next book … which I’m still deciding on what to get.
While I’m still searching for the next book, I’m now using the time in the car, to listen to some podcasts I’m always downloading but never listening to.
The fact that I was now able to fill 2 hours of my day “reading” the books I’ve always wanted to read but never got the time for, was just another productivity booster for myself. I love reading biography and entrepreneurial mindset books, and this first book from Buffett just make one wanna go out and start doing something.
Umbono is the isiZulu word for “vision” or “idea.”
Umbono is an innovation hub to help South African teams with brilliant ideas get the ideas to prototype level, and in the process provide the resources that is needed to achieve this.
Resources available to you and your team provided by Google and the “Angel” investors :
- Funding
- $25k – $50k seed capital
- Space
- Free collaborative work space in Cape Town
- Business 101
- for those business and strategy plans
- Mentor Base – have a look of some of the mentors accessible here
- Visibility
- Networking and pitch events
This is a a Google and some “Angel” investor initiative, and is a pilot program running for the first time in South Africa.
Unfortunately it is required to be able to work in Cape Town, as this hub is centred here, and it would just be beneficial if all team members are resident in the area, especially with the networking opportunities provided by the program.
Was quite amazed this morning when opening up Kalahari.net, that the HD PVRs are getting cheaper, and obviously more accessible for the normal man on the street.
At this point in time you can now buy a DSTV HD PVR for R1400.
So, you live your life everyday, talking to various people, interacting and exchanging ideas, opinions or just generally just “communicating“.
Have you ever thought how to communicate with deaf people. Usually the standard behaviour is to walk away before they come your way, or that is my reaction, as one never know how to react or communicate with the deaf soceity in South Africa. In my personal experience I never know how to react or “talk” back.
SimonB posted on his blog about eSign, a mobile phone application which educates you on sign language either relative to South Africa,Canada or the US. I reckon this little tool can start helping us out to communicate with that croud that we have never had access to.
Back in 2009, Plaxo decided to stop their FREE offering, whereby you could sync your address book between your mail client and the Plaxo platform.
Since then they started hogging their online platform with all kinds of 3rd party applications similar to Facebook Apps, and they started leveraging and doing a lot of social stream on their platform.
Recently, Plaxo announced that they will be relaunching their platform, and will be refocusing themselves back to their core business, which is managing user address books and take them back to where they came from.
I see this as a great move, for them to focus on their niche, instead of trying to build a whole social website.
I think though they still can leverage from other social networks, with regards to getting latest contact information etc from the other sosical streams but they must not overdo social interaction within the Plaxo site, again – just keep to their focus niche.
I’m backing Plaxo on this one, maybe I’ll consider buying their paid-for products …
Early in 2009, I posted about a 5MP Digital Camear from Mantality that was just under R2000.
Today, when I checked, this camera is now an astonishing R1199, which according to me is a dead giveaway.
I has been a while since I’ve browsed through the items at Mantality, but I was amazed at some of there new products, especially the new grooming products they are supplying now, which includes American CREW products.
Mantality, still one of the most stylish online shops for men in South Africa.
Yip, it’s that time of the year again, on Monday next week, on 21 March 2011, it is time again for the much anticipated next season of Drag Racing, the REAL thing.
Be sure not to miss it for some great action at Tarlton International Raceway .