This is by far the best demo video for a web app that I have ever seen. It is a for TeuxDeux, “a simple, designy, browser-based to-do app.”
I won’t use the app because it does not fit in with the GTD methodology, but the demo video is something worth imitating. It’s simple and straight to the point, but it uses humor effectively to pull you in.
Thanks @bjennelle for sharing this at the PSL Open Hack Day.
By the way, I use Things for task management and love it.
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I’ve been able to check out a lot of new music this week thanks to Peel. Here are a few of my favorites from the week.
We’ll start off with a chilled out Electro song:
Take My Picture (Digitalfoxglove Surprise Remix) – Heads We Dance
And then we’ve got a little extra bass from down under in this Nu Skool Breaks track:
Pressure Point (Thayer’s Drop The Bass mix) – Nick Thayer
Then we’ll close things out with an epic Nu Disco track:
I Want U (Disco Trash Music’s Bounce Mix – unreleased version) – Azzido Da Bass & Jence
Let me know what you think, and if you’ve found any great tracks recently, make sure to share.
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Let me start by saying that I’m a fat kid at heart. I was chubby until seventh grade when I got really sick and didn’t eat much for a week. After recovering, I had lost quite a bit of weight, and it finally hit me that eating less was the only way to actually lose weight. Since then, I’ve been very conscious of what I eat and generally lead a healthy lifestyle consisting of regular exercise and a controlled, typically healthy diet. But eating healthy still does not come naturally for me.
I’ve been reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (almost done and review forthcoming). One of the major points of the book is to demonstrate how are culture and conditioning are very difficult to break. This got me thinking about my eating habits.
You see, I grew up in a home where I was surrounded by way too much food. I had three younger brothers, so my mother was always scared that we’d run out of food. Unfortunately, we grew up in Lancaster County, and food around here is not exactly of the healthiest variety. We always had all kinds of food available, and dinner was high carb, high calorie and often included dessert. If I wanted it, it was there.
When I moved away from home, it became much easier. I simply didn’t buy and keep food at home that was unhealthy. If I want dessert, if I want soda, if I want coffee, if I want potato chips, I have to go out and buy them and typically spend a premium on it. This has been very effective, but I still struggle to eat healthy sometimes.
I went to the gym tonight for about an hour and a half. Today was cardio and abs. I spent 45 minutes on the stationary bike and 15 minutes in the pool. (I’m planning to do the Philadelphia Triathlon next summer.) While I was on the bike, I checked Twitter and saw @kessler’s tweet, a picture of his Double Double Animal Style from In-N-Out Burger. All of a sudden I wanted a burger. I’d already planned out a healthy dinner at home, but even getting hopping off the bike, doing abs for 20 minutes and hopping in the pool for 15 minutes, I still wanted that burger. I wound up at Five Guys and undid all my work in the gym tonight.
Now, I’m not such a health nut, I’m not so obsessive with my health that I’ll never eat a burger, but I was disappointed tonight because I had already planned a healthy meal, and I’ve been on a bit of an unhealthy kick recently. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that, but I still did.
No matter how hard I try to not be a fat kid, I just can’t seem to stop it. I guess I’ll just have to continue to keep crappy food out of my pantry and just realize that sometimes, I’m just going to give in. If I do figure out how to decondition my habit, I’ll let you know.
(Disclaimer: I don’t blame my mother for any of my habits. Frankly, she was just making sure that we were well fed and able to grow, and two of my brothers are the exact opposite of me when it comes to food. The other one is just like me. The problem is that people in the US are conditioned to think that the traditional American diet is actually healthy. It is not, and more importantly, we don’t understand portion control.)
Email is a big problem for me. I get too many, I send too many. I spend too much time in my inbox. I’m a slave to it. I check it all the time. I read emails, then I ignore them, mark unread and let them pile up in my inbox.
Lets face it, email sucks. We’re overloaded, and most of us don’t know how to change that.
I read a great blog post yesterday from Mark O’Sullivan, the creator of Vanilla, with some pretty basic, but effective tips. It got me thinking about what I can do to actually become more effective at email.
I think one of the key things that I’ve realized is that I really need to spend less time actually thinking about what I’m writing. I can’t tell you how many times I get a stack of business cards from an event and get back and put off writing those people because I’m afraid it will take too long. I think too much about emails to people who may or may not actually care about what I have to say.
Don’t invest too much time in a first email. Keep it short but make sure to check the spelling. This allows you to get these emails out more quickly, but more importantly, it increases your chances of getting a response back. After you’ve determined that that person is interested in a discussion, then you can dig in more deeply.
I’ve decided that when it comes to email, I’m going to think less, write less and procrastinate less.
On last note, don’t be afraid to bother a person again if they don’t email you. A lot of times, things just slip through the cracks for these people. You may bother some people, but at least you don’t have to worry about missed opportunities.
One of my favorite ways to find new music is to follow way too many music blogs. My Google Reader music folder currently has 1000+ posts from a few dozen music blogs that I wish I actually had the time to read. Obviously, I don’t, so I’ve been dreaming for a year about a feed reader made specifically for music blogs. I couldn’t find anything until a few weeks ago when I was complaining about this problem and someone told me it had already been solved. I nearly jumped out of my shoes in excitement and couldn’t wait to get home to try it. Of course, I completely forgot about it by the time I managed to get in front of a computer, but today, I found the note in my bag about it. I immediately checked it out.
The answer to all my problems is Peel, and it is better than what I had dreamed about. Peel is very simple, you add a blog, and it finds all the MP3s in the RSS stream. When a new song is added, it pops up under that blog in Peel. Peel doesn’t force you to download the song before listening. Instead, you stream the song straight from the blog. Peel keeps track of which songs you have already listened to. If you like the song, one click (or a keyboard combo) allows you to download it, add it to your iTunes library and even add it to a playlist for that blog if you’re so inclined.
Unfortunately, for many of you, Peel is Mac only right now. It has a 25 day trial and costs $14.95. I’m already 100% positive that I will purchase it at the end of the trial period. Peel is an amazing example of a beautifully simple app built to accomplish one thing. What used to be a task that would take hours for me to do has been reduced to a simple background task that I can do all day long. Peel is going to make music discovery a much more enjoyable experience for me.
By the way, normally, I wouldn’t endorse software on my blog, but this is just too cool and I know many others would benefit from know about Peel.
Occassionally, on a Tuesday night, you should ignore everything you are supposed to do and listen to deafening music that makes you dance. Thank you Designer Drugs.
Last night, I went to bed at 4 am. What was I doing? Trying to decode LEED as a part of the new features we’re working on rolling out at GreenKonnect. While I believe it was an intelligent decision for USGBC to reference existing standards for a large portion of the credits, it makes it quite confusing for someone trying to get started with LEED. In addition to the reference guides, there are countless independently produced study guides to help you learn the intricacies of the prolific green building standard. LEED is complicated for a reason. Building sustainably and responsibly is not a simple task and requires a greater understanding of every choice a person makes when designing a building.
I’m not complaining about the complexity but about the fact that it is very hard to gain even a basic understanding of LEED. Building consumers (i.e., the people who actually sit inside of them) don’t really know what LEED is beyond the fact that green = less energy + special “green” materials and that the building gets a special plaque . If the average person off the street picked up a LEED reference guide, they would not be able to comprehend half of it.
LEED registration is growing at an extraordinary rate, but I think those numbers could be even higher if the USGBC educated the “consumer” about the benefits of green buildings. If you take a look at the USGBC home page, you will see that it is aimed directly AEC professionals. They are trying to drive people to join USGBC and buy reference guides. The “Highlights” section is primarily composed of operational info that only those who are intimately involved would care about.
If USGBC is trying to build a brand, they should make it easier to figure out what it actually stands for. All of the info on the website is important, but I would venture a guess that these days, more “consumers” than professionals are visiting the website.
As an additional note, it would be great to see a better way of labeling buildings and educating people about the benefits beyond just the energy savings, including such things as low-emmitting materials and increased daylight, which result in better health and productivity, and the importance of regional materials which has a huge impact on the carbon footprint.
I decided that I’m going to keep Sunday posts simple and fun. Today, I wanted to share some music I like listen to when I work out. A few days ago, I wrote about the music I listen to when I’m working to stay productive. The right music is even more important when you’re working out.
I prefer to listen to DJ mixes when exercising because they tend to be more energetic and the BPMs stay pretty consistent. BBC Radio 1 has a weekly show called The Essential Mix where they invite DJs of all styles to play for two hours. Often, it results in some really amazing mixes. And two hours is about how long I’m in the gym for most workouts. Here’s a few of my favorite mixes from over the years.
Essential Mix (04-10-2005) – Mylo
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Essential Mix (02-01-2005) – Radio Soulwax (2mandydjs)
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Starting a company in Philly has been an amazing experience. I’ve been lucky as a Philadelphia entrepreneur to be involved involve with a group called Philly Startup Leaders for almost two years now. You can find the PSL Manifesto here. (HINT: You should read it.) And if you didn’t read, here’s the first and most important line:
“Because startup entrepreneurs need each other.”
I can’t tell you how helpful this community has been. If it weren’t for this group of amazing people, I don’t know if we would still be going over at GreenKonnect. Everyone in the group understands what we’re going through.
As an entrepreneur, you greatly increase your chance of success by involving yourself in an active and supportive community. There are three main benefits:
But there’s one more thing that PSL has done for me, and it may be the most important thing to come out of my involvement. That’s the friends I have made and the discussions I’ve had with them. The best discussions are those I have with people who aren’t afraid of to step on my toes. As an entrepreneur, you need to be able to take criticism. You need to seek it out from your peers, potential investors and your users. These conversations have significantly changed the way we operate and talk about our business.
As I’m writing this, I’m realizing I don’t have enough of these conversations, so next time you see me, ask me about my business, then let me know what you think we could be doing better.
So, if you’re in Philly and starting a company, join PSL yesterday. If you’re not in Philly find a community or start one. Most importantly, find those people who aren’t afraid to smack you when you’re headed in the wrong direction.
I’d love to hear in the comments about your experiences with PSL and other similar communities.
I was originally going to write a post titled “Entrepreneurs Need Friends that Will Smack Them” today, but I’m tired, and I’m going to write that tomorrow. Instead, I’m going to dump some thoughts I’ve been having about the lack of transparency in the building industry. One of my goals with this blog is to develop and refine rough thoughts and ideas that have to do with my professional life. This is the first post to that end, and you’ll likely see these thoughts pop up on the GreenKonnect blog in the not too distant future.
On to the point, the industrialization of the world has done some amazing things. To me, one of the most amazing things is the advances in materials. (Disclaimer: My background is in Materials Science & Engineering, so I’m a little biased.) The ability to actually synthesize and manufacture new materials has allowed us to transform the world virtually overnight. (The invention of plastics was especially important in this transformation.)
Part of me loves the advances that we have made. Part of me is bothered that we’ve been irresponsible about the way we’ve used resources that cannot be replenished any time soon. The part of me that I want to address now is the my concern that these advances have also created significant health problems.
Today, if you say asbestos, people freak out. No one will step foot in a building that has it and for good reason. What many people fail to realize is that there are many other materials which are dangerous to our health. The list of hazardous materials is continuously growing.
PVC, which is widely used and previously believed to be safe, is definitely not safe. New carpet can aggravate allergies. Old carpets can harbor allergens. Many paints release unhealthy levels of VOCs. It is estimated that as many as 30% of the buildings we live and work in are “sick”. (The study is from 1982, but there is no reason to think it is better today.) Sick buildings are due to two things: bad materials and poor maintenance.
We spend the majority of our time indoors, yet, we know hardly anything about what we’re being exposed to in these buildings. You wouldn’t move to a new city without researching crime statistics. You wouldn’t take a prescription drug without knowing the potential side effects. (At least I hope you wouldn’t do any of these things.) We like to know what we’re getting into. Why shouldn’t we know what we’re stepping inside of?
LEED is a fantastic label, but it does not adequately addresses this issue. If you expect me to step into a building, I ought to be able to find out how it was built, how it is maintained and what it was built with. Building labels have been talked about for the past decade, but those will not be useful until building owners and operators are willing to share this info. Even if they were willing to share it, most of them would not be able to find it. This needs to change. This info should be available for every building we live and work in.
Today, the only thing transparent about buildings are the windows.