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Hi, I am Martin.

This is my blog on mainly technology, entrepreneurship and design. Links about just about anything comes through now and then though. I also run a site on photography called Digital Photo Guide! If you are into photography, why not check that out?

Go to digitalphotoguide.net

10 ways to stay concentrated at the office


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Working at a office today there is so many things around us which will compete on stealing your concentration. The information overload is upon us and at the same time we use the computer as a tool just as much in our work as in our private life. Social networks, multiple mailaccounts, calls and news-flow – they all need you attention at all times which will be a struggle to hold back while at work. Here is a few tips on how you can try to maximize your concentration while at work.

  1. Shut down automatic mail-fetching – The flag in your system tray may be small but every time it lit up you lose a bit of concentration. Not only this but quite often you may find yourself starting to work at the issue you just recieved instead of working on what you did from the start. Task-switching is dangerous.
  2. Use an alternative browser without private bookmarks – If you have one browser at your work-computer I bet you have bookmarks there for your personal sites, news-sites and networks. By installing an alternative browser in which you keep only work-related links you wont get distracted by that link to amazon.
  3. Read up on material – Do not start working on a task until you understand the problem you’re facing.
  4. Regular breaks, routine is your friend – If you usually have your morning-coffe at 9, plan it so that your body knows that you’ll get it at 9. By doing this you wont get an urge until the time is right anymore.
  5. Scheduele planning time for each day – Start each day by going through what you should achieve before your day is ended.
  6. One task at a time – Multitasking and task-switching is time-consuming. Work at one task at a time, creating sub-tasks to narrow down what it actually is you are to do.
  7. Keep a calm workplace – If you are working on one project, don’t let the papers for your ten other projcts linger on your desk. By just having them in your field of view you might have a big portion of your mind in the other things you did earlier.
  8. Reward yourself by not working on breaks – If you are on a break, take a break! Do not read mails, make work-calls and such, just take the time to restore some energy.
  9. Minimize surrounding sounds – If you work in an open area or in a cubicle, get a pair of headphones which stops sounds as well as play good sound. Wear these even if you are not listening to music, if so only to get a more silent work sphere.
  10. Socialize – Comunicate with people in your workplace or if you’re working from home, comunicate with your customers. Speaking will get your body going on that something is worth taking notice of and you will work better afterwards.

Majestic cloudformations over Moscow


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Mother nature has an ability to produce some quite impressive things, most often in places and times when you did not see it coming. I found this movie over at Telegraph of really amazing cloud-formation which indeed look like the start of an alien-invasion. As I first saw it I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that this must have been the look over the skies of Johannesburg when the ship arrived in District 9.

Here is the video from youtube

The full story over at Telegraph. Another story of the same clouds was also run at Boing Boing.

Is my post-it unbeatable?


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I am a great fan of the GTD-method of working and pushing my days forward. Up until just some year ago I was one of those people who say that they will fix things and do stuff just a bit later then now. And just as everyone else saying the famous phrase ‘Sure, I’ll look into that a bit later’ I always forgot what I was supposed to do and it all ended up with me doing all but what I had to do. This was before as I said, until the day I found my soulmate – The Post-it.

There is something almost religious about throwing away a post-it with a task completed. The feeling when you do it is so great that you rush towards finish your tasks just so that you can destroy that little piece of damned paper. The method is great but it has one big negative aspect; if you were to bring all your post-its with you at all times you may need a trailer or a couple of square-meters of wall. This might not always be the most convenient way, sometimes a trailer is just to big to bring for a conference or a meeting. This was why I started to look for an electronic alternative I can have at my computer or in my phone, just about anywhere I can reach it in multiple locations.

About the same time I tried out my hundredth note-taking application I found Evernote and was saved in a way. Evernote for those who don’t know it is an application and a web-interface where you can store text and images which then can be searched through from your computer or phone. In my book it is THE best note-taking software on the market and the simplicity it brings makes and saves my day over and over again. Mails I need to remeber goes directly into it, I take pictures of good wines or places to remember etc. Now you may think that this was the solution to note-taking as well? Well, WRONG!

There is one thing missing about Evernote to use it as a post-it replacement. There is no visual representation of finishing a task off and I want my cookie! So I had to keep on looking for that replacement. And I continued until I finally found Things for my iPhone. Awesomeness divine.

Things is just as simple as I want, you create notes and say if you want to do it today or another day. When you have finished it you click it and a nice checkbox get checked. And I have my visual cookie for completing my task. The bad thing is though that I think that what tool works for just you is as personal as what color is your favourite for your socks. I’d love to say that get Evernote and Things and you will be forever happy – The End.

But I think you just have to through all stuff you can find on the internet and try them out for yourself. Or you just take my word for it and use Evernote and Things. We’re all lazy, isn’t it beautiful?

Story update: HTC Hero vs. iPhone


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Some week ago I wrote an article on the battle between the Apple iPhone and the HTC Hero. Daily Mail has run their own battle now and gave the HTC a really good review. There were a number of different prices including ‘Gadget of the year’ and ‘Phone of the year’. The iPhone keep the royal crown for yet another year but the Hero did get a medal for the ‘Best Gadget 2009’ which is quite impressing!

The iPhone didn’t go away without a price though. ‘Phone of the year’ was awarded the now highly awarded smartphone together with the readers choice for ‘Gadget of the year’.

From my perspective I have  to say that I still like both phones but had some problems just the last days with the push-sync in my Hero. I did fiddle a bit with the network-settings last week to cut down on roaming though so it might be that I am all to blame myself.

Reference
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1217723/HTC-Hero-smartphone-judged-best-gadget-2009.html

Windows Phone


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There is an saying that being number two to launch a great product is the best place to be beacause you can take everything the first one had and make it even better. The problem is though that if you become number three, your not even in the game anymore. So by that queue; say hello to Windows Phone. The new mother of all smartphone-operatingsystems together with Apple Phone OS and Android.

So what can Windows Phone bring to the table which will make it return to the spotlight as an alternative that consumers actually can think about choosing? First of all there will be a new UI for the system, more built for touch-screens this time. The new UI was based on the ‘Zune experience’ which I guess is a market decission more of an actual usabillity-decission. Secondly backup-functionallity where one can store information from the phone into the cloud (Vole’s cloud has been mentioned but I have no clear reference for this information). And third the system should get integrated support against the ‘Microsoft Appstore’ or what they this far has called just ‘Market Place’.

Microsoft have been an actor at the market for mobile phones for quite some years now and to be completly honest, their system have been by the worst choice for a consumer ever since the smartphones made their debute. An user interface made for a keyboard but handled by a touchscreen has lingered in their products which has made a smartphone running Windows Mobile utterly annoying. So how to couter a really bad product so that customers return? Flop the Vista card!

So, what do Vista has to do with Windows Phone? The truth is that they use the same marketing action here as they did to make people forget how bad Vista was. They change the name-domain and try to launch it all as a brand new product. Windows Vista evolved into Windows 7 and Windows Mobile 6 evolve into Windows Phone.

What makes me confused regarding the launch videos I’ve seen is that even though they say over and over again that this is designed for touchscreens – still there is small buttons here and there to which one must go into sharpshooting-mode to actually hit. This must be fixed Microsoft, please don’t build yet another skin to just strap over Windows Mobile. Rebuild the foundation and make the inovative parts be the actual core!

Yes this might lead to yet another Windows Vista (Mobile) which everyone will hate but at the same time you have the chance of correcting errors your customers have had to live with for years and years. If you really would like to skip the Vista-failure on the Mobile edition I have a small secret for you. If you create a product and let actual testers use the phone and then correct misstakes these testers might find – you will get a good product. Many tech-product-launches today seem to never read this part of product development and release beta-versions just to get the product on the market.

Is it not time to start introducing some prime products soon? I don’t want yet another beta.

References:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1495860/windows-phone-mobile-os-demonstrated

Knowing


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Back in the fifties an elementary school named Willian Dawes Elementary School decides to use a time capsule to record the children’s thoughts on how the future might look. As most children draw robots and spaceships one of the pupils named Lucinda draws what looks like full pages of random numbers. The teacher question the reason for this but still decide to let it pass into the time capsule and be sealed for fifty years.

KnowingKnowing is a new movie just out featuring Nicolas Cage. This time Mr. Cage takes on the role of a singe-parent astrophysicist named John Koestler who is struggling to handle his life after he lost his wife. The story evolve surrounding John and his son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) who attends the William Dawes Elementary School. At the day when the time capsule is opened Caleb receives Lucinda’s sheets of numbers and brings them home because he think that they have a higher purpose. Drunk and broken down by his loneliness after his wife, John find a pattern in the numbers and the plot takes of.

As the first half of the movie goes the tension really builds up and they hold the audience in a great grip, as a viewer one feel that the story can take many different turns. The problem is that this twist never really arrive and when it does, I think almost everyone in the theater has already figured it out. For some this might actually be a good sign but for most people I think it will be more of a turn off.

Also, the special effects of the movie did halter in a few places which made me question the production a bit. Because at the same time there was other pars of the movie which was incredible in both effect and realism. Especially the part which involves a plane crash which was shown during a full continues two-minutes shoot.

Knowing currently hold a score of 6.5/10 at IMDB, and 33% at RottenTomatoes and a user-score of 6.4/10 at MetaCritic which can be seen as “OK” but nothing more. Personally I’d go for a score of 5/10. I feel the story had a great chance of blowing the audience away but did instead settle for the easy way out.


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