Archive for April, 2009

The current Situation and a Look into the Future

Blogging, Personal | Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

This post is part eight and the last one of the series, completing my about page with more than just short paragraphs.

This post is pretty much a wrap up of my plans I have for the near and far future.

At the moment I’m learning for my schools finals this year in July and thats probably the most time consuming part of my live, at the moment. Learning, getting some homework done and writing tests. And that’s the reason I’m restructuring a little bit. I want to keep up the posting twice a week, but maybe I’m not able to write one long post and one short Linked List per week. In that case, I’m going to publish at least two Linked List posts.

For my computer works, that means that I’m slowing down. Doing just as much as needed and spending more time sitting down, learning. I still will do something but that’s for a future project I’m working on right now. But there are no details going to get shared till the official public release.

The photography part of my live also has to slow down a little bit. I’m going to sort and edit some shoots in the next weeks and will be publishing some pictures at flickr. But that’s also going to be slow and not to much.

All in all, I’m slowing down. Getting stuff done. Will hopefully not be starting some new projects and maybe chill a little bit in the sun. I hope you all are able to enjoy the weather — at my place, it’s great, at the moment — and hope that the next weeks are going to be structured not to stressful and that I’m going out of all this with great marks, a smile and no headaches, heading into summer vacation, followed by the next year of school.

I wish you all have some great weeks and everyone who’s writing exams this year, good luck.

Next is, oh there is no next in this series. This series is over, my about page is nearly finished and I’m not going to stop posting on Tuesdays but I think I’m going to post about various topics. If you want let me know your feedback or maybe tell your story.

Attention Mainstream Media: the financial crisis did not replace the environmental crisis on our doorstep.

~ DesignCrave

One big event this week was the Earth Day 2009 on the 22 of April this year. For me the biggest impact this event had for me, and maybe the only reason why I now know about the day, were all the great graphics and photographys around the web. Especially two collections I found, one featuring 28 Beautiful And Inspiring Photographs Dedicated To Earth Day the other was about 30 Amazing Environment Ads for Earth Day. The later one features Ads warning us, what could happen if we don’t act.

… Earth Day Network is celebrating a Earth Day all over the world, this is a day when they try to create awareness and educate people about keeping their environment clean and motivate them to Go Green for their sorroundings.

~ Smash!ng Apps

Again like the Earth Hour 2009, this event is something delighting my mind. It shows that it’s not over with our earth, there are people who care and that there are ways how we can act. Now it’s about us, taking action.

Permalink

My Way to Blogging

Blogging | Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

This post is part seven of the series, completing my about page with more than just short paragraphs.

The blogosphere is now out there for a quiet long time. Some people make a living from blogging, some blog for fun and some blog and earn little money on the side. I got first interested in blogging in early 2006. I started my first own blog which at the time was just a collection of random thoughts not well written and mostly for the garbage. For the next year or so, the interest slowly decreased cause I had other projects and in germany there was not much of a blogosphere to see. In early 2007 I got interested again and did some projects with blogging involved in the net but nothing worth telling about.

In late 2007, I found some interesting people in other countries who were blogging and doing it well. That was the time I started to watch more for things happening in countries like the USA, Australia and New Zealand. The first blogger I found was Glenn Wolsey. I found him via his flickr stream and got interested in what he was writing. Through him I found other people like Michael Mistretta who is a Canadian Student, writing really well content and does great stuff at FusionAds.net an other person I found in early 2008 was Darren Rowse who is a full time blogger at ProBlogger.net. He maintains various other blogs and wrote a book called ProBlogger — Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income with Chris Garrett which I bought immediately after it hit the German Amazon Store.

The rest of 2008 I mostly spend reading about blogging, design and web-development. Using, for me, new services like Twitter where you can find me @cspiegl, Plurk (I’m no more using Plurk actively!), Facebook and some other which I mostly over the course stopped using.

In the end of 2008 I relaunched my own blog. CSPIEGL.com was redesigned and I returned actively to the actual content producing at the 23 of December 2008 with a post about my return, what has changed and what was around the corner.

In the following weeks I wrote many new posts. Most of which were targeted at the changes, new stuff I did, like my Business-Card and some thoughts about decision I had taken for example with my licensing.

Over the course, till now, I got a schedule in place for my blog, how many post I want to write per week and since then I’m writing two post per week and stick to that schedule. Maybe I’m going to post more or less in the future but for now I don’t have the time to write more due to school, work and some other projects I’m currently working on.

I’m looking forward to what’s coming and hope that I can learn many things in this area of interest. Also I’m really interested in contacts! So if you feel the need, just email me or look at my contact page.

Next is ‘The current situation and a look into the future’. Stay tuned for part eight — which will be the last post in this series— of the series. If you want let me know your feedback or maybe tell your story.

I live in a very small town — I would call it  a village — where ways are of long distances. I read a post about using public transit and slowing down and was kinda impressed, but I still think that it depends on where you live if it’s reasonable to use public transit.

When I slowed down, I suddenly noticed that I was … living. When in a state of constant motion, the soul is often neglected for the other more “pressing” matters of life, that somehow serve as the ultimate distraction to recognizing your own, living consciousness. In other words, we’re too busy doing stuff to ever actually be alive.

~ James Shelley

I read this great thoughts first and I think they fit my view pretty well:

Living in Dorchester, I spend 5 hours a week driving to and from work. That’s just to and from work, ignoring driving to Sara’s, or to band practice, or to any other part of the city. When I lived in Barrie, at one point I sometimes drove 12 hours a week to work. How much of my life is isolated to my car?

~ Pat Dryburgh

I spend nearly 12 hours per week in a train to and from school, I use public transit cause I think I don’t need to drive the way on my own if there is an other way. But here in our village the cost of the public transit system is so high, that driving with an own car is easily cheaper plus it would save me about 7 hours per week.

Is it still reasonable to drive by public transit? I think for now it’s OK cause I can spend the time reading, drafting or chatting with friends but what if I could spend more time at home or with friends?

I’d say for now it’s OK to do the ways by public transit. For later it will depend.

Permalink

Why I switched or My Macintosh Workstation

Apple | Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

This post is part six of the series, completing my about page with more than just short paragraphs.

Now it’s about 1 and a half year ago since I switched from PC to Mac and I am completely happy about that decision. But her I want to write down the way I actually went and why I decided the way I did.

In the beginning, I used a Windows machine. Since I started playing with computers. Through my interest in the field, I got interested in Linux and wanted to switch often. The problem with that was that I was not straight enough to really stay consistent at that decision. I switched many times from Windows to Linux, at the time I wanted to use Suse, but every time, I switched back to Windows 2000 or XP really fast so that I could use the programs I was used to and could play my games.

In early 2007 I made the decision — again — to switch to Linux. This time I was about to use Ubuntu and already had searched alternative software which I could use on all three platforms, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. These programs had been Gimp for picture editing and design work as well as Eclipse / Aptana for web-development, plus some other tools. At that point, I already had in mind that I might switch to a Mac soon which was the reason that I searched applications which I could use on each of the three platform.

The reasons why I chose a MacBook instead of a ‘normal’ laptop are pretty obvious and spread all over the net. The machines run faster, look better, the available applications are much nicer and the OS looks and feels much better than the Windows platform. Linux is not an alternative if you just want a simple life, at least in my eyes and I have tested that for me!

In summer 2007, I finally did it. I bought my white, 13″, MacBook with 2.16GHz Dual Core 2 Duo, 1GB of RAM and 120GB hard-drive — which was replaced by a 320GB hard-drive and the RAM was replaced by two 2GB bricks, which adds up to now 4GB — the operating system is Mac OS X 10.5.6 Leopard. The switch itself was pretty easy for me cause I had planed everything, especially which applications to use.

Now my setup looks like this: My MacBook which is my main machine hooked up to a 23″ LG display, which is also connected to an old Windows XP machine just in case I need one.

Like I already wrote, I’m still happy with my decision to go Mac and plan on buying my second Mac machine in the end of the year caused by the need of more GPU power but for now I’m able to do what I want to and everything works just fine.

Next is ‘My Way to Blogging’. Stay tuned for part six of the series. If you want let me know your feedback or maybe tell your story.

That’s why I refuse to say that I “blog”. I do not. I am a writer and it happens to be on a weblog. “Blogging” is a euphemism for worthless writing.

~ Jorge Quinteros ~ Kyle Baxter

I think for some it’s valid to say that! But it’s not what I’d say. I’d say the euphemism “blogging” is one part of writing just like “book-writing” or “magazine-writing”.

Blogging is not less worth than the other euphemisms, it’s just another way to get your voice out there!

Permalink

Thoughts on Project Management

Organization | Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

This post is part five of the series, completing my about page with more than just short paragraphs.

Over the course of creating and organizing my different projects I would say I gained some knowledge about project management. I’m not going to say that I’m a pro or just good at it cause I definitely have to learn much more in that field but I would say I made some experiences of value. My question is, how can I get better in project management. I think the way I started out was quiet right. Just doing it. Starting a project, planing every detail, brainstorming different ideas, creating something new, failing and in the end having something made out of your own brain and knowledge which you can call a result of value.

I have to admit that in my early days of me trying to get some project done, I wasn’t focused enough and most of the time failed at the later parts of my given line of starting, planing, brainstorming and creating. I did some projects but nearly every time had a problem at the ‘crating’ part. The problem was most of the time that I started a project and in the end it all took to much time and I got a new idea for a new project and the one already started got trashed. That’s getting better, reading about GTD and structured working, I now get my things done and projects finished — which is even more important for client projects.

I’m looking forward to my upcoming projects and hope that something of value will turn out of all these headaches.

I call the last years of headaches my learning and failing time. But someday that has to stop and I’m working hard to get something done, a project, I can call a success is one of my main goals for the feature!

Next is ‘Why I switched or My Macintosh Workstation’. Stay tuned for part six of the series. If you want let me know your feedback or maybe tell your story.

The ‘Big Picture’ published some great inspiring pictures of the ‘Earth Hour 2009′ — 8:30 to 9:30 PM on the 28th of March, 2009 — which I didn’t knew was happening.

One great quote I found out in the net by Dean Lozarie, who wrote this in his post, which will likely help much more than just shutting down your lights for 1 hour:

Pick up that piece of paper on the curb.
Don’t toss that plastic bag anywhere but a garbage bin.
Tell your friend to stop using that gas-guzzling, smoke-belching SUV of his.
Ask your office management to cut down on electricity costs.
Flipping off your light switch is a start, but it isn’t enough.

~ Dean Tastic!

I think many people can do more than they think they can effect our earth. Even just little things can help protect our earth and get rid of many problems, even thinking or talking about it changes something. But that is not enough! We still need to change our way of life, to protect our earth we all love so much.

Permalink