Archive for February, 2010

But at times, I wonder if it isn’t just the next fad. It’s certainly partly a backlash to the personal productivity movement, with GTD at the centre. But maybe it’s also the new GTD. Instead of doing work, people are still tinkering. But now they do so under the guise of ‘reducing’ or ‘simplifying’.

~ Chris Bowler

I think he is right. A certain amount of complicity is OK and I will go into deeper thoughts about this soon but for now I agree 100% with Chris. Everything simple does not mean you get more done. Sometimes personally I get stuck in getting everything simpler and than get nothing done in the end!

My Project launched, AIDvertisement is Live

I did it! This is the story behind AIDvertisement. I had an idea about 1 year ago, I started to work at it immediately and I did not finish it right there. The reason for not finishing it was that I started to work on other things, started to think about other things and in the end I went to a new school and stopped nearly all projects I was working on at the time.

But now I had one week off from school (holidays) and thought: One week should be plenty to finish what I wanted to finish a year ago. So I started to get going and rock this thing through. And now here the result is. I am not to happy about the design and some other things but I am happy that I am finally releasing it to the wild. And to mention it I just read a post where I found the following quote and I think it is totally right. I can improve what I started not as good later on too.

That anything you do you should do the best you can, but even if you don’t have it perfected before you start, for goodness sake, man, still start.

~ Shawn Blanc

Now what is this thing about? First, it is called AIDvertisement. Second it is about advertisement and aid—who guessed right?

But what is the deal? More than one year ago—just after the start of FusionAds, I got hooked by the way advertisement should look like, not distracting, simple, beautiful and elegant. Some time later, I started to think about how I could give something to organizations like Greenpeace and UN-Aids or BlogActionDay and than I had an idea. I though why is there no advertisement network for such organizations where everybody can grab one tiny code sniped to include banners of such organizations at his own site. So I started, not finished. Started again and finished it. I hope you all like it and I hope even more that some people are going to implement the banner code at their sites.

In the end there is just one thing left to be sad. Right now this is an one man show. But I would like to change that! So if you would like to help me with some stuff please feel free to contact me at ads@aidvertisement.net or via Twitter @AIDvertisement

Now check out the AIDvertisement, and start helping to solve problems.

How does a photographer evolves? What changes over time, how does he take pictures and how does a photographer think about his own work?

Someone tried to answer that question and showes his results in a graph.

A — not so sexy designed — little tool to get the best DNS Server near your home!

Are you a power-user with 5 minutes to spare? Do you want a faster internet experience?

Try out namebench. It hunts down the fastest DNS servers available for your computer to use. namebench runs a fair and thorough benchmark using your web browser history, tcpdump output, or standardized datasets in order to provide an individualized recommendation.

~ namebench

Try namebench, my new DNS is about 20% faster than the one I used before!

To help everyone — from occasional viewers to regular submitters — reflect on their own experiences with new clarity.

If you are photography savvy like I am, you probably will love that site and the lovely photographs at it! Have a look and be inspired.

I absolutely love the cave style subway! Thats art in bit.

Project: 31 Days. 31 Movies.

The beginning of this year was near and I watched out if I could find little projects to get accomplished and to test some things. Since I am currently pretty much into this daily project thing — like my 365 iPhone photograph project — I started one more which I want to tell you about her.

The project I started the first of January 2010 was called: ’31 Days. 31 Movies.’ and what it was about is watching 31 Movies in the month January. And I did it. I even accomplished it one day early! But I can tell: it was hard. Even for someone like me who really watches many movies it is really hard to do one per day and some days two because I was not able to watch a movie on Sundays for example.

About the Movies

Some are great, some are not. Some are even a bit strange — for example La Pianista is very strange! But for example the movie Crossing Over, Into the Wild, Palermo Shooting or Body of Lies are just excellent watches! I can encourage everybody to watch them. And especially for blogger, the movie Julie & Julia is a nice story.

In the End

All in all I can tell that this project was very time consuming. I normally watch many movies but I tend to do it out of a ‘want’ not a must. But while the project it was more a must than a want. I really enjoyed many of the movies very much but still I am happy that this ‘must’ is now over!

What I want to mention is that I am really proud about my self that I in the end accomplished the project without real problem. I finished it and that absolutely feels great. And that is about the project was most: it was about doing something I think I can accomplish and do not let it fall down in the middle. I did it from start to finish and that is a encouraging feeling for coming project.

While this project was about watching 31 movies, the next month is about doing something else but about that I am going to write at the end of the month February to let you know how I did and about what I think about that kind of project. I just do not want to take to much pressure on me — even though some people say that, telling others encourages more than everything else, I want to do it as a silent project and tell about it after finishing it.

If your also have an obsession about movies, please feel free to tell me. And maybe write me some ideas for movies I should watch in the future, or tell me your opinion about that project, have you done something like that(?) or plan on doing something like that?

The Movies

Now I want to share the list of movies I watched in that 31 days:

Nr. Title with which I watched the Movie original Title Date IMDB
1 Crossing Over Crossing Over Jan 1, 2010 IMDB
2 Lieber Verliebt The Rebound Jan 2, 2010 IMDB
3 College Animals 2 Dorm Daze 2 Jan 3, 2010 IMDB
4 Krabat Krabat Jan 4, 2010 IMDB
5 Avatar Avatar Jan 5, 2010 IMDB
6 Wie werde ich ihn los How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days Jan 6, 2010 IMDB
7 Silver Hawk Fei ying Jan 6, 2010 IMDB
8 Timeline Timeline Jan 7, 2010 IMDB
9 Klick Click Jan 7, 2010 IMDB
10 Into the Wild Into the Wild Jan 8, 2010 IMDB
11 Fame Fame Jan 9, 2010 IMDB
12 Lost City Raiders Lost City Raiders Jan 11, 2010 IMDB
13 Lizenz zum Heiraten License to Wed Jan 11, 2010 IMDB
14 Jackie Chan – Das Medaillon The Medaillon Jan 11, 2010 IMDB
15 Last Samurai The Last Samurai Jan 12, 2010 IMDB
16 Julie & Julia Julie & Julia Jan 13, 2010 IMDB
17 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Jan 14, 2010 IMDB
18 Palermo Shooting Palermo Shooting Jan 15, 2010 IMDB
19 Das Maedchen aus dem Wasser Lady in the Water Jan 16, 2010 IMDB
20 Street Kings Street Kings Jan 18, 2010 IMDB
21 Die Klavierspielerin La pianiste Jan 19, 2010 IMDB
22 Body of Lies Body of Lies Jan 20, 2010 IMDB
23 Battle in Seattle Battle in Seattle Jan 21, 2010 IMDB
24 Couples Retreat Couples Retreat Jan 23, 2010 IMDB
25 SURROGATES – MEIN ZWEITES ICH Surrogates Jan 23, 2010 IMDB
26 Paparazzi Paparazzi Jan 24, 2010 IMDB
27 Fighting Fighting Jan 25, 2010 IMDB
28 Im Brautkleid durch Afrika Im Brautkleid durch Afrika Jan 26, 2010 IMDB
29 My Girl My Girl Jan 27, 2010 IMDB
30 Van Helsing Van Helsing Jan 27, 2010 IMDB
31 Daredevil Daredevil Jan 30, 2010 IMDB

But will it be open or closed? I shudder to think of OS X (or it’s future derivative) as closed, when it’s the third party ecosystem that brings me the most enjoyment on this platform. And this ecosystem is a result of the openness of the OS.

~ Chris Bowler

The main problem I have with the iPat is that Apple is closing its OS’s. I hope that they never think about closing Mac OS X as much as the iPHone OS!

Overall, I’m left with the impression that this is not the end destination for Apple, but just another step on the way. Like the iPhone, the iPad is just the next step in Apple’s plan to be the digital hub in the home and the office.

~ Chris Bowler