Monday, September 21, 2015

Numi ‒ Beautiful calculator app for Mac

I use Soulver on the Mac/iOS to do natural language style calculations on my finances and software startup ideas and bootstrapping costs but there is a new similar application that's worth having a look at and that's Numi - The beautiful calculator app for Mac 



Amazon Web Services goes down, taking Netflix, Reddit, Pocket and more with it



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Amazon Web Services goes down, taking Netflix, Reddit, Pocket and more with it
// The Next Web - International technology news, business & culture

AWS-logo
If you're having trouble accessing several parts of the Web today, it's because Amazon Web Services is having a bit of a glitch this morning. A server issue in Virginia is affecting most of the northeast, killing the infrastructure for many popular products and services including Netflix, Product Hunt, Medium, SocialFlow, Buffer, GroupMe, Pocket, Viber Amazon Echo and more. The outage occurred around 6 AM ET. Amazon DynamoDB goes down. Takes down Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Nest, Medium, Mediacom, IMDB, and 21 other AWS services. Ouch. — Adrian Jimenez (@AdrianJimenez) September 20, 2015 At The Next Web, we use SocialFlow as our tool…

This story continues at The Next Web

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Tuesday, September 08, 2015

3 Small Discipline Habits You Can Train

3 Small Discipline Habits You Can Train
// Zen Habits

By Leo Babauta
While I'm not a fan of trying to be disciplined every moment of the day, there's no doubt most of us could use a little more discipline in our lives.
We procrastinate, we waste time with online distractions, we go an entire day without getting done what we really wanted to get done.
How do we overcome this?
With training. Practice small, effective habits, and practice some more. Don't expect yourself to be perfect at skills if you don't repeatedly, deliberately practice.
If you want to get good at these skills, don't worry about not being motivated. Just enjoy the joy of practicing something that you can get good at. It's amazing when you're learning something new, and that wonderful feeling is what can motivate you.
What should you practice? Three simple skills that can be turned into habits with repeated practice.

The 3 Small Discipline Habits

The habits that work for me are all about talking to myself:
  1. Tell yourself, "This is what I'm going to do next.". Instead of having a long to-do list of things you want to do today, have just one thing you want to do right now. Instead of saying you're going to do this important task sometime, say you're going to do it right now. Instead of allowing yourself to randomly open websites that give you distraction, deliberately figure out what you want to work on next. Pick one thing. It doesn't matter what it is, but try for things that are important in your life.
  2. Ask yourself, "What is the smallest step I can do?". Most of us look at something on our (mental or digital or paper) list and subconsciously think, "That's too hard." So we put it off. But that's because we're thinking about an entire project, which has many tasks. You can't do a project right now, you can only do a task. Instead of saying, "I'm going to write that paper that's due," you should say, "I'm going to write 3 things in the outline of the paper." If the smallest task stills seems too hard, say you're just going to do 5 minutes of that small task right now. Or just two minutes. Make it ridiculously easy.
  3. Ask yourself, "What is stopping me from focusing on that small step?. Even if you figured out a task to focus on, and you've broken it into the smallest step, there will still be distractions or resistance. If you're not immediately doing the smallest step of the next task, ask yourself why. What's stopping you? Can you resolve this issue, close all browser tabs, shut off your phone, ask co-workers or roommates or family members to give you 30 minutes of focused time? Can you ask for help, get some accountability? The easiest solution is usually to close all distractions. Then get moving on the smallest step.
Once you've done that, repeat this process two more times, taking a few minutes' break between each round. Then take 20 minutes off as a reward. That's your training session. If you can do several training sessions a day, you'll get good at this in no time. And as you get good, the cost of doing anything will begin to seem miniscule.

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Thursday, September 03, 2015

Raising money for cancer research UK by going booze free for a month.

So I have joined the #dryathalon movement where people give up booze for a month and raise money that goes to cancer research UK.

I'm posting this as my own father died of cancer and also suffered from cirrhosis of the liver due to alcohol so it has personal meaning to me but also I am trying to lose weight for health reasons and to get fitter for my boxing training where I am aiming to take part in some white collar boxing again for charity. 

I would appreciate any donations you can afford. If not why not do something similar yourselves.

Do some good and get healthy at the same time.

Thanks for your time.

Cheers!
+John Smith

#boxing #fitness #cancerresearch

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