Just to tantalise you, I’m not saying here why I write, I’m sort-of saying it in a guest blog on Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn’s blog.
And in truth, I’m not even saying it there. She asked, I answered, I threw my answer away, I tried again. And again. Yes: and again.
I saw the original Star Wars when I was seven years old and it changed my life. We all have faith in something; usually a mixture of some personal beliefs with modern science. I am like that also. Mostly, I just believe in what works. Which, for me, is The Force. I admit it.
James Altucher of 99U advocates following Star Wars for sage advice on how to be more productive.
He's quite serious. And has a lot to say to persuade you.
Odd that leaves out Yoda's “Do or do not – there is no 'try'” though.
Oh, what did we do before our phones knew where we were? The service If This Then That (IFTTT) has now added features that will act on your going somewhere or being somewhere and it's tremendous. I use the hell out of location-based reminders: I am forever telling Siri on my iPhone to remind me to this or that when I get here or there. Forever. But IFTTT has much fancier uses and Lifehacker just compiled some of the most deliciously daft, make-you-smile ones that are also useful.
For example, my favourite is being welcomed home automatically a-la Marty McFly with your own theme song a la Ally McBeal:
Nothing is cooler than walking into a room to your own theme music and this recipe makes that possible by using IFTTT, Dropbox, Hazel, and Automator. Basically, when you enter a location, the recipe creates a text file in Dropbox which triggers Hazel, then starts an Automator workflow that turns on iTunes and plays a track. You could use this basic idea to launch pretty much any Automator workflow you wanted.
Okay, maybe it's stretching things to say this is useful. But others in Lifehacker's list are – and that's why they're not my favourites.
Author John Green on writing and indeed on all creative work:
Don’t make stuff because you want to make money — it will never make you enough money. And don’t make stuff because you want to get famous — because you will never feel famous enough.
Read more and definitely watch his video Via Brain Pickings
“Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.”
Dorothy Parker said that and, as a writer, I can both appreciate that she means get on with it and enjoy that she's just called me an ass. We writers do tend to piddle about doing anything but write and there is an argument that we have to but I prefer the argument that writers never stop writing, that everything we do is connected to this illness of ours. In which case, we've done and we are doing enough writing-while-not-writing so it is time to start hitting the keys. There's no muse, there is no waiting for inspiration, there is the hunt for inspiration and the work toward it.
But the reason to bang on at you about this today is an article on 99U – itself named after the idea that art is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration – about How to Be Creative Even When You Least Feel Like it.
It's an article linking out to more that you might enjoy too.
This is not scary: Amazon hopes to ship items to you before you've ordered them.
It actually isn't scary, it makes more sense than you'd first thing but that first thinking you did either went the 1984 Big Brother route or the Doctor Who timey-wimey way. The truth is boringly in the middle, but:
The Seattle-based giant has patented a method of shipping products before customers even place an order. In December, Amazon was granted [a patent] for what the company describes as “anticipatory shipping,” or a way of initiating the delivery process before a customer even clicks buy. The idea is to cut down delivery time and, possibly, make it even less necessary to visit brick-and-mortar stores. The document describes a process for boxing and shipping items the company expects customers in a specific area will want — based on previous orders, product searches, wish lists or the contents of a shopping cart before checkout.
Productivity is less a science – way, way less a science – and more us all flailing around trying to figure out what works for us. What works for you may not work for me and we know that, that's why we try every bleedin' idea under the sun. But there are some ideas I hold to be self-evident – and there are people who disagree. Here's one I think is completely wrong yet that could be exactly why it is completely right for you.
When something distracts you like an email, a call, some sudden demand:
Do it now. Then it’s off your mind, and you can fully focus on the next matter.
That's FastCompany quoting Buffer founder Leo Widrich quoting Zen Habits' author Leo Babauta.
The usual thing against this is that fine, sure, maybe you can deal with this thing right away and get it done but you were already dealing with something else and that has been knocked aside. The time you spend switching to see what the distraction is and the time you spend switching back is probably about as damaging as the time in between when you're off doing this new thing.
I very strongly recommend that you finish the thing you're doing now. Do it and then it's done. One way I help myself, one way I stop being distracted by other shiny problems, is to try preventing the distractions getting through to you at all. Switch off emails. Switch off you phone.
I can't do either. I do try. And sometimes I manage it, sometimes I therefore learn that it really does help me. The rest of the time, I elect to ignore the distractions. I'll check email at the top of the hour when I'm busy and if I hear a bleep after then, even if it's only one minute after the hour, I will not look again until the top of the next hour. Invariably, I then look and I find that the email that bleeped is just a trivial ad.
And that is the argument in favour of this deal with it now business: even when I am successful at making myself ignore the email for up to 59 minutes, I bet I spend some of that time wondering about whether it's important. With this alternative method, I'd know.
So read the full article and see what you think, okay?
It’s a good service and it has to make money to survive, but the announcement that the remote-access LogMeIn is changing to subscription only is a disappointment.
LogMeIn is a way to take control over another Mac or PC wherever you are. With permission, obviously. But it works so well: I’ve sat at my iPad remote controlling my office iMac, then skipped over to doing something for Angela on her Mac mini, then once or twice also gone to remotely do something on my MacBook Pro. Very quick, very handy. And without it I wouldn’t have been able to look back across the Atlantic during my last holiday to see if my Mac was on and whether I had a particular file someone needed.
Definitely an excellent product so definitely worth paying for. Except, I bought the iPad app called LogMeIn Ignition and that cost £20. I’ve certainly had my use out of it, but when it was sold, it was sold with the idea that this was it forever. You want to do more with LogMeIn, you want to control lots of computers or something, you then paid for the subscription model. But otherwise, the app was it.
Not anymore.
I’m reluctant to be disgruntled about it because, again, I’ve got my use out of LogMeIn Ignition, yet I will admit I am disgruntled. I am unhappy about it. Maybe I’d feel this way if it were only the LogMeIn Ignition change but there’s also that last year the company announced limits on how many computers a free user could have – and those have now been dropped too. Over the years, LogMeIn has also pushed extra products that don’t happen to be of any value to me, like its cloud storage system Cubby. Nice name, don’t need it.
So conditions are added and then dropped, you get used to having to say no to Cubby and other prods, the latest version of the desktop software was a bit of a pain, it’s all gone from a great experience to a well-at-least-you’ve-paid-once-and-that’s-it and now to nope-you-have-to-pay-again.
If you’re a LogMeIn user, the next time you try the service you will start a clock: you get seven days from that moment to when you have to choose which payment plan you’ll accept. Prices start from $49/year for existing customers; that’s half price and only for the first year.
It’s funny: LogMeIn is being completely reasonable about charging for its service and its service is very good, yet doing it this way leaves a bad taste. You know there’s a PowerPoint slide somewhere at the LogMeIn offices which says they’ll lose a huge number of users – and you know there’s a second slide saying that most of those don’t pay anyway so good riddance to them.
I paid for the app, I would pay for the app again, but it’s not worth the subscription price to me so I’m one of the good riddances.
This won't speed up your work or give you anything useful that can help with what you're doing today, but it will give you pause. And it will make you appreciate the iPhone in your pocket anew – by comparing it to an advert from 1991.
The ad is for Radio Shack – which was known here in the UK as Tandy but was in other ways identical and doubtlessly ran ads like this – and Trending Buffalo says:
The back page of the front section on Saturday, February 16, 1991 was 4/5ths covered with a Radio Shack ad.
There are 15 electronic gimzo type items on this page, being sold from America’s Technology Store. 13 of the 15 you now always have in your pocket.
Read the full article to see the tastefully understated 1991 print ad in full plus the fifteen things Trending Buffalo is talking about. And maybe even why the writer is called Trending Buffalo.
There's a new kid on the block with this year's countdown of the worst passwords you could possibly have but do. It's a first-time top ten appearance for “adobe123”.
Also breaking into the top ten with a rise of two places is “iloveyou” where it's amazing five-place jump for our number 8 password, “1234567”.
The unforgettable “111111” is up two to 7 while it's another new entry at 6 with “123456789”.
Then it's the chart's first fall with “abc123” down one to 5.
Replacing that at 4 is the classic “qwerty” which is up one spot.
Into the top three now and still steady at number 3 is “12345678”. Number 2 is a shock drop of one place for the all-time legend that is “password”.
That top ten again:
Which means that rising one place since last year, the worst password of 2013 is… “123456”.
There are a few qualifications to make about this chart countdown but the thing to take away is that all ten are equally stupid. And if you use any of them, or any like them, you must change them now if only because it is embarrassing that your best idea is the exact same one that millions of other people had too.
Fixing your passwords is more important than hearing me snark at the data so go, be gone, get yourself over to 1Password. I couldn't endorse that software any more if they paid me.
But now. Snarking.
The definition of worst is debatable, I think. This countdown comes from SplashData, and firm that of course works in password management, and it's really a ranking of the most commonly used passwords. That's not quite the same thing as the worst: “password” is surely still the one you would try first if you were going to break into something. Or “pencil” if you're hacking WOPR, obviously.
Morgan Slain, SplashData CEO:
“[An] interesting aspect of this year's list is that more short numerical passwords showed up even though websites are starting to enforce stronger password policies.”
The definition of most commonly used is also debatable: SplashData says that this year's list is heavily influenced by the troubles Adobe had when a security breach meant quite a few of its users passwords became known.
So many, in fact, that the list has to have been distorted by that group – and you can see it the top twenty which includes such gems as “photoshop” and “adobe123”.
But, seriously, 1Password. On your way.