This was once a blog

But now my blog is located at www.desparoz.com

Moving On

I've decided to move from Blogger to Typepad. The www.desparoz.com link will take you directly to the blog, but if you're reading this, well, then you've come directly to desparoz.blogsite.com.

Why the change - simply Typepad offers a few more features. Its a paid suscription, so I'll certainly be ensuring I make the most of those features.

Fixed Line SMS Coming to Australia

Just got an email that Telstra is planning to launch SMS services to fixed phone lines in Australia.

SMS is undoubtedly one of the "killer apps" of mobile phone technology, and there have already been suggestions about that this launch is to stem the tide of people changing over to mobile phones for all their telephony requirements.

I think this will be a really interesting development.

Slacker Manager: In praise of full inboxes

I just made an entry on Slacker Manager's weblog entry on In praise of full inboxes: "http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/1511382"

Go take a look at this blog entry (and all of the blog) - its quite an interesting perspective on this aspect of GTD.

Mind Managing your day

I saw a referece on jkOnTheRun to an article about using MindManager to manage your day, over at RobiNZ Blog.

I've been following Tony Buzan's Mind Mapping techniques for some time, and have been using MindManager" for a couple of years. It is one of the most important software tools I utilise, on almost a daily basis.

At work, we utilise mind mapping and MindManager for discovery sessions for almost all projects. Its our way of group brainstorming. We have a notebook computer hooked up to a projector with a map on the board. We then brain dump various aspects, and organise the hierarchies on the fly. Its a terrific methodology that works really well.

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/1032517

SD Card Doubles as USB Flash Drive

Everything USB reports that Digimaster has released a card that doubles as an SD card and a USB flash drive.

gmail Invitations

I have 5 gmail invitations to spare.

If anyone wants one, just leave your details in a comment to this message.

First come, first served!

Top Trends for 2005

As reported on the Business Opportunities Weblog, Entrepreneur magazine has listed its top 8 trends for 2005.

The Top 8 are:
- Authenticity
- Age 35
- Multitasking and Memory Loss
- Obesity
- The Third Place
- Snobization
- Uniqueness
- Life Caching

These trends sound quite interesting, and you should take a look at the Business Opportunities Weblog to learn.

Did I mention that I just turned 35?

I bought an iPod

I just got back from an electronics store where I bought an iPod - actually 2 of them. One for my wife (an iPod Mini) and one for me (the 40GB version).

This is not my first foray into mp3 players. I've actually been using them on my Palm Tungstens for a while now. I've also had an Acer MagicDrive, which is a nice little unit.

What got me to buy the iPod? OK, there is the coolness factor. But its the sheer volume - I can have eBooks, PodCasts and music all on the device.

The experience of buying was good. The Apple area within the store was really slick. Apple have very effectively created a sub-culture around the iPod and their newest range of computing hardware. Its stylish, fashionable and very functional.

At this point in time, Apple is leading the way in techology based consumer marketing, IMHO. The iPod is the crown of this achievement.,

Electric Broadband

I found notes on both ARNnet and Gadget Lounge today about the success of a trial of broadband over power lines conducted in Newcastle (Australia).

200Mbps over existing power infrastructure. An interesting development to watch.

The Worst Products of the Year

Opinion by PC Magazine: Ten to Avoid�The Worst Products of the Year

I surfed over to the US based PC Magazine , where I found an article on the 10 worst gadget/tech type products for 2004.

Enjoy

ARNnet | NTT DoCoMo's 4G research hits 1G bps

ARNnet NTT DoCoMo's 4G research hits 1G bps

3G is not huge in Australia yet, so its interesting to hear about the evolution of 4G in Japan.

I'm using a 3G card from 3 in Australia for my notebook, and getting rates of 384kbps, so 1Gbps would be astounding.

The Weekly Review

I've been trying to follow the Getting Things Done methodology by David Allen for about 2 years now. This is a wonderful approach to action management that is far superior to any other time management system I've used in the past (and I've used a few). Like anything worthwhile, it takes time and effort to get really good at the disciplines, but once you do, the payoffs can be significant.

Perhaps the most important discipline is what is called the Weekly Review - a regular sitting down and taking stock of your life in relation to all the actions and projects you currently have on your plate - and considering potential new ones to add to it. Having the discipline to do the Weekly Review regularly (even weekly!) is difficult as we can tend to see it as less urgent than other things going on around you.

For me, my weekly review involves shutting myself off from the as much going on as I can. I block out 2 hours. David Allen suggests early Friday afternoon, but that didn't work for me, as the culture at my company sees that as prime meeting time. So I had to find a time where my boss (or his PA) wouldn't schedule meetings for me, and where my team (a total of 19 people coming in through 2 direct reports) would be least likely to need my urgent attention.

I have found that Monday mornings works best. People tend to wander in a bit later, so I have that time relatively free of interuptions. Last week is still fresh in mind, and the weekly review helps me to get focused on the week coming up. From 8am that morning I am into it.

I feel good about this time, and having just finished my review, I am pretty sure that most of the "loose ends" in my life are accounted for, assigned, or scheduled.

Let the week roll on.

I went diving today.

Blue Beyond

A little write up on Blue Beyond.

Fired for Blogging

Diary of a Flight Attendant ;-)

It appears that this lady was fired from her job as a Delta flight attendant for posting a blog. Actually, it was probably some of the pictures on the blog that showed her and other flight attendants on planes in uniform (no passengers) in some mildly sacy poses.

So it wasn't so much the fact of having a blog, but what she posted.

Interesting to see how she progresses with her claims.

I originally found a link to this in Robert Scoble's blog

Firefox and Thunderbird

Mozilla - Home of the Firefox web browser, Thunderbird e-mail client and Mozilla Suite

Firefox, the new web browser from Mozilla, is the first browser that looks like it will seriously challenge the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Some analysts are recommending organisations seriously consider Firefox, as the number of holes and bugs in IE, and its dominance of the browser market, make it a serious target for hackers.

I am using Firefox for 60% of my personal web browsing, but find that IE still has some sites on which it works better.

For my personal email accounts, I am definitely switched over to Thunderbird, the email client from Mozilla.

I seriously recommend people to have a good look at these 2 programs.

Slacker Manager: The virtue of slowness

Slacker Manager: The virtue of slowness

I really like the Slacker Manager's comment about the "busy-ness of business", and how this might be easier for some to swallow than the concept stopping and thinking.

In scuba diving there is an expression that when faced with a problem, we should "stop, breathe, think and act". A good idea to consider......

GtD - Collect, Process and Organise

I have been a fan of the "Getting Things Done" (GtD) approach to personal organisation, created by David Allen, for over 2 years now. I am still learning the system in many ways, and still working on turning many of the disciplines into habits.

GtD has as a core part of its approach the necessity to ensure that you get everything out of your head, off bits of paper, out of email and voicemail, etc, and into your system. GtD suggests a 5 phase approach that includes the following steps

1. Collect
2. Process
3. Organise
4. Review
5. Do

By treating these as separate steps, we make sure not to miss anything important. So for example, if an idea occurs to me I 1. write it down and put it into my intray (collect); 2. process my intray daily; and, 3. organise next actions into a list, which I keep on my Palm.

David Allen suggests that keeping these steps separate is important, and so I have felt guilty at times when I recognise a next action and straight away put it into my Palm. I have felt that in this way, I am somehow shortcutting the steps.

As I do every 3 or 4 months, I am currently listening to the GtD Fast CDs, and picked up on a subtle comment made by David - that when people get really good at GtD, perhaps 2nd or 3rd degree black belt, they can combine collect, process and organise into a single step - as long as they are consciously recognising the nature of what it is they are doing, and organising it into the right next action list.

Its funny how information that was always there appears to you when you are ready for it.

BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Blog' picked as word of the year

BBC NEWS Technology 'Blog' picked as word of the year

OK, so this is a new blog, and it might look like I'm just jumping on the blogging bandwagon. Fact is I had a php based blog here at desparoz.com for a longtime, and BlueBeyond.com.au and Kengokai.com are both blogs of sorts.....

Anyway, it comes as no surprise that the word "blog" is the word of the year for 2004.

For ease of reference, here are the top 10, but I do suggest you take a look at the article.

1. blog
2. incumbent
3. electoral
4. insurgent
5. hurricane
6. cicada
7. peloton
8. partisan
9. sovereignty
10. defenestration

BTW, what does defenestration mean?

PalmInfocenter.com: Editorial: We, the Suckers

PalmInfocenter.com: Editorial: We, the Suckers

Mike Cane has long been known for his farseeing and sometimes controversial ideas on the state of the PDA industry. If Mike's ideas are even close to right, I suspect that there will be some very interesting events to come in the PDA world.

Diving Deaths

As a long time diver it always pains me to hear of the death of a scuba diver.

Yesterday Sgt. Eddie Van Putten, an off duty police officer from Penrith went missing from a dive on the wreck of the Dunbar, located off Sydney's south head. His body was found today. No cause of death has been cited, but I can only say that such a loss is a tragedy and my sympathies go out to his family, friends, buddies and colleagues.

Comparatively little media attention has been paid to this event to date. On the weekend just gone, most national media had headline stories of a diver being taken by a shark off Queensland's Great Barrier Reef. While also a tragedy, the sensationalist reporting does little to set the right picture in the minds of the public. This diver was not on scuba, but was a spearfisher. Whilst an invigorating sport, spearfishing is probably one of the highest risk activities when it comes to shark attacks. Most spearfishers know, accept and taken appropriate precautions about this.

It is tragic when anyone dies, but at least both were doing something they loved.

The New Blog

Well, I've kind of replaced the blog software with something a little more open standards.

I'll be attempting to keep the same mix of stuff going, only hopefully more up to date.

We'll see how this goes....

The Death of Email

Originally posted on my old blog site at www.desparoz.com. I've moved it here, because I think its relevant.

Sometimes I wonder how effective email is going to continue to be as a tool into the future.

Over the past few years, email has become a major part of the way we do business, and from a productivity point of view it has a major advantage in that actions can be made and followed up in a way that is less intrusive and allows the recipient to respond when their time and energy levels are right.

But, the sheer volume of email is killing that now.

I get over a hundred spam messages a day. Thats the ones that don't get caught by my hosts spam filters, which are extensive.

My spam filters are also undoubtedly catching some legitimate email.

Its fast getting to a point where we simply can't rely on email as a business tool, at least not if the message is important. We may never know if the message has been received, as some corporate or ISP spam filter may be set too conservative and catches legit email. We also don't know if the recipient just has such a load of email that they simply don't get to messages.

Email will have to go through some sort of revolution in the near future if its effectiveness is to be maintained.

Occam's Razor

This entry was created on my old blog, and has been copied over, simply because I think it is still relevant.

Named for William of Ockham, Occam's Razor is summed up by the following Latin phrase "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccsitate"

Literally translated, this means "Plurality should not be assumed without necessity".

More simply ('scuse the pun) it means that when there exists a simple solution, don't search for a more obvious one. Or to quote Einstein - "Everything should be made a simple as possible, but no simpler".

Now this a theme worth living in life - one thats easier said than done!