adventures of a blogjunkie

Running your own business feels like dodging trains

David Wang — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:14:19 +0000

Subway Surfers by Kiloo

I’ve been playing a game on my iPad called Subway Surfers (it’s available for Android too). In the game you control an avatar running along the train track. You have to pick up trains, jump over barriers, and dodge trains! As you progress the speed increases so you’re almost flying past the tracks and trains. Sooner or later the inevitable happens – you smash headlong into a train.

It occurred to me today that running your own business feels like a lot like playing Subway Surfers. You’re constantly chasing your paycheck, you dodge problems after problem, but inevitably you smack into one. In the game, you can simply restart but in your business you’re going to waste time, lose money or worse – your reputation.

Moral of today’s random musing: Practice running your business, not Subway Surfers

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[VIDEO] Wingsuit flight through a small arch in a mountain

David Wang — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:36:08 +0000

I’ve been very impressed with wingsuit jumpers (flyers?) but this is one of the more insane ones I’ve seen. Alexander Polli threads the needle through a small arch in the Montserrat mountains in Spain.

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Forecast.io tells you the weather, beautifully

David Wang — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:22:19 +0000

Forecast.io is a web-based weather app that tells you the weather in a beautiful, easy to use interface. Every other weather website I use is clunky, slow and full of ugly ads – I’m looking at you Yahoo! Weather. Most weather websites will tell you what the weather is right now, but to see what it will be this afternoon it requires a few clicks and page loads to get there. With Forecast, you scroll down and click on Today and you’ll see the day’s hourly forecast laid out in an easy to understand bar graph.

Forecast.io excels at being fast. It detects your location so you don’t have to type it in. It takes 1 click to view the day’s forecast. And it’s mobile too. Load it up on your mobile and it will prompt you to save it as a home screen app.

My only quibble is that Forecast seems to have a lot of “Light Rain” reports when it’s only cloudy. Either that or it really does know when it’s just sprinkling outside. Either way, Forecast.io is now my go to app for checking the weather. It’s super useful for me to decide when to go running.

Try Forecast.io, you’ll love it.

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Mobile scanner app showdown: Scanner Pro vs DocScanner

David Wang — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 07:32:58 +0000

I’m making it a point to go paperless. Instead of keeping piles of dead trees lying around, I’ll convert them to digital scans and make them available to me through the cloud. The first step is converting my paper documents to digital format. For full page documents, a dedicated scanner is the best solution but for receipts, business cards and small slips of paper a mobile scanner app is better.

I tested 2 scanner applications for the iPhone – Scanner Pro by Readdle and DocScanner by Haave Oy. Scanner Pro is the market leader and costs $6.99 (iTunes link). Unfortunately, that app really sucked. Luckily I found a great replacement – DocScanner, $4.99 (iTunes link). Here is a quick review if you are looking for a good mobile scanner app too.

As I mentioned, DocScanner turned out to be the better option. I really like how it works. When you activate the app, the camera is immediately activated. Point it at what you want to scan and DocScanner automatically performs edge recognition and draws bounding boxes around what it thinks the document is. Tap the scan button and it will do it’s thing.

DocScanner: Scanning against dark background

Scanner Pro is a 2-step affair. First you have to snap a picture.

Scanner Pro: Scanning against dark background (Step 1)

Then it will figure out the edges. If you scan against a dark background, the edge detection is passable. In the screenshot below, it figured out where the edges were but it wasn’t as tight as I would like. You can manually drag the 4 corners to tighten the edge detection, but it becomes a chore.

Scanner Pro: Scanning against dark background (Step 2)

Here is the scan result for DocScanner in Business Card mode. A little yellow, but could have been because of the light.

DocScanner: Sample business card scan

Here is the scan result for Scanner Pro in Photo mode. More accurate color, but you can see that the edges were not cropped as close as DocScanner.

Scanner Pro: Sample business card scan

You won’t always have a plain dark background to scan your images on, so here’s a test of the scans against a wooden chair. Below, DocScanner performs beautifully and detects the edges perfectly.

DocScanner: Scanning against wood background

Not so much for Scanner Pro. Not sure how it thinks that the edges of the white card stretches all the way to the top of the screen.

Scanner Pro: Border detection against wood background

I tweeted @Readdle to ask them for tips, and they replied with this.

@blogjunkie Try to take a picture from a slightly bigger distance

— Readdle(@Readdle) March 15, 2013

So I tried re-scanning from a further distance. Still massively failing on edge detection.

Scanner Pro: Border detection against wood background (further distance)

Here are a couple of other tests, this time with receipts.

DocScanner scanning receipt on dark background

Scanner Pro scanning receipt on dark background

DocScanner scanning receipt on wood background

More of the same from Scanner Pro…

Scanner Pro failing at edge detection

.. and again

Here are the scan results for the receipts.

DocScanner scan results (Receipt mode)

Scanner Pro scan result (Document mode)

In conclusion, I found DocScanner much better and easier to use too. Feature wise, both Scanner Pro and DocScanner have similar features which you can read up on their website. However DocScanner makes it much easier to perform good quality scans, while Scanner Pro was just a waste of money. I deleted the app right after writing this review. Hopefully you don’t have to go through the hassle and go straight to DocScanner.

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Barefoot Running Debate: ‘Born to Run’ Author vs. Podiatrist

David Wang — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:34:04 +0000

Since I started running I have noticed great debate about barefoot running. Is it good, is it bad? Will it stop injuries, will it cause injuries? It feels a little like a fad to me, but I bought a pair of Nike Free running shoes to get a feel of running with “less shoe” anyway. In any case, I thought this video presented all sides of the argument really well. I still think it’s a little nutty to go completely barefoot, but I think in principle it’s a good idea to strengthen the muscles in the foot.

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Animated Calvin and Hobbes

David Wang — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 03:03:12 +0000

Animator Adam Brown made an animated comic from one of my favorite comics growing up, Calvin and Hobbes. Brings back memories of Miss Wormwood the teacher and Susie the clever girl. Makes me feel like buying Calvin and Hobbes box set. More details here.

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Free isn’t always the best option

David Wang — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 04:27:54 +0000

Many people (especially Malaysians) love free stuff. Free is good on your wallet but a lot of times there isn’t many other benefits.

Free stuff inevitably goes away. The latest casualty is Google Reader – there wasn’t a business model for it, and Google needed to direct it’s resources elsewhere so they canned it. Via the official Google Reader blog:

There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.

Just adds on to my distrust of Google.

Free stuff by large organizations stifles innovation. Aldo Cortesi writes:

The truth is this: Google destroyed the RSS feed reader ecosystem with a subsidized product, stifling its competitors and killing innovation. It then neglected Google Reader itself for years, after it had effectively become the only player. Today it does further damage by buggering up the already beleaguered links between publishers and readers. It would have been better for the Internet if Reader had never been at all.

Free stuff turns you into a product to be sold to advertisers, since you’re not the customer. Bruce Schneier summarized our relationship with Facebook (it’s the same with Google):

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re Facebook’s customer, you’re not – you’re the product,” Schneier said. “Its customers are the advertisers.

I always find it strange that people would put up with annoying ads so that they can play games for free. If you like it and it provides value, pay the $0.99 for the game lah! If there are products and services that you use and like, please ensure their continuity by being a paying customer. Or donate if they are a non-profit organization like Wikipedia (donate here).

This is why I subscribe to Basecamp, Hootsuite Pro, Evernote Premium, Fastmail, Gravity Forms Developer License, and too many more to list. Maybe I’m very lucky to have the financial ability to pay for stuff I use, but I don’t smoke, don’t have a Starbucks or drinking habit, and try not to eat out that much. So next time you want to jailbreak your phone so you can install a $0.99 app, consider skipping the pack of smokes instead.

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Evernote for Travel

David Wang — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 06:20:45 +0000

View this document on Scribd

Last night I shared some of my tips for using Evernote to plan a trip or vacation at the Kuala Lumpur Evernote user meetup. The meetup was held in conjunction with DiGi who are announcing some interesting collaborations with Evernote next week – you heard it here first

Embedded above are my slides from my session (Evernote for Travel on Scribd), and here is a recap of my talk. I made the majority of the slides by drawing them out with Penultimate. Since the app was acquired by Evernote and integrated into its database, I’ve found it useful to replace scraps of paper on my desk. The best thing is that my jottings, phone numbers, etc are searchable within Evernote now. Enough waffling, time to dive into travel tips for Evernote!

Checklists

Every trip involves 1 thing – checklists. I avoid repetition as much as possible, so I save template checklists as notes in my Evernote Checklists notebook. In it I have packing lists which I modify for each trip, e.g. sometimes I need my passport, sometimes I don’t. Or you can create different checklist for different types of trips – short trip, overseas trip, or business trip. Also useful is a house prep list for things like stopping the newspaper, set lighting timers, etc. Evernote also allows you to insert checkboxes into your notes, which is very useful to see progress of your checklist at a glance.

Research

The next thing I use Evernote for when planning trips is research. This is where Evernote excels. I compile information on attractions, transit information, hotel and flight options and anything else that may be of use. I can also save info from travel books and brochures by snapping a photo of them. Evernote’s photo recognition will make the text in the photo searchable. Best. Feature. Ever! When planning a trip with my wife, I can share a notebook with her. Now she can save her own notes into the notebook too.

As an Evernote newbie I used to type everything into notes – until I discovered the Web Clipper. The Web Clipper is a button that lives on the web browser. When I find an article, map, anything online that I want to save, I press that button and the Web Clipper will appear. I can save the entire page, the highlighted article or a selection of text from the page. It’s even smart enough to guess the notebook that I want to save to, and suggests tags as well. Now that I’ve discovered the Web Clipper, researching trips is easier and faster too.

The benefit of researching with Evernote is that all the content I’ve saved is available to me in one location. I find that it saves me time comparing flight and hotel options because I don’t need to go looking for URLs and entering my travel dates. It also helps limit distractions because I’m not in my web browser where my email inbox and Facebook are only a tab away…

Sorting & Creating a Reference Notebook

Till this point, all my notes have been going into my research notebook, e.g. Europe Trip 2013 Research. Now it’s time to sort and make sense of it all. I create a 2nd notebook for reference e.g. Europe Trip 2013 Reference. I decide on an itinerary and move the relevant notes into this second notebook. I also tag all my notes with a unique tag so that I can view all notes across notebooks related to my trip if necessary.

In addition to the above, I also save flight details, booking confirmations, travel insurance etc to the reference notebook. I usually receive these information via email from the airline or hotel, and I can forward them to my Evernote email address. This will turn the email into a note, and save any attachments to the note as well. I also have a separate notebook where I keep scans of my passport and other important documents. The point of this is not to go paperless – I still print out these details. However when I’m filling up forms or need the information in a hurry, it’s literally in the palm of my hand and I don’t have to go digging for it in my bag.

Finally I create a note for my master itinerary. This is the note that I’ll refer to throughout my trip. It includes a summary of the information I need and if necessary I can link directly to the note or clipping for more details.

Offline Notebooks

Ok but with my paper printouts I don’t need Internet connection. And I don’t want to pay expensive data roaming fees.

Evernote to the rescue again! You can mark selected notebooks as offline notebooks. This will download the notes to your device so that they’re still accessible when you’re on airplane mode or don’t have an internet connection. This is a massive feature that I always use when overseas and I don’t want to buy a local SIM card.

Take note though that offline notebooks are a premium feature, so you’ll need to upgrade your account for the duration of the trip – it’s just USD5 per month or USD45 per year. Well worth the convenience, especially if you use Evernote for other reasons too.

All Together Now – An Example Workflow

Research travel ideas on the internet. Travel blogs, Lonely Planet, etc. Clip the articles directly into the research notebook with the Web Clipper.
Read about an attraction in a magazine. Snap a photo and save it into the research notebook.
Look up your Bucket List notebook for other activities you want to do on your trip. Move it to your research notebook.
Compare flights and hotels. Save the quotes to the research notebook so I don’t have to visit the hotel / airline website again later.
Time to start making decisions. Create reference notebook.
Shortlist activities to do on the trip and any related info. Move to the reference notebook.
Decide on airline and hotels. Buy tickets and make reservations. Forward confirmation emails to the reference notebook.
Make a master itinerary with summaries of flight, accommodation and activities. Link to specific notes if necessary.
It’s time to start packing. Look up the packing checklist. Better start thinking about prepping the house for the trip too.
Mark reference notebook as an offline notebook. Off on my trip with all important info in the palm of my hand.

Vacations can actually be extremely stressful. However by planning and preparing a little upfront, you’re more likely to have a stress free vacation. Happy travels!

P.S. The drawing style for my slides were Sketchnotes-inspired. I bought the book and will post a review when I get around to it.

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I survived my first race: 10km category at Brooks Half Marathon

David Wang — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 03:00:34 +0000

Phew! I’m pooped. My feet and calves are sore and I could hardly keep my eyes open after dinner last night – the side effects of my 10km race yesterday morning at the Brooks Half Marathon 2013. This was my first race ever and overall it was a fun experience.

The day started at 3.30am. I woke up, made sure I had something to eat and answered nature’s (long) call. I then made my way to the flag-off venue in Stadium Bukit Jalil at 5.30am as advised to ensure I had plenty of time to get my bearings, make a last minute toilet stop and get into the starting block early. Unfortunately the organizer didn’t tell us that the flag-off time was delayed to 6.45am so I had to wait a little longer than planned.

6.20am arrived and I lined up in the starting block. I turned on my music and reviewed the route in my head and my race plan. I didn’t want to get all pumped up with adrenalin and run too fast too early. My plan was to only start pushing it at the midway point.

The start of the race approached but there was no announcement – poor communication on the organizer’s part. All the runners in the starting block were trying to warm up, stretch, etc when suddenly the starters gun fired. There was a collective “huh?” and we started inching out. I think it took me 2 minutes to cross the starting line because there were so many people in front of me.

Finally out on the road, I faced the most difficult task of the day – dodging and overtaking other runners as we ran through the roads in the dark. There were more people than I expected and we were literally rubbing shoulders. After the 1st kilometer there were already other runners who had started to walk and I had to weave around them. I felt the adrenalin and I kept an average pace of 6:30 per km, 30 seconds faster than my usual pace. Surprisingly I didn’t run out of gas at all and was able to maintain that pace all the way to the end. Here’s my race on Nike+ Running if you’re interested (you might need to login).

The course was pretty hilly all the way. The previous week I ran with the TPRC up and down Bukit Tunku so that was good preparation. I tried to focus on keeping good form and take advantage of gravity on the downhill slopes. I started to tire at about 8.5km and the toughest part was the final slope up towards the stadium and that’s where I finally slowed down to a walk. By that point the finish was already in sight and so after 3 steps I sucked it up and ran the final 200m, hoping that I would not collapse after crossing the finish line.

In the end I crossed the line about about 1:06. My actual time should be a little better because it will give me the exact time when I crossed the start and finish lines. I won’t get my final time for a few weeks but my Nike Running app reports that I took about 1:04. It also reports that the total distance was actually only 9.79km

Overall my first race was a good and fun experience where I learnt a lot. I started on my fitness journey in September 2012 with the goal of getting into shape. The activity I chose to achieve that goal was running, and it turns out that I enjoy it quite a bit. I’ve signed up for the Standard Chartered KL Marathon 10km category in June, so I’m now looking forward to that!

The mini trophy that was awarded to finishers

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“Getting Things Done” system explained

David Wang — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 03:10:38 +0000

Found this via the Productivity community on Google+. I have been practicing the Getting Things Done (GTD) system for… 9 years now I think. I use it because there are so many things that demand my attention every day I need a way to put them all in a trusted system so that I can get back to them later. This way I can let my attention be engaged by the important things in life, not in the minutiae of the moment.

Unfortunately, the GTD system is a little difficult to understand. So this video is a great 2-minute primer. If you need to un-jam your to-do lists, give the Getting Things Done system a try.

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