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May 21, 2013

Running your own business feels like dodging trains

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Subway Surfers by Kiloo

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

Apr 5, 2013

Forecast.io tells you the weather, beautifully

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forecast-io

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.

Photo Apr 05, 10 00 18 AM Photo Apr 05, 10 00 45 AM

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.

Mar 16, 2013

Free isn’t always the best option

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

rip-google-reader

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.

Mar 6, 2013

Evernote for Travel

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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. Continue Reading

Mar 4, 2013

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

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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.

21km runners ready to go Continue Reading

Feb 27, 2013

Join me at the Evernote Kuala Lumpur User Meetup

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Evernote for travel DW

I’ve been invited as a speaker to Evernote’s user meetup this March 5th. I’ll be sharing my tips on planning a vacation with Evernote. Also speaking are Matthew Lim and Sara Khong. The event is open to the public but you’ll need to RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/event/4870587057

I wouldn’t consider myself an Evernote power user but I’ve picked up a few tips along the way. I’ve been using them more and more now that Skitch and Penultimate are also integrated into the ecosystem. I’m personally looking forward to the event to learn some tips and meet up with the Evernote people – please come along if you are an Evernote user, or just getting started with it as well!

Finally, I’m experimenting with drawing out my slides Sketchnote style. The “slide” above from my presentation was hand drawn in Penultimate. What do you think?

Feb 4, 2013

My first live MMA event – ONE FC 7: Return of Warriors

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I’ve been a fan of mixed martial arts (MMA), especially since they began showing UFC matches on FOX. I had heard of ONE FC, an Asian MMA league and when they announced their fight in Stadium Putra on 2 Feb, I jumped and bought tickets for myself and Pei Chyi. (Shhh, Pei Chyi is a fan too )

Stadium Putra decked out for the fight
The view from our Gold ticket seats
Adam “Shogun” Kayoom making his entrance
Adam Kayoom dominated Zuli Silawanto with ground and pound and dispatched him with a rear naked choke
The bloodiest match of the night – Krishna had his upper lip torn from heel drops from Davies moments after this picture
Probably my fave match of the night. Great back and forth match and glad with the outcome
Co-main event of the night. Kojima was so excited at his win :D
The main event.. turned out to be a yawn.. :P
ONE FC Ring Girls Felixia Yeap and Jialin Tye

Click to view full-sized images with captions Continue Reading

Jan 12, 2013

Training for my first 10K race

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Since starting on my fitness journey a few months ago, I’m really enjoying running. I’m enjoying running so much that I want to do a half marathon this year Continue Reading

Dec 30, 2012

2012: Year in Review

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I’ve been writing my year end reviews for 3 years now so I guess it has become customary of sorts. In addition to being an easy way of recording all the things I didn’t manage to write about this past year, it’s also a great opportunity to pause and reflect. This year I began my year in review by reading my 2009, 2010 and 2011 reviews.

God has been gracious and continued to bless me, so 2012 was another great year. I feel like I’ve successfully built a foundation in life and have now hit my stride for the next several years (or decades). That being said there are a few things I need to watch out for so that I don’t trip up and allow what has been built up to become undone.

I’m mixing the format up this year so let’s just jump into the highlights, in no particular order.

Vacation time again

P1040507

Finally Zack is at an age where we can travel more again! 2012 began with a vacation to Langkawi. It was our first experience on vacation with Zack alone. He enjoyed splashing around in the pool but was afraid of the beach (sand and sound of the waves).

P1040584

The Langkawi vacation prepared us for our longer, overseas vacation to Melbourne. Pei Chyi had to work a few days in Melbourne, and we took the opportunity to extend the trip and stayed with our good pals Joanie and Gavin. That was a fun trip! I had to watch Zack all by myself for several days which was pretty challenging but they gave me some great memories with Zack.

P1050181

We also travelled to Bangkok in August, this time with my parents and sister. Oh gosh how grandpa doted over Zack. We also met up with some old friends whom we haven’t seen for 10 years and are now firmly re-connected via Facebook

There was also a short trip to Singapore in June and Zack travelled even more than me when he tagged along with Pei Chyi to her cousin’s wedding in Hong Kong.

Pei Chyi says goodbye to The Man

In May, Pei Chyi left her job of 5 years to join her parents’ business. The plan is that she takes the reigns when my in-laws retire, but in the meantime the company workforce grew by 50% (there’s just the 3 Leongs).

Transitioning to a self-employed career has been exciting, challenging, frustrating and rewarding for Pei Chyi. And working with your own parents is a whole other can of worms too. I try to offer advice wherever I can but there are lots of things that she needs to simply experience and learn herself.

The upshot is that Pei Chyi and I have even more in common. I always felt there was a small but distinct gap between my self-employed career and her own employment. Now that gap is gone. And we can now both go out on weekdays at a whim, no need to wait for the weekend Continue Reading

Dec 26, 2012

Nike+ FuelBand Review: A Mind Control Device That Motivates You To Stay Fit

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Nike+ FuelBand

Nike+ FuelBand

I decided after my birthday in July that I needed to get into better shape. I knew from the start that it wasn’t going to be an easy journey – I only began to take the first steps 2 months after making the decision!

After some research, I purchased a Nike+ FuelBand to help me stay motivated on my fitness journey. It was one of the best decisions I made in 2012, and now fitness is something I actually look forward to instead of being a boring, unexciting chore.

From observation and experience, staying motivated long enough to get into the groove is probably the biggest hurdle to becoming fitter and healthier. Once you see results it’s a lot easier to stay motivated. That was definitely the case with me, and that was the problem that my Nike+ FuelBand helped to solve.

How does it work?

The Nike+ FuelBand is a wristband with a bunch of electronics inside that automatically tracks your movement (activity) and translates it to a score called NikeFuel. You set a daily goal for the amount of NikeFuel you want to achieve and the FuelBand keeps track of it.

In addition to the Fuel score, the Nike+ system rewards you with awards. Win trophies by scoring a certain number of points. Get on a streak by meeting your daily Fuel goal multiple days in a row. It’s the principle of gamification where your activity is automatically scored, so you compete with others (or just yourself).

The FuelBand is just one of the many devices within the Nike+ ecosystem. Each product tracks different activities better and the FuelBand is the best one for tracking all-day activity.

Therefore, the Nike+ system is the platform that turns fitness into a game. And to play the game, you need a toy device like the Nike+ FuelBand.

It’s a simple idea, and it’s just the thing that fitness newbies need to keep motivated. Even if the activity of exercising is not fun, the achievements, visualizing your progress and comparing it with others gives newbies the sense of achievement and engagement that they need to stick with their fitness journey and begin seeing results.

Continue Reading

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