Rearden Metal

The NY Times recently published an interesting and informative article on Life Hackers which I have been reading via the link on David Allen’s Blog.

It details the research that companies such as Microsoft and Apple are doing to try and find a way for our computers to work in a less distracting way.

One of the lessons I totally agree with was that by using a bigger monitor, and allowing the user to keep a good overall picture of what they’re working on, they are far less knocked back by interruptions.

Also, mention is made of the benefits of simplifying our todo lists and capture methods. So out with the Palm and in with the hipster PDA? There is certainly a convincing argument here, and I am looking at reducing the number of apps that I use to further complicate what should be an effortless system, but for now I want to work towards a single palm based solution.

David Allen: NY Times Mag article today on Life Hackers

To help promote the launch of the new Aardman Film ‘Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ PG Tips have been offering a limited number of Gromit Thermo Mugs, free with 160 bag boxes of tea. Well, I succumbed, rushed down to Tesco’s and bagged one (well actually five). Interesting note, they are already selling on ebay for more than the buying price - ask me very nicely and I may sell you one - if the price is right!

So for all you fans out there, here’s the whole experience:-

1) The Gromit Mug and Tea Pack

2) Making the Tea

3) Watch Gromit’s nose turn red

4) TaDa!!

I have to admit that up until now I’ve not used a newsgroup reader, instead choosing to read what I want when I wanted it. But Google have now release Google Reader and I can see the attraction.

You add the sites you regularly subscribe to, or if you don’t have the url you can use the ever present searchbox. The page then collects all of the RSS feed data for you.

Once you have a few sites, you can scroll through all of the stories to pick anything that looks interesting using a slider on the left.

Not all sites seem to work correctly yet. I found that one of my favourites moleskinerie does not display the whole post, but you can click to the original story as posted on the site to see everything.

Google Reader