Be a Better Man in 30 Days

I've just started a new job and as such I feel it's time for a bit of a routine shake up. Alex, Adam and I are starting to form a lifestyle mastermind group based around our pre-existing wiki and a Facebook group.

As a part of the "shake up" process we're going to try to start following a series of posts run on the Art of Manliness website titles "Be a Better Man in 30 Days". Seeing as I'm just relocating for and starting this job I feel it would be the perfect time for me too embark on something like this. What I plan to do is post some updates on here along with on our improvement wiki.

Admittedly the last 30 day challenge I tried didn't go as planned, University and other commitments meant that it became difficult to blog everyday, for me there's no need to dwell on this though, I'm confident that this process will run a lot better and prove to be a lot more useful.

E&E - Clients

We've started being approached by people who have heard of SWS through word of mouth (the internal emails/facebook group/twitter presence must have helped!) and we need to start drumming up some prices. I think the plan will be to charge differently depending on what media you need hosted or we could start off with just a flat rate to begin with.

These choices need to be made fast because we're generating more and more interest!

E&E - SWS Logo

Check it out!

After speaking with Alex he drummed us up a nice little logo for SWS, it was only a quick thing for the time being, I'm sure there is a lot more branding that would need to be done on top of this but it gives us something to start with.

As for the plans now, I think that we have reahced the stage that we wanted to be at by this time. I'll speak with George and Dave through this week and we can start talking with some designers about templates. After this is we can then pull in some buisness and start trading!

Oh and we musn't forget to start organising a presentation for the final hand-in. So still some bits and bobs to do!

F-Sim Space Shuttle

Over the course of this lazy weekend I've found myself in possession of another addictive iPod game. It's called  F-Sim Space Shuttle, the idea is that you are the pilot of the Orbiter Space Shuttle during its final approach and landing into either the Edwards Airforce Base or the Kennedy Space Centre. 

Although it's an incredibly simple idea, the game is really well executed and is actually quite difficult. It's tied into Game Centre as well, which means that if I can persuade some of the others at college to get it then we can find out who the best Space Shuttle pilot is. I'll probably leave it a few weeks before I tell them, just so I can get a head-start! 

Anyway, download the game out here. Hopefully you'll end up getting as addicted as I'm becoming!

A Love Story . . . In Milk

Written by Stephen Follows and directed by Danann Breathnach, "A Love Story... In Milk" tells the story of two milk jugs who fell in love. He was 2 percent from Happy Farm, she was whole milk from Valley Dairy - still, they found happiness together. But it couldn't last forever.

As featured on Neatorama and The Daily What, this adorable video turns heartbreaking when one empty milk container is put in the recycling bin and the other is thrown in the trash. The unhappy ending is a strong message from Friends of the Earth, a UK organisation promoting recycling.

It's an incredibly clever video that not only anthropomorphises the two milk jugs, but successfully tells the story of their love through the use of clever visuals and sounds.

A Love Story… In Milk from Catsnake on Vimeo.

Reblogged via Syracuse's Viral Video of the Day

E&E - The Limitations Of Vimeo

Having attended yesterdays E&E lecture on freelancing I was drawn in by a couple of poignant points. One of the presenters detailed how many freelancers were beginning to post their showreels online and how employers now simply expected a link to content.

This struck a chord because although we are not yet focussing our attention on the freelance industry, the fact remains that many students will want to be moving their content onto a online platform for their job search. As a result our target market is starting to appear a lot more tangible. 

Many people are using Vimeo for their hosting, and the many reasons for using this service over YouTube can be found in a quick search of the web, the main points are that:

• Personal video usage - no inane comments
• High Quality video by default
• Adaptable video players
• Only recommendations to view your other videos at the end of a clip, rather than a selection of related videos from other users

Although these may appear as mundane reasons for the time being, the fact remains that many professionals are maiming Vimeo their platform of choice. The question that now is needs to be asked now is how are we going to incorporate this into our business. 

There is no way that we could set out to compete with any of these well established market players, and one of my pet hates is having very little interoperability between platforms (not being able to repost a blog on blogger/twitter for example). So we must be willing to help users embed their videos into their webpages or even look into developing a temporary video holding and hosting service for when they cannot upload to Vimeo but need to quickly make a showreel available (Basic package users are only allow 1 HD upload a week, on top of this they are only allowed 500MB of storage space a week).

What I'm getting at is, as resellers we need to have a basic awareness of the constraints and needs of our clients and be ready to adapt to and incorporate their problems into our core business and technical models. In the instance of video showreels this means knowing how to quickly embed and upload content on Vimeo, or maybe even have a premium account for the company ($59.95 a year) that we can then move the customers videos into while they either create their own account or merely as a one off solution. 

The added details on the added functionality of using VimeoPlus can be found here.

30 Day Routine Change

This was posted ages ago on Lifehacker and I finally got around to watching it last night. The main focus is on the short talk by Matt Cutts at a recent Google I/O event.

He details how having a daily routine is great for staying productive, organised and keeping the stress levels to a minimum, but it can also start to feel tiresome and repetitive after a while. The suggestion is to make a small change and try something new for 30 days, this helps you to refresh a dull routine and help you expand your routine in positive way.

Even small changes such as riding a bike to work or writing a page of a novel every day can provide a level of inspiration and excitement, without completely disrupting your daily routine.. The added benefit of making it a small activity is that it will be easily sustainable, however it can also be used to really help you discover a little bit more about yourself and improve upon your weaknesses in a steady, manageable way.

While having a daily routine will help you stay organized and productive, it can also start to feel tiresome after awhile, and it's easy to stop trying new things. Googler Matt Cutts says you can escape that by trying something new—even something small—for 30 days. Cutts explains how by adding or subtracting something simple from his daily routine, like riding his bike to work, or taking a photo every day, helped him expand his routine in positive ways without throwing a wrench into his daily organisation. It doesn't need to be anything huge, either. Something small is easily sustainable, and can still help make your time more memorable, and even help you learn a thing or two about yourself.