My first post for the new year, I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable time!

After working a year and a half with my employer I was forced to take a week of annual leave (despite having to work Christmas and New Years day!), with my fiance working there were no exciting holiday plans which is probably a good thing as our bank account would cry poor. The week turned out ok in the end, while I didn’t go on any grand adventures or see any of the 7 wonders of the world I did increase my knowledge of photography, I enjoyed learning this subject so much that my plans to get to level 80 in World of Warcraft did not come into fruition (in fact, I haven’t even logged in!).

My week started off with a trip to Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, Victoria (Australia). I travelled with my Nikon D60 given to me by my fiance (best ‘hand-me-down’ ever wouldn’t you say?) as he had acquired the devilishly exquisite Nikon D90. I took a number of snaps, being an amateur photographer not many of my hopeful ‘best shots ever’ turned out that great.

My Nikon D60 (pictured above) is very well suited to those entering the intriguing world of DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) cameras. It has a number of camera modes to automatically adjust settings to get the right shot (or as close as you can without going manual) and easy to reach buttons to alter flash settings, exposure level, D-Active Lighting, etc. There’s also a function button you can program. I haven’t been exposed to any other brand in the DSLR community so my opinion is quite limited, in saying that I can assure that for the beginner this is an excellent choice and it’s a quality brand. Certainly the two outstanding candidates are Nikon and Canon.

For anyone not familiar with Sovereign Hill, it was one of Ballarat’s major gold digging sites where the world’s second largest gold nugget was found. To preserve it’s historic significance the digging site was recreated with 60 odd buildings and volunteer workers in character to depict how it was in the 1850’s. I set out to capture my 1850’s experience and freeze time.

I have finally gotten around to completing this! Line art has been completed in Manga Studio and colouring in Photoshop CS4 with my Wacom tablet. I’ve lost count on how many hours I’ve spent on this, over 20 lol. Hopefully with more practice I’ll be able to cut this down.

Alto is one of the main characters from a popular Japanese Anime series, Macross Frontier.

For a full view of this image (the below is a reduced sized) go here http://fav.me/d2f1ocj

I’ve been a huge FF fan since the release of FFVIII, I had played a couple of the previous games however it wasn’t until VIII that I was really hooked. Hence why I am ecstatic to hear the Australian release date of FFXIII!

This is a long awaited release and one main decision that prompted me to buy a PS3. Lucky for Japan, they will get their hands on it December this year so from that we’ll get more in-depth reviews of the game and it’s highly anticipated battle system. There are also a number of awesome trailers out there so I recommend you check them out to get a better insight of the game.

The graphics are spectacular, it’s one of few games that will take full advantage of the PS3 hardware and game play is said to be very smooth.

Here are a number of links to get you up to speed on FFXIII if you’re not already:

Discussion of what was seen at E3
Story and game play
E3 2009 trailer
TGS 2009 trailer

I found a really cool Wordpress plugin to import an XML playlist that you can export from iTunes. It’s called Tune Library, it was a pretty straight forward install and you just need to upload the XML file to the correct directory and add a new page to Wordpress with the plugin code (you can get the details from the readme file in the Tune Library plugin folder).

You’ll find a list of my recently added music from the link on the top right hand corner which includes Michael Buble and Flyleaf.

I spent my day at the Optus training centre in Melbourne today, quite a nice modern building with a lot of training rooms. It had a couple of TV’s running Foxtel which I can’t say I’ve seen before in other buildings I’ve visited, without going into boring interior design all in all it was sleek and semi-eye catching. Ok so Foxtel wasn’t the highlight but the building had all your other usual facilities and setup you’d expect to see at a training centre.

The company I work for gave us the opportunity to participate in Optus run training covering leading people through change. Our presenter, Kerrie Cottrill has a solid background in coaching and working with teams, I was in awe of her background and the brief significant events she went through to get where she is now. Fantastic at delivering the session also, Kerrie kept us engaged throughout the day and one of the most interesting techniques in her delivery was playing up beat and positive music when we were doing group sessions. No death by PowerPoint here!

One concept introduced to us was the decision making functions which are based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The two functions here are thinking and feeling. Based on Myers-Briggs, the function we exhibit shapes the way we make our decisions.

Thinkers are those that analyse the situation, they calculate, assess, look for flaws, tell it how it is, state the facts, use logic and use their head. They can come across as detached and can slap you from side to side - “That was a fantastic job Bob. Now let’s improve more”. They can be a facts and figures type person and stereotypically you can find quite a few of these individuals in senior management roles.

Feelers on the other hand use their heart. They consider others, are people focused, praise and encourage, use understanding, they are high on values, empathetic and subjective. They generally don’t want to upset people and seek harmony and balance. Feelers will approach people with more emotion than their thinking counterparts, if they see an under performer they will consider outside influences that might be affecting this individual and are they under stress? Is it a motivation issue we can address or a problem with team dynamics?

We were split into groups and asked what issues and concerns we foresee with thinkers and feelers working together, our group was made up of feelers. Some of the points we came up with where a higher risk of conflict due to misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Both thinkers and feelers approach a situation with a different mindset so because there is a difference in perception there’s a chance of communication issues. And how would we help the situation? We would ensure we had clear goals so there’s a common understanding, we would build team communication and awareness of how to interact, hold regular discussions and encourage team participation and open feedback. All our answers were written down on a large bit of paper and on reflection, we laughed realising the issues we foreseen and our approach was that of a feelers personality so the way we process a situation due to being feelers certainly came out on paper and Kerrie’s session on this topic helped us recognise this.

Having an awareness of these two functions allows us to manage people through change and make our approach more effective. It’s also possible that if you’re a feeler, that you can still use aspects of a thinker to deal with a situation however that does not indicate you have a thinkers approach - it makes you more effective as you are utilising more of the behaviours you find on each of the two functions and by being aware of them. This applies vice versa if you’re a thinker. You may have someone under performing and as a feeler you may want to analyse and collect data to confirm this is the case (thinker), you then follow up with a one on one discussion with this individual and find out why this is occurring. Are there outside influences? Is there a training issue we need to address? Maybe it’s heavy workload or an issue of conflict within the team? Kerrie gave us a story of a woman who found herself working in a senior management team and was the first woman to be promoted into this group in the lifetime of this organisation. Most of these individuals of course were thinkers - facts, figures, straight to the point, no fluff. The woman on the other hand was a feeler. She quickly discovered that in order to succeed in this group she had to learn about the behaviours of the thinkers and when required use them to communicate and work with her group. This made her more effective and able to gain more from the interactions and tasks. So again, it’s not about becoming the other type but having an awareness of it and using certain behaviours from the function when required in order to be more effective in your approach and more successful.

We covered many other topics during the day however this was a highlight as it helped to build awareness and understanding of how people think and in turn, how they react to a given situation. This is important to know so we can effectively manage people when change occurs and take an individual approach to helping them through the change.

Kudos to Kerrie for the delivery of an excellent training session!

After selling my Asus EEE PC I was then on the hunt to use the cash to find a decent e-book reader. I have so many e-books and it’s such a hassle to read them on my Mac and the iPhone screen is just a tad too small, especially for images in the text.

I wasn’t too impressed with the Kindle which is now selling in Australia through Amazon. It’s too restrictive and I don’t like the idea of wireless downloads and the costs involved, particularly when I don’t need the reader to buy more books, I have plenty to read as it is. There are quite a number of other brands out there, all of which were either too pricey or the features were too basic. I started to go down the path of the re-branded Hanlin, the ECO Reader. The reviews looked decent however it was still pricey compared to it’s features. What really drew me to it was the number of file formats it supported.

It’s also rumoured that Asus are bringing out a new reader in December, not sure if it will be available in Australia, the digital reader market isn’t exactly booming here. I’m not a patient person so I don’t want to wait in hope that it might be released here and have better features. LG is also releasing a solar powered reader but out of my price range.

So in the end my final decision was with the Sony Reader Touch Edition (model PRS-600).

The PRS-600 sports a touch screen, after reviewing quite a few videos it appears to be quite responsive. It’s a 6 inch screen using E Ink technology which is quite common in majority of the popular readers. The device comes with a stylus to use however the screen buttons and menus are large enough to use your fingers. The only time you would require the stylus is to select words or make notes.

The freehand highlighting and annotation will be quite handy, this isn’t a feature found in all readers. I believe the Kindle or Kindle 2 has this however. The Sony reader allows you to highlight words in the text so you can revisit later and you can write comments onto the page which you can also refer back to from a menu - it will take you straight back to the page with your notes on it. There is also a search feature to look for key words and a built in dictionary based on the American Oxford dictionary. In the videos I’ve watched, I did notice that writing/drawing with the stylus is a bit laggy however it appears like it wouldn’t be much of an issue so long as you’re not scribbling at 100 mile an hour.

Other features include:

Adjustable font sizes, there are 5 to choose from

You can get around two weeks per charge of reading or 7,500 page turns. The unit will charge via the USB cable or power adapter

You can expand on the built in memory (512MB) with either a standard SD card or you can use the Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo cards, I have a number of each given I have a camera and a PSP

The screen resolution is 800×600 and has 8 grey scales

Compatible with both the PC and Mac. There have been reports that the Sony software doesn’t work well on the Mac, not sure if this is correct but I plan on using Calibre anyway

You can read books in either a landscape or portrait orientation

Here are some videos of the PRS-600:

ireadreview.com

user review on Youtube.com

Cons: A lot of people are reporting the screen glare is worse than most readers because of the touch screen. However by moving the screen slightly you can reduce the glare so it’s not an issue. The unit is also quite small, many believed it would be larger until they opened the box. For me, I’m not worried about that, I just need something that’s a bit bigger than the iPhone and isn’t as big as a netbook screen.

Once I receive the device, I’ll post further comments.

I have completed more of the shading on this character now. Still a bit to go but it’s getting there slowly.

090930_GoBag

Originally uploaded by Ryan G. Biv

I’m surprised to see all this fit into just one bag! Or maybe I’m just shocked to what is being carried around. Everything from a laptop, a Kindle to cables lol. Hmm, makes women’s handbags not so bad right? Ryan G. Biv, where is the kitchen sink?! I’m sure there’s room for it.

I read some articles about posting from WLW to Wordpress blogs so thought I would give it a test from my Windows 7 netbook. On initial config, WLW has recognised my blog and I can see my blog categories so that’s a good start! Let’s see how it goes.

EDIT: Ok, it posted without a problem. Posted to the specified category and tags worked as well. I also have Twitme installed to post an automated tweet when I publish a new post, it worked also.

Two roles I’ve done, my current job and an operations team leader role have both been email intensive. Currently I receive about 80 emails a day and it is incredibly difficult to keep track of what’s going on and what tasks I am meant to be doing. It was a constant haze and I felt like a deer in headlights! I tried many of the standard methods to keep myself organised and on top of things, everything from keeping a daily planner to using Outlook tasks but given time it would just grow like an out of control weed.

I’ve implemented two systems to keep track of my to do list and emails, in this post I will first cover off how I am managing my flood of email. It’s important to understand that not every system works perfectly for all, you really need to do a bit of research on what methods people are using and adopt one that suits you best based on your tools and how you work.

Upon my quest to find a solution to my problem I came across what is popularly known as ‘Inbox Zero’. The creator behind this method is Merlin Mann, the mind behind 43folder.com. After reviewing a number of his articles on this and feedback from others I implemented a number of suggestions.

I setup a number of search folders in Outlook to list emails based on their category, I then created three categories - Defer, FYI, Waiting Response. When receiving an email, I would quickly glance at it. If it is going to take more than 5 minutes to process the email, I would place it in the Defer category. If the email contained information I might need to know for the future, I would place it in the FYI category. All other email I would process on the spot. Once the email had either been processed or categorised I would move it out of the inbox into a folder called Archive. This allows for me to keep my inbox clean and I would then set time aside each day to go through my Defer emails and action those, generally at the end of the day when the daily grind slows.

I started to have issues with losing track of email conversations, I would reply or send an email to someone for which I needed a response and then completely forget about it. This is where the Waiting Response search folder comes in, I would categorise my sent email so I could track what is waiting on a response and if I receive nothing in an expected time frame, I would follow up with the person again. On top of this, I also have a number of Outlook rules setup. Anything I am CC’d on goes to it’s own folder immediately, if I’m CC’d then it’s obviously not as important as emails sent directly to me…assuming people are following email etiquette. I’m also a member of a number of email distribution lists so I have setup folders to filter this email directly to it.

I started to get really annoyed with having to click emails and drag them to the Archive folder so I did a bit of research and found a site (http://verychewy.com/archive/2006/04/12/outlook-macro-to-move-an-email-to-folder.aspx) which offered scripting examples to setup a macro to automatically do this task. I then assigned this macro to a button in a toolbar, all I have to do is select the email and click a button and it automatically moves to the Archive folder. Excellent! The less mouse work that needs to be done, the better. And how many of us have accidently dragged an email to the wrong folder? Annoying!

So this is how I am dealing with my flood of email. It’s also important to watch how much time you’re spending in Outlook, I would live in it for majority of my day. I then started to get into a routine of checking it only at certain times so I could concentrate on other things and after all, if something is important a phone call is in order, not an email. After a period of time the schedule was sacked however now I am checking Outlook at certain intervals, just not on an exact schedule. It was sufficient enough to break my addiction to Outlook.

My other tool is http://www.toodledo.com. It is an online task management system based on David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”. When I receive emails in Outlook if it is something that requires a bit of time to work on I will email it to a specific Toodledo.com address and it will add a task automatically. I can even add parameters to the subject to setup the task e.g. where I need to be to complete this task (contexts). Any other tasks not received via email, I add automatically. Toodledo.com also has a very neat scheduler, you can enter how many working hours you have and it will prioritise your tasks and what is best to be completed in that time frame. A full task schedule can also be printed out. What I really like is the ability to have their app on my iPhone while on the go, I can quickly fire it up and see what is next on my list or I can add further tasks from a meeting for example. Some may not like to hear it’s a paid service however the fee is very small and well worth the money.

I recommend that you check out Merlin’s site as well as Toodledo.com if you face similar issues. Furthermore, David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done” is a worthwhile read. It gives you insight in how to better manage your time by organising yourself and managing your tasks.