I’ve noticed that lots of people like to fill their iPhone screen entirely with icons. If they have more than one screen’s worth, they make sure to put the icons of the applications they use most on the first screen. This poses a couple of issues with me: 1) it makes it harder to find the apps that you really need to use at a moment’s notice, and 2) it turns your iPhone into a sort of black hole, with some of those time-wasting apps seducing you into doing things you don’t need to be doing, or accessing information you don’t really need to have.
So, I take the approach of putting those apps that aren’t big time wasters, but that I often need to use at a moment’s notice, on the first screen. Here’s an overview of the first screen of icons on my iPhone:
I put the key communication functions on the grey bar at the bottom. There’s really just two of these in my opinion, SMS messages, and Phone functionality.
And what’s up with the ones on the second screen? Well, more than anything, since I use my iPhone for an alarm, the last thing I want to do before I even get out of bed is check e-mail, stocks, or Facebook on impulse.
The one wish I have is that my iPhone could default to that first screen, so that the second one doesn’t show up next time I wake my iPhone after an e-mail session. Adopting this strategy will save you time keep you sane, give it a shot.
I am launching an application on the Facebook Platform called Through a Friend. Through a Friend is a socially intelligent marketplace that uses your social connections to help you do things like look for a roommate, find an apartment, sell your car, or even just get advice from trusted friends.
Through a Friend works by displaying your announcement on the profile boxes of your friends, where their friends can see what you need help with. If you have a friend in need, and can’t directly help them out, you can still get involved by “supporting” them, which will push their announcement out a degree further. Through a Friend makes it easy for your friends to get involved in connecting you with people whom you can trust.
“There are many interpretations about what happened on this stage yesterday, but it’s reflective of how new media is changing every process that we are used to.”
2:08pm Sia’s “Breathe Me” is playing over a montage of postsecret postcards (above). A brilliant quote flashed across the screen from Frank: “there are two kinds of secrets: those we keep from others, and those that we keep from ourselves.”
2:11pm He’s talking about some of the variety of secrets that he’s gotten: one on a Rubik’s cube that was mixed up with a secret on each side. One secret: “I passed her at the store the other day. I almost had his child. I wanted to tell her.”
Some of the ones that he just got from conferencegoers. “These web celebrities have never worked with clients.”
“My company sent me to SXSW, but I came here to find another job.”
“My company sent me here to steal ideas from startups. I’m pretending to be a freelancer.”
2:20pm He’s started talking about how he started Post Secret. He said it started with an exhibit. He handed out cards in DC, saying “you’ve been invited to participate in a community art project. Send your secrets to this address.” But, after the exhibit was over, he continued to get post cards.
He told a story of a music video that wanted to use post secret post cards in exchange for $1000. He refused and instead granted them the permission if they would donate $2000 to a suicide prevention hotline. He played the video “Dirty Little Secrets,” by the All-American Rejects.
2:30pm He’s showing some post cards. “I like to watch Dr. Phil, Drunk.” “I’m still thinking of you. (image of a penis on a BBQ)”
He’s talking about the most gratifying moment he’s had in his time during Post Secret. He saved a national suicide prevention hotline by posting on post secret and getting readers to donate $30k.
A postcard: “I tell myself that one day, after our spouses die and we’re like 80, we’ll be reunited”
He’s talking about the barcode sticker that is on some post cards. Some readers want him to remove them, but he likes how they give a sense of the journey that the secrets take to his mailbox.
He’s reading from one of his books about someone who posted a secret inside of a bathroom stall. She came back later in the day and saw at least 10 other secrets posted there, all on pink post-it notes.
2:40pm He tells a story about how his father, for the longest time, couldn’t understand why people would send in post cards. He ended up flying his father to see one of his exhibits. On the way home in the car, his father ended up telling him a secret from his childhood.
A proposal!
Some guy just got on stage to tell a secret, and said “Natalie Thai (sp?), will you marry me?” There was a long pause, and a girl came all the way from the back of the ballroom, and walked slowly up to the stage. He said “hurry, I’m shaking up here. There’s alot of people.” She came up on stage and simply said “Yes.”
From the audience
“When I was in fifth grade, I thought I was retarded and that my parents were paying everyone to pretend that I wasn’t”
A questioner brought up a point that we are perhaps experiencing an authenticity revolution, and Post Secret is evidence of that.
A questioner asked what he would do if he received a secret admitting to a really serious crime. Frank says that he doesn’t get many like that, but on the back of one of his books there is one that says “he’s been in jail for 10 years for something I did, and he has 5 more to go.”
A questioner asked about how many secrets he thinks are actually true. He’s essentially saying that a piece of art can be good whether it is true or not - Fiction vs. Non-Fiction books as an example. He’s also saying that there’s a little bit of truth in any secret.
Another questioner is bringing up the issue of truth again. He’s reading a post card “the secret I sent you last week was true, and now it’s not.”
2:58pm A girl is up there at the microphone crying, she says she has a secret. Her sister is sick and she is worried she might die. She would like for people to leave comments for her sister at her (her sister’s) blog. Dang, I missed what the address of the blog was.
The girl came up on stage to give Frank a hug. The End.
Use telepathy: you have to see people’s faces when they are using your product, because you can naturally read people’s minds just by seeing their facial expressions
Serendipity: some people think their iPod shuffle is psychic
The Dog Ears Design Principle: real-world physics in interaction make people gasp
Joy
Inspire First-Person Language: Get users to talk about themselves instead of about your product
T-shirt first development: If there was a t-shirt for your product, what would it say about the person who is wearing it? (your user). Make a women’s fitted t-shirt!
Easter Eggs and other surprises: inside references
Tools for evangelism: help users defend this “totally lame waste of time”
Reduce their stress
Exercise the brain
Help them improve their body
Give them superpowers quickly: Electric Rain: “User must do something cool within 30 minutes”
Speed their knowledge acquisition: when you upgrade, don’t ruin their expertise. What do experts know, and how can we get other people up to that speed more quickly? Hint: “best practices” are not motivating. “letting them off the hook” is the killer app.
Help with “reinvestment of mental resources into new problems”: Experts vs. non-experts - experts “to-do” lists keep growing.
Focus
Create a culture of support: create mentors early in the learning curve. No dumb answers.
Do NOT insist on “inclusivity”: jagon is good because passionate users “talk different”
Practice Seductive Opacity: brains love mystery, anticipation, curiosity. “It’s not secrecy, it’s theater” The UPS guy is like a sex symbol. Everyone loves to get the amazon package and open it up. Add an unboxing experience to your product.
Do what this guy does: Gary Vaynerchuck - has a video blog on tasting wine. “Most people in the wine industry are douchebags…Wine has been put on a pedestal…Stop drinking Yellow Tail people!…If you love something, love it…I love White Castle sliders, but I don’t eat them EVERY MEAL.”
Thomas Jefferson reminding his nephew to walk. Found in his Life and Selected Writings. I think it’s ironic to look at this today, seeing that he smites the Europeans for the horse.
“…Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far. The Europeans value themselves on having subdued the horse to the uses of man; but I doubt whether we have not lost more than we have gained, by the use of this animal. No one has occasioned so much the degeneracy of the human body. An Indian goes on foot nearly as far in a day, for a long journey, as an enfeebled white does on his horse; and will tire the best horses. There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue….”
I recently played the lead role in Marc Stayman’s “Echo,” a production of Scary Cow. It played on the big screen at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, but I unfortunately missed it since I was wandering through Europe. Thanks to the interwebs, you can enjoy it from the comfort of your internet browser. Check it out!
There are two sorts of people in the world, who with equal degrees of health and wealth and the other comforts of life, become the one happy, the other unhappy. Those who are to be happy fix their attention on the pleasant parts of conversation, and enjoy all with cheerfulness. Those who are to be unhappy think and speak only of the contraries. Hence they are continually discontented themselves, and by their remarks sour the pleasures of society, offend personally many people, and make themselves everywhere disagreeable. If these people will not change this bad habit, and condescend to be pleas’d with what is pleasing, it is good for others to avoid an acquaintance with them, which is always disagreeable, and sometimes very inconvenient, particularly when one finds one’s self entangeld in their quarrels.
An old philosophical friend of mine, grown from experience very cautious in this, carefully shun’d any intimacy with such people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer to show the heat of the weather, and a barometer to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but there being no instrument yet invented to discover at first sight this unpleasing disposition in a person, he for that purpose made use of his legs. One was remarkably handsome, the other by some accident crooked and deform’d. If a stranger at the first interview regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it, and took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine my philosopher to have no farther acquaintance with him.
I therefore advise these critical, querulous, discontented, unhappy people that if they wish to be loved and respected by others and happy in themselves, they should leave off looking at the ugly leg.
It’s funny that one of the most vital of all of our activities is, for many, one of the least considered. Few of us take the time from our hectic lives to think at all about how we breathe, or to even learn how to do so properly. The best ways to master the art of breathing are by practicing Yoga or Meditation. If all of that sounds too complicated and new-agey for you, just start off with this simple exercise:
Sit “Indian Style” with a pillow under your bum. Sit up straight, with your chin bent slightly forward so that the back of your skull feels like it forms a vertical line with your spine.
Close your eyes and press your left nostril closed with your left thumb. Inhale gently through your right nostril. Be patient and calm - it may be very difficult at first to breathe in, especially if you are prone to being congested, but if you are patient, you will be surprised at how your airways will start to open up.
Once you have inhaled, let go of your left nostril, and close your right nostril with your left index finger. Exhale slowly through your left nostril.
After you finish exhaling through your left nostril the third time, start inhaling through that same nostril, reversing the sequence: inhaling through the left, and exhaling through the right. Do this for three breaths as well.
As you breathe in, concentrate only on the sensation of your breath, and it’s effects on your body. You may be able to feel the blood vessels in your nostrils and face start to pulse as your heart beats - this is a good start, so concentrate on this sensation. After you have mastered this exercise, continue on after it simply breathing through your (unobstructed) nose.
Once you get used to concentrating on the sensation of your blood vessels pulsing, start to concentrate on your belly as you breathe in and out. You may even start to feel the food digesting in your very stomach!
Concentrating on your breathing will not only clear your mind of all of the inconsequential gunk that has built up in it, it will also stimulate blood flow through your whole body.
Not only is concentrating on the sensation of your breath important, but how you breathe can effect how you feel, as well. Feeling depressed? You may need to breathe more with your chest. Overly anxious? Maybe there isn’t enough belly in your breath. If you lie on your back with a hand on your belly and a hand on your chest, both of them should rise when you breathe, your chest slightly less than your belly.
Breathing is a simple - yet vital - life hack indeed. Next time you’re cussing out the Escalade that beat you to the closest parking spot to the door of your favorite strip-mall supermarket, just remind yourself that breathing is way more important.
A few years ago, I noticed that there were no resources for Graphic Designers to learn about how to reduce the environmental impact of their print projects. I’ve done some research on the subject lately, and I have found that much more information has been popping up, however, it is scattered throughout the web and trying to sift through it all is overwhelming to say the least.
As you may have heard on my latest Be A Design Cast appearance, I have launched SustainablePrint.org: a wiki that will - with the help of folks like you - become the most comprehensive resource for Designers to consult when trying to reduce the environmental impact of their print projects.
As you can see on the site, I have gotten the ball rolling, but I only know so much about this subject so in order to be successful the project needs the expertise and experience of members of the Design, Paper, and Printing industries. Please help by contributing, offerring your suggestions, and telling every design, printing, and paper expert you know!
Until recently, I was prone to sinus infections - or not so much prone, but rather, I had a sinus infection all of the time. My voice was nasally, I was fatigued all of the time, and I pretty much felt gross. I had seen a number of doctors over the years for my recurrent sinusitis. They tended to test me for environmental allergies, stick a camera up my nose, and ultimately prescribe some bullshit allergy medication that didn’t work, or even convince me to shoot water up my nose - which was actually their best idea.
Then one day I was reading an old book on holistic medicine. Of course, the first thing I wanted to know was how could I prevent being constantly congested. The book said that foods such as wheat, meat, and dairy often contributed to excess mucous production - and thus, sinusitis. I was miserable, and clearly willing to try anything, so I cut out all three of those things the very next day.
Within two days, the difference was incredible. My head had cleared up, I had boundless energy, and other problems - such as a patch of eczema that I had on my eyelid for years - all cleared up. My armpits didn’t even smell - which is an odd observation, but remarkable, so I’m remarking upon it.
I continued with this “fast” of sorts for about a week. Through a bit of experimentation I was able to place the blame for my sinus woes (and that eczema thing) on wheat. Since I re-introduced animal products like meat and dairy, my armpits just smell like a normal person’s.
“Wheat!? You can’t eat wheat!?,” is the usual response of anyone whom I tell this to. Yeah, that’s right - I can’t eat bread, pasta, flour tortillas (burritos), cupcakes, crackers, cookies, brownies, cake, or even drink beer. This means staples such as pizza and sandwiches have been out of my diet - except for the occasional (regretted) indulgence - since I discovered this problem seven months ago. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been quite worth it.
How could you avoid something as ubiquitous as wheat? Good question. Fortunately I had the advantages both of living in the hippie capital known as San Francisco, and working at a hippie company; so knowledge on this subject was pretty easy to find. I discovered grains such as quinoa, and millet, and these other things called “fruits” and “vegetables.” The whole experience of trying to restructure my diet had me looking at food totally differently. Ultimately, I found it easiest to just eat Thai and Indian food every day, but there are websites dedicated to wheat free diets, if one is so inclined.
Not only did the experience have me looking at food differently, it also had me looking at medicine differently. How could I see so many GPs, allergy specialists, ENT specialists, and dermatologists without a single one of them saying “you know, you should look at your diet?” How many other people are out there with health problems related to food allergies and intolerances that are being underinformed by their doctors? I get the sneaking suspicion that somewhere in the depths of that problem lies the fact that there’s so much money to be made pumping people full of drugs.
But keeping wheat out of my diet has just plain gotten old, so I’m seeing an accupuncturist with the hopes I can have that allergy (and a few others) eliminated. You can bet that if she can make it so I can eat pizza and drink beer again, you will hear about it right here.
