Onwards and upwards in 2015

Happy New Year everyone!

Hope 2015 is a great year for you and that you can achieve all you want to this year. I think that recent events both very close to home in Glasgow and further afield in Australia and  Paris show that we need to make the most of every day.

Put your plans in motion, do the things you want to do, travel to the places you want to see. If you want to change career or start your own business go for it. Life is too short for regrets or missed opportunities.

This year I plan to get back up to speed with blogging, my output recently has been very poor. All the draft articles I've been working on will soon see the light of day.

My fitness is another area I plan to improve on. Hopefully I will manage some more bike rides this year as well as stepping up my general exercise levels.

Creativity wise, as well as blogging I hope to be more productive in general. Play more guitar, get back into drawing, take more photos.

Technology wise I have just got a PlayStation 4 which is great. The graphics are amazing, especially since my current/previous console was a Nintendo Wii. This might scupper all the other plans however as I can see it taking up a lot of my time if I'm not careful.

It's the CES technology show at the moment in Vegas. It's the annual conference where companies showcase their products that will be coming over the next few years. Its always a mixture of exciting glimpses of the future, some of the next big things and a collection of random nonsense. I'm sure we will see some of the key items making their way to the mainstream over the next 12 months.

Is there anything you are looking forward to in 2015, technology related or otherwise?

Raising your skill levels

There seems to haves been a recent trend in the gamification of learning and personal improvement. By that I mean more and more websites and apps related to improving yourself have taken an influence from gaming and role play.

The gain from any personal improvement has generally always been the improvement itself, eg getting fitter, learning a language or being more productive. Now however that doesn't seem to be enough, in our short attention span world where more and more things are competing for our valuable free time these services have had to resort to other means to keep our interest.

Most of these services now feature a combination of points and level based achievements. Some even have additional challenges and tasks to unlock and raise your profile. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, in fact its probably the opposite as they do manage to sustain your attention where you may otherwise had drifted away after the initial burst of interest has gone.

Health and fitness apps such as Map my ride, Strava or Fitocracy  are some of the most popular examples. These log your distance travelled (ran/walked/cycled etc), let you compare against others, set personal bests and compete in local challenges. 

Learning or lifestyle apps like Duolingo the popular language learning tool, or brain training apps like Lumosity offer a similar service. Here you can score points as you learn and level up as your knowledge grows.

Another category are the productivity apps like Todoist or Wunderlist. Both of which allow you to create and manage tasks lists. Again you are rewarded with points for logging in, creating or completing your tasks. 

Are these an example of our constant need for stimulus, or the advantage of smartphone culture and how it can improve our life experiences? Is it another example of our need for peer approval as we share these achievements on social media? Some think the opposite however, as the community aspect of these apps often help users stick with it or overcome challenges when their motivation is failing.  

Perhaps this is one of the main benefits over traditional go-it-alone self improvement. It can be the extra boost needed when struggling to go the extra distance or stick in for another lesson. Instead of the solitary run where it doesn't matter if you turn back early for home. Or stepping away from the learning zone to watch TV. Knowing you have a group behind you sharing advice, giving you praise on your achievements, or getting that next badge may be what you need to keep going.

What do you think? Are these useful tools of our smartphone world, or an example of our short attention spans? Have I missed any good examples of similar apps that make a difference in your life? Let me know in the comments. 

Gone till Movember

As the end of October looms quickly this week its almost time for me to begin a month of ever changing facial decoration as I'm taking part in Movember again.

If you haven't heard of it Movember is a growing movement which started in Australia in 2003 and now has over 3 million members in 21 countries. The idea being it is that men will grow a moustache in November to raise awareness and donations for prostate and testicular cancer and mental health. You can find out more on the About Movember page on their site.

I did a bit of a dry run at this the other year, going for the 'tache but not actually the raising money and social media side of it. This year i decided to do it properly so will be updating my MoSpace with progress reports and a bit on my facebook and twitter pages. I won't be bugging everyone on here too much but will maybe have a couple of status updates along the way.

So for more details or to donate visit my MoSpace :  MoBro.co/JohnBurrow75

PC running slow, apps failing to respond?

We all know how frustrating it is to be sitting at a pc waiting for it to spring into life and complete an action. Or, you click on an app and it takes ages for something to happen. Its no fun, it makes any job seem like a painful task and you end up tearing your hair out with frustration. 

I guess for readers of this blog it may have been a bit like that recently. After a short burst when I started off I haven't been doing much posting recently. I've even started a few posts on Windows 8 which have been languishing as a draft for months. Sorry folks but normal service will be resumed shortly. I've been a bit like one of those slow machines, chugging along not getting anywhere fast, not running at my full potential. 

With slow PC's there's plenty you can do. My first bit of advice would be to check to see if your system can take more RAM. Use something like the Crucial System Scanner to see what is in your system and how much RAM is needed to max it out if possible. Bear in mind if its a 32 bit OS it will only support about 3.5GB so anything more than 4GB would be wasting your money. OK so its not free but RAM is fairly cheap at the moment and will generally make a big performance difference  Don't be afraid of fitting it either, its not hard job and there are plenty of videos on-line which show you how to do it.

Its no fun running low on resources. I haven't done any exercise since October, what with colds, a broken toe, dodgy coughs lasting for months with achy ribs. I'm starting to realise its had an impact on me and I'm not getting things done like I should have. Still I'm starting to feel a bit more normal now, so back to the gym soon and hopefully doing the Couch to 5K plan too. That should get me back to optimum working condition.

Other options which don't involve spending money include things like checking what programs are actually running on your PC, all those pointless things that load at startup for example. Have a check in your system tray to see what is running and what you actually need. Use MSCONFIG to disable things you don't need to speed up boot time and free up resources. 

Check your hard drive too, make sure its not running near capacity. Use disk clean-up or a program like Treesize or SpaceSniffer to check what's hogging your disk space and remove anything you don't need, just be careful what you delete. Once you have enough free space run a disk defrag to help improve file access. 

Guess that's what holds me and a lot of other people back too, half the time when I'm trying to get things done I end up doing the wrong tasks which ends up getting nothing much done at all. Once you take away the needless tasks you can actually focus on what needs to be actioned. 

Hopefully like giving your PC a spring clean this will give me a boost to get things done and be a bit more positive and pro-active in general. I've got plenty of good things to get busy for and make the best they can be, myself, my wife and family, my work. The move towards spring with the lighter mornings and nights also gives a boost with the temptation of sun looming on the horizon, its a bit like replacing the battery in a laptop you've had for a years now. 

Look forward to some more post soon dear reader, probably a bit more Tech focused but maybe the occasional fit-bit thrown in. Let me know if you notice any improvements after getting your kit in order if you've never tried it before.