Well, not too long ago I started reviewing my own productivity and started reading up on things, specifically the Zen-to-Done and Getting-Things-Done methods (you will probably see more of these appear here in the future)

After reading multiple posts and articals I now have a few tools that I live by - short as it may be

So without further ado - the top 10 at this time:

1. Moleskine
   The pocket-sized notebook / scrapbook / agenda / calendar / to-do list… whatever you want it to be.
2. Remember The Milk
   A simple task management system that is straight-forward, integrates into Google Calendar and well, it just rocks.
3. FireFox
   And it’s list of plugins I use, which I plan to post this week.
4. GMail
   Best online mail system so far.
5. Google Calendar
   Works great, simple and integrates with Remember The Milk
6. Pidgin
   Great open-source freeware multi-IM system. It helps to prevent me from loading: Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and so on.
7. Google Reader
   Great RSS feeder.
8. Launchy
   Application launcher, on steroids. It indexes your Start-menu, so when you start it and type a part of a program name it just finds it immediately. The advantage? Never go through the Start-menu again.
9. Process Lasso
   Lowers CPU-hogging processes to a lower priority - keeping your system available and running while you do other stuff
10. Foobar
    Just music (MP3, OGG and anything else under the moon). And no fancy stuff you never use anyway

Source: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2222556/apple-planning-500-macbook

Speculation is mounting that Apple plans to enter the £500 laptop fray with a MacBook sporting a 13in screen.

Gene Munster, an analyst at investment bank Piper Jaffray, told Apple Insider that the move is part of an overall strategy to cut gross margin to 31.5 per cent for the current quarter and down to 30 per cent for 2009.

“We believe there is an 80 per cent chance Apple will introduce redesigned MacBooks and possibly new MacBook Pros at lower price points,” he said.

Woaa, might be the one thing that will really start to push Apple in to a lot more homes. More often then not Apple products are considered a niche or too expensive. If they dive into the 500 range it will definately help them target a lot more people. This will be interesting to see

Well, it seems Microsoft finally got the idea… Windows Live, the gaming platform similar to XBOX Live (well actually - the PC-version of it) has gone completely free. The Silver Membership was free before, but a tad-bit neutered of a membership that was. Then there was Gold, but that had a monthly fee.

If you compare that to say Steam, InstantAction and the likes, Windows Live really wasn’t even remotely competing. Shame though, because it has a lot of potential.

Well that has now been rectified and from what I understood and heard - they will also start to offer games and content on Windows Live - just like XBOX Live. Finally…

Once in a while you will want to rework your site or blog in one way or another. Today was one of those days for me.

I modified the 404 page to automatically give you a Google search pending on what you were looking for, amongst other things.

You can try the 404 plugin by typing in whatever you want after my URL; http://www.majoraap.com/. For example, you can add monkey-style and the 404 page kicks in and shows you my standard page with the Google Search results for monkey-style on my site.

Read more, including links to 20 highly recommended WordPress plugins after the break
(more…)

Well I went ahead and bought a MAC aluminum keyboard. And I must admit, it’s a beauty. It also types really nice once you are used to it. However, Apple in it’s infinite wisdom has not released a seperate driver for Windows machines. The only way you can get it is via Torrents or via Google (applekeyboardinstaller.exe - and be sure to get it from a Bootcamp 2.0 version)

I think that it’s kind of ridiculous for a hardware vendor to do this. Oh well.

Other then that everything is going OK at the moment. I am still in the middle of a ‘Getting Things Organized (again)’ mood so I remodelled the room a bit as well as the desk. Nothing too major. I think the biggest change is starting to use Synergy (http://synergy2.sf.net) for my 2 PC’s. I can now literally move my mouse around 3 monitors (2x 19″ widescreens and 1x 17″) It’s amazing and very convenient.

Additionally I hope to be able to start looking for a new living space soon… If I can get that sorted out I’m a happy camper