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Lessons From Owning an iPhone (Part 1)

August 20, 2009 – 11:48 am by Ian

I bought a pair of 3GS iPhones for my wife and I in June 2009.

Since then, I have been trying to make the most out of mine and supplying my wife with tips for hers, and I think I’ve now reached the point where it’s worth sharing some of my lessons with others, so here we are my first three tips (more to follow):

1. Buy each App once, then use on multiple iPhones

My wife and I use the same iTunes account across multiple computers.  I have also logged each iPhone into this iTunes account.  What this means is that I can buy an App from either iPhone or the iTunes Store on any computer and then share it with the other iPhone.

For example, I can download an App onto my iPhone and then plug it into any of my computers and right-click on the iPhone’s name in iTunes and select “Transfer Purchases” and then all my Apps that aren’t already on that computer are transferred onto there.  I can then plug a different iPhone in and sync Applications to get those Apps.

Note that syncing your applications should always be done from the same computer, unless you want to end up losing your Application Data.  So my wife always syncs her iPhone with her laptop and I always sync my iPhone with my laptop.  But we will often plug our iPhones into both laptops to share our purchases.

2. Turn off Push Email to improve battery life

Go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendar -> Fetch New Data

Turn “Push” to OFF and set “Fetch” to Manually

3. Send videos/photos to each other via Email

When you are viewing a video or photo, you can choose to “Email Video” or “Email Photo”.  If the video is too big, the iPhone lets you trim it right there on the phone.  I recommend using Wi-Fi to send large files.

For retrieving what’s been sent, if you set up something like Gmail on your phone, then you can instantly check that email to see what’s been sent to you.

To send multiple files at the same time in a single email, you can go to Camera Roll and click on the bottom left icon and then click on multiple thumbnails (which puts a Tick on them) and then you can choose to Copy them all.  Now open up your Mail App and Paste into the email body and then send.

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Gone Dark

March 10, 2009 – 4:49 pm by Ian

I’ll be redundant in a matter of weeks, so I am focusing all my time and energy on securing a new job and decluttering my house, in case I need to relocate.

I find this quote from Chögyam Trungpa very relevant at the moment.

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Follow me on Twitter: Seconomist

February 4, 2009 – 10:14 am by Ian

Here I am: http://twitter.com/seconomist

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Lost is back and it’s still unmissable TV!

February 4, 2009 – 10:13 am by Ian

I’m three episodes into Season Five of Lost and am loving it.

Unfortunately, I can’t share publicly why I like it so much, because it might spoil it for some people who haven’t worked out what it’s all about yet, but get in touch if you want to chat in private.

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I Took A Risk on Tony Robbins

December 18, 2008 – 10:52 am by Ian

One of my favourite Larry David quotes (from Curb Your Enthusiasm) is “I TOOK A RISK!” He usually says it when something goes wrong and he is looking to escape facing personal consequences for his actions with the defence that his intentions were good but the outcome was unfortunately bad.I like this phrase because it has helped me to get over my fear of being wrong in some cases and allowed me to take a chance, knowing that if I end up in a bad place, I can say “I took a risk” and that would be the end of it.

As it turns out, I would say that over the past couple of years, I have taken quite a few risks, most of which have ended up with good results, but I have had to use the phrase a few times - either out loud or as part of my own inner self-talk instead of beating myself up with blame and regret - and it has served me well.

Obviously, the nature of the risk is key, but I would generally recommend that people take a few more risks and not fear the potential failure because 1) you can always just say “I took a risk” and 2) every risk can be viewed as an experiment, where the outcome doesn’t really matter if you have learned something.

Let me give you an example of one such experiment I did recently:

Everything I knew - or thought I knew - about Tony Robbins was that he was a showman, who put a spell on people, and made money from his brilliant selling skills. So I decided to steer clear and stick with learning from more respected sources. But then I saw a friend had the CDs and I was also in the frame of mind where I was going to try things for myself rather than passing judgment based on little information, so I borrowed the CDs and started to listen. In other words, I took a risk, albeit a small one because all it cost me was my time. But I figured that if I learned it was all crap then I had still bought a valuable lesson with my time anyway, so it was worth doing regardless of the outcome. (Like a science experiment, I guess.)

Well, the outcome was that I think it was both worth it as an experiment and worth it because I have discovered a real gem! Tony Robbins is a brilliant communicator, there’s no doubt about it, but the message he is communicating fits with everything else I have learned from elsewhere (and I have been learning a LOT recently about physics, psychology, human anatomy, economics, biology, philosophy, etc, etc). So I haven’t really heard anything new from him, but he has made me want to take action with what I already knew. One analogy would be to say that he has brought the picture into focus and, more importantly, shown me that the picture is actually a map that leads somewhere pretty pretty good.

If you’re going to take anything away from this post, I hope it’s that you will take a few more risks, you will try more things out for yourself rather than listening to negative noise from others, and that you might want to start your experimenting with a Tony Robbins CD collection. The one I have been listening to is “Get The Edge”, which came with “Personal Power Classic Edition”.

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In Praise of Fritjof Capra

November 1, 2008 – 12:10 pm by Ian

This is just a quick note to say how much I have gained from reading Fritjof Capra’s books.

I started with The Tao of Physics and later moved onto The Turning Point, then The Web of Life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter and am now reading The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living.

It really helps to read them in chronological order because clearly he has learned a lot as he has moved from one book to the next and it is easier to digest his thoughts in later books if you have caught up with him by reading the previous books.

I actually bought The Web of Life and Hidden Connections first (I wanted to see what others had thought in similar territory to My Theory of Absolutely Everything), but found them both really hard to get into, so they just sat on my shelf for a few months.

Eventually, I started getting interested in Quantum Mechanics (inspired mostly by Lost, the TV show) and found The Tao of Physics on Amazon, with some very good reviews.  I still needed to read that and The Turning Point before I could manage The Web of Life, but the effort has really been worth it!  I would say The Web of Life is one of most significant books to ever have been written.

So, in summary, if you’ve not heard of Fritjof Capra, I highly recommend that you given The Tao of Physics a try and then move through his other books like I did.  It is a very illuminating journey!

Posted in Lost, theory of absolutely everything | No Comments »

Go Veg. Be Green.

July 24, 2008 – 12:11 am by Ian

I just recently learned that the biggest contributor to climate change is eating meat.

This is mainly due to the requirement to feed and contain the livestock, which is only possible by using land for agriculture instead of trees, the energy used to process and transport the meat, and the huge amounts of harmful methane produced by cattle.

More info is here:

http://suprememastertv.com/sos/

As of today, I am going to try to reduce my meat consumption with the ultimate goal of being 99% vegetarian by 2009.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Overcoming the Impulse to Own

April 2, 2008 – 6:01 pm by Ian

I almost bought all of the classic BBC comedy Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em on DVD earlier, but managed to stop myself, thankfully.  Not because I don’t like the show - I love it - but because I realised that: a) I wouldn’t have time to watch it b) I don’t really have the space to store it c) I do not need to own something just to show that I appreciate it!

I’ve not always thought this rationally - which is one of the reasons I am running out of space in my house! - and I very rarely do think this rationally, especially when going into entertainment stores like HMV and Zavvi: the typical scenario being that I see something I enjoyed watching on TV once and think “I really liked that, so I’m going to buy it so I can watch again soon” … but of course I won’t have time to watch it soon because my life is so busy at the moment and I already have a large stack of unwatched DVDs, unread books and unplayed games.

So how can I avoid making this mistake in future?  Well, I’ve decided my alternative to buying things out of appreciation and storing them (unused) in an actual room of my house is to create a virtual storeroom of items on this website.  Look out for it appearing in the near future, along with a separate virtual storeroom of items I have decided I no longer want that will remind me to put them on Ebay or Amazon Marketplace add them to my Amazon wishlist.  I will periodically review and prioritise my wish list and only buy stuff that has been high priority for a long time.

Posted in IDEAS, LIVING, money, space, time | 1 Comment »

Lost - the Greatest TV Show of All Time?

March 29, 2008 – 11:36 pm by Ian

Some time in January, I figured out what Lost was all about, and, in doing so, I realised it was potentially the greatest TV show of all time.

Since that day, I have watched every single episode of the first three seasons again to test my theory (it holds) and have also seen the first eight episodes of Season four, which also fit my theory but also add to it in new ways.

If you’ve not seen the show, or you quit watching at some point, I urge you to seek it out on DVD (e.g. borrow from a friend or from Lovefilm.com) and watch all of it, because this is not something anyone should miss.

I would post the answer to it all here, but that would defeat the point of the show.  All I can say is that the next two years, where we go through Season four to six (when it’s going to end), are going to produce some of the most thought-provoking and impactful TV ever!

Posted in LIVING, Lost, UNDERSTANDING | 1 Comment »

The Apprentice Returns to BBC

March 29, 2008 – 10:13 am by Ian

I’ve enjoyed watching The Apprentice for the last two series, and so was really pleased to see it was back this week.

I don’t have time for an analysis, but I just want to raise one question:

How many of the candidates on the show are unknowingly there purely for entertainment reasons (e.g. the egomaniac, arrogant, delusional ones), as opposed to being realistic potential employees for Sir Alan? I expect it’s a 50:50 split.

Wouldn’t it be great if one of the smart ones pointed this out in the boardroom? “Don’t you realise you are here purely for ratings and there’s no chance you are going to get the job, you deluded sociopath?”

Posted in LIVING | No Comments »