Email, IM and the web is a huge distraction, especially for those with short attention spans. My new friend Clay Johnson uses interval training techniques to lengthen his attention span the same way he trained his body to run a marathon. Clay writes:
Paying attention, for long periods of time, is a form of endurance athleticism. Like running a marathon, it requires practice and training to get the most out of it. It is as much Twitter’s fault that you have a short attention span as it is your closet’s fault it doesn’t have any running shoes in it. If you want the ability to focus on things for a long period of time, you need attention fitness.
Clay raises his attention fitness level several ways: by using a timer for work sprints (this works; I do it), by ditching his second monitor and stashing apps like Twitter and email in a separate virtual desktop that he hides while he works, by keeping his browser tab count down to a minimum, and by listening to lyric-free music. He's also looking into a standing desk. Test out your attention fitness level by seeing if you can read his post in its entirety--it's lengthy but full of interesting material that supports his approach.
How to Focus [InfoVegan.com]
The muscle soreness I'm experiencing today after walking around Comic-Con all weekend made me realize: I've got to incorporate more standing and walking into my daily routine. Maybe a treadmill desk? There are some expensive desks made to fit over a treadmill (sold separately), but someone on Hacker News modified an IKEA Jerker desk to do the job. The discontinued but beloved model of desk, which I already own, plus one of those utilitarian wire shelving units gives you a wide monitor stand with plenty of component/wire storage and keyboard and mouse room. Click on the image to see the whole setup. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it looks really tempting to try. The owner says:
Coding while walking works fine for me. As far as the mechanics, it's not hard to walk and type at the same time. 2MPH isn't very fast. I can't draw with the mouse while walking, so the occasional graphics work has to be done standing. Mentally, the consistent motion sometimes helps with flow, sometimes not. It's hard to tell, but switching between walking and standing seems to be enough for me to support the various required mental states. I've been doing this for about two months now, and while I have no hard data, I've done what I consider to be some of my best and most creative work ever in the last two weeks, so worst-case the walking isn't too great an obstacle to my coding. And this is indeed a huge improvement for my back over both sitting and standing.
I pace while I think, so this whole walking-while-typing thing is something I'd love to try. For now, I may just adjust my Jerker tabletop to standing position, and try that for awhile, before making the treadmill investment.
My Treadmill Desk [Hacker News]
The “Only If We’re Offline Friends” Rule · I'm active on a LOT of social/sharing webapps: Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare, Tumblr, and to a lesser degree, FriendFeed, Delicious and Buzz. While most of my posts are public and open to everyone, on Foursquare and Facebook*, I only accept friend requests from people who I know and hang out with offline. Still, I feel bad refusing friend requests from people who listen to TWiG or read Lifehacker or this blog simply because I don't know them. What I really want, on every social network, is an optional friend request auto-responder, so that I could make it read, "You seem nice and I'm glad you want to be friends with me, but I only accept friend requests/follow back people I know offline. Sorry." (My Facebook page is open to the public, it's my personal profile that's offline-friends-only.) · 1 week ago, 11 comments
Update: Google Voice product manager Craig Walker confirms that the Apps transfer is NOT supported right now, and that it was only done for a small group of testers. Sorry, all. The good news? He says there will be a way to transfer your Voice account to Google Apps once the new GApps features that are being tested right now launch. In the meantime, I'm removing the link to the request form from this post.
Update: After I published this post, Google added very strong language to that form insisting that transfers to GApps accounts are NOT SUPPORTED (caps theirs). I'm not sure why it worked for Dustin and myself. Your mileage may vary.
Even though this request form says it doesn't work for Google Apps accounts, I can confirm that Google is transferring Google Voice from regular Google accounts to Google Apps accounts right now. Thanks to a comment by reader Dustin Boston, I gave it a try this afternoon and within the hour, my Google Voice number, texts, and voicemail was ported to my Google Apps account. If you try this, a couple of things to know:
- You'll have to enter your 4-digit PIN into the request form. I forgot mine, had to reset it, got it wrong the first time, got a message saying so, reset it again, and then all worked. Write down your PIN. It's only 4 digits.
- You'll have to re-record your Google Voice name and greeting(s). They don't get ported.
- I maintain an Apps contact list, so this didn't really affect me, but Dustin recommends exporting your Google account contacts before the transfer so you can import them into your Voice account.
Here's the form to request the transfer [removed]. Even though it does say it doesn't work for Google Apps accounts, it did work for Dustin and myself.
This Week in Google, Episode 51 ·
Leo, Jeff and I jawed about the new Android App Inventor, Picnik in Picasa, mobile local search, my 23andme results, and iPhone 4 in this week's episode. My tip of the week: setting up a rich text signature in Gmail. · 2 weeks ago, 2 comments
Copies of The Complete Guide to Google Wave have been selling like hotcakes, and unsurprisingly, the ebook has moved a lot faster than the print version. We've still got a stack of full-color, hold-in-your-hand paperback books just dying for a home, so we've got a special deal: if you buy the paperback book for $25, you'll get the ebook free, emailed to you on the spot for instant gratification while you wait for the softcover to arrive at your door.
The electronic version of the book is now available as both a PDF and an ePub file; you'll get both when you buy the paperback. We're also happy to announce that The Complete Guide to Google Wave is now officially available in the Kindle store, no awkward PDF-to-Kindle conversions required.
Best of all, thanks to a partnership with a local charity, when you buy a copy of the paperback book, you're helping to employ developmentally disabled adults here in San Diego. Meet the folks who will fulfill your order when you buy the book, thanks to NBC San Diego:
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This Week in Google, Episode 50 ·
Jeff and Leo and I chatted about Droid X, Prince, Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and the iPhone 4 in our latest episode of TWiG. Also, listeners are helping send an Android phone into space! My tip this week: Chrome to Phone, which pushes your open Chrome tabs to your phone with the click of a button, for browsing on the go. · 3 weeks ago, 1 comment
Google Apps users who want access to all the same products that regular Google Accounts have won't have to wait much longer. An anonymous tipster tells me a Google Trusted Tester program is underway right now, which "transitions" Google Apps accounts to full access to all GOOG products, including Voice, Reader, Buzz, Analytics, and more. Here's the official Help page which includes a visualization of the transition, in the screenshot here. (Here's a PDF, in case they pull access to the link.)
On this week's episode of TWiG, Leo, Jeff, and I were hoping aloud that there would be some way to merge existing Google/Apps accounts into one. It doesn't look like that will be possible. However, if you have a Google account that "conflicts" with your Apps account because you've assigned the same email address to both, GOOG will resolve the conflict by adding a +personal to your regular account's sign-in address. Stay with me here.
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Froyo Over-The-Air Updates Hit Nexus Ones This Week · If you've got a Nexus One and have been patiently waiting for the OTA update to Android 2.2, this week's your week. Google says you'll get a notification by the end of the week for the update to 2.2. My sources tell me you'll get it even if you manually installed Froyo, as the official OTA version is a different build number. Here's the good stuff you get in Froyo; no word yet on other handsets. · June 29th, 2010, 12 comments
The Software Buttons You Love Pushing · Spent several hours running around town doing tedious errands the other day in neighborhoods I don't know well, so I was thrilled to finally tap the "Navigate To->Home" button on my GPS when I was done. It got me wondering: what are the software buttons you just can't help but love to tap, click, or press? An informal poll on Twitter unearthed a bunch of good ones: your email's Out of Office "Enable" button, "End Call," "Mark All as Read," the power button, "Install Updates," The "OK" button next to "Deposit $xxxx?" ATM prompt, and "Done" on your to-do list. What else? The full list of replies I got are inside. 
Twitter replies
Read more · June 24th, 2010, 3 comments
Google Voice Open in the U.S. · Previously invitation-only Google Voice just opened to everyone in the U.S., offering free text messaging, multi-phone management, and voicemail features which, after more than a year of exclusive use, I couldn't live without. The three things I do on my mobile phone most--text, call, and check email--are powered entirely by Google at this point with Voice, Gmail, and Android. The Gmail/GVoice experience on Android is the main thing that leaves me cold when I look at an iPhone. It's just not as good. Here's more on how Google Voice makes the phone less loathsome (similar to how Gmail made email workable). · June 22nd, 2010, 8 comments
Commenter seguetonowhere points out a useful Android keyboard feature I missed in my original Froyo rundown: if you swipe your finger over the top of the Android 2.2 default keyboard, it will extend two more rows out and show you keys for common punctuation and numbers. Click on the thumbnail to see the expanded keyboard.
This is a faster way to punctuate and/or add numbers than tapping the ?123 key or tap-and-holding the period key. However, as seguetonowhere points out, parentheses aren't included on the two extra rows of keys in the extension.
It took me a few tries to get the swiping motion just right, and this doesn't work with my favorite alternative swipey keyboard ShapeWriter/Swype/SlideIT. But definitely a must-know for Froyo users who use the default keyboard.
Other keyboard shortcuts: You can swipe to start voice input, configure multiple languages and swipe across the Spacebar to switch between them, tap and hold the dot and .com keys to reveal more choices (like .org, .net, .tv), and tap and hold the : -) key to choose from other emoticons, too.
Thanks, seguetonowhere!
Having a ball playing around with the just-released GoogleCL tool, which offers command line access to Google Calendar, contacts, Docs, Picasa, Blogger, and YouTube. With Python-based GoogleCL installed, you can do things such as list today's events on your GCal right in the terminal, like so:
$ google calendar today title
Coffee with Michael and Samir
Dozing off
Lunch at Flingers
Instant use case: Add echo "Next 24 hours:";google calendar today title to your ~/.bash_profile file to see what you've got scheduled for the day when you launch a new Terminal window. Some more GoogleCL fun inside.
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For some reason I was under the mistaken impression that setting up an OpenID on my own domain, ginatrapani.org, would be a big hassle: that I'd have to host my own OpenID server software and that it would take all sorts of installation and maintenance BS to do so. I feel strongly about owning my identity online, mapping it to my nameplate domain, and actively choosing an authorizing party instead of just accepting the sign-in service du jour like Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, or Google. Still, I never got set up with OpenID on ginatrapani.org because my perceived hassle factor was daunting. Instead, I used idproxy.net for my OpenID and put the domain setup on my "someday I have to do that" list. It meant that my OpenID was ginatrapani.idproxy.net instead of my own domain. Idproxy is a great service and I thank them for getting me started with OpenID; but still, I want my OpenID URL to be a domain name I own and control.
Turns out I was dead wrong about the hassle. Setting up OpenID capabilities on your own domain name is a two-lines-of-HTML affair, and it's finally done. (Thanks to Chris Messina for bringing me into the year 2006.) If you're interested in doing the same, here's what to know.
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This Week in Google, Episode 47 ·
Great conversation today on TWiG with our guest Chris Messina, who dropped knowledge on the history and differences between OAuth and OpenID--which in an age of "Facebook wants to own all your sign-ons," is an important discussion. My tip this week: to grab the Android Swype beta within the next couple of days while it's still available, as previously-recommended ShapeWriter is no longer in the Market. · June 16th, 2010, 35 comments
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