Category Archives: Blogging

I’m Back, It’s Official, and I’m Full of Ideas

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I have been going through several trying things personally, and have needed some of my own motivation.  Well, I’m back and plan on updating the blog regularly and bringing you lots of helpful ideas and motivation.

The blog is official now – I have completed the incorporation of this blog, so please welcome Lopaul Industries, LLC to life!  I want this to be more than a casual hobby, so I committed to making it a business and have begun investing in it and treating it as a business entity.

Look for new and current posts.  I have a notebook full of ideas and a number of draft posts already in progress.  I also have exciting ideas about how I can help my readers with motivation and inspiration.  Please stay tuned as I kick this thing into high gear and start cranking things out.

Fun Kid Quotes

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While on vacation at the beach recently our kids repeatedly were saying “I’m so hungry I could eat my foot!”  Not exactly sure where they picked it up, but it was funny.  Then, after a morning in the sun and sand my littlest who is 4 exclaimed “I’m so thirsty I could drink my foot!”  We all laughed and then he thought it was funny that we thought it was funny.  Ah, precious moments with kids.

iPhone Tip Of The Day – Screen Capture

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iPhone Main Screen

iPhone Main Screen

Have you seen blog posts or stories where they included really nice screen captures from an iPhone and wondered how they did it?  Well I did too.  I was curious about how to do this because the iPhone only allows one program running at a time.  Well, I did some searching and the answer is simple and awesome!

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Keeping Track

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One thing I have found very beneficial is to keep track of your activities and the results.  This is very good for running or biking times and distances, other exercise activities, or also tracking general projects.  I started an Excel spreadsheet 3 years ago and have tracked every bike ride I’ve taken in those 3 years.  I have a cheap little cateye cycle computer and I collect total distance, average speed, total time, and max speed.  I like being able to see how I have improved my times, improved my number of rides per week, and things like that.  It gives me a great sense of accomplishment.  Tracking a project like a computer build, craft project, or car restoration is also a good idea.  Things like these can the be turned into interesting or tutorial web pages as well.

Track consistently

This is really the most important part.  When you have a nice long history of data it is great to be able to know what you have done and then you have a sense of accomplishment.  Get in the habit of recording your data as soon as you are done.  This will become natural and then you won’t have holes in your data.

Do something

It really doesn’t matter how you track, just keep track.  This can be a simple as writing it down in a notebook, keeping track in an Excel spreadsheet, or getting some specific software to help you track.  Obviously, if your end goal is something to display on the web then it makes sense to input it into a computer.  The format isn’t as important, however as data can usually be repurposed and translated to different applications once it has been entered on the computer.

Using the data

Make sure that you actually use the data.  Periodically go through your numbers and look at things like how often you did your activity, what improved, and what you could stand to improve.  If you have something that would make a great tutorial, publish it on the web and let other people enjoy and learn from your experience.

If you haven’t done anything like this before, I suggest you start today.  Yes, you may not have data from before which would be nice to have, but if you put it off more then you have even more data lost.  Make it important and simple, and keep with it!


New iPhone 3GS

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Well, I finally got an iPhone for myself and my wife.  I know iPhones have been covered like crazy everywhere on the web, and it seems like everyone has one, but I plan on talking about how I use (or want to use) it for living better – so it fits my blog theme.

Purchase Experience

It was a Tuesday night and all the AT&T stores in Austin were sold out of the 3GS, so we headed to one of our Apple stores.  I first did the pre-approval process online, but we would have had plenty of time to do it in the store while waiting.  There was a good line even at 6:00 at night so we ended up waiting about 45 minutes before getting called.  We both got the 16G black 3GS phones and our helper Nick was awesome.  I really get why Apple is popular.  They make really nice solid products with software that is excellent and treat the customers really well.  He was wearing a blue shirt, which I’m sure has some funky designation in apple-land.  Anyway, after talking with him for almost another hour, we left with our new iPhones.

Initial Thoughts

The iPhone certainly isn’t the panacea that it had built up to in my mind, but I am really enjoying it.  The interface is great once you figure things out.  The figuring out does take some doing, though.

Last night our biggest issue was setting up email.  We both use Yahoo email and this process was incredibly frustrating!  I ended up spending 45 minutes on the phone with Apple support before we got Yahoo mail connected and working.  The short story is that the built-in Yahoo email uses imap and apparently Yahoo doesn’t do this well at all.  We had to set up the Yahoo accounts under “other” and use POP3 mail instead of imap.  Since this was the main feature my wife wanted, I had to work on that instead of playing around with everything else 🙁  Anyway, now that is working and I’ve had some time to play around with it and I really like it.

Plans Going Forward

One of the main things I want to utilize is the ability to look up activities and restaurants while we are out.  Too many times we will be out on the weekends and not really want to go home, but not know where else to go.  Being able to look up activities on the go is my primary motivator for finally getting these.

I also plan on heavily using the camera for pictures and video.  This will enhance my blog with the ability to easily add images to my posts.  Having the Apple hardware and software all through this process should make it streamlined and easy once I get a system down

Conclusion

After being totally out of the iPhone craze for so long, I’m finally happy to have my hands on one.  I am excited about putting this thing through it’s paces and trying to figure out how to improve my life and my family’s lives with it.  Now I just need to not get too caught up in in that I spend all my time playing with the iPhone instead of being with my family!

Twitter Tool – Tweepular

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As a followup to my previous posts about Twitter (you can read part 1 and part 2) I wanted to tell you about Tweepular. I have many new followers every day now, and I want to follow them all back to keep the Twitter karma going. I found that my old recommendation – TwitterKarma – couldn’t handle the larger size of my followers list. Tweepular handles it great, has a nice interface, and has worked great for me. You can view separate lists that show people that you mutually follow, people who don’t follow you back, and people who only follow you. If you select the Tweeps only followin’ me tab, then you can select Bulk Follow and GO! and voila – you just followed all your new followers. This really beats hand-clicking on all the “follow” buttons in your follow list.

Tweepular has a tab that isn’t working yet labeled “Recent Unfollowers”. This is a much needed feature that they will hopefully release soon. In the mean time, I’m looking for a tool to monitor people that have unfollowed me. If you have one, please comment and let me know!