An iPhone killer?

Nexus one, the Google phone is finally here powered by, Android, Google's open source mobile operating system. The best part is that it is officially available unlocked. See interactive demo here.

How to Make Million Dollars

Internet is full of such advice. Fortunately this one is different and from a qualified person, Marshal Brain. He is famous for his website, How Stuff Works. He frankly relates his own experiences on the path to a millionaire. Read here.

Minimum body exercise you should do every week

I am not very particular about body exercise. I usually prefer yoga but not punctual enough. Usually the excuse for not doing exercise is not having "enough time" to do the "errand". But I am realizing now that downtime (due to bad health conditions like headache, flu, lethargy etc.) is much more than any time "saved" from not doing the exercise. So I am going to do it more frequently in 2010. (my first resolve for 2010)

Here is a New York Times links which discusses how little you must do every week.

Bill Clinton read this self-help book

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who started his new autobiography, My Life, with a reference to the book:

When I was a young man just out of law school and eager to get on with my life, on a whim I briefly put aside my reading preference for fiction and history and bought one of those how-to books: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, by Alan Lakein.

The book’s main point was the necessity of listing short-, medium-, and long-term life goals, then categorizing them in order of their importance, with the A group being the most important, the B group next, and the C the last, then listing under each goal specific activities designed to achieve them.

I still have that paperback book, now almost thirty years old. And I’m sure I have that old list somewhere buried in my papers, though I can’t find it. However, I do remember the A list. I wanted to be a good man, have a good marriage and children, have good friends, make a successful political life, and write a great book.

(From hacker news)

Posted via email from Saqib Awan

Happy new year

Happy new year. May God brings more prosperity and happiness to you in 2010.

The new year milestone forces us to reflect back on our past achievements and mistakes. If you are still not getting there despite all out efforts for a good number of years, its a sign that your current way of doing things or thinking is not helping you. Instead of digging the same hole deeper and deeper to find gold, you may need to dig a new hole at a different place.

Albert Einstein rightly said "The problems of today will not be solved by the same thinking that produced the problems in the first place."

You are always told to think "out of box", be creative, become problem solver, have a different perspective etc. But how? I would suggest to start with one of the de Bono's books. "Teach yourself how to think" is a good start. 

Here are few related links from my blog:

• Edward deBono
• Thinking tools
• Plus, Minus, Interesting
• Six Thinking Hats

Posted via email from Saqib Awan

Writing succinctly

From Letter XVI of Pascal's Provincial Letters:

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

Great words. Writing a concise, clear and simple piece does require a number of readings, revisions and corrections.

Posted via email from Saqib Awan

What matters now by Seth Godin

Seth Godin has released a new free ebook titled "What matters now" which is full of provocative thoughts. Each of its 80 pages is a complete chapter written by a respected author or a blogger. Its format makes it convinient to read pages in any order. Here are some excerpts:

Fear

Have you ever wondered who’s behind that little voice in your head that tells you, “you’re in this by yourself, one person doesn’t make a difference, so why even try?”

Dignity

Dignity is more important than wealth. It’s going to be a long, long time before we can make everyone on earth wealthy, but we can help people find dignity this year (right now if we choose to).

Ease

We are the strivingest people who have ever lived. We are ambitious, time-starved, competitive, distracted. We move at full velocity, yet constantly fear we are not doing enough. Though we live longer than any humans before us, our lives feel shorter, restless, breathless...

Dear ones, EASE UP. Pump the brakes. Take a step back. Seriously. Take two steps back. Turn off all your electronics and surrender over all your aspirations and do absolutely nothing for a spell. I know, I know – we all need to save the world. But trust me: The world will still need saving tomorrow. In the meantime, you’re going to have a stroke soon (or cause a stroke in somebody else) if you don’t calm the hell down.

Neoteny

Neoteny is the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood. Human beings are younger longer than any other creature on earth, taking almost twenty years until we become adults. While we retain many our childlike attributes into adulthood most of us stop playing when we become adults and focus on work.

Adventure

I’ve been thinking about how big our world is and how small-minded we’ve become; how quick we are to judge and how slow to understand. Technology places the resources of the world at our fingertips, yet we have trouble seeing past the ends of our noses.

Dumb

But what makes dumb, smart? The ability to look at the world through a different lens from everyone else. To ignore rules. To disregard the ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’ and ‘never-succeeded-befores’. Then you need conviction, and the ability to stand by that conviction when other (smart) people look you in the eye and say, “no way, nuh uh.”

Attention

You can buy attention (advertising).
You can beg for attention from the media (public relations, Web).
You can bug people one at a time to get attention  (sales).

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.

Confidence

Confidence is rocket fuel for your business life. Confident people have a come-this-way charisma that generates a following. When you possess total confidence you are willing to take risks. When you have it, you propel yourself and your team forward into the future.

Knowing

There is no such thing as boring knowledge.
There is only boring presentation.

Download "what matters now" from this link.

Posted via email from Saqib Awan