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On an adventure…

Becoming vegetarian

Feb 22

Posted by admin in health and fitness

The last toastmasters meeting of 2009, the group is asked to introduce themselves and give their new years resolution. When my turn comes round I stand up, introduce myself and thank the toastmaster for allowing me this opportunity to state what I want to achieve. When I say this publicly in front of others, I know that I make myself liable to everyone in the room to keep true to my word and I also ask that everyone keeps encouraging me to stay on track. For 2010 I will become a vegetarian!

It was the first time I voiced my opinion on the subject of diet, and as soon as I said it I began to wonder what I had let myself in for. My diet up until then consisted of meat being the main dish. The Scottish traditional meal is Haggis, neeps and tatties. I love Big Macs, big juicy steaks and donner kebabs! How would I be able to eat if I didn’t eat meat? Indeed, the last night of toastmasters had a buffet with lots of lovely nibbles, including chicken skewers, wings and sausage rolls. I was wondering how I would be able to stop myself. Luckily the room was full of people who just listened to my new years resolution. They made sure I never got within reaching distance of the forbidden food.

I failed my New Years Resolution on the very first day. In the evening I went to a friend’s house for a dinner party. The kind host had home-made steak pie waiting for us in the oven. Far from wanting to be polite and eat what was made, I just plain forgot that I had wanted to stop eating meat. The first mouth-full was tasty, but I couldn’t help but think something was wrong.. It wasn’t till the next morning I realised that I just broke my New Years resolution!

However I wasn’t deterred. It made me realise that real dedication would be required to keep up this challenge. The thought of never eating meat again was still overwhelming for me, but I decided to make it a 1 month challenge. At the end of the month I could treat myself. That made the challenge much more palatable. Since that day, I have had a couple of weak moments, but by and large I have managed to keep it up.

Why are you becoming vegetarian?

Here’s a question I get asked by almost every person I talk to. Some ask in a positive way, illiciting a response of general enlightenment, towards society or health. Usually these are the people who already know vegetarians or are ones themselves. Others appear to be more aggressive in their questioning as if I just challenged their own eating habits. They ask why I would want to give up on the tastiest part about food or make statements about how eating meat is not only healthy but necessary for a wholesome diet.

The reasons for me are to find out more about the benefits of vegetarianism. Over the last few years whilst travelling and at university I have met a few people who were vegetarian and claimed various health benefits. In the last year I have discovered a more extreme diet known as Raw Food diet and met a couple of people who practise this. One in fact had a TV interview talking about just that The arguments made in this video were compelling enough for me to consider more fully what I ate.

The strongest reason in my mind wasn’t for health reasons directly but rather more for the opportunities of more up-time during the day that eating more healthily could offer. Over the last year I have been looking at ways of increasing productivity throughout the day. Approaches such as waking up early, organising my day and keeping to schedules have helped me.

Differences so far:

I have experienced some unexpected differences. Instead of craving meat as I thought would happen, I have turned to dairy and sweets, The urges to add some grated cheese to a meal or eat chocolate are greater than ever. As a result I have gained a little extra weight from the start of the year.

I can feel that my up-time has improved slightly, While the day-to-day awakeness and alertness dont feel any different, the times when I thought I would be tired (when going to bed later than usual, or getting up much earlier) I don’t feel quite as bad as I would normally.

None of my long-term friends are vegetarian so its a big surprise to them that I have chosen to become one. They occasionally challenge my decision and argue that unless I have moral or religious objections, there is no reason to not eat meat. The main arguments are that humans are designed to eat meat (why else would we have the incisors?) and that our bodies require the nutritional value offered by meat to live.

There is enough resources online to show that all the nutrients a body needs can be found elsewhere. Most people in fact tend to eat too much meat which overloads the digestive system, making them more lethargic and need to sleep more to work off the toxins.

Social occasions can be difficult when one cooks a meal for everyone. For justnow I have decided that I wont be awkward in these situations and just eat whatever is made. Usually at meals with friends and family, meat is the main dish. It wouldn’t be fair to ask them to prepare an extra dish just for me so I am happy to eat meat once in a while.

I’ve found restaurants to be more challenging than they should be. Whilst the majority of restaurants do have vegetarian options, they are usually a very limited subset of their standard menu. Not nearly as tasty looking as the steaks and burgers I’d have usually gone for. I usually find myself scouring for the ‘V’ signs and choose the least unappealing dish, or go for a fish dish. I know fish is meat, but the health benefits I have seen are better than that of red meat.

One major benefit I can boast is I haven’t had a single food-hangover this year! This is a concept I discovered at university. Much like a hangover caused by drinking, a food-hang over is caused by consuming too much of whats bad for you. After eating a kebab or pizza on a night out, the next morning felt worse than had I not eaten. For a time I was in a phase of not drinking when going out to pubs and clubs, I would only drink water but still eat a kebab at the end of the night. Yet I still suffered the same hangover as 3 large glasses of red wine and shots. By cutting out the worst offender foods, I have really noticed a big change for the better.

I have really noticed a change in myself and others’ for having taken on this challenge. In a sense I can feel my diet has become less healthy because I am gaining a little weight and eating too much diary and chocolate. The next stage for me is to become more disciplined with food. I want to keep a food diary in which I record everything I eat for a few weeks. This will show to me what exactly I take in and ways to improve my diet.

My aims justnow are to increase my up-time to be available to do more things with my time. At this point, health issues or making the world a more environmentally friendly place aren’t the main focus.

I’ll look at my diet again soon and review what can be done to refine my diet further. Who knows, I may start back on the big-macs, or I may become vegan!

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Review of 2009 and Plans for 2010. Part 4: Work-life and discipline for goals

Jan 19

Posted by admin in communication skills, personal development

This post is a continuation from my previous entry about my review of 2009 and plans for the next coming year. (http://www.martinogg.com/2010/01/happy-new-year-a-review-of-last-year-and-my-plans-for-next-year/)

Setting and achieving goals is something that has greatly benefit me in 2009. At the start of the year, I did little in the way of forward planning or goal setting.

It just didn’t occur to me that I needed to maintain goals to forward myself from where I currently was. After all, I shared a flat with my girlfriend, had a car each and a reasonably well paid job. It was a comfortable situation and each month I had enough disposable income to buy whatever I reasonably wanted.

That said, there were occasions where I felt frustrated about my situation; some things just never turned out the way I thought they should have done. Working a 9-5 job constricted my free time and I wasn’t meeting new people like I used to when I was traveling or at university. I didnt have the time to see my friends quite as often as I’d have liked and I couldn’t get away for a couple of months at a time because my holiday-allowance at work was too short.

At one point I used work as a scapegoat. Because I was being ‘forced’ to work the best hours of my day away, I consequently was too tired in the evenings to do anything exciting. The weekends were then just time of refuge where I would rest in order to prepare myself for the next week. Because of this job, I was spending all my day on a computer, spending the majority of my day staring at the same screen. I talked to the same small group of people every day. To me it didn’t feel like a brilliant realisation to come to. Programming is my hobby and I was getting to do what I loved, but at the expense of other sides of my life. And after all, I had spent so many years aiming to get to this professional level.

It wasn’t till nearer the middle of the year that I started taking personal development more seriously and started making goals.

By planning out goals and thinking about what it would actually take to achieve them, I began to realise the strength of consciously thinking about what I actually wanted to have; what was realistic and what I thought I wanted but on reflection, turned out to be pretty stupid requests.

One of the most productive goals I aimed for was to have more up-time outside of work time. By getting up at 6:00am instead of 8:00, I found I could make it to work for 7:30am instead of the latest allowed time of 9:30am. And instead of taking a full one hour lunch break I took half hour breaks instead. The result was I managed to finish work at 3:30pm instead of the 6:00pm usual time. This extra time in the afternoons was amazing! I had the time and energy to work more on the things I actually wanted to do outside of work. Whether it be putting my feet up, do some reading or play some games. It was the first time since started professional work I felt I wasn’t time-poor.

Then an amazing transformation happened. I began to realise that I work wasn’t the incapacitating monster I had envisioned.  I began to see work for what I remember it being in high school; a hobby of problem solving and taking on interesting tasks which helped other members of the team achieve their goals in their own work.

Another major goal I worked on was becoming more proficient with reading and in particular photo-reading. Previously reading was a chore for me and consequently I didnt do very much reading. However the last few months have been a real adventure and I have found myself become interested in a larger range of subjects.

For 2010 I would like to continue to work on the goal-setting areas more vigorously. Essentially it is just a simple feedback loop. Consciously discover how things can be done differently and then experiment with making changes to see how it has an effect.

I want to maintain the 6am starts throughout the year, which sets the enables the capacity to do my job and yet still have enough time to work on myself. There are times when I become lazy and I will have a few days or weeks of getting up later, allowing the snooze alarm to get me up at 6:30am or even 7am. Whilst these are still much earlier then my previous wake up times, the lack of free time later in the day makes it a real challenge to be alert and able after work.

For 2010 I need to work on my discipline to keep up challenges I set myself. Maintaining motivation is also another key element to achieve goals, though I am not so worried about any lack of this. The more I seem to do towards personal effectiveness the more I seem to be motivated to do it. Its like a snowball rolling down a slope, gaining mass and momentum all the time. Every goal I set myself and achieve is helping. Whether or not the goal gives the outcome I wanted isn’t as important as having completed the goal itself.

Of course it would be great if every challenge you face gives you immediate satisfaction and benefit but sometimes it doesn’t always go to plan.

My website is an example of this, so far it hasn’t had quite so many views or generated income as much as I’d have expected but I feel I have greatly benefited by sticking at it and writing up content to it.

I aim to keep on looking at ways to improve and set new goals to explore what things can really help me and others.

Experiments I have already started are to try vegetarianism (started from 2nd January :) ) and to look into driving a car which runs on LPG instead of diesel or petrol.

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Review of 2009 and Plans for 2010. Part 3: Communication skills & Toastmasters

Jan 7

Posted by admin in communication skills, General, personal development

This post is a continuation from my previous entry about my review of 2009 and plans for the next coming year. (http://www.martinogg.com/2010/01/happy-new-year-a-review-of-last-year-and-my-plans-for-next-year/)

Communication skills have become a topic of focus for me over the last year. It began with a work training course about creating business ideas and pitching them to business minded people in order to receive funding. Because my company is heavily involved with engineering, the classes were geared towards geeks and had a communication-based focus about them – opposite to the technical focus we were used to in Uni at our various courses. I guess this is something they thought we needed to learn.. This is something I enjoyed very much, because time and again I felt that I had great ideas throughout uni and work-life but short of something I could code together to illustrate, the ideas never seemed to make the light of day. I was a very nervous speaker and giving speeches was the worst task I could imagine. Yet it is a very necessary part of business and idea development.

The course left me with a hunger to improve my communication skills. Previously the easiest way to stop the nerves was to avoid speeches or confrontations whenever possible. However now I was willing to face the fact that this was something that scared me and that in order to proceed, hiding away from it was not the answer.

I discovered the Toastmasters group shortly after and went to my first meeting in March last year. Since then I have attended every other week and participated in roles and speeches. In October I took the role of Toastmaster for the first time. It was a very nerve-racking ordeal but I got through it OK without dieing. On later reflection, it showed me that when it comes to social gatherings, its important not to act on nerves. Toastmasters helps to work on things like nerves, as well as communication skills in the form of feedback and speaking tasks.

One unexpected thing about the Toastmasters group is the people I’ve met there and engaging in their own views. Its actually pretty hard to get away from it when they give a speech about their favourite topics. I’ve met Life coaches, NLP practitioners, veteran Toastmasters, engineers, students and other beginner Toastmasters. By meeting every couple of weeks and hearing what they have to say, they inevitably give off a particular view to a subject which is diverse and inspiring to me and makes me challenge my own view. Quite a change from the usual haunt of workmates in the same department and friends who share the same general interests as me.

The end result of this is huge. From my initial view of wanting to improve my speaking skills, my aims have catapulted to other sections of my life such as challenging my own beliefs of the world, to more accurately planning what it takes to become more happy and goal setting. This is a topic I would like to mention later on in another post.

Plans for 2010

I aim to keep on going with the Toastmasters group. Its a very clearly structured environment and because its so encouraging for progression, I dont have to worry about planning what I’ll do. I’ll be continuing my speeches courses, taking roles and chatting to the other toastmasters.

One particular aim I’d like is to meet more people from diverse backgrounds. Its interesting to meet people from all walks of life and can have an influence over your own path. To achieve this I hope to keep on looking at more clubs and meetings which might achieve this. A few months ago I discovered meetup.com where people can join groups of a particular topic of interest and then have real life meet ups to discuss the topic. Edinburgh has loads of groups and I attended one to go for a visit to a local attraction.

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Review of 2009 and Plans for 2010. Part 2: Health

Jan 5

Posted by admin in health and fitness, personal development

This post is a continuation from my previous entry about my review of 2009 and plans for the next coming year. (http://www.martinogg.com/2010/01/happy-new-year-a-review-of-last-year-and-my-plans-for-next-year/)

The topic I’d like to cover next is Health

Sore knees

I started 2009 with some health problems. 8 years ago I had a skateboarding accident and since then I have suffered a condition where they become very painful when bending past a certain point. For most activities they are fine, such as walking, climbing stairs and cycling but I found stretching or bending my knees was too painful. I have found in recent years that stretching my legs regularly helps a great deal with the condition and I do so on a regular basis. Strangely I found that Tae Kwon Do was exceptionally helpful because I had so much stretching and leg exercises to do. Sadly I gave up the club after university.

At the start of 2009 I began walking 1hr to work each day, which didnt agree with my knees after a festive period of no exercise or stretching. The result was agony whenever I straightened my leg and I had to take time off work as I couldnt walk. Thankfully this was only temporary and after a few days I able to get about again. This prompted me to seek out more medical advice and I was eventually passed to a specialist at a hospital where I received an MRI scan. Unfortunately the results were inconclusive, but the time I spent at the physiotherapist was worth it. After a few weeks I had begun more simple stretching exercises and kept to a daily routine. The other day I crouched down to switch on the TV and I noticed that the pain I would usually experience had disappeared completely.

I doubt the doctors have a conclusive reason why I’m cured, but I certainly know my body enough to know what I need to do to keep my knees healthy.

Working Out

Because of my earlier knee problems, I was reluctant to go out and walk or cycle to work. Add to this I moved in summer and then had a 1 hour drive to work, so walking or cycling to work was impossible. As a result I know I have not given myself the time to get the exercise or training I would like. It hasn’t resulted in any major change, but I know I am about 1 stone heavier than I could be. From summertime I got into the routine of getting up at 6am every morning and that gave me the time to go for a 10 minute stroll and do some press-ups, stomach crunches and stretching. I found this very beneficial and I found myself more alert at work as well as solving the previously mentioned ailments. More recently its become more challenging to stop being lazy and make sure I do these quick exercises, partly because of the time of year (always dark in the mornings when I do them, always feeling tired)

Diet changes:

Since the start of 2009 I read more and more about Raw Food diet and I actually met a person who is a Raw Foodist in Edinburgh. Its great to meet people and hear stories who are committed to becoming more conscious about their food; how damaging some agricultural practises can be to make that tasty steak or burger and keep the corporations get larger through their practise of damaging the environment and serving unhealthy food.

At the end-of-year toastmaster meeting I publicly declared my new-years-resolution to become vegetarian! It wasn’t a particularly well thought through goal, but I guess the calumniation of healthy diets stories had inspired me to say it. I know that for me to take on a goal like this, I couldn’t just keep it to myself, being accountable to others is just the sort of prodding I need to keep up this task.

Unfortunately on New Years Day I failed; I went to a dinner party and had Steak Pie! It wasn’t till it was on my plate and I put the first piece in my mouth that I realised I had just failed. At that point I realised thats going to take more courage and power on my part to make this goal a reality.

This year I want to become more aware of the health implications of my diet, and discover what I can do to enable me to eat the very best; health wise, and for the environment.

Health plan for 2010:

For this year I am confident to keep my health up to scratch, by exercise and diet. I am to continue to keep my knee problems at bay, whilst getting back into shape and drop a few pounds to a more natural weight. I want to become more aware of the food I eat and take measures to be maintain a more healthy balance and how it affects people.

I realised on the very first day of this year that these plans mean nothing if I don’t have an action plan to enforce these goals.

Specific plans include working on a more rigorous exercise and work-out plan. I have a friend who recently turned his hand to become a Personal Trainer at a gym. I will talk to him and help make a battle plan with him for working out. At this stage I am very happy to work out in the early morning daily for a short time but I expect more time will be needed to achieve better results.

I am glad that I mentioned to my toastmaster group about becoming a vegetarian. Although they wont be there all the time to ensure I don’t fail (I usually do most of my eating outside the club), in my mind I am accountable to them if they ever ask me how I’m getting on with it, so I will endeavour not to disappoint.

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Review of 2009 and Plans for 2010. Part 1

Jan 3

Posted by admin in communication skills, General, personal development, Web Site development

Happy new year!

It has been almost a year since I began looking at personal development, and I’d like to give a quick review of some of the stuff I’ve done and what I’m looking forward to in the next year.

I’d like to have a go at breaking my posts down to smaller chunks, so I’ll post this in segments.

My path of personal development began at the start of 2009, when I entered into a course at work to develop product creation and selling skills. This was called “Dragons Apprentice”, a mixture of 2 closely related BBC TV programmes: Dragons Den and The Apprentice. Would you ever have guessed? :) Unfortunately due to other work commitments I had to leave the course early but it left me hungry for more. This led me to look at my personal communication skills and think more about my effectiveness when talking to other people and to get over my nerves when speaking publicly. Since joining Toastmasters in March 2009, things have snowballed with various topics, including blogging, volunteering and looking at my own beliefs of my existence.

I’ll go for a topic per post. Topics I have so far are:

  • Blog
  • Mind set – Beliefs
  • Communication skills – Toastmasters
  • Health
  • Work-life
  • Life – major events

Ill try to make a post out of each topic.

Blog

I started this blog in February 2009 and I am glad to say that it is something I have benefited from, though not in the ways I expected.

As far as the technical side goes, I found it very interesting to begin the process of signing up for a domain, and uploading the software to get WordPress blog software online, and tinkering with all the settings to get something which aligned to the vision which I was aiming for. I even had a go at creating my own php code for the archive page which was interesting as this was the first web-based programming I’d ever done. I’ve posted the code here (http://www.martinogg.com/2009/06/article-archive-page-added-add-your-own-archive-page-easily-code-included/)

Unfortunately this site didnt turn into the mass traffic hub I thought it would. In fact if I look at the statistics I would see less than 10 hits per week and of them I assume most are bots, considering the amount of spam that comes in. I’ve manged the hefty sum of £6 from google adsense clicks, which is still too low for me to take out! So as far as attaining recognition and making money from this venture is concerned, its been a complete failure.

But positive results have come in unexpected places. Because I took the time to set up and continue doing blogging, it has made me more aware of other people’s blogs and writing. I now find myself reading and replying to posts made by others whereas I would otherwise have just skipped over them or not replied before. The result is I have read more about different opinions and this has opened me up to other thoughts I would never have previously considered.

I made some heavy claims in the blog at the start, about how this would be the saviour for everyone who read it and how I would post almost every day! Maybe it was a bit overzealous to make these claims but making these outrageous claims and seeing the result has allowed me to reform what I can reasonably achieve and what I can aim for.

The blog has taken on a new platform in my mind. Instead of being the soap box that I can proclaim that the world is flat, it is more of an access point for people to connect to my thoughts if they choose to. I dont take offence that it appears that not maybe people choose to do that, as my skills to do this still need to be more refined. It shows me that I need to work on my visions on life and the ability to articulate my views in a way that aligns to others.

Aims for the blog in 2010 would be to blog more often! A reasonable amount would be to blog at least once a week.

I’d like also to work on the technical skills behind the blog and keep up with other communication technologies. For example, I have a facebook which I use for my friends, but I dont use twitter. I would also like to spend more time communicating online with people in the field of personal development.

To be continued…

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beating SAD this year

Dec 12

Posted by admin in personal development

Seasonal Affective Disorder is a recognised condition which affects many people in the world. The Winter time has less hours of daylight and worse weather, resulting in negative effects in people. Its symptoms are depression, fatigue and poor health. However, less extreme symptoms may not identify itself easily. I didn’t think I suffered from SAD but this year I will take steps to get out of the downward spirals and get back into gear.

Over the years SAD has become a recognised condition. It has been covered by tv documentaries and earlier this year I came across this website about the condition. These sources talk about the effects and how common it is. Living in Scotland, where the best winter weather you get is ‘at least its not raining today’ It got me thinking about how the seasons affected me, and possible steps I could take to counteract it. Think of it as a new-years resolution, except a little early. This is my challenge!…

By no means did I suffer the extreme conditions mentioned in the TV programme or website, but thinking back over the last few years of my life I did begin to notice a repetition of bad events and feeling low. After I started university in October 2001, I was ready to quit my course after about 6 months. I didn’t leave the course however, and each year from then on January to March I felt drowned in course-work and exams. I always put it down to the upcoming exams and coursework times. I left my graduate job in April 2006 to work elsewhere. Each year something would come up at the beginning which would make me feel a bit down, gloomy, a little depressed.

Were all these things due to circumstance? Of course, some events like my exam scheduling were certainly not due to my doings, but looking under the surface of the basic events led me to think about my feelings and thoughts during the first few months of each year.
These feelings corresponded to the symptoms listed on the SAD website. Loss of concentration, lethargic and generally gloomy all round.

This year it will not happen again! I want to see the world as happy and bright as the summer days full of opportunity and fun! However I am aware that hope alone wont get me very far, so I have compiled my battle plan to combat the evil gloom that is SAD!

Thanks to the SAD website, I can now recognise the physical symptoms and change in conditions which allow SAD to take hold. But this time I will be prepared…

Weather conditions
The first obvious sign that winter is kicking in is when things start to get darker a lot earlier in the evenings. When day-light savings sends the clocks back an hour, the evenings are even shorter. Then the mornings start to get gloomy. Pretty soon its dark when you get up in the morning and go to work, and then its dark in the evening when you leave for home. So in actual fact you see no sunlight all day! I feel sorry for the people living in the far north or south of the world. There will be times when there is literally no sun at all for months of the year! Daylight regulates our bodies on a sub-conscious level, and its important to realise just how important this is for all of us.
To solve this, the SAD website has suggested the used of a super bright SAD light for use when its dark. My solution will be to harness the great power of natural light and take a lunch time stroll outside. It might be cold and dull, even at midday, its better than the strip lights and TFT screens in the office.
I picked up somewhere that the physical reason the body needs light is because your skin produces Vitamin D with the help of light. Without the Vitamin D, your body becomes more lethargic. A booster of Vitamin D may help with SAD, so I plan to take multi-vitamins which should help.

Prepare for the mornings…
The mornings are where I experience the worst difficulties. If I haven’t slept in, I’m made late looking for my keys, bad traffic or having to scrape the windscreen. The key to stopping running franticly late is to set and maintain a good routine in the mornings. The best thing for me about being early for work is avoiding the morning traffic, so it is a great benefit to save 20 minutes on the commute. Getting up in the mornings used to be a real nightmare, but after the decision to get up early in the mornings (http://www.martinogg.com/2009/03/the-virtues-of-an-early-start/) I find getting up with the alarm clock might be tough but it sets me up for the whole day.

Diet
I have noticed that I have been more recently been tempted by more snacks and chocolate that what I would usually have, which doesn’t help mental alertness or physical condition. The key is to recognise that these cravings become more evident during the cold weather and the importance of eating healthily to maintain your health, both mentally and physically. How can you expect to be able to work a full day if all you eat is chocolate biscuits and drink too much coffee? Being more strict on yourself is necessary to ensure you eat healthily. Make sure you give yourself enough time for breakfast in the mornings (I am especially guilty of that so I keep an emergency pack of cereal at work just in case I find myself without time in the mornings). With other people snacking more at work its especially easy to cave in when someone offers you a biscuit, or some are left in the kitchen area to share. For these times I make sure I have a piece of fruit handy, so when I feel the cravings I can eat that instead.

Physical Exercise
During the summer months I would go for a walk, a jog or walk in to town at the weekends. Because it is so cold outside now, it becomes very tempting to just take the car, or exchange a post-meal stroll with a video game or TV episode. Finding the motivation to go to the gym dwindles and excuses upon excuses mount up. I have a very quick regime in the mornings when I get up. I go for a 5 minute brisk walk round my street. This helps the blood flow and is far more effective than snoozing for the same time. Instead of being very cold when getting ready, its actually warmer than outside. Before leaving for work, I do a set of stomach crunches, push ups and leg stretches. I don’t expect to become Superman overnight like the ab-swing infomercials promise, but it is an improvement over the zero exorcise I’d have otherwise done. I feel that it helps at work, because for the days I don’t do this, I feel noticeably less focussed on my work. Now, for the times I don’t feel like exorcising, I tell myself the benefits of doing so and that inspires me to get into action.

The downward spiral
For some, the winter months can mean a downward spiral in which keeping each ongoing day becomes colder, less active, more depressing and lazy. It takes courage, effort and discipline to keep this from happening. Bear in mind its not the season thats directly controlling these results; consciously identify where the bad actions are happening in your own world and take charge to stop things from slipping. If you already feel you are in a low position, take some small steps to get back into your stride. How about setting your alarm clock 30 minutes earlier and have a healthy breakfast? My dad recently re-introduced me to the wonders of porridge. Add some honey and its tastier than any breakfast cereal (even the chocolate ones) and it keeps you warm when you take that first step out the front door on a cold December morning.

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Toastmaster for the evening

Dec 1

Posted by admin in communication skills, personal development

The other week I was Toastmaster for the evening, at my local Toastmaster club. I’d like to articulate my thoughts about it as it might be encouraging to others.
I have been going for about 9 months now. My biggest problem was my nerves about public speaking. I was extremely nervous to even stand up and give my name and a short introduction. Over the months I participated in roles such as table topics master, ah-counter and timer, and did the first two speeches in the manual. All very nerve-wracking stuff (the initial standing up and beginning)
But I had a little “a-ha” moment when the role of toastmaster was thrust upon me.. It was the most un-nerving role I have taken, but it was the most satisfying and it made me realise that its actually a little selfish to be nervous; most other people have their nerves when they give speeches. As Toastmaster I couldn’t just tell people about how nervous I was about my own role, but rather I had to be in control of the meeting, and be there to provide whatever was required.
This has greatly helped my own progress in increasing my ability to communicate effectively and confidently. The next meeting I was Ah-Counter and the previous role helped me to understand my new one, where instead of concentrating on my own self consciousness, it was more important perform my role for the others’ benefit. This thought alone lessened my nerves because the focus was less about me as an individual.
For those who feel nervous about public speaking or giving presentations at work or school, I cannot recommend going to Toastmasters enough. I wont lie, the first few meetings were tough. It was a new environment for me. Its amazing how just a simple room and seats can take on such visions of anxiety and nerves when there are other people there, all looking at you… but after pushing through the first few times of forcing myself to go to the meetings and speak, it has proved worthwhile and enjoyable. One of the best things I enjoy about going to the club now is the insights and use of language I pick up from other speakers.

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Buying a new mobile phone… make an informed choice

Aug 31

Posted by admin in General

Recently I got a new HTC T-mobile G1 mobile phone. Its a touch-screen smartphone with a full qwerty keyboard and I am reasonably happy with it. Its not the latest model out there but its a good compromise as it serves my needs and its a reasonable price. If you are looking for a new phone in the future, this information will be highly useful to you.

10 years ago a good mobile phone would be small enough to fit in your pocket, have changeable covers and customisable ring-tones that sound almost like your favourite song. Nowadays a colour screen capable of watching movies on is the norm and you can use the internet to download any chart track and listen with the wireless bluetooth stereo headset. It amazing to see how the use of a phone has exploded from a basic means of voice communication to a ubiquitous communication tool to interact with people all over the world in a huge variety of ways.

The search for a new phone.

Being into tech-stuff, I usually make it my business to know about new technologies. However, when it came time for a new phone, there was an overwhelming choice in handsets and tariffs. I simply had no idea what handset I wanted to go for next.

Looking at a few review websites and local advertising showed me the latest handsets and their features, but it wasn’t much more help. They all pointed towards the latest featured touch screen phones on expensive 24 month contracts. Up until last year I was used to the concept of Pay-as-you-go phones where you only have to top up when you need to. My monthly expenditure was less than £10 per month. However if I was to get the latest new phone I would have to be willing to accept a £35 a month contract with inclusive minutes and texts, whilst being locked into the contract for between 12 and 24 months. There were other lower-range phones, but cost savings on these phones would be made at the expense of features and speed. And so came the requirement to decide on what compromises would have to be made.

Because mobile phones are become increasingly bigger investments, it became apparent that I had to do much more research on mobile phones than just to walk into a mobile phone shop.

I found it particularly annoying that I couldn’t gauge how good a phone is by testing it for a few days to get a better feel, before buying it. There appears to be no company offering loans of high end phones. The closest I got was to try out some phones in the mobile phone shops. However I found it impossible to get a good feel for them; if they weren’t trapped in plastic casings on the shop floor, they were tethered to the base stations and even if I asked an advisor for a handset to test, I had at most 5 minutes to test the phone out with an advisor staring at me asking me for a sale.

It wasn’t enough to just ask friends or the shop advisors what phones were good. To get a better idea I had to google a few review sites to get comparisons and see what advantages and disadvantages were of each.

I came across a few review sites for mobile phones. One of which I found valuable was http://www.mobile-phones-uk.org.uk/ The reviews seemed to resonate with me in terms of what they valued in phones. For example, instead of just looking at specification only (something I found shop advisors to do all the time) they looked at usability of the phones, relative price to feature and performance, and stability of the phones. They also gave a star rating for their phones, prices on contracts and also uncensored (not in a rude way) user comments and feedback for the phones and the reviews themselves.

Using this site I created a short list of features and then phones that I would feasibly choose:

  • High speed internet (3G HSPA)
  • Capable of running 3rd party applications (In particular, Opera browser)
  • A good fast note taker (I frequently use my phone to take notes)

These features then led me on to the handsets.

  • iPhone – Firm favourite amongst friends and colleagues, but most expensive

  • HTC Android phone – the operating system appeared to offer great flexibility

  • Nokia N97 – A high-spec phone with a keyboard

  • Nokia 5800 – What appeared to be a slightly lower spec but a price available on pay-as-you-go

  • Samsung JET – A very fast phone with a reasonable price

Continuing research online, I came across this review ( http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/iphone_vs_android_vs_webos_vs_blackbery_vs_windows_mobile_vs_symbian?page=0%2C0 ) which compared different operating systems in high-end mobile phones. After reading this, it was vitally important to realise the differences between the operating systems as this would ultimately make the differences between usability and functionality.

My short list then became iPhone or an Android phone. This is because they both have application stores / market places for 3rd party developers. Nokia Symbian does have a market place but I excluded them because of their old, slow operating system.

I was still unconvinced about the price of an iPhone, so the final choice was left with an Android phone. I opted for the first model of Android phone in UK: HTC / T-mobile G1.

I bought this phone on ebay for £133 + £7 p&p. I then bought an unlock code for this phone for £8, to allow me to use my three 3G SIM. I have also changed my contract on three to a 30 day rolling contract for £15 a month. This includes 100 minutes per month, unlimited texts and internet.

Using the G1

I have found this phone to be the best choice, and I am still happy to say that 2 weeks after getting the phone. In terms of functionality, it features all the tech-savvy items which are important to me justnow. Having fast internet, GPS, compass, 3rd party marketplace applications and easy note-taking.

The HTC G1 is certainly no iPhone. The hardware isn’t as good as it has a slightly smaller screen, doesn’t look quite as good and definitely isn’t as fast and smooth to operate. But it is significantly cheaper and the functionality is almost identical.

Using the G1 is a different experience; I tend to use the keyboard and trackball more than the touch screen. There is a touch screen keyboard like an iPhone and it is as useable as the phyiscal keyboard but I find I am just a bit quicker typing using the real keyboard. This is important for me as I find I type a lot more into the phone.

Advice on buying a new phone

I am definitely happy with my purchase of this phone. It certainly does feel like a compromise in terms of useability to the iPhone, but the price difference is more than enough to justify this. For me the iPhone is prohibitively expensive for what phones currently do (you could very easily get a low end phone and a Net-book for the same price)

This decision wasn’t made without a lot of research first and if I were to give any advice on buying a new phone:

Dont just fall for advertising. Or the shop clerks advice. Think about what features you would really appreciate or use in phone. Even if you just want the cheapest phone, look and see what cheapest phones there are.

Look and see what phones there are and their features. Use news websites and review sites to find out what new phones are out now and which ones are coming out. It will help to discover new functionality in phones so you can decide on whether or not you want it. I remember a few years ago being told about 3G internet and how it was the equivalent of broadband on a phone. Only this wasn’t true; the only use at that time on 3G was for video calls which cost 50p a minute. So did I really want to pay over the odds for a feature I would never use?

Look at pricing deals. Do you pay for the handset, or go for a contract? How many minutes do you want? I have found I can get special deals online at the same companies than you’d get at the high-street shops. For example, the cheapest I saw an N97 was for £35 a month but online on the three store site, you can get one for £15 a month. BEWARE: please be careful of cash-back schemes throughout the life of the contract. This usually entails sending back receipts at specific times to the company for a rebate. This process is dubious because those companies will often ‘lose’ your receipts and you will lose all entitlement for any rebate. Its often not worth the effort and worry.

How long do you want the phone for? More often than not nowadays you can’t get a high-end phone without signing up to a lengthy contract. Are you really happy to sign up for a 2 year contract, even if it is cheaper per month? How do you think phones will change in that times and what would you rather have in a year’s time?

In the end, you are the customer and you should have the ability to chose what you want in a phone. The range is ever-more increasing and so too the pitfalls to getting a bad, expensive phone. Just think about the compromises you are willing to make and be knowledgeable on what models exist and their pricing.

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Switching over from Windows to Linux.. and I’m not a Linux geek!

Jul 27

Posted by admin in Uncategorized

After a failed attempt at using Linux 10 years ago, this year I finally plucked up the courage to try it out again. This time round it was a complete success and now I use this almost completely in place of Windows. The performance and cost advantages for outweigh compatibility problems and re-learning requirement to use it. Windows isn’t the only operating system out there! Why don’t you give something new a try? And you can always jump back between Windows and Linux whenever you need.. you can’t lose!

The first attempt in 1999

I heard about Linux many years ago as an alternative to Windows. Out of interest I decided to try it out to see what it was like. I came across a version called Armed Linux. Now usually Linux doesnt use windows filesystems (in those days it was FAT16 and FAT32) and I dont remember such luxuries as partitioning or dual boot. If I wanted to use Linux I would have to switch completely over from Windows. However, Armed Linux was special in that it ran a complete filesystem within a single file on a windows formatted hard drive. This would allow running Linux within windows, relieving the need to completely switch over to an alien system.

It sounded like the perfect way to test it out. Shame it was a terrible experience and it put me off using Linux for years to come. Firstly, it was slow. I had to first boot to windows, then run Linux as an application on top of it. The boot time must have been at least 15 minutes. And then after that using the linux system was incredibly slow. I got to a bash prompt (it didnt go to a graphics interface first like newer versions) and navigated the folders on the system. I finally managed to work out how to get to the graphics system to load but there was no reward. It had no applications to run beyond a simple text editor and calculator, and it was un-usably slow. Slower than windows! On top of that, I had to give 800mb to this test, nearly half of my 1.7gb hard drive. So even working in windows afterwards was an even more painful experience, having removed all my games and having to be careful of every megabyte of usage. Within days I had uninstalled and went firmly back to windows. A failed experiment.

Attempt 2 – 2009

A decade later and a whole different world. Laptops are everywhere and everyone’s on-line but Windows is still going strong. My laptop is 3 years old and Windows has been re-installed 3 times, at least. A fresh clean installation is tidy and fast but over time the whole system slows down. Starting up the computer used to be a pleasure, but now it takes a coffee break to wait for it to start up. Opening explorer windows is now a painful experience and don’t you dare click that start button unless it is an absolute necessity. No amount of defragging and anti-virus checking can save you, its time for another format.

At the start of this year I was preparing myself for the yearly format; out with the old and in with the new. Downloading all the basic programs I’d need simply to get online to get my old set-up back again safely. Anti-virus, Windows XP Service pack 3, Firefox, firewall software..

And I thought about that horrible experience with Linux all those years ago. I had heard about how Ubuntu linux was easy to use and very popular so I thought I’d give it a try. I had nothing to lose after all, as I would be formatting anyway.

So I downloaded the CD image from the site. The 700mb~ size download took a matter of minutes to download, I remember when downloading my Linux on 56k modem; the 300mb file took me days and days, spread out each evening after I got home from school.. how far we have come!

The installation process was relatively painless. I put the burned CD in the laptop and turned it on. I had to create a new linux partition to install it to, so it did require a fresh install of windows beforehand to get enough space on the hard drive. After installing I found it got all the drivers for my laptop just fine and it also picked the correct resolution for my 15.4 inch widescreen display.

Using Ubuntu Linux does require learning to use a different User Interface from windows, but I found it no more difficult than learning how to use a mac after using a Windows PC beforehand. If you can get to the control panel in windows and install a driver, then you can learn how to use Linux.

The problem that many say is that because Windows is far more popular, you wont get your software to run under Linux. To a certain extent this is true. I have not found Internet Explorer on Linux (and there are still some websites that only work with IE, such as banking sites and official TV on-demand sites) but for the absolute majority of cases there is alternate software which does the job just as well, if not better. Firefox and Open Office replace Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office. I have found these replacements to not only work in the majority of cases with anything I use it for, including Microsoft’s own file formats, but its quicker and crashes much less than the windows equivalents. These are also available for free download which runs on Windows.

Once I got used to the change in user interface / window layouts, etc I found Linux to be a far more efficient system to use. Startup / Shutdown times are faster, crashes less and doing things like window switching, browsing for files on the hard drive and clicking through the menus just worked a lot quicker. It is even faster than my clean install of windows.

However there will be times when you just need to use Windows. If you want iTunes, a website only Internet explorer can run or a Video Game, then Linux can’t help you. But with a dual boot installation (Very easy to set up) you can restart the computer into Windows and do what you need to do. Just be prepared for the pain of the slowdown when going back..

Consumer choice

Windows certainly has the stronghold on OS of choice. Its practically impossible to not see Windows installed on a computer that isn’t a netbook. And this probably wouldn’t matter for a casual computer user who just wants to surf the net, do email and use office to create documents and spreadsheets. So does it matter that alternatives exist that allow you to do the same thing as can would do anyway with your pre-installed Windows?…

Something I’m very glad to see in recent times is the rise in popularity of price comparison websites. You now have a choice in suppliers for gas, electricity and car insurance. Its changing the vision of a nation to show they have the power to shift to the competition and get a better deal. All it requires is effort to find the alternatives.

Its surprising to know that Windows operating systems are one of the few who actually charge, when there are so many others which are completely free. Its especially surprising when the gap between usability is so small and the performance is actually worse than the free alternatives.

I have been using Ubutu Linux for a few months now and I am very happy to use this as an alternative to Windows. I am certainly no geek when it comes to Linux; I don’t know how to change the screen resolution or change the theme colours, but I have figured out how to use open office and use firefox and the performance difference is enough for me to stick with it. It will be interesting to see how things go in the future when google’s Chrome OS is released.

So the next time you are sitting in front of a 30 second splash screen waiting for your email or Word to load up, why not consider looking at some of the alternatives? It wont cost you anything and you might just be surprised at how much more efficient you could be..

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PhotoReading… does it work ?

Jul 14

Posted by admin in communication skills, personal development

I recently became aware of the concept of Photo Reading by Paul Scheele. According to the advertising and youtube video this was supposed to increase your reading speed to over 100,000 words per minute. Impossible! How can your mind actually process that many words; moreover, how can your eyes even move that fast to pick it all up! I dismissed this as internet-myth got back to work. However, later I found someone recommend it and I found myself looking over it again.

This time I decided to have a more in-depth look and see how it works, and perhaps try out a few things.

The end result was different from what I expected it would be. In my opinion you aren’t really reading at 100,000 words a minute like it claims. But it did help me to realise that books aren’t as scary as I once thought, and I can grab the important points very quickly.

Handling my time and thoughts. Controlling the boredom: Concentrate more.

The first thing I discovered about this is that I needed to control my time better to enable me to read more efficiently. Before I would constantly be putting off reading anything, whether it be textbooks in school and uni or for my own pleasure later on. To me, there was always something better to do, such as playing a video game, talking or going out with friends, or even just tidying my room or cleaning the dishes. Reading was boring! The times I eventually gave myself to read were when I was tired, I was pre-occupied with other things in my life. Even when I started getting into the story or the main part of the book, I started feeling uncomfortable in the chair, I wanted to stretch my legs, move my neck, go for a walk. I felt physically uncomfortable just sitting there reading!

However to find out about the photo reading concept, I had to give myself time to at least watch the DVDs. There were 3 of them and the main sections each took 50 mins or so. I found watching a DVD about reading was more tolerable than actually reading itself so I found little difficulty in doing that. Actually I watched each DVD twice over 2 weeks whilst washing the dishes at the same time, watching on the laptop.

I became excited at the thought of being able to read better. When it came time to put into practise what I had watched, I was mentally more ready to begin reading a book. The actual process of photo reading felt more physically active; The first phase requires flipping though the pages of the book, turning pages once every 2 seconds. Then afterwards, going in-depth into the sections of the book that I wanted to. There was also some work done on ‘getting into the zone’ before doing anything, which helped me greatly to concentrate more. Just taking 3 breaths before beginning to read really helped.

Another approach which surprised me was the act of reading a book cover-to-cover in one sitting. I had previously never thought about doing this (especially when it took me a good 20 minutes to read 10 pages, by which time I was ready to die..) Now reading the whole book in one go became the purpose. Books I have read recently have taken 1 to 2 hours. By putting these amounts of time into reading it means I have planned specifically to give this amount of time to reading it, so my mind doesn’t wander as much. I am concentrated on the book and what I have to learn from it. When I read like this, whether I am bored or not doesn’t come into my thoughts; my purpose for that time is to read that book.

The belief that it all works

Some concepts in the programme seem a little far-fetched. My ‘Realist’ mind found it hard to accept some of the ideas proposed. For example, the first phase of reading any book is to flick through the book, a page turn every 2 seconds. The idea is that the information becomes embedded into your sub-concious mind where it lives forever. After that you can use your ‘intuition’ to decide what parts of the book to read to pick up what your subconscious mind has decided you actually need to read; the important bits of the book.

However, I decided to press ahead and try a bit of ‘what if’ scenarios whilst practising this technique. What if your subconscious mind is always there trying to direct you and all you need to do is let it guide you? Just picking random bits to read is its way of directing your conscious mind to where it knows you really want to read.

The result was a mixed bag. I picked up random bits throughout a book, and I feel that I did pick up the general feeling of a chapter by just reading a few lines on each page, however there was the niggling voice at the back of my mind saying ‘You haven’t picked everything up; theres something missing’ One thing I found however is that I didnt get bored at all of reading it. So many times before when I felt that it was a drudgery just getting to the end of a chapter. Not this time. If I felt like skipping a few lines, or a few pages, it was OK for me to do so. Chances are the reason I got bored was because there wasn’t really any new ideas being portrayed in them. Apparently 4% of the words in English text contains the core ideas, the rest is just filler to make the structure. That thought stuck with me. If I can train my mind to pick up the ideas from the 4% of text, then I can skip the rest and whats truly important. Even though it goes against what I believe is real, for now Ill run with this idea because it seems to work for me, despite no real explanation as to why it works.

End results

After watching the DVDs and trying the techniques with a few books, my friend asked me to read a fiction book. She told me she read it in a day, so it would be a nice easy read for me (books never are, for me at least) and she told me it was a nice story.

It was the story of a man who tried to kill himself. But it had the lead up of his life and how things went from bad to worse, beginning with the death of his mother 10 years previously. The final straw was when his daughter did not invite him to her wedding, as he was a trouble maker, drunk, embarrassment to the family. But the suicide attempt failed and he saw his mother, for one last goodbye and a chat about the bad things he resented in his life. In the end he saw the errors in his ways, and lived for another 5 years, making life better for himself and was satisfied with what he had.

It took me an hour and a half to ‘read’ the 200 pages. By the end of it I had the storyline in my head, and I knew key emotional points throughout the book; the moment when he found out his mother died, when he decided that life wasn’t worth it, when he decided it was worth it.

I was questioned later on about the story, I found that I didnt know know what the man’s name was, or his ex-wife. Or in fact any of the characters names. I also didnt know about the little child-hood flashback stories when he was a boy. However I did go into detail about his passion for baseball, which was instilled by his father. How this passion eventually led to his missing the day his mother died, and his failing in the team led to the loss of his father in his life. How he survived the car crash, though he wished he didn’t. And how he turned his life around.

Whilst I did lose certain facts of the story, there were parts I wouldn’t consider to be exciting, or even provide any point to the real story. Subconsciously I cut them out, and I can honestly say I don’t feel that I missed out on anything. And at the end, I read a book in 2 hours which would otherwise have taken weeks of time to read.

I would recommend at least looking at this way of reading. If anything, it shows that as a reader, you don’t have to blindly plow through every single word in a book. Its boring and pointless. You can choose the main points to pick up, and usually those points are very concise and it takes no time at all to pick them up. I have photoread 5 books this week, versus no more than 3 normally read in the last 2 years. I aim to continue learning about speed reading and photo reading and making reading books a more enjoyable part of my life.

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