David Kadavy

David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start & Design for Hackers.

Going Coffee-Free in ’06? What To Do Instead of Brew

December 24, 2005

The New Year is coming up, and I suspect that as part of a better life, many of you are looking to cut down on caffeine in 2006. There are plenty of opinions on how to quit coffee, but if you succeed in kicking that nasty habit, one fact will remain: getting up in the morning isn’t always easy. Here are the components of my morning routine that get me alert without brewing a cup:

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Poker Tees from Felted Poker Apparel

December 15, 2005

Poker T-Shirt From Felted Poker Apparel

Just in time for the holidays, Felted Poker Apparel has launched with 6 designs from the sick minds that brought us Arlo and I See France. Get them before they’re not!

Seven Ways to Increase Your Blog’s AdSense Revenue Without Being a Sellout

December 15, 2005

It seems that when it comes to AdSense on a blog, most bloggers are either all for it, or completely against it. If you don’t necessarily want your blog to be a moneymaking machine cluttered with ads, but would like to at least cover hosting charges while staying tasteful, then here are a few simple strategies for including ads on your blog without looking too cheap.

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iPod Shuffle Controls

December 13, 2005

With so much fuss about the nano, I feel like the iPod Shuffle doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It seems more primitive than it really is – understanding the controls is the key to realizing the Shuffle’s potential. Here are some intelligent nuances that make the Shuffle very dynamic.

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Eight Life Hacks for Health, Wealth, and Happiness

December 12, 2005

I’ve noticed in my short existence that I tend to do many things differently from most people. Some of those things probably work just as well, whereas others make me wonder “why doesn’t everyone do this?” Here are eight things that may make you feel like you’re cheating the system, too (in no particular order):
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Website Diagrams with OmniGraffle and Garrett IA

December 11, 2005

In finally being on a team responsible for the development of some sites with considerable functionality, I have been searching for a way to communicate the site visually so that the entire team can have a set of documents to work off of for each release. After spending three years at an architecture firm and seeing the documents involved in getting a building built, I was sure there must be some equivalent visual language and documenting system for web design. After some research, I found that visual language, and a nicely-priced tool for executing it.

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Yahoo! acquires del.icio.us

December 09, 2005

Yahoo has acquired del.icio.us, the social bookmarking website. This has enormous potential, and it makes so much sense that Yahoo would purchase del.icio.us instead of Google, given Yahoo’s organization strategy. Yahoo’s stock hasn’t moved a great deal today, telling me there aren’t enough geeks trading.

Feeling Pretty Good…

December 04, 2005

san_jose_omaha_weather.jpg

P.S. It’s not really cloudy right now.

Vinyl Record Shelf: IKEA’s Tunhem

November 25, 2005

The possessions that by far take up the most space in my self-proclaimed lifestyle of minimalism are my books and my records. Until now, I just had a crappy WAL-MART (yes, I went shopping there, but only once, I swear) shelf for my books, and a bunch of cardboard boxes for my records. Besides looking bad, this system also wasn’t very space-efficient, so, since I’m not going to convert my vinyl to CD anytime soon, I decided to search for something much less crappy.

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Nokia 6822: A European Cell Phone in America for Easy Text Messaging

November 12, 2005

I’ve been looking for a new cell phone, and I am extremely frustrated and disappointed with the selection of cell phones on the U.S. market. The service providers and cell phone manufacturers just don’t seem to get it. Camera phones really are of little use, and cell phones need video capability even less. What does have potential and is actually useful is text messaging – which is absolutely huge in most of the world and is spreading. I have found that text messaging is a necessary component of socializing in California, so naturally I would like to have a cell phone with some sort of efficient system for text messaging. Unfortunately, all of the phones that have QWERTY keyboards and the like have way too many features and as a result are enormous. I don’t want a picture phone. I don’t want to surf the web. I don’t even want a color screen. All I want is the smallest phone possible with good reception, the capability to text with the quickness, and Bluetooth to back up my address book.

I think Google has the right idea with Google SMS on what is really useful in a cell phone (they’re always right). Very little of the information that we actually want to consume while out and about involves video or even pictures ��� it’s textual information like movie showtimes or business addresses and phone numbers. No, I don’t want to watch TV on my cell phone. I can appreciate that there may be a miniscule segment of the population in car-dependent America that may want to watch TV during commute, but this idea…is fucking stupid.

Along with all of these new and useless features comes interfaces and form factors that are more and more unusable. Now that color screens are pretty much standard, every interface has convoluted icons that bounce, twinkle and do whatever else they can do to make them absolutely useless in communicating what they represent. The phones themselves appear to have been designed by out-of-work comic book illustrators, complete with swooshy keypad designs and other unnecessary intricacies.

After looking at some European cell phone reviews, it looks like the Nokia 6822 (buy on Amazon) is about as close to “the phone for me” as I will find. I think I can get my hands on one through eBay (making sure to get an unlocked one), and if I change to a GSM provider such as Cingular or T-Mobile, rather than a CDMA provider (which will involve me surrendering my grandfathered-in 8 o’clock off-peak with Sprint), I can just swap out the SIM card. GSM and the flexibility of SIM cards sounds superior anyway, and will come in handy in the event of a trip abroad.

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