About James McCullough

http://www.foursides.ca

A young father, working as a hotel consultant, following a paleo diet thanks to books such as The Primal Blueprint and The 4 Hour Body. I use Byword for writing, and do my work using this iPad keyboard. Connect with me at Google+ or Twitter

Posts by James McCullough:

Mike Monteiro’s New Book, Design is a Job

Mike Monteiro’s New Book, Design is a Job

There’s a difference between being enjoyable to work with and being “nice.” Being nice means worrying about keeping up the appearance of harmony at the expense of being straightforward and fully engaged. Sometimes you need to tell a client they’re making the wrong call. Part of client services is being able to do that without coming off as a dick. But being afraid to do it because you’re too invested in being “nice” is worse than being a dick.
Mike Monteiro, Design Is A Job

That’s one of my favourite quotes from the excerpt of Mike Monteiro’s new book on Getting Clients.

For those unaware of who Mike Monteiro is, he is the co-founder of Mule Design which is much more than a design firm (branding, marketing, audio/visual production, and more) based out of San Francisco. Their list of clients are impressive, to say the least: GigaOm, Mint, AllThingsD, and more.

They have recently expanded to start Mule Radio Syndicate with the best tagline ever: From Our Ass To Your Ears. Their shows include one of my all-time favourites, Let’s Make Mistakes, Salt & Fat and Hour of Pour.

If you’re in the mood for some podcasts of a different flavour than the norm, check them out.

As for the book, it is geared towards designers (freelance or small shops), but I am sure a lot of his message will be well received by anyone involved with the service industry. The eBook is $9.00, paperback is $18.00 + shipping, both priced quite reasonably. As soon as I have finished reading it, I will provide more insight into its contents.

Be sure to check Mike out on Twitter: @mike_ftw

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The Tale of the Scorpion and the Frog

The Tale of the Scorpion and the Frog

Scorpion asked Frog to carry him across the river. Frog was a bit nervous and exclaimed, “But you will sting and kill me once we are going across!” “Nonsense,” said Scorpion, “we would both drown if I did that.” Frog thought about it and agreed to take Scorpion across the river. Halfway across the river, Scorpion stung Frog in the back several times. Frog turned back to Scorpion, “Why did you do that? Now we are both doomed.” Scorpion simply said, “It is my nature.”

I have heard this tale over the years, but was reminded of it while watching the premiere episode of Magic City. Magic City is about Ike Evans running the Miramar Playa Hotel in Miami during 1959. It’s a busy time with Castro having just invaded Havana, the mob, and CIA are holding court in the city, and Ike is in debt to the mob. It airs on Starz and well worth checking out.

The quote stuck in my head when it was shared between mob boss, Ben “The Butcher” Diamond, and Ike.

There were two ways to think about the quote, from the perspective of the Scorpion, and of the Frog.

Scorpion

When the Scorpion first says, “It is my nature,” my head drifted off to thinking about how many times throughout my life people have questioned me about how quiet I am, my lack of friends, and my desire to be more reclusive at times than “out there.” It doesn’t seem to matter how long I have known someone, the question usually comes out at some point. I have never quite figured out why people enjoy playing psychiatrist and need to delve into people right away. Sometimes, there isn’t anything figure out.

We are who we are, and we are happy to be that way.

Frog

I have been in the Frog’s position too frequently. My gut says something is wrong, but my mind chooses to ignore the gut reaction to “do the right thing.” On countless occasions, I aim to do the right thing to help someone out who is in a tough spot, and help them out even if it means my needs won’t be met, only to find out that they had no intention of paying me back or do something worse to stab me in the back. “Doing the right thing” only works when everyone else is doing it, as well. You either make the choice of continuing to do the right thing regardless of the outcome, or you live by your gut.

I am wanting to live by my gut, but I will always be like Frog and help Scorpion.

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Pain Pushes Until the Vision Pulls

Pain Pushes Until the Vision Pulls

Pain pushes until the vision pulls.
Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith

Lori Painter posted a wonderful video sharing the story of her life, and how painful it was for her five years ago. The message throughout the video resonated with me so much that I needed to share it.

My life has been rather turbelent the past few years, and painful when it reached the low points. Pain is relative to a person’s experiences, and I know my pain could have been much, much worse, but it was still a difficult experience for me to go through then, and now. The past month or so, I have found myself caught up more in what was going on in my life or had gone on than working towards improving my situation. I keep living day to day hoping something would change, but it never will change until I make the changes myself.

Towards the end of the video, Lori talks about how to discover this vision. One of the requirements is to be quiet, to slow down life. I have certainly been doing that this past weekend, keeping to myself while my daughter is away and focusing on doing some writing that I had meant to do a while ago. No grand vision as of yet, though I can sense things are starting to bubble in mind.

If you are looking for a little inspiration, click thru and watch her video. It is only twelve minutes long or so, and she includes the video that helped inspire her vision. And subscribe to her site, as well. Her messages are always spot on.

Push by Pain Until Pulled by Vision

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Changing My Workflow

Changing My Workflow

A productive workflow is important to us all, but it is imperative for me considering how precious my free time is during the week. Working on my MacBook has been a bit cumbersome lately due to how warm it is running and the keyboard has been acting up for me,[1] so I have been trying to move my work over to the iPad and adopt the post-PC era. I mentioned a few of the tools I have been using previously, Byword and Grazing. The final piece to the puzzle has been put in place.

Anyone who uses the iPad for typing knows how difficult the keyboard can be. For someone with large hands, the keys can be rather close together which leads to awkward typing movements. I was also having an issue with the autocorrect function that comes with iOS.[2] With those two issues, I was on the hunt for a good Bluetooth keyboard to use with the iPad.

There are quite a few options for keyboards when you scan through Amazon, but the reviews all mentioned minor problems. I was hesistant about purchasing one directly from the site and decided to take a trip to BestBuy to look at the options up close, feel the keyboard if possible, and maybe talk to one of the floor representatives. I went with a list of the more favourable reviews I had read so I wasn’t making a blind purchase, and came back after purchasing the Belkin MyTouch FOLIO + KEYBOARD.

I did a full run down of the iPad keyboard on Squidoo for people to read through. Short story is I couldn’t be happier with the keyboard. It adds a lot of functionality for the iPad, including handy playback controls, copy and paste buttons, and buttons to use for selecting text.[3]

So now I have all the pieces of the puzzle in place and am starting to put them to use. Writing on the keyboard is excellent, but I still need to get the text from Byword over to WordPress. Thankfully, this quite easy to do on the iPad using the keyboard. Here are the steps that I need to take:

  1. Hit the Gear button top-right in Byword, and copy the HTML.
  2.  Switch to the WordPress app, start a new post.
  3. Paste the HTML using the keyboard hard key.
  4.  Save it as a draft.

I do the final edits on the WordPress site to enter in all the meta information, a featured image and do the final scheduling for when it should be posted.

So far, it is working out well for me. It’s quite a joy to be working on the iPad now instead of using the MacBook, and I enjoy how quiet it is. No fan running, no background processes slowing me down. I am currently looking into purchasing Numbers to do my spreadsheet work on the iPad instead of the laptop now.

Time will tell whether I need to tinker further with the setup, but for now, I have my found my peace.

  1. The cursor tends to jump around on me, deleting letters or even whole sections of a paragraph. Highly annoying. ↩
  2. It may be just me, but I much prefer the Android autocorrect function and it is more accurate, as well. ↩
  3. Another thing I have not been completely comfortable doing on an iPad, selecting text is far easier on an Android device.  ↩

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I Lived to Tweet the Tale

I Lived to Tweet the Tale

If you have been paying attention to my Twitter feed you may have noticed some cryptic messages been shown between 10 PM and midnight on a semi-regular basis. They look something like this:

The messages are being sent out by an iOS app called Seconds Free after I complete a workout. I’ll do a full run-down of the app later in the week, but check it out if you’re in need of a timer for tabata drills or interval training, for examples. The Pro version allows you to save the routines you can program, so can be worth the few dollars investment to save you some time entering in the information.

I thought I would share the information through Twitter to help me keep track of my progress. It doesn’t have a website to record the data under a unique profile for me, but it does allow me to click thru to see the details of the workout if I recorded all the information thoroughly (i.e. instead of “Exercise 1, 2, 3…” I would see “Pushups, Squats, Situps…”). At some point, I plan on entering all that information into something more appropriate to estimate the calories being burnt. For now, it’s far easier to hit the magic “Tweet now” button when I’m exhausted instead of trying to think about loading a website or writing down the information on a pad of paper.

The other thing I wanted to note, in reference to the “I lived to tweet the tale,” is that I purchased this Bad Boy today. I had been using a 30 pound kettlebell to build up my balance with some of the exercises and practice my form before I put more stress on my body. This guy is 45 pounds. I did one of my routines tonight,felt good halfway through, but the last half nearly did me in. I can definitely feel the impact of the heavier kettlebell on my body.

We will see how I feel in the morning, and whether I can get out of bed.

For anyone interested (and if you’ve read this far, maybe you are), I alternate between two different routines. I do a tabata-like workout with kettlebell swings – 30 seconds one arm, 30 seconds other arm, 30 seconds of rest and repeat 15–20 times. I also do one of the Spartacus workouts designed by Men’s Health magazine. I put up a page on Squidoo detailing all three versions of this workout to help get people started with choosing a workout. I’ve switched over to doing Version 2.0 now.

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Stable is That Step Backwards Between Successful and Failure.

Stable is That Step Backwards Between Successful and Failure.

Pete Campbell, Mad Men (Season 5, Episode 1)

When I was watching the season premiere on Sunday night[1], the quote in the title stood out for me, as it did for a lot of reviews I’ve read. It’s been in the back of my mind over the past few days and how it can apply to many facets of life, from at home, at work, relationships, to the smaller areas like working out, your blog, and spiritual health.

To be content with where you are in life is setting yourself up for failure when the unexpected happens.

Your job may not be secure forever.
Your relationship may fall apart if both parties work to maintain status quo without keeping the love flowing.
Your site may stop to flourish if you aren’t writing something a little more challenging for yourself or your readers

There are many examples in life. I’m not in the position to be a self-development writer and push my opinion on what we should be doing to combat the symptom of being stable, nor do I want to.

It is something to keep in mind as you sit on your chair to read this and for the rest of the week.

How can I be moving forward more than I am sitting still?

  1. Incidentally, my favourite write-ups about the current season of Mad Men are from Grantland:
    * A New Don
    * Recap: What Do You Do With a Girl Like Megan?
    * Mad Men Season 5 Character Guide
    * Cultural Learnings hasn’t written a recap yet, but hopefully will. Worth watching for.  ↩

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Grazing – My Favourite App for iPad and iPhone

I received my iPad 2 just over a month ago, and have been enjoying using it and exploring the world of iOS apps. I had an older iPod Touch, but it could not be updated to iOS 5 so was stuck in the world of 4.x. I was also finding it extremely slow compared to my Motorola Milestone/Droid, and extremely slow to my Samsung Nexus S. It’s been relegated as a learning tool for my daughter now (who has mastered the thing at the age of 2).

In this time of exploring apps for iPad, I have been come across quite a few useful apps, but most are well known – Flipboard, Evernote, Soundcloud, Kingdom Rush (a game), and MLB At Bat. I’ve been using a lot of the magazine apps for reading, too (Atlantic and Slate, for example), and the previously mentioned Byword for writing. Perhaps a lesser known app is actually a replacement for Safari: Grazing.

MacRumours posted a story about tab syncing between the desktop and iCloud last week, and everyone was going crazy in the comments about how great a feature this is. Grazing offers this as a solution right now, and it works wonderfully. Within the iOS browser, you push things to your Mac or iPhone through the “Share” button at the top of the browser. Once you select the Mac, your Mac gets a little notification up in the menu bar saying there’s a new link to open. If your browser is open, the tab will open up automatically.

The process is the same going in the opposite direction, but the pushing of a link is handled through a Javascript button on the menu bar since there’s no dedicated “Share” button in Safari like in the iOS apps. Once completed, the tab opens up in Grazing on the iPad/iPhone in a new tab.

The best part is that it stores the links for you in a folder that is accessible at anytime. If you want to load up a reading list while on the go, you can easily push 10+ links to the device for future reading, and the links will be available in the menu bar, as well. The first 11 are displayed, and then the remainder show up in a “Older Items” folder in the drop-down menu.

The pushing of links back and forth is great, but it’s not the only feature available for the browser. The sharing function in Grazing is nearly as powerful as the sharing function of an Android browser/application. For those unfamiliar with Android, the applications can access the sharing function across the operating system, so if you’re viewing a photo in your gallery, you can send it to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Path, etc. You can do the same when looking at a webpage, as well. I could share an article I read within an app, as well, it’s quite powerful.

With Grazing, you can share in a number of ways: push it to Safari (iOS), email, Twitter (and TweetBot), Evernote, Facebook, Instapaper, Tumblr, and so forth. The only real difference between the Android sharing and Grazing is that Android sharing involves the apps you have installed on the device, while Grazing comes with all these preloaded. When you select one service, it will ask for your credentials or use the app (Twitter, Facebook) to authorize you so you can post to the account.

Another feature that Chrome users will be familiar with is Private Browsing. When you switch into the Private Browsing mode, history and cookies are no longer stored until you exit out of it. Useful if you want to let a friend surf for a while without them having to worry about their information being stored on the device.

The final feature I want to quickly mention is the touch gestures within the app. You can swipe left-right to switch tabs, swipe up from the bottom left to go to the address bar, swipe from the bottom right to do a search (and you can switch the services to Google Images, News, Yahoo, Bing, even Twitter and Duck Duck Go), you can hold down a finger and tap to go to the next tab or previous tab, and you can customize other gestures, as well. In addition, there’s a thumb navigation screen. You swipe in from the side of the screen, and you get a popup screen that allows you to close the tab, move back in history, bookmark, the action menu, etc. It’s incredibly useful if you’re like me and hate having to lift a hand up to tap the top of the screen while you’re holding it comfortably in your lap.

There are a lot more features that I am not even touching on here:

  • Full Screen browsing
  • Tab Strip
  • Context menu when pressing on a link.
  • Thumbnails (like Expose)
  • Ad Blocking
  • and more…

Grazing is available in the iTunes App Store and in the Mac App Store for the functionality of pushing links back and forth, plus storing links. It’s only a few dollars for each app, and considering how much we spend browsing on the web these days, I think it’s a worthwhile purchase. It runs smoothly, has never crashed for me, and the syncing is instanteous when on the local wifi network.

A worthy addition to your iPad if you ask me.

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Aligning with My Needs

The more features you add to a product, the more it dilutes the core reason for a product’s existence and confuses people.

Marco Arment, Build and Analyze Show #68

I came across that quote while listening to Marco’s show last week. It inspired me to write a post on my business blog about Aligning with Your Guest’s Needs, but I’m realizing now that my thoughts on the topic haven’t finished yet.

I had originally spent time thinking about how it applied to the hotel business, after Marco applied it to the design and application world, and now I am thinking about my blog. It has gone through a whirlwind of changes since I first started it a few years ago[1] but the core identity of it has remained unchanged: exploring ideas and sharing them with the world.

Here is what I wrote in my About page back then:

Instead of another niche blog, we need more of a Renaissance approach to writing to help everyone expand personally. There are blogs out there that curate the internet for us, but few bloggers that expand on the ideas that are discovered or share their ideas on other topic areas.

I realized last week that I was still exploring the concepts on an irregular basis, but not quite as varied as I would have liked. When I look at the Top 5 posts in terms of popularity, four of them are about The 4 Hour Body[2].

For 2012, I want to develop a post that will knock off at least a few of those other posts that will be a better legacy than a book. That was a great exercise for me to go through, but not valuable for the few readers I have here.

I also want to incorporate more variety on the subjects that interest me the most – get away from complaining about the blogging world, and reconnect with the art world, books, business and technology. My bookshelf is a wide assortment of topics, the feeds in Google Reader are of even wider topics. I feel as though I am doing a disservice to myself by limiting the topics I am writing about.

As Gwen Bell writes in her latest book, Reverb:

If our own needs aren’t met,  it’s unlikely we’ll get them met by trying to convince other people to buy stuff from us.

I’m not selling anything on here, nor am I trying to make any serious money from this blog, so I removed the advertisements.
I tend to live a fairly clean lifestyle away from the computer, so I went with a stripped down design on the site to align with my own needs.
I wasn’t motivated to write in a busy environment like the WordPress post editor or a blog editor, so I switched to writing in Byword using markdown.

And, finally, I can’t compete with other blogs who are focused on providing excellent content to help people solve their problems, mainly because I’m not trying to help solve anyone’s problems here. I’m hoping to help people discover new ideas and explore new paths, which is why I will never be able to write a How To post or “X ways that Y can help you” and so forth.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to discover my voice again and publish great content of my own. This site is my way of exploring my mind and getting the ideas of my head out.

The fact that anyone reads what I write continues to amaze me.

  1. Quickly approaching two years in June.  ↩
  2. I won’t even bother linking to the review on the site. I put it in the top bar, and it’s on the side if interested.  ↩

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The New Generation of Podcasts

Like most things, the old give way to the new

Jim Dalrymple, The loop

Jim shared a post that redirected to Macdrifter listing the podcasts that he is listening to on a regular basis. As Jim put it, the old are giving away to the new, which is reference to the TWiT and Revision3 networks of podcasts.

Reading through the comments, it was interesting to note how many people have given up on their various TWiT shows, namely the main This Week in Tech show and MacBreak Weekly. I came late to the party with the network, and never gone into it as deeply as some people, only watching the TWiT show and TWiG. I do agree with them that the TWiT show has become a bit stagnant the past few months. I’m much more selective in when I watch it.[1] The TWiG show I still listen to regularly, because it tends to get into more philosophical discussions about private-public concerns and tends to be less-Apple focused than a lot of the other shows I listen to. I really enjoy Gina Trapani’s perspective on things, much like how I enjoy Marco Arment’s perspective on his show.

That being said, the 5by5 Network shows are something I listen to regularly and without any curation unless I have missed episodes and need to catch up on them. There is a wide variety of topics available so you will find something to your liking. The ones I listen to more than any other are these:

Another excellent show is Let’s Make Mistakes by Mule Design. I would hesitate to say it’s the more entertaining show in terms of producing laughs, but Merlin Mann is always great on the Back to Work show, as well.

The main difference between the shows I have listed and the ones on the TWiT network is that they rarely bring in guests. All of them are primarily the same two people talking each week, which is comforting because you know what the quality of the show is going to be week in, week out. TWiT shows rely heavily on guest appearances, and some of them tend to be busts – providing poor insight, not saying anything at all. Another big difference is that the TWiT shows have been around for a long time. TWiT is on Episode 345 (Sunday, March 18). The Talk Show, by comparison, is on Show #83.

That’s a tremendous gap. It’s difficult to say whether our interest in the 5by5 shows will last another 5 years to match the TWiT show’s longevity. Then again, one of my favourite sports shows, Pardon the Interruption has had the same duo for over 10 years, producing a show almost every Monday-Friday.

I am sure there are many more podcasts that are worth listening to. Do you have any favourites?

  1. I watch for Baratunde Thurston and MG Siegler especially, and also Alexia Tsotsis and Jolie O’Dell  ↩

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