a

Chish,

boom boom boom da de boom boom

boom boom boom da de boom boom

ding ^DING

boom boom boom da de boom boom

boom boom boom da de boom boom

ding ^DING

boom boom boom da de boom boom

boom boom boom da de boom boom

ding ^DING

boom boom boom da de boom boom

boom boom boom da de boom boom

boom boom boom da de boom boom

Pressure! pushing down on me

 Pressing down on you no man ask for
Under pressure – that burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets

Um ba ba be
Um ba ba be
De day da
Ee day da – that’s o.k.

It’s the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming ‘Let me out’
Pray tomorrow – gets me higher
Pressure on people – people on streets
Day day de mm hm
Da da da ba ba
O.k.

Chippin’ around – kick my brains around the floor
These are the days it never rains but it pours
Ee do ba be
Ee da ba ba ba
Um bo bo
Be lap
People on streets – ee da de da de
People on streets – ee da de da de da de da

It’s the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming ‘Let me out’
Pray tomorrow – gets me higher high high
Pressure on people – people on streets

Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don’t work
Keep coming up with love
but it’s so slashed and torn
Why – why – why ?
Love love love love love

Insanity laughs under pressure we’re cracking
Can’t we give ourselves one more chance
Why can’t we give love that one more chance
Why can’t we give love give love give love give love
give love give love give love give love give love
‘Cause love’s such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure
Under pressure
Pressure

That’s my Dedication to my Family today.

Under Pressure | Queen and David Bowie

Pick up a copy of Under Pressure today on Amazon.

a

Does positive self talk make you want to puke?

Yeah, me too. But that hasn’t stopped me from trying to summon my inner Stuart Smalley on many occasions. Each one has left me feeling ill.

But there’s good news here for you regardless of whether you’re a glass half full or glass half empty kind of person.

Dr. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association and author of Authentic Happiness and Learned Optimism writes that positive thinking and self talk is best used to quiet your inner critic.

“We have found over the years that positive statements you make to yourself have little if any effect. What is crucial is what you think when you fail, using the power of non-negative thinking. Changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.”

A few months back I did a mental inventory on my own thinking and practices and found that my negative self talk had seized the bully pulpit! Since they I’ve enjoyed greater peace of mind by quieting my inner critic and stopping what Seligman refers to as catastropic thinking. I’ve also been able to acknowledge in my own way the things I’ve done right. What’s amazed me the most about the difference this has made is the striking speed of change that these internal shifts are having.

What say you? Are you optimistic by nature or have you found certain ways to embrace optimism?

FindingALT
Seek. Practice. Integrate. Share.

a

a

World hangs on every tweet - front page headline Palm Beach Post June 16, 2009

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a derisive Internet cool kid laugh about old media, or a Twitter early adopter sneer. I was reacting as both participant and observer to the democratizing power of online publishing tools like blogs and Twitter. I was seeing popular culture change before my eyes.

Fast forward to this coming Friday when the iPhone 3G S arrives

The iPhone 3G S with its high quality video recording and editing could eventually have the same kind of impact on news and communications as Twitter.

Click photo above to see Apple's Demo of iPhone 3G S video recording and editing.

Millions of people around the world will buy the iPhone 3G S and it’s succesor due out next year. Many people will buy the new iPhone with little to no interest in the video capture feature. Millions more will buy yet-to-be-released successors to the iPhone 3G S from competitors like BlackBerry, Google, Nokia, Palm and Microsoft that have the same or better video capture, editing features and ease of use. OK, maybe not Microsoft. You get the point, the iPhone 3G S will be the catalyst. It is not as much the innovator as the fast follower that breaks through to the masses. If today’s mobile video capture was a Van, the iPhone 3G S is the Minivan.

In 24 months millions of people will be carrying around high quality movie making equipment in their pockets. The number of these high quality video phones will continue to grow at an exponential speed as the gee whiz technology of today is pushed down to less expensive devices. Like next summer when a newer iPhone with dual core processors is unleashed and today’s $199 iPhone 3G S becomes the $99 entry level offering.

Along with this more capable mobile hardware we’ll use high speed wireless infrastructure to upload and share those movies in just a few minutes. In the States we’ll even see the end of AT&T’s exclusive iPhone agreement and even greater iPhone penetration as networks like Verizon pick up the iPhone. Similar stories will play out everywhere.

Not only will be able to quickly record and upload video, we’ll also be able to livestream our video. We’ve already been doing that, it’s just that geeks were the only ones who knew how to and the phones that had the capability were few and far between. This will change because of Apple’s worldwide sales volumes and impact on smartphone competition. This will change because of the iPhone’s ease-of-use and the third party iPhone applications that developers will make in the coming months (not years).

This will create a new critical mass of mobile videographers and that in turn will create big change in our media and communications.

For the first year I think this change will sneak up on us. For starters, the verdict on predicted sales of the iPhone 3G S is still out. Many people feel the 3G S won’t be as big a seller as the 3G because many of the features are small incremental improvements. For ninety percent of the upgrades, they’d be right. Some prognosticate that next year’s iPhone model will see larger sales based on likely enhancements and upgrades.

But it won’t be the specification sheets that will change things - people with access will.

Access and lots of people with access. That’s the change we mark with a this is where it all began on Friday with the release of high quality video capture and editing on the iPhone 3G S. When enough people have the right tools and access we’ve shown that we can unleash amazing amounts of rich and compelling content. The kind of content that TV producers, journalists and Hollywood movie makers only dream about. The kind of content that makes CNN’s news ratings spike. We’ll be capturing this on our video recordings and mobile livestream video.

It’s already been brewing for a while now. Internet types, video bloggers and journo’s have been showing us the way with mobile vlogging. As we’ve seen, the video will range from the interesting and sublime and highly entertaining to the stuff we should have left in the editing trash can. Just like Twitter or blogs but with video.

Things won’t really start to change though until surprisingly crisp video and sound clips start showing up all over the Internet. Uploaded and livestreamed by people who aren’t even a little geeky and don’t know the word videographer or vlogger. We’ll see video in real time of rock concerts, along with video of interesting and shocking events from all over the world. We’ll see interesting locally relevant content that we can use to shop, pick a restaurant or find a home. Good content, relevant content, in ‘good enough’ quality.

Not the junk quality that’s common on mobile video recording today. The increased quality, access, ease-of-use and bevy of sharing tools will allow business users to shoot snippets of keynote speeches at meetings and publish them for niche audiences of hundreds or thousands, connecting peers and friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Babies first cry will get chronicled in real time with family members in different states or countries watching raptly and feeling every moment like CNN’s trucks have rolled up outside with Wolf Blitzer in tow. News will get recorded, uploaded and livestreamed of just crashed airplanes and street riots. This video content will make news and rich connections. This video will help people learn, communicate, laugh and connect. We will see and experience the kind of visceral, immersive connection with this video content that we first saw with Television.

In two years this will be reality TV…but real life in real time.

That’s my prediction. What’s your take?

Here’s an excerpt of engadget’s iPhone 3G S review talking about the video feature along with a video sample.

engadget review

Okay — you got us. Video recording on the iPhone 3G S is really quite impressive, and there are two reasons why. For starters, the phone handles pretty fantastic looking VGA video at 30 FPS, which makes for not just passable mobile video, but usable mobile video. The size, clarity, and smoothness of the sequences we shot looked tremendous to our eyes — certainly on par if not outclassing many of the contenders in this space. In our opinion, the 3G S video quality is high enough that we’d consider this a viable stand-in for lower end camcorders or flip cams — if you want to capture your kids at the park but don’t want to come packing a ton of gear, this produces totally reasonable results. – full engadget review here

a

Julian Gude circa 1980, Fremantle Western Australia

As I walked the other day I was reminded about some books I read some time ago about negative self talk. My own internal dialogue is best described as polar opposites of good and bad. As I’ve grown older I have found more fault in my own actions (and therefore my self talk) but also more compassion for my weaknesses.

Today, what I refer to internally as ‘the real me’ is this sunny blond headed kid with a big infectious smile who is connected wholly to his heart. Every day I live I try to remember him and that me is the one who makes me a better father, husband and friend. From this boy came this simple common sense reminder on a walk the other day and I thought it might be good to share with you.

Negative self talk

“Instead of listening to your own bad advice in the form of negative self talk instead think of giving a good friend advice if they had the same problem. You wouldn’t think of talking to a friend like you talk to yourself.

The next time you give yourself some advice think of it as a gift you would give your loved one or friend.

Try it in business, try it with your relationship and parenting advice, try it on the golf course.  – Julian “

a

This a series of unorganized and occasionally helpful first impressions of the Lenovo Netbook - The one, the only, Lenovo Ideapad S10 review.

After salivating over Netbooks for over a year and watching the offerings closely I felt the market had matured enough to jump in. That said, there are some new Netbooks in the works that are due out in December that you might seriously consider such as the MSI Wind 2. Key among new offerings are on board high speed HSDPA mobile phone connectivity. My hopes for an Apple Netbook were dashed last Tuesday when Apple released their new MacBooks and MacBook Pros and no Netbook materialized. 

As I said in my intro, these are my first impressions of the Lenovo Ideapad S10 – one of the newest (or latest) Netbooks to join the Netbook fray. Lenovo was late to the Netbook game and my hope was that their quality laptop pedigree would trickle down to their Netbook offering.  So far, I think they’ve come close to doing just that.

First, let me call something important to your attention.

Most current reviews online of the Lenovo Ideapad S10 are based on a unit that is NOT shipping yet. The units available online from Lenovo and in some retail stores are the 512MB unit with 80GB hard disk drive and NO internal Bluetooth.  The base unit is $399 retail. I really wanted to try one in the flesh (mostly to test the keyboard) and after traveling to Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Depot and Staples I finally found a slew of models at CompUSA here in West Palm Beach, Florida. I never was able to test the MSI Wind in person but my Father, who has similar high standards in keyboards, tried one and felt the MSI WInd keyboard was excellent.

Getting back to the Lenovo Ideapad, if you’re patient, the newer unit that matches the specs of the reviews is due out soon. This newer unit will have integrated Bluetooth, 1GB of memory and a 160GB hard drive. This unit is $450.

For an additional $50 you get some GOOD stuff. I didn’t realize that the base unit did not have Bluetooth. This is not well documented on Lenovo’s site where you have to catch the * footnote that Bluetooth is only on select models. That was the only ‘gotcha’ I experienced. I really wasn’t worried about the memory because memory is dirt cheap and I just don’t need 160GB of hard drive in a Netbook. More on the memory later.

Other Netbooks I seriously considered:

• All of them! From that lot I culled it down to the Lenovo Ideapad S10 and…
• MSI Wind (great overall reviews and does well as a Hackintosh running Apple’s OSX Operating System)
• Dell Mini 9 

I prefer the hard drive option in a Netbook over the SSD (solid state drive) because you can load up your Netbook with applications and music (why not!). The Dell gets steep on price and I also wanted the slightly larger form factor of the MSI and Lenovo. Reviews of the hard drive equiped MSI Wind are universally swell, and of particular interest to me, it runs a hacked Apple OS X install better than most Netbooks.

Other Netbooks were interesting but some combination of features or review critiques turned me off. I’ll mention the HP Netbook here only because it has the nicest keyboard that I tested. The fact that the HP 2133 Netbook is much pricier than other Netbooks and doesn’t use the new 1.6ghz Atom processor were big turnoffs.

I was drawn to both the Lenovo and Dell for the big brand support and service that they offer over some of the smaller or lesser known Netbook manufacturers. I think this is a minor point, but with very little to differentiate these units you have to pick some place to nit pick!

Other selling points of the Lenovo Ideapad S10 that stood out to me in the reviews:

• big brand, low price $399
• good keyboard
• solid build quality
• solid processor / system performance over competition
• 10 inch format and screen (over small 8 and 9 inch units)
• 4-in-1 Media card reader and ExpressCard slot
• super easy memory and hard drive upgrades (this implies good build engineering, a necessary pre cursor to good build quality in my opinion)

The biggest negative of the Ideapad I’ve heard consistenly cited is ‘average’ batterly life. I’m getting a little over two hours right now surfing and writing with power settings at “Balance” a setting that, as its name suggests, takes the middle road for performance and battery life. 2+ hours suits me just fine. I can get more if I want to dim the screen and such. 

So what are my biggest gripes?

No deal breakers.

There are things to improve upon. The location of the right side shift key for example. It sucks. I’m constantly hitting the up arrow key instead. Otherwise spacing and feel are VERY solid and I’m having no problem getting up to good typing speed after only a day. I thought my extra use of the right side shift key might have to do with my left-handedness but my RH wife had the same issue and I purposefully didn’t mention my issue to her with the shift key. 

I sure would like it if they could make these units run cooler and quieter than they do. I don’t find either to be terrible on this unit but they’re not wonderful either. I’m picking a bit here.

I find the lid difficult to open as there is no latch and no indentation to slide your finger into.  

Memory. This isn’t really a gripe but more a realization about how I’m already using my Netbook. I orginally felt that the base memory of 512MB sounded great for surfing and other light application use – which it is. But, after finding the Atom processor so speedy my expectations changed almost immediately. This was a real computer! It has skillz. 

As such, I started loading more apps on the system like Skype and OpenOffice. As I loaded up more apps and more browser windows the 512MB started to get bogged down. That’s too be expected. So for a grand sum of $27.99 I picked up a Kingston 1GB DDR2 PC2-5300 SODIMM memory stick from Circuit City. With 1.5GB the system is now perfect. Here’s the memory upgrade installation guide I referenced. Their claim of a 5-minute install is legit – it actually took me less time. I got to appreciate Lenovo’s solid engineering design that provides easy access to memory and the hard drive for upgrades/repair. Something tells me I won’t be so lucky if I try to add Bluetooth…

What am I most impressed with?

The size and weight of course!

That’s the bloody point of these things after all. It’s brilliant. The 10 inch form factor really is perfect in my mind. My dad got the original Asus eee PC and I found it too slow and too small to use comfortably. Yet, the portability remained extremely compelling. The larger 10 inch means a usable screen and keyboard while still maintaining light weight and overall size. I can hold this unit in one hand as I walk around the house chasing my kids. That’s usability! It also fits perfectly in my compact man bag. Uh-huh, sweet.

The speed. I really expected a lot of compromise in speed and there really isn’t any. I run a Macbook I purchased in March this year with a nice 2.4ghz Core Duo processor and I just can’t say that it’s noticibly different when you’re surfing the web. Despite this common refrain, people don’t mention that your processor DOES in fact play a big part in your web surfing experience and the 1.6ghz Atom strikes me as a very capable chip in this respect.

What really surprises me is that it runs other heavier apps well – like Skype with video. No problem. In fact, I unexpectedly found myself loading more apps on the Lenovo because it seemed so capable. This is a good argument for waiting for the newer unit that has more memory and bigger hard drive. It’s also a good argument against the small storage size of the SSD Netbooks. I can see a ton of people getting these kinds of Netbooks simply because of the low price point and doing quite nicely with them as their main PC.  My biggest issue with the machine has nothing to do with the Machine. 

It’s having to go back to Windows after four years of Apple OS X. I’m no Apple fanboy and I’m a long time Windows user. I switched back to Mac’s about four years ago. I find myself very surprised by how much I miss OS X in everything I do on the Netbook.  I truly didn’t see this coming. After all, a web page is a web page whether you are on a Mac or a PC.

I did plenty of research on hacking the Lenovo with OS X and people DO have it working but with some gotchas that I’m not willing to live. The unit is very new though so I’m hopeful that people will figure out the remaining issues. The deal breaker for me is that you can’t get sound out of the machine on OS X and that means no notifications, music, YouTube and too many other things that one needs on a regular basis. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

In the mean time I’ve been searching out Apple equivalent applications to quench my OS X thirst.

I’ve turned up Colibri to do a quasi job of replicating OS X based QuickSilver. It does the basic work of a keyboard/text based quicklauncher well. I found the web site Cameroid.com to work as a Photobooth replacement. I am using DarkRoom as an equivalent to the OS X based WriteRoom – a simple word processor that blocks out everything on your screen to keep you focused on your writing. 

Of course there are benefits to Windows XP over OS X! Really. I’m delighted to hit the delete key again and have it DO JUST THAT! Noooo, not like Apple OS X where you have to hold down the Fn key plus the Delete key. Apple, what are you thinking?

I’m also happy that I can now run a few apps that are on Windows and not Mac or are simply better on the PC. These include Skype – their new much improved version hasn’t made it to the Mac yet.  The other is Google Chrome which is a solid browser, especially for me since I’m a big consumer of Google products (I even pay for Google Premier for my business email). Finally, there’s a piece of memorization software that I can now use on the PC that will NEVER be ported to the Mac. Well, never say never.

Solid effort Lenovo!

Apple, get yo’ stuff together and build a $599 Netbook – I’ll pay a premium for it as long as you innovate. If you want to build a me too Netbook and charge $450 or $500 for it, I’m down with that as well since I’d be able to use OS X.

For now, this Lenovo Ideapad S10 has pulled me away from my Mac for at least a portion of my day. That wasn’t easy to do. I’m a Mac and I’m a PC even if Apple’s latest Mac/PC commercial is deadly funny.

a

Summary
Food 5 Stars
Service 5 Stars
Ambiance 3.75 (boring strip mall location but clean and pleasant inside)
Price 3 (food is pricey for Chinese)

Menu (dine in or take-out)

Mr. Zhang’s web site

4650 Donald Ross Rd, Palm Beach Gardens, FL

(561) 624-2946

My Review

I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years and had great access to some of the best Chinese restaurants in the U.S. Everything from spectacular hole in the wall choices to fine dining the likes of which I’ve had in Hong Kong. I have a decent idea of what passes for quality Chinese food.

Needless to say, living in South Florida over the last six years has been a huge disappointment. You’d think with our influx of New Yorkers, who are accustomed to some excellent Chinese dining choices, we’d have better Chinese restaurants here. Sadly, the Chinese cooks seem to have all stayed up north or back home in China!

Mr. Zhang’s in Jupiter Florida is one of only two “good quality” Chinese food dining experiences I’ve had between Miami and here in the greater West Palm Beach area.

We visited Mr. Zhang’s in July 2008 and all of our selections were of good quality as compared to the best quality I’ve experienced in the Bay Area. For this market, I would rate Mr. Zhang’s food in the ‘outstanding’ column. The Palm Beach Post seems to agree, giving their flagship dish (Grand Mariner Prawn) their top dish award in 2006 (typically known as Honey Walnut Shrimp/Prawns in most Chinese restaurants) .  Mr. Zhang’s Beijing Chicken was also excellent!

The only negatives I can think of are the boring strip mall location (that’s South Florida for you) and the price. Which isn’t a knock on Mr Zhang’s, but more a reflection of my preference for excellent cheap Chinese food! Mr. Zhang’s is more of a mid-priced dining experience as far as Chinese restaurants go. We got out the door for $112.10 (without tip) with one drink each for two adults, soup, 1 appetizer (Fried Wonton) and food enough for us and three kids helping us eat. That’s not a cheap family meal but if you’re looking for a treat for the whole family that’s on par in price with most chains you won’t be disappointed with Mr. Zhang’s.

In fact, at Mr. Zhang’s you’re going to enjoy much better food quality and service for the money than any national chain. Let me close by just pointing out how good the service in this restaurant. You never have a chance to even think about wanting a drink refill or some other assistance.

I highly recommend Mr. Zhang’s.

a

Remembered.

Kinda thought that it was important to put this out there before I drifted off into the dream land.

Progress perhaps.

a

A few minutes later I set out on my run, a practice I’ve mostly given up from the physical pain it causes my two ruptured or herniated discs in my neck. Despite this pain my running has been calling me back lately. It is an undeniable part of me.

I just returned from that run on this hot summer day in South Florida. It is July 27, 2008. I listened to the Foo Fighters song Come Alive, off their latest album Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace. I played that song for the 45 minutes of my run. It is a song about finding yourself through the help of love, in the form of an outside agent – a person, a lover, an angel.

I have remembered that I love running not because of the runner’s high, but because it is the only place outside of music where I find great insight. This run was more insightful than most.

I realized that I have a life long addiction to materialism. By materialism I mean an outright reliance and addiciton to the outside world. This manifests most strongly in a desire for things and food which leads to trouble with money, weight, and spiritual health. These are the major symptoms of my addiction to materialism.

I realized I must let go of that addiction if I am to become whole.

I realized that I already have everything I need to become whole.

This includes a memory of love and compassion for myself, my love for Shannon, my children, my family, and my friends.

This includes belief.

I realized for me now, in this time, in this place, that what I am searching for cannot be sought. It will only present itself through great listening in mind, body, and spirit. I have reached the place where listening must eschew searching. This is my mantra now. ‘It’ is already here. ‘It’ will be realized, not discovered. ‘It’ will come, or ‘It’ won’t. I accept this.

I realized that my whole life I have slayed my addiction and my depression with a sword. I have killed it over and over. I have fought bravely. I have fought with honor. But I cannot win this way. I have known this for a number of years. I put down my sword.  It has left me defenseless. I have been killed over and over by my demons in this time. They have rejoiced in dancing on my spilled innards as I have lay bleeding and dying. They have cackled in delight at my death for taking so many of them with my sword.

I fight a compulsion to pick up my sword and kill them all. To vanquish them. But I know now that once the last of the demons falls to the floor, new ones will enter the room from doorways in the shadows that I have envisioned. I cannot rid these demons with my sword. I must heal myself. I must listen to what these demons are trying to teach me. I must stop fighting ‘it’.

Today, I relinquish my materialism.

a