Prison time

Facebook Timeline encourages you to record holidays, military service or studying overseas. But hey Facebook, what’s with there being no option for a stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure?

A new diagnosis

Understandably, Facebook does give you the option to record overcoming an illness. But they’ve missed a trick, reporting your recent diagnosis (with an accurate date stamp) on your Timeline would also avoid having to make any awkward phonecalls.

Toilet breaks

Facebook Timeline is all about telling your life story, but just like Star Trek a big part of all of our everyday lives is omitted. Hidden away like it doesn’t happen. This could be easily rectified to the joy of many a Facebook user.

TV appearance

In many ways I think this is a pretty fair point. We’d all like to report to our friends about our five minutes of fame. Of course, you know full well all you’d see is this sort of thing.

Marching orders

Facebook is awash with people reporting their new jobs but surprisingly lacking reports of job exits. This could be easily rectified and include some handy details for future employers.

Alcohol-induced black outs

Another public service opportunity missed by the Facebook developers. As you awake bleary-eyed with the early onset of a biblical hangover you realise you’ve been relieved of part of your memory. Tap in a few details to Facebook timeline and your friends would happily fill you in on every detail, quite possibly with photos too. Handy!

So there we are Facebookers, you can have these ideas free of charge. Just keep an eye on your privacy settings eh?

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Shane Richie – Rags To Richie

— The pun-generating machine is broken, what are we going to do?

— Stand back, I’ve had an idea.

Julie Walters – That’s Another Story

— We need a well-known phrase about stories.

— How about this one?

— Perfect. I’m a big fan of the way it implies the best stuff isn’t in the book.

Fred Dibnah – Did You Like That?

— OK, starting point, let’s use the catchphrase.

— I’m a bit concerned it sounds quite menacing out of context.

— No no, we’re fine, pair it with this picture.

— Not sure that’s helped.

Richard Branson – Losing My Virginity

— It’ll work but it could be stronger. Ideas?

— Any way we could get ‘Dick’ in there too?

Coleen Nolan – Upfront & Personal

— Two words is where it’s at. Two words and an ampersand.

— Colleen is so upfront but also it’s a very personal take.

— Bingo! Let’s ignore the fact that it sounds like a soft porn movie.

Shirley Maclaine – Sage-Ing While Age-Ing

— This book about getting older is great but we really need a title that emphasises the aspect of age.

— Here we go.

— Pretty good – but I’m a bit concerned the rhyme could be missed.

— Superfluous hyphen or two?

— Let’s book in a coffee to chat about your promotion.

Sanda ‘Pepa’ Denton – Let’s Talk About Pep

— OK, titles… any ideas?

— A Dash Of Pepa? Pepa-Spray?

— Hang on, I’ve got it.

Tori Spelling – sTori Telling

— That’s great but the pun isn’t clear enough. Make the S lowercase and let’s talk sequels.

— Uncharted TerriTORI?

— Let’s take an early lunch.

Inspired by these fine titles I’ve decided to put pen to paper on my own story. In my own words. Shocking. Heartwarming. Life-affirming. Serialised in the Mail On Sunday.

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Hello there.

Observant regular readers of this blog will note that my last blog post was over a year ago. I wrote optimistically about books I was intending to read that cold January of 2011. Then the blog went quiet. Of course, once you allow the blogger’s block to get to you it’s tough to shake; as the gap in posts widen so too wanes your ability to conjure any worthwhile words.

I remember well how I felt about blogging in January 2011. I’d long before transferred most of my opinions to tweets – tweeting links, summarising more complex ideas into 140 characters and generally neglecting this blog. When time is tight, it’s easier to tweet a link with no context than add your thoughts – in short, you contribute little but the amplification of the importance of another destination.

In many ways I’ve never had the discipline for regular blogging – will February 2012 change that? Let’s see.

To accompany this resumption and by way of an ice-breaker, here’s three web things that have caught my eye recently:

• Goodreads: I joined this book cataloguing and community site months ago in order to satisfy my need for organising and tagging things. They’ve just launched a slick Facebook Timeline app which quietly adds your reading activity straight into your Timeline page – sweet, sweet data.
• Pinterest: For designers and fans of the aesthetic, Pinterest certainly hosts some inspiring curated boards of visuals. There’s also some comment inanity that challenges even Youtube for it’s pointlessness. You’ll rapidly identify the two. Want an invitation? I have a few.
• FontFabric: An independent type foundry from Sofia in Bulgaria, FontFabric craft striking typefaces and think nothing of distributing many of them free of charge. Have a look.

Well, the blogger’s block has been overcome – now, you could contribute to a further reduction in the regularity of blog posts here by joining the roster of clients of my design company, Rarebright Design? Get in touch if you’re interested.

(I know you’ve all been waiting to here how I got on with my January reading list. Well, I scored a solid 5 out of 6. I never made it through How To Make Friends & Influence People – read into that what you will. Oryx & Crake meanwhile is now one of my favourite works of the post-apocalyptic, speculative fiction sub genre. So there.)

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Hardboiled Web Design by Andy Clarke (@malarkey)

I’ll start with the one I’ve actually already read! There’s not many superlatives that haven’t been thrown at this book over the past couple of months since the eBook version was released. As you’d expect from a Five Simple Steps book, Hardboiled Web Design is skillfully-written, beautifully-produced and illustrated, and an inspiring read to boot. If you’re an HTML and CSS purist needing solace in a long, dark January, I suggest you pick yourself up a copy.

Threadless by Jake Nickell (@skaw)

Given that every designer the world over has at some point thought that their fortune lay in designing t-shirts there’s really no way this book could fail to sell. Covering entrepreneurship, design and t-shirts, it’s a perfect fit for me – one to flick through with a cup of tea and the heating on.

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

This book occupies that weird state where it was on my Amazon wishlist but I have no memory of how I found out about it. Still, I love these sorts of books and as a generous family member bought this for me as a Christmas gift I shall be tackling it in due course. Thoughts later maybe.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (@malcgladwell)

When I get round to reading Outliers it’ll be the first of Gladwell’s books I’ve read. I’m not entirely sure what to expect. I remember reading about Barack Obama’s campaign team being firm believers in the logic of The Tipping Point (another Gladwell book) but beyond that I know very little. It’s these sorts of holes in my knowledge that I’m hoping to rectify with the ambitious six books on the January reading list.

How to Make Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie

No list would be complete without at least one book for the ages. How to Make Friends… made it onto my wishlist whilst I was reading the excellent 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman. A self-help book that remains relevant a year later is an achievement, to still be recommended reading nearly 80 years later is more than enough reason to read it I’d say.

Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood (@margaretatwood)

Jason Fried of 37 Signals famously said “I don’t read fiction. I find it a waste of time.” – I couldn’t disagree more, but then, Fried’s the one with the highly-sucessful, multi-million dollar company. Still, carry on regardless – I have an endless appetite for apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic literature so Atwood’s book fits in perfectly.

Let reading commence

So there it is – an ambitious six books to tackle before February rolls around. Any you’d recommend I bring to the top of the pile, one you’d advise I ditch completely? Let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter. I’ve been @bengilman – have a productive January.

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Yesterday marked the end of my first month of running my own design business. Rarebright Design has been nice and busy so far with work that I’d mostly arranged before I left my job plus some new things too.

The problem with being busy is it doesn’t leave much time for designing a brand or building a website for your own business. I once worked with a design company who believed that having their own website would only give clients the unwanted impression that they were not good enough to have any other work to do. I’m don’t subscribe to that idea. On the contrary – the new Rarebright Design website is now ready for your perusal at rarebright.com.

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It’s nearly five years since a far younger version of myself joined The Motley Fool as web designer #3. Over a most enjoyable tenure I’ve seen the transition to a new company and brand, countless feature releases and five editions of FIFA on three different games consoles. My proudest achievements throughout that time have been the extensive Fool realignment in 2008, designing the logo and developing the brand for lovemoney.com (and in the process giving life – but not the animation – to a weird little creature called Odo) and working in the three-person team that conceived and launched the innovative Online Banking service. Not too shabby.

As of Monday I begin a new era as company director but most importantly designer-for-hire of my own company, Rarebright Design. What’s in a name? Nothing too deep – but it sounds nice. So with that, I’m now available for web design and branding projects/contracts. The first job on my to-do list is to build the Rarebright website and get my portfolio up-to-date, not to mention covering off all the other details that a new venture requires. But do please drop me an email if you think I could help with your web project.

So, an economic downturn, good time to start a new business? If you believe Paul Graham’s take on new ventures…

…the time to act is always now.

Even with some license around the context, I’m happy with that logic. Here’s to the next five years.

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A friend and I get lunch regularly from the same cafe round the corner. Within a few days of first going I branded it as ‘Surly Sandwiches’. The food is good, the prices are better, the service is efficient and you can rest assured that 90% of the time you go there you won’t get a smile from the staff.

Others might find that a poor level of service but for me it represents the pinnacle of consistency – if I’d become accustomed to beaming staff and cheery greetings then I would have been most disappointed the day they failed to hand me a sandwich with a smile. Instead I adjusted my requirements and have them consistently met.

Conversely, set the bar high and you’d best make damn sure you keep leaping it. Hell hath no fury like a person who’s expectations you have failed to meet (catchy). When the usually impeccably courteous staff of John Lewis decided to upset my wife by quibbling over a late delivery, the only way John Lewis could see to fix that little error was to gift us money – an expensive failure to launch.

So, don’t overestimate the importance of being happy. Don’t underestimate the importance of being consistent. Don’t go changing.

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Unfortunately, the videogamer in me can only see the striking similarities with this: art from Bethesda Software’s Fallout 3 – a game about a post-nuclear-apocalyptic world in which the only law is the survival of the fittest/best-armed.

I’m not sure this is the message they’d like us to take away. Anyway, must dash – got to get hold of a Land Rover defender, lots of baked beans and a geiger counter.

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Sound

Unless you work alone in a remote mountain range then likely there’s a fair amount of background noise in your work environment. Outside of your control that noise can be distracting, confusing, infuriating and unconducive to good concentration – it’s time you blocked it out.

Firstly, you’ll need some headphones or earbuds – something noise-cancelling/reducing ideally – unfortunately this bit isn’t free! If you work in an open-plan office it’s best to get something that won’t leak sound. I swear by these Sennheisers but as ever, do your own research. With your sound system procured and the background noise muffled it’s time to replace it with something better.

Noise

• Simply Noise
  Some people claim that white noise can help you sleep. Importantly for the premise of this blog post, they also claim it can enhance your concentration. I’m not convinced – but, if listening to the gaps between the radio stations is your kinda thing then SimplyNoise.com allows you to create your own comfortable stream of white noise to fill your headphones with.

Music

• Spotify
  The arrival of Spotify has made a vast library of music available for free. Now you can make your own playlist of music and repeat it to your heart’s content. Of course, once you’re addicted you may want to consider paying for a Premium subscription to avoid the very unconducive advertisement breaks. Get in touch if you’d like an invite for the free version, I have a few.
• Last.fm
  If making playlists isn’t your thing then Last.fm offers custom radio stations – pick a band you like and Last.FM will play you a stream of similar music, some of which you can be sure you won’t have heard before – I’ve bought numerous albums off the back of recommendations made by it.

Vision

Working on an internet-connected computer can be a curse – it’s hard to get down to the real work when a world of information (or entertainment) is hiding behind your browser’s icon. These apps should help.

For anyone

• Isolator
  This is a tiny little free app that dims your other applications, leaving only the current application visible, letting you concentrate on the job in hand. Isolator is Mac only.
• Dropcloth
  For Windows users, the tiny Dropcloth app does a similar job, and its free too.

For writers

If you have writing to do, creative or otherwise it’s good to put the visual distractions to one side. Fortunately there’s a selection of applications that help you do just that:

• Ommwriter
  A charming application that gives you a clean fullscreen visual workspace to do your writing. With the added bonus of calm soundtracks, Ommwriter lets you can engage your brain to write without distractions. Ommwriter is free while in beta and helps you to tame “your wild monkey mind”.
• WriteRoom
  If you just need a clean space to write (without the audio bells and whistles of Ommwriter) then WriteRoom is for you. It’s Mac and iPhone only, $25 for the Mac version, $5 for iPhone.
• Creawriter
  A rough clone of OmmWriterFor Windows users.

Once you’ve got all these in place you’ve really only got yourself to blame for not being able to knuckle down to your work!

So, what are your technological tips for better concentration?

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Every morning each of those monkeys needs your attention – you have three options:

• Shoot the monkey

  By doing the task you shoot the monkey (and get it off your back). Assuming there is no requirement for you to work on the disposal of the monkey corpse this is the easiest way to ensure that task goes away.

• Feed the monkey

  Finding some fruit to feed a particular monkey equates to doing just enough to keep the task away until tomorrow whether that’s writing a holding email or putting an empty bucket under the leak in the ceiling. Feeding monkeys isn’t the best course of action – monkey food costs money and you have to do it every day – better to shoot the monkey today and get the job done.

• Give the monkey away

  Maybe you know someone better equipped to feed the monkey, or better qualified to shoot it? If you’re determined to have less monkeys in the cage by tomorrow morning you can always resort to giving them away. Be warned, it might not make you popular – who wants a hungry monkey?

Whatever you do with your monkeys it’s wise to keep track of them, I’d recommend Scrumpy – a new web application for tracking tasks, managing a to-do list, working together and getting stuff done. I made it – well me and another guy.

(No animals – primate or otherwise – were harmed in the writing of this blog post)

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