Entrepreneur Geek

Better Everyday – get things done, one success a day – I had many today

Nirav — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:00:45 +0000

Where will you succeed today?

My school’s motto was “Better Everyday“. I kept screaming “Better Everyday, Better Everyday” during Friday morning school assemblies for over six years, but did not really understand what it meant.

I have been overwhelmed with work (happens every 3 months, it’s been a pattern, but more about it some other day). And while I was reflecting on this pile of work, I realized I did get at least one solid item off my list almost every day. But I was stressed as that list kept getting longer.

What if I focused on my successes, rather than failures? What if I could succeed in just one thing everyday?

I reviewed the work I did get done last week and felt very happy. That’s when I twitted:

Nothing motivates more than success. Where will you succeed today?

I wrote it, was proud and went to sleep. But when I booted up my MacBook this morning, I noticed it again.

And I stopped. Thought about where do I want to succeed today. Made a mental note of it. And began working.

This is how my day went:

By 10.30, I had one client happy. Work was moving slowly on that project, but today we nailed it.
Around 11.30, I had another client happy. Solved an annoying bug within minutes and the client said “Wahoo! That’s brilliant!”
One major customer called before noon, complaining about a mail server issue. I talked to my team and gave an update in an hour. By the end of our day, we had a good enough solution in place.
Shown stick to a project team in our standup meeting at noon. They completed pending work before signing out.
Worked on cleaning up some malformed XML files in afternoon. This project was facing lot of technical challenges. But I had a working prototype ready at 6.45pm when I left work.
And I even fixed an annoying bug in PlannerX just before I started this post.

Amazing how much happened by focusing on where I want to succeed today.

And I could say:

Satisfying day. Progress on projects. Made 5 customers happy!

Incremental improvements carried out daily can make transform your life in three months. Focusing on small successes can bring you big victories. I understand that’s what our school wanted us to learn from “Better Everyday”.

Did you get better today?

What are you going to succeed at tomorrow?

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-14

Nirav — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:10:00 +0000

There is no mathematics in relationships. It's not Give & Take. It's Give & Give. #
PlannerX gets a bookmarklet – opens right on your Basecamp page http://goo.gl/fb/1q3t #plannerx #basecamp #bookmark #
@_kartik Yes.. May be my over working brain too generates a lot of heat that makes hair roots weaker. You've "n" number of whites. Beware! in reply to _kartik #
@kunalbharati Not giving up on Flex any soon! It's way too cool to give it up yet. in reply to kunalbharati #
@rbhavesh Magnet is still largely services. Apps Magnet is products. Products have been successful. My experience building 2 dozen paid off! in reply to rbhavesh #
Have had so many hair pulling experiences with Flash / Flex over the last decade. That explains why I have little hair left #
Twisted. Hair pulling experience printing WYSIWYG from Flex. Need vector for high quality, text selectability. No luck yet. #
Stock Market Secret: How much can you make in trading with 50k portfolio? – Nothing. Only Experience. http://bit.ly/aOTmI7 #
Migrated my blog and AppsMagnet to MediaTemple cloud hosting. They load faster now. One item off my "long-pending-todo-list". #
Migrated my blog and AppsMagnet to MediaTemple could hosting. They load faster now. #
#activeCollab says Reports Module is most successful related product. Read our story on how we launched & success factors http://is.gd/a3AiS #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-07

Nirav — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:10:00 +0000

@kapilb If the specs are right, you can also run Mac OS X on a Dell (or other) laptop. It's pretty easy actually! in reply to kapilb #
70% cocoa dark chocolate helped me upgrade login system for PlannerX in 2 hours #
@kapilb Sent you an invite for Ribbit. Get yourself a US number #
Ribbit Mobile is live. It converted my distant, un-humanly-recognizable voicemail into text with 85% accuracy. I'm impressed! http://www.ribbit.com #
@taenzerme We would like to improve activeCollab search too. Suggestions welcome here: http://www.activecollab.com/forums/topic/3427/2/ in reply to taenzerme #
@Sujeet What are they tracking with so many displays? Stock market trends? in reply to Sujeet #
Photos from our memorable Dubai trip – http://bit.ly/9YEc2W – #Dubai is a map that gets updated every day. #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-28

Nirav — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:10:00 +0000

Apps Magnet turned one. Sweet success. Tell me if you want to hear the stories! http://bit.ly/aj1yJp #
Moved my blog to Media Temple – finally! After paying for 6 months without using the account. Seems to load faster! #makesmehappy #
SQL Injection Prevention Cheat Sheet http://bit.ly/taK52 #recommended reading #
More geekdom! Delighted! Tiny Asus EeePC can do full 1920×1080 when connected to an external monitor – 6 times EeePC's physical size #
Being a geek today. Setup new 22" LCD with full HD resolution. Looks better than the MacBook screen! #
@_kartik Yep! And that's why I liked it! Not all special keys work – but – surprisingly – many work! in reply to _kartik #
@alanzkorner Sure! Take it for a spin one day! in reply to alanzkorner #
Loving my iBall wireless keyboard + mouse.. Rest to my forearms now. #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-14

Nirav — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:10:00 +0000

@brianjcohen Don't force them to use activeCollab. Continue using email: http://vimeo.com/8556003 (best of both worlds) in reply to brianjcohen #

Entrepreneur’s Urge with Paypal, Putler brings the solution

Nirav — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:40:13 +0000

Putler: Paypal Reporting, Monitoring and Planning tool for Windows, Linux and Mac

If your business accepts payments via Paypal, chances are you login to the Paypal website a few times in the day to check your balance. You would even keep an eye on email alerts of new sales and feel happy when you close the day with good sales.

The Entrepreneur’s Urge

I can tell you from my own experience that I am on the edge of my seat when we launch a new product. I am biting my nails when we push “Send” on a newsletter with a special offer. I am curious to find out how much money I made while I was sleeping, and check my Paypal balance the moment I start my computer.

You may be a web entrepreneur, a microISV, a startup or an expert offering online courses. The urge to see how well you are selling is common to all. You may be looking forward to the first sale of your newly launched product or want to track your monthly performance against your targets.

The Problem

Logging in Paypal takes time. And if you keep it idle the session also times out quickly. Now this is good for Paypal, but bad for us. All we want to do is check the Paypal balance and find out what products are selling. We want some quick bits of information and get back to our work. The process of logging in and viewing details eats up time. And biggest, it distracts you!

The Solution: Putler

Now sure, you can write-up a small program that will check your Paypal balance. You could host it on your internal server and keep hitting it when you feel like satisfying your natural urge to check your Paypal balance! But why to make things complicated (and spend time understanding and building those scripts) when you can have someone give it to you on a platter?

Welcome Putler!
Putler shows your Paypal balance on your desktop, notifies you of balance changes, lets you set a target, shows today’s transactions and tells you how well are you doing against the target. It’s a simple and effective tool to watch your Paypal account right from your computer.

Just give your Paypal API information to Putler and he will start monitoring your Paypal balance. He will gently notify you when the balance changes. He even draws a nice chart of your daily balances along with a target you may have set.

This gives you a never before visibility on targets vs performance for your Paypal business account.

Apps Magnet Launches Putler Alpha. Get it now for free!

We are releasing a public Alpha of Putler today. Get it free, monitor your Paypal account, achieve business goals, and give us feedback!

Download Putler for free now!

We are starting with only the basic features, but will make Putler smarter and stronger as he grows! Do send in your ideas and suggestions on how we can make him better!

Thank you!

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-31

Nirav — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:10:00 +0000

@Duckness What kind of stats for activeCollab would you want? You may like our Reports Module for #activeCollab http://bit.ly/cCYCyj in reply to Duckness #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-17

Nirav — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 16:10:00 +0000

The difficulties of life are intended to make us better, not bitter! #inspiring #

Flex Regular Expression Online Testing / Learning Tool

Nirav — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:08:03 +0000

When it comes to Regular Expressions, I start feeling giddy. Even after using them a lot on many projects, I never remember the qualifiers and syntax. It’s always RTFM for me when I need to use some regular expressions in my code.

And that happened again today. I looked around the manual and searched online for a “quick fix” on the regular expression I needed. And I found a very interesting online Regular Expression trial / demo / learn by exploring tool. It’s made in Flex (and I needed RegExp for Flex) and helped me develop the RegExp I needed in a couple of minutes. (ok, I am still slow, but I found it!)

Thank you Remus Stratulat for creating this useful tool! BTW, he also has a similar tool for JavaScript Regular Expressions.

Click on the image below or here and jump to online regular expression checking tool.

Online Regular Expression Checking Tool for Flex and JavaScript

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-10

Nirav — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:10:00 +0000

@kapilb How is the #photofair? Been thinking about visiting. Worth it? in reply to kapilb #