Andrew Knight is back… and about time right? Yes, well unfortunately after someone had violated one of my dedicated servers a few months back, I had no choice to lock it down and restrict access to the hacker/s, trying to prevent further damage. After releasing my clients accounts, I had begun to start on my own, though while working full time, my time was very limited. As many can probably imagine, managing websites and especially blogs can be quite time consuming, thus leading to a restricted life!

Andrew Knight is now back however, so I hope to continue writing more thoughtful posts with my opinions included — as always!

To all valued readers, I apologise for the downtime and I`m glad to see you back!

Kind Regards,
Andrew Knight

After impulse buying, you generally get this shock of how much money you actually have spent and questions floating in your head like “Did I need this?” – well, I guess you could say I got these feelings but they were far from strong as I believe I made the right choice. This evening, after work sitting at KFC in my girlfriends car, I got an inclination to look on MSY (a wholesaler of computer equipment) on my iPhone, I”m unsure why but I did. I became quite focused on what I “wanted” to add to my technology collection at home, I actually forgot about my food! Anyway, moving forward. Looking through the PDF on my iPhone, I skipped to the LCD Monitor section, viewing what seems to be affordable prices for great LCD screens, especially top notch brands like Acer, Asus, ViewSonic, Samsung etc. MSY have always been a great provider of excellent brands at unmatched prices, not to mention I”ve been wanting to buy a LCD monitor for quite some now, it just hit me — I will buy a LCD monitor…I just wasn”t sure which one. With the clock ticking over to 6:00PM, I had only 30 mins to make a decision on what LCD monitor to buy, that means researching pricing, quality, feedback, design the whole works in a period of 10 minutes, find it on the website, review the specs then drive to MSY all in this limited time…could it happen? Well, theoretically, of course — anything can happen, however to make a proper, logical calculation, time would be needed and waiting the next day would”ve probably been ideal. However, since I like to keep things exciting, I decided then and there I will go with something I know, like and have seen much of — ViewSonic. That was figured out, so the next step was the size. This wasn”t too hard, given the fact I was upgrading from a 19″ LCD Television, so I wanted to aim around 22″-24″. From there, I picked out the ViewSonic VX2433WM which was $265. Quickly opened a new window in Safari, visited ViewSonic’’s website and viewed the specs for the ViewSonic VX2433WM:

All in all, quite a good monitor, considering the fast refresh rate, high contrast ratio and a beautiful 1920×1080 resolution — with HDMI added too! For the price of $265, these great specs and a beautiful size of 23.6″, I was set. I quickly closed my Safari and directed my lovely girlfriend, Cheryl to MSY (5 mins away). We arrived at 6:15, I walked in, asked for the magical ViewSonic VX2433WM from the techno-guy behind the counter and swiped my beautiful red Westpac credit card. The transaction was now completed, I was handed my receipt and we were on our way! Now generally, any impulse buyer would know this is probably when you would start feeling regret, shame, unusual stomach upsets or simple statements in your head like “You”re an idiot for buying that.”, “Why did you buy that, you don”t need it.” – but, I didn”t. This transaction is of course tax deductible but it’’s something I”ve wanted for quite a while, and probably needed too!

Sitting back as I type this long, word stuffed article, I”m quite surprised at the brightness and beautiful resolution. It really helps clear my head and with so many pixels more, it gives me that crispy background.

In addition to the above, there are also more variables which contribute to memory, short term or long term for example. Whether it be someone who uses their left or right brain more, they may find remembering events just passed a lot easier than events which occurred a few years back, depending on how it was presented. For example, George A Miller, when working at Bell Laboratories, conducted several experiments with letters using both short term and long term memory. He concluded that depending on how the letters were presented, you could remember them better in shorter or longer term. To point out a simple example, take a look at the following combination of letters:

FBIPHDTWAIBM

Jumbled together with no meaning what so ever, right? To the average person, this would seem correct. However, upon further analysis, breaking down the letters into sets of 3, you are presented with:

FBI PHD TWA IBM

Suddenly, you’re brain clicks and remembers the combination.

Generally, the rule with memory is, the more you do it, the easier you’ll remember it. Hence why learning at day 0 is just as important than learning at day 100 or year 20. Even though you may believe your child or a young baby is not retaining anything you’re doing, by a matter of fact they actually are, and at some point in their life, they will most likely replicate your habit or particular style with their own.

For those who are intrigued by memory and the brain in general, I would recommend reading Wikipedia to begin with and take it from there. Many people over the years have contributed to this amazing article and all the ones following, not to mention all the websites and blogs devoted to the mind and memory itself. You can view the article at the end of this article.

In addition to all the above, to improve your memory or help retain more things, I would recommend eating certain vegetables and fruit, or well adding them to your current diet. These will help not only improve memory but your mental health and well being. As we all know, carrots are great for our eyes, but are there? It’s simply the vitamins that are carried within them which helps our brain and body.

• Cantaloupe
• Blueberries
• Asparagus
• Black Currants
• Kale
• Sweet potatoes
• Watermelon
• Tomatoes
• Red Cabbage
• Cherries
• Radishes
• Strawberries

Sources

Has anyone experienced their eyelid twitching? It may be for a few seconds or it could go on for days, depending on the cause. For the past few days, eyelid twitching is what I’m currently experiencing and as I work on a computer all day long, it has become quite of an annoyance, even though I’m well aware a computer should be the last thing I’m on.

Investigating this eyelid twitch further, I went to Google and discovered eyelid twitching is brought on by one or several things. Examining these causes wasn’t too surprising, in fact I actually guessed 60% of them. The most common causes for eyelid twitching (or eye twitching) are:-

Stress (*)

Fatigue

Lack of sleep (*)

Corneal irritation or injury

Prolonged staring or eye strain(*)

Neurological disorders

Possibly Hereditary

I have marked the causes with a (*) which I believe are causing my eyelid twitch. As you can see, these are probably the most common as we deal with all these factors every day, assuming you’re a workaholic like myself and sit in front of a computer. From here, I can choose to reduce the amount time spent on the computer and more time sleeping or I can continue my current regime and see what comes from it. Most people who are in tune with their own bodies and mind on a healthy state would probably do as I suggested firstly, however since my job entails working on the computer from 9-5, 5 days a week plus on the weekend, unfortunately I will be sticking to the second suggestion – pathetic right?

As I’m respectful for all the information I read and learn from, I just wish to state the above common causes were obtained from the Eye Doctor Guide. A very interesting website regarding the eyes (the pathway to your soul!). You can find more information here: eyedoctorguide.com/eye_problems/eye-twitching.html

I’m not sure if there is a thing called luck due to everything being a variable and variables constantly change (even though I define myself as unlucky) however, both of those things are my perception and in order to grow from negatives, I need to acknowledge what has happened, why its happened and how I can prevent or improve next time.

I walked into the Treasury Casino in Brisbane at 6:30PM with $70 and left an hour later minus that. At one particular point, I was winning in blackjack, up $20, however I played on with the belief I was there to spend that either way. This is quite interesting due to the fact on how your has this perception of you “may” win and that the exciting part, though your mind also thinks on the side, call it your “sensible” side – “If I lose, how will it affect me?” These I believe are vital points in winning and losing.

We should always celebrate winning (especially winning in blackjack!) and losing, rather than degrading ourselves. The more we understand why we lost, the better we can remedy it.

The more we learn from the past, the more we will create from the past which in turn will make us live in the past. If we progressed our minds into the future, somehow allowing ourselves to be immersed into a new dimension, new possibilities, could we create new ideas and methodologies based on nothing ever before? Of course we can. We are the lucky race, the race who have minds which can turn a planet into a habitat to provide for millions of people, create machines to move things and build giant towers but it all comes down to a methodology and if we continue with the same old ways, we will keep going in the same old direction — now that’s in our history!

We need to stop imagining all the time and create new revolutionary solutions that will help us become better and more productive human beings. If we continue to be creative all the time, I doubt we would actually move in any direction.

Now taking into consideration of the above, at the end of the day, it’s only my opinion, whether you choose to take it on board and further yourself in a better way is your choice, your decision…because we are all human beings and we are all opinionated and ultimately, we will do what we want…won’t we?

“We are suggesting that morning people may never reach their true maximum performance because their brain activity is going one way, and their spinal cord activity is going the other” David Collins said. “In evening people, both brain and spinal cord are at maximum in the evening and they get maximum performance at night”.

The study continued to reveal morning people’s brains were most active and excited during the early morning, ‘9am’ while nightowls weren’t actually fully awake until the late night, 9pm onwards.

One of the researchers, Olle Lagerquist commented on the finding would spur on further research into whether morning people could potentially swap with nightowls and vice-versa. (Sounds very far fetched to me, especially me being a nightowl and all, however I never doubt the minds capability, just the person’s motivation)

“No one has done that and then tested pathways through the brain and spinal cord the way we have, but it would be a very long, time consuming process.” Lagerquist said.

He commented further, saying it would most likely have implications for shift workers, including how difficult it was for nightowls to do early shifts.

What’s your thoughts on the matter? Do you find yourself stuck in the mind of a early riser but truly perform well at night? I know I do, and it happens generally between 9pm and 12am, they are my most productive hours. Even now I’m writing this it’s 9:45pm and I need to get up early tomorrow — ha!

We can’t of course apply this small amount of research across every human being on the planet, however we can apply the understanding that our world is divided between both day and night and it could be a solid base to work up from in understanding the brain even more.

Search engine optimisation or SEO for short, has been an extensive learning curve for me, but a very interesting one also. If you’re a webmaster or an advanced internet user, you’re most likely aware of SEO, whether it be basic or advanced however, to those who scratch their head at the name, it’s basically a process which involves various techniques to increase volume to one or more websites. To be more specific, these SEO techniques are used to provoke search engines like Google and Yahoo! into believing your website is more relative for a  particular term or a handful of terms or keywords.

SEO Techniques

As mentioned, search engine optimisation is based on various techniques, however many assumed these techniques take extensive knowledge over many years and that only experts can practice them, but this is just not the case, quite the opposite in fact.

SEO in it’s core level is that simple, you can begin optimising a website after a few hours of learning SEO. It’s all dependent on your learning style and how motivated you are. There is however a big difference between the general search engine optimiser and the advanced search engine optimiser. The general SEOs can only reach x amount of traffic via the  techniques they have learnt from others, which makes them only understand x amount of a particular search engine and their patterns which enables them to only reach x amount of traffic to their website(s). Advanced SEOs on the other hand are learning their own techniques, building on basic ones, analysing search engine algorithms daily, crunching through other advanced SEOs, filtering through only the needed information and practising SEO every day.

Advanced search engine optimisation requires a broad range of knowledge, being able to follow process when needed and to have an understanding in marketing. To put it simple – creativity, logic and marketing all combined into one. The reason I put marketing separate is I believe marketing is something that stands on its own, there is no right, no wrong – just what works. You either have it, you don’t have it or you learn it – it’s that simple.

If you’re interested in learning SEO, take a few searches on Google with a few different phrases, i.e. “Learning SEO” or “SEO Basics”, there is plenty of information out there. However, if you prefer to start off on top and with good knowledge, I would highly recommend Aaron Wall and his SEO Book. Aaron Wall is a well-known Search Engine Optimiser, building his knowledge over many years and producing great websites and an excellent book, SEO Book. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book comes with his subscription to his website, which of course includes lots and lots of goodies to help you learn and practice SEO.

There is no right way or wrong to practice SEO. Find ways that work for you and build from there. Try and not be restricted, it doesn’t matter if you fail, just keep learning and moving forward and you will find that you’ll come out on top.

You can find Aaron Wall’s website and SEO Book by entering the phrase “Aaron Wall” or “SEO Book” into Google.com or Google.com.au (Web search).

If you have any questions on SEO, please send them my way and I’ll be happy to help you where I can.

I’m wanting to do a Credit Card Interest Calculation, to see how much interest I will pay on just under $500. Yes, we can do the math now though I’m very intrigued to see what Westpac works it out to be. I probably should’ve gone with the Westpac Ignite Credit Card, it has a lower interest rate and have 55 days interest free — too bad I’m not a Virgin customer!

Hopefully I can visualise my pain and never fall into this trap again and remember, always do your own Credit Card Interest Calculation and match it with the banks, because they can be wrong too, they just won’t tell you.