E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

My Top 5 iPad Apps of the Week – Week #6

As I continue further on with this series of blog posts on the My Top 5 iPad Apps of the Week, which is based on my Daily #iPad App series under Twitter’s #elsuapps, I cannot help but keep thinking about the interesting posts I keep bumping into that surely reflect some more on how the iPad itself is helping shape and change drastically the computing landscape for good for us all. Specially, our new mobile computing capabilities. Earlier on this week I bumped into a couple of those articles that I thought I would share over here, as an additional and rather relevant reading for my Top 5 Picks of Week #6, which is where we are at the moment. Could you eventually go on a working vacation just with your iPad? … Apparently yes!

That’s what Walt Mossberg writes on a rather interesting and delightful read under the heading “An American in Paris Says Au Revoir to His Laptop” where he tells beautifully the story of a recent trip he did to Paris where he relied entirely on his iPad (And a couple of other mobile devices), with no computer, with the end result that he actually managed to get by throughout it with some really good results. Worth while a ready, for sure! Even more so, if you would be interested in some of the recommendations he makes on iPad Apps he used during the trip.

Another interesting read is that one posted by Shane Richmond under the thought provoking title “Apple’s iPad is the future of computing“, which puts together a rather balanced overview of the pros and cons of using an iPad as your preferred mobile computing device and which comes to a rather accurate conclusion that matches what my experience has been like, ever since I bought one a couple of months back:

“[...] The iPad means you no longer need a computer in your living room or in your bag when you go out for the day. Put the desktop in the spare room. Leave the laptop at the office. The iPad belongs on the sofa with you.“

Another good read, indeed! But now that we are done with sharing across those rather helpful articles, I guess it’s that time again where I will spend a few minutes sharing with you folks what my Top 5 iPad Apps of the Week for week #6 would be, so you would have a chance to play with a number of them and perhaps make use of them extensively like I am at the moment. As usual, the general rule is that I will share the name of the app, the link to it in iTunes, and a one liner, or two, description of why I am liking that application and why I got it installed in the first place. Thus without much further ado, here we go:

• iAnnotate PDF: Without any doubt, this is the one single iPad App that handles all of those .PDF files I bump into (Whitepapers, eBooks, Proposals, Articles and whatever other kinds of publications) and which I would want to take notes of, highlight paragraphs, etc. etc. as I go along to reference them back and forth for future blog posts or cross-references. If you are into .PDF reading, this is an essential must-have application!
• Atomic Web Browser: If you are not into browsing the Web with the native Safari browser, Atomic Web Browser is probably one of the best alternatives available out there! I do *heart* the tab browsing capabilities and how extensive it is in general, although perhaps a tad slower than the Safari browser itself, but if you don’t really case about losing an extra second here and there, and would want to try a new surfing experience, this is the iPad app you may eventually need to try out. I think you would like it.
• 1Password for iPad: This is one of those applications that I love quite a bit, since I am using it on my own Mac, my iPhone and my iPad. It helps me keep my sanity with regards to the several dozens of passwords I need to manage every single day! If you have to go through that same situation 1Password is probably all you would ever need. At least, it is for me.
• NASA App: As usual, and every so often, I enjoy sharing over here recommendations to iPad apps that may fall a little bit outside of the working environment we are used to and enter perhaps more the fun and educational aspects of helping us learn something new. Well, in this case, for this week, that privilege is reserved to NASA’s own iPad app, which, if you are interested in the outer space and what’s happening around their various projects, it would be another one you would need to go for. The overall user experience is rather amazing and incredibly immersive! I usually “get lost” while trying to navigate and marvel myself about everything that gets shared across. So be prepared to be WOWed!

• Azkend HD: And, finally, like every week as well, the iPad Game of the Week.This time around coming to you from the same makers of Sparkle HD; just as good! If you are into some amazing graphics, lovely oriental music, and a long journey with quite an adventure ahead of you, Azkend HD is the game for you… For sure!

And that’s it, folks, for this time around. Hope you will enjoy any of these iPad apps and don’t forget there will be more blog posts coming along for this series, since I keep bumping into some really interesting, innovative and creative iPad apps that one cannot resist but get one’s hands with each and everyone of them! Stay tuned … and till next time!

(Oh, and don’t forget to share your favourites, in the comments, that you would want to recommend to us, so that we can have a look and share them across in upcoming blog posts! That would be very much appreciated!)

Technorati Tags: #elsuapps, Apple, Applications, Computing, elsuapps, Games, Insights, iPad, iPad Apps, Mobile Computing, Mobility, Recommendations, Sparkle HD, Walt Mossberg, Shane Richmond, Computing Experiences, iAnnotate PDF, Atomic Web Browser, 1Password for iPad, NASA App, Azkend HD

Is Multitasking Bad for the Brain? – Part Deux: Singlecasting

Some time ago you would remember how I put together a post over here, in this blog, on the topic of Multitasking and how bad it is for the brain, eventually. In it, I shared a bunch of links on this very same subject, including a video interview from Gary Small, Professor of Psychiatry and Aging at UCLA’s School of Medicine, which you can watch over here, where he explained a few of the reasons why we should all avoid multitasking at all costs, since it is harming us more than helping out. That blog entry seems to have generated lots of interest and some really good commentary. So I thought I would pick it up again and share with you folks another interesting set of links I bumped into that I think would be worth while mentioning and discussing further, because, after all “Multi-Tasking *is* Bad For Your Brain. Here’s How To Fix It“.

That’s actually the title of the article that Chris Albrecht put together just recently over at GigaOM where he is referencing another video interview that I think you would all find rather interesting and very thought-provoking. In it Stanford professor Clifford Nass spends about 8 minutes talking about several things, including team building, human-computer interaction, and the dangers of multitasking, as well as our inability to do it properly, no matter what we would think about it.

Chris himself summarised, quite nicely, what you will find on that rather enlightening and educational short interview, and I thought it would be a good thing to include it over here, just to give you a sense of what you will learn, while watching it:

• “What computers and T-shirts can teach us about team building

• How his team got people to actually like Microsoft’s Clippy (I know! Impossible, right?)

• The dangers of multi-tasking and what is the optimal method for modern day workers”

You will be able to find the video clip over at the following URL and for those of you who would want to watch it right away, here is the embedded code so you can start playing it, right as we speak:

After you have watched it, I am sure it is going to leave you with plenty of doubts and everything else, specially as you get to examine your own multitasking habits and decide whether it makes sense or not. However, I am sure that, based on previous blog posts that I have shared over here, there would be plenty of folks out there as well, who would be pretty much in agreement with Nass’ insights on how damaging multitasking can well be for all of us. I particularly found rather inspiring not only his insights about team / community building, but also his views on the impact of randomly (positive) reinforcements (Which, by the way, clearly affects not just how we make use of email and instant messaging, but also various different social networking tools!).

It surely describes pretty nicely how our brain seems to be rather enticed by that thought of attempting to multitask, yet it keeps failing time and time again. We also seem to have a tough time making choices and sticking around with what is relevant and forget about what’s irrelevant. And somehow we keep cheating on ourselves on the fact that we can multitask effectively, when Research shows we are pretty bad at it. Nass’ commentary on these particular topics is actually fascinating and worth while watching (Second half of the video interview).

What I really liked about Nass’ insights is not only the really helpful tips that he shares towards the end of the interview on how to avoid multitasking, but also how simple it actually is to stop it altogether! Yes, that’s right. he mentions how by us making choices and picking up chunks of time in between 15 to 30 minutes we are capable of achieving more with less. Then we are able to focus plenty more on the tasks at hand, one by one, and we can swiftly move from one to the other, which is when multitasking starts to really take place!

I tell you, it’s one of those video interviews you would need to watch in its entirety, as I am sure you would enjoy it quite a bit. More than anything else because of the emphasis that he places on making the successful switch from multitasking to singletasking, which clearly reminds me of another rather interesting, and very relevant, article I bumped into not long ago from Lifehacker titled “A Case for Singletasking: The One-Task-At-a-Time Method“.

The blog entry put together by Jason Fitzpatrick comes to discuss “The Allure and Trap of Multitasking“, which provides another handful set of insights on why multitasking is bad for our brains. What’s interesting from Jason’s article though is the good number of benefits he mentions for singletasking. To name:

• “Singletasking forces you to sustain your focus and work through complex problems
• Your stress levels will fall
• You’ll get better at managing your time
• You’ll get more done, one task at a time, than you could have even imagined when you were “multitasking”"

And to top things even further he concludes the blog post putting together some rather helpful tips on how to get things going with singletasking, which I can surely recommend having a read, if you would want to have a better grasp of your day to day productivity levels. I am loving it, too! In fact, I have been loving it for a good number of weeks already as I have consistently reduced my multitasking activities to just a few and focus on that singletasking capabilities that The Pomodoro Technique provides me in a consistent manner.

Yes, that’s right! In the past, I have blogged about how The Pomodoro Technique is helping me reduce multitasking effectively to the point where I have become rather dependent on this technique to get most of my work done with less effort, less stress and with a huge sense of achievement at the end of the day, when before I always had that feeling of “I didn’t really achieve anything today, did I?“.

So now that we are finally killing the idea of our brains being capable of multitasking, as it looks like we can’t, and, in fact, it’s not even healthy for us at all altogether, I am surely glad that The Pomodoro Technique is helping me make that successful transition from multitasking to singletasking in small bursts of 25 minutes, which is what I have it set up for, as mentioned by Nass himself; and, funny enough, the great thing about doing this is that I am also applying it to all of my social networking activities. I make choices, I set up the timer, I go for it! And time and time again it seems to be working rather well. That sense of a stressful day just trying to catch up with it all is now long gone! Thus why multitask when you can singletask effectively? Are we making the right choices as we get exposed to more and more data by the day? Do we still need to keep up with that false sense of achievement that multitasking claims to provide more often than not? Are we giving in to that social pressure we all need to continue multitasking at our workplaces, just because our colleagues are doing the same? Well, I am not sure what you folks would think, but, to me, that’s no longer the case, and I feel much much better that way, regardless of what that social pressure keeps claiming with its beliefs in successful multitasking…

No. Thank you very much!

Technorati Tags: Multitasking, Singletasking, Lifehacker, Gary Small, Clifford Nass, Pomodoro Technique, Choices, Making Choices

System of Systems

There are times when one bumps into one of those wonderfully inspiring videos that hits home really well and you just can’t help but quickly rush off to blog about it, because you know that, time and time again, you will be coming back to it to point folks to it as well, so that they can watch it themselves and be equally inspired, if not more! Well, earlier on today, I had one of those wonderful serendipitous knowledge discoveries, as I bumped into one of the latest IBM’s Smarter Planet YouTube videos, that I am sure you are going to enjoy quite a bit, specially, if you are into networks. Welcome to *the* System of Systems!

That’s right, the latest film from the Smarter Planet initiative from IBM is titled “System of Systems” and lasts for a little bit over 4 minutes. It’s one of those hidden treasures that one cannot but feel proud it’s available out there! It features a couple of IBMers (Mike Wing, Irving Wladawsky-Berger and Julia Grace) who, over the course of a few minutes, relate what it is like living as part of a system of systems, i.e. our world, AND how we are finally becoming aware it is there.

My good friend, and fellow colleague, George Faulkner, actually blogged about it briefly earlier on and I just can’t help quoting over here the introduction he has shared across on that blog entry, because it surely will be helping you folks set the stage of what you can expect from the video clip itself. In fact, it is also one of those thought provoking paragraphs that would make you think for a little while… And if you don’t believe me, judge for yourselves:

“If you look at our planet from space, what you see is something like a neural network with the cities as its nodes, and that is as good an image of the planet as a complex system of systems as one could hope for.

With the emergence of the internet in the mid-90’s, the world became one global commons. In the past, we could understand that there was some mysterious unity to the various dimensions of life but we couldn’t understand its dynamics, we couldn’t observe and measure their interactions. We basically operated like the drunk who looks under the streetlight for his keys because that’s where he can see”

Goodness! That’s quite an intro don’t you think? Now, I am not going to spoil it and talk further more about what you will see in the video clip, other than perhaps mention how, throughout the film itself, you will find plenty of connotations about an intelligent, interconnected and integrated system of networks, with plenty of links and implications to the fascinating world of Social Network Analysis, amongst several others. But other than that you will need to watch the video for yourselves. I can assure you that you won’t be bored; quite the opposite, since the adjective thought-provoking keeps coming up time and time again, specially when talking about the interactions between humans and machines. And, I tell you, it surely is!

Thus without much further ado here is the direct link to the YouTube video and here is the embedded code, so you could have a look and start playing it right away:

Exciting times those we live in today, don’t you think? Imagine what tomorrow would be like when we finally get a chance to understand how we interact intelligently and sustainably with that system of systems …

Technorati Tags: Collaboration, Communities, Enterprise 2.0, IBM, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Knowledge Sharing, Learning, Networking, Smarter Planet, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Networks, Social Software, Social Web, System of Systems, Mike Wing, Julia Grace, Networks, Systems, Inteconnected, Inteligent, Integrated, Earth, Our World