13 Productivity Hacks to Help You Get Stuff Done

Came across this excellent article by Jonathan Long.

As entrepreneurs, we’ve all experienced it at some point — that moment in the day where you are sitting at your desk and have lost all focus. You grab your phone and check out social media, reply to some text messages and surf your favorite websites. You have a mile long list of tasks to get done but you can’t seem to focus on them.

Here are 13 hacks to help increase your productivity:

1. Exercise first thing in the morning.

2. Tackle your least desirable tasks first.

3. Empower your employees.

4. Quit social media.

5. Immediately knock out simple tasks as they come in.

6. Get out of your office.

7. Use technology and make tasks simple.

8. Fuel the machine.

9. Disconnect from technology during crunch time.

10. Unclog your email.

11. Keep one day off limits each week.

12. Work Sunday evening.

13. Automate and systemize everything.

To read the full article please click the link below.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239485

8 Common Habits That Destroy Your Success

I came across an excellent article by William Arruda on forbes.com

Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. We do things intentionally or subconsciously that impede rather than advance our success. The first step in eliminating these destructive behaviors is acknowledging them. Here are eight of the most egregious:

1. Confusing busy with productive

“Don’t mistake activity for achievement.”—John Wooden

2. Seeking perfection

“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”—Leo Tolstoy

3. Avoiding risk

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”—William Faulkner

4. Letting fear impede progress

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”—William G.T. Shedd

5. Reacting vs. planning

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”—Alan Lakein

6. Fixing weaknesses

“Over the years, I’ve learned that a confident person doesn’t concentrate or focus on their weaknesses – they maximize their strengths.”—Joyce Meyer

7. Going it alone

“The power of one, if fearless and focused, is formidable, but the power of many working together is better.” —Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

8. Surrounding yourself with clones

“Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.”—Stephen R. Covey

To read the full article, please click the link below.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/williamarruda/2014/10/26/8-common-habits-that-destroy-your-success/print/

Two-Factor Authentication

I am a strong proponent of two-factor authentication but the worrying thing is the way it’s being advertised or pushed as a holy grail of security. The weakest link is still the person using the service/device and if they continued to use weak passwords then it just become the matter of loosing your token device or mobile.

When enabling two-factor authentication users still must advised to setup secure passwords with at-least 10 digit length containing Alphabets, Numerals and Special Characters.

It’s a good thing that Microsoft is building two-factor authentication directly in the OS and it will help the IT administrators to better manage and protect the device in their network.

See the link below for more detail about the implementation of two-factor authentication in Windows 10.

Windows 10 to get two-factor authentication built-in

MicroLink GSM – tiny, Arduino compatible, rapid prototyping

I just backed up this project on KickStarter

What is MicroLink GSM?

Tiny self-contained board that can do automation, alerts, cellular data, phone calls, SMS text messages, and more – USB plug & play.

MicroLink_2

Technical information

Atmel Atmega328P microcontroller – same as Arduino UNO
Latest generation SIM800H module (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
Genuine FTDI USB chip
Interrupt pins available
An LED is connected to pin D13, same as the Arduino UNO
Gold plated IPEX u.Fl antenna connector
Quad-band multi-region antenna included
Accepts standard sized SIM card
6 uA sleep current (Extra Flash: 11 uA)
Approx. 10 mA typical processing current
Approx. 400 mA net peak momentary current during GSM events
Can be powered and programmed by USB Micro USB
UART (Serial), SPI, and I2C peripherals
Atmega328P talks with SIM800H using AT commands (easy, reliable)
0.1 inch pitch pins – can fit on a standard breadboard.

Connect absolutely anything to the Internet with Spark

Everything is getting high-tech — from phones to jewelry. It will not be surprising if, soon enough, we will see high-tech clothes. With the Internet opening tremendous opportunities, people are not shying away from utilizing them to create innovative and unprecedented things. In fact, a whole new category called “Internet of Things” has emerged, where objects are provided with unique identifiers that help them transfer data over a network without the need of a computer.

In an attempt to bring Internet of Things closer to people, a tiny board called Spark Core has come into the market.

The Spark Core with Chip Antenna is a very small WiFi development board that makes it very easy for everyone to create hardware that is connected to the Internet. In fact, the tiny chip is all you will need. Just power it up with the help of a USB connection or a battery, and you will be able to control LEDs, motors, and switches in addition to being able to collect data from its various sensors over the internet.

This core has an on-board controller that is actually a small, low-cost, and low-power computer that has the capability of running a single application. This micro-controller is the one that runs the show. In fact, it runs your software and tells the rest of the core what to do. This tiny little thing does not have an operating system like your computer and just runs a single application (that is also known as firmware or an embedded application). This application can very simple — made up of only a few lines of code — or extremely complex, depending on what you want to do with it.

The first and foremost goal of Spark’s creation is its ease of use. In fact, you can start off without any experience in using hardware or software.

If you are familiar with Arduino, you will love this chip. The core uses the same wiring and programming language as Arduino. It also has an accessory called Shield that helps you connect it to any standard Arduino shield.

The hardware design files — board design, schematic, and bill of materials — are open source as is the firmware. This makes it very user-friendly.

For more information check out their website.

https://www.spark.io/