512 Pixels

These videos combine two of my loves: Star Wars and making fun of Windows.

Patrick Rhone¹ back in 2008:

I would posit that if your principle motivation for anything – your career, your blog, etc. – is money, you will often find the value of those activities lacking. Be not concerned with the money that you gained or lost. Instead, be concerned with the time you had, the experiences and people that filled it, and the lessons and trust you built by using it effectively. And then, resolve to increase the value of that time and trust in the year to come.

I agree, and there’s something much bigger than just money at play in the “value” conversation.

Over the last year or so, I’ve started looking at decisions — of all kinds — through a single filter:

Does this add value to my life?

Of course, that question means different things when applied to different decisions, but the core of it doesn’t change.

The fact is, we all have limited time on this Earth. We’re never promised tomorrow. So, would you rather spend 45 minutes on Facebook, or 45 minutes playing blocks with your kids? Watch TV or go for a run? Read Mac Rumors or read the book of Romans?

Sadly, most choices aren’t super clear. Many decisions in life are between two good things, not one bad and one good thing.

So, maybe we should all be asking what adds the most value.

This is hard. I’m still choosing the wrong things all the time, which is frustrating. But the hard work is worth it. By cutting out what is unnecessary (or worse, hurtful), I can live a better life, and be a better husband, father, employee, boss and friend.

And that adds value to not only myself, but those around me.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire” comes to mind. Does anyone believe Dave Burkett when he says stuff like this?

Francois Fortier:

However, the iPhones and iPads seemed to have crept into most Enterprise class companies from the top floor boardrooms as well as the server rooms in the basements. Not only does the current version of iOS 4.3.1 play nicer with Exchange Activesync than Windows Phone 7 and even Android but its extra management features provide comparable security to BlackBerry Enterprise Server managed BlackBerry’s. In fact, the iPhone comes out tops on this fight too since it doesn’t require a Client Access License for it to be managed. Apple has even released a free tool to allow Exchange Admins to lock out other iPhone features if the need be.

A lot of people have complained that Apple has forgotten about the enterprise, especially with the Xserve being discontinued. However I agree with Fortier — Apple hasn’t forgotten about the enterprise, they’re just attacking it via the iPhone, not the Mac anymore.

Crazy times.

Federico Viticci seems to think so:

Overall, Blogsy was a surprise. The app is far from perfect and it needs a couple more features to become the ultimate WordPress client, but it finally brings quality blogging to the iPad — a device that was desperately waiting for an app like this to change the way bloggers can get things done without giving up on rich content editing, and media. If you consider that Blogsy is a new app with a (hopefully) long road ahead, I think I’ll be able to write posts for MacStories exclusively from my iPad 2 this summer, even more than I already can with the current feature set. Blogsy can only get better from now on, and while we’re all waiting for MarsEdit to show up on the App Store, I believe Fomola has released a great 1.0 version bloggers should check out right now.

David Ferguson:

I sat down one day with one thing on my mind. I was going to find a way to easily put weather on my desktop using GeekTool. I had seen others in the past that had gotten weather data on their desktop. When I began looking around for it though, I found that some of them required a degree in command line kung-fu to get it to work. I didn’t want to jump through all of those hoops, just for the weather. I knew that there had to be an easier way. GtWthr is what I came up with.

This really is impressive. The themes he setup are stunning, and the backend running it all is really just as stunning. If GeekTool is your thing, you should go check this out; you won’t be disappointed.

Derek Kessler:

But in a way, we can’t forgive it. The Pre 2 is a good phone. It deserves its moment in the spotlight, not a press released followed by what amounted to a footnote in the announcement presentation of other products months later. Instead HP and Verizon are content to let it sit in the back of their stores and warehouses where potential customers have to know that the phone exists and actually want to see it to get a demo. If the Pre 2 had come out on Verizon in October when it was first announced, then we might be singing a different tune. But with the release landing so many months later than we suspect was intended, it’s like HP and Verizon are just going through the motions because they couldn’t afford to stop the wheels of distribution. “We’ve got the phone, we might as well release it,” seems to be the overwhelming attitude.

Which is sad, the Verizon Pre 2 is a good phone. It’s fast. It’s solid. It does just about everything we want it to do and never once balked at our asking it to do too much. It’s everything the Pre should have been, and it’s made us more excited for what’s yet to come.

I have a hard time understanding how this phone’s launch could be this bad.

Dan Benjamin’s 5by5 network of podcasts is simply fantastic. It turns out his podcasting equipment is pretty awesome, too.

Ian Hines, on what lives in his menubar. In case you missed it, I posted details on mine yesterday.

Two years ago, our son was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and became a patient at St. Jude Children Hospital here in Memphis, TN. St. Jude accepts patients without regard to their ability to pay. Even though we have insurance through my job, we have never paid St. Jude a cent for two years worth of care. Josiah’s care has included several operations, 16 rounds of chemotherapy, dozens of CT scans and MRIs, countless appointments with oncologists, physical therapists, nutritionists and more. It’s cost millions of dollars to fight his cancer.

To help give back, our family started a #gojgo marathon team. We had a bunch of t-shits printed up with some lion artwork — done by friend PJ — and gave them to the runners as a thank you. These shirts were such a hit, we started selling them and donating the proceeds to St. Jude in Josiah’s honor. I’ve seen people I’ve never met around town wearing them. We’ve shipped them all over the country, and even to other countries.

By buddy Ian Hines stumbled across the t-shirt page, and started the Go J Go Shirt Drive three weeks ago. These wonderful sites also joined in:

• Minimal Mac
• The Brooks Review
• 52 Tiger
• Shawnblanc.net
• TightWind
• Broomeshtick

Thanks to these writers and their readers, we’ve raised several hundred dollars for St. Jude. Thank you all for being so supportive of us, and the great hospital that is saving our son’s life.

Symlinks are a great way to use Dropbox to sync application data that normally is restricted to one Mac. These can be set up in Terminal, but not everyone is comfortable in the command line.

Thankfully, the guys over at Junecloud have put together an Automator actions that make this task as simple as drag and drop. Simply select the folder you want to sync — make sure it’s already on your Dropbox — and then point Automator where the link should go — usually in your ~/Library/Application Support folder.

There is one major limitation to this setup — you can only have the app open on one Mac at a time. That said, for those of us who like our work Macs to be like our homes ones, it’s a great little trick.