Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

My pod's afire

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Lisa Haneberg about focus, energy, and getting employees engaged. She recorded it (yes, I knew she had a tape rolling) and has it posted on Management Craft as a podcast. We talked about some effective (and ineffective) corporate "focusing" exercises I've encountered.

If you'd like to give it a listen, head on over and hear the fireside chat.

This, of course, is part of an ongoing series of podcasts she's running in conjunction with the release of her new book Focus Like A Laser Beam, which I reviewed a little while ago (see the full take here).

Keep the fire burning, Lisa.

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Great new resource

While I was off enjoying the great outdoors last week, the ever-industrious Rajesh Setty (see my review of his book "Beyond Code") was busy working with his team to launch a fantastic resource for all of us.

It's a web site called Suggestica, and it has a noble purpose. In their words:

Suggestica aims to bring the best suggestions (books, audio, video etc.) from the "Trusted Authorities" in their disciplines. Our goal is to create a new kind of web with less clutter and less noise. We are starting with books but will soon expand to other categories.

As I've come to know Raj over the past few months, I've developed a tremendous appreciation for his giving spirit, and his willingness to share what he learns. This site (and its companion blog, Suggestica Notes) are prime examples of this. Go have a look.

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Unplugged

I've just returned from a week at Boy Scout summer camp with my son's troop, at Camp Meriwether on the Oregon Coast. What a relaxing experience - a full week with no connectivity to email, cell phones, or anything like that.

I regularly take vacations, but somehow seem to stay a bit "tethered" to electronic communications during those vacations. This is the first time in about 3 years that I've truly unplugged. I highly recommend it to you, if you can pull it off.

Of course, the down side is that I have about 1500 emails to process (I was at zero the day I left). I need to dust off my email kung fu and get busy.

By the way - I had a couple of posts while I was gone, thanks to my "tool of choice" for blogging: RocketPost. I wrote a couple of posts last Saturday before I left, scheduled them to post during the week and RocketPost did all the work. Pretty cool.

More "live" posts coming as I continue to dig out from my email backlog. I made some interesting brain connections during my week of being unplugged.

Related posts:

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Travel Light: Kensington Charger

I like my laptop, but it came with a big, clunky power adapter that took up a lot of space in my bag. Additionally, my laptop's "default" adapter only worked on AC power outlets.

iGo is a no-go

For that reason, one of the first "Travel Light" purchases I made was an Auto/Air/Wall combo power adapter. The first one I tried was an "iGo" brand adapter. It was very pretty, and had all the functionality I was looking for, but I was very disappointed in the iGo. It was too bulky, the connectors weren't tight and kept coming undone, it overheated and shut off when I used it on planes, etc. I couldn't get my money back so I sold it for 10 bucks at a garage sale and vowed never to buy another one of their products again.

Kensington makes me happy

Next, I purchased a Kensington travel adapter that includes adapaters so I can run my laptop on AC or DC power, at home, on planes, or in cars.

The Kensington adapter also has multiple, interchangeable power tips so you can use it with a variety of devices or continue to use it if you change laptops. As you see in the picture above, can get a "Y" adapter to charge multiple devices at once.

As I mentioned in my post earlier this week, I tend to charge most of my extra devices via USB so I only really use this charger to charge my laptop (I then charge my other devices from the laptop's USB ports).

However, for devices that can't charge via USB, this adapter supports a large variety of devices with optional tips (the only tips it comes with are for laptops - you have to buy additional tips for other devices for a nominal fee). Mine came with a complimentary adapter to charge iPods.

Bottom line, this adapter is much thinner and lighter than the default adapter for my laptop, and has lots of expandability. I have found it to be very portable and extremely durable in a variety of situations. If you want to travel light, this will help.

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