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 solution to iPhone 3G battery life

Well, I took the plunge on Saturday and moved from a Blackberry to an iPhone 3G. I am working on a more detailed review of the pros and cons of what I've done but, in the mean time, I wanted to let you know my solution to the shorter battery life of the iPhone 3G.

For the record, the battery life is "just OK" - it isn't abyssmal and, as PC World reports, the iPhone 3G's battery life is better than that of competing smart phones.

What's my solution? I bought Kensington's Mini Battery Extender and Charger for iPod and iPhone (available via Amazon and elegible for free 2nd day shipping for Amazon Prime members). I've only had it for a couple of days but I love it already. On a call-heavy day, I start to run out of juice on my iPhone by late afternoon / early evening. By plugging this battery extender into my phone I get a few more hours of talk or browsing time (I haven't had it long enough to give you definitive times, but it definitely lets me finish the rest of the day).

This battery extender plugs into the docking connector on the bottom of your iPhone (original or 3G, and it works with the iPod Touch, too). It is small enough to carry in my pocket which I did all day today, for example. When you attach it to your iPhone, it is small enough that you can still use your phone without feeling like a mutant and you can continue using your headphones since the iPhone's jack is on the top of the phone.

This battery comes with a retractable charging (but not syncing) cable which plugs into your USB port or iPod charger, and you can charge it alone or while it's attached to your iPhone (in which case both will be charged). The LED's on this battery are very useful. When you are charging it, the three blue LED's (on the left in the photo) indicate when the charge level has reached 20%, 60%, and 100%. The red LED (on the right in the photo) is lit during charging and during use with the phone, it begins blinking to let you know when you have less than 20% remaining.

As I said, I've got more coming about my iPhone conversion but this was just too exciting to wait.

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“50+ Productivity Blogs...” list

Thanks to Dustin Wax for an excellent resource list on Lifehack.org, called "50+ Productivity Blogs You've Never Heard of Before (and about a dozen you probably have)". And double thanks for including me on the list (#18).

Though I was familiar with quite a few on the list, at least half of them are new to me - and after sampling about a dozen of them in the last 30 minutes, I like what I'm finding on his list.

Check it out and go exploring. You can also see Dustin's personal blog at dwax.org.

[Update: Dustin has just added an OPML file that you can import into your RSS reader that will automatically add 62 of the 65 named sites - talk about easy! Just scroll to the bottom of the list and look for the link to the OPML file]

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Scour, the search engine that pays you

I have been playing around with Scour today, and it's pretty interesting. Scour is a very powerful search aggregation engine, in that it will search for terms, images, or video across the top 3 search engines and weights your results according to Scour's own algorithms. What? You know of other search engines that combine results from multiple sites?

Let me tell you why Scour is different. When you search, you're given the chance to sign up as a member. If you choose to do so, you become an advisor to Scour, which means:

  • You can review and provide feedback (by voting) on the quality and relevance of the searches you received. Scour then folds this feedback into the mix for future searches to make them better.
  • You can earn points for ever search, comment, or vote you contribute to the site.
  • You can invite others to join, and get points for the stuff they do on the site, as well.
  • You can redeem your points for Visa gift cards.

It seems pretty cool so far, and it's free. One nice thing: if you're busy and just want to use it as a search engine, there is no pressure to do more than that. And you still earn a minimum of 1 point per search.

Sound interesting? Click here to sign up for Scour and start earning points for searching (if you use this link, I'll get some points for what you do). And once you're signed up, you can invite other people and get points for their activities.

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[Review] The Offsite

"Do you think Martin Luther King, Jr. could have rallied a nation if he'd said 'I have 10 measurable objectives' instead of 'I have a dream'? I haven't had much discretionary time lately, so my "To Read" stack is a bit thick lately. However, on a cross-country flight this past Thursday, I read Robert H. Thompson's book: "The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable."

As the name implies, the book is about a leadership offsite, and it's written in a narrative, fable form similar to books like Lencioni's "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" (another great book that I've read a few times but haven't reviewed here).

The Offsite is a bit slow at the beginning - there is a lot of setup to help you get to know the characters better - but it gets interesting about a third of the way in, including some unexpected drama that happens away from the offsite, which the story even more interesting.

The Offsite takes us through a set of techniques through which a couple of "flatlining" organizations seek to break out of their performance problems. Through the story, I really felt myself identifying with a couple of the characters and was nicely drawn into the story. In fact, I wanted to go find the VP of Sales in the story and shake him for being such an idiot at one point!

5 Practices for success

Through this story, I learned about 5 "practices" that help people become excellent leaders:

  • Model the Way
  • Inspire a Shared Vision
  • Challenge the Process
  • Enable Others to Act
  • Encourage the Heart

These 5 simple titles don't really do justice to the ideas they represent, but I think the author does a good job of bringing out the essence of each of them in the book. These practices are based on The Leadership Challenge, which was created by Barry Posner and Jim Kouzes.

The concepts in this book helped me better understand "servant leadership," which I've heard a lot about but haven't yet researched enough to do it justice (but I assure you I will now).

Clicking concepts

Overall, this book was a great read and went very quickly. In addition to driving me to dig into an assessment tool called the "LPI" (Leadership Practices Inventory) which figures prominently in the book, I really liked several concepts from the book.

  • The Commitment Circle, which deals with expanding the people involved in your decisions, projects, etc. to bring in a much broader perspective within your sphere of influence;
  • Several exercises that are modeled in the book, dealing with establishing goals and specific actions to achieve them (yes, I know - every personal development book has that - but this one does it well);
  • A tremendous illustration about the power of being "vulnerable" to you staff and letting them know what you need help with, what you are struggling with, etc.

Compelling visions

One of the anchors presented in the book is a clear, inspring, unifying vision (whether for one of the many teams you may be a part of, or for yourself). A couple of sentences from the book sum it up nicely:

"Do you think Martin Luther King, Jr. could have rallied a nation if he'd said 'I have 10 measurable objectives' instead of 'I have a dream'? Leaders share their dreams, folks. They breathe life into their visions and communicate clearly for understanding."

The Offsite is a great addition to your reading list if you want to become a better leader, are struggling with ineffective leaders in your organization, or want to learn techniques to energize and unify a team.

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[Updated] Getting David Allen and GTD — On Demand

A couple of years ago, I wrote about how I enjoyed a regular "refresher" to get re-connected with David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. At the time, my touchstone was to listen to David's 8-CD series, "Getting Things Done Fast," which was a recording of one of his live seminars. I later found that my copy of this wonderful program is quite rare, and they have been out of print for at least 2.5 years. That's a shame, since the program was a great resource. I've loaned it out to a few close friends, but that doesn't scale very well.

You are no longer out of luck

I've got good news, though. I recently ordered a copy of a new offering from David and the gang - it's called "GTDLive!" and it is a 10-CD recording of a live seminar that David conducted about GTD. At $395 US, it's not cheap but it is...

  • cheaper than going to a live seminar;
  • better than the old GTD Fast set since it comes with a bit more material and a set of laminated GTD templates;
  • reusable on-demand, any time you need a refresher.

I just finished listening to this over the course of my daily commutes (it took over a week to get through it all - there is a lot here), and it was a shot in the arm to get me back on the wagon with some of the GTD habits I've been neglecting.

Check it out - and you, too, can have David Allen talking to you with the push of a button.

P.S. GTD Connect members get a pretty good discount on this program.

[Updated]
P.P.S. If you already have the original GTD Fast set, I don't think this one is worth the extra cash since they are very similar in the fundamentals of GTD. However, if you don't have the old one I think you'll love this new GTDLive! set.

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