Genuine Curiosity

Superior airpower

When I boarded my plane this morning, I sat in my emergency exit row seat (next best thing to a First Class upgrade) I was pleasantly surprised to see that this plane, a Continental Boeing 737-800, has power outlets throughout the plane!
Of course, the plane *didn't* have video or audio on board, but I'll take a "bring your own" model with power any day. Now, if only they'd add these to every plane...
By the way, this also gave me an excuse to try out Typepad's mobile client for the iPhone to snap the phot and write this post. Pretty cool little app.

iPhone 3G battery life, part 2

Yesterday I wrote about how I extend my iPhone 3G's battery life (using Kensington's Mini Battery Extender and Charger for iPod and iPhone).

Well, I've got another day under my belt with both the phone and this device, and have some additional thoughts:

1. The battery on my iPhone 3G seems to last a bit longer each day, and was noticeably better today. Maybe it needs some "breaking in" through a few days of use, or something like that. I am assuming it will level out soon since it can't continue to get better forever, can it?
2. I decided to try recharging my phone with the Kensington battery extender today, and I find that it will charge the phone very quickly - much quicker than I'd expected. In less than an hour, it brought my phone from approximately 25% charged to fully charged.

I still haven't fully tested its effect on talk time (i.e. live use of the Kensington battery as a power source while talking vs. just as a charger when I'm not using the phone) but I'm still quite pleased with this device as a way to keep the juice flowing in my iPhone 3G.

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Technorati tags: iphone 3g, battery, gadgets, productivity Del.icio.us tags: iphone 3g, battery, gadgets, productivity

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.

“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]

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.

[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.

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.

A resource for the travel-weary

I can't believe I never knew about it, but I just found out about a wonderful resource for frustrated air travelers. This is particularly handy for those of us in the northern hemisphere, since we're getting into the height of over-booked, under-experienced travel: summer vacations.

The resource I learned about is the "Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights" (CAPBOR). They can be reached in the US by phone at 1-877-FLYERS6 (1-877-359-3776), and they are staffed by volunteers who specialize in helping you deal with problems you encounter during air travel. Add it to your address book, just in case.

CAPBOR helps you understand your rights, formulate your requests in the best way to circumvent rigid airline policies, and if you have a canceled flight they will even help you find out flight status / alternate flights, help you book hotels and car rentals, and find out weather information.

You can find out more about CAPBOR and their mission at flyersrights.com, and learn about the services they can offer. They also have an excellent blog at strandedpassengers.blogspot.com. Both are well worth checking out.

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Related items:

• CAPBOR's Stranded Passenger Survival Guide
• Things to do in the middle seat (6/28/2006)
• Packing without wrinkles (11/17/2005)
• LifeHack: Knowing whether you've got good airline seats (9/5/2005)

On the trail to learning

You may not have noticed it since I 'pre-wrote' some posts here that went live automatically, but last week I was on a 200-mile horse trek with my son and a bunch of other folks. It was an awesome learning experience, with no phone, no email, no electricity, etc.

There was pletny of time to work hard, reflect, enjoy the scenery, and recharge on that trip. There was also a ton of new things to learn.

I had the chance to share a few insights from that trip in this month's "Rapid Fire Learning" roundup at Joyful Jubilant Learning (JJL). Click through to JJL find out what I learned, and please share your top 5 learnings for June in the comments of that post.

Back of the Napkin - free teleseminar

I just found out that there is a free teleseminar coming up on July 9th for Dan Roam's book, The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. Joining Dan on the call will be Seth Godin, Anil Dash and Rich Sloan so it will be very good, I'm sure.

If you recall, I reviewed The Back of the Napkin last week and I think it's awesome (that's Dan over there on the left).

You can register for the free seminar or find out more at Dan's blog.

Yapta gets more amazing

Yapta (Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant) which I reviewed in the past, is launching some new capabilities today. To refresh your memory, the things Yapta is best at are:

1. helping you track airfare prices to get the best deal (you get alerts when the price drops) and
2. helping you get money back from the airlines if the price drops after you buy your tickets (again, they alert you and provide instructions for how to get a refund or a voucher from the airline)

I've been using this for a while and, thanks to "best" #2, I've gotten several hundred dollars back form United when my airfare dropped on one of my family's vacation trips.

What's new today?

In the past, you had to use a browser add-on to get Yapta's functionality, which meant you used a bunch of other web sites to search for flights and used the add-on to "tag" the trips you want to watch.

Now, they've unified several capabilities into a web experience that doesn't require a browser add-on. You can, through their web site:

• quickly search for the cheapest flights based on your saved preference profile,
• start tracking price fluctuations for a number of routes and flight combinations all at once (great for planning trips that are a good distance in the future), and
• get alerts via email when fares drop or fall below a "target" price that you can configure.

After you purchase your ticket, the site will alert you when you're elegibile for a travel credit from the airline. That's how I got my vouchers from United - and it was dirt simple, since I followed the instructions Yapta included in their email.

They've also added some other convenience features like storing your frequent flier numbers, information on your unused tickets, and information on your travel credits.

There's much more than I've described here - check it out yourself -- for free -- at Yapta today.