Lars Pind - Home

[dk] Oksekød

2008-12-01T19:50:00Z

Pas på det med småt.

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[dk] Fedt!

2008-12-01T19:47:00Z

Fedt er langt bedre end sit rygte. Prøv det!

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How to double your productivity

2008-11-26T09:40:00Z

Are you struggling to get enough done?

Are you frustrated that you always seem to be wasting time on the wrong things?

Do you feel like there’s never enough time?

Then this is for you:

http://peepcode.com/products/productivity-for-programmers

In cooperation with Geoffrey Grosenbach from Peepcode, I’ve put together a 42-minute super-condensed mini-course, in how to boost your personal productivity. I’ll bet that if you take these things to heart – and the concepts are not difficult to master, they mostly take a bit of courage – you’ll see your productiity soar. I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw a doubling, tripling, or more, of your current levels of results.

The truth is, this type and quality of content usually sells for $49. This is going to sell for $19.

But for the rest of this month, Geoffrey’s selling it for JUST $9! That’s more than HALF OFF from the regular price, and 80% off if you measure against the $49 it should cost.

So get it while it’s hot. At $9, it’s is a complete steal. The impact this will have on your life will be much much greater than that this year alone.

http://peepcode.com/products/productivity-for-programmers

In fact, Geoffrey, the Peepcode boss, told me in private email that it’s ALREADY caused dramatic improvements in his productivity, and it has caused him to redesign some of his workflows and processes to great benefit. Imagine the difference it’ll make in your life when you include – this year, next year, and the year after that … This is information that will never grow stale.

But you need to act quickly. By the end of November, the price will go up to the regular $19.

That’s right, THIS WEEK ONLY, we’re selling it for a ridiculously low $9. So get it while it’s fresh and cheap.

http://peepcode.com/products/productivity-for-programmers

P.S. – After you’ve purchased and listened, come back here and give me your feedback. I’d really love to hear what you think!

P.P.S. – I just wanted to say that if you’re considering publishing something of your own, Geoffrey is a dream to work with. Generous, professional, lovable.

TextExpander bit.ly-shortened URLs with query params

2008-11-26T09:02:00Z

TextExpander now lets you instantly shorten a URL via tiny.url, tr.im, or my favorite, bit.ly, but it chops off all the query params, because it doesn’t do URL encoding.

Well, I found this small chunk of AppleScript and updated the script.

Here’s the updated version for your URL shortening pleasure.

My dream videocam

2008-11-18T21:00:00Z

I’ve been doing a lot of video blogging with a fancy semi-pro video camera, but the work to set it up is starting to get to me.

Then, on the other hand, I’ve recently made a few short video blogs with just a hand-held point-and-shoot, and I just love the spontaneity that comes from the convenience of not having to do any setup, and of just pulling in the video via USB.

So here’s my dream camera that makes the most of both worlds:

The camera should be small and light, so I’ll actually bring it with me, and so I can record hand-held if I want to
It should probably record on a hard drive or memory card, so it’s easy to get the video out via USB.
It needs to be able to take an external mic, preferably 2 lavalier mics, either wired or wireless, so I can get really good voice from at least two people talking.

Oh, mighty lazy web: Does that thing exist on the market today at a reasonable price point?

Thanks in advance :)

[dk] Neophos -> Finish - why?

2008-11-15T22:23:00Z

Jeg forstår ikke helt meningen.

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[dk] Opvaskebørste (sic!)

2008-11-14T20:03:00Z

Pulvercreme er noget lort, men den her, den styrer. Mere magt til den.

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Fås hos Virena. Full disclosure: Jeg har ingen tilknytning til dem, og får ingen procenter af salget.

[dk] Kagecreme

2008-11-14T19:56:00Z

Fy for fanden.

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[dk] Tjener du for lidt på dine kunder?

2008-11-13T15:26:00Z

Har du varer nok på hylderne til at dine kunder kan blive ved med at købe mere hos dig?

Hvis ikke, taber du penge hver dag.

Interesseret? Tilmeld dig her.

Det er meget billigere og nemmere at sælge mere til en tilfreds kunde, end det er at skulle finde og overbevise en ny kunde. En eksisterende kunde har allerede tillid til dig, og du gør også kunden en tjeneste ved at tage ansvar for at løse en større del af hendes problem.

Kom til workshop med mig og Startup Company på mandag kl. 14 i Iværksætterhuset i Blågårdsgade, og lær meget meget mere. Der er tale om en tre-timers workshop spækket med brugbare informationer og konkrete øvelser, der hjælper dig til at finde ud af hvordan du helt specifikt kan bruge det du lærer i din virksomhed, så du kan gå direkte hjem og øge indtjeningen.

Det koster kun 175 kroner, hvis det er din første workshop hos Startup Company. Ellers koster det 350 kr. De penge kan være tjent hjem igen mange gange allerede dagen efter, hvis du bruger det du har lært.

(Hvis du spørger mig, så sælger Startup Company deres ting alt for billigt. Det burde koste 1500 eller 2000 kr, ikke 350. Men det er deres problem – og din fortjeneste.)

Har du råd til at vente?

Skynd dig at tilmelde dig her. Pladserne ryger hurtigt.

Spot the difference

2008-11-05T21:41:00Z

This does what you’d expect:

%w(msgtype state chstat chstatmsg qpstat qpstatmsg merchant merchantemail cardtype).each do |attr|
  define_method(attr) do
    params[attr]
  end
end

This does not:

for attr in %w(msgtype state chstat chstatmsg qpstat qpstatmsg merchant merchantemail cardtype)
  define_method(attr) do
    params[attr]
  end
end

The latter version uses the last value for attr (in this case, cardtype) for each method it defines.

I thought for x in y was just syntactilcal sugar. Apparently not. You live, you learn :)

Video blogging is hard work

2008-10-08T07:42:00Z

But not the recording the videos part. The recording part is the easy, fun part. But the processing and uploading part is really painful.

Here’s the workflow I have for Coach TV right now:

Record video with iMovie, with the external Sennheiser microphone in the XLR 2 input on the camera.
Adjust sound levels by 150%, and normalize levels
Share to iTunes in Medium format
Reveal file in finder, open in QuickTime Pro
File -> Export, Save exported file as Movie to MPEG-4, click Options…
Choose Pass Through from the Video Format pop-up menu in the Video tab
On the Audio tab, choose Mono from the Channels pop-up menu and click OK. Click Save.
Remove original file from iTunes and Import back into iTunes
Set meta tags in iTunes
Pull them back out of iTunes, renaming the files coachtvXXXX.m4v
Upload to Viddler, wait for encode to complete
scp files to my server for the enclosure and download links
Set tags, title, description, and publish on Viddler
Post to blog, write description, add enclosure link, set tags and categories, and a publish date and time

What I’d like to have is software to simplify this insane workflow. For example, software that will:

Take my video straight out of iMovie, unprocessed * Convert it to iPod/iPhone MPEG-4 format, converting the sound to mono and adjusting sound levels both by leveling them and by taking them up a notch. * Set show name and episode number and all the other meta tags, mostly on automatic (i tell it which show this is – Coach TV vs. Børn i byen TV, which I’m also producing, and it automatically sets the show name and author and year and genre, the default tags, and all that and increases the episode number, so all I need to do is enter title, a few extra tags, and description for this particular episode * Upload to Viddler, setting all the meta information, and setting it to published when it’s done, verifying that everything uploaded okay
Upload to my S3 account for use in enclosure and download links * Post to my Wordpress blog using my custom blog post template, which includes links to download and subscribe, to be released on a certain day and time, possibly automatically keeping track of things, as per your release schedule (every mon-thu at 9 AM CEST, for example), complete with description, categories, tags, etc.

Does software to do this already exist, or would I have to design it and hire someone to do it for me?

If it doesn’t it seems like there’d be a market here.

What does @garyvee do? Does he have an intern take care of all of this?

What sound equipment do I need?

2008-08-19T20:04:00Z

Friends,

I’m doing this video blogging, and I’m really enjoying myself and getting some great feedback, but, as grant points out, the sound is not up to par.

What do I need?

I have a nice camera with XLR input.

(I also have a jack to XLR convrerter.)

Do I need a directional mic I can mount on the camera?

Do I need a boomer that I place over my head outside of camera view?

Do I need a microport (wireless lavalier microphone) that I can click onto and “hide” on my t-shirt?

Do I need a large wired microphone that I put on the table in front of me and that’s going to be on camera (and also, I suspect, I need to be careful about moving around too much with).

I’m willing to invest some money, but would like to keep it minimal.

And I’d like to not have to think too much about the microphone while recording.

Do you have any experience or recommendations?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Destroying happiness

2008-08-19T12:30:00Z

Seth Godin has a post today about how marketers are really destroying happiness by creating in us the want, the desire for stuff.

It’s exactly right.

Every moment, when you’re just present to that moment, is perfect. It’s our thoughts that it needs to be different, our thoughts about a future that needs to be different, that causes suffering.

And very often, that thought will be about things that we desire, things that we want. A new car, more money, a new spouse.

And getting those things feels good. For a while.

Because it’s not the thing that makes us feel good. It’s the absense of desire. It’s the fact that there’s no longer desire, and when there’s no desire, there’s just presence and peace. We momentarily wake up to the present moment, and it feels great.

But soon, another desire takes over, and we go for another ride.

Thanks, marketers!

The solution is obvious: Stop believing that the thing is going to change anything. Sure, you can have the desire for a new car. I’m no puritanist, I like things. But stop believing that it’s going to make you feel better, stop believing it’s going to change anything real.

I think almost anyone who have become wealthy will tell you that it feels great, but then after a little while, you’re still just yourself. And now you don’t even have the dream about “some day in the future I’m going to be wealthy and that’ll fix all my problems” to hold on to. Now you’re really on your own.

Terrifying, isn’t it?

P.S. Check out Coach TV Episode #4 for more on how to achieve peace without the new car.

Do what you're good at

2008-08-18T19:20:00Z

I had an interesting experience last weekend while helping my friend carry out garbage from his renovation down 3 flights of stairs across a courtyard into a container. I really sucked at it, and felt miserable and sad, mentally rehearsing my excuses for my unified suckage, going over the reasons to politely say no next time someone asked me to do something like that.

But then something happened. Rather than tightening my jaw and struggling through it, I started sorting the garbage. Large pieces of plaster over here, small pieces of plaster over there. Long pieces of wood over here, short ones there, twisted aluminum frames over there by them selves. Gently pulling pieces of wood nailed together apart, so they were easier to carry.

It was a form of work that I enjoyed infinitely more, that I was infinitely better at, and that allowed the other two guys to just focus on carrying stuff up and down the stairs.

My friend then told me that they’d been working for hours before I came, and had accomplished almost nothing, because they wasted so much time trying to pull things out of the pile, but it was all tangled together, and the end result was that they mostly just stood there chatting, not doing anything. He said if I’d been there from the start, they’d have been all done hours ago.

It was obviously a great experience for me, but isn’t it remarkable how close I was to just giving up, resigning, finding any excuse to get the hell out of there becasue I wasn’t making any difference and I felt miserable? And the reality was I was just one small step away from feeling great and making a huge difference?

I bet that happens all the time. That we’re so focused on doing what’s expected, or what we ourselves expect of ourselves, rather than what we’d really enjoy, what we’d be really good at. It takes a little bit of courage to do that. To step out of the comfort zone and do what feels right. What if they don’t approve? Maybe they just think I’m being lazy, that I’m not being a team player. Maybe it won’t work, maybe I’ll actually suck at it. In any case, it feels so easy, it can’t really be valuable, can it?

I’m sure it happens all the time, and it’s a crime against humanity. Make a commitment today to look out for opportunities for you to stop perpetrating this crime.

Deal?

More signups with the name field

2008-08-18T18:56:00Z

A few days ago I wrote about how we got about 5x the signups per day when we dropped the name field. Well, I decided to do a split test on this on my friend Pernille Melsted’s signup page, and much to my surprise, the results over there seem to be the opposite – 85% sign up when I ask for both name and email, but only 57% when I ask for just email. Surprising, no?

The numbers aren’t quite statistically significant yet, so I’m going to let it run for a few more days to confirm, but i can only speculate that perhaps it’s because the nature of the relationship between Pernille and her audience is deeper and warmer (after all, Pernille helps people find their passion), being asked for just email makes the interaction it seem too cold?

I don’t know, but I’m mildly surprised.

Lars Pind - Home

[dk] Oksekød

[dk] Fedt!

How to double your productivity

TextExpander bit.ly-shortened URLs with query params

My dream videocam

[dk] Neophos -> Finish - why?

[dk] Opvaskebørste (sic!)

[dk] Kagecreme

[dk] Tjener du for lidt på dine kunder?

Spot the difference

Video blogging is hard work

What sound equipment do I need?

Destroying happiness

Do what you're good at

More signups *with* the name field

More signups with the name field