MacBook Air

Recently at Macworld 2008 Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the new MacBook Air – the new ultra thin notebook which is currently taking the web and the world by storm. Just try YouTube and you’ll find a plethora of video footage exploring every aspect of the new MacBook Air.

Apple.ie in Ireland are selling the new MacBook Air from a base price of Eur1,699 – great value because this new piece of kit from Apple is perhaps only the beginning of more fantastic hardware and software that has yet to appear. I would urge anyone interested in Apple software to go along and see a demonstration of this magnificent piece of technology. Who knows you might even buy it there and then.

Check out the new MacBook Air on Mac Life (Create, Share, Enjoy) the online version of the magazine of the same name.  And for your daily dose of all things Mac click on MacSlash

On the form side of things you have the incredibly useful Mac-Forums (The ultimate Source for Your Mac).

Am I converted I hear you ask. Absolutely! Should have bought a Mac computer years ago.

Jerry Seinfeld’s productivity secret

Here is some appropriate advice from Jerry Seinfeld about self-motivation and particularly to encourage yourself to write every day.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

“Don’t break the chain.” He said again for emphasis.

Over the years I’ve used his technique in many different areas. I’ve used it for exercise, to learn programming, to learn network administration, to build successful websites and build successful businesses.

It works because it isn’t the one-shot pushes that get us where we want to go, it is the consistent daily action that builds extraordinary outcomes. You may have heard “inch by inch any thing’s a cinch.” Inch by inch does work if you can move an inch every day.

Daily action builds habits. It gives you practice and will make you an expert in a short time. If you don’t break the chain, you’ll start to spot opportunities you otherwise wouldn’t. Small improvements accumulate into large improvements rapidly because daily action provides “compounding interest.”

Skipping one day makes it easier to skip the next.

I’ve often said I’d rather have someone who will take action – even if small – every day as opposed to someone who swings hard once or twice a week. Seinfeld understands that daily action yields greater benefits than sitting down and trying to knock out 1000 jokes in one day.

Think for a moment about what action would make the most profound impact on your life if you worked it every day. That is the action I recommend you put on your Seinfeld calendar. Start today and earn your big red X. And from here on out…

Don’t break the chain!

Brad Isaac is a lead software programmer and blogger. You can read his motivational strategies every day on his goal setting blog, Achieve-IT!

Be sure to explore Brad Isaac’s website; you’ll find very inspiring motivational tips and tricks therein. Do I believe this motivation theory? Believe it – I’m going to live my life by it’s simple  and basic cardinal rules.

My Favourite Writers and more …

Thursday 29th March 2007

Today like so many other days I ventured into Chapters Bookstore in Parnell Street, Dublin. This new bookstore which opened early in January 2007 is excellent as it’s not as crowded as Easons and it has as many book titles if not more.

The following authors interest me. First off is the contemporary German writer Gunter Grass. He is highly rated both in Germany and throughout the world. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. More details about Gunter Grass can be found on the web site Books and Writers.

Ernest Hemingway is also one of my favourite must-read authors. As a child I remember being fascinated by the film version of his book The Old Man and the Sea. I noticed it’s a very slim volume but what a story. Read it and be enthralled!

E.M. Forster and the book which made him famous A Passage to India is also on my reading list. It’s a fairly large tome but judging by the reviews on the dust jacket and references to it by other famous writers it is definitely a book worth reading.

Back in the year 2000 I went to see the film Finding Forrester about the Pulitzer Prize winning author William Forrester. He wrote only one book Avalon Landing but it earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. I will definitely read the work of William Forrester. And you dear reader should do likewise.

Perhaps the one of the most interviewed of authors is the English writer Philip Pullman. This morning he was on the Radio 4 programme In Conversation presented by Terry Jones. Pullman became famous for his Dark Materials Trilogy, the first book is entitled Northern Lights. He said he was very much influenced by John Bunyan’s The Pilgrims Progress and he also stated that mediaeval and classical literature are the original and the best stories to read and learn from. I intend to read his work in the near future. “Writing is a journey of discovery,” Pullman says of writing. And how right he is! More on Philip Pullman in the next post.

ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is the famous Russian author. I first discovered his work in his great novel THE FULL CIRCLE, which I picked up at the Library in Dublin Bus, Donnybrook Bus Garage. More on this Russian writer later….