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The Little But Really Useful Guide to Creativity

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” - Albert Einstein

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

It’s easier than ever to be creative, to create, to imagine and make what’s imagined become reality.

It’s also tougher than ever, with distractions surrounding us in ways never before imagined.

No matter what kind of creative type you are — writer, painter, musician, marketer, blogger, photographer, designer, parent, business owner — you are likely always looking for inspirations, for ways to let loose your creative genius.

And while there are millions of creativity tips on the Internet, I thought I’d share the ones I’ve found most useful — the ones that I’ve tried and tested and found to be right.

Here they are, in no order at all:

• Play.


• Don’t consume and create at the same time — separate the processes.


• Shut out the outside world.


• Reflect on your life and work daily.


• Look for inspiration all around you, in the smallest places.


• Start small.


• Just get it out, no matter how crappy that first draft.


• Don’t try for perfect. Just get it out there, asap, and get feedback.


• Constantly make it better.


• Ignore the naysayers.


• But let criticism help you grow.


• Teach and you’ll learn.


• Shake things up, see things in new ways.


• Apply things in other fields to your field, in ways not done before.


• Drink ridiculous amounts of coffee.


• Write all ideas down immediately.


• Turn your work into play.


• Play with kids.


• Get out, move, see new things, talk to new people.


• Read wildly different things. Especially stuff you disagree with.


• Get lots of rest. Overwork kills creativity.


• Don’t force it. Relax, play, it will start to flow.


• Allow your mind to wander. Allow distractions, when you’re looking for inspiration.


• Then shut them off when you’re going to create.


• Do it when you’re excited.


• When you’re not, find something else to be excited about.


• Don’t be afraid to be stupid and silly.


• Small ideas are good. You don’t need to change the world — just change one thing.


• When something is killing your creativity, kill it.


• Stop reading creativity advice, clear away everything, and just create.


• Most of all, have fun doing it.

“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” - Lewis Carroll

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ラベル: brain-hacks

The 35 Best iPhone Apps Of The Year (So Far)

This guest post was written by Alex Ahlund, founder of AppVee.

We are just past of a year since the App Store launched and there are more than 60,000 applications released for the iPhone and iPod Touch. When we wrote our 2008 year-end app wrap-up, we had just surpassed the 10,000 app milestone. In early June 2009, the store reached 50,000 apps. At present, we are looking at a staggering 300 new applications being released every single day. How does the average iPhone user find the gems in this deluge?

Unfortunately, the process is entirely overwhelming for the average iPhone user. The bulk of consumers use iTunes’ Top and front page listings. Since placement on the top lists is derived entirely from unit sales, there is a disturbing skew towards the $.99 applications. This not only discourages big developers from putting high budgets and serious resources towards development of really useful applications and games, but also does a disservice to us, as iPhone users. If all we see are ninety-nine cent gimmicks and toys, how will we realize the true potential of our device? Apple attempts to offset this with editor’s picks, but this simply isn’t enough to make sense of the App Store.

There are new third party services and tools coming onto the scene to help show how to best navigate the App Store. AppVee has been doing in-depth reviews of applications since the launch of the App Store and will soon celebrate our one-year anniversary with nearly 1,000 video reviews of the top applications. We’re often asked if we are overwhelmed with the number of applications currently released and the number we are capable of covering. The answer is no. 90% of apps currently out there are of no use to anyone. There are a massive number of clones, one-off gimmicks, volumes of books and reference material, and a never-ending supply of uninteresting games. So, we try to act as a filter for consumers, directing them to what is worth their time and money.

The following is a round-up of our top picks so far this year:

Most practical

1. Slacker Radio

A fantastic alternative to Pandora, which carries a larger catalog and offers Premium accounts that offers something we’ve always loathed about Pandora – unlimited song skips. (Similar: Pandora, WunderRadio, Last.fm)

2. Hey Where Are You

A beautifully simple application that takes advantage of Push Notification, by letting users ask and answer the question “Hey, Where Are You?” (Similar: Loopt)

3. Textfree Unlimited

Currently the best alternative to high SMS plan costs, offering free text messaging using Push Notification.

4. Bento

Create simple databases to store information about every aspect of your life.

5. TweetDeck

Our new, favorite Twitter client that takes advantage of the same layout as its desktop counterpart – multiple columns, separation of user groups, and more. (Similar: Tweetie, Twinkle, TwitterFON)

6. Print and Share

Print files, emails, web pages, contacts, images and even snapshots direct from your camera, straight to your home printer. Simple setup and works perfectly.

7. Flight Tracker

Watch flights in real-time and get up-to-the-minute arrival and departure times. This has saved me countless delayed pick-ups from the airport.

8. Read It Later

Store any web page for offline reading or to mark as a reminder to read. A bit tricky to setup at first, but it will quickly replace bookmarking for articles.

9. iEmoji

Activate emoticons in your keyboard to include in emails and text messages. Works only for iPhones, but the end reader does not need the app to see emoticons in your texts.

10. Birthday Reminder

Rarely check Facebook to see upcoming birthdays? This app downloads all of that information so you can access and easily see upcoming bdays offline.

11. Mover

Swap contacts and photos with other iPhones in an easy way. Requires both users to have the application, but it is free and quick to download. (Similar: Bump)

12. Simplify Music 2

Listen to your entire music library from your home computer, streamed quickly and without any lag. (Similar: Simply Music, imeem)

13. Cell Minute Tracker

We prefer Cell Minute Tracker to AT&T’s minute tracker any day. Much simpler, easy to navigate and much faster.

14. QuickOffice

Edit Word and Excel documents on the go.

15. Photogene

There are a multitude of photo editing apps out there, but you really only need one. Crop, rotate, adjust colors, and add filters with Photogene. (Similar: Camera Bag)

16. Skype

Superb quality Skype-to-Skype over WiFi using the Skype application. Finally be free of your computer and microphone to make those long distance calls. (Similar: Truphone)

17. Kindle

Skeptical at first, but found eBook reader surprisingly easy on the eyes and good for taking in a quick chapter. Offers plenty of free content, but won’t be replacing your physical Kindle.

18. Beejive IM 3.0

We mentioned this on last year’s roundup, but it deems reiteration. So far, the best multi-IM service client on the iPhone, now with Push Notification. AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, and more.

19. Redlaser

Extremely reluctant to include this on the list, but it does deserve a bottom slot. Scan UPC codes for price comparisons on the go, but wait for an update for improved scanning and database.

Best Games

20. Real Racing

Standard track based racing game, but has the best graphics on an iPhone game to-date. Worth it alone to see what the iPhone is capable of.

21. Sims 3

Slightly watered down Sims 3, but still an excellent version on the go. Fantastic graphics and runs well.

22. My Brute

Create a fighter and compete in daily arena matches. Very simplistic, but highly addicting and will bring you back daily.

23. Mecho Wars

Advanced Wars for your iPhone and iPod Touch, enough said. Interesting art style and background story.

24. Zenonia

The first fully featured traditional 2D action RPG for your iPhone and iPod Touch.

25. Peggle

The time sucking, simple Pachinko style casual PC game from PopCap ported to your device.

26. Marble Blast Mobile

Another PC game port where you roll your marble through various levels, filled with obstacles and hazards.

http://www.appvee.com/t/iphone-app-review-marble-blast-mobile

27. Myst

Do we even need to explain this one?

28. Merlin’s Legacy

An original IP based around two dueling wizards, battling for control across a 2D side-scrolling field. Interesting game mechanic based on spells and timing.

29. Assassin’s Creed

A smaller version of Assassin’s Creed on your iPhone and iPod Touch. Plays rather smoothly and provides solid entertainment.

30. Oregon Trail

The classic Oregon Trail, updated with fantastic graphics and animation. Will keep you entertained just like when you were in school. Try not to die of dysentery.

31. Rolando 2

The sequel to the popular game of rolling little Rolandos around to save the kingdom. Your hands may cramp from hours of play.

Fun Timewasters

32. Doodle Jump

Dominated the Top 25 list for quite a while. Accelerometer based movement—you guide your Doodle to bounce off platforms, jumping to the highest point possible as you avoid getting hit.

33. Mouth Off

Cover your mouth with your device and show off an assortment of crazy mouths that animate to the input sound of your voice. I’ve annoyed dining mates with this one more than once.

34. Pocket God

Well done, episodic content based on a simple toy of dealing with your islanders. Fun to show off to friends and receive new updates.

35. Flight Control

Elegantly simple and highly addictive game. You direct various planes to different landing strips, all the while trying to avoid collisions. Updated with Bluetooth device co-op.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

ラベル: web

Best of Boxee: 5 Apps for Killer Entertainment

Boxee is a great way to experience internet content on your television or PC. The company has just recently announced that they were able to raise an additional $6 million in financing, which means they can continue to build a better platform. In the next few months you can expect to see improvements to the product, more content, and Boxee on more devices.

As it stands, however, Boxee is already chock full of entertainment in the form of applications. Boxee applications aren’t really applications in the way most of us understand applications. Instead they’re more like glossy windows that developers have built to bring the best internet content to our television sets and monitors. With Boxee applications you can watch your favorite web TV shows, listen to streaming music, browse your online photos, and see the web in a whole new light.

If you’re just getting started with Boxee, or are a tried-and-true veteran, then chances are you’re interested in learning about the best that the application has to offer. So we’ve taken the best of Boxee and bundled it up into this blog post for your convenience. Keep reading to learn about remarkable ways to engage with online photos, videos, and music via the best apps in those categories.

Boxee Apps: A Quick Tutorial

If you’re using Boxee and you haven’t discovered the applications, then you’re missing out on the full Boxee experience. Here’s how to get started. When you launch and login to Boxee, select the “Menu” option on the left. A new pane will open up with the following options: Applications, Local Media, Browse, Downloads, and App Box.

If you’re in the mood to discover applications, select App Box. That’s where you can browse around for apps that strike your fancy. To add an app to your personal Boxee application dashboard, just select it and click ok. You can also remove apps in this area as well. Select “My Applications” at the top, and click on the app you’d like to remove.

Now, if you’re looking to actually enjoy the apps you’ve added, navigate back to the left-hand menu and select Applications. Here you can choose All, Photos, Video, or Music to view your saved apps.

Best Music App: Pandora

Pandora holds a special place in most of our hearts as a remarkable way to discover and listen to music online. We’ve spent years using their music discovery engine to mastermind the greatest stations to help us beat the work day blues or auto-DJ our social gatherings.

With the Pandora app for Boxee, you can log into your account and experience everything you love about streaming music from the shiny entertainment dashboard. The app is visually very impressive, feature-rich, and pretty easy to manipulate. You’ll find your saved stations on the right-hand side, which you can close and open, and a history of your streamed music is clearly highlighted across your screen. You can still create stations and bookmark songs or artists as usual.

Of course, the most important part of a music app for Boxee is the online streaming quality. Quality will always depend on your internet connection, with or without Boxee as your gateway to great music, but the good news is that the Pandora experience is only heightened on your television, with no performance issues that can be attributed to Boxee.

Best Photo App: Facebook Photos

If you have an Apple TV, you’ve probably already come to appreciate the magic of having your photos on the big screen. Boxee, however, brings a new social layer to the experience, as the application has inspired a number of third-party developers to create Boxee photo apps for your favorite social networks.

One such developer, Junda Liu, has built a Facebook Photos app that gives you the ability to use Facebook Connect to connect Boxee to your Facebook account. You can view your Facebook photos, friends’ albums, and recently added photos in larger-than-life form. The app creates a rich photo experience that is really quite marvelous, especially when compared to Facebook’s standard presentation of photos and albums.

If Facebook isn’t your photo site of choice, there’s always the Flickr and Picasa apps for Boxee, which are also quite nice.

Best Cable TV App: CNN

If you expect quality picture and a great, dynamic selection, than the CNN app will not disappoint. Once you launch the app, you can use the left-hand menu to browse top stories, most popular, staff picks, or peruse through categories like tech and business with the by section option.

The CNN app is perfect if you’ve canceled cable and still want access to the network’s news stories, or if you’ve missed the day’s news and just want to catch up on your own time. Either way the CNN app is a great way to experience news stories via Boxee.

Best Web TV App: Pure Pwnage

Though this hit web series will soon find its way on your television (in Canada that is), one of Boxee’s most prolific application developers, Rob Spectre, has turned the series into a nifty Boxee app. So, you can watch the made-for-the-web series in all its glory on your television right now.

Best Custom App: Make Your Own

Here’s the best part of Boxee. If there’s online music, photos, or videos that you can’t find in the available apps (though most of them have you covered), you can use My Feeds to create your own RSS-based content app. This comes in handy if you want a quick way to access and keep up with specific podcasts and vlogs.

Adding the web shows you want to follow is really pretty simple. First things first, find the RSS feed for the music, video, or photo content you’d like to add. Then, in Boxee, navigate to the Apps Box section and click on My Feeds at the top. There you can input the feed, designate the appropriate content, and add it so that’s a part of your application repository.

Honorable Mention: We Are Hunted

We Are Hunted is a fantastic way to discover new music. They scour the web for the 99 most popular songs every day, divvy them into a few different categories — like a Twitter chart — and then you can click to enjoy new music. We’re totally in love with the website, but now we’re even more enamored with the Boxee app.

Add We Are Hunted to find and discover popular tracks for a completely unique music listening experience on your television set. Play this app at your next party, and it just might be the greatest way to add a little spice to your mixer.

Tags: apps, boxee, boxee apps, Lists

ラベル: web

Netscapeの生みの親が未来派ブラウザRockMeltの開発に着手–単なるFacebook閲覧用？それとも完全に型破り？

Marc Andreessenが、RockMeltという名前の会社を作った。新しいブラウザを作る会社だ。この会社については、今のところ、豪華なオールスターチームである（Marcと一緒にNetscapeを作ったRobert John Churchillもいる）ことと、Facebook Connectを使ってFacebookに接続することぐらいしか分かっていない。ReadWriteWebのMarshall Kirkpatrickが、このブラウザのログインページのスクリーンショットを入手して、RockMeltはむしろFacebook用ブラウザではないかと憶測を述べている。The New York TimesのMiguel Helftも同じ考えだ。たしかにAndreesenはFacebookの取締役だが、話はそれだけではないだろう。

しかしFacebook用ブラウザ、略して‘Facebookブラウザ’は、今後のブラウザのあるべき姿を示唆しているとも言える。Facebookブラウザって、どんなのか？　そうね、まず、Facebook上のフレンドのアップデートを見れて、自分のアップデートやメディアをブラウザから直接共有化できて、そしてたぶん、Facebookのチャットを使ってフレンドとIMできるブラウザかな。便利だけど、何一つ斬新なところはない。ソーシャルブラウザを自称しているFlockは、すでにブラウザ本体にFacebook Connectを組み入れている（そしてTwitterなどのソーシャルネットワークを立ち上げる）が、あまり人気がない。それにFacebook自身が提供しているFirefox用ツールバーを使えば、ノーティフィケーション（通知）を見たり、Facebookを検索したり、リンクを共有したりできる。Facebookを使うためのFirefox用アドオンは、ほかにもたくさんある。

でもFacebookとの接続は、Andreessenの今回の意欲的なソフトの、ほんの出だし部分かもしれない。Helftの記事は、今年初めにNYTが行ったAndreessenのインタビュー記事から引用している:

Andreessen氏は、これまでとはまったく違うブラウザについて語った。今あるブラウザのほとんどは、Webの進化に対応していないという。Webは静的なWebページの列から複雑なWebサイトやWebアプリケーションのネットワークへと進化を遂げている。“今新たにブラウザを作るとしたら、あらゆる点でまったく別のやり方をしなければならないね”、Andreessen氏はそう言った。

具体的には何を言っているのか？　ブラウザをソーシャルにすることが第一。まず、Facebookへの接続だ。しかしそれは、Webアプリケーションをまったく新しいやり方で扱うソーシャルブラウザの、構築部品の一つにすぎない。従来、ブラウザの仕事の対象はWebページだったが、でも今のWebのおもしろいことは、必ずしも一つのページの上で起きてはいない。それは、リアルタイムのデータストリームだったり（FacebookのポータブルなNews FeedやTwitterなど）、リッチなWebtop*アプリケーションだったりする。今日のWebブラウザは、Webをサーフィンするためだけでなく、ユーザの情報ストリームとWebアプリケーションを統一的なユーザインタフェイスのもとに管理できるような設計でなければならない。〔*: デスクトップと互角な充実性を持つWebアプリを、だじゃれ的に‘Webトップアプリケーション’と呼ぶ。〕

RockMeltがこの大きな目標を追っているのかどうか、それは分からないが、一般的に、ラジカルでしかもアクセス性の良い新たなアプローチが必要なことは確実だ。ラジカルでアクセス性が良いこと、それは難題だ。情報の発見と創造と対話を大幅に効率化するラジカルな方式が必要。そしてそれは、ブラウズ（‘閲覧’）するプラットホームであると同時に、コミュニケーションするためのプラットホームであるべき。

これまでのブラウザは消費のための道具であり、Webページを単に文書として読んでいた。過去10年の進歩は相当なものだが、それでもまだわれわれは、ブラウザの初期的な形に縛られている。では、本当にソーシャルなブラウザとは、一体どういうものか？　以下は、Andreessenのではなく、私自身のウィッシュリストだ（今現在アドオンとしてあるものや、デスクトップクライアントで実現している機能もあるが、これらが全部、最初からブラウザ本体に統一されてほしい）:

• 複数のモードのあるブラウザ（文書閲覧、検索、ソーシャルなデータストリームの追尾、Webアプリケーションの立ち上げ、等々）


• ホームページがWebの各所からリアルタイムストリームを取り寄せるストリームリーダーであること（FriendFeedを獲得したFacebookにはそれができる）


• IM、メール、そして公開されるメッセージの投稿（ステータスアップデートやTweets）は、ツールバーやサイドバーからいつでもできること


• Webサイトへ行ってログインしなくてもいろんなWebアプリケーションをブラウザ内で簡単に立ち上げられること


• 共有サービス（Flickr、Posterous、Youtube、Wordpressなど）にはボタンクリック一つで素早くアクセスできること


• 主要なサイト（ソーシャルストリーム、ニュース、財務、スポーツなどなど）がすべてリアルタイム検索とリアルタイムアラート(alert, 通報)をサポートしていること


• Google Gearsのサポートによりブラウザにオフライン機能とローカルキャッシュと簡単なデータベースを利用する計算処理能力があること

以上は、思いつくままを羅列しただけだ。あなたがブラウザを一から設計するとしたら、それはどんなものになるかな？

[原文へ]

（翻訳：iwatani(a.k.a. hiwa)）

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