Monthly Archives: June 2009

Blogging techniques- Daily Blogging

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Wow, it’s already approximately half way through 2009. That’s incredible. This June, I decided to try a blogging “style” I had yet to try: daily blogging. I decided that, given the mid-year nature of the month, it was time to try something fresh and new to me. I made a conscious point of blogging daily about whatever I thought about. Whether it was to do with WordPress, music or general thoughts, I gave it a whirl.

Daily blogging is an interesting concept. In terms of content, it can produce interesting results, some posts being “stronger” than others, depending on the day and topic.

Overall, I enjoyed the daily blogging experience. I’ve tried, and will try, one or two other techniques as well. My question today is; “How do you blog?”

Train your brain using the Nintendo DS

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The Nintendo DS range of console, while primarily being hand-held gaming consoles, are also incredibly useful for non-gaming tasks. One such task is training your brain. This could also fall under the category of “edutainment” as it involves mini-games.

I recently got “Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training – How old is your brain?“ for Nintendo DSlite. What a great game. It comprises a selection of short activities, designed by Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, to exercise specific areas of the brain and to improve various brain activities. The activities involve numbers, words, letters and colours and take a rough maximum of about 5 minutes each to complete. At the end of your training (done once a day) you will be provided with your brain’s current brain age (the ideal is 20).
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A few ingredients for a perfect Sunday

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Whether it’s Winter or Summer, hot or cold, Sundays are days that seem to take on a mind of their own. They can be both relaxing and lazy as well as productive and motivating at the same time. I thought I’d share a few ingredients that make a perfect Sunday for me.

Tea.

Tea comes in so many flavours and fragrances. You can’t really miss when choosing tea. I’d recommend Ceylon tea or Cranberry, Apple and Cinnamon blend from Woolworths… hey, it’s pink. The only thing more awesome than tea is pink tea.
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Does pop music have a “sell by” date?

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Pop music, generally accepted as music that is geared towards being popular with a mass market, flows consistently like a running river. New artists arrive on the scene at a steady pace, and existing artists tend to slide to the other end of the conveyer belt into a “what are they up to since their career ‘ended’?” kind of section.

There are, however, artists that seem to stick around longer than the average.
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If content is king, design is queen

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The phrase “content is king” is splashed around so much these days. Content is the “meat and potatoes” of your website, and can be the reason why users return, as well as being one of the core aspects of successfully optimising your website for search engines.

What about the design then? Does having “good content” render the design of your website unimportant and “obsolete”?

My answer is “no”.
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Create your own Wordle

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This is awesome. I was just emailed a link (thanks to The Ham) to Wordle, a “toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide”. You can either provide it with text of your own, a website that contains an RSS or Atom feed or a Delicious username. Wordle will then take the provided text, the text in the feed or the tags of the Delicious username and generate a word cloud. The more frequent the word, the larger it will appear.
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A quick word on the weather and productivity

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Folks, it’s almost the end of June. Winter is here and it’s showing no signs of backing down.

While chatting with a colleague yesterday, we got onto the topic of the weather and how it has affected our productivity. I find that I enjoy being indoors in cold weather and that I find myself having more motivation to get things done as it’s nice and cosy and warm inside. On the other hand, it’s cold and wet and a nice cup of hot cocoa would be great. :)

Does the weather affect your productivity? And on that note, does anyone have an amazing recipe for home-made cocoa? :P

5+ (more) South African bands you may (or may not) have heard

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Following on from my first list, I’ve continued by compiling a list of a few more awesome South African bands, past and present.

We have so many amazingly talented bands and musicians in South Africa, it’s not easy to keep this list short. Here are a few South African bands that I’ve enjoyed listening to.

Rambling Bones

This acoustic project, staring Jay Bones (front man of Jo’burg ska/punk legends, Fuzigish) and Kustom Kev on congas, percussion and glokenspiel, these layed back tunes are perfect for a fun evening out or a relaxed evening at home by the fire. Elements of Bones’ ska/punk roots are audible in several tracks.

Check out Rambling Bones at: http://www.ramblingbones.com

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