Tuesday, July 6, 2010 6:36:44 AM
Facebook game productivity Cafeworld tip
This is not the kind of productivity improvements that I have in mind for this blog. Game productivity is certainly also a kind of productivity. So here goes.
I'm sure FaceBook 
needs no introduction. Cafe World is a game within FaceBook where you run a restaurant by taking care of its deco, staffing, and primarily, by cooking a variety of dishes. Along the way, you upgrade earn cafe points which will allow you to upgrade your Cafe.
Background
Different dish requires different duration for cooking - from 5 mins to even more than a day! So there's plenty of clicking cooking to occupy your time.
You can actually close the page and the game will keep on running. However, the loading for the game sometimes will take a while. So, more often than not, I will leave the Cafe World running in the background while I do other work. Waiting for the distinctive chime of the food bell informing me that the cooking is done.
However the convenient chime comes with the irritating background noise of the restaurant - people eating, cash register tinkling etc. Not exactly optimal when you are trying to concentrate on other task. Yet when you turn off the sound option from within the game control, all the sound will be turned off. What to do?
The solution.
So I accidentally chance upon the solution. I'm sure the developer folks at Facebook must have deliberately designed it this way. You just need to click the "Save" button to eliminate the restaurant noise. The "Save Complete" box will pop up. But just leave it there. Now, alternate tab and do your other stuffs. i.e. Listen to your mp3s. When the food is done, you will still be able to hear the food bell chime! 
So now, have fun cooking minus the noise!
Sunday, July 4, 2010 6:29:12 AM
Opera User Singapore
For a quite Internet saavy country like Singapore, the take up rate of Opera is quite low. Or perhaps, it is because it is lunch time right now. But from http://www.opera.com/portal/geo/ the number of users from Singapore is pathetically low, only 10 in the whole country. Hmm. perhaps Opera isn't doing enough marketing in this region. Hint: Business opportunity here. I wonder if the guys on Opera's board know that marketing is more important than the product itself. hmm.
And just in case you don't know about it, version 10.6 of opera support geopositioning services that allows application to determine your location. Certainly this is very useful. No need to lug a GPS donger around, you can just use Opera!
Sunday, July 4, 2010 5:49:00 AM
Opera Zoundry Raven desktop blogging client
Just in case you are wonder, I am writing this article using Zoundry Raven. Zoundry Raven is a desktop blogging tool for windows. Available at http://www.zoundry.com/download.html
It actually supports a variety of blogs, including the ever popular wordpress platform. It is a pleasant surprise to me that it supports Opera Blog as well.
The auto detection doesn't work though. When first adding the account via the Add account dialog, the auto detected blog type is wrong. You just need change it to Custom Moveable type and it will work as shown in the screen shot below.
I had actually thought that Opera is not supported. But then this guy managed to get it working http://my.opera.com/kerby2008/blog/opera-blog 
So it turn out that Zoundry is great.
update: It turn out that some other blog mentioned Opera's support fo movable type API as well.
http://my.opera.com/devblog/blog/moveable-type-api
Thursday, June 19, 2008 12:06:43 AM
meta thinking
Hmm.
Update : 2010.07.08.1249hrs(Thu)
It's been a while, but in the long while, I've come to better appreciate the important of meta thinking.
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| Figure 1. |
Meta Thinking is the basis of change, it is a higher level concept. Put it simply, it is the "What is your goal?" instead of "Do that." Perhaps an example would illustrate the idea.
In life we are surrounded by a lot of tasks that are clamouring for our attention. Figure .1
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| Figure 2. |
Meta thinking can get us from the tasks themselves to the goals that they are trying to achieve.Figure 2..
This is a big deal by itself because it induces structure upon the tasks. And structure affords manipulation. i.e. we can filter, compare the tasks based on the merits of their goals.
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| Figure 3. |
It will also open up the possibilty of looking at other tasks that can work towards our the goals as well. i.e. Figure 3.
To be able to see the possibilities, is to open the door to improvements. Indeed, I totally agree with Edward de Bono when he said in his book "How to have a beautiful mind" that one mark of a beautiful mind is the capability to see the possibilities.
To tie the concept back into the theme of the blog, if we are to improve our productivity, many times we need to change. And even before the change can take place, we need to be able to see the possibilities.
So as you can see, it all begins with meta thinking. Go meta!
My Opera
