Now in some recent blog posts I was getting an inconsistent result with some tweet links converting into embedded tweets and others not so. In one case in one of my blog posts one of the tweets did what it was supposed to and the other one didn’t.
I know I can do a screen grab of the tweet and embed that into the blog post, but I do like how the embedded tweet was live and dynamic, you could like or reply to the tweet from the embedded tweet.
Looking around for a potential cause of the problem and hopefully a solution I found this WordPress support link from a Google search on the issue.
Embedding with a shortcode
If you want more control over the display and layout of the tweet you are embedding, you can use a special shortcode. Copy and paste one of the following shortcodes into a post, page, or text widget. Be sure to change the tweet URL or ID to the one that you want to embed.
There is a buzz on the Twitter at the moment about the “ten year timeline”
Andy Baio on Twitter provided an easy link that showed your Twitter timeline from ten years ago (if you followed the same people you do now).
Want to see what your Twitter timeline would've looked like 10 years ago today, if you followed all the same people you do now? https://t.co/41a6iQcYhc
Looking over the feed from that time, it’s interesting to see how different Twitter would have been for me, than it is now. Back then I followed a lot less people (and I have stopped following some I followed back then), so it’s not entirely accurate reflection of what Twitter would have been like.
However there is a lot less commercial stuff and a lot less tweeting of news and links. There are no animated GIFs and no images, and no web page previews for links, so the feed is very textual, compared to my feed today. Today’s feed on the left and the 2008 feed on the right.
You can use this search method, even if you weren’t on Twitter ten years ago and you can of course change the date as well.
The search query is
filter:follows until:2008-05-25 -filter:replies
What I found equally interesting, but more useful was how you can use the search function to get a strict reverse-chronological timeline with no algorithm bases tweets (or advertising). From this tweet.
By the way, if you remove the date parameter from that search and click “Latest,” you get a strict reverse-chronological timeline with no algorithm junk.
By the way, if you remove the date parameter from that search and click "Latest," you get a strict reverse-chronological timeline with no algorithm junk. 🙌 https://t.co/OTOeFTZfiz
When I got my iPhone 6S Plus in 2015, I got a new phone contract and moved providers. The SIM only contract was with Three and came with unlimited data. However this was unlimited on the phone only, there was an allowance for hotspot, which was only 4GB. This was initially problematic as at home we had a very poor ADSL connection, so I would use the hotspot quite often when I was frustrated with my poor connectivity. As a result I would need to keep an eye on my usage. Quite often I would run out. 4GB was generally fine for simple browsing or e-mail, but would quickly run out if I was streaming video.
I did think about increasing the allowance, but the packages available weren’t cheap. Today Three’s unlimited data contract has a 30GB hotspot allowance. Why don’t I upgrade? Well my contract is just £17 a month, the current unlimited data contract is now £30 a month. However since my home broadband was upgraded to fibre I’ve stopped using the hotspot feature at home, reserving it for trips and visits, again mainly for browsing and e-mail. The 4GB allowance has been fine for this kind of internet activity.
A recent trip away to Glasgow made me aware to still carefully check my usage. I was away staying at the Premier Inn which came with free wifi. According to the blurb the free version of the wifi was for browsing and e-mail and the Ultimate version of the wifi was for streaming. Testing the free wifi, I found it worked fine for streaming Netflix. So there I was watching my favourite TV shows on the iPad and though the free wifi wasn’t brilliant, it was working. As I watched the next episode I found the quality had improved, this is alright I thought. Then another episode…
Then I got a SMS from Three saying I had nearly used my hotspot allowance. I was confused, it was only five days since it had reset. Where had my allowance gone? I then noticed that my iPad wasn’t connected to the hotel wifi it was now connected to my iPhone’s hotspot.
What happened was that previously at the Airport I had connected my laptop to the hotspot, but hadn’t turned it off. My iPad was connected to the hotel wifi, however that connection must have stopped or dropped and then the iPad found and connected to the hotspot network automatically. So when the hotel wifi came back it didn’t re-connect. So the quality of the Netflix stream had improved because of the new connection… the downside was that it sucked up all of my hotspot allowance.
Will I upgrade, no, because it was an error and though it may happen again, I am quite content with a 4GB limit.
As I am still having major issues with my Smart Keyboard and my iPad Pro I have decided to start using an old Bluetooth keyboard with the iPad. I had to reset the keyboard and then pair it with the iPad.
Using it made me realise how useful a “proper” keyboard is with an iPad (or even an iPhone) when you have to type up lots of stuff. Even just entering an username and password for me is easier with a keyboard.
It also reminded me how useful Bluetooth is, though today we take it mainly for granted. I do remember how exciting and innovative Bluetooth was when I first experienced it.
Mark Twain once said that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long.
Though wrongly attributed to Mark Twain the concept of “eating the frog” to improve productivity is something that has gained traction over the years.
What it means from a productivity perspective is that if you face down and complete that “big” task that is hanging over your head then your productivity over the rest of the day will be higher.
If you don’t “eat the frog” then that task will be always there in your head, you will worry about it and this will have negative impact on your work and resulting productivity.
Often that task appears to be worse than it actually is, and that thinking about it is actually the problem. Having started to do this, I have found it just works. Not sure if my resulting productivity has increased, but the impact on wellbeing has been positive.
Though it’s every easy to say “eat the frog” I think there is more too it than just doing that task. It makes sense to reflect on your workflow and work patterns and explore why you aren’t eating the frog. What are you prioritising instead of the frog? What are you doing instead of the frog? Can you change that approach?
In my own practice, I would often start going through e-mail rather than face the frog. Once I realised that this was causing me to not to face the frog, then I sorted the e-mail issue out. Initially I did that by turning off and closing my e-mail client, this then stopped those distracting notifications. Longer term I moved to Inbox Zero.
If it was a big “frog”, then I would break it down into smaller frogs or tasks which were easier and faster to complete. That big frog now became a more manageable and easier to get done.
I really enjoyed Star Wars: The Last Jedi I know it didn’t sit well with some of the Star Wars fans, but I thought it was great.
The special effects were really good and I think the use of CGI has significantly improved since the prequels. One aspect of the prequels I didn’t like was that the use of CGI allowed for the use of camera angles and zooming which wasn’t possible in the original trilogy. With the new possibilities that CGI allowed the battle sequences for me were all over the place with revolving cameras, excessive pans and zooms. Just watching some of those starship battle scenes in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith made me dizzy. Okay so just me then…
What I have enjoyed about The Last Jedi, The Force Awakens and Rogue One was how many of the special effects sequences reflected the original trilogy look and feel, especially Rogue One.
This video shows how the different layers were meshed together to show the Resistance bomber attack on the Star Destroyer at the beginning of the film.
You can also see a similar process here for the mass of First Order forces.
These videos don’t ruin the movie magic for me, more they make me appreciate the hard work and effort that creates these movies. The attention to detail and making things look just right.
I’ve not mentioned my home internet connection for a while now, since we had the FTTC fibre upgrade. The main reason is that is just works. With roughly 30Mb/s download and 9Mb/s upload speed I feel I am back, in terms of internet speeds, where I was in 2012 at our old house before we moved.
A good example is how streaming video across multiple screens just works with no buffering, whereas on our previous ADSL connection a single stream struggled. Services such as iPlayer, Netflix and Amazon Video both stream in HD with ease. We never use to be able to watch the trailers on the Apple TV, but now no problem.
When working from home I often download and upload large files, this is so simple that I don’t worry about it any more.
So I am really pleased with the FTTC connection, it just works.
I’ve had some interesting feedback when it comes to my previous blog post on my approach to Inbox Zero.
So is it really necessary to have an empty inbox when it comes to inbox zero?
No, despite the name, Inbox Zero is not just about having an empty inbox, nor is it about deleting all your e-mail so that your inbox is empty.
For me, the core principle behind Inbox Zero is about “doing” and “processing” your e-mail rather than just “checking” and “reading” your e-mail.
You can see the aim of having an empty inbox as a goal in doing this, not as an end in itself. Its about doing what needs to be done and then moving onto the next thing.
For me this is also about making the time to do the e-mail and where required I will close down Outlook (or whatever e-mail client you are using) and focus on what I need to do, without the potential interruptions of new e-mail.
A secondary aspect is having a better understanding of how e-mail can be used and when it is better not to and use a different tool.
There are lots of examples of this, moving all staff information to a tool like Yammer for example. Or instead of having a conversation through e-mail, picking up the phone or actually visiting the person at their desk or in their office.
One thing people often say to me is that they don’t have time to “visit” these other tools or spaces. It might be because they’re too busy checking their e-mail, however my view is that if they are too busy to read the Yammer feed, then they probably don’t value what is there. Sending it as an e-mail instead (or as well as) is a flawed assumption, because if they aren’t going to read it on Yammer, then why on earth will they take the time to read it as an e-mail – they’re too busy! The assumption that if it is in an e-mail people will read it, is often the rationale behind sending it as an e-mail, but talking with people, the reality is that these e-mails often get ignored or deleted. At least with a Yammer posting it’s still there and can be read later when you do have time. Similar things can be said about tools like Slack.
You aren’t always going to be able to change people’s viewpoints on e-mail, but I certainly recommend modelling the behaviour you want in others yourself. If you aren’t willing to change then how can you expect others to change.
Back in 2007 I was listening to a podcast on the TWiT network, MacBreak Weekly, and one of the podcast participants, Merlin Mann, was talking about productivity and mentioned Inbox Zero. Following the links I found the video Merlin was talking about when he talked about Inbox Zero to Google.
I wrote a blog post about this on my e-learning blog. Since then I have often thought about doing Inbox Zero and occasionally I have reached that point of an empty inbox in previous jobs, however usually I would lose the initiative and momentum to maintain Inbox Zero over the longer period.
In my current job, I have managed to reach and importantly maintain Inbox Zero for sometime now. Reflecting on this I realised that part of this is down to following the Inbox Zero process, another aspect is using different tools to reduce the quantity of e-mail in the inbox instead of using e-mail for things which it isn’t designed or suited for.
Inbox Zero is quite simple and easy to remember and follow. The core though is ever check your e-mail, but do your e-mail. What this means is that constantly checking and re-checking e-mail means you aren’t actually doing anything productive, you are spending time reading e-mails more than once.
So rather than check e-mail across the day, decide to spend time on the e-mail and for each e-mail undertake one of the following five actions:
Delete or Archive
Delegate
Respond
Defer
Do
Here is how I interpret these five actions.
Delete or archive,
With e-mails that fall into this category, rubbish stuff or notifications are immediately deleted. One of the misconceptions about Inbox Zero is that some people think it’s about deleting e-mails and that e-mail history can sometimes be useful. However that is a misconception, as well as deleting unwanted or unneeded emails the other option is once read is to archive the email. So in my inbox I have a whole series of folders which I archive into. This means I never lose an e-mail and all e-mails on specific subjects are grouped together. Occassaionlly I will copy an e-mail into more than one folder if it is appropriate to do so. Every so often I rationalise my folders and move them around or aggregate them.
An example of this is an e-mail about an event that I am not attending or relevant to my work, so it gets deleted.
Delegate
Whatever the e-mail is asking , then pass whatever action or work needs to be done to someone else or another team. I used this action as a manager a lot, less so now. What it means is to pass the e-mail to someone else, this could be a member of your team, passing it up to your manager or management team, passing onto a different team.
An example of this is when I get a request about being a pilot in a project, I pass the e-mail (forward) to the member of the team who has responsibility for pilots for them to action. I may respond to the original sender to let them know I have done this.
Respond
Simply write a reply and respond straight off. It could be a request for information, a request about something you have or haven’t done. The key here is not to procrastinate and think too long about this, or leave it, just do it, respond and get it done. I then usually archive the email to a folder. One useful thing to do is to create templates for stock answers and informations, so that you can respond more quickly.
Defer
Sometimes you can’t do something until something else has happened, or you need a response from someone else. Sometimes you need to defer as the request or task is too big 90% of the time I defer by creating a relevant task in my task management software (JIRA). Deferring should be seen as a last resort, otherwise you find your inbox will start to fill up again. If you really don’t have time to do stuff, then you should really stop “checking” your e-mail as you certainly don’t have time to do that!
Do
Just do it, go on do it, don’t wait, don’t defer, just do it and get it done. So asked to tweet something, tweet it, fill in a form, fill it in. Someone wants some text in a blog post, write the text. Someone wants a meeting, organise it. This is the powerful aspect of “doing” your e-mail rather than just “checking” it. Checking means looking, thinking I need to do that, but I don’t have time to do that. If you really don’t have time to do stuff, then you should really stop “checking” your e-mail as you certainly don’t have time to do that! Making time for e-mail means making time to get things done. One of the key messages form the video, is don’t check your e-mail, deal with your e-mail. So unless I have actual time to do stuff, I don’t check my e-mail.
Wasting time
I know that a lot of people “check” e-mail in their “dead” time, whilst waiting for a train, on the train, waiting for a meeting to start. I think this is wasting that time. It might be better to deal with a single e-mail then just going through the whole list and doing noting about them. I also think on those dead times, why not make better and more productive use of that time, listen to a podcast for example, or read a journal article instead of glancing through your list of e-mails.
Displacement
I think another factor that impacts on checking over doing, is that checking means going through all the e-mails and then deciding which ones to deal with. Often you will choose the ones that you want to deal with rather than the important or urgent emails. Using an Inbox Zero approach you deal with ALL the email you don’t pick and choose. You can use rules to flag emails and these can be dealt with first, or you can just go through them in the order they arrived.
Other tools
I find it interesting how often we default to e-mail as the main communication tool, to the point where it replaces other forms of communication or discussion. People also often use e-mail for various activities that really e-mail wasn’t designed for. So the other thing I am doing is trying to move the majority of my e-mail conversations to tools such as Slack, Confluence or Skype for Business. I find myself engaging less with email as we start to use a more diverse set of tools. A lot of internal conversations and other things people use to use e-mail for, have moved to these new tools. To a lesser extent, the same has happened for some external conversations. For many of these external conversations, Twitter and Google+ seem to have replaced some e-mail discussions and conversations. The same for other kinds of activities, such as task management and auditing. Need an update on work done so far, go to Confluence (a wiki) to have a look for example. Often people say they don’t have the time for other tools, probably because they have too much e-mail, however using other tools can be more efficient and more effective. Just think about a tool like Doodle for planning and scheduling meetings? So using the right tools in the right way means a lot less e-mail as a result. Yes you need to check those other places, but the end result is more effective and often more efficient.
So I never “check” my e-mail I always (try) to DO my e-mail.
