I've been writing about continuous improvement, habits and productivity since 2007.

Day One: 3 Days/ 3 Positive Things Challenge

Thanks Doc Iris Isip-Tan for nominating me. I breezed through day 1 🙂

1. Family. Finally had time to sit down and plan about Russel. Yes, that bright (and pogi ) kid said He need some pampering. 🙂

2. Work. Almost done with a project proposal today (wink). Hopefully, this will put food on our tables (mine and the people I work with) 🙂

3. Social Media. Worked on 5 blogs, created 2 social media communities/pages, tweaked 2 emails, streamlined some social media accounts. It was fun, engaging people and empowering others.

Hopefully tomorrow, monday will be as cool as today 🙂

And since I mentioned life areas (for me at least) above, I’m nominating people from those areas! Let’s see what you can share Russel Aguilar, Josephine Raras, Avel Manansala!

 

By • September 1, 2014

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Solid state drive (SSD) upgrade for your unibody Macbook Pro

Next to a memory upgrade, an SSD drive is probably the next bang-for-the-buck upgrade you have to make on your hackintosh. I’ve upgraded my hackintoshes recently and frankly, I’ve never been as happy.

The 50% less boot up time and loading of apps is remarkable. I encountered a few hiccups during the upgrade but I manage to run the hackintosh after a few trials. Occasionally I get freeze ups and sudden reboots, but I pretty damn understand my hardware isn’t the best there is for a mac.  Still, the markedly reduced boot up time and noticeably faster loading of apps is fantastic.

A do it yourself  SSD upgrade for Macbooks, especially the retina ready later models, is not for the faint hearted. Generally, If you’re not ready to waste your Macbook, don’t do it. Have the professionals do it for you. Repairing Macbooks are a tad difficult, not to mention expensive. It does require some technical skills mind you.

It can be done though. It will present some unique challenges and it will require a ton of patience, luck and willingness to learn! I will share how I did my upgrades in my future posts!

By • June 1, 2014

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Top 10 reasons to try “breakfast meetings”

There’s a staff breakfast meeting scheduled at 7:30AM today. Most doctors start their day early doing rounds or  in the operating room for surgeons.We’re fresh, vibrant and full of energy in the mornings!

But meetings in the morning? Why?

  • Most people are generally happy in the morning. We wanted to start our day positive and hope to sustain this throughout the day.
  • We are generally more receptive and creative in the morning.
  • You need someone to traffic or sort out these creative ideas. A good problem nonetheless.
  • Humor and funny lines seem to work more in the morning.
  • You have better chances of connecting solutions to a string of problems.
  • Nobody seem to notice how time flies when you start meetings early in the morning. Unlike at the end of the day where everyone seem eager to fly out of the door.
  • There’s plenty of good food and coffee around, yet only a few eat and do coffee breaks. It is less distracting.
  • Humans tend to pee more in the morning, so it’s good to have a restroom nearby.
  • You don’t need a grand presentation but people seem to get the message more accurately.
  • People who attend early morning meetings seem to be also the ones who gives the best feedback you can get.

These are just some stuff I’ve rediscovered. And I’m betting this is somehow connected with the effective Filipino trait of socializing early in the morning and make good friends to start our day with!

(Featured image credit to Fix Willpower)

By • December 17, 2013

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10 Things you should NOT DO when installing OSX Maverick on an Intel PC

Note: If you’re looking for a guide or how to install OSX on intel PC hardware, sorry you’re on the wrong page. The net is overflowing with information on this topic, there’s no point adding one more.

This post will lessen your sleepless nights over kernel panics and will make installing Maverick on your Intel PC a bit more enjoyable than frustrating.

You should NOT:

  1. Forget to check OSX hardware compatibility list (HCL). OSX is quite unforgiving with hardware – processor, motherboard, video cards, sound cards, WIFI cards and recently with bluetooth dongles. Sometimes, buying a “compatible” but a bit expensive peripheral pays off better than hacking kexts. Unless you’re into hacking kexts and not installing OSX primarily.
  2. Jump at an installation method just because it is popular. Unibeast-Multibeast installation method by Tony Mac is a lot easy and popular, it’s a shame though it didn’t work for my rig. I got the boot:0 error. Myhack method fixed that and a few more kinks (like trashing off some useless kexts off the vanilla maverick installation app).
  3. Cheap out on your USB installation drive. Choose a Hi speed 8G (or more) USB drive  to install OSX on your rig. Faster USB drive means faster installation and will save your hours off the waiting! The usual 15 minutes on a high speed quality USB is equivalent to an hour or more in a cheapo USB.
  4. Snub the Solid State Drive! Of all the investments you will make on your PC parts,SSD (as a primary OSX drive) will do wonders on your boot up time and app run time!
  5. Stick those WIFI cards, Bluetooth dongles and sound card into your rig’s slots just because it works flawlessly with windoze. Apple has this habit of nipping out hardware unceremoniously off its HCL . Read, read and read some more. If you still chose to put them inside your rig, make sure you have the right kexts (drivers) and the right method to install it.
  6. Complicate your installation by adding all those hard drives while installing a Maverick. Plug in your primary OSX drive only and install first on that drive. Add you’re other drives later. On the other hand, do not install OSX Maverick using a bluetooth keyboard, trackpad or mouse. If your bluetooth won’t work, I don’t know how will you can proceed with your OSX installation.
  7. Push your luck! find a compatible video card and don’t complain to apple your VC is not supported.
  8. Forgot the UEFI, or bios boot program settings. Set your IDE/drive state to “AHCI” or “enhanced” and OS to “plug and play”. If you have virtualization, turn it off!
  9. Shun off the boot flags or the boot commands. Some peripherals will work with addition of boot flags. If you’re stuck with kernel panics, the boot flags will help you troubleshoot and identify the culprit, which is usually an incompatible hardware.
  10. Forget installing your bootloader during Multibeast post installation. Sounds really crazy but yes I made this mistake many times before. The boot error on restart is just awful to say at least. So make sure you have a bootloader installed on your target disk!

I know this is neither exhaustive nor a finished list of don’ts. It will never be. However, taking these warnings saves you half of the installation frustrations than when you don’t heed it. Of course thats just approximate, but if you want to risk precious time, go ahead try your luck. 🙂

By • November 28, 2013

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