I picked up Tim Ferriss’ recently updated book, The 4-Hour Workweek and it is completely changing the way I run my Wordpress design business day-to-day.  No, I’m not cutting everything back so I can actually work only four hours per week, but by implementing a few of Tim’s suggestions I am doing a much better job at maximizing my time.

Email

Many people know that Tim suggests outsourcing your email in order to allow you to focus on the important tasks.  As I’m in a service-orientated business, that’s not exactly a viable option.  I can see how it could be done but I don’t see myself eliminating it as he suggests.

Instead, I’m scheduling set times to check and reply to emails.  Three times a day I download and reply to emails requiring my immediate assistance.  Ones that list tasks for projects I’m working on get a reply when I complete the requests.

Sure, I might spend the same amount of time reading and replying to my emails as I have always done, but what I am doing is eliminating the distraction of getting a new email and stopping what I was doing to read it.  It takes a while to turn your brain back on to the previous task and you are much more efficient if you finish what you are working on without taking a break.

I always took pride in replying to most of my clients emails within an hour, but now I am realizing that there is very little that requires that kind of attention.  99.99% of emails are not an emergency and can wait a few hours.

Social Media

I am a total Twitter addict.  There, I said it.  I’ve also been known to hop on Facebook to kill time and see what my friends are up to occasionally.

I’m taking a similar approach with my social media usage as I am doing with my email.  The main difference is that I’m not receiving anything that is time-sensitive through these networks.

When I’m working I turn of Tweetie and make sure any Facebook windows are closed.  I’ll hop on a few times a day and see what’s happening, and like my email, I have realized there is not much that needs my constant attention.

Text Messaging

Just like Twitter, I’m turning off my text message sounds when I’m focusing on work.  When I’m away from the computer my iPhone is always in my hands and my thumbs are getting a workout like usual though.

TV and Games

I love me some good TV.  Luckily my DVR records everything I want and I’ll take one night a week to relax and catch up on my favorite shows rather than an hour each night to find out what the hell is going on with Lost.

The Gym

No, I’m not eliminating the gym.  My workout routine is something that keeps me both sane and healthy.

I used to bring my iPhone in with me and check mail, surf the web, and post random tweets in between sets.  During a kickboxing session a few weeks ago, I ditched the iPhone and pulled out my old iPod Shuffle from my desk since it was smaller and lighter so I wouldn’t have to worry about breaking it.  What I noticed was that I flew through my workout in about 2/3 the time.

Now the iPhone stays in the car.

What about you?

Do you have any productivity tips? What things have you eliminated from your life or learned to manage better in order to be more productive and efficient?

Photo by ihtaho

• There is nothing better than seeing the world through your own eyes.
• The way I make a living and live my life isn’t the way I want to do so for the rest of my life.
• Writing a popular travel blog is hard work but very rewarding.
• Social media is awesome.
• I can run a successful business if I just put my mind to it.
• I should practice languages more before attempting to speak them.
• Getting rid of credit cards is the ultimate form of liberation.
• People who think outside the box should be listened to.  “The norm” is only so because people are too lazy or scared to try anything else.
• Huge changes and great things are in store for 2010.

Converting DVD’s to Mpeg-4 for Video Enabled Ipods

Apple has been nice enough to allow users to purchase their $29 version of Quicktime Pro that will convert any video readable by Quicktime into a compatible H.264 format for new video enabled iPods. Unfortunately this does not produce quality video in a timely manner for most users. It works decently for creating video to be viewed on the iPod screen, but many users are purchasing the new product in order to view video on TV’s. If this is the case, Quicktime Pro’s H.264 conversion is not only painfully slow, but the quality is not very good due to the video being scaled down to 320×240 or below.

For converting a DVD to the iPod I recommend using MacTheRipper (MTR) and HandBrake. MTR is not required, as HandBrake can convert the video directly from most DVD’s, but I’m paranoid and feel that this puts too much strain on my DVD drive. I prefer to use MTR to first copy the contents of a DVD onto my hard drive, and then let HandBrake takeover.

Mac The Ripper is pretty simple. Put a DVD in your drive, start it, and click go. It takes about 15-30 minutes depending on the size of the DVD and the speed of your computer.

Source:

Once that is completed, open HandBrake. When it starts, it will ask if you want to use the “Detected Volume” (a DVD in your drive) or browse for a Video_TS or Image. If you used MTR to rip the disc to your hard drive first, choose Browse for the VIDEO_TS folder. Navigate to where you saved the contents of the DVD, and open the VIDEO_TS folder. Then select “Choose”.

HandBrake will take a few seconds or so to scan the disc. Once you are at the main window, choose the title that contains the actual movie from your DVD. Typically it is the longest one.

Video:

Average bitrate (kbps) is something you’ll have to decide for yourself. If you are planning on watching this on a TV set, I recommend 1000kbps. From my tests, it seems to yield good quality at a reasonable file size. You can go higher or lower if you desire. The higher the bitrate, the better quality your video will be. If you encoding a visually stunning like the Matrix or Star Wars, you’d probably want to increase the bitrate to 1500kbps or higher. The max the iPod can handle is 2500kbps.

Select 2-pass encoding. It will take a little longer, but HandBrake will give the video a second pass and the quality will increase.

Destination:

File format should be set to MP4 file and Codecs should be set to “MPEG-4 Video / AAC Audio”

You can then browse to where you’d like to save the .mp4 file once it is finished.

Subtitles:

I haven’t tested this but it should be easy enough.

Audio:

Select Language 1. Typically the first audio track will be a 5 channel surround sound track in English. I don’t think the iPod can output surround sound so change it to a 2 channel English version if it is available. Some DVD’s only come with surround sound audio so if so you’re stuck with that. The result should be the same but you will save file size and time if you just select the 2 channel track.

Leave Language 2 as None.

A sample rate 44100Hz is fine.

Setting the bitrate to 128kbps should be fine for the majority of users, but if you are a real audiophile you can set this higher. Lower is ok as well if you want to save space.

Picture Settings:

This part will vary from disc to disc based on the aspect ratio of the movie but the idea is the same.

When playing back mpeg-4 video, Apple advertises that the iPod can display video up to 480×480. This is misleading and confusing. First of all, most video is not square. Movies on DVD are typically widescreen and TV shows are in a 4:3 ratio most of the time. You can always purchase a fullscreen version of a movie, and some TV shows are shot in widescreen so you’ll just have to check.

The reality behind how the iPod handles mpeg-4 is not that it requires video to be 480×480, but instead it can display a maximum of 230,000 pixels (480×480=230,000).

So pull out your handy dandy calculator and figure out what your video’s pixel count is. I chose the movie Anchorman to use as an example and it’s resolution is 720×480 which equals 345,600 pixels. A bit too much for the iPod to handle.

Click the down arrow on the width parameter a couple times and do the math. You want to highest number of pixels possible, but under 230,000. For this movie, it was 624×336 which equals 209,664. HandBrake will automatically choose the aspect ratio if you have the check box selected.

That is about all you have to do in this window. Some users suggest Deinterlacing the picture if it is TV show, but I could not tell a difference when trying it out on Arrested Development.

Click close and go back to the main window. Once there, click RIP and be patient. On my Dual 2.0 G5 it takes about 20 minutes to convert a half-hour episode of Arrested Development, as as I write this, Anchorman is about halfway through it’s first pass and it’s only been about 20 or 30 minutes. It says that the ETA is about 3 minutes, but I know that it will take much longer than that. For some reason HandBrake doesn’t calculate the remaining time left very well.

Once it is done, all you have to do is drag the resulting .mp4 file into your iTunes library, and then into your iPod. You can set the tags for the file in iTunes if you like to better organize it.

What about converting Xvid files? For this I recommend using ffmpegX. Once it is installed it is pretty simple to use. Drag your Xvid file to the big place where it says “Drop file here”. Make note of the Video aspect ratio. It varies from video to video.

On the Target side, click the drop down menu for To and select “.MP4 mpeg-4″.

Head over to the Video tab and look at the Video Size. My file’s aspect ratio was 512×336 which is well under the 230,000 pixel count required, but for some ffmpegX automatically set it to 16:9 which will shrink the video to 512×288. This would look pretty funny. I chose 3:2 which is 512×336. It won’t need to resize the video at all which is a good thing. If you don’t need to resize your video, you can select one of the Autosize presets if it matches your video size, or go down to Unconstrained and type in the aspect ratio of your video.

Once you are finished with that click on the Audio tab. I prefer at least 128kbps. You can leave the Sampling to 48000Hz or go down to 44100Hz if you like. My file is already at 48000hz so I’m going to leave it there. The less work it has to do the better. The filesize and quality difference is probably negligible.

After that I recommend going to the Options tab and selecting Two-pass encoding. This gives you better video quality but takes a little while longer to encode.

After that just click Encode and wait.

Converting Xvid files to Mpeg-4 for the iPod is much faster than converting it to H.264. I encoded a 20 minute episode of American Dad in about 9 minutes and a 45 minute episode of Wanted in about 28 minutes. Not bad ‘eh? The file sizes are pretty close to the original Xvid versions, which is fine with me since I bought the big bad 60gb iPod.

I hope this solves some of the issues that people have been having with getting video on this sucker. Everybody seems to be focusing on H.264, but I feel that Mpeg-4 is better suited for task.

-Enjoy!

I submitted my previous entry about stuck pixels to Digg and to my surprise it made the frontpage within the hour.

Digg is a pseudo-tech news site that allows users to submit stories. The digg community choses which stories make the front page, not an editor. It’s a great site with lots of interesting, amusing, and entertaining content. I’ve added a list to the right side of this site that displays the articles I’ve found interesting and ‘dugg’.

I upgraded my old Apple Powerbook to a new model last month and have been enjoying the increased speed, larger hard drive, dvd burning superdrive, and new two finger scrolling trackpad. Other than that, it’s basically the same old laptop.

It’s been getting plenty of use this week since school started, but while at work the other day, I noticed a red stuck pixel near the center of the screen. It was only noticeable when watching movies, but I do that quite often so I was extremely disappointed. Well aware of the lack of support for pixel anomalies from LCD and laptop makers, I searched for my own solution. Generally, manufacturers don’t support LCD screens with stuck or dead pixels unless they are in excess of about 5.

I ran across a color flashing video for the Sony PSP. I used the same video to try and fix my first PSP, but it didn’t work. I figured it was worth a shot though. I let it run for about 30 minutes to no avail. I also read about massaging the area so I gently rubbed the spot a little but that too did not do anything.

Last night I decided to let the video run on a loop while I slept (you can do this in Quicktime). I set it up and figured I’d rub the spot a little bit. This time I used my Monster iClean cleaning cloth instead of my dirty finger. I massaged the area for about 30 seconds while the video was flashing and the pixel started working perfectly.

In all honesty, I don’t know if it was the flashing, the massaging, or the combination of both, but I’m glad it works. I don’t know if this will help anybody, but it’s worth a shot. Give it a try and let me know if it helps!

If you’d like the color flashing video, I’m hosting it here (right click and save file to your hard drive). Good luck!

I recorded the Sundance Channel’s Anatomy Of A Scene for Garden State and encoded it for your viewing pleasure. Requires Quicktime 6.5.

This scene doesn’t really spoil the movie, but I am glad I saw it after I watched the movie. Watch at your own discretion.

Please right click and save the file to your computer.

Anatomy Of A Scene Garden State – LOW – 18.1mb
Anatomy Of A Scene Garden State – HIGH – 50.9mb

Comment if you can mirror these files because I know my bandwidth is about to skyrocket!

I filmed some good body boarding footage at the Wedge yesterday and made this video last night. It’s MPEG 1, VCD Quality. 47mb, so it’s a bit of a download but I think it’s worth it! Music by Amber Sky.

Body Boarding at the Wedge

Too bed I go. It’s way too late and I’m getting up in 4 hours to go ride some waves at the Wedge tomorrow.

Update: I fractured my neck and nearly died.

Pictures at last!

Pictures from my trip to Europe

There is over 500 so I’ll be surprised if anybody actually looks at them all, but thanks for at least checking them out.

They aren’t labeled where they are or anything. You can figure a lot of them out. Here is a list of the places I went, in order, so you can at least get a good idea.

Paris

– 1st museum in Paris is the Louvre
– 2nd museum in Paris is Musee D’Orsay

Venice

– Lido Island
– Burano Island

Florence

– Uffizi Museum
– Fiesole (with great views of Florence)

Pisa

Cinque Terra (all the shots of the water and anything green was shot in Cinque Terra!)

Rome

– Coliseum
– Forum Ruins
– Trevi Fountain

Vatican

– Vatican Museum