40 Sleep Hacks: The Geek's Guide to Optimizing Sleep, (A Book Review)
The other day, in one of my epic odesseys across the internet, much like the xkcd comic:
I came across a fantastic book,
Its called (as you may have already noticed) 40 Sleep Hacks, The Geek's Guide to Optimizing sleep
Immediately it appealed to me, the title is fantastic, and a great example of targeting your intended audience!
The book starts as most books do, with a title page, followed by a table of contents, and About and legal info, then jumps straight into the sleep hacks,
The beginning is relatively straightforward, especially if, like me you have researched into improving your sleep quality,
The first few are a bit "duh!" but at the same time, they are presented in a refreshing light, in a way that slaps you across the top of the head in the sort of manner of "yeah, well if you already knew it, why aren't you doing it!"
So the first few look at preserving an efficient circadian rythym, and looking after your zeitgerbers.
Not only do they have great insights in the first few tips, they also provide external references, and discuss how the techniques work for insomniacs with 26 or 27 hour+ circadian rythyms.
So, I'm already enthralled in this book, and lo-and behold, Sleep hack 3 quotes a great source. XKCD. fantastic.
Sleep hack four provides great information on Polyphasic sleep and a link to a book by Claudio Stampi (a noted sleep researcher), the book is unfortunately out of print, but fortunately they have provided a link to download a pdf of his book, "Why We Nap"
The book contains a truck load of studies on polyphasic and ultrashort sleep.
Once it covers the basics, it goes on to discuss diet, and covers some very important basics that many of us (myself included) were not fully aware o
After Dieting it goes on to discuss nap mastery, then the ultimate, the Caffeine nap :D I love these,
effectively you drink coffee, go to sleep before it kicks in, you wake up naturally about 30 minutes later feeling boosted and with a mild euphoria.
It then gets into the really geeky stuff, where to download nap tracks, and how to generate your own sleep inducing MP3's.
The book then goes on to discuss dreaming and creativity, seriously interesting topics such as Lucid Dreaming, Hypnagogia,
Overclocking your brain and dream journals.
The next step covers your sleep environment, it then moves on to SLEEP GADGETS!
theres a range of sleep gadgets, some of them straight forward and obvious, others, well no so abvious.
Section 7 covers psychology.
There is some great tips, all backed by verifiable studies, regarding;
* how to improve the quality of your sleep,
* how to train your brain to wake up to alarms,
* maintaining a positive attitude,
* the art of slow wave sleep and how to harness this to ensure you wake up in a state of mild euphoria,
It then finishes off with some great hacks on lifestyle.
Overall, this book is a great resource for achieving better sleep and its really well written, in such a way that it engages my geekiness and hooks me into the whole "just one more" when it comes to reading the hacks.
I highly recommend it.
you can download the E-Book here: http://www.sleepwarrior.com/sleep-hacks-ebook
its completely free, you do need to sign up for the news letter though,
I believe its also available via torrent from various e-book torrent suppliers, but I'd personnally go via the website (this e-book is free to distribute)
the website www.sleepwarrior.com has some other great articles as well
A new spam storm - time to disable e-mail bounce messages?
My mailbox managed to fill itself with more than 1700 spam messages over night. The vast majority of those actually are bounce or 'blocked' messages ("Could not send message...", "Your message was blocked because...", "Undeliverable mail returned..."... (more in the full post)
Telecom... 850MHz WCDMA/HSDPA announcement coming?
Rumours are going around that Telecom New Zealand will announce tomorrow nationwide deployment of 850 MHz UMTS (WCDMA/HSDPA).
Telecom's original plans were for 850MHz GSM/EDGE in rural areas and 2100MHz WCDMA in the cities.
Let's see what is happening, tomorrow...
Web Futures panel at Microsoft Tech Ed New Zealand 2008
I found references to this "Web Futures" panel session in Darryl's blog last night, and since I couldn't find an agenda I reached out to him asking for more details on when this session would be happening.The Web Futures panel is happening ... (more in the full post)
4 Minutes To Compromise
How fast can you download all of the latest patches? Well, if you were to install Windows from scratch on a PC, then connect to the Internet to download all...
Scott Hanselman speaking at Blogger Dinner during Microsoft Tech Ed New Zealand 2008
I just got my hotel booking and air tickets confirmation today, so I will be coming to the Microsoft Tech Ed New Zealand 2008 for sure.I will be landing in Auckland on Sunday 31st August, and attending the speakers' dinner on that evening.<... (more in the full post)
Cancel the Bubble FAIL alert: good response from all involved
Well, look at this. I've posted yesterday about some problems with my Flickr PRO account (courtesy of the Premium Services offered by Telecom to its Xtra customers).
The response was great. First friends posted here and in the Geekzone forums about their own account status. I also got some of their status through Twitter.
It seemed it was a single incident - so your accounts should be safe.
I contacted Telecom Help Desk via e-mail and received a reply in less than 45 minutes - very good if you ask me. The answer wasn't quite what I expected though, so I had to contact Flickr directly.
At the same time someone in the Telecom team escalated the issue to the Yahoo! Flickr team.
Sometime this morning my account was reprovisioned with the correct PRO status, while some time later Tara from the Yahoo! Flickr team contacted me to say all was in working order. Tara even posted in our Geekzone forums to confirm this.
Seriously, when the account problem showed up I thought this would be a black hole - having to deal with a third party help desk, account issues, etc. But it all worked well, in a really fast way.
Overall great work from Telecom and the Yahoo! team - and in what I think it's great time.
Hold on to your personal data - you never know where it will end up
As if we needed another reminder of why it is a good idea not to hand over personal data when it can be avoided: Apparently, a laptop containing unencrypted and highly sensitive data about 33,000 travelers was stolen. Governments like to make us beli... (more in the full post)
Prepare for another bubble FAIL: Yahoo!Xtra cancelling Flickr PRO status?
UPDATE: read the bottom for an update.
Arghhh. When are things going to look good for the Telecom Yahoo!Xtra team and their included premium services? Ive just posted this in our Geekzone forums and contacted Telecom - someone is looking into this now:
Hi freitasm_xtra,
Your Flickr Pro account expired on . You have 316 photos but you're now only seeing the last 200!
Perhaps you'd like to renew your Pro account?
You'll even get 3 months free for purchasing before 30 September 2008!
You can learn more here:
http://flickr.com/yay/comeback/3mo/
The Flickreenos
No date in the "expired on", and indeed my PRO status is gone. Another storm coming? Or is just my account?
I contacted the Telecom support and received a response, which is obviously not good enough. I don't think I should be contacting Flickr since this is a Telecom service:
I am sorry to hear about your Flickr Pro account has been cancelled. Unfortunately we do not support the Flickr here, I would need to refer your to the help section within www.flickr.com/help/ There is a "contact us" option on this page that maybe your best option.
I can confirm that your Xtra account is all active and can see no reason why you shouldn't have a valid Flickr account.
UPDATE: After talking to someone at Telecom New Zealand the case was escalated to Yahoo! in the U.S. It looks like there aren't any other cases of accounts being cancelled so let's see how it goes - waiting for my account to be reinstated.
UPDATE: The Flickr team at some point reprovisioned the account and it is all fine again. Also their team member Tara posted in the forums to confirm this was ok.
Vista Firewall Control
Vista Firewall Control by Sphinx Software makes it much easier to configure the built-in Vista firewall.
There is a free version of Vista Firewall Control available. The free version provides a way to monitor all your applications trying to make connections to the internet.
You can protect your applications from undesirable network incoming and outgoing activity. You can also control controls applications internet access. Allows you to control personal information leakage via controlling application network traffic.
It's also available for portable and U3 devices. Avaiable for both Vista 32 and 64 bit.
Features :-
- Designed for Windows Vista
- IPv6 support
- Zone based network permissions management
- Integration with Window Explorer for direct access permission management
- Integration with Windows Security Center
- Instant notifications of blocked activity
- Free versions available
- Special editions for portable devices (USB flash/HDD drives, iPod etc)
- Special editions for U3 smart devices
- Protection from incoming and outgoing threats
- External network connection (firewall/router) box support
- Automatic network connection box detection/management
- External/worldwide access to selected local application
- Port Forwarding management
- Automatic Port Forwarding-to-applications synchronization
- Simplicity of operation
- Per-application security settings
- Group zone and application network access permission management
Refurbished Laptop experiences from Apple Online
I had posted this a while ago on the forums but I feel it's as much a review/blog post and thought I would also update it with my long term experiences.
Recently purchased a refurbished MacBook Pro via Apples online store.
I was a little unsure of how 'refurbished' my new laptop would be - is it second hand? is it a lemon from someone else?
If there was one reason I could be reasonably sure of quality is that all refurbs come with the standard 12 month international warranty and Applecare can be added at anytime in the first 12 months. Giving you 3 years total hardware coverage available anywhere in the world. The cost of Applecare does increase the price by another $495 - and it's a must have. My last MacbookPro purchase was a 17" 1st Gen MacBookPro - and after 2 years of problems has the whole machine replaced via Applecare. Although not perfect, the service from Apple was complete and I feel you do get a more complete warranty cover than other Notebook brands.
Anyway, back to the refurb, I had heard stories that some people recieved units in America with (*gasp*) fingerprints on it but over all found an almost new computer. Apple was listing a current generation 15" Macbook Pro (2.4Ghz C2D Penryn, 2gb, 200gb HD, 8600GT 256MB) listed at 22% off the RRP.
No matter how 'used' the computer could be, these models were only introduced 6 months ago, I knew the machine couldn't be that beat up. So I ordered the computer.
It was 4.06pm on Monday.
It arrived 10.31am Tuesday (yes the very next day).
From Sydney!
Seriously scary service! I've order things from Auckland and they've taken longer to arrive. Shipping is done via TNT and all the necessary taxes are dealt with on Apples end. A paper reciept arrives a week later via the snail mail, funnily enough my credit card was charges as 'iTunes New Zealand'.
As it's a refurb, the unit came in a nondiscript whte box, with the computer surrounded in some solid yet basic padding and a long white Apple branded box (with all the standard cables/DVD/clothes inside).
Leopard was installed by default (as it is on all refurbs from Apple).
I took the computer out and it looked mint. I gave it a smell, it smelled brand new (you know the smell). It looked brand new. To be honest you wouldn't know it wasn't a fresh out of the box orginal if I threw it in a similar box.
The battery was brand new (as was the power adaptor) and showed 1 charge.
I don't need to take you on a full review of the comp, I've written this to pass on my experience of Apple Refurbishments more than cover a 15" MacbookPro. So I got what seems to be a brand new $NZ3200 laptop for $2499 - A real bargin. I would highly recommended this way to get a good deal on a Mac. If you want to see what current deals are available look for the link on the bottom left side of the site - there's plenty of iMacs, Macbooks/MacbookPro's and even Air's and AppleTV's.
And finally, what's broke? theres a couple of slight issues
The left side USB port isn't quite flush with the casing. This is inside the case not outside, and the plug still fits all the USB cables I've tried, so it as much an aesthetic (and microscopic) issue.
Also I've had a total of 4 occourances of a strange banding in the bottom of the screen similar to the pic below. It isn't life threatening and looks likely to be software more than hardware. I could kick up a fuss and get it replaced but for now it's just not a biggie.
Since buying this my flatmate also took advantage of the same deal (15" MacBook Pro) and his came in exactly the same state - a seemingly brand new laptop and a lower price.
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