Changing people’s behavior isn’t hard, it just takes some imagination and innovative ways. We go through our daily lives following a set of unwritten rules, socially acceptable behaviors. When things change, we’re not sure how to react. Watch this video to see how people’s behavior changed when a new variable is added.

On a more personal note, there’s a similar display at Seattle airport. The water fountain plays a gurgling sound when you press the button.

via Piano Staircase {The Fun Theory}

I owned the original 1st gen MacBook Air (refurbished). It overheated and I had to have the logicboard replaced. Even after the replacement, the fan would constantly run and after a while, it slowed to a screeching halt. My Mac was basically unusable for anything more than simple web browsing. As a result, I was a little put off with the MacBook Air line.

After testing the 11″ MacBook Air at the Apple Store (telling the employees I didn’t need help and was just “playing”), I decided to get an early Christmas present. I opted for the smaller model because it’s really portable, similar in size to an iPad. I’ve always been a fan of ultraportable laptops.

Performance

It’s fast. Considering that it’s relatively underpowered compared to similarly price laptops and the MacBook Pro line, I’m surprised of how usable it really can be. I worked on an iMovie, moved a lot of files as I migrated systems, and worked on a few documents with no problems. I don’t plan on doing any intensive photo editing or movie editing. This is my basic document production and writing tool.

Battery Life

After unplugging it for the first time, the estimate showed 8 hours of available battery. It quickly averaged out to four and three hours after I started some processes. Overall, I’ve been using it all night without plugging in. No problem at all.

Portability

It’s really small. I don’t even have a spot in my current bag to hold it. It’s that small. It’s thin, but feels very solid. The one piece aluminum construction is amazing.

Negatives

There’s very few negatives with this, but here’s a random list of things I’ve noticed so far:

• The 11″ screen is really wide but short. The high resolution makes everything smaller. Fortunately, I have really good eyes.
• The function keys are a third the size of regular keys. Fortunately, I don’t use them much.
• There’s no backlight on the keys. Fortunately, I can touch type.
• The magsafe power plug can block the left USB port if plugged in one direction. The other way is no problem.
• There’s no video out cables included. You’ll have to buy your own.
• I won’t be able to take this out in public without being ambushed.
• Very little disk space because of flash storage (either 64 GB or 128 GB). Either store your files on the cloud or clean house.

Interesting to note

• Apple ships the MacBook Air with a USB drive including OS X and iLife. No more DVD/CD install disks. Yay!
• Flash isn’t installed. Apple says that Flash is bad for battery life.
• You won’t get the full benefit of the MacBook Air until OS X Lion is released next year.

Conclusions

Overall, I completely recommend the MacBook Air for all but superusers. It’s good enough for normal tasks, runs fast, small and portable, and has good battery life.

I just received my Alkr Messenger bag from a company in Germany. They were formed in 2009 to address a missing market, the gadget geeks. I own an iPad, iPhone, laptop, and various other accessories I carry to work remotely. I was looking for a bag that would carry and protect all my gear. The laptop pocket has a feux fur liner to protect the equipment.

The main compartment is huge. I can store several days of clothes in there if needed. The bag is designed to be snug on the body for urban travel. It’s very soft and doesn’t hold it shape like a regular briefcase bag. If you’re looking for that, check out their briefcase bag.

I’ll check back in after a few weeks of field use and report on the quality.

Here’s the box it arrived, including the import sticker.

This is the messenger bag front. The white horizontal line is the front outer pocket. I love being able to reach for my frequently used items without having to open the bag.

It has a really unique blue inner lining.

Here’s the logo.

You know a bag is good when it has a pocket dedicated to holding an iPad. Awesome!

Early, I posted 10 essential business apps for a traveling consultant. Since then, I’ve gotten my hands on several new apps that have enhanced my productivity while mobile.

CardSnap Business Card Scanner ($14.99)
Most of the business card readers on the app store do the OCR (optical character recognition) using the phone’s relatively slow processor. For something as intense as reading and interpreting text from a business card to the iPhone’s contacts, the hardware just isn’t equipped to handle that. To use CardSnap, you take a picture of the business card (must have 3GS or phone with focusing case) and upload it to CardSnap’s servers. Their servers do the work and humans validate the data when the system doesn’t work. Think Amazon’s mechanical turk. I found the accuracy to be acceptable, however, requiring me to manually intervene on some cards.

DropBox (Free)
While many online data storage and syncing systems are available, DropBox continues to be my go to service for its ease of use. I have the software installed on my different laptops which syncs my files to the cloud. Using the iPhone app, I can pull up the files and review them just before a meeting. This is especially useful on a short haul flight where I don’t want to pull out the laptop and only want to do a practice run prior to the presentation. DropBox works with most file types and can open almost anything on the iPhone.

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photo credit: Chris Blakeley

Travel Tracker Pro ($8.99)
This is the all in one tool, better known for their Palm app, but been available for the iPhone. A bit “expensive” but my go to travel tool. It integrates with tripit.com to keep me updated on my flights, flight status, and tracking expenses. There’s a lot of other functionality that I haven’t had a chance to use yet, such as travel lists. I just created a pre-flight packing check list for things like toiletries, ticket, clothes, laptop, etc.

WordPress 2 (Free)
Most of my blogs are on the WordPress platform and this free app allows me to write/update posts, but more importantly, respond to comments. While it’s possible to update a blog (I do for my cat at mochicutie.com), it’s not very practical to write full posts while mobile. Instead, it’s very useful to read new comments and respond back.

GPS
There’s no recommendation here because I have yet to find anything that works better than the standard Google Maps. Hoping and waiting for Apple to approve the Google Navigation app.

One more bonus tip: I use Google 411 by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411 to do the voice directory search. It’s free and fairly accurate, useful when you’re driving (use a headset).

As a consultant, I put in long hours and a lot of travel. By the time I get home, doing chores and household tasks isn’t on the top of my list. In an effort have more quality time during the weekends, rather than catching up on chores, I opted to engage in some outsourcing services. Below are five ways to automate and outsource domestic activities:

1. Hire a housekeeper. One of the most cost effective chore to outsource is cleaning. A typical maid/housekeeper service will cost about $50 – $75 per session. The cost and services performed is negotiated. Services include dusting, wipe all surfaces down, vacuum, clean bathroom, clean kitchen, load dishwasher, clean stovetop, wipe refrigerator surfaces, clean baseboards, clean doors, and overall tiding everything up. I opted for every two week (although I would love to have weekly service). By the end of my two weeks, my home is a nightmare and when I return home from work, it’s sparkling clean. It’s the same feeling I get when I stay at a hotel and return after housekeeper comes through.
2. Replenish supplies with Alice. Almost everything you need can be purchased online, including books, music, movies, and so on. For household supplies, we still get in our car and take a trip to Target/Safeway. Instead, consider using Alice, an online tool that lets you purchase household goods direct from the vendor. They use their sourcing tools to get you the best price, and even apply coupons when available. You can even specify the frequency that you go through certain goods, such as every two weeks for toilet paper. Alice will automatically set up orders to replenish your inventory. Finally, it’s free shipping, making the economics of ordering supplies feasible.
3. Get fruits and vegetables delivered weekly. Where I live, Farm Fresh To You delivers packages of seasonal fruits and vegetables grown from local farms. During off season, they source the produce from other locations. You can easily stock up on groceries and save money by buying in bulk, however, produce cannot be stocked up. Using this service, I ensure that I get the best produce weekly and reduce time spent at the grocery store stocking up on perishables.
4. Have your groceries delivered. Remember the craze during the dot com era where online grocery ordering was all the rage? You can still order the bulk of your groceries online. Some traditional grocery stores now offer delivery service. Safeway offers most items, including meats, fruits, and vegetables.
5. Outsource your laundry. Most laundromats offer some type of fluff and fold service. This typically includes sorting your clothes, wash, dry, and fold (match socks as well). I’ve seen prices averaging about $1.25 per pound (which can add up in cost). Add delivery service to the mix and you have completely outsourced your laundering duties.

When traveling, I always prefer to visit the local coffee shops to get a sense of the local community and the uniqueness of each city. While the national chains, such as Starbucks, offers consistency no matter where you go, the local mom & pop shops offers a little more personal touch. Below are two of my favorite coffee shops in the Bay Area.

Awaken Cafe

414 14 Street
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 836-2058

Awaken Cafe is a local East Bay favorite in downtown Oakland. It offers art, community, and sustainable coffee. They have a variety of organic, fair trade coffee that they freshly grind on site. Rather than plain brewed coffee, they use a French Press, giving their regular coffee a grittier hearty taste. Enjoy your coffee, knowing that Awaken uses 100% recycled cups that are fully compostable and lids that are made from potatoes and break down in 30 to 45 days. If you’re around, you can toss your cup away in their composting bin. While you’re waiting for your coffee to be made, also check out the ever changing artwork hung up in gallery style from local artists.

Philz Coffee

3101 24th St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 875-9370

Philz Coffee has over 25 different roasts and each cup of coffee is hand made, meaning it’s brewed specifically for you. While a typical “brewed” coffee comes out to be $3 for a small cup, the quality and freshness can’t be beat. After you pick from the huge range of available coffee, even Jamaican Blue Mountain ($7  a cup!), you order your size and how you want your coffee: plain, cream, sugar, in addition to traditional espresso styles. The barista carefully grinds your coffee, loads up the coffee filter, gently fills it with hot water, and with care, slightly shakes the filter around to get an optimal brew. When it’s done, she’ll pour it out into a cup, back into the container, and back into your cup again, filling your cup with air and goodness.

Earlier this week, Google announced the release of their new communication tool, Google Wave. It’s already available for the select group of developers who attended the Google I/O convention. I’m going to take a chance now and say that it’s going to be big. Up until now, Google has separately released a number of powerful, but siloed tools. This includes gmail, calendar, contacts, chat, docs, and a host of other one off applications. All have been web-based and hosted on Google servers. While each tool has been incredibly powerful, they lacked the true integration that kept them from becoming a realistic competitor to enterprise business applications like Office.

From the 1:20 demo, we can see the first proof of concept of the new features. They include real time collaboration, language tools for contextual spell check, and extension to other mediums like blogs. Think of this tool as Facebook, except its everywhere and not limited to just one isolated social networking site.

Reasons why Google Wave may change the way we work

1. It looks like local software. The way you interact with Google Wave mimics so closely to native desktop applications, you’ll forget you’re using a browser.
2. It’s on the cloud. Data is stored safely in Google’s data centers. No need to worry about backing up and syncing.
3. Collaboration. Until now, collaborating on a document meant only one person could work on it at a time. You’d track changes, send the document to a reviewer who would review the changes, make more changes, send it back. This process repeats, some versions are lost and duplicated. Instead, Google Wave allows for real time collaboration on a document.
4. Open source. This isn’t going to be proprietary software. Google is making all the programing API’s available for limitless extensions and plug ins.
5. Mobile. You can take it with you on the road on your iPhone, or Google preferred Android phone.

Business Applications

This may be the first time that Google Wave will force business to take a hard look at their enterprise application strategy. Using web-based software significantly reduces the IT support cost for maintaining licenses and desktop configuration. Google Apps for the enterprise was only the first model. Google Wave may make this a truly robust enterprise solution for information workers and much improved collaboration.

I have already submitted a request to be a beta tester. Watch the demo after the jump.