We’re even more focused and committed to our Anywhere Points service, which will be run through Synderesis Technologies. Yeah, we’ve announced before that it was coming, but this time we’re looking at reality – the first half of this year we’re looking for our first deployment.

We’d also like to focus more on Anywhere Points and other new businesses, and provide more selective service to our customers – meaning we won’t be working for just anyone.

As for this website, you’ll notice some changes in terms of content as we move forward. You’ll also notice that we’ve added CAPCHA to our comments; while this may be an annoyance to some, this is a great relief for us in terms of filtering through comment spam.

This means that Shambler Media Corp. will be transitioning to more of a holding company in terms of its operations. We’re really excited about the change in focus, structure, and the opportunities looking forward. There are even more changes to come!

It’s a subject that is becoming increasingly important as we continue forward into the internet age where information is more easily and readily available. While easier access to information is great, at the same time it’s also becoming easier than ever to become distracted. We’re not just talking about the latest cute cat video on YouTube either. There are many things that on the surface may seem harmless but can in actuality be detrimental to working efficiently. These include checking Twitter, your RSS news feed, or even emails.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with taking mental breaks throughout the workday—and let’s face it, it’s necessary—but being able to maintain your focus and tackle your to-do list efficiently will leave you happier and feeling more accomplished at the end of the day. What’s more, this applies not only to the workplace, but outside it as well with family, friends, events, and errands. We hear of many ways people attempt to keep their focus during the day, varying from tackling their most dreaded task first, to timed work-break cycles, and for the telecommuting crowd, even setting their home router to block certain websites (such as Facebook, Twitter, or Digg) during certain times of the day. All of these methods have their own pros and cons, however in this post I’d like to take a specific look at productivity itself.

As luck would have it, people have been studying the art of being productive for a very long time now and have come up with many ideas on the subject. If you’ve looked into productivity lately, chances are you’ve seen or heard of a book (and methodology) called Getting Things Done written by David Allen. His methodology revolves around sorting tasks beyond simple prioritization, also taking into account the context required for each item. There is also strong emphasis on breaking down larger tasks into smaller pieces, as well as frequent reviews in order to keep your to-do list relevant. Overall, it is a fantastic strategy for accomplishing tasks efficiently and with the least stress.

Since this methodology (and others) have gained attention, many software applications have been created to help implement them. For a long time I used a program called OmniFocus ($79, Free 14-day trial, Mac only). However recently I’ve switched to a program called Things ($49.95, Free 15-day trial, Mac only) because prefer it’s interface. However, there are many alternatives that can be used on Windows and Linux, or even across all three with a web-based application called Remember the Milk. Regardless of your preferred application to implement the GTD method, your life will surely be less stressful and more productive as a result.

Synergy+ allows you to share one mouse and keyboard among multiple computers. While it’s a little buggy and we needed to do a little bit of tweaks here and there, I’ve found that it works pretty nicely if the server machine is a Windows machine (my “server machine” runs Windows 7 x64 Ultimate). It eliminates the need for a KVM switch, and allows you to use multiple machines more easily through one mouse+keyboard set. It’s a great piece of software if you’ve got multiple machines at one workstation all networked together, and I really recommend checking it out!

However, I found that the latest (unstable) version wasn’t working – it would crash and I had problems getting the server software to work at all. The takeaway is that for software projects under development such as Synergy+ or Linux distributions – the latest version (especially alpha or beta versions) may not always be the best for your machine or situation, and it’s worth remembering that you’ll probably want nothing other than a stable release on a production machine.

And on any software, you should remember to report any bugs to the developers if you discover them and can replicate them. It’s good common courtesy, and helps everyone who uses the software have a better experience!

Thanks to everyone who made it out to the Mobile Monday Bonenkai Tech Party. It was an amazing time and a greatway to end the year. We met a lot of great people and had a chance to see some very interesting technology first hand, including Tonchidot’s revolutionary Sekai Camera. All in all about 300 people were in attendance from all areas of the IT and mobile communications fields. So from us to all of you, we hope it was a great year and look forward to seeing you all at the next one.

お疲れ様でした！(Otsukaresama-deshita!)

MoMo Tokyo, as they are also called, routinely hosts events bringing together 100-200 participants working in the wireless industry, as well as other professionals in various fields here in Tokyo. We’re excited to be attending and looking forward to meeting everyone.

See you all there!

However, this is a bad idea. Why?

• If accounts are shared, it becomes much more difficult to know who did what. Having separate user accounts makes your employees/users accountable for their actions.
• If the account is shared, chances are the password is shared as well. This means there are more people knowing an internal password, and this increases the likelihood that the password may be spread and become compromised.
• If someone leaves your firm or switches departments knowing an internal username and password, the logical step for your organization is to change the login information for that account. However if the account was shared, you’ll have to tell anyone else who uses the account the new information, which can be a hassle. What’s more, they may not immediately be aware of your personnel decision, inadvertently sharing the new password with the person who should not have access to the account information.
• It makes natural sense. User accounts are designed to represent an individual inside of a system. Especially as your organization grows and changes, administering these sort of issues can quickly become a hassle.

Implementing this can sometimes be daunting, but you’ll save yourself a lot of problems in the long run by having individual user accounts.

See you all next time!

ブリッジ２００９年で会ってた皆さん、本当に会って良かったですね。後は、まだ会ってないBridgeの皆さん、起業家、これからお互いに頑張りましょう！

ぜっひ、また今度会いましょう！

See you there!