Ellis Benus

Lifehacker.com just introduced me to EpicWin.

Plain and simple, EpicWin Turns Your To-Do List into a Role-Playing Game on an iPhone.

Seems like a pretty cool way to manage a To-Do list and possibly motivate some of those (us) procrastinators.

Where is the Android version?!

For some reason I’ve been feeling my thumb throb recently, and it’s pulsating green.

My wife and her dad got three beautiful flower gardens planted earlier this year around our house and I guess as I’m getting older my old mantra of Steel & Glass is starting to dull a little bit into wanting some warmer surroundings.

Don’t get my wrong, my two favorite materials for everything are still steel & glass, but nature is starting to grow on my in my ripe old age of 26.

A few months ago I started doing some research on the best indoor plants which would give off the best air and be the least likely to allow me to kill them.

• A dozen plants for better indoor air
• What plants are cubicle friendly
• Three plants that give you better indoor air

Matt Mullenweg (inventor of WordPress) retweeted an Automatica coworker’s desire for cleaner interior air and now I’m on the prowl again to find some good interior plants.

InformationWeek Magazine did a report on the new BlackBerry Torch.

InformationWeek is dead on that the new BlackBerry Operating System is good, and the Torch might be nice, but it’s not going to be enough to cause iPhone or Android users to defect.

In November I will be eligible for my Sprint upgrade and there is only one phone and one operating system for me. My BlackBerry Curve 8330 will be sold or trashed. I absolutely hate this phone and recommend no one ever purchase a BlackBerry.

Rest in Peace Research in Motion.

My Battle Cry: “Evo Baby!”

Google just announced Voice Actions for Android.

You can speak out a text message/email and so much more!

Lifehacker introduced Edwin, which is another amazing Android app.

You’ll just have to watch to understand.

Seriously, I cannot wait to get my Evo in November!

A new look for Gmail

We’ve pruned our pixels and made it easier to get to Contacts and Tasks.

• Mail, Contacts, and Tasks links have moved to the top left of Gmail.
• Compose mail is now a button rather than a link.
• A smaller header area puts the first message in your inbox about 16 pixels higher on the screen.
• The Select All, None, Read, Unread, and Starred links that used to be above your messages are now options in a drop-down menu, next to the Archive button.

Updates to Contacts
We’ve also done a major overhaul to Contacts, adding a bunch of features you requested and making Contacts easier to use.

• Contacts work a lot more like Mail. Keyboard shortcuts now work in Contacts too, and we’ve made selecting and grouping contacts more like selecting and labeling email.
• Sort contacts by last name. Look under More actions for this option.
• Use custom labels for phone numbers and other fields. For example, you can label a phone number as “Vacation home.” Please be aware, ActiveSync for iPhone and Blackberry Sync don’t yet support custom labels so custom labeled numbers/emails/etc. may not appear on your phone.
• Undo. Now, when you make changes to your contacts, you can undo your recent changes.
• Automatic saving. You no longer need to worry about “edit” mode or “view” mode — just edit away and Gmail will save your changes.
• Structured name fields. You can now set name components (i.e. Title, First, Middle, Last and Suffix) explicitly or continue to use the name field as a free form area if you prefer a less structured approach.
• Manual and bulk contact merge. You can now merge contacts from the More actions menu. Just select the contacts you’d like to merge and select Merge contacts from under the More actions menu. Or, to get a list of suggestions for contacts to merge, select Find and merge duplicates.

Two guys I like a lot Matt Mullenweg (inventor of WordPress) and Timothy Ferriss (author or The Four Hour Work Week) both shared this article about the world today being more addictive than it was 40 years ago, and the next 40 years will become even more addicting.

http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html

It’s a pretty good, and quick, read so give it a shot.

However, I do not appreciate the third note at the bottom:

[3] Unless we mass produce social customs. I suspect the recent resurgence of evangelical Christianity in the US is partly a reaction to drugs. In desperation people reach for the sledgehammer; if their kids won’t listen to them, maybe they’ll listen to God. But that solution has broader consequences than just getting kids to say no to drugs. You end up saying no to science as well.

Christians have no problem with science.

The idea that God created the world is no crazier than some random explosion caused all this life.

Wordpress 3.0 has been out for a little bit and I have been meaning to put a new theme on EllisBenus.com.

The old theme was far too narrow in the main body content area. This new one is still a little too tight for me, but I can modify it later if it really bothers me that much.

Regardless, I can now use the Featured Image option for individual pages or posts (like on this post), as well as the new WordPress 3.0 menu system which I am very excited about.

Goals

Also, I will be writing a very simple custom plugin to track my progress on several goals for this year.

The goals I will be tracking are:

• Time to 30 (1414 Days to Go as of August 6th, 2010)
• Spiritual (Reading and Praying daily)
• Physical (bicycling & working out daily)
• Soda Sober (kick the addiction for good)
• What Have You Done Today?
• Public To-Do List

Esentially the plugin will place a small bar graph for each goal in the sidebar and will calculate the number of days either remaining (for time to 30) or the percentage of days I have stayed on track for my goals.

For example, if in a given week I workout 5 out of 7 days, then my graph will show 71%. However, the clock keeps ticking. So after 30 days if I’ve only worked out 10 days, then my percentage will only be 33%, and so on.

The last two will not be day tracking, but simply categories to show what I have on my plate, what I should be working on, as well as the WHYDT to showcase when I have highly productive days. Mostly the WHYDT is an accountability piece to me so that I try to make the most out of everyday and stop making excuses.

I heard a great quote recently. To summarize: do not have confidence that your future self can accomplish something you can’t today. Do not say, I will do it tomorrow, because your tomorrow self will do the exact same thing.

Hopefully my WHYDT tracker and posting my To-Do List publicly will keep me accountable to finish stuff!

Simple Sammy!

Anyway! Let me know in the comments what you think of the new look.

Joseph Lanham of Simple Sammy Designs is working on a Celtic Knot logo for me which has E & B highlighted inside of it. You can see an early attempt by myself in the current header.

The Old Theme:

I just started following Paul Jr. on twitter.

Paul Jr., formerly of American Chopper and Orange County Choppers and currently of Paul Jr. Designs.

Come to find out, he was at Dick’s Sporting Goods right here in Columbia, MO on July 2nd showing off his line of Coleman Grills!

That sucks.