Stephen Key - Simple Creative Ideas Worth Millions

Sometimes you hear the stories of Entrepreneur's finding a "big problem" and then coming out with the "solution" which in turn creates a successful business. Based on Stephen Key's experience it doesn't have to be that complicated if you are creative.

Stephen Key Links:
http://stephenkey.com/
http://www.inventright.com/
http://www.hotpicksusa.com/hotpicksusa_products_hotpicks.cfm
One Simple Idea - Book by Stephen Key

Business should NOT be like this:

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South Park - Season 2 Episode 17

Digital Kindle Books vs Paperbacks

Gizmodo released an article about how the Kindle digital books are selling more than paperbacks.  That's awesome stuff.  It's time to stop using paper and read with digital.  My town doesn't agree so they are spending a few million $$ making another library.  (is it efficient?)

Now... if Amazon can just add ePub downloading for the my Asus Eee Note EA-800 that would be awesome!  As of right now I use Google Books.

Checkout the article at:
http://gizmodo.com/5745505/rise-of-the-ebooks-kindle-books-now-outsell-paperbacks

Amazon Kindle Store
Free Kindle Books (where I hang out!)

Asus Eee Note EA-800 - Apps 2

On the video I go over:

• Sticky Notes - Create or read .txt files. You can import and export .txt files from your pc.
• Gallery - View the images you have imported or screenshots you have taken.
• Audio Playback - Play your music in .mp3 format
• Calculator - do I have to explain...
• Dictionary - Search definitions of words in Mandarin or Longman English
• Trash Bin - Just like with Windows computers
• Bubble Breaker - Pick groups of items, the bigger the group the more points you score.
• Game 2 - don't know, don't care.

News Update:
Eee Note EA-800 will ship to Europe in February for $355 (I paid $266.76 total for an import).   One awesome thing about these news is that the English firmware will be out, so us with the Mandarin version will be able to update.  :-)
http://liliputing.com/2011/01/asus-eee-note-ea800-ships-in-europe-in-february.html

Links:
Official Asus Eee Note EA-800 Page

Other:
Unbox and Thoughts
Digitizer Stylus
Hardware Details
Status Icons and Search
Notebooks Application
Camera Application
Voice Memo Application

Life Hacking - The Moment We Change

You must life hack!

My little personal experience back in early 2009.
One early morning I began my workout with a run.  After I jogged a few hundred meters one of my neighbors caught up to me in his vehicle, lowered his window and then asked "what works for you?"  He was a bit "big" and had decided to begin working out too.  I was kind of surprised when he asked... so I quickly answered "water".  That was and is not the right answer.  The correct answer to his questions should have been more like "being so deeply pissed off at myself for the amount of pain I endured during a military training exercise that I decided to change".

Back before the changes I was 170 lbs and at my 5 foot 4 inches height would almost put me in the obesity category.  During a Marine Corps training exercise I lagged behind, my physical fitness was at the lowest it had ever been.  I was in pain and I was tired.  I was tired of being below the performance I knew I could be in.  I was not going to take it anymore and I decided to change.  Diet, exercise, whatever was needed to change I did.  The half marathons every other day paid off because a month later I had improved drastically and I was now 150 lbs fit (20 pounds difference).  The leanest I had been in years.  Being pissed can be a good thing.  ;-)

The way to begin change is by an event that frustrates you so much that your sole focus is to decide to take steps towards improving your conditions.  The first step is always a mental change.

One book related to "Life Hacking" that I began reading yesterday.

(FREE) - Purinton practical course in personal efficiency.  The book was published in the 1919 so you can see that the idea is not new.   They just didn't call it "life hacking" back then.

Related:
Derren Brown's Hero at 30,000 Feet
The 4 Hour-Body calls it "The Harajuku Moment" - the decision to become a full human being.

Asus Eee Note EA-800 - Voice Memo Application

Voice memos are recorded in .amr file format which is a format usually found in mobile devices.

You can open .amr files with AMR Player.  You can get at http://www.amrplayer.com/ so you can play or convert your files to other file formats.

Asus Eee Note EA-800 - Camera Application

The Eee Note comes with a 2MP camera which is ok as long as you keep the system steady.  I don't think it has any image stabilization technology.  If you move the Eee Note while taking photos you will get blurry images.

Images are saved in .jpg format so that makes it easy to post.

Zoom:

• 1X - 1600x1200
• 1.25X - 1280x960
• 2X - 800x600
• 2.5X - 640x480

Sample Images (click to show full size)

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1600x1200

1280x960

800x600

640x480

1600x1200 - Handheld

 1600x1200 - Hand-held

1600x1200 - Steady

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I hope that this demonstrates a bit of what the Eee Note can do.  You can add these images to your notes too.   It's ok... but not a full camera replacement.  ;-)

Note: Yes I skipped the Reader application because that's going to be a longer and more detailed post.

Links:
Official Asus Eee Note EA-800 Product Page
Wacom pens work with the Eee Note

Asus Eee Note EA-800 - Notebooks Application

Notebooks

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There's a lot I could write on this one... but I'll use images to write less. :-)  You might have difficulties watching the video... unless you download it and view it at it's full 1080p quality.  Click the images below to view full size pictures.

The Index Page

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This is how it looks like when you have several notebooks made

 Sort by Tags

Once you click on the Tags button you can view tags and the number of notebooks within those tags.
This is one neat feature because it will make it easier to find things by "category".

Create New Notebook Button

 The icons display a small thumbnail of the first page.  You can see the "2" there and that means there are two Pages inside that Notebook.  Tags are also shown right next to the Notebook (ie, "Personal", "To Do", etc).

Date (year, month, day) and Time that the Notebook was last edited.  Icon to the right gives you some options.

Notebook options include:
Lock (It doesn't seem to work)
Move To - I assume it's SD Card (I have not tried it)
Rename Notebook
Move to Trash Bin
Sent To Evernote (it only goes one way...)

Soft Buttons at Index Page

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These are the Mandarin ones and the perform:

Back, Apps Index, Recent, Snapshot, Sort

Notebook Pages

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Page buttons

Notebook Name Button

After you click the Name Button you can write the Name of your Notebook.

 The virtual keyboard

Numbers and symbols

 Don't know what this is... but looks like the the Mandarin stuff

This version doesn't recognize English characters... It looks like it gives you suggestions based on what you write.

Page Index Button

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This is how you can scroll through pages or view thumbnails of each page.

 Scroll allows you to go through pages easily (it's the same with books)

Using the Thumbnail feature allows you to view each page as a thumbnail (up to 6 at a time)

Send To Button ??

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I haven't tried this... and I bet you need one of those micro sd cards to get it working.

Tags Button

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 This is how you add Tags to your Notebooks.  (It does not tag individual pages)

Add as many Tags as you want

Insert image Button

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You can insert an existing image from your Album/Gallery or Take an new Image with the camera

 After you select your image from the Album you are given some options

Crop your Image

 Rotate Image Buttons

Zoom "-" makes the image smaller within the canvas

 Zoom "+" makes the image bigger within the canvas

If you mess things up you can "reset"

 This is the OK or Add button.  The last button takes you back to the Album/Gallery so you can pick a different image or cancel.

Once the image is added you can move it around. 

The Left button adds the image to your Page, can you guess what the right one does?

Undo and Redo Buttons

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To activate the "redo button" you must first Undo!  It comes in handy when you mess up.

Ink Shade Button

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Your color pallet includes different shades of gray which are light, medium and strong.

Erase Button

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Small, medium, and big eraser.  If you have the two button stylus or stylus with eraser then you don't have to tap this button all the time.  If you love making notes... and are not perfect like I am (right...) you will be using the Eraser button.

Pen Button

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These are your note taking tools:
Pencil, Pen, Marker, Pressure Sensitive, Highlighter

Delete Page Button

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Did you make a mess and you want to delete an entire Page?  yes you can.

Page Layout Button

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If you don't like the default ruled layout... change it!

 There's 42 Page Layouts included with the Eee Note

All kinds of layouts...

 There's blank ones too so you can sketch without using lines.
If you use a layout with lines (as an aid) you can change the layout once you are done (it won't remove your notes/sketches)

If they have text... it won't be in English.  I hope the English firmware fixes this.  I wish you could create your own layouts and then add them.

New Page Button

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You can add as many Pages to your Notebook as you want.  If you add a New Page it will add the Layout automatically.  Kind of neat.

Soft Buttons Inside Notebooks

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A - Previous Page
B - Goes back to Notebooks Index
C - Goes back to Applications Index (home)
D - "Saves" - I don't use it...
E - Takes a Snapshot of your current drawing
F - Empy
G - Next Page

Some Notes

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This is one of the longest posts... mainly because it's one of the main applications of the Eee Note. The next one will be the Reader Application.  Jeez... my Sunday flew by really fast.

All your notes will be saved .GIF format.  You can view the quality on the samples.  If you want your hand written notes converted to text you will need some kind of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software.  Notes are saved at 768x888 pixels.

If you guys ever feel compelled to please buy through my Amazon links.  Those small commissions help pay expenses such as domain names, the Eee Note, electricity, rice and beans, and $640 I had to spend getting new tires for my car.  Life ain't cheap.  ;-)

I'm not sure when I will make the post about the Reader Application... creating content takes time.  But I hope this helps some of you looking for information about the Asus Eee Note.  ;-)

Amazon - Fujitsu Lifebook Digitizer
Amazon - OCR Software

Sample Notes

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Different writing using pens and shades

Again.. there's tons of layouts you can choose from.

My Fitness Notebook (Improvements thanks to The 4-Hour Body)

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This is just an example of how I use the Eee Note to track a task.

Some goals,  rules (short description), Logs to be updated daily on first page

Creating details.  You could be far more elaborate an artistic, but this works just fine.

The Title of the Page written with the Marker.  This makes it way easier to view the page title when using Thumbnail view.

Trying to achieve perfect scores for a Marine Corps PFT (Personal Fitness Test) and a CFT (Combat Fitness Test).