Saw some great wallpapers for getting things done that I liked. Here are some of my favorites: Both of the ones above were taken from this post: Wallpaper Roundup: Getting Things Done with Workflows and Quadrants - Wallpaper - Lifehacker Although my favorite might still be this one, as it's straight and to the point. Plus it's got a cool background texture. Enjoy.

I love Apple Macs. Steve Jobs and his team has created one of the best platforms for enjoyable and effective creative outlets. But that's just what it is: a platform. What you build upon it is what makes it unique and amazing. Technology is what you make it. Read on to see a list of the applications I install almost as soon as I reinstall my computer's OS.

• Growl - Unobtrusive Systemwide Notifications When events happen around your computer, most application can tell Growl to send a nice little title with a description to the upper right corner that let's you know what's happened and then it fades out. Most of the time you can click it to go off and see it. But It's like having one foot in the stream of constant updates and one foot out. Seriously, Apple needs to buy this. Free
• Fresh - Pop up recent files handy do-dadd Hit a keyboard shortcut and the 6-ish most recently added or altered (that's a big one) files are there, ready to be dragged into anything (even open/upload dialog boxes). Handy as hell. <--Hell's probably not too handy, huh? Sayings are weird... $9
• Jumpcut - Simple Clipboard History Saves the last 20 things to grace your clipboard. Super helpful. I catch things I copied the day before often enough. Usually it's just for working with 3 or so things without having to recopy any of it. Super helpful. Free
• Fluid - Site Specific Browser aka Turn Gmail into an App Web pages are turning into applications more and more. Why not treat them as such? Fluid turns any site and creates a browser that is dedicated to just that site. Super helpful for frequently visited and left open sites that get lost in your browser's tabs. Some ideas: Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Facebook, Web Host Panel, Project Sites, Wikipedia, Google Reader, Any News Site. You can get really tricky by turning your Fluid site into a Menu Extra SSB (pretty easily) that puts the browser up in your menu bar. This works even better when the site you are using in that browser is an iPhone optimized site. I heard about it here. Free
• Adium - Multi-Account, Multi-Network IM Client. Sadly doesn't do video chat. Free
• AppZapper - The Uninstaller Apple Forgot. $13
• Caffeine - Screen Dimming Inhibitor. Useful for watching videos online & not having to move your mouse every 5 minutes. Free
• MultiClutch - Trackpad Gestures > Keyboard Shortcuts. If you have a laptop that allows for 3 finger swipes for browser forward/back, this will let you do a whole lot more. Free

Organizational and Productive Software

• Evernote - The Best note taking software EVER. Never lose another note again. Syncs with a Windows version and online version accessible from any broswer. Syncs with your Blackberry, iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, Sony Ericson, or Palm Pre. You can email notes to it. You can tag your tweets to be sucked into Evernote. You can send text or picture messages to it and then IT SCANS THE WORDS IN IT AND MAKES IT AVAILABLE FOR SEARCH. I basically have a pocket scanner with my iPhone (thanks to a macro lens case) that I can search the words in later. Seriously. This is amazing. There's web clippers that you can install in Firefox/Safari/IE that will allow you to highlight text then send it to Evernote and it'll snag the source url you grabbed it from. It'll geo-locate your notes too and you can see them on a map. The free version will allow me to add 16,000 notes or 380 photos in a month. Haven't even come close to my monthly limit. FREE
• Anxiety - Minimalistic to do pop up that links into the system wide to do list, newly available in Snow Leopard. This means it shows in iCal, Mail, Dashboard Widgets, any 3rd party to do app, and can sync to Blackberry/Palm/iPhone nicely. Free
• Dropbox - This syncs a folder to a web service that will in turn sync it down to any other computer running Windows, Mac, or Linux that you want. Super helpful as a backup. If you keep your working files in there, you'll always have a current off-site backup. Also, there's a public folder that you can toss big files, then get a public link for. I sent my friend a 4.4 GB file once. Start out at 2 GB free, then you can get up to 5 GB by inviting friends. Pay accounts are available to get up to 50 & 100 GB. Free
• OmniOutliner - Outlining and note taking on steroids. This app was my savior in the final years of college. Seriously, it helped out SO much. Screw MS Word for notes, that's for righting the final paper. Towards the end, I dreamed of having a personal wiki through VoodooPad that housed all notes in all classes, because knowledge usually overlaps in courses and taking notes can be redundant. Expensive at $40, but if you use it lots, it's worth it.
• Blogo - Simplistic, quick blogging software. This got me starting to blog more recently. It's quick, it has what you need and doesn't have what you don't need. I often think of something I want to post, fire it up, type it out, send it up and I'm done with a blog post up 5 minutes after I had the idea about it. It handles multiple images well, and will let me jump over to HTML mode which is nice. $25
• Tweetie - Twitter client for Mac. FINALLY. This makes the entire process SO much better. Fires updates through Growl. Multi-accounts, TwitPic support, Short URLs support. It's awesome. A few ads in the timeline that are totally fine to deal with gets you the free edition.
• 1Password - This is the BEST password manager ever. So much more too. It's smart. Everytime you enter a password, it asks to remember the password, then tosses it in 1P. Later when you want to go to the site, you can click it in a list, it asks the 1 Password, then it opens the page, fills in the info, and hits enter and bam, you're in. Syncs with iPhone. Check out this video, because seeing is a way better way to explain it. $40

Web and Graphic Design Software:

• Coda - One Window Web Development This app now takes care of 80% of my work on web sites. CSSEdit is better at just editing CSS, but this still has all the auto-completion that I need (makes work so much faster with a much lower chance of getting a syntax error. I especially like that they have a "Preview" mode, which is really just Safari (alright, it's WebKIT) running in another tab. Super helpful if you work on awesome Content Management Systems like I do on a regular basis. This basically made me stop using CSSEdit, TextMate, & Transmit (which are all very awesome BTW).
• Firefox with Firebug - The reason I didn't quit Web Design Firebug lets you get under the hood of a web page the way that lets you understand it and, more importantly, lets you live tweak the HTML & CSS of a page. It really aids understanding and cuts down on the maddening cycle of: See error, change code, upload, wait, refresh browser (w/o a cache), wait, observe how it almost worked, repeat. Thank you Firebug dude, one day I will donate a million dollars to you. One day. On Firefox, I love the awesome bar. You know, the awesome bar, it used to be the address bar, but now you can type it a whole lot of other stuff. It's like live search for your history & favorites. It kicks ass.
• Snippet - Awesome, quick, smart code snippets. $13

Media

• I Love Stars - Easy iTunes Ratings in Menu Bar Smooth, simple, and effective. If you like your iTunes song's rated, then keep this up in your menu bar and you just click the rating you want.
• PandoraJam - Better Pandora Experience. You can stream Pandora to Airport Expresses and it umm, can record Pandora. Yep. $15
• Skitch - Take screenshots, draw little arrows and put text on screenshot to explain your idea, click button to upload to internet, then copy link to the image to toss into IM/Email/Twitter. Helps explain concepts A TON. Also, check out Jing (Windows too) to record video of your screen, which also tosses it up online with a url. Both Free.

 

I have a few friends who are transcending up to the utopian world of iPhone owners, ready to leave behind the frustrating user interfaces of cell phones of old and ready to never be bored in a line again. So, of course, they'd like to know what to put on there. I figured if I was going to type it all out once, I may as well put it up here so it can get reused. All links below will open iTunes.

Evernote - Screw the default Notes app. I know it syncs now, but the features of Evernote make it a solid notch above. Tags, multiple notebooks, audio clips, location tagged notes, OCR, and I love having a separate application on my desktop. Make sure to install it along with the Web Clipper for your browser for the full effect. Free.

Pandora Radio - This is what makes the smaller hard drive size of the iPhone not a problem when compared to the bigger iPod Classics. Free.

WeatherBug Elite - SO much better than the standard Weather app. Rain/snow maps, hourly forecast, wind, alerts and more. $0.99

New York Times - Having an iPhone has completely transformed how I consume news. NYTimes not only has great writing, but the app is made well and works well with the crappy, slow EDGE connection we have here with the iPhone in Montana. Free. The USA Today app is great too. Free. If you use Google Reader frequently, Byline integrates with it well. $4.99

Beejive IM with Push - The best instant messaging application. Receive chats like you receive texts. Integrates with multiple accounts (I've got Google Talk & Facebook chat on there). $9.99

Wiki Mobile - World's knowledge at your fingertips. This formats the big W in a really nice way and more importantly: let's you save articles for offline viewing. $1.99. If you don't want to pay or don't want offline article check out the free Wikipanion.

Dictionary! - A dictionary. Works without internet. Free.

Flight Control - Land planes. Avoid catastrophe. Really fun game. $0.99

Fieldrunners - A frickin' great, very addicting game where you put up guns and missiles to stop wave after wave of determined dudes. $2.99

Sally's Spa - Am I about to go from recommending a game that involves guns to one that involves a spa? Guess so. Sounds lame, but it's really fun. A time management game where you are frantically moving from customer to customer to get them through your spa. Really fun. $0.99

Facebook - Get your social crack here. Free

Tweetie - Great Twitter app that makes it all so much better. $2.99. Check out Twitterific if you don't want to pay.

Amazon Kindle eBook reader - I love reading on this thing. I always seem to be able to squeeze in the time to read for 5 minutes when I have it on my phone and that adds up. You can read in the sun, it saves bookmarks, and you can download the first chapter for free to see you if you like it. Read more. It's great. Free

iXpenseIt - Financial management. Budgets. Spending tracking. $4.99

Urbanspoon - Restaurant reviews and suggestions. Free

Wurdle - Boggle clone. Great 2 minute killer. $1.99

Remote - Control iTunes like you're from the future. Free

MyPhone+ - Sync pictures from your Faacebook friends to your contact lists. Way easier than getting a picture set up for each friend. $2.99

Air Sharing - Easy, powerful way to view files of any type on the go. $4.99

All Recipes - Dinner spinner where you can set a couple requirements (price, main ingredient) and it comes up with a list of recipes. Free.

 

What characterizes ashtanga yoga is the dynamic interconnecting postures that create a sense of flow and movement between the static asanas of hatha yoga. There is also a particular type of breathing that is done with each movement. And the movements between the postures are just as important as the postures themselves. Ashtanga yoga posturesa are a series of postures that are always done in the same order and performed with particular breathing patterns. The exact definition of vinyasa is movement synchronized with breath. The purpose of vinyasa is to purify the body by increasing circulation and body heat, leading to an increase in sweating. Vinyasa really facilitates flexibility, and tendon and muscle strength.A good description of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga

Photo:

Life Goal:Check. After hiking to the amazing spiritual pilgrimage spot of Surkanda Devi, we were blessed with clear blue sky showing us a massive Himalayan Range that was utterly breathtaking. Seeing these mountains was the 2nd most important thing to do in my trip to India, after studying yoga of course. Below is a stitched together shot of 9 photos of the whole range (that I could see). I highly recommend clicking on it and then clicking on the zoom button to get a real look at it all. Enjoy!

One of the local cafes, Santosha, has an Art Gallery inside it with the nicest art I've seen. Clean, unique, and inspiring, the art by Raghupathi Bhatta from Mysore, India should be appreciated by all. I asked to take some shots and they obliged in hopes that more people would check out their site. I barely resisted the urge to buy one of the paintings that portrayed Patanjali, the sage responsible for yoga. Thanks Tomasz!

---

I had told Ben that I was going to meet him at the Mysore train station at 4:45, but it had taken me longer to get to the Bangalore train station from the Airport than I had expected and I arrived an hourish later. Ben wasn’t there, I ended up waiting about 1-2 hours afterwards before I started to venture out and then promptly turned around as I was very unsure of where I was or how to get where I needed to go. The words of my amazing girlfriend echoed in my head, prompting me to stay put upon arrival, because two people moving and trying to find one another is incredibly difficult. After getting back to the train station, I hear a loud, quick prompt: “Evan!” “Evan!” Turning instantly I find the most familiar friendly face I’ve seen in a while: Ben Little. God it was good to see him. Hadn’t seen him in a year, and we were both in a foreign country. Huge hug later, and we are off onto my first Auto Rikshaw ride. These things are crazy. We ride up to Gokulam, recounting our traveling experience, and then make it up to Ganesh’s, who is incredibly nice and has a big smile (all the time). We drop our stuff off and then go out for some really good Indian food that costs about 50¢. It turns out that Indian food is my favorite food. Seriously, I’m LOVING IT. I haven’t eaten meat yet (10ish days here). Not because I’m trying not too, but because I just haven’t. The next day, Sunday, Ben and I do a full Primary Series in our room, and it all goes solidly well. I get into all the right poses, nothings bugging me, but I could be deeper in all of them. Perfect start. We go and register at the Shala, meeting Sharath for the first time, he’s tired and nice. Gets up at 1am to practice before the first class at 4:45am. Wow. I latter find out he’s hurt his back (from dropping others into backbends) and isn’t quite able to be doing the later series. At the end of chatting I mention that I’m a computer fixer and would love to help out with anything. He mentions that he has an iPhone that he’s trying to unlock and get on the local Indian carrier, AirTel. I tell him I can help him and we decide to chat later. Afterwards, there is a conference (which is just Sharath talking for about 45 minutes about miscellaneous topics loosely tied together). Here are a couple quick notes from the talk:

• 1 spoon of Gi a day (I have no idea what Gi is, nor if I spelt it right)
• If you eat meat, you get meat on your body, nothing else. Vegetarians live longer.
• Potatoes good, garlic and mushrooms bad.
• Utpluthih (last pose, lotus then lift with hands) is the best pose for bandhas.
• Mula Bandha should be done all the time, it controls the mind, and is very difficult. It is the root of yogic growth.
• Exhale, Exhale, Exhale, engage Mula Bandha, Inhale engaging Jalandhara Bandha.
• Don’t talk too much, you lose your energy and get distracted (This is where I was like “crap!”).
• When a student asked if coffee was bad, it got the quickest reaction out of Sharath, a quick and decisive “No.” He mentioned that he drinks after but then recounted a story where Guruji insisited that he come for coffee before practice for 8 years (funnier from him). He also mentioned that American coffee was MUCH stronger than Indian coffee, again recounting a story where he drank our coffee and was up for 2 days.
• If you aren’t sweating, do yoga faster.
• Too sweaty? Put coconut oil on your head. He also mentioned almond and sesame oil.
• He said that oil is very good for body pain from Asana. He does it every morning and it’s good for your skin.

The next day we had practice at 7:45am, and it was Mysore style (of course) meaning un-lead. I was surprised to see how it works: It’s not like at 7:30, the previous class gets let out, there’s 15 minutes of people moving and settling in, then at 7:45 the teacher welcomes you, you do a quick chant, then everybody starts off progressing at their own pace with the teachers moving around, adjusting you, and giving you tips. It’s different. I noticed that when I got there, everybody was in a different pose, not just a bit off from each other, but ALL OVER THE PLACE. We’ve got people in Sun Salutation, Backbend, Standanding Asanas, Sitting poses of the Primary Series, poses from other series that I’ve never seen before. Everywhere. Then it all comes together and I see why: Sharath sticks his head in the entrance and asks for one more. The next student comes in, taking the person who’s spot is now available. It just keeps rotating through all morning from 4:45 - 10 am (I’m guessing that’s when it all clears out). I later find out there are easily over 100 students in Mysore right now.

Photo:

Ben, myself, and 5 other yogis and yoginis spent the day at the Namdroling Monastery in the Bylakupee area (an area of 20 villages). This is the biggest Tibetan settlement outside of Tibet. Amazing, powerful buildings depicting thousands of tales on the inner walls. Incredible buddhas, the softest grass I've ever felt (seriously), and a footbag session where I sent a micro-monk away with a free Freedom Footbag. My friend, Anna, was taking pictures of a classroom inside and they basically ended up swarming her in excitement to see themselves on her camera. I've never seen anything like that. Simply incredible.

Ben, Evan, and the Gurus of Ashtanga Yoga

During our trip to the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, India we were privileged, honored, and humbled to momentarily meet Sri K. Pattabhi Joi (affectionately called Guruji), the master who started the style of yoga we practice, Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. His grandson, Sharath, is now the main teacher, and a master of the first 5-7 series (with the primary series being the 1st). Saraswathi, his mother and Guruji's daughter, assists Sharath at the Shala. This was the highlight of a lifetime and undescribedly affected Ben and I deeply. TRULY an incredible privilege.

WOW. No, really. WOW. Driving in Delhi is nuts. People cruz through all the obstacles in their way, swerving out of the way of others at the last moment. During our travel down a 2 lane road, there was 3 vehicles (big trucks included) using the road. At one point I even saw a 4th car trying to pass others off the road. Everybody is honking, not in anger or frustration, but in letting others know they are there. Or more accurately, that they are about to steal their spot. Towards the end of my cab ride to my hotel, the guy even turned up a one-way, got in the far right lane, switched his emergency flashers on, and then proceeded to honk at people as they approached us head on. HA! That was something else.