There are a lot of ideas and philosophies on goal setting and how to achieving goals.  Different experts will recommend slightly different things, but for the most part it is all the same with a few basic principles.

The first part of the goal equation I want to talk about is writing your goals down and having specific defined goals.   There have been numerous studies that show that less than 5% of the population actually writes their goals down.  Then there is a slightly larger group less than 15%, who have goals defined but don’t write them down.  So this leaves the majority of people, more than 80% of the population, who don’t even define goals!   And guess what…the 3% that do write down their goals make 10 times that of the majority who don’t define and write down goals.

Next is the importance of seeing your goals on a daily basis.  This will help “program” your brain both consciously and subconsciously, and makes the goals real.  This will help you remain focused and motivated and you might start to question certain activities you do and how you spend your time, if it is not helping you achieve your goals.  Also this process should make you take responsibility for your goals.  Therefore goals  need to be realistic and have a deadline.

There is a ton of information on achieving your goals and goal setting, I just wanted to touch on a couple key points, but the purpose of this post is I want to show a cool way to help you see your goals daily.

If you are like me and spend a lot of time at the computer, then posting goals on your computer makes perfect sense.  So I wanted to show a cool way to do this.  Below is an example of what my desktop looks like as I am preparing for a Half-Iron man, which is a major focus in my life right now and is coming up soon. Obviously sports and health is just one aspect in my life, and I set goals for all the different important areas in my life…but I figured this would be a fun example to show.

Example of goals set as desktop background

So here are the steps to place your goals on your desktop

Step 1: Download the FREE BgInfo program here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897557.aspx

Basically this program was designed to show system information on your desktop, which I’m guessing for most people, is not that important.  But we can use it’s functionality to have some fun with it.

Step 2: Run the BGInfo.exe which will open a screen that looks like this:

Default BGInfo Screen

So here you can delete all of the default custom information and instead type your goals, here is an example:

BGInfo Screen with Goals

Their built in text-editor has some basic features that lets you adjust font-color, font-family, font-size and font-style.  Also you can insert images, but I wouldn’t recommend that.

Step 3: You can adjust a couple options so that the text (goals) displays where you want them to.  If you click the “Position” button, you can click the radio button of where you want the text entered to be displayed.

Also the “Background” button will let you specify a background image to use, or if BGInfo should just copy your current desktop background image.

For my example, I used PIXLR to create a cool desktop picture that relates to my goals I want to see daily.

Have fun with this and get creative, I would love to see some examples of what you decide to use this for.

Screen Shot from Chip's Challange

Well good news,  I just found the equivalent of Chip’s Challenge for the iPhone!  It’s called Loopy Lab by Bas Tossings.  It is basically the exact same game just with slightly different things.  For instance instead of collecting computer chips you are collecting batteries, and instead of being a guy name Chip, you are a girl named Lara.  The Graphics are much cleaner than the original and the game play is excellent.  At the core of the game is still the challenging brain teaser of getting passed each level that made Chip’s Challenge so fun.  They both have keys, fire, water, ice, boxes and monsters.  Loopy Lab even has lasers and mirrors and I’m sure some other nice additions.

Screenshot from Loopy Lab for iPhone

I highly recommend this game if you are a fan of the original Chip’s Challenge or just like problem solving games.

Check out Loopy Lab for the iPhone (basically Chips’ Challenge):

Loopy Lab

On a side note:

I really think games like this sharpened my problem solving skills as a kid, and lead me to becoming a software engineer / software developer, because at the heart of that it is all just basically problem solving!

Two other games I would love to see for the iPhone is The Incredible Machine and Lemmings.  I know there is a version of lemmings for the iPhone but I heard its pretty terrible and it looks terrible, so I haven’t even bothered wasting my time on it.  And there is a game called Enigmo that is kind of like The Incredible Machine.  I have it but didn’t think it was nearly as entertaining as The Incredible Machine.

Maybe one day when I have some free time I can make one of these games for the iPhone   I think The Incredible Machine would be challenging and fun to build.

Oh and stay tuned I have a fun little iPhone App that I will be deploying to the App Store soon!!

Over the last two months I have been using an iPhone applications of all things, to monitor the quality of my sleep. It is called Sleep Cycle, and is the best .99 cents I have EVER spent. Here is a graph my sleeping pattern from a random night:

Wait how can an iPhone application determine what sleep phase you are in?
I know this is everyone’s first reaction when I tell them about this program and show them an example of a nights sleep. So here is how it works, iPhones have a built-in accelerometer, this is the component of the phone that senses movement. This is how when you are looking at a photo if you turn the phone sideways it will flip the photo for you, or how some of those cool games work by moving the phone around. So you place the iPhone under your pillow and based upon your movements thorugh out the night it can determine what sleep cycle you are in. I have found that the Sleep Cycle application is very accurate in detecting movement. Also the application well tell you what time you went to bed, when you woke up and your average amount of sleep per night.

What is the point of knowing your sleep patterns?
The is more intelligence to the Sleep Cycle application then simply recording your sleep patterns for you to review later. As of right now I have 2 months worth of sleep data which although is interesting to me, probably not that useful for most people. The main purpose of the application is to wake you up during a light sleep phase. Meaning it is a bio-alarm clock so to speak. The application within 30 minutes of your set wake up time will wake you up when it senses you are not in deep sleep, but instead in a lighter sleep phase. It has been shown that being woken up during a deep sleep phase makes one feel groggy and tired, but being awaken during a lighter sleep phase, you usually feel more rested.
So yes sometimes I will get woken up 15-20 minutes earlier than I want, but it is well worth it for feeling rested, and hey I can always use that extra time in the morning for something. And if that isn’t cool enough, the sounds they have for their alarms are 100 X better than the standard ones that come with the iPhone. They make you feel like your waking up in a soft cloud. This is by far my favorite application I own, and the developers did a great job on it, and are thinking outside the box.

Check out the Sleep Cycle Application:

Sleep Cycle Application

Twitter: http://twitter.com/sleepcycle

I recently found an awesome free online image editing program that is very similar to Photoshop called pixlr. I couldn’t believe that this program was free when I saw how powerful it is.

It has many Photoshop like features including layers, magic wand, filters and a lot, lot more. The best part about pixlr besides being free is that it is an online application so you can access it from anywhere anytime. Also this means you are always using the latest version with all the latest and greatest functionalities, and never have to worry about updating. And of course you can save your pixlr file so you can come back and edit it like a PSD file, meaning it will have all your layers and effects…very cool.

So if you need to edit graphics and don’t feel like throwing down the big bucks for programs like Adobe Photoshop this is the way to go.

Check them out here:
The pixlr editor – http://www.pixlr.com/editor/
Twitter – http://twitter.com/pixlr
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pixlr/35846011511

Below is and image of the exact post form above..happy I’m sticking with normal fonts! Or maybe people could use it as CAPTHCA..haha you know those little boxes you have write what the word is before you can submit a form.  Can you read this?

Check it out here:  http://www.TheBigTweet.com

Their logo is awesome…cracks me up!

You can follow them here:
http://www.Twitter.com/The_Big_Tweet

And you can follow me here:
http://www.Twitter.com/Adam_Zilberbaum

BACKUP LOG DatabaseName WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY

Then Run this:

DBCC SHRINKDATABASE (DatabaseName)

Note: Should only be used on development machines..I believe, becasue will erase your log files

So this technology was just sitting on my server, only being used by their affiliates.  We had a product idea that we could create with this technology, but it faded, and never saw the light of day, especially with their super packed list of other projects, it just went on the backburner.

So I took it upon myself to create something that would actually give people value, and hopefully help their affiliate marketing efforts, oh and give it away for FREE!  I actually do really get a great feeling from seeing people use something that I created, and actually have it be useful, and help them make money!

So what is this technology?

It is a kick-ass way to create and distribute viral content, and in specific viral PDFs.  For those of you that don’t know what a Viral PDF is I will explain it very briefly.  It is a PDF that can be branded to a specific person.  The simplest example I can think of is personalizing a document to include a person’s name.  So instead of “Dear friend”, it could say “Dear Adam” or “Dear Mr. Zilberbaum”, whatever the name that has been “inputted”, or “branded”.  If this doesn’t make sense there are videos available at the Viral Content Creator website.

Big deal there is a lot of Viral PDF Software…What makes yours different?

There are many, many, many places that sell ways to create viral PDFs, but they are all such a huge pain-in-ass.  You either need to download software, or you need to format in HTML or some other weird format, and they are charging between $100-200.  So not only  are these methods complicated to use but they are also charging.  I couldn’t believe what I saw from the “competition”, and they are not even really competition because they do not offer a free service, and this is exactly why I created Viral Content Creator.

So how does Viral Content Creator work?

I wanted Viral Content Creator to work with something that everyone already knows how to use, so I figured what better solution than Microsoft Word.  Since most people are already using MS Word for their documents, I knew it was perfect. That is why Viral PDF templates are uploaded to our site from a MS Word document, it’s really that simple.  The only editing a publisher needs to do is insert merge fields into the word document.  This is a really simple process and of course videos are up on the site explaining how it all works.  I showed my girlfriend and couple other non-computer people the videos to make sure that the process really was as simple as I believed it to be.   And they all said yea that is “super easy”, so I made them prove it, they all had to create Viral PDF templates using Microsoft Word.  They all passed with flying colors and with no assistance from me!  So I knew I had a winner.

Some other cool features…

A couple other nice features  that I really like besides the simplicity, is when an affiliate finds a Viral PDF to brand, all they have to do is fill-in-the-blanks and click the Create PDF button.  I don’t think the process for affiliates could be any easier. If the affiliate is not an affiliate for that publisher, to the right of the fill-in-the-blank field, is a link that opens in a new window and allows for the affiliate to sign-up for the publisher’s affiliate program.  How cool is that?  In case I did not make point clear, after the Create PDF button is clicked, the PDF gets created instantly on-the-fly, right there….and contains all of the “branded” information!

My future vision of the website / Mission

As I said before I really do enjoy seeing people benefit from something that I have created, it  is one of the things I enjoy about being a software engineer at my core, as well as the massive problem solving involved.  The way I would like to see Viral Content Creator evolve over time, is not just a place where publishers send their affiliates to brand Viral PDFs, but a place where anyone who wants to find quality content for any niche can go to help supplement their own site’s content.  Of course they will be able to monetize, but this will be a direct effect from actually helping to provide the user with good information, and not junk!  As the web is becoming more and more transparent, and the free-line of information moves deeper and deeper into real, useful information.  Meaning that what used to be something that was sold as a lower end product will now be given away for free.   I am a firm believer in offering people value, and it will at some point come back to benefit you in some shape or form.  This is why I really want this to be a place where actual value can be found and given way for free,  and make publishers, affiliates and users all benefit.

And if you don’t get this you need to watch Zoolander immediately! My buddy and I were Zoolander and Hansel last Halloween. We did the whole walk off scene including all the lines leading up to it. People actually gathered around us outside a crowded bar and were taking pictures…then we continued to actually do the walk off inside a very crowsded bar…Pretty entertaining for everyone!

Here are some pictures of us before going out on Halloween……We are really really ridiculously good looking!

Here is the actual video of the walk off scene…That Hansel is so HOT right now!