Category: post

The Minimal Mac Book. Get it today for only !

Buy Now!


As we approach the three year anniversary of my more popular website, Minimal Mac, I thought it would be a good idea to put together a book of my best writing on the site to date. The goal being three fold:

• For those who have been reading for a while, it is an archive of the best stuff in one professionally produced package.
• For those new to the site it is an easy way to get up-to-speed on what you have missed.
• For me, it is a way to gather and archive what I feel is my best work on Minimal Mac. Should some random meteor or freak zombie invasion take out Tumblr, well, here is the stuff I really care about.

Thus, Minimal Mac: What We Believe In was born.

Now, I wish to be very clear about what this is. Every single item in this book exists on Minimal Mac as it stands — right now — for free. I have simply done the hard work for you; which is going through nearly 2000 updates and compiling the best posts, essays, and quotes into a couple of hundred pages. I then had these professionally edited and the cover, layout, and design done to make it an attractive and easy to read book.

Available now in ePub for Apple iBooks & .mobi for Amazon Kindle The cost is only $5. About the cost of a decent sandwich. Buying it not only gets you a copy of the book in both versions but also helps to support the work I do here. 

Get it here…

Minimal Mac: What We Believe In


The Minimal Mac book is not available in any stores (iBookstore or Amazon). This is the only place you can get it. So get it now.

Of course, my last two books — Keeping It Straight & enough — are still available as well.

As I said in my review of the book, Turning Pro is an essential message for anyone ready to take the next step. Those who are currently living an amateur life or toiling away in a shadow career and are on the verge of staking everything they have, doing the work, and devoting it all to their passions and the dreams.

Is this you?

Are you a writer but working in a cubicle job to pay the bills? Are you an artist but working in tech support because you don’t think your work will sell? Are you looking to be your own boss instead of being bossed around?

Are you ready to do the work? Work that is purposeful and authentic? Work that is true to who you are and the offerings you wish to make to this world?

Then you need this book.

I have two copies to give away to the people that need it most. To find them, I have assembled a panel — Myself (Professional Author and Essayist), Shawn Blanc (Professional Writer and Technology Pundit), and Myke Hurley (Professional Podcast Producer). We all know what it takes to turn pro and what the life before is like. We all know what it takes to fight the resistance and fear and to take that next step.

Here is how we will do this:

• Pros have a plan and we want to hear yours. Send an email via this link and explain where you are in your work life right now and how you plan on Turning Pro.

• Emails will be accepted until one week from today (June 20th, 2012 — June 27, 2012). Any coming past this date will be automatically deleted.

• The panel will review those entries and notify both winners via email reply to their entry by July 1st, 2012. In this reply I will request shipping information for the book and will send it out that week.

OK. Got it? Do you need this? Are you ready for it? Let me know.



Turning Pro is the new book by Steven Pressfield, author of War of Art and Do The Work. In fact, I would argue that together, read in order, the three make a cohesive whole. Turning Pro is an essential followup to those previous works and answers any question of “Now what?” the first two books may have left.

That “now what?” is this: The time for amateur hour is over. You have made excuses for too long. It is now time to change. Time to pull the pin and release yourself from the train of other people’s expectations and desires. Time to ride the rails that only you can put down in front of you. Time to go pro.
I counted those earlier works among my favorites and essential to artists and creatives who wanted to break past the fear, self-doubt, and blocks we face daily to get to the hard work of doing.
For a writer like myself, that means having a routine and carving out space and time that is sacred for the task. Write every day. Because the muse only shows up for those that are at the same time and place, every day. That, anything else is not the work. Anything else is a hobby.
Even though I subscribed to many of the principles set forth already, even though I am a published author, even though I took much of what was laid out in his first two books to practice, this book was a wake up call for me.
If you are an artist or creator of any stripe, you need this book. If you are one who is stuck in a shadow career working on someone else’s job, you need this book. And, if you are a professional who thinks you have it all figured out, you really need this book.
Even more so, you need to give this book to anyone you know who you feel is in any of those places. I was only a quarter of the way in before I came up with a short list of people who I knew would benefit from it greatly (and sent it to them as a gift). Then, even after I had already purchased it and started to dig in, I received several emails from other trusted friends of mine telling me they were only part way through but could not wait to tell me to go and get it. Therefore, do yourself a favor and get the paperback. This is one to highlight, mark up the margins, and pass around.

My presentation at Ignite Minneapolis 2012.

Many of us tend to mark our relationships based upon a place, experience, or time period they began. For instance, I have friends I have known since high school. Others that began at past jobs. Still others are tied to events. For instance, I met my wife when her computer broke through a mutual friend who called on me for help.
These marks also infer a relative timeline for the length of the relationship and, sometimes, even its depth. If I tell you about my friend Dan who I have known since high school, that automatically tells you I have known him for a fairly long time. You might even infer that the relationship was a close one if we are still friends after all these years.
If I tell you about a guy I used to work with a particular company, and you also know that this company closed in the late 1990’s, you now know I have known him for a bit more than 10 years and, once again, if we are still in touch it must have been a relationship of some meaning.
We have so many more places we are now. For example, I have friends on Twitter that I have known since we met on Jaiku. I can use that now departed social network as a place – a point of first contact – as any other. Saying this, you know roughly how long I have known them in that context. And what does the fact that we remain friends infer? Perhaps one might guess that we followed each other to this new network after the other one died to maintain that connection.
I’m sure some of us have a few friends that we know from, say, Facebook that are not on Twitter so we maintain a presence on both. Still other relationships can blossom in online forums or blogs that we frequent and comment on.
I wonder if will one day, many years from now, I’ll be able to say, “I’ve known her since Twitter” and have that impart the same sort of immediate understanding of length and importance as high school does?
All of this is to say that these virtual places are as much a point of beginning and ending as those we have long-held in the real world. And, just like school or business or events, these virtual places begin and end, open and close, occur and stop. Yet, as well, the connections and relationships are what remain and the strongest transcend.

You should have seen their faces.
This group of about twenty men and women had just spent the past thirteen hours beginning at one in the morning doing the hardest and most physically demanding activities of their lives. Over the last seventeen miles they had run, crab walked, bear crawled, alligator walked, elephant walked, carried a giant fallen tree trunk (for three hours), and even ran for a mile or two carrying another person across their shoulders. When they weren’t moving forward, they had done push ups, squats, lunges, and more. Some of it while standing in a cold river or lake. All of it, while carrying a backpack weighing forty-to-sixty pounds that was never allowed to touch the ground (as well as a couple of additional twenty-five-plus pound weights the team also had to figure a way to manage).
They thought at this point it was over. After a grueling five-mile Indian run through the busy streets in the heart of the city, they thought there could be no more. Mission accomplished. That they would get their reward (a small patch and the knowledge of having completed the course) and find a way home. They were wrong. There was more. And, when they discovered this, their faces bore the weight of every minute that had come before. In their eyes, the thousand yard stare of a people lost in suffering and pain. Yet, when the word was given to go that extra mile, carrying a buddy, they rose up, gathered what remained of their resolve, and did it.
I don’t consider myself very handy. In fact, when it comes to most DIY home fix-up stuff, I’m actually quite intimidated. Mainly because I have no clue where to start or what to do if something goes wrong. So, you might imagine what was going through my head when we purchased a house for a price so low that we could have put it on a credit card had the closing company been able to accept them. The caveat being, of course, that it needed a lot of work. Not as much as one might think, given the price. Yet, a fair amount. Enough so that it is things I have never done before. I’m like a deer in headlights.
Right now, our plumber can’t continue his work until the bathroom sub-floor is replaced. The Instructions show two people, one weekend, and a skill level of moderate-to-hard. I’m one person, with a few hours, and a skill level of w-t-f. Yet, here I am, about to load up my car with a crowbar, a reciprocating saw, my broken-toes, and a hefty helping of gumption and devil-may-care.
My four-year old daughter, Beatrix, always — Always! — tries food she has never had before. Despite the fact she knows she won’t like it. She tastes it, chews it, swallows it, and then decides. It does not matter what it is, she will always give it a fair shot. I contrast this with the large number of people who will refuse to eat something just based on how it looks or sounds. Not my Beatrix.
All of us have struggles, challenges, fears, and other impediments that we must overcome on a daily basis. More often than not, our boundaries are illusions created by the fear of what we are truly capable of. All of us, at some point, push through this fear and learn a valuable lesson in the process.
That, in ways both large and small, we are all superheroes. We move faster than speeding bullets (that we pull the trigger on), are more powerful than locomotives (that we purposefully step in front of), and bound tall buildings (of our own making) with a single bound. A secret identity we don’t ever see or admit to. Yet, when the task calls for it, we step into the booth as a person incapable and step out the other side as another doing things we never dreamed we could.
This essay is dedicated to GORUCK Challenge Class 167. A group of superheroes if there ever was.

I installed a Nest Learning Thermostat in our principle home today. I have to say that I am really impressed all around. In fact, it is one of the most impressive technology experiences I have ever had. I think, one reason for this is the same as one found in most Apple products — magic.
Installation was a breeze for me. I’m normally one of those people who are intimidated by such things. That said, in preparation for its arrival I watched the very clear instruction videos on their support page and it eased any fear I had considerably. It made it look so straight forward and easy. It seemed like magic.
Then, initial setup was equally simple and intuitive. There was help exactly where you needed it and clear simple language to guide your way in the few places it was. Every single step had an element of “A Ha!” that is rare these days in most things. And the fact that things just worked provided the “Ta da!” that magic requires.
Then, in the few hours of use, seeing how it operates and begins to learn, is the prestige. We left out for a couple of hours this evening, and arriving home, it was clear it had noticed and began to cool the house down. We arrived home and, in just a few minutes, the heat kicked on and it was back up to temperature within just a few minutes. Magic.
It remains to be seen how well it will be able to “learn” from us. We are an edge case. Both my wife and I keep irregular schedules that take us in and out of the house often many times a day. We do not have a pattern. Thus, even trying to “teach” it would likely not work. So, I suspect, this will be an interesting real world test. Even if it is not able to “learn” our home and away patterns, the ability to turn the heat down when we are away for a few hours and up in advance of our return will likely be pleasure enough alone.

 
There is a playground near our house. Relatively new. It is called the Tot-Lot and it is purpose-built, as the name would suggest, for children aged five years or less. We take Beatrix, my four-year old daughter, to play there several times a week. It has quickly become the neighborhood destination for families with young children.
The play equipment at this scale is age-appropriate but also just a tad bit challenging. There are some slides, a rope net for climbing, a balance beam, a chair swing, and a few other standards one would expect.
Instead of grass, there is a surprisingly soft professional grade AstroTurf. I was dubious of this choice at first. Worried
Recently, Beatrix has really taken to the monkey bars. This took some time for her to try.
“What if I fall, Daddy?”, she would ask.
“Well, you might and that is OK. The best part of falling is that you can get back up and try again.”, I would respond. It sounded good in theory at least.
Her skills and abilities get better with each turn on them. The very first time, with a bit of help up, she would only hang on the first bar. Then, she learned how to jump up and reach it by herself. Now, she can traverse the full set with no difficulty. Each time we go to the playground, she seems to take it just a bit further.
This last time, she added a twist that even I did not expect and managed to find a new level to her ever-increasing bar skills. She now jumped from the small platform to the second bar. Deftly grabbing on mid-air. Her fear of falling seemingly gone.
The first time she did it, my heart nearly stopped. Yet, she succeeded. I was amazed and proud.
The second time immediately followed the first (I got a video of it this time). She made a couple of cautious attempts before, finally, throwing caution to the wind and doing it again. I was even prouder still.
The third time, she was clearly tired out. Her bravery and confidence overcame her body though so she got up on the platform. This time, no cautious test jumps. She just jumped. But, this time, her hands slipped and missed. She twisted mid fall and landed like a pancake — the whole front of her body hitting the ground at once. It was one of those terrifying parental moments where as you run to their aid you start to wonder what the doctor bill will be.
She was crying hard as I knelt down to help her up and comfort her. I took a good scan and there appeared to be no injury. “You’ll be OK, honey.” I assured. “Does it hurt anywhere?”
She shook her head no. Her crying slowed and then, to my amazement following such a hard fall, she said, “I want to try it again.”
I took a deep breath and realized that this was as much a test to my fear and confidence as it was for hers. I let her go and watched as she got back up on the platform. By the time she was ready for a re-attempt she looked as if nothing happened. I was so proud. I could sense she was too.
She jumped a couple of more times and made it just fine. But, again, on the third time her body could not keep up. She lost her footing and fell off the platform, face first into the AstroTurf. I was sure she broke her nose this time. I rush down and pick her up. She is crying even harder than the first time. I pick her up and lightly caress her face. Marks from plastic grass embedded in her cheeks. I check her nose. It appears to be fine.
“I want my Mommy!”, she wailed.
“Mommy’s not here.”, I said, “Do you want to go home?”
She shook her head yes.
“Well, let’s go sit on the bench and calm down a little before leaving.”, I said. She agreed. So, I carried her over to the bench on the other side of the park, placed her on it, and sat down next to her.
After a few minutes, the crying stopped. She took a final deep breath, turned to me, and asked, “Can I try again, Daddy?”
“Sure, honey. Sure.”
I was even prouder still.

“Have I reached that age, Doc?”, I asked the Optometrist towards the end of my last eye appointment. I was past due for new glasses and I had a gut feeling I was going to need bifocals.
“You’re kind of right on the edge.”, he said sensing my indignant resignation. “I think you would benefit from them today. But, you could get by a few more months before you really need them. Tell you what, I’ll write the prescription both ways. That way, if you decide you don’t want them right now, you can always get the bifocals when you are ready.”
I’m sure the doctor sees people like me everyday. He tells us we need bifocals. But he knows we are not quite ready for bifocals. We are not quite ready to face that truth. The truths we must admit to ourselves are often the hardest we have to tell. He knows that some people, when on the edge, will choose the option that is easier to face and not get the bifocals. Then, they will get their new glasses, realize that they can’t read anything smaller than twelve point type unless it is held at arm’s length, and thus be forced to face the truth. Then, and only then, will they be ready for them, despite the fact they already needed them.
I’m ready now.

The majority of people that I interact with on a daily basis live on the other side of the planet. A few years ago that would have seemed bat-poop crazy—but I think this is starting to shift. People are becoming more world-social and making friends across the globe, some they may never meet in person. Relationships (friendship and love) are being forged online more and more often these days and the Internet is becoming a tool to help people interact on an emotional level. Twitter may be text at 140 characters at a time, but it is an enabler of conversation that can spill out in to many different forms.

via It's More Than Just 140 | mykehurley.net.
A beautiful post by Mr. Hurley on the many benefits he has received from Twitter. I too, can say that I have had a similar experience. That said, in order to receive such benefits, like any tool, one must use it with the right intentions and a mindful approach. Seems as if his are in the proper place.