2015
Next Page button is a lot larger than Previous Page button. It encourages us to always keep moving forward rather than look back.
Assholes
Sometimes the most passionate, caring and hard-working people are the one’s who are perceived as assholes. If those are the only reasons to classify them as assholes then in order to do the best work of your life, you should work with assholes.
Opinions
If you understand something really well, you will have opinions. If you really care for something, you will have opinions. Having opinions means that you give a damn. By always encouraging people to share their opinion, you are actually caring for them.
Priorities
Do you fix an issue that someone with an important designation in your company found or you fix something that is annoying to the customer? One thing to keep in mind when prioritizing is that most of the times that person with an important designation is not even a paying customer.
Honest appreciation
No matter how accomplished a craftsman is, there is no bigger motivation to keep going than honest appreciation from people who care about the craft. That article you liked by someone on the Internet could be their last before they were planning to give up on writing. So if you really, honestly and genuinely like something that someone has taken the effort to share with the world, all it takes is one tweet, one like, one email or one comment to keep the fire going. So do that one thing today.
Anticipation
A lot of responsibility of the Product designer is to anticipate what the users would want before they know that they want it. If you do that, it would enable you to actually build out the feature by the time the users think they need it. You cannot wait until the users start complaining or demanding that feature. Even if your anticipated feature does not work out, that experience by itself would lead to unanticipated discoveries. If you do get it right, your users would thank you. Either ways, its a win-win situation.
Attitude or Ability
Which one amongst them would make it easier to catch up with the other? Or should they be equally balanced?
When...?
When you smile, I feel happy
When you breathe, I feel alive
When you talk, I feel my heartbeat
When you are not around, something’s missing
Although its your life, it feels like ours.
Checklist for Selling stuff on Craigslist
This is not a guide or a tutorial on how to post a listing on Craigslist. These are just a collection of strategies that have worked for me over a period of time. Some of it may or may not work for you, so use them at your own discretion.Pre-Listing Pricing strategiesCheck the current used prices on AmazonCheck existing Craigslist listings of the same itemThink about what would you want to pay for the item if you were buying itBe open to negotiate on the pricePrefer a cash-only transactionListing Pictures are the key Make sure your image is an accurate representation of the item Be honest with your item description Don’t sell anything that does not work Always add a note about the condition of the item Post a link of the item’s review on Amazon/review site Explicitly add a note about this being a cash-only transaction Add Postal code and neighborhood information Add information about what’s included with the item like accessories and warranty Include important information about the item which would help the buyer make a decision. One such example is to include camera shutter count when listing a camera. Optionally, state the reason about why you are selling the item. Again, honesty helps here. Contact Information and Privacy Don’t include your exact home location. Postal code and neighborhood information would suffice. Don’t use your work/personal email. Create a new email address for use with Craigslist. Use a service like Burner to have a temporary phone number to text and call Meet at a public place to conduct the transaction Use an app like ImageOptim, ViewExif or Metapho to strip EXIF data (location, camera information) from the photo before posting the listing Learn to recognize scams. Don’t reply to spammers. Share your contact information on inquiry. Some people like to add the contact information to the listing but I hate spammers and would not take that risk. Choose what works best for you. Post-Inquiry Once a sale is confirmed, setup a pickup time as early as the schedule of both parties permit. The more the gap between inquiry and pickup, the more are the chances of that transaction getting cancelled due to other similar items being available or the buyer having second thoughts. Prior-Sale Ready the item for sale. For example: If you are selling a phone, make sure it is sufficiently charged, all your data is backed up, your personal data is then wiped and the device is ready for transfer of ownership.
On the day of the sale Expect last-minute changes in schedule. If you generally have your phone ringer set to silent, make sure to regularly check your notifications to avoid communication lapses. Post-Sale Delete the listing Be Open to support for a couple of days from sale. A not so tech-savvy old person was having trouble in setting up the printer. He called me up and I provided him instructions to install the printer drivers over the phone and it worked. Be Human, Be Honest and remember to Always Be Closing ;)
Don't kill the personality
I want Chow mein noodles sounds so much better than I want item number 17. Food gets its personality from its name and not from a number.
The Martian
The Martian is one of the best stories I have read in recent times. And there’s much to love about the protagonist from the book - Mark Watney. He is self-effacing guy with a good sense of humor stuck on Mars. Although Mark Watney is a fictional character from the book, there are lots of interesting things to learn from the character
Before executing your final plan, test out your plan in smaller increments Understand the fundamental principles behind any technology deeply so that you can easily connect the dots Don’t be afraid to hack stuff and not follow procedures when in a crisis or an unprecedented situation Always be alert and notice small subtle changes in familiar things Setup milestones when on a longer mission Be positive and have a good sense of humor Log your results and hypothesis
Use the right tool for the job
Write a program in C over Objective-C because the situation demands it. Shoot film over digital because you think it would get better results. Don’t try to be a purist just for the heck of it, do it because it solves a problem in a way that makes more sense. Don’t make it more difficult than it needs to be. The route of simplicity is by default the most efficient.