make a backup
stop reading this now and go buy a new big drive. get something external, firewire (or networked) and very large. this drive is the drive that all of your everything will go on every day from now on. if you have a sister or brother make sure you send them the link of what you bought with a note BUY THIS RIGHT NOW so you don’t forget. it’s so cheap that you have no excuse other than I don’t have a drive to make a backup which is solved and delivered with 5 minutes of effort.

clean a drawer(s)
every hose has one. a drawer that catches everything. it’s full and it’s time to sort it. the most effective way to do this is to remove everything from it then replace the contents one by one. make a point to put things you will never use into a bag that you can either recycle or give away (which is like recycling).

make a year book
iPhoto has a tool for making a book. it’s really simple. you just pick the shots you want, choose a style from the list, arrange them, then click make. it’s that easy.

make 3 party mixes for you iPod
normally I’d say music player but iPod will do. the task here is to make party mixes. the idea of three mixes is to be ready for several parts of the party. new playlists give you a fresh look at your old music. if you wait until the last second it won’t be fun. build them and after building them don’t listen to your mix. you can come up with a theme yourself but I will offer you these: beginning, middle, end. traditional, childhood, now. the xmas I remember when I was 7, 12 and 18. let it snow, ready for the beach, road trip. the morning comes alive, busy leaving for lunch, five o’clock.

quit something
getting something out of your life is as important as starting new projects. the end of the year is a great time to give the heave ho to something you don’t want to keep doing. there are a few ways to quit but by far the best way is to just not do that whatever anymore. being non-dramatic about the end is important because whatever you are leaving behind is something your are leaving behind. you are over it so just leave it there and keep going.

rewire the computer
under every computer desk is a rats nest of cables, power cords and other things wire related. the task is simple. unplug every thing then plug all back to working. you should have two things at the end. extra cables and a neater system. be sure to label things that you aren’t obvious. and be REALLY careful with external power supplies for hard drives. they may look the same but they actually are not the same. you will fry the circuit board on the drive if they get mixed up.

develop the film
lots of people don’t take the time to get things off of their media devices. they leave hundreds of pictures on their camera as if it this is permanent. this is lots like how people never developed the film in their cameras. don’t do this! the habit that you want is to pull, organize and share your images while they are fresh memories. there are lots of ways to share with things like blogs, flickr, facebook and even printing the pictures. do start using something. don’t worry about getting “stuck” with one service as it’s pretty easy to move to other places.

one thing that I’ve said about students, actually lets broaden this to artists, engineers and designers, is that if you tell them they can do anything they want to do they will come back to you days later with nothing. the very idea of “anything” is to broad that absolutely nothing gets done. I’ve seen this happen again and again in all the time I’ve managed projects.

it’s only when you put budgets, deadlines and constraints on a project is when things become interesting. the very problem of sky is the limit is squelched making it possible to put your mind around the thing as a whole thing. “something to work within” in other words.

the box, even if it’s nothing more than the idea of limits, is what allows you to think about the very thing you want to think out side of. when making a new product I will go into the project with a list of requirements. sometimes this is called a MRD (marketing requirements doc) or just a “spec”. it can be simple like “GPS – small, waterproof, rechargeable without having to plug it in. cost is a factor but not for v1.” or “150 experiments to make you a better designer.” from that we know what the next steps are. it could anything from source possible parts to a trip to the book store.”

it’s during this phase when the box is actually defined. you may find a new material to work with, a component that was just released or you may find that what you are trying to make is in fact impossible to make given what you’ve been asked to do. it may cost to much to make, take too long to produce or something that makes it possible isn’t available for some reason (like a part is is too new).

another problem that you may encounter is that the box isn’t interested in you because it’s actually bigger than you envisioned it. when I was working on a streaming video project I was driven by NBC announcement that they had booked 8 BILLION dollars in advertising for the Fall season. I did the numbers game doing what every entrepreneur  does and came up with a number which fueled my excitement for making the project. however, this was a fatal flaw. it was that number I made. and even making the number smaller and smaller I was still dealing with such unbelievable number so much so that nobody believed my project was actually real. not because of the engineering problem, or a bandwidth problem or the staffing problem but because it made too much theoretical money. so what right? Sandhill Road wasn’t interested maybe Horrywoo was. turns out they weren’t either.

this is not to say that thinking outside the box doesn’t always have impossible to go with it. but you really need to understand the box before you venture to the other side. your problem will be that if everyone has an idea of the box so much so that being outside of isn’t even of interest you really need to rethink what you are thinking. if I had to do it over again I would have made a Power Point clone and shipped that instead.

I interviewed for a jorb with a tech company long ago that was set up by a friend of a friend. I needed the jorb. really needed it. but the interview revealed that it was not the place for me. the conversation went okay, and I didn’t dislike the guy who would be my boss. but when I met people on the project it was clear that it wouldn’t work. clash of personalities, way that the office looked, even the music that was playing. it wasn’t my thing even for a short run which changed me during the interview. later I got an offer. they needed somebody anybody to fill the chair but I declined. it was clear that they really didn’t want me either as the offer was low and benefits none existent beyond the standard issue. making it easy to say no. later on I got word that “they” felt I wasn’t really a good fit either meaning that potential boss really was all that and chips.

later that week I interviewed again. same company. different team. another potential PHB. I was late, I was casual, I didn’t have business card, resume or demo real. 10 minutes into the conversation my boss to be said, “…you are a dream come true… can you start…” “tomorrow!” I blurted. “I was thinking after the weekend if that’s okay” he replied. paperwork was the issue which was was a top notch offer.

bottom line. mind that instinctive feeling that “this is wrong. and I don’t want to say yes.”

This is something I have wrestled with for nearly two years, and the only conclusion I have been able to arrive at, is that I am more confused than when I started my search.

so you’ve sat there looking at specs, making comparisons, reading reviews and other metal masturbations for TWO years because you wanted to buy the right thing. repeat after me. THE SPECS DON’T MATTER. THE CAMERA DOESN’T MATTER! THE LENS DOESN’T MATTER.

what matters is actually having a camera, any camera and using it. period. you guys really have to stop over thinking these things.

figure out what you can afford and buy it. get on with the day. go out and shoot instead of pining about f stop, shutter speed and mega pixels.

here’s another way to look at it… how many picture have you missed because you were sooooo concerned with specs that you didn’t have a camera. or worse, when the picture is in front of you will have chops to make the camera do what you want to do? personally, I think you won’t because you haven’t been practicing.