The last week of December brings all kinds of lists, the Top 10 songs, books, movies, trends, news stories and now even tweets. Its also the time that people decide to compile their list of personal New Years resolutions to tackle. Like most people, I never had much luck with my New Years resolutions until using the following simple tips.

1.    Set aside some alone time to think about what goals or resolutions are priorities? Are your resolutions the same year after year? Do you never stick to them? Ask yourself why that is.
2.    Choose goals / resolutions that will make you happy.
3.    Don’t try to take on too much. Stick with a small number of resolutions – five or less.
4.    Once you get your list of resolutions compiled, think about what impact they will have on your daily life. Are you being realistic? If not, make adjustments.
5.    Create a vision board using photos, pictures, words, phrases  anything that will inspire you. I create my vision board using a small poster board (11 x 14). Basically your vision board will serve as a daily reminder. I like to place my vision board in a prominent spot so I will see it and be reminded of my resolutions every day.
6.    Make your resolutions both attainable and challenging. For example, if you want to learn how to play the guitar, set up a quiet practice space, make sure you have a decent instrument, schedule lessons, buy a good lesson book…
7.    Share your resolutions. After determining my resolutions, I like to share them with my family and close friends. They can help me stay on track by sharing their insights and lending their support. I usually make this a special occasion by preparing an elegant dinner with candles, good music
8.    Check in with your resolutions often. I like to salamasize my resolutions by creating mini goals. Don’t wait until the year is half over to realize that you’re not on the right track.
9.    Combine your resolutions when you can. For example, if you’d like to spend more time with friends and family and you’d also like to be more fit, figure out a way to combine the two. Play tennis with a good friend, take of cross county skiing with your sister
10.    Keep track of your resolutions and build on them. I like to keep my lists from years past so that I can see where Ive been and were I’m going. At the very least, its fun.

Good luck making and keeping your New Years resolutions. Happy New Year!

Southview Design came to us several years ago (through our friend Kristin Kowler at Genius to Go) in search of a clean, professional site that reflected the caliber of work which they were producing in landscapes. The new site not only improved their image, but made their team proud to share it. That was the site design “version 1″

Just yesterday we launched the all new Southview Design, while the previous site was plenty good they sought a more interactive and engaging user experience – and to continue to their already strong search engine presence. The new site features a striking new look, continually updated project slideshow on the home page, and intuitive navigation scheme. The project gallery allows visitors to explore by image – or quickly filter the list of landscaping projects by Service or by Price.

With this new site Kristin has again provided powerful and effective search engine friendly content, which will continue to build upon the already strong search engine presence Southview Design enjoys. Coupled with the ultra-clean site code and site optimization techniques employed in this go-around we wish them much happiness and success with the new site.

And just in time for Spring!

I read about it a while ago, but just recently made the purchase. The Nike+iPod Sport Kit.

For around $30 your runs can be monitored (pace, distance, calories burned) and you can turn on a voice to chime in each mile, provide motivational comments or simply announce your pace and milage with the push of a button. This of course is overlayed upon the killer mix you have created or downloaded as your ipod playlist.

After the run, simply plug in your ipod and it uploads your run data to a very slick nike web application – a beautifully designed web site application. Here you get graphs of your run and a plethora of other very cool options like:

Download ipod playlists of others’ workout mixes (Sport Imixes)
Find running routes that others in your area have mapped, and add your own
Create running groups or teams (and compete!)
Create a training schedule
Create goals and competitions (for yourself or you and others)
Get interactive coaching/workouts

And much more. I am only 2 weeks into it but I have never been so motivated to stay on track with my workout, and to continue to improve my pace with every run. Tonight, Lance Armstrong even chimed in at the end of my run to congratulate me on setting my personal best pace per mile.

In all, I see it as the perfect blend of human and computer interaction. The design of the hardware, the user experience, graphical interface and feature set, the personal and community aspects are all exceptional.

Best of all my wife can’t give me a hard time for sitting down at the computer after getting the kids to bed. Just uploading my workout hon’!

At that time our baby clothing project was still in the design phase, so one of our goals for this year was to apply to become a vendor – and am pleased to announce we were accepted. Vendors are judged and a limited number are accepted so we were very excited. Come and say hi, and support our local artists. In fact, I will even offer $5 off any onesie or t-shirt if you mention this post! Preview our wares, http://orangerhinokids.etsy.com

Craftstravaganza takes place this weekend, complete information on the website: http://www.craftstravaganza.com/2008/home.html

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Saturday April 26th, 9am – 6pm
Minnesota State Fairgrounds - Fine Arts Building
Complete directions here

Our booth will be directly across from the band (yes there is music too!), our business name is Orange Rhino
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Its been about a year in the making, but my wife and I finally have something to show for our ‘creative collaboration’ that we decided to pursue together. She has the retail experience, an eye for merchandising and a love for babies, I guess I bring the graphic abilities and Adobe Illustrator know-how. Together we’re trying to dress babies better.

The official web site is still in progress at orangerhinokids.com, but you can get a glimpse of the first official releases at our Etsy: http://orangerhinokids.etsy.com/ and our official site is coming www.orangerhinokids.com

If you’re in Minneapolis, Patina stores will be carrying some designs very soon.

The first line is all animals combined with contemporary and/or vintage-esque patterns. You’ll find some onesies (organic and color variations), t-shirts an hoodies for babies and toddlers.

*UPDATE*
We have just been accepted as vendors at “Craftstravaganza”! Excited to be a part of such a great local outlet for local artsists, designers and musicians. We attended last year (as shoppers) and there was a very impressive mix of work. Come down to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds Fine Arts Building on Saturday April 26, 2008 and say hello.

Go to Spock and “claim” your profile before someone else does. Spock uses a technology that automatically generates tags for an individual. This differentiates Spock from the other People Search web sites such as LinkedIn and Wink. Think of Spock’s potential uses – get the dirt on a new love interest, impromptu employer background check, or find out “where they are now”. It seems like Spock has the potential to be yet another Internet time sucker.

By the way, Spock is thrilled with Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). They are utilizing S3 for storing their photos. They write, “We’re pretty psyched with Amazon Web Services, and we’re looking forward to leveraging other neat services they roll out in the future.” It’s reassuring to know that other companies are having success with this technology just as we are with Wonderfile.