No Nose Smiley :)

This blog is hosted using Blogger... just because it's simple and I don't need to worry about it. It's fairly invisible as I don't really blog much but it provides a platform for me to 'share' without having to resort to social media.  Anyway I thought I'd have a look at where traffic was hitting the blog and this is what I saw: Yeach.  Really ugly.  What the heck are these sites?  Please don't send me traffic.  I don't care if no one reads it. Most of my traffic seems to come from the Ukraine?!

OK while I can't guarantee you a win, here are 9 winning strategies to being shortlisted when submitting an application online. This post applies for job applications too but I thought I'd share my thoughts on the 'reviewer' side of an online application.  I'm currently about 1/3 of the way through an initial review of some online applications.  In this case it was for a competition type thing at work (I work at TfNSW in the Digital team and we're processing the Open Data registrations of interest ) but the process it the same.  I've also been reviewing some 'job' applications for one of my latest startup ventures so these tips do cross over into that realm too. I've filled in a number of these types of forms in the past and for whatever reason didn't appreciate what effort should go into responding!  So to help you avoid the same issue I thought I'd share some tips about what you can do to help your online form based ap

I saw an ad on Petrescue for a lovely "Schnauzer Cross"... and a second one too! So I popped my name down as we are looking for a friend for Sprocket still after we didn't manage to adopt a cute Beagle cross called Bronco: Bronco the beagle cross in our backyard So after putting in an EOI for both the Schnauzer Cross dogs I got the call that I was the first to put in for the first doggie, the brindle female dog. Here are some adorable photos of this doggie from Petrescue: On Saturday I went out to meet her with Sprocket. She was a timid old thing.  And didn't warm up to anyone.  But looked a lot more confident after a couple of hours - esp compared to the photos above. And I really don't like having my photo on the interwebs but can't resist adding this photo of me and the two doggies.  Sprocket was also an ex-pound dog and from the same facility.  The Blacktown Animal Holding Facility . The issue is

My mother has been talking up Jeunesse products for the last few months.  And been sending me lots of YouTube videos and other information about it.  Mainly because she has seen the benefits of it on her friends when she went back to Canada.  What happened was she met up with some friends whom she hadn't seen in a little while and she found that they looked younger and much healthier.  As a cancer survivor who has done well but wants to get back to 100% she of course wanted to find out what the secret was. They told her it was Jeunesse.  And got her to try the very expensive products over the next few weeks. I was then told how this was great and how she got her energy up and how she wanted me to do the business.  Uh oh.  Not one of those!  Yep a network marketing opportunity (think Amway).  And I don't tend to really have that bad a reaction to them.  I've tried a number of these businesses mainly because I liked the product but didn't like the work to build the busi

Mocoro - fuzzy blue (or pink, yellow or green) gadget that cleans your floor and is fun.  It's marketed as a robotic floor cleaner.   This guy is hilarious. Unboxed this guy after purchasing it online month's ago.  It's not the genuine Mocoro as the instructions don't quite work against the actual thing but it doesn't matter.  He's a cool Cookie Monster blue (and comes with different 'covers') and rolls around the floor.  The really cool thing is that he (it?) rolls around in inconsistent ways and often just 'rolls off' to do it's own thing.  It's quite hilarious (strange sense of humour I have maybe?)  It often goes against a wall and just um... becomes fairly affectionate against the wall... Initial thoughts about the 'useful' part of Mocoro: The zipper makes a bit of a disconcerting noise against the floor and maybe a bit of concern about scratching the floor...  Takes 2 AA batteries (despite saying only 1 ba

I hate broken crockery.  Or chipped crockery.  It irritates me.  But you know what is worse?  A broken keyboard.  Or rather a missing key.  Not only did I suffer 1 fallen off key but two!! Someone suggested I asked too many ?s!    I could still use the keyboard despite the missing key but it was irritating. I even had the key but if I put it on top it wouldn't necessary depress so I pulled it off rather than suffering the irritation when typing.  Otherwise I'd end up being an ANGRY typer.  Oh yes.  They exist. I have a keyboard at home which has no key labels.  I love it.  (It's a DAS keyboard in case you are wondering.) Even when I can't find the dollar sign or the minus key (unless I used the number pad). Then the G key was also loose :( Not only do I ask too many questions, I must also have a love of the letter G. After a lot of searching around and trying to replace keys on my Sony Vaio, I even thought to get the whole keyboard replaced.  But th

For those who don't know we're building a house.  No not us, but a builder is doing the building but we have commissioned a house to be built.  And we're almost there.  The 10 months we've been living at my mother in law's place has been interesting.  Whilst it seems like a long time we've been keeping ourselves busy so it's not been all that bad. The really good news is that I feel like we're only maybe 5 - 6 weeks away from getting keys.  But I have no idea.  The Site Supervisor has indicated by May we should be in.  But he didn't want to commit! This is what it looked like last week (February 2015): In December 2014/January 2015: October 2014: In October 2014 In July 2014 (around the time of Demolition) For more information about the build visit the Building Journey blog: http://peakhurst.blogspot.com.au

Uber onboarding screens I thought this would be useful for others as it's a good study in how to design an app for easy 'onboarding' and sign up.   During a UX workshop I went through an app onboarding example using Uber.  It is not an app I have used previously as I haven't had any need to use Uber.  But everyone who has used it seems to love the service and convenience.  And one of the guys told us how good it was so that was going to be our benchmark. Uber was deemed an easy process and utilised some interesting phone features to make it as easy as possible.   Takeaway: All apps should make onboarding (signups) as simple as possible and reduce keyboard entry of data. This study was done on an Android device (Nexus 5) on Thursday 26 February 2015 in the Sydney CBD area. 1. First time open     2. Registration Option This option allowed for social sign in.  This is always a good option but don’t make this your sole way of signup as i

A no cost, free way to build a standing desk We're currently house sitting (been doing that a lot over this xmas break).  Now at my sister in law's place looking after a cat.  One of the difficulties in being a nomad is my desk!  I haven't got it set up right anywhere yet.  Not even at my mother in law's place and even in Peakhurst when we hadn't settled in properly the desk or bench in that case was only temporary. I have been inspired by a number of IKEA hacks found on the internet but I'm quote happy with what I came up with by scrounging around. The box is 22cm high.  I found a bluetooth media keyboard (which has an inbuilt trackpad - helps as there is no room for a mouse on this box!).  The stool is a further 23cm taller than the box so my laptop is sitting on 55cm above desk height.  It could be a bit taller but not much more.  This is good for my height.  The desk is a standard height at around 73cm. For comfort, the keyboard could sit a bit