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Author: jonnyashton@gmail.com
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HomeTech 101 – backing up
So. The time has come. My Apple Time capsule, beloved since 1903*, latest version released in 2016 and discontinued by Apple since 2018 when they disbanded the whole router and storage team. See Wikipedia for more details on this sad moment.
Should I go with the MyCloud from Western Digital? Seems to sync perfectly with Time Machine and provide enough flexibility for our needs at home of sharing video and photo files around the home wifi network – any access outside the home can be handled as needed through a web interface or mobile app which I have read a little on but will play with once purchased.
Any flags on purchasing a WD we should know before I hit the orange button on Amazon? Thanks in advance to both our subscribers…
*Slight exaggeration but please bring it back!
Featured Photo by Bonnie Moreland on StockSnap with thanks!
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New Perspectives On Mobility
I sit here in a co-working space in London and am surrounding with a dynamic energy I want to bottle and breathe in, similarly to my Vicks Vaporub obsession when clogged and snotty, when labouring over a creative venture or uninspired study session.
And I love London. I am not at liberty to live and work here right now but it will always be an option and never been a daunting place for me or my now wife who loves the manners and etiquette and diplomacy she associates with this world capital.
Sitting amidst the throb of Bankside of a lunchtime, the smash and grab M&S Simply Food or Pret lunch bomb laced with avocado and new forms of protein less likely to offend a delicate humanoid in a newly conscious and woke get-up, and I notice how, apart from the static traffic queues, everyone is a pedestrian. The odd cyclist but mainly a walker. Ooo a Brompton just flew past! Why the dirth of scooters, electric or otherwise? They have really picked up in Dubai and are challenging the rental bikes on the streets for kerbspace nowadays, Marina-side at least.
But then I guess its simply too hot to contemplate movement powered from within back in the sandpit. It is hard enough to get out of the AC SUV cubicle, never mind switching to a more exposed, tactile, engaged form of mobility.
What do you think? to scoot or not to scoot? Are the London roads simply not wide enough for additional modes of zipping about?
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Thinking Inside The Box: announcing the podcast
Well here it is: https://anchor.fm/jonathan-hirasawa-ashton
More than ten years after my first podcasting experience whilst living in London, here we are back again now that podcasts are the “it” place to be. Niche audiences, mobile devices looking for on-demand audio content, podcasts are growing in popularity indeed.
A recent research into the growing phenomenon by Markettiers, focused on my home market of the UAE, highlights several key reasons why this is where brands should be, based on a few key highlights as follows:
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Podcast listeners spend 25% more on food and drink than non podcast listeners
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Podcast listeners spend 25% more on entertainment and travel than non podcast listeners
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93% of people who listen to a podcast, finish it
That last insight is particularly relevant in this day of fighting for the attention of your target audience. But what has this got to do with launching my own podcast? And, if you listen to it, you will realise that it isn’t particularly thrilling, compelling or useful. Yet.
But it will be. If just one of my lovely contacts and I find the time to drill into the creative challenges faced in the marketing communications arena. The point is, the podcast was inspired by the hackneyed term “thinking outside the box” and how communicators define their competitive advantage or otherwise on their own terms, i.e. what does their box look like.
To date, I have yet to invite someone else into my audio space. But it will happen. And when it does, I sincerely hope it will prove useful to my audience. That’s where you come in.
Just in case you missed the link at the top: https://anchor.fm/jonathan-hirasawa-ashton
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Saturday
My First Haiku
Haiku-tastic-time
Limited Japanese Rhyme
Speak like Yoda, I’m
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Musings on Microsoft
It was a random improvised visit to Virgin Megastore yesterday to purchase perhaps the most incredible audio experience we have had in some time. Miki wanted some distraction-free headphones so we plunged for the award-winning top-of-the-range Sony with some delight that Sony was still leading the charge in one aspect of its product line.
But then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a Microsoft display area, atop of which was the Surface. The gigantic touchscreen device I had seen released months or years before but never experienced up close. I was drawn in. As a decade-plus Macintosh fan (I write this now on my first generation MacBook that I adore to this day), something about a gigantic touchscreen yet also a fully-functional “normal” computer excites me.
It is also an area that Apple needs to pay attention to. The iPad-as-laptop option and constant focus on iOS as separate from MacOS is frustrating in some aspects. This may change in the near future as ARM chips infiltrate the desktop environment at the expense of Intel, allowing Apple more innovation internally, but right now Microsoft is making some incredible products.
The Microsoft pen you can use on all the Surface products feels way better than the Apple Pencil we bought a year or so ago. It invites you to use it and feels fantastic to do so, mistakes erased in the old school way of reversing the stylus and rubbing out with the other end. I am obviously a dinosaur because this just feels like the way you should erase.
My recent plea for a new work laptop to replace my aging Lenovo may need correcting – I requested a MacBook of some sort but may see if a Surface Pro is possible. I will be grateful for a newer anything, but one can always hope for something that invites you to create, the tablet-and-stylus format I can imagine will invite collaboration with clients and make for easier note taking and sketching, all for the enhancement of my client servicing.
Image courtesy of StockSnap.io
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Ten Thousand Steps
This is it, folks. A new chapter for the Miny duo has started with 2019. Bikram has taken a back burner, Pilates still part of the mix, but the key ingredient these last two weeks has been achieving a solid number of steps per day. Ten thousand minimum, to be precise.
Doesn’t sound much I suppose, for those reading this living in sprawling metropoli such as London, Paris or New York, where walking is unconsciously auctioned like breathing, part of a daily commute, a daily grind is Dubai dwellers can easily omit. Here we are somewhat spoiled, living in our air conditioned capsules where a commute to work can typically include: leave the apartment, lift to parking, walk 50 steps max to the car, drive to office parking, walk 100 steps to office lift, park arse at desk for 9 hours minimum. Rinse and repeat on a daily basis.
Walking 3000 steps a day would be a normal day without a concerted effort. We have shifted our schedules to get up at 5am every day, prepare breakfast and be out walking around the Marina or on the beach well before sunrise. Not only does this, in our humble opinion, start your day the right way (breakfast and exercise, however mild), but also we find ourselves talking together more than ever. You simply can’t stare into your mobile phone when you’re trotting around the neighbourhood.
More to follow on this habit we are forming, if you’re lucky we might even blog a tad about our attempts at keto dieting and intermittent fasting.
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An Ode To Catboy
I think of you now, the same as before:
The first MinyCat in our MinyLife for sure.
(Don’t tell GingerPants, but the one I adore.)
You left us directly, abruptly, from the 21st floor.
They called, I came, opened the bag, I saw
Your beautiful body still in shape, thankfully no gore.
In your sleeping state, you remain purrfect and pure
To the very end. Please don’t stir with a pained miaw.
Greeted home from work daily with a hungry bawl
To fill the food bowl your only flaw;
Integral to a life in Dubai almost four
Years, almost as much as MinyWife, even more
Than the best of friends. My shaking pale paw
Drops the phone, screen smashes. Sod’s Law.
Both of us miss you terribly, though we abhor
The way you left us, through rose-tinted we’ll pore
Through memories tied to our core.
In memoriam of our finest feline friend: Melchior.
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Inspired by my inspiration
Be prepared for a slightly cheesy blog post. It is mostly about the love, care and attention I am fortunate to receive on a daily, if not hourly, basis from my best friend and life partner: MinyWife, AKA Miki. We launched this blog together with a view to sharing whatever makes us smile in life, normally revolving around our cats, yoga, food and digitalia. But I wanted to take this opportunity to write about my inspiration to get up in the morning, just a little, as it forms the foundation of this very blog and our lives together. It isn’t our wedding anniversary, it isn’t a particular day for celebration or remembering, except for our ongoing daily romance.
This has been sat in the Drafts folder for some time and I now come to reopen WordPress after some time, so long since starting this post that it is now MinyWife’s birthday. We have spent a day hard at work unfortunately instead of celebrating my favourite person as much as I would like, but when time and funds permit we shall certainly be doing something more fun than Powerpoint 🙂
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A Visit To the Osteopath For MinyWife
It seems there can be a thing as too much yoga, it is sad to report on these pages. Many a weekend MinyWife and I would be absent from our friends’ social lives with our main focus on ourselves and our wellbeing, sometimes totting up over 10 hours of yoga on weekends. We are fortunate to have discovered two very good studios close to home and the All-You-Can-Ommm packages appealed to the Yorkshireman in me!
Following a remarkable period of weight loss since last August, we are increasing in density once more. I might be perceived as blowing our combined trumpets here, but we did manage to remove 15Kg each from our bodies, in a period that ended in January this year. A fabulous achievement in terms of focus, willpower and determination across both exercise and diet. What with a major operation, honeymoon, general summertime lethargy and MinyWife not smoking since 1st May all coming into play since January, we are not back to our hefty former selves but heading that way without a concerted effort.
Hence the push back towards yogathons on the weekend. Unfortunately, after one particularly demanding 5.30am Ashtanga class, we both came away with cricked necks and hurting shoulders. Literally shrugging this off as a symptom of getting used to a different style with a new teacher, we carried on regardless without the pain subsiding. Weeks later, MinyWife received a text from her osteopath, a rearranged appointment forgottenly made months ago. A truly brilliant medical professional, or so I am told after the excellent 30 minute diagnosis and treatment sessions by MinyWife, well worth the outlay even though not covered on our company medical insurance.
The doctor made the common sense observation that yoga will have a very different impact on a body depending on it’s size, shape and weight. Therefore exercise done when slim is likely to be easier than that undertaken with more girth. Hence, all those Ashtanfga-driven downward dogs carrying an extra 5Kg here or there will apply increased pressure on our arms and shoulders. This stellar advice in mind, we are refocusing our exertions towards Bikram, Pilates and milder forms of Hatha yoga until we both trim down closer to previous levels. Wish us luck.
And, depending on our mood, we might even reveal the doctor’s name if you ask nicely. No promises…
Image courtesy of StockSnap.io, a fantastic copyright free stock image resource