Category: Productivity

Posted on
by

A long time ago, I appeared on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools Podcast 🎙️. While I’m
usually reluctant to watch myself back, I couldn’t pass up sharing this one –
I’ve always admired Kelly’s work as the founding executive editor of Wired
Magazine and his thought-provoking writings since.

Let me share some of the Cool Tools I’ve been experimenting with:

Tool #1: 🔧 Rust Programming Language
I’ve been using it to create simple command line tools. The Rust language
continues to gain momentum for writing safe code that compiles and runs fast.
Its language constructs prevent the memory mistakes common in C++.

Tool #2: 📚 Reader App from Readwise
This smart RSS reader transforms how you consume independent blogs and long-form
content. It not only tracks your progress but harnesses AI to summarize articles
and PDFs. A great “read-it-later service” that integrates with their smart
repetition system, prompting you to review marked quotes.

Tool #3: 🎒 Minaal Daily Carry Bag
Best designed bag for my daily needs. It perfectly carries my S’well water
bottle, iPad, MacBook Pro, Apple Vision Pro, and sometimes my gym clothes around
Singapore or wherever I travel.

Tool #4: 🌐 GL.iNet Slate AX Router
My wife and I bring a lot of tech when we travel, including our Sonos Roam.
These speakers can’t authenticate on Hotel WiFi, but this portable WiFi 6 router
allows us to stream music and secure our traffic on a VPN. It helps our devices
bypass the Great Firewall when traveling in China.

💭 What Cool Tools have transformed your daily routine? Share on X.

Watch the full episode here:

Posted on
by

In my corporate job, my company uses a video conferencing system called BlueJeans. In addition we use Office365. Put these two together in a corporate environment with offices around the globe we end up with a lot of “alignment” meetings. Rather than have to communicate with everyone how to dial-in, I just installed the BlueJeans Office 365 plugin. Every meeting invite I send I can just click the Bluejeans button before sending it and the plug-in fills in all the meeting details with a link to my Bluejeans ID and including phone numbers so people who don’t have Bluejeans can dial-in on their phone. When you standardize the way you put Bluejean’s links in your calendar invites convenient things happen. Connect your Office 365 calendar to the BlueJeans App and the app will show you a list of meetings with the dial-in information picked up from the meeting invite. All the hassle of connecting to a meeting is removed.