First of all my MacBook Pro has decided to play silly buggers and it keeps crashing over and over again, so that’s in the Apple shop for repair.

And just to keep on the crashing theme, I’ve only gone and smashed my car into the back of a Volkswagen Passat on the motorway yesterday, so that’s also in the shop for repair.

Oh well, you can either get annoyed, upset and angry at the world about these things, or you can look at the positives and think about how much worse it could be.

The positives in this situation is that I’ve borrowed an old MacBook Air for the time being, so not too bad really on the computer front. Although I’m missing all my files, programs, data and bookmarks it’s not too bad a swap for the time being.

As far as positives on the car scenario, I should hopefully have it back in a few days time with the bonnet looking like it should do (and not bent in half like it is at the moment), and of course the major plus point is that I’m still walking and talking and have no injuries.

Another positive for this week is that it’s my son’s 7th birthday tomorrow, so it’ll be a fine end to an otherwise eventful week.

Here’s hoping next week brings less drama, and more fixed devices and motors

Stay safe, be lucky.

Jon Dean

You see, I said that this year I have a plan to do a few things: keep on learning, lose some weight, learn to unplug and publish more.

I’m happy to report that I’m on track for a nearly all of those things, but the publishing more has completely gone out of the window.

In fact the last post was on 6th January, so not only am I not publishing more, I’m actually publishing less than I did last year.

Don’t be fooled tho!

The lack of publishing is actually down to my success in the other plans I made, and the progress there has been ace.

I’ve lost a good 2 stone in weight, so I’m half way on my plan to be 4 stone lighter by next New Year. I’ve been learning a ton of new stuff and am in the middle of coding 2 apps (both for personal use, not sure if I’m even going to release them), and I’m unplugging and spending way more time with my family.

I really do wan’t to publish more tho, and I’ve been thinking about change and getting on the move.

I’m actually talking both literally and figuratively, because I’m selling my house and moving the family to a new home, and I’m thinking of starting the blog all over again on a new domain with a fresh and clean theme.

Sometimes it’s good to just get a fresh start, and I’ve been thinking about wiping the slate clean for a while and am now ready to take the plunge.

So, over the summer I’m going to drag myself into 2011 and create a nice lean HTML5 / CSS3 theme and kill this blog off, and I’m going to start posting more of my mindless drivel on my other domain jondean.co.

I might even create a separate stylesheet for IE6 users which serves the content to look like the MS-DOS command line (hey, if you’re going to use a browser from yesteryear then be prepared for my sarcastic attitude to luddites )

You’ll notice I just said that I’m moving domains, and this is for a few reasons.

First of all I want to test the .co domain over the course of a year to see where it can get to in the search results by just publishing regular content and not actually doing any major backlinking.

The second reason is to see how all the new Google author stuff is going to work with a fresh domain, and if the content on my new domain starts outranking the content on my old domain.

Think of it as an extended test to see how the new changes fare against an established site.

Also, it might give me both domains in the top 10, so all roads leading back to me sounds like a nice plan

So there you have it, my bi-annual update!

Hopefully I’ll pull my finger out and publish more, and on the new blog I’ll most likely be putting out snippets on things I find interesting and problems I’ve hit with coding the apps, along with some random pictures of the family and have it all laced with my sarcastic dry wit.

Jon Dean

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I don’t normally make resolutions, because I’m more the kind of person who doesn’t like waiting around until January 1st in order to get things started.

You could call me impatient if you like (I don’t mind, I’ve been called much worse )

I just figure that if you’re passionate about doing something then putting it off until January 1st is a step backwards.

Of course, there are things I’d like to do, and looking at 2011 ahead of me there are personal goals and plans I want to achieve.

But let me make it clear – these aren’t resolutions…

…they just happen to be plans I happen to be putting into place this month

So, what are my plans I hear you cry (well, not so much of a cry, maybe I hear one person murmur quietly in the background). I only have a few, and they fall into just a couple of categories.

Continue To Learn New Stuff

Those that know me know that I’m always reading a book or magazine, or surfing the t’interwebs and reading a thousand different things on my Google Reader feed. I can’t help it, I’m just one of those inquisitive types who has issues sitting still.

I read stuff because I find it interesting, and a lot of the time I learn things I never knew before – whether it’s something really useful like how to integrate new Facebook stuff on a website, or less useful (but highly entertaining) stuff on how there’s a gym in London which uses little people as weights.

Either way, I’m gonna continue sticking my nose in books / magazines / RSS readers for the foreseeable future, so I’m gonna continue to learn new stuff.

Learn To Unplug

Although this directly contradicts what I’ve just said, I’m going to make a conscious effort to switch off all my connections to the outside world when I’m at home.

This isn’t to say I’m becoming a hermit who shuns the world and all technology, retiring to a wood cabin in remote wilderness, and living a unabomber lifestyle…

It simply means that once I’ve gone home then I’m going to be spending more time with my wife, my kids, my friends and my extended family – rather than with all my other friends on Twitter, Facebook and the crazies from the various forums I frequent (you know who you are).

This doesn’t mean I love you any less, it just means that I love my family more, and that’s a good thing.

Lose Some Weight Fatty

If I’m completely honest (and as honest as all my mates are to me in the pub), I need to lose about 4 stone.

I kid you not.

I mostly sit around on my ass 24/7 working on a computer. It’s a very nice shiny iMac, which is fast, reliable, clean etc., which makes it a joy to sit at. But nevertheless, I sit on my ass all day and don’t do enough exercise (unless you count making coffee as exercise, which most people don’t).

This coupled with the fact that I love chocolate, kebabs, pizza, curry, chinese food, steak & kidney pudding and chips, beer, wine, crisps [and the list goes on...] means that I have gone in the past few short years from a svelte 12 – 13 stone handsome chap, and grown somewhat into a 17 stone 1 pound behemoth.

It’s not good for me, and in the long term it won’t be good for my kids, so this is the year that I drag my fat butt off my very comfortable chair and do some exercise.

Put My Head Above The Parapet More

Like most people reading this (all two of you), I am just as insecure and fret about people saying / writing things about me. It’s part of the human condition, we all want to be universally loved (especially if it’s Halle Berry or Michelle Pfeiffer), and none of us want people to come back at us and swipe the rug from under our feet and kick us while we’re on the floor.

The problem is that on the internet if you want to make some money or build out a business, then you need to put your stuff out there for people to read and comment on.

Thankfully I’ve not really had any bad incidents of people name-calling, trolling my comments, or saying nasty things about my weight on Twitter (unless you count the people I share an office with – and that’s not really trolling, it’s witty banter, and it’s frequently started by me )

So this year I’m going to be putting out more content, whether it’s quick updates via Posterous, or an update on my Facebook Page (which you should go and like by the way), or even a monster blog post like this one.

I’m also going to be messing around more with all the Facebook changes, so if you are looking at this blog you’ll notice that the comments will move across to FB comments at some point (when I get time / can be bothered), and if you’re looking at my FB page then you’ll see me making changes over there as well. These are as much for my continuing to learn, as well as finding out what works and what doesn’t.

Try More, Fail More, Learn More

This is actually something which has been ongoing now for a couple of years, so it’s not actually a plan for 2011 as such.

You see, I’m not one of those people that cry over spilled milk. I cock up all the time, and each and every time it happens I learn something from it.

So this year I’m going to continue to try to do more stuff, take action, and see what works. If it doesn’t do what I thought it was going to do it doesn’t mean it’s a failure, it’s just new data for the next iteration…

So that’s my ongoing plans (remember, they’re not resolutions), hope the coming year brings you what you’re hoping and aiming for, and if it doesn’t then you have some test data to work with next time round

Jon Dean

Posted via email from Jon Dean

Posted via email from Jon Dean

So, to one and all, here’s hoping 2010 beings you all that you ever need and want.

And remember, the harder you work on taking action in a positive direction, the more you will achieve – don’t sweat the small stuff and concentrate on what matters.

Take care, and see you next year

Jon.

Meet Nez!

Now, the difference with me is you’re not going to get the instant gratification of knowing what my goals actually are.  You are going to get my mindset on all my life choices, which I think is a heck of a lot more important.

Let me tell you why.

Everyone this time of year says “I’m gonna do something life changing this year” and lists a number of targets to hit (give up smoking, lose weight, pay off my mortgage, meet Brad Pitt etc).  Then people get all disillusioned when they don’t achieve them by the date they set themselves.

To me that’s just setting yourself up to fail.

Don’t get me wrong, I do set dates and tasks for stuff all the time (hey, I’m a project manager, I even have Gantt Charts!).  I just think that some things in life shouldn’t be forced and should come at a time when you’re ready to do them.

My way is rather simple.  You don’t set the goals to a specific timeframe, you live life by just a couple of questions, and you apply the questions to all which you aim to do.

My two questions are:

1) Will this pay my mortgage and put food on my kids table?
2) Will this make me happy?

If the answer to these questions is ‘Yes’ then I will go ahead and do whatever it is, if the answer is ‘No’ then I wont bother wasting any energy or time on it, because it’s not worth it.

I spent a long time figuring this out, and it works for me.

Before I worked this out I had a life that I wasn’t enjoying one little bit.  I worked a stupid amount of hours in a corporate world, came home and was so stressed that I really wasn’t a nice guy.  My wife was very understanding as she’d worked in stressed places before, but you can’t really explain to a 4 year old or a 2 year old that you just wanna chill out and not read them a bedtime story.

Then something pretty tragic happened last Christmas which made me take a long hard look at my life.  My brother Nick died of a heart attack.  He was only 46 and he wasn’t that unhealthy, we just have a history of heart disease in the family (2 Grandfathers & my dad also died of heart attacks in late 40s early 50s).

After a few months of trying to carry on in my corporate world I just came to the conclusion that it simply wasn’t worth it.  I want to still be around when my kids are growing up, and I don’t want the time I spend with them to be miserable because I’m stressed 24/7.

So I decided to do something about it, I came up with my 2 questions and I decided to move on.

Now moving on for me and moving on for everyone else is different, we all have different commitments and different responsibilities.  I was always worrying about taking the risk of going self employed (or moving jobs for that matter) because it could all go wrong and I need to pay the bills, but in the end I decided that if I didn’t do it then I never would and I asked myself the 2 questions about my current job.  It did pay the bills, it didn’t make me happy.

In the end I took the leap, and now I’m immensely happy and I can still pay the bills.

It could all go wrong tomorrow with the way the economy is, but that can happen in any company and not just to the self employed.  In fact, one of my previous colleagues emailed me right before the holidays and told me they’ve been put on redundancy notice, so if I had stayed there I would be facing a New Year with no job.

I know that if it does go wrong I will still be happy and will still have my family and friends, and in the end that’s all that matters.  Jobs come and go, as does recession and boom times.

In the end, I can always go and work on the bins.  After all, I’ll still be happy and it will put food on my kids table.

So my message is simple, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t achieve your 2009 goals by whatever date.  Do things which make you happy and put food on the table, you’ve only got 1 life don’t waste energy or time on stuff which doesn’t matter.

Here’s to a prosperous 2009 and whatever 2 questions you come up with!

Manchester took a step in the right direction today when it chose to say no to the congestion charge.  The early stats say that of all the people eligible to vote 53% returned their ballot papers, with a whopping 78% of them voting ‘No’.

Although my fellow Mancs said no (as did I) I think we can all agree that there is still a problem and it is only going to get worse.

Now I was all for the plans for the public transport proposals tabled for this referendum, I was just against paying for it via another tax on motorists which I believe unfair.

Although representatives from the ‘Yes’ campaign say that this was the only option, and now that Manchester has decided on a ‘No’ vote then the plans for an overhaul for public transport infrastructure is dead, I have to disagree.

You see I think there is a way to raise the money.

I think that as a region we should whack up speed cameras on 75% of our major roads and motorways in Greater Manchester.

Now don’t shout, bear with me and hear me out!

Many anti-speed camera campaigners have said for a long time that these things don’t act as a deterrent to speeding and that they don’t always have an effect on road safety.  Well that’s fine, because what they have proved to do for as long as they’ve been in existence is provide a steady stream of income for the Government,and not chump change but multi-millions.

So, if we put speed cameras on 75% of the GM roads then the revenue stream from this would go a very long way towards fulfilling the requirements of the proposed public transport plans.

This way only people breaking the law (ie speeding) will be paying for the benefit of all, and not just another tax on already hard-hit-in-the-pocket motorists.

Now I’m pretty sure AGMA don’t read this blog (does anyone?!), but surely the brightest minds in the UK can come up with a way to save the public transport plan without taxing all the motorists of Manchester on a daily basis.

Think outside the box people and do the jobs we voted you into office to do!

OK, that’s my two-penneth, you can leave yours in the comments section.

I was 35 on Friday last week and I don’t feel any older, I certainly don’t look any older, but there has been a noticeable change.

You see, I find myself liking the new Take That song (something about worlds, hold on, hold on),  I simply can’t get it out of my head.

I keep telling myself that it’s OK, I wasn’t a Take That fan when I was younger (although I did like Back for Good - as a one off pop song), I’ve always been into my guitar tunes and this new track does sound very much like something Snow Patrol would do, so that’s OK then.

But then I realise that it’s more than just the Take That track… I actually like that WIll Young track (is it called Grace?) as well. Although I’m really loving that Guru Josh Project track Infinity 2008, I then realise it’s because I loved the original released in 1989… nearly 20 years ago…

Oh no.. I’ve also got Smooth FM tuned in on the car stereo.

How can this have happened in the space of a week?  One of my favourite tracks of the past year was Pendulum’s Propane Nightmares and now I’m hankering after sodding Will Young’s album.

Is this how it’s going to be from now on, a steady stream of easy listening until I finally seccumb to a 2-seater red sports car and start tucking my t-shirts into my jeans, the ones with a crease ironed in them?

I wont let it happen I tells ya!

I make this solemn vow:

I will never buy a 2-seater red sports car or tuck any t-shirt into any trousers with creases in.  If I do, you have the legal right to punch me in the nose – no, you have a duty to punch me in the nose.

The only caveat to the last statement is if I happen to win the lottery and make a rash purchase of an Aston Martin – but that’s got nothing to do with middle age hankering after lost youth and everything to do with a 7 year old boy watching Goldfinger with Sean Connery for the first time.