ModeNomad

I’m intrigued—have been for months—by the possibility of sing only an iPad to get my computing done. With the 5.0 version iOS it’s at least theoretically possible, because you don’t need a separate computer to perform the initial setup and registration of the device. And another showstopper was, arguably, swept away as well: you can back up your iPad directly to the cloud.

I realized with a bit of a jolt that ModeNomad.com had been sitting up online for several months and had somehow managed to muddle along without plopping down a bunch of “share” buttons next to every article. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds.

Anyway, I figured I’d better add some buttons. Hell, the more the better.

A guy by the name of Hamish McKenzie wrote a blog piece for PandoDaily.com and a link to it wound up getting tossed over my way. If you haven’t checked out PandoDaily, it’s an interesting startup that covers startups… worth checking out. I haven’t run across McKenzie before, seems up and coming, but he’s got the mobile thing wrong.

The other day I decided I had to do something about my mother’s computing situation.

My father had kept up the telecom end of operations back home back in the day. But when he passed away, my mother gradually stopped using the computer. By now, the computer is several years old, the connection is telephone dialup, and the son who helps here manage her financial life really can’t function without email. The occasional Skype call might not be a bad thing either.

There are a surprising number of books out there these days that tell you how to chuck it all and live your own life. There’s a list of them down below, and the next one to make a splash would appear to be The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future.

I was just reading a guide to becoming a better networker, a so-so affair called Work the Pond when a rather interesting bit came up. The book cites a research project from 1973, a paper called "The Strength of Weak Ties," by Mark Granovetter.

A job I recently took on meant that I could expect to the target of more than the usual number of computer hacker attacks. Compromising my system would be a potential way of getting inside the systems of the larger organization, which by no means holds any secrets to world domination, but which would be something of a badge of honor for a hacker to "pwn."

Particularly on the heels of Tim Ferriss's latest book, I've been reading a lot of blog posts lately about quick results in gaining muscle mass and in losing fat. Obviously Ferriss didn't invent the desire for get-slim-fast schemes, would be the first to admit he didn't discover the notion of "slow" carbs, and didn't come up with the weight training approaches he espouses. But he's got a lot of folks fired up. And I should say, there's a good chunk of what he offers that makes perfect sense.

If you're trying to keep in touch with a lot of people over the course of the year, the sad truth is that you can't afford for every contact to turn into a protracted conversation.

ModeNomad offers a steady stream of blog entries that I hope are of interest to a community of "ultralight" business people. But a core part of the plan is a growing roster of online, on-demand courses.

Our first course trains you to handle a task that ought to be simple: keeping in touch with people you really need to keep in touch with.