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This is why I'm often at my most productive on long train rides or flights. There is just me and the terminal with no Internet-based distractions, and somehow t

by bergie 14y ago

This is why I'm often at my most productive on long train rides or flights. There is just me and the terminal with no Internet-based distractions, and somehow the surroundings fade away as I hack. Lots of projects like dnode-php and NoFlo have gotten their start this way. For a long time we've had the house rule of no laptops at home to keep some separation between free time and work. Recently I bought a Kindle Paperwhite so that I could enjoy my books and Instapaper articles without the distractions my Android tablet used to provide. There was always some interesting notification, be it email or a tweet I need to react to. With Kindle I get my content but nothing else. At work, the Do not disturb mode that both GNOME3 and OS X have is a good start. I wish Android had something similar built-in.

reirob 14y ago
On my android phone I switch synchronization off, it has the same effect - no disctraction. The button is on the widget for wifi, bluetooth, gps, synchronization and display brightness. I placed the widget on the main screen.
- bergie 14y ago
  I'm using the same widget, but the downside to that is that without synchronization I won't have my email automatically available for offline reading.
gurkendoktor 14y ago
> At work, the Do not disturb mode that both GNOME3 and OS X have is a good start. A good start against a silly tendency. OS X 10.7 and before simply didn't have notifications; most app supported Growl, but it was easy just not to install it and have a silent Mac. (Skype being the noisy exception.) Now OS X has a DND mode that resets itself automatically and cannot be scheduled, and every app can post notifications by default. Both are worse than iOS and every OS X before. One problem is that all high-profile reviews are written by "power user" tech bloggers who cannot get enough of multitasking and notifications, reflecting maybe a busy manager's lifestyle but not the average user.
- bergie 14y ago
  The benefit of centralized notifications is that you can at least have control on what apps can notify, and how. This is a lot better than the mix of some applications using Growl (which you could configure) or implementing notifications on their own (which you couldn't). Just alt-click the notification center icon in the menubar, and you won't see any :-)
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago
    I didn't know about alt-click, but it still isn't permanent. I did this instead: http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/06/disable-notification-center-remove-menu-bar-icon-os-x/ http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/06/disable-notification-center-r... A rather clean way to disable the notification center. Now I have shut up all applications at once, with the downside of relying on my phone for iCal reminders.
hollerith 14y ago
I, too, got a Paperwhite (a month ago) and find it vastly less of a distraction or inducement to procrastination than the Android device (Nexus 7) I had before that.

by bergie 14y ago

reirob 14y ago

On my android phone I switch synchronization off, it has the same effect - no disctraction. The button is on the widget for wifi, bluetooth, gps, synchronization and display brightness. I placed the widget on the main screen.

bergie 14y ago
I'm using the same widget, but the downside to that is that without synchronization I won't have my email automatically available for offline reading.

gurkendoktor 14y ago

> At work, the Do not disturb mode that both GNOME3 and OS X have is a good start. A good start against a silly tendency. OS X 10.7 and before simply didn't have notifications; most app supported Growl, but it was easy just not to install it and have a silent Mac. (Skype being the noisy exception.) Now OS X has a DND mode that resets itself automatically and cannot be scheduled, and every app can post notifications by default. Both are worse than iOS and every OS X before. One problem is that all high-profile reviews are written by "power user" tech bloggers who cannot get enough of multitasking and notifications, reflecting maybe a busy manager's lifestyle but not the average user.

bergie 14y ago
The benefit of centralized notifications is that you can at least have control on what apps can notify, and how. This is a lot better than the mix of some applications using Growl (which you could configure) or implementing notifications on their own (which you couldn't). Just alt-click the notification center icon in the menubar, and you won't see any :-)
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  I didn't know about alt-click, but it still isn't permanent. I did this instead: http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/06/disable-notification-center-remove-menu-bar-icon-os-x/ http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/06/disable-notification-center-r... A rather clean way to disable the notification center. Now I have shut up all applications at once, with the downside of relying on my phone for iCal reminders.

hollerith 14y ago

I, too, got a Paperwhite (a month ago) and find it vastly less of a distraction or inducement to procrastination than the Android device (Nexus 7) I had before that.