So tonight was interesting to say the least, after making it home from a party for Jenny Blake’s new book, I was hanging out with Lewis Howes. We decided to go meet a few people down in SoHo.

After 5 minutes of looking for a cab (it was brisk) we decided to catch the train. We walked a couple blocks and got to the subway.

We arrived just as the train we had hoped to catch was leaving. Neither Lewis nor I are uber familiar with the subway system because both of us are relatively new to NYC, so we decided to wait for the next train.

After a solid 10 minutes of waiting, the wrong train came.We decided to give up and try and find a cab, but if we didn’t find one on the walk back to my apt, I was just going to call it a night.

We walked back up 23st towards where I live and reached my apartment, no cabs. We both went our separate ways.

I went back to my apartment and started checking facebook and twitter. About 5 minutes later, I get a tweet from Michael Streko, who I was supposed to meet for a SEOmoz event earlier in the night, but bailed to be at Jenny Blake’s event.

Michael hits me with “@nickreese read @seanpower‘s stream someone stole his laptop and they r downtown, is it by you?”

At first, I thought… well that is where I was headed, but totally not my problem. (lol)

I tweet back “@streko @seanpower That is down in soho. Just left @lewishowes who is headed down that way now.”

I then find out that there is a girl there that is trying to get the laptop back. I read Sean Power’s twitter stream and it seemed too interesting to pass up (I live for crazy stories) so I decied to tweet:

@seanpower @andrewhyde I’m 10-15 away. Need me to roll out?

After a few tweets back and forth I decided to leave and if I found a cab in less than a minute I would go. I walked out my door and no joke, there was a cab dropping someone off at my building. I guess I am going… my heart was racing on the ride over. Here is the rest of the story about how I helped a complete stranger get his laptop back using a software called Prey. Please note this was the 2nd time trying to record the video. The first one failed because I’m on a flimsy wireless card.

The video has been removed or at least moved to private to protect the identity of the girl in the purple sarong. I’ll write a more detailed write up of what went down behind the scenes. I have additional footage of the conversation at the bar.

Totally outrageous and pretty damn memorable, after leaving the bar we went and got crème brulee and some strawberry alcoholic drink at French Roast. Needless we wanted to get out of the area. As you might have guessed tonight was a very memorable night, but I am sure it is just the beginning of my adventures in NYC.

Here is a  full play by play on twitter.

I started using Audible in March 2006. Since then I have listened to over 90 audiobooks ranging from self development classics such as “Rich Dad Poor Dad” to fiction novels from the “Enders Game” series.

Much like Amazon changed the way people purchased books, Audible is changing the way people “read” books.

Over the years I have thoroughly enjoyed Audible and after recommending it to everyone from my business partner to my doctors, I realized it was time to write a through review of Audible.

Audiobooks are the Cure for the Boring Commute:

I first stumbled on Audible when a family friend recommend that I start listening to audiobooks in the car. At the time I was spending 7-10 hours driving a week. While this is fairly standard for the average American, I get bored with music pretty quick, so listening to audiobooks instead seemed like a wise move.

After some cursory research I decided Audible seemed like a logical choice. I noticed that I could put the audiobooks on my ipod shuffle and listen to it in the car.

At the time I was fortunate because my Honda Element had an auxiliary input so I could directly connect my ipod to listen to music. At the time, this was a pretty new feature but now this fairly standard and your car probably has one too.

Audible is my Mobile Mentor:

When I first started listening to audio books I was really into business and personal development books because my first business was just getting started.

Before using Audible I dreaded my commute, as I began to listen to more and more audiobooks about topics relevant to my business my commute surprisingly became one of my favorite parts of the day.

At the time I had no clue what a profound impact of listening to books such as “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and later “The Four Hour Work Week” would have on my fledgling business.

Before Audible I never saw the value in reading a ton of books, I was your standard college student who hated to read.

Several years removed I can say that the time spent on my once mundane commute, fundamentally changed how I thought and who I would become.

Few people are lucky enough to get mentored by great authors such as Robert Kiyosaki or Keith Ferrazzi, but during my commute time I felt like I was being mentored by them because I was “reading” their books.

While even to this day, I am not a huge book worm but Audible allows me to maximize my learning time when I am in the car or doing chores around the house.

In the average year I now read or listen to 12-20 books up from reading 1-2 before Audible.

Audible Pricing Plans & Features

Audible has two membership types: Gold and Platinum

• Gold plans start at $7.49/mo and go up to $14.95/mo after three months. This is a pretty good deal. That is basically a book a month for $14.95.
• Platinum plans are $22.95/mo and you get two books a month. This is great for commuters because 2 books is roughly 16 hours on average. This is often a good start and will keep you entertained for at least a week hopefully.

Right now Audible is running a free trial to let you try their service out. I’d definitely suggest you give them a try.

Audible Pros and Cons

Here is a quick list of pros and cons from my experience with Audible.

Is Audible.com Right for You?

After years of using Audible I would like to say it is right for everyone but it really isn’t. I would say if you like actually reading books by fireplace then Audible isn’t going to have the same pull for you. The other major complaint I’ve heard is some of the reader’s voices are monotone and can be boring luckily you can listen to the reader’s voice before you buy.

If you are someone who spends much time doing boring dull tasks such as commuting or even basic household upkeep then I think there is an opportunity for you to get a lot of of audible.

I find my mind enjoys learning more than just listening to music, if you feel the same then you will probably enjoy audible as well.

Audible Tips – After Years of Use:

• Find out if you like the reader’s voice before you buy. Audible allows you to listen to a sample of all of their audiobooks. Take advantage of this and make sure the person reading the book isn’t too boring for your liking.
• If you find the author’s voice very monotone, then change the play speed on your iPod or MP3. Often you can increase the speed at which they speak and this will help keep your mind active. I find that 1.3x normal speed is still easy to understand in most cases.
• New books often come to Audible once they have been published for a while. If you don’t see it on Audible, sometimes it just takes a few weeks to get there.
• Realize that Audible uses credits to download books. That said don’t buy books under $15 with your credits because in reality your credits are worth more than the cost of just buying the book outright from audible.

It is the opportunities you don’t take that define you and your career.

Marvin Acuna shared this adage with me and for some reason it stuck.

If you are someone who is actually up to something, something big, you will be exposed to more opportunities than you are going to be able to pursue.

It is up to you to choose what your legacy will be.

Will you choose the opportunities that will make you the most money?

Will you choose the ones that give you the most happiness?

There is no right or wrong decision, but if you know where you stand, you will be ready to make the tough decisions when they come your way.

For me, I am somewhere in the middle. At this point in my life, I am perusing happiness maximization while also keeping my eye on the future and my legacy.

My Personal Mantra for Decision Making is as follows:

Would I want this tattooed on my forehead?

I’m not sure where I picked this saying up but it has been life changing. This one line simplifies decisions by bring my legacy into question.

When everything is said and done my legacy is all that will remain.

Image credit: likethebrids

Papa & I - March 2010

This post is a particularly personal post. Just this past week, in the rush of packing for our 2 month trip to Central & South America and wrapping up an awesome project. My grandfather passed away.

My Grandfather had battled a brain aneurysm vigilantly for 6 months when it was finally his time to go. It is hard to describe how huge of an impact he had on my life, but I know I would not be the man I am today without his influence.

At his funeral my family asked me to deliver a eulogy, you will find it below. It isn’t your typical teary-eyed eulogy, instead it is a reflection of  the success of his life.

The Passion To Do Things Others Only Talk About

I want to start with a quote:

“A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove…but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.” – Forest E. Witcraft

My mom (Jan Harris) gave this to Madge and Byne when I was a child. I will never forget seeing it hanging on the wall. This quote was something papa and grandma lived by. They were honest caring people with a huge heart and a love for family and friends.

Today we are here to honor the life of my Grandpa, Byne David Harris Sr. As many of you know, he was a man with many passions, yet there was nothing was he more passionate about than his family and Jesus Christ. I’m sure most of us in this room, he let us know how important Jesus was to him and that he wanted to share his passion with you.

This was papa’s way of subtly letting you know he loved you and cared about you. Sure he might come off a little bit pushy, but who isn’t when they are passionate about something and for Papa, passion was something he always had in abundance.

My grandfather lived a wonderful life. The 83 years he lived can be described as nothing less than awesome, he crammed enough life experiences in there that it would seem he was Methuselah. That joke was for you Papa, for everyone else Methuselah lived to a ripe old age of 969.

Here are just a few of the highlights of my grandfather’s life. I think you will agree it was pretty awesome.

He served our country in two Wars, He raised a family with the help of my Grandma Madge consisting of 3 Children and 4 Grandchildren, he built award winning homes, he was a professional photographer, he open a part store, and he was a friend to many.

To me this sounds like a life to be celebrated.

One of my fondest memories with Papa happened in late 2006. His brother Clinton was sick in Alabama, which is a quite a drive. It was the winter break of my first year in college and I had the opportunity to drive him to visit his brother. This experience would forever change me.

During this drive, I heard his entire life story from Mistakes to Triumphs. As for anyone, life threw him a few curve balls, but he took them all in stride. Hearing his life experiences pushed me to realize what was important. My grandfather was the type of person that never stopped learning. From building amazing homes to selling things on Ebay he always had a knack for doing things others only talked about doing.

Did you know he learned to fly a plane before he learned to drive? I mean really, who else can say that? Pretty cool. How about that fact he was in the 2^nd group of people trained to modern fly a jet in 1951?

From the time he was young he was always driven. He left the farm at an early age going on to serve in the Army during World War 2 and then after the war he returned to go to college and attended the University of North Alabama.

After college he was one of the few that would return to the military to serve. He always had a passion for flying so he rejoined in what would eventually become the United States Air Force, finally retiring as a Captain.

From the Military to being a freemason, to having a wonderful marriage of 53 years, to being an advid photographer, to raising an awesome family, though I know I might be a bit partial, my papa was always a man with a smile that had an impact on many.

I am lucky to say my papa was part of my life and I am sure everyone in the room can say the same. In his honor I challenge you to live a day like Byne did. Take today and every day with a zest to learn something new and the passion to do things others only talk about.

Thank you for being such an inspiration to us all, papa.

While in Tampa, I had the opportunity to hangout with Andrew Norcross. Andrew is a challenger of the status quo, an outstanding Thesis Theme developer, and all around awesome dude. He does things with WordPress that others dream about. If you are looking for a developer definitely check his stuff out.

Anyways, during our chat we talked about the lifestyle design community and how sometimes people miss the point of lifestyle design. Isn’t the ultimate goal to live a life you choose and enjoy?

More and more traveling is becoming the “defacto” thing for most technomads and location independent professionals. Heck even I am preparing for a trip abroad.

While it is incredibly inspiring to watch people like Adam Baker, Matt Hope, Where is Jenny, and Karol Gajda travel the world, this type of on-the-go lifestyle may not be for everyone.

In our conversation Andrew pointed out that there is a huge subset of people that would love to just have more flexibility in their lives and maybe traveling the world isn’t their personal dream. I think Andrew is right and I think empowering people to do what they love should be the goal of more lifestyle design blogs.

Don’t Buy Into Other People’s Dreams

After some reflection on our conversation I realized one of the biggest problems with many blogs in the lifestyle design niche is that they sell the dream of traveling the world and don’t focus on what YOUR dreams might be.

I know from a traditional marketing standpoint, “selling the dream” is half the battle to building an audience in the lifestyle design community.

While building an audience is important to me and  I would love for you to subscribe to this blog and sign up for the newsletter this isn’t my over-arching goal.

My goal is for you to chase YOUR dreams. Don’t chase my dreams! Everyone thrives in different situations, if your life goal is to raise a family, then go boldly and raise the best little rascals you can.

Whatever your goal in life, chase something that will be fulfilling to you.

An Opportunity to Be Bold

I think it is time for people who are doing awesome things with their lives to get some exposure. People that are changing the world are the ones that need to be paid attention to. (If you are doing something awesome contact me, I’d love to hear about it.)

Ideally I hope you use the information on this site to do something that inspires you. Something that will change the world. Something that will impact others. Something that will make you stand out from the crowd.

My goal isn’t to sell you the dream. If you don’t sign up for email updates or follow me on twitter. I don’t care, I just hope you do something great with your life and be an outstanding human.

There is always opportunity to do be bold and do something original. Forget the travel dream, do something that will change the world.

So it is official. I can now call myself a Digital Nomad.

Over the the past few days my girlfriend and I have moved out of our apartment in downtown Austin and packed up and headed to Florida. We either sold, lent, or donated all the stuff that wouldn’t fit in our car or a small storage unit and hit the road.

The reason for this move was to poise ourselves to make the jump towards long term travel.

Coming up early next year we have a 56 day trip planned for Central and South America then back to Austin for SXSW, then who knows where. (I’m thinking Asia)

In order to make this move towards long term travel and ultimate flexibility we had to do some work.

We had to minimize our posessions, get our finances in order, and make a game plan. All of these steps have been trying but we have finally made it.

We are now location independent.

Minimizing:

In our move towards long term travel minimalism isn’t just a prerequisite it is a requirement. Consequently we got rid of an obscene amount of “stuff” when moving out our of our apartment. In all we donated over 250lb of clothing to the salvation army and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

It is hard to explain just how freeing this reduction has been.

Did I need my 7 Brooks Brother’s Polo shirts in every shade? Definitely not. Does anyone? Probably not.

The best part is that I have owned these shirts for 5 years and resented them every time I walked into my closet.

It is amazing how the stuff you own, begins to own you.

After this massive reduction, I still wouldn’t consider myself an absolute minimalist but Iit will definitely be easier to travel without being burdened by my IKEA furniture and massive wardrobe.

Home Base = Bradenton, FL:

One of the unforeseen obstacles we encountered in planning for this jump was “Where will we send our mail?”

While there are many awesome services such as Earth Class Mail that will handle your mail for you, we opted for the “Home Base” method.

Basically in this game plan you send your mail to someone you trust and buy them a nice scanner.

I consider myself, lucky. I’m very close with my family, so we will be using Bradenton, Florida as home base. My mom will be handeling our mail and scanning it to us when we really need something.

As an added bonus we get to hang out with family for the holidays and will leave our cars with family while we travel.

If you have the option sending your mail to a family member you trust, I definitely recommend this method. It is even better if you can stay with them on short stints (~15 days max) as this adds to added flexibility to snag awesome travel deals.

Travel = Expensive?

One of the biggest obsticles we had to overcome was the financial aspect of travel. Many people think travel is expensive, but if you can cut out your monthly rent, insurance, gas, and utilities it really isn’t too bad. This doesn’t even take into account all of the other random living expenses.

In our case, living in downtown Austin was expensive. While living in Austin was fun, it was time to explore the world.

So I began doing some research and for the same amount we paid to live in Austin we will be able to travel extensively.

I have also been fortunate that since high school my parents have preached to me about staying out of debt.

Consequently through college I worked my butt off doing email marketing and affiliate marketing and managed to graduate college not only debt free but with a small nest egg.

Over the past year in Austin I have worked on building passive income streams through affiliate marketing to help make this jump into long term travel manageable.

While on the road I will be working about 30% of the time on continuing to build these passive income streams.

The Game Plan – Minimalist Travel

So after an immense amount of planning, hard work, and action we are poised to see the world. We will be traveling light and taking lots of pictures.

While I will save our travel plans for a later post we will be going extremely light weight. In our upcoming trip to El Salvador, Peru, and Argentina we will be traveling with just 28L backpacks. To give you some perspective that is smaller than what most middle school kids carry to class. Look for our full packing details shortly. As you can probably guess it won’t be much.

Thanks to all of you how have cheered me on towards this goal of Location Independence. I couldn’t have done it without out.

I just recently read the Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau and frankly I’m blown away. The book was outstanding! I really can’t recommed it enough, consequently I thought it would be cool to do an “Unconventional Book Exchange” as a play on the amazing guides Chris Publishes at Unconventional Guides.

The Unconventional Book Exchange will work as follows:

The Why?

You are probably wondering why I would want to do this. Why would I want to spend a $100+ shipping books for free?

We the reason is simple. I’ve read these books and you can put them to better use than me. I am also moving and would hate these to be in storage while I travel. I also really think everyone interested in standing out from the crowd and living an awesome life should read The Art of Non-Conformity. You probably fall into this category.

Essentially, you get an awesome book and another from my collection to boot and I consider this a Thank You to all my followers.

Big Take Aways from The Art of Non-Conformity

I have always enjoyed challenging the rules. I’m sure my mom can attest to that. I have always thought that I wasn’t following the average path of consumerism. The part I realized though was while I may not follow the same paterns of consumerism some of my beliefs about money and travel where inherited and some of them I had ever really given them any thought. TAONC also helped me reflect on how easy it is to follow societal norms just because everyone else is. Next thing you know, you have a rent payment, a car payment, and are stuck in a cycle or in the same old thought pattern learned from your peers.

Another part that I really enjoyed was the “One Year, Self-Directed, Alternative Graduate School Experience.” While this is a pretty long title, the premise is that graduate schools are inefficent when compared to real world learning. In this guide, found on page (118 and 119) he lays out the foundation for anyone who wants a well rounded worldly education worth many times more than a graduate degree and awesome experiences to boot. I will actively be challenging myself to the reading and kiva.org part. (More on that later).

Finally, The Art of Non-Conformity also got me thinking about my legacy. In the book Chris does a great job of driving the point home. What will your legacy be? What impact will you have on the world?

All books will be mailed out this week.

As you can see by the sleek new minimized site redesign, Becoming Bold is undergoing some changes.

Originally when I started Becoming Bold I set out on a mission to interview successful people – in person – to find out what made them “Stand Out from the Crowd.” While this mission has been fun and rewarding it is time to change the game up a little.

More Interviews

In the future expect more awesome interviews with outstanding people. These interviews will probably be a lot less “polished” in terms of quality (who watches 1080p video on their computer anyways) and will probably be done via Skype or on a Flipcam.

I really enjoy doing interviews; so don’t expect those to go away, the editing just needs to be less time intensive. While I do love playing around in Final Cut Pro, the past interviews were taking about ~4-8 hours a piece to edit including rendering time. Needless to say, this really took the fun out of getting the interviews up.

In the future, look for the same great content, but in a format that is more user friendly. After all we are interested in what these people have to say, not how professional the video looks like.

More Travel

When I first embarked on Becoming Bold back in March I really had no clue where would take me, I knew I wanted to check out LA and hang out with friends. I also knew I wanted to go to NYC and get some great interviews and hang out with my buddy Derek Halpern.

Along with a few other stops this year (not related to Becoming Bold) I’ve been on a total of 32 flights and needless to say I have the travel bug.

With my lease ending in just over a week, I’ve made plans to become a “Digital Nomad.” That said, I’m selling most of my stuff and putting the rest in a 5×10 storage unit. Over the next few months, I will be visiting with family in Florida for the Holidays and off to Central/South America for a 56 day trip in a 28L backpack. (More on that in another post)

Since this type of living is totally new to me, you can expect for me to share some of my experiences and lessons I’ve learned on the road.

More Personal

Since originally embarking on Becoming Bold, I’ve had a bit of a time to reflect on what I liked about it and what I wanted to change.

Looking back at the old post, the thing that is most glaringly obvious is that I was trying to be perfect. I wanted to look perfect on camera, I wanted to sound polished in my posts, and I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing.

While I often like to think I know what I’m doing. I’ve come to realize that trying to be perfect isn’t as fun as it sounds.

In the future, you will definitely see a more personal side of me and as you might have guessed… I’m not perfect. These imperfections will probably show through here and there so you have been warned.

Thank You

As for each of you who have shown me support over the past few months. I thank you, I really couldn’t have gotten this project off the ground without you. To all the commentors, facebook fans, and twitter followers. Thank you too!

If you haven’t already taken time to become a facebook fan or subscribe via email, take a moment to do, so you don’t miss out on any of the awesome stuff coming up.

To everyone, thanks again and remember:

The journey is the destination. – Dan Eldon

As I am sure many of you have experienced. Moving files from one computer to another while on the move can be a royal pain. Emailing files in inefficient and who wants a flash drive glued to their person anyways. We all understand the importance of backing up files and photos, but who really takes time to do it often enough to be effective?

That’s right, not many of us. Sure we could write a con job to do it for us, but that’s lame. You and I both want something that is efficient and automatic. Well here is our solution.

Enter SugarSync:

With SugarSync you won’t have to worry about editing out of date files like you do with email and you can now take that flash drive off your key chain. Best of all you know if your hard drive crashes you won’t lose you important files or family photos because they are backed up. I have peace of mind that my files are safe, you should too.

Pricing:

Right now SugarSync is offering a free one month trial on all accounts.

If you are thinking about trying out SugarSync I suggest that you try out their 30GB plan, which will be typically big enough for most of your “important” files and it runs $4.99 a month after the trial. They have larger plans, but most people don’t need their entire computer backed up. I mean really how many of those 40k songs on your hard drive do you really listen to .

If you are interested in other plans and prices they are listed below. (They too have a free trial).

• 30GB for $4.99/mo
• 60GB for $9.99/mo
• 100GB for $14.99/mo
• 250GB for $24.00/mo

SugarSync Video

Getting Started:

For all the people who have asked me how to get started or that I have referred to this page. Here is how you get started with SugarSync:

First off I suggest you try the 2GB free trial which will be free forever. This plan will help you get a feel for SugarSync and allow you to play around with its cool features. You can always upgrade later.

Step 1: Sign Up

Now go ahead and get signed up for the free plan. You will need to give your email and select an Account URL. This URL will be how you will access your account online.

Step 2: Download Software

Once you have completed the first step and download the software. It is available on both PC and Mac (along with a ton of mobile devices: Cough Blackberry and iPhone).

Step 3: Open SugarSync Manager

Once you’ve got it installed open up the file manager. When in the file manager click on “Manage Sync Folders” then “Add Folders from this Computer.” (Diagram Directly Below.)

Step 4: Add Folders

Once you are there select your files and press “OK.” These folders will begin to sync with the server. (Diagram Below and to the right.)

Step 5: Sit Back and Relax

SugarSync will now work in the background to upload your files to the server. Backing up your files with ease you never have to lift a finger.

Step 6: Add other Computers

To Sync other computers together simply download the client, install, and select the folders you want to be synced. It is super easy!

10 Things I Use SugarSync For: (No Particular Order)

If you are having trouble thinking of some uses for SugarSync here are my top 10 things I use it for.

• Safe & Secure Password Syncing with Roboform.
• File Versioning – If I overwrite a file, SugarSync keeps a copy of the old files.
• Keeping my Photos backed up and safe. I want my kids to see my digital photos of when I was a kid.
• Syncing Invoices across multiple computers for tax purposes. (My accountant loves me.)
• Sharing Large Files – Share massive files easily.
• On the Go, Mobile Living – I never worry if I my files will be on the right computer
• Listening to my music online via any computer.
• View my photos online via any computer.
• Peace of Mind – SugarSync is essentially my insurance policy. Hopefully I’ll never lose another file.
• Sharing Folders with friends. They add things to the folder and they get synced to my computer.

What SugarSync is Lacking and What it Excels at:

No review would be complete without pointing out the good points and the bad points. All software has its ups and downs. So here is a quick list of the features I love/hate.

Pros:

• File Versioning. Great in-case you accidentally overwrite a file, you can retrieve it.
• Automatic Syncing – I don’t have to think about it backing up. SugarSync just does it.
• Online Photo Album – I can check out my photos online without having to have them on my laptop.
• Digital MP3 Streaming – I can listen to my music without needing it on my laptop.
• Syncs with my Mobile Phone – Great for backing up photos of my receipts for accounting purposes.
• Easily Publish my Photos to Facebook.

Cons:

• Sometimes Sugarsync has an issue with locking up your files while it is uploading, causing a permissions error. Took me a long time to figure out what was causing this error. For some reason it happens a lot more on Vista x64 bit than it does on XP x64 bit. Minor nuisance, you just have to let the file finish uploading.
• Sometimes SugarSync’s intuitive upload feature isn’t so… well… intuitive. Once in a while it will hog your bandwidth out of no where. This has been improved upon in recent updates but sometimes I can be cumbersome.
• There isn’t an easy way to sync iTunes across multiple computers, but you can listen to your music online.
• Finally, my last little beef with SugarSync is that it doesn’t allow me to sync my firefox profiles or Outlook PST files across computers. This lack of functionality is what forced me to switch to Gmail and Xmarks. Who knew this issue would be such a blessing in disguise, more on that later.

Future Product Updates:

The items listed below are currently in SugarSync’s queue of items that they are working on.

• Outlook (*.pst) Syncing Support
• Mapped Drive (Network Share) Syncing Support
• External (Removable) Storage Syncing Support
• Group Plans
• End the Macintosh SugarSync Manager beta and release the production client
• Support Mac OS X “Bundles” and Resource Forks
• Ability to remove SugarSync icon from the Dock on Mac
• Ability to search for specific files

Of these updates I am most excited about the External Storage Syncing and Mapped Drive Syncing.

These two features will keep SugarSync way ahead of the pack which is just another reason why I love their product.

Resource Information:

To a few friends I have recommended the service to they have asked about the memory usage. On my end it isn’t too bad. For example as I am writing this I am uploading 8GB of photos and it is using 214mb of memory, which is less than what Firefox is using, and is uploading at 51kb a sec. My desktop rig has 6GB of memory so this may differ depending on your resources.

Additional Photos:

Below are photos of the SugarSync Online Music Player and SugarSync Online Photo Gallery.

Wrap Up:

All in all, I would recommend have recommended this product to all my friends who live a mobile lifestyle or work a lot online. It is perfect for Students, Teachers, Public Speakers, Internet Geeks, Web Entrepernuers, and the list goes on. SugarSync is a solution that will not only help make your life easier but one that will change the way you work across multiple computers.

So what are you waiting for, sign up for your free trial of SugarSync and learn how it can simplify your lifestyle.

Updated:10/25/10

For those just looking for a quick overview of the Thesis WordPress Theme read below. If you want the full Thesis Review click here to skip to it.

10 Reasons Why YOU Should Upgrade to Thesis.

1. Brilliantly Flexible out of the box – 1 Column, 2 Column (right and left), 3 column themes available with just a few clicks.
2. Outstanding Typography – Chris Pearson’s sites have always stood out in this aspect. Thesis is no exception.
3. Intuitive Customizations – Utilizes hooks allowing you to put all of your customizations in one place.
4. Outstanding Support Team and Community – Lots of themes/plugins say this, but Thesis has the best I’ve seen.
5. Rock Solid SEO – Stop tweaking old themes to optimize them for SEO.
6. Post Specific Features – Specify a photo for a post, the title tag, the media box.
7. Future Compatibility – Never worry about a WordPress or theme upgrade ruining your past hard work.
8. Easy Ad targeting with Multimedia Box.
9. Threaded Comments Built in.
10. Prebuilt Customizations: Tons of custom hooks available to customize your theme thesis with little coding experience. (Just Google Thesis tutorial or check out Art of Blog’s Thesis Tutorials.)

Now for those of you still with us, here is the story of why I made the switch:

Free Themes Are Great Except…

While I love free themes, let’s face it, not everyone thinks or writes code the way I do. I’m not saying my way is the right way, I’m just saying that I like to do things my way. After working on several of my own projects using free themes it became apparent that working with a familiar framework would increase my productivity tremendously. There really is nothing more frustrating that having to completely learn someone else’s mangled CSS to figure out why it isn’t displaying correctly in every browser.

Time to Simplify

When I first made this move towards simplicity, I began using a theme put together by the Studs over at AUInteractive theme known as “A Dream to Host.” In my opinion this theme is the best two column WordPress theme around, not only is it quick loading but it has clean CSS and a slick looking layout to boot.

Needless to say my productivity skyrocketed. No longer would I spend hours testing out new themes on my sites, I would just drop in my standard theme and mod the CSS accordingly. Admittedly I might spend a few hours modding the CSS to meet my needs, but at least I had a unique theme. This process was working great until a couple of my site started getting some decent traffic and had boatloads of content.

Monetization Time

With all this content and traffic I decided it was time to start monetizing it. To start I had a few conditional PHP statements here to control advertisements and special content. This worked great there but suddenly it grew out of hand. I was consistently having to dig through each separate theme file to find out what customizations where running where. It was a real nightmare. No one wants to spend time memorizing what custom loops or ads were running much less where in the code and under what conditions!

There had to be a solution. I knew WordPress had a nifty feature called “hooks” to help you place content in the header, the footer, or even the comments area, though I had never used them the idea sounded brilliant. What I really needed was one theme that allowed me to edit ONE file to control the customization of the whole theme.

A Premium WordPress Theme? No Way, Not ME!

Mid last year there was some buzz in the SEO community about some nifty new “PREMIUM” WordPress theme that had great SEO Capabilities. Naturally, it sparked my interest. Being nosy I checked it out, but I couldn’t get the fact I had to pay for it. Being hard headed and slightly arrogant I didn’t even look at the feature list. I had never paid for a theme before and sure as hell didn’t want to start. Needless to say I walked away head held high until I ran across Sugarrae’s post Thesis Hooks for Dummies.

This post blew my socks off. Low and behold the solution to my problem was right under my nose but I had been too busy looking at the price tag to understand why people would pay for it. Heck, I even had rants conversations with friends about absurd idea that anyone would spend a penny on a PREMIUM theme. Needless to say my stubbornness had slapped me in the face.

How does the saying go? For most people to succeed they just need to get out of their own way. Never before had this statement made soo much sense.

With my head held high I broke down and bought Thesis and haven’t used another theme since!

Now where is where the real review starts.

People ask me why I like Thesis. Well my reasoning is as follows:

1. Flexibility

It is extremely flexible right out of the gate. A quick One-Click wordpress install using Dreamhost and a quick file upload via the WordPress theme manager (thanks 2.8) and the ball is rolling. From here I can choose a 1 column layout (great for landing pages), or a two column layout (like on this blog), or even a 3 column layout (perfect for content rich sites). From here I can choose my options as far as media box and/or feature box and fonts and write the home page meta tags and customize the title tags. So far we are talking 2 minutes after we are logged into the backend, no extra plugging necessary. From this point on you can focus on content or you can continue to customize. For a full list of thesis options I have included the screen shots below.

2. Easy Customization

So let’s say that I wanted to spend more time and customize the site from the standard theme. I have a few options. I can either find a thesis skin or hack together the CSS myself. Now hacking together your own theme sounds a lot more complex than it really is. Thesis uses an intuitive custom style sheet; by simply adding .custom to any of the default styles you can over ride any of the defaults. This element alone should sell thesis. Anyone who understands the difference between an #id and a .class can now look like a CSS genius. On top of that there are skins like I suggested which allow you to quickly and easily setup your thesis theme with a new layout.

3. Thesis has HOOKS

So now that you see how we go about customizing thesis’s style sheet, lets do a rundown of my favorite part. HOOKS. As outlined in the story above these are vital to easily customizing and managing a large blog or website.

Essentially Thesis is laid out with place holders, these place holders are known as hooks. For a visual display of hooks check out ThesisHooks.com. At each of these placeholders you can attach a php function. A simple function may just output basic HTML.

4. Future compatibility

Because your thesis customizations don’t modify the core code and your CSS changes are held in a separate file, thesis can easily be upgraded. Chris Pearson and team have done a great job continually upgrading thesis making it even easier to use by continually adding features and improving on the core code set.

5. Thesis Has an Outstanding Community around the Theme

Finally the Thesis community should not go unnoticed. This is probably the biggest perk of buying thesis. This super active community is one of a kind. If php isn’t your forte there are tons of free customization tutorials which will help you hone your skills and do some very impressive things. No longer will you have to poke around on a PHP or WordPress forum to get help with your theme. Have a question and the whole community will do their best to help out.

Room for Improvement:

Now let’s face it, Thesis is a great theme/framework but it isn’t perfect. If I could suggest some improvements they would be:

Homepage Display:

The homepage display should be easily customized, by allowing the user to limit posts that are shown through the admin area. You can change it through the settings but that limits all of your archives. This leaves you the option of modifying the query, this isn’t exactly user friendly and still has some bugs.

Feature Box:

The feature box should have more customizations available to the user, who isn’t code savvy. This could be a Content slider, or even a text box where people could format text which would be displayed there. Right now you can use hooks but there is definitely room for improvement.

Thick Footer:

Option to add a “Thick Footer” (aka fat footer) to a sidebar theme. Though there is code in the forums which will teach you how to add a thick footer, it isn’t easy for non code gurus.

WordPress Attachments:

In WordPress 2.5 they released a Gallery feature which has it’s own issues, but thesis doesn’t elegantly handle attachment pages. They need improvement and I would like to see the ability to customize them better.

Photodropper Integration:

While Thesis does have support for a few important plugins, I would love to see it support Photodropper. Right now it is an easy hack to add the custom CSS, but I would love to see it standard. I will go into the use of Photodropper in another post.

Wrap Up: