Staying fit doesn’t need to be a hassle. In fact, just a few easy tips can get you well on the way to stay in shape with minor changes to your everyday life.
- Walk more.
Walk to the store, to work or just take a walk. There are probably many nice places in your neighborhood you haven’t seen. Check them out. Try to get at least two kilometres (1,25 miles) each day, preferably more. When you feel comfortable walking often, you can try to take a jog. This is even better exercise. - Cut down on the unhealthy fat.
Use more oil and less butter in your food. Olive oil has many health benefits. Sunflower oil is nice for frying. - Eat more pork, fish and chicken and vegetables, less sugary and fatty food.
Eat less sugar, chips, deep fried stuff and fast food. Use unprocessed food in your cooking. Learn to cook healthy food. Cooking can be fun and relaxes you after a long day at work. Pork, fish and chicken are all really healthy. Together with vegetables they are a perfect dinner. Beef you can reserve for the weekends. - Eat 5 fruit/vegetables every day.
A dinner should be 2/3 vegetables and 1/3 meat/fish. Eat an apple or a banana for snack instead of chocolate or chips. - Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
This together with less sugar and fat made me drop 5 kg/10 pounds in 6 weeks (My office is on the 7th floor and I often walk to other offices on lower floors during the day to help people).
The results
If you follow some of or all these tips you will gain a better health, more energy and a better mood.
Bonus tips:
- If you smoke, stop. This will be the single most effective thing you can do.
- Keep sweets and alcohol for the weekends only.
- Try to eat varied food. Fish at least once, preferably twice, a week.
Safari launching on an iPhone (it took many tries to get this screenshot right!)
More and more gadgets use fancy animated graphics. From your cellphone to your high-end Linux box running Compiz Fusion, they’re all looking better than ever. But animation is more than looks. And today I’m going to cover many of the benefits of animations in software, from multiple angles.
Animations are exciting
Animations makes people go “Ooh” and “Aah”. This makes people happy, and they’ll be more likely to like the software. Even Vista with all its problems was famous for its Aero flip 3D. Bringing animations to your software also makes it seem more professional and complete. Static software is boring, animations are not. Too much is not good either, so finding a place in the middle is important.
Using animation to hide slowness
Everybody hates slow software. Animation is a great way to hide this. Of course, the best solution is to make software faster. But when this is not possible because of limitations in hardware, animations can be a great solution.
A very good example of this is launching apps on an iPhone. You zoom from the springboard (desktop) to the app. It may only take milliseconds, but it gives the app some extra time to start that doesn’t annoy you. Many apps are ready to use when the animation is done, making the launch seem instantaneous instead of having a tiny delay. This gives a great user experience, and is one of the “secrets” to why people love the iPhone.
Using animation to give feedback
Animations is a great way to give users feedback on their actions. When you click something, you expect something to happen. A good example is the jumping dock icon on Macs when you launch a program. Another one is minimizing windows on almost any operating system.
On Windows 7, you get outlines when dragging windows to the edge of the screen, highlighting that you are about to invoke the Snap feature.
Using animation to show relations
Animation is a great way to show how things are connected. A perfect example is switching screens in a table-based iPhone app. When you press an item in a table, the table slides off to the left and a detailed view comes in from the right. When you go back, the opposite happens. This gives the user a sense of relations between objects on and of the screen. The app seems more logical and self explanatory.
This works so well because we humans are wired to see relations between objects. This is also the reason why interfaces inspired by real world examples often work well (provided they are well executed).
How to implement the correct animations in your software
Knowing that animations can be used for many things is good and well, but how do you use them the right way? The easiest way to know if animating something is the right thing to do, ask yourself these questions:
- Are you sure it won’t impact performance too much?
- Will it help users understand what happened?
- Will it make the software look better?
- Will it make the software seem faster?
- Are users going to be excited by it?
- Is it fast to implement?
If the answer to at least three of these questions are yes, you should really consider implementing animations.
Finding the right animation for the task is even harder, but this is so different from case to case that I won’t recommend anything specific. A great general tip is to look at software you love to use and learn from it.
Often used animations most people undestand are zooming, bouncing and sliding. Be careful not to let the animations become the main focus. They should generally last for under 1 second and be gone. A bouncing icon that repeats over and over until you click is not a good user experience.
Debate, test and ask
Are you unsure about animations in your software? Do you want to learn more? Debate with friends, test software yourself and ask people what they think. Hit me up at twitter if you have any specific questions, or leave a comment below.
Good example of homemade fries. Not mine, they're always eaten before I can get the camera out.
Oh yes. Perfect homemade french fries. No, you don’t need fancy equipment or a lot of time. You just need some guidance. And I’m here to give it to you.
What you need:
- Saucepan
- Knife
- Potatoes
- Sunflower oil
Steps
- Fill the saucepan 2/3 with water and heat to the boil while you:
- Peel the potatoes.
- Cut them into french fries size.
- Boil the fries for 10 minutes. Should be almost eating ready in consistency. When done, let them dry on some paper.
- Pour out all the water of the saucepan and make sure it is 100% dry.
- Fill the saucepan with 1/2 with sunflower oil.
- Put the saucepan back on the heat. Keep a lid close in case of fire. Don’t use full heat, but above medium.
- Put in one potato slice as your control.
- If you have a thermometer that can take the heat and oil, make sure you stay around 180 degrees centigrade.
- When the control slice is golden, take it out and carefully put in the rest of your fries.
- Use tongs to lift out fries when they’re done. Or use a slotted spoon if you have one. Let them dry on some paper.
Tips:
- If you’re making a lot, finished fries can be kept at 200 degrees centigrade in your owen while you make the rest.
- Season with french fries spice mix or salt before serving. Serve with ketchup. Perfect with all kinds of meat or fish.
- Don’t settle for the tiny size of McDonald’s fries. Double that is a good start.
- Experiment with different sizes and forms. Creative fries are well received at parties.
- You can reuse the sunflower oil. Just let it cool down and pour it into an empty bottle. Be sure to filter out any leftovers of the fries.
Enjoy!
Different peppers
Wondering what to get when buying spices? Here is a short list of spices and uses. I’ve got way more spices than this (over twice as much), but I consider these the essentials.
Essentials:
- Black pepper: use for almost anything, especially meat. Use as much as you feel like
- Salt: use for almost anything, use just enough to get the flavor you want (as little as possible)
- Red pepper powder: Perfect for rice, home made spice mixes, chicken and more
- Thyme: Great for pork, chicken and lamb. I use this many times every week.
- Oregano: The pizza spice! Perfect for italian food. Smell it and you should recognize it’s uses.
- Basil: Use in pizza and pasta sauces, pesto and more. Strong flavor, use with caution.
- Cardamom: Used in all sorts of baked goods, like wafles, muffins, buns and cinnamon rolls.
- Cinnamon: Many uses, but I use mainly for baking and rice porridge topping. See cinnamon rolls.
- Curry: The rice and chicken spice. Indian food.
Less used but great to have:
- Ginger powder: Used in much eastern food
- Cumin: The secret behind kebab meat. Together with ginger powder, red pepper powder and garlic this will rock you.
- Rosemary: Lamb, chicken and pork. I often use this one together with thyme
You should also have these spices in fresh or processed form:
Garlic
- Chili (use mild chili if you aren’t too fond of spicy stuff): gives your dish that extra “oomph”. Mexican food essential.
- Garlic: Really really healthy and tasty. Makes any meat stand out, use with rice and in stews and more. Essential in italian food.
- Onion: Used in almost all italian dishes, many more. Don’t be afraid to use a lot.
- Lemon: Gives you that fresh, bitter taste. Use with fish and pork on the grill. Perfect for drinks too.
Inspirational spice examples:
Beef
Spice richly with salt and pepper, rub a garlic clove over (it doesn’t seem to do much, but it really makes a difference). Rub the spices in together with olive oil before frying on high heat.
Lamb dish
Salmon
Mix 1/3 lemon juice and 2/3 olive oil. Add salt and pepper, coat with the mix. Let it sit for as long as possible up to 24 hours in your fridge before grilling or frying. A touch of soy sauce and chili doesn’t hurt, either.
Chicken
Salt, pepper, curry and red pepper powder. The same spices can also be used in a sauce based on chicken stock and cream.
Salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme.
Check out thomassnielsen.com/food for more inspiration.
As an experiment I’ve made a basic HTML tutorial. Please watch it and tell me what you think.
