Enigin Digital

Personal Goal for this Enigin Developer

I’ve never really set New Year’s Resolutions before but here’s one of my personal goals for 2010 which, as of writing this article, i’ve already broken!

- Become a Morning Person -

Yes, really!

I hate mornings. I really hate mornings. I’m very much a ‘night’ person. I find that I am my most productive between the hours of 10pm - 3am. There’s no interruptions, nothing on TV and for some reason I find it easy to do the tasks which i’ve put off the day before. My mind works differently at night and it’s easy to think through problems I may have had with work during the day.

The Problem with ‘Night’ people

Although this late night working produces great productivity, it has many downsides…

• Struggling to wake up in the morning - I usually wake around 8am and get into the office about 9:30-9:45 which is fine, but is at least 45 minutes after everyone else. It’s not a huge problem as Enigin Directors know that I work late so they don’t mind me coming in late in the morning (I also tend to make up the hours at the end of the day anyway)
• Skipping breakfast - As an aside to rising late in the morning I don’t have time for breakfast so end up leaving home without. This leaves me hungry in the mornings which can affect concentration levels.
• Lack of sleep - By the time I finish work and get to sleep, I usually only get a maximum of 4-6 hours rest every night. Which is below the 7/8 hours each night recommended by Doctors. I tend to make up these ‘lost’ hours on Saturday morning! There’s a medical term for this, which is ‘delayed sleep phase’. Chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to a range of risks, from obesity to depression both of which I struggle with badly.

Studies have shown that being a ‘Night Owl’ can be partly genetic and is not easy for some people to combat. But i’m going to try by taking the following steps:

• No computer work after 9:30pm
• In bed by 11pm every day (even weekends to start with, apart from gig nights of course!)
• Buy an alarm clock!
• Wake up at 7am every morning and get out of bed as soon as my alarm clock goes off, not hitting ’snooze’ for another 5 minutes under the duvet! Once i’ve done 3 months at 7am, i’ll then try 6:30…. then 6:00.
• Have breakfast!
• Still get into work at 9:30… it’s actually quite convenient as I live 60 minutes drive away from Enigin in St Austell and the traffic has died down at this time in the morning. I will use the extra time in the morning to have a nice breakfast and make lunch for the day.

So, that’s it. That’s my challenge. Wish me luck!

Seasons Greetings from this Enigin Developer

Just a quick post to wish you all the compliments of the season. So far, 2009 has been a great year and all of us at Enigin are looking forward to a prosperous 2010.

Seasons greetings to all our Enigin Distributors, business partners and suppliers for making Enigin a great place to work.

Enigin Developer Reviews Flip HD Camera

I love gadgets… gadgets can make our lives better… gadgets can also be a big waste of money!!!

My latest gadget purchase from Amazon has just arrived at the Enigin office, a Flip HD Digital Camcorder. It’s a small device, about the size of compact digital camera, that will record HD quality video at the touch of a button.

Flip are owned by networking company Cisco and my first thoughts are that they are heavily influenced by Apple (we love Apple!) in terms in packaging. It’s a very iPod-experience removing the device from the folding series of boxes. The FlipHD powered up without any charging and within 20 seconds I was already recording video! Here’s my first 13 second video, Enigin Designer, Alan talking about the Christmas chart battle between Rage Against the Machine and X-Factor:

The simplicity of this unit is it’s crowning glory. There are three main buttons on the back; Record, Play and Delete. I don’t think they need explaining! There’s also an up/down/left/right keypad to navigate through the recorded videos and operate the zoom. The only other thing on the back is the lovely high-resolution 2″ LCD display, which is visible in daylight conditions.

My version of the FlipHD has a whopping 8GB of internal memory, enough for store 2 hours of HD footage. The footage is easily downloaded via the flip-up USB connection and you can be uploading to YouTube within minutes.

Pros

• Very simple and easy to use
• Great value
• Quality product

Cons

• No option to turn HD compression off
• Built in USB not always convenient to use (although an extension can be purchased)
• CMOS sensor not too good in low-light conditions

Summary

Great product at a great price, I can’t recommend it highly enough!

Update

After using the Flip HD over the festival period, I love it! I’m even thinking about buying one for my parents! Great buy 5/5!!

Enigin Office Fun: Pen Kidnapping

Here’s an email I wrote to all Enigin Staff:

Dear All,

Sometime over the last month, my Enigin pen was kidnapped from my desk. The kidnappers haven’t yet posted any ransom demands but it’s only a matter of time. I (along with everyone else affected) am fearing the worst.

So for this afternoon only, i’m holding a Pen Amnesty. Whilst i’m out of the office you have an opportunity to return said pen. It’s easily identifiable because it’s got “ed’s pen” laser-engraved on it!

Please see attached artist’s impression of the violation…

If anyone knows where I can find the pen (or knows who has it) then you will be rewarded greatly.

Thank you!

Ed