Open up your mind and say, ahh...

I was at a live performance the other night where Jacq sang and played with Girish, and I had a great conversation with Reggie, the drummer for the night. (I am SO sorry that I don’t know your last name, Reggie.) We talked about the fact that his typical drum kit for events is usually like 30 or so pieces, but that he decided to go minimal for the event. He had a kick drum, a snare, a tom, two cymbals, and a cowbell.

What Reggie said was something like this, “I really enjoy this, because it means I really have to use what I have to get the expression I’m aiming for. I can’t just lean on all the gadgetry. I’m using my skills and coaxing that expression out of these few tools.” That’s my translation of what Reggie said. He actually said it better. This isn’t the real conversation. This is just a tribute. (If you just smirked a bit, thank you. If you have no idea what I just said, move along. It’s okay.)

Work Within Constraints

With many things we do in life, there’s this little continuum. We start with something smallish or nothing, we then adapt and develop newer or bigger or more (or some mix). You start with a point and shoot camera and then you need a digital SLR camera. And then you need this amazing $3000 lens. And then, somewhere, at some point, oddly, you decide to go 180 degrees in the other direction. You think, “I bet I could get amazing photos out of one of those crazy cardboard box kit cameras.”

Constraints are magic, if you learn to embrace them. Learning how to write within 500 words is powerful. Learning how to take just one great photo with a simple point and shoot camera is wonderful. Learning how to get music out of two sticks and a bucket is wonderful. You can do a lot by learning how to embrace a lesser set of tools. You can learn a lot by saying, “This is all I have to work with, and I’m going to do that.” Jason Fried wrote a great book about that, by the way. Rework.Read also A Lesser Photographer manifesto. (Thanks to Michael Schechter for sharing this with me.)

What Are Your Constraints?

Are you working within a very tight budget? Do you not have enough time? Are you a cruddy writer? Bad on video? What’s your set of constraints? For instance, in music, I’m constrained by my lack of knowledge and ability with my use of Logic Pro and Abelton Live. Knowing this, I sometimes come up with hackish ways of creating a sound I want, because I don’t know how all the cool kids do it.

Where are YOUR constraints? And let’s think about this: there are constraints you just have (like my lack of knowledge) and then there are constraints you can choose for yourself: I like to write sub-500 word posts.

And what will those DO for you?

That’s the conversation.

Apple may be considering the release of a budget-priced MacBook Air to compete against the upcoming second wave of ultrabooks, according to a new report.

Citing unnamed sources in Apple’s supply chain, tech site Digitimes is reporting that the company might introduce a MacBook Air priced at $799 in the third quarter of this year — right in time for the back-to-school season.

It’s key to note that the DigiTimes has a hit-or-miss track record for nailing predictions.

If the rumors are true, the MacBook Air could hit shelves with a price cheaper than its other models, including its latest 11-inch 64GB MacBook Air ($999), 11-inch 128GB version ($1,199) and 13-inch 128GB model ($1,299). The line also features a 256GB version that is priced at $1,599.

The launch of a less expensive MacBook Air could put ultrabooks at a huge disadvantage.

Ultrabooks – which are ultra-slim laptops typically under 0.8 inches thick – have become a hot “it” device in computing, giving on-the-go users a lightweight, full-computer alternative. However, ultrabook sales haven’t been blockbuster right out of the gate as many consumers have turned their attention to the growing tablet market.

However, it’s been reported that Dell’s XP13 ultrabook ($999) experienced strong sales that exceeded expectations since it’s launch in February. The XPS 13, which touts a 13-inch display in a compact 12-inch frame and weighs in at only 2.99 pounds, runs on Windows 7. It also features Intel Core i3 processors, but it can also be upgraded to Intel Core i7 processors.

Meanwhile, some believe that ultrabooks overall won’t achieve strong sales until the launch of Windows 8.

Will you purchase a $799 MacBook Air if the rumors are true? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks to Jason Falls, I just read this post about how many marketing agencies are closing down their blogs and tweeting and Facebooking instead.

“Nobody reads agency blogs, and there are so many out there it’s impossible for people to keep up anyway,” said Sam Weston, director of communications at digital agency Huge.

Nobody Reads ANY Blogs- If They’re Boring

I’ll tell you without even having to look why nobody reads a blog: because it’s boring. Because it’s poorly written. Because it’s utterly self-referential.

Nobody has time to read junk. Why would you? There’s so much great material out there.

What Should An Agency (or YOU!) Blog About?

An agency should blog about the space it serves, in some regards, but along with that, an agency (and YOU!!!!) should blog about those things you’re passionate about. My dad is passionate about poker. My mom is passionate about proving you can do it if you try. I’m passionate about keeping “human” in the digital business channel.

Write about passion, but write it in service to others.

If you did only this, you’d get more attention, more readers, more connections via your blog. What people want is to feel lit up, to feel like you and they are on the same page, like they can run with what you’ve shared, or they can add to it, or they can bask in it and feel it.

Mom blogs are so successful because there are billions of moms (actual number) who can commiserate when their kid will only eat beige and orange foods. Tech blogs are successful because nerds and aspiring nerds always want more ideas and information and new shiny things to touch and/or covet. The blogs that stay lit up, people like Mitch and Julien and Chris and C.C. and others, are based on working from a core of passion.

Keep At It

It took me 8 years to get my first 100 readers. I have several friends in this space who remember me from the way old days, even if their “way old days” starts back about halfway into that (around say, 2005). They saw me transition from someone writing about myself to someone writing ideas that would equip people around me to be successful. That was the nugget. That’s when things started taking off. That’s when I realized that I could write almost every day and have something to say, because people are always noodling over some part of the problem.

You want 5 quick things to make your blogging better?

1. Brevity. Cut posts to sub-500 words.
2. Structure. Write something others can USE.
3. Simplicity. Big words are pretty. Help people understand the point, instead.
4. Positivity. Writing angrily only works if you want to attract angry people.
5. Outward-facing. Write more about others than you ever do about yourself.

If you did just those five things, I bet your blogging results would improve after a few months. This isn’t how to get seen. How to get seen requires another whole other set of skills.

Want to learn more about blogging? Here’s a whole huge best advice about blogging post for you.

Stay writing. Don’t abandon your blogs. Get better at it. This kind of media can change your world, if you work to change the worlds of others.

Photo: Orbital Sciences Corporation

The new commercial space race may feel like its on hold this week with another delay of the current front runner, SpaceX. But some of Elon Musk’s competitors have been busy hitting milestones the past few days, and one of the members of the old commercial space community is preparing for a launch later today.

In addition to Boeing’s drop test of its new CST-100 spacecraft on Wednesday, another of the companies competing for NASA contracts tested its rocket engines on Thursday. Orbital Sciences Corporation will be using engines from Aerojet to launch its Antares rocket into orbit as part of the same NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program. Orbital Sciences and SpaceX are the two companies competing in the COTS program to deliver cargo to orbit, and in particular to the International Space Station.

Unlike SpaceX which has developed its own Merlin rocket engine, nine of which will be used on its Falcon 9 rocket, Orbital Sciences’ engines from Aerojet are actually modified engines from Russia’s space program. Technically, the engines are from the Soviet Union as they were first designed to power the USSR’s lunar bound heavy lift rocket that never actually got to the lunar bound part and after several failed launches never managed to fly higher than about 130,000 feet.

Aerojet’s AJ26 engine was tested yesterday at NASA’s rocket test facility in Mississippi, the Stennis Space Center. The successful hot fire was a key step in Orbital Science’s plan for a launch later this year. Two AJ26 engines will power the first stage of Orbital’s Antares rocket (pictured above being prepared for launch last month) and they are essentially an overhauled and highly modified version of the Russian NK-33 rocket engine.

Orbital Science currently plans on an August launch of its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft which will approach the ISS as the first part of the COTS demonstration flights. Later in the year Orbital plans on the second demonstration flight when the Cygnus will berth with the ISS. SpaceX received permission from NASA to combine these two demonstration flights into a single mission. That flight is currently on hold and expected to happen sometime in the coming weeks.

If SpaceX is the new kid on the commercial space block trying to bring costs down, and Orbital Sciences is the teenager who has been around the block a few times with several payload launches, while Lockheed Martin and Boeing are the two who have ruled the commercial block for decades. The aerospace giants joined forces as the United Launch Alliance back in 2006 and have been launching to orbit with the Atlas family of rockets ever since.

Right now there is an Atlas V rocket sitting on launch pad 41 at Cape Canaveral and is scheduled to launch at 2:42 p.m. EDT. Like the Antares, the Atlas V is an expendable rocket. Also like the Antares, Lockheed Martin and Boeing are using a Russian derived engine to power the first stage of the rocket.

In a sympathetic nod to SpaceX and to remind everybody that orbital bound rockets are complex machines, yesterday’s scheduled launch of the Atlas V with its U.S. Air Force satellite payload was scrubbed after a purge valve in the rocket malfunctioned preventing the flow of helium which is used as a coolant.