HiraTomo’s Neighborhood

Having broadband access after crap Internet for the last three weeks feels great and makes Dubai feel like a real home.

Just got my UAE drivers license. W00t!

The guys repairing the plaster and paint in my apartment right now seems like he knows what he's doing and paying attention to detail. Yay!

You know for retail in Hong Kong, Xmas is huge and we spent a lot of time and energy planning for its arrival and departure.  In the past month, I watched almost daily this Treemap visually identifying category composition, which products move and how they perform.  In this particular interpretation which I hided confidential information, you can imagine the grids are product categories, the size of the rectangles are sales, height of them are quantity sold, while colors are margin.  Don't you think it is highly effective to spot out anomalies or patterns?  The best thing about Treemapping is that I can see individual product performance in relation to the whole picture of the department.

Stationery Treemap Xmas 2009

I've been using Treemapping for years and eventually settled on a German made Treemap software by Macrofocus.  They have constant updates to enhance features and import excel files almost instantly.  It has been a great tool for me for the past few years and I feel thankful for such great software development.

If you don't know what Treemap is, check out my previous post "A Visual Person's Links", Treemapping wikipedia or find out some of the treemap images from Google to get a glimpse or to start with.

We used to sell larger versions of these beautiful paper storage boxes from PLUS, the series is called Living Post which is very good for organizing your home and work desktop.  This year they released a smaller version which is also cheaper at about HK$98 per piece.  Instantly they became our top sellers in Xmas.

PLUS Living Post Storage Boxes

Most people have their stationery stuffed in a drawer without classification and eventually a lot of them are not used on regular basis, they are just lying there to be thrown away one day.  The problem is, like most of your other stuffs, that without organization, things are not being used to their potential and this is such a waste.

So instead of putting stuffs in drawers, Living Post offers to have your gears accessible on your desktop.  Yes you have to create a space for such storage boxes but the payback is guaranteed.  You make things beautiful so that they become useful.

PLUS Living Post Storage Boxes

I now use a square orange box to store clips, craft related stuffs such as MT masking tapes, leather tools.  The large drawer is just the right size for postcard or 4x6 photos, a calculator, Field Notes and Moleskine pocket size notebook fit perfectly well inside.  My other narrow black box is used for photo related stuffs such as shutter release, 35mm film canisters, tapes, etc.  It also serve as a place to put miscellaneous or temporary stuffs.

PLUS Living Post Storage Boxes

The Living Post drawers are tiny but enough.  If you are not a stationery freak, chances are you will find it useful in your own ways.  Say for storing daily cosmetic stuffs, for a dedicated place to store all your keys and cables, etc.

PLUS Living Post Storage Boxes

I wish they have a version with wood pattern which fits perfectly with my desktop theme at home.

Anyone know of a good Mac controlled wifi based multiroom audio/speaker system?