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Every time a new version of the Raspberry Pi appears, I go nuts for several days, fantasizing about things I could do, like build a robot, an entire smart home or whatever. I read what you can do with the Raspberry Pi 4 in this case, I look for articles, for subreddits, everything.

Then I order the new version. It usually takes 2-3 days to receive it and by that time my excitement is less… excited. Of course, once I receive it, the excitement (or a big part of it) comes back. I unpack it, I mount it in the case, add some heat sinks, then I look for an HDMI cable.

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Once I’ve done everything required with the hardware, it’s time for software. I download the latest Raspbian image (Buster, at the time of writing this) and I put it on an SD card. It takes a little bit of terminal tinkering, but it works usually right from the start.

Finally, the moment I’ve been waiting for: powering up. It takes around 5-10 minutes to go through all the steps to initialize the new system, including the updates.

And here it is: Rasbian installed on the Raspberry Pi 4. But what’s next? I’m still waiting to find out, frankly. If you have and suggestions, let me know.

The things I noticed about the Raspberry Pi 4 (see official specs here):

• my version has 4GB of RAM, so I thought it would feel faster. It doesn’t
• I got the standard case, the recommended USB-C charger, small heatsinks, but I forgot to get an HDMI cable or adapter
• you don’t have a standard HDMI port, so you need to have a MICRO HDMI to standard HDMI cable or adapter (see difference here). I forgot about it when I ordered the Pi, so I needed to go and buy one before I got the Pi delivered. But I would’ve been really disappointed if I got the device and I couldn’t connect it to the monitor right there and then. Just be careful not to get the MINI HDMI to HDMI, but the micro.
• it heats a lot. I’ve used the Pi for about 15-20 minutes for light browsing (no YouTube or anything similar), I’ve done the updates. It is really hot after that amount of time, even with the heatsinks installed. I will buy the Flirch aluminum case, that acts like a big heatsink and has good reviews. I don’t want a fan because of the noise.
• Retro Pie doesn’t work with Raspberry Pi 4 on Raspbian Buster just yet, unless you do some kind of hacks and I don’t want to. I’ll wait for the working version.

I’ve been using MacOS computers for the last 10 years or so, but I sometimes miss Linux (any version of it). So the Pi will scratch that itch from time to time.

I watched Battlestar Galactica during their initial run (2003-2009). I think I’ve picked it up during the second season or something and I watched the last 3 seasons as they were launched on TV.

Last week I restarted watching it (yeah, I got some downtime) and I actually find it a lot more interesting than I did 15 years ago. It was interesting then as well: the dark tone of the story, the grittiness, the real development of characters, (especially compared to the Star Trek shows, which I love), but now I see it with different eyes. I feel I’m more interested in the politics of the show rather than in the space battle scenes or the science-fiction elements.

I just got through the first season of the show (not even, I still have the final 2 episodes), but I’m happy I wasn’t that much of a fan, because I barely remember anything. Which makes the experience almost like I’m seeing the show for the first time. And that’s great. Because who other can say “I’m watching Battlestar Galactica for the first time, the second time”?

I’m really into using the iPad as more than a device for media consumption, but the most difficult thing was not having a real, desktop level browser. The best browser I could have was iCab, but even using that was complicated.

When I heard of the new Safari browser in iPad OS, I knew I had to install the beta. And boy, did it deliver: Safari is now a genuinely great browser.

To give you an idea: when I tried using Google Analytics, Google Docs or a Wordpress dashboard on iOS 12, it was an exercise in frustration. “Clicking” somewhere was a hit-or-miss experience, it would take a long time loading, it would stop sometimes completely. It was bad.

Now, it’s completely different. It really is like using my laptop’s browser. I don’t remember any sites in the last month or so giving me issues whatsoever.

Just for this only I would choose the beta iPad. Of course, it also has a download manager (but iCab also had one), you can use multiple windows of Safari, drag to create windows and the likes. You can see a list of the added things here.

But! Before installing the beta iPad OS, I need to tell you that the beta experience, over all, was quite bad. Yes, Safari is great, but weird bugs appear out of nowhere: keyboard not resizing or readjusting to vertical/horizontal positioning, apps being stuck… If you use an iPad as your primary device, I wouldn’t, frankly, use iPad OS just yet. Just wait until September for the public version.

Since we started The CEO Library I’ve been paying more attention to the SEO world. I’m trying to do things for the long run on TCL, hence trying to avoid grey tactics (not to say about black hat) as much as possible.

Backlinko is the site I’ve come to rely on for SEO incremental improvements to the structure of TCL. And I say incremental because, in my opinion, the most important elements of SEO right now are really good content and good links (especially as a consequence of good content). These are the two things that push your SEO the most (and maybe the fastest).

But once you have a little bit of a site there, good content and some traffic, you can improve a lot by taking this kind of incremental measures.

Several days ago I’ve found this article on Backlinko: 17 ways to improve your SEO in 2019. And I’ll try to implement 1 and 3 in the next few months for sure: Get More Organic Traffic With “Snippet Bait” and Find Low-Competition Keywords With “Ghost Posts”. Go read the article to find out the other 17, maybe they will help you in some way.

I sometimes find myself get lost in the video recommendations the YouTube provides. Well, yesterday I watched for 20 minutes or so a guy put 1000 coins into an arcade machine. And all because I wanted to see how much money he makes back (it was $250 that he started with).

Another thing I watch, even if I have almost no interest in what they’re talking about, is a series of videos about weird Nintendo Switch accessories. Sometimes I fantasize about starting a video series about stupid shit you can find and buy online. It seems so much fun… and probably expensive. But come on, a Nintendo case switch with slots for Nerf gun bullets. What more do you want?

The thing is I always thought of myself as not being interested in this kind of things. So either I’m getting older and weirder or I got too much time on my hands. Or I’ve always been like that, which makes more sense. It’s just that I let it surface more lately than I did before :D

About a year ago we got a dog. It’s a small, Westie dog, called Sami. Full of energy and always happy to run… to somewhere or to someone.

This meant we were actually thinking of getting a house with a yard. You know, a space big enough for the dog to run around and for us to enjoy the grass and the trees.

The problem is, though, that unless you’re paying a lot of money, any of the good options available were outside of the city. And I realized how much the convenience of city life has changed us in the last 10 years or so.

Just to give you an idea: one of the things we looked at when deciding on the area was if Uber Eats delivers there. Or if there’s a cinema in 10 minutes of driving. I mean, really?? Because this eliminates 95% of the options in a good enough price range.

For the moment, we decided to stop looking for a house. We’re still living in an apartment in the city. But who knows, the dog might wear us out, at some point. I mean, going out at 11pm because that’s what he DEMANDS (Westies are like this) is a lot more difficult than opening the door to the yard, wouldn’t you think?

P.S.: the dog in the photo is not our westie (which is small and white). He’s a dog we rescued several years ago and who’s now the ruler of my parents’ yard. Even when he’s sleeping under the flowers.

One of the things people notice whenever they come by my house is my tea “cup”. Mug is the better word, actually. To be fair, “mini-bucket” is even more appropriate.

If you wonder why, here it is:

These are the last 3 mugs I used for tea in the last few years. Yes, the Yahoo! one is from around 2008-2009, my Yahoo! days. I can’t believe it’s still alive and kicking. It outlived the company!

The yellowish one is a from a Christmas market we’ve been to around 2 years ago. And the small, white one, is a normal (real) espresso cup. Or, as the Portuguese call it, “um cafe pingado” or “uma bica”.

Of course, we need to talk about the elephant on the table. The “mini-bucket” is about 1 liter in size and I got it, as a present, from my better half, about 2 years ago or so. She also did the illustration on it. And baked it in the oven afterwards, so that the ink doesn’t get erased. Because the mug is a “Ceramic Mug coated with printable transfer Sublimation Dye”. I’m not even kidding, this is the name on Amazon.

If you think about it, it doesn’t seem that big in the photo above. The Yahoo! mug is actually bigger than a normal mug. But here’s another image, with an average egg for scale (I didn’t have a banana around).

And a selfie, with another “egg” for size. Or another mug, if you think about it :)

And, if you’re still not convinced, here’s my entire fist going in. And I have normal sized hands. Not “tiny”!

Yes, the mug is huge. Why do I need this, though? Well, I don’t drink coffee at all (I don’t like the taste – I know, the horror!!) and it was a good way to cut down on Coca-Cola Zero. So I drink a lot of tea with milk. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. Around 2l (2 mugs) per day.

Miruna bought the printable ceramic mug somewhere on Amazon, in case you’re interested. Unfortunately, it comes without the illustration. If you’re not interested in drawing on it, you can find cheaper ones, just search for “huge mug” :)

If you do buy or you have one, send me a photo, please! I will add them to this post to show people that I’m not the only crazy person to own something like this.

Whenever I bring something to a friend – a gift, an opportunity or something similar – I’m really happy when they tell me “Oh, this is so interesting!“

I’m also excited when I show them something I’m doing or something I own and they say: “Oh, that’s so interesting!”

But I really-really hate it when one specific friend, who also happens to be my doctor says, with excitement: “Bobby, this is such an interesting case!“. I’m almost horrified when he says that while holding some new report regarding my health, but I’d be also worried if he used the same phrase when talking about a common acquaintance or friend that I sent to him for help.

Of course, you already guessed the reason: he just saw something unlikely to happen that often. Like, let’s say, a knee busted so badly that the patella is somehow in front of something that should be behind… not my case, a friend of mine, but it sounds horrifying. My friend told me that she needed 2 or more surgeries to be ok, including several months of pause between them and some more months of recovery after that.

Coming back to my doctor friend: he’s a great person to be around. He’s always energetic, he’s the kind of doctor that explains to you what’s wrong and doesn’t leave you in the dark. And I know, I know, he really likes his chosen profession. And I’m happy for him :)

But, even to this day, more than 10 years since we met, I still tell him: “Man, for God’s sake, please, please, don’t tell me I’m an interesting case…!”

In conclusion, maybe the longer and better version of this post’s title should be: Things you shouldn’t hear from your doctor: “This is such an interesting case!”. I mean, less excitement, maybe? :))

Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay.

These days I’m traveling through Portugal. I really like the country and it surprises me in all kind of ways.

Last year we stayed for a month in Lisbon, in a “character” apartment. In February. Great view, bad building insulation. Worst experience in terms of temperature inside an apartment. I remembered a friend telling me, before leaving, that the coldest she’s ever been was in an apartment in Porto, in winter. I didn’t believe her then. Now I know: the people here don’t really believe in central heating.

On the other hand, lots of highways and good roads. With some of the most agressive drivers in Europe.

And, finally, when you are free from the agressive drivers, the local fauna decides to come into play. Yesterday, while driving through a village looking for a supermarket, a peacock decided to interrupt us. The only thing I’m sorry is I didn’t think of getting him angry so that we could see his tail in all its splendor :)

You’d think I only notice the bad things. But it’s not true. It’s just not as interesting and funny, maybe, to tell you that I like the people here, their café pingado, pasteis, or doce da casa, the beaches (even if the water is cold AF). I love coming in the winter to see the big surfing waves of Nazaré or the sunsets.

So here’s a really, really beautiful October sunset in Nazaré, to show you what you’re missing.

Sometime ago, in a previous life, I recorded almost 90 videos about startups, business, getting investment, stuff like this. I was looking yesterday through them and this video about How to approach an angel investor by email is the most viewed video I’ve made. It has around 1,200 views, not a lot, but since I didn’t really push my YouTube channel, it’s more than I expected. I actually stopped investing last year (so don’t email me about that), but the advice is still valid, in my opinion.

Looking back to the video, I see how low energy I was and I remember how tired I was. Well, I get a little bit more excited as I answer, but in the beginning I looked like I wanted to sleep for at least a few weeks. Don’t let that stop you from watching the full 3 and a half minute video :)

Here’s an adapted transcript of the most important parts:

What I would want to see in the email [as an angel investor]:

The email must be short: three paragraphs the most.

If you can’t put the information that I’m going to tell you about in three paragraphs, then it means that you don’t really have a clear idea about what you want to do in the company, what you want from me and you’ll just gonna waste my time.

The first paragraph: what do you do?

It should be about what you want to do, about what your company does. It should be up to 3 sentences the most and just explain in a short-form what you’re doing. Keep in mind that what you want to do in those three sentences is not to explain everything about your business. You just want to make me curious, so you get me to meet with you, because you’re not gonna sell me on investing in your company just by sending me an email. You still need to meet with me, so the main purpose of this email is to make me curious.

The second paragraph: how can I help?

Here you should tell me how I can help. Angel investors are not dumb money, they’re not there just to give you money. They want to add knowledge, they want to help you with the company. Because angel investors invest in really early stage companies, you need to tell them how they can help.

You need to tell me why you’re coming to me and the reason should be a different one than just getting money. You should look for money and connections, money and advice.

The third paragraph: How did you get to me?

You need to tell me how you found out about me and why you think we’re a good fit. Maybe we know the same people, maybe someone recommended me or maybe you’ve read about me somewhere. Just give me a reason to think you actually thought this through.

Conclusion

So basically the email needs to be short: more than three paragraphs is too much.

Send the email and if the angel investor doesn’t respond in the first week or so, send the email again saying: look, I’ve sent this email a week ago, maybe you didn’t see it, sorry for sending it again but here it is. If the person doesn’t respond, they’re probably not interested.

My experience is though, that people will answer those emails when they see them, because investors want to meet interesting people, they want to meet interesting companies, so why not? Just make the email short enough so that it doesn’t take a lot of time and interesting enough so that you meet.

Interesting enough doesn’t mean long. Interesting enough doesn’t mean filled with information.

We’re going to have a meeting afterwards and you’ll have 30 minutes – 1 hour time, enough to give me the information you want. The email should be short and interesting.

Finally, this is How you approach an angel investor by email.