Jean Galea

My Hardware Setup – 2015 Edition

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hardwaresetup2015This is the hardware that makes up my portable office. These items are all I need to run my business from wherever I am around the world.

The Macbook is where all the serious work gets done. The iPad is used mostly during mornings for reading articles that I’d have clipped onto Evernote during the previous day. I use the Kindle exclusively for books, as I now send all my articles to Evernote (on iPad) instead.

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Braintree vs PayPal Fees, Which One is Cheaper?

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Update June 2018: I have now switched to 2Checkout instead of Braintree. Unfortunately I had a negative experience with Braintree. They decided to ban our account after receiving just 2 refund requests from a 100 sales, which seems nonsensical to me.

I’ve been using PayPal and Braintree to collect payments for my plugin sales, and I can now do some comparisons in terms of charges. If you have tried to understand the pricing of these payment gateways you will know how complex it is to try and compare them.

The best way I found is to divide the monthly charges by the monthly sales I processed through each processor, and that gives me the percentage cost of using each of these payment gateways.

While Braintree has one price per transaction across the board (on EU transactions, the rate is 2.9% + €0.35. For non-EU transactions, the rate is 3.9% + €0.35.), PayPal lowers the fees as your business grows. So in the long run I believe PayPal is the cheaper of the two. Braintree also charges €15 for chargebacks, and keeps all the commissions when you give refunds to your customers.

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Keeping a List of Books You’ve Read

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Goodreads Jean s bookshelf read showing 1 9 of 9 sorted by date added

Update 2018: I now keep a list of favorite books on this page.

Books are the biggest source of knowledge you can get your hands on. I speed through lots of books every year but many times I have trouble recalling the ones I’ve read if, for example, someone asks me for a quick recommendation.

It’s also good to have a handy list of books read because it happens that a few months or years down the line you want to revisit a book you’ve previously read, or a specific topic. The answer to these situations is of course to keep a list of books that you read.

Goodreads is the best place to create such a list. You can very easily select the books you’ve read from their database, as well as review them, rate them and tag them for better organization.

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Should You Switch to a Standing Desk?

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Watch-Sitting-Too-Much-Is-Killing-You-and-Not-as-Slowly-as-You-d-Expect-468263-2

For the last couple of years I’ve been coming across articles extolling the benefits of standing desks. Due to being a digital nomad however, I’ve found it difficult to actually get one and try it out. Finally in our condo building in Chiang Mai I found the perfect place to experiment with standing desks.

During the past few weeks I’ve been switching between a standing desk and a traditional seated desk in the same office.

Claimed Benefits of Standing Desks

Before I share my experience, lets take a look at the claimed benefits of standing desks:

  • More energy
  • Improved posture
  • Reduced risk of diseases (cancer, diabetes)
  • Lower long-term mortality risk

Perhaps more worryingly is the fact that research has indicated that sitting is killing us, shortening our lifespans by up to 15 years. Sitting has also been referred to as the new smoking in terms of harmful effects.

Many people try to restore balance in their lives by sitting for six hours at work and then heading to the gym afterward, however this does not seem to do the trick. Evidence suggests that the negative effects of extended sitting can’t be countered by brief bouts of strenuous exercise.

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My Software Toolbox – 2015 Edition

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online apps

In this post I’ll be sharing the apps, websites and tools I use on a day-to-day basis. What’s the point? Well, I’d like to look back to this lineup on a yearly basis and see whether I can improve the way I work online.

Moreover, maybe you’ll find a new app/website listed here and you’ll decide to try it out based on my recommendation.

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Jean Galea

Online Entrepreneur. Global Citizen. Padel Player.
Founder of WP Mayor & WP RSS Aggregator.

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