Mar
31
Indie/Folk Music fans may be familiar with the artist Joshua Radin. He’s got a quiet, but emotional music style reminiscent of Elliot Smith and Damien Rice. But there’s a secret about his music style you may not know…
Joshua Radin says when he was living in a small apartment, he had a problem with his [...]
Mar
27
Well it’s that time of year again.
Spring time is great for increased sunlight, flowers and everything turning green. It’s my favorite time of year except for one problem - allergies. I get the sneezing and runny nose that bothers everyone else who has rhinitis.
But there is another side effect I experience this time of year.. fatigue. I have always felt that the higher the pollen rate is, the more tired I feel. Over the years, some docs have said ‘Yep, that’s allergies.’ Others however, adamantly claim there isn’t a link.
Weird huh? I am normal on low pollen days, barely have a pulse on high pollen days and there isn’t a link… hmmm
Last week, there was an interesting article in USA Today discussing how allergists were linking allergies to depression and fatigue. Maybe, just maybe I’m not trying to sleep through my favorite time of year after all.
So what to do about it?
If you suffer from nasal allergies, take a look at my article, How to Nuke Your Seasonal Allergies. It describes how to make your own saline nasal solution and how to use a Neti pot to clear your sinuses. it really works and has helped quite a few others cope with their allergies.
Mar
24
Goal Setting… Time-intensive. Frustrating. Sometimes confusing. Yet Unavoidable. Because ultimately, it’s still the most efficient way to achieve your dreams.
Many of us never learned how to do it. Others know how but don’t do it. Both are headed for trouble…
Two important questions:
1. Does goal setting work?
2. If it works, is it worth doing?
Answers:
1. Goal setting is something you do every day, whether you are conscious of it or not. You want things, you “set your mind” to having a new TV, microwave or iPod and eventually you get it. That, my friend, is goal setting. If it didn’t work, you wouldn’t have any of the things you want.
2. Goal setting is worth doing because it makes you more efficient at it. Put another way, what good is it to want a new car only to wait 10 years to get it? Increase your goal setting efficiency and you get the things you want faster. You don’t have to struggle so hard. And the confusion surrounding it fades to where you can make success a habit.
And a warning to those who want to dismiss this outright. The difference between those of us who have goals and those who don’t are obvious. Those with goals simply do better financially, mentally and socially than those without a goal to hang their hat. And the gap is widening. With warnings of a shrinking economy, debt at an all time high and other economic woes on the horizon, do you really want to leave your future to chance?
Now is the time to take things into your own hands. Take control once and for all.
Instead of wishing for the outcomes you want, you follow a roadmap that takes you there.
I want this to be the end-all be-all goal setting breakthrough guide. The excuses stop here. When you are done, you’ll have every tool you need to get started and follow through for the rest of your life.
Oh and yes, this is a compilation of the 31 day series I wrote called 101 Goal Setting Breakthroughs. I edited it for brevity and it still ended up being more than 12,000 words! And… Oddly enough, there turned out to be 107 tips in the series that are reflected in this post… Hope you like it :)
Note to Subscribers: I purposefully did not send you this full post because it is so large it would be a long download. You can still read it in it’s entirety here
Mar
23
I’ve long time been an advocate of growing your own herbs and vegetables.
Part of living the good life is eating good, healthy foods that taste better. What better way to enjoy these foods than to grow them on your own property? Having them close at hand makes it convenient to pick and eat them more [...]
Mar
18
Images and icons make things easier to find. If you can find your tools easier, then you are more efficient. More efficiency means more money. And more money means…
You get the picture.
If you’ve downloaded a new toolbar button for google and found that it was missing the icon, here’s a lickity-split way to get it back. Or you can use it to “hack” a new unrelated icon onto it if you prefer.
Did I mention that it’s fast?
For instance, I downloaded The Google Docs and Spreadsheet button. But for some darn reason the icon didn’t show up right.
Look at that nonsense - no that will not do.
So here’s 8 quick steps to hack your Google Toolbar icons so they show up properly…
Click the Add button to add it. You’ll see it in your toolbar, but still missing an icon. But here’s the trick that will bring back the icon.
In my case, I went to docs.google.com which is my button’s original address. Notice the icon in the address bar
After you hit “Add” You’ll see your new button icon on the toolbar. But you aren’t done yet.
Then choose the buttons tab.
1. Highlight the button that has the icon you want.
2. Click the edit button
3. Click the Use advanced editor link
4. A new window will pop up with a bunch of code you may or may not understand. Don’t worry!
In the text window, just copy everything between the two fields - including the statements to your clipboard. You’d copy everything in yellow in the picture above.
Hit cancel once you are done. All you want to do is copy, then you are done with the button.
Open the button with the missing icon in the same way you did in step 6
Simply right click and paste the code right before the field of your toolbar button.
Hit Save to Google Toolbar.
Now you’ve got a brand-spanking-new icon for your button!
Mar
17
If you spend a lot of time researching online, then Eluma might be the tool for you. It is a stand alone piece of software that lets you download and organize “clips” you find on the Internet. And much like other social websites like Digg and Reddit, you can share your favorites with friends.
I’d say the biggest difference between Eluma and the others is you can view your favs off-line if you don’t have an Internet connection.
People can use it to organize their web stuff, and then they can share their stuff with others in “collections.” (It’s anonymous; no Facebook-like transparency. It’s all about the content - not the networking.) Eluma 2.0 mashes together features of bookmark managers, RSS readers, desktop alert managers, and social sharing and discovery services. Kind of like “iTunes for your Web stuff.â€
If you’d like to download, I’ve got some invitations left. You can download it here until those invites are gone.
Let me know what you think!
Mar
17
Last month, we had a guest post from Seargent Major O’ from the US Marine Corps. A lot of you wrote in to say how much you liked it. Well, he reaches deep this month into his Irish heritage and has written a motivational limerick he wants to share with you for the Saint Patrick’s day.
a Limerick
by Sgt. Major O
Get back to work you lazy sonsabitches!
You wanna hear a poem? How about you get off your lazy ass for once?
You’ll be lucky if the bank doesn’t take your house.
You’ll be river-dancing your way down to the soup kitchen…
If I had a nickel for every brain cell in your head I’d be in debt. Just like you!
What makes me madder than hell is you’re are proud of being stupid!
You’re out surfin’ videos of guys gettin’ hit in the nuts, when you should be using your time wisely and tryin’ to make something of yourself. . . Hard as that may be for you knuckleheads.
Instead, you’re nothin’ but a bunch of lemmings following each other off the cliff.
I hope you’re happy. You’ve wasted another day. . .
Sgt. Major O
Don’t snooze through reveille and miss your chance to subscribe to our free RSS feed
Mar
13
So you weren’t satisfied deleting that project you’ve been working on for 3 days to the Recycle bin you had to choose Empty Recycle Bin too?
Now what? Another embarrassing call to the helpdesk? Or do you just start over?
Don’t worry, you can now have a backup plan.
For those who are in the PC/Server support industry - or people who find themselves accidentally deleting files and emptying the recycle bin, it’s always nice to have a good file recovery software on hand. But you need more than just recovery software. You need to know how to use it.
Recovery software can be confusing to someone who has never used it. So I will cover 5 expert tricks that will make you an expert at data recovery in no time - and I’ll also point you in the direction of some good file recovery software you can get for free - but today only. Soon you’ll be turning back the hands of time and amazing your friends and neighbors with your ability to bring back files from the dead….
Over at GiveAwayofTheDay, they have a program called EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard that will do the trick. If you miss this give away, you can get the Recuva which is freeware all day every day.
A few notes on file recovery from someone who has been doing it for years:
1. Names of the file can change - For instance you might have a report called “2008 Cease and Desist Proclamation”. Yet when you search for it in the file recovery, you don’t find it. That’s because it’s either reverted to it’s DOS alias name or - heck I don’t know.. Some of the names are just plain weird. :)
When you delete a file Instead try searching for dates you last accessed it. You can also search for filetype. (like *.doc) for Word documents.
2. Deep Search for Prior File Edits - Have you ever worked a day on a project and realized you overwrote 2 days worth of good work? It’s happened to us all. When you wish you had a backup, this could be your safety net. Deep search will list multiple files of the same name but prior dates. So you can go back to Tuesday’s build.
I did this once for a software development project. I back up every day, but found my backup was corrupted, so I used my other file recovery software to go back 2 days and I recovered that build. - Saved me not only time, but the headache of tracking back what I had changed.
3. File Recovery on RAID Disks Requires Special Care - Listen up Network Admins. If you attempt to recover files on a server or workstation with RAID arrays or mirroring, you need to take special care.
Disconnect the server from the network
Turn off disk shadowing
Turn off virtual memory or move it to another (separate) disk
What happens if you attempt file recovery on an array that is currently accessed and written to is you get garbage results. It can also cause for more lost files. And in some cases death from angry clients… I’m kidding!
The key point is you want only the recovery software to access your array - nothing else.
4. Restore Files to DIFFERENT Drives - When performing a file recovery, never restore a file to the same drive it came from. In other words, restore a file off a C: drive to a memory stick or out to a server. Why? Because when recovering multiple files, you could actually be overwriting files you are trying to recover.
Look at it this way - when you restore a file, it requires hard drive space. You don’t know which hard drive space it will use. Since prior files were deleted, that hard drive space becomes available for use if needed. Supposed you are trying to restore files 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and when you get to file #4 it overwrites #5? Then you’d lose the ability to restore file 5 forever.
So always restore to a hard drive or disk other than the one you are recovering.
5. Back Up Your Files! - File Recovery is your last hope when everything else has failed. It is not a replacement for backing up your files. Make sure you back up regularly. The way to think about it is this - which would take you longer, to recreate a file or restore it from backup to CD, DVD, Tape, Memory Stick or separate hard drive? Typical restores take 15 minutes for an expert. So can you rebuild from scratch what you are working on in 15 minutes or less? If not get to backing up!
Backing up is also a good habit to develop for computer use. As the sheer data increases, the tendency to lose files and misplace them becomes easier. A backup lets you sleep better knowing that you can get the important stuff back if and when you lose it.
Hopefully, this will help you get back your files. But if not, treat it as a learning experience. If you feel enough pain of having to create or buy the files again, you are more likely to backup in the future. Backing up is a good thing and it’s no longer just for geeks in the back office anymore. We all should backup and backup frequently.
Good luck in getting your files back .
Feel free to send this tip to a friend or bookmark this article on StumbleUpon or Del.ici.ous so others can find it.
Mar
11
Researchers found that if you increase the size of your monitor or added on another monitor, your productivity would increase by 40%. If you buy an additional 24″ LCD Screen
Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however: Productivity dropped off again when people used a 26-inch screen. (The order of the tasks and the order of computer configurations were assigned randomly.)
So if I am doing the math correctly, the 40 hour per week worker would add 20 extra hours of work. This is provided he is both productive during 40 hours AND someone who is on the computer for all that time. So the cost of the additional screen - even at over $400 would more than pay for itself in the first month.
If you were considering justifying it for your home based business, you’d simply calculate how many hours you spend really working on your business. Then multiply that by .50. So if you put in 20 hours per week, you’d squeak out an additional 10 hours with the larger screens. Now, how much is that additional 10 hours per week worth?
Let’s say for argument sake, you are making $10.00 per hour in your side business. That would be an additional $100 per week - or $400 per month
100 x 4 = $400
So your extra monitor would pay for itself in 1 month, give or take.
As someone who does use 2 monitors, I can say two monitors do increase my speed and productivity. Especially when copying from one document to another. Also when doing a complex install or configuration, I can read procedures on one screen and configure on the other. It saves screen minimizing and expanding…
What’s your monitor set up? Do you use more than one? More than two? I’d be interested to know how adding monitors has increased or decreased your productivity.
Mar
07
One of my favorite actors is Gabriel Byrne. He stars in my favorite movie of all time. He is such a great actor, I can’t help but be a bit mesmerized by his performances.
A few weeks ago, I learned about his latest work which is a series for HBO called In Treatment. [...]
