Productivity
Advice: Bowing to a higher authority
I’d suggest that as an individual, we don’t need to be able to amass 100% of the skills we need all by ourselves – in fact, we simply can’t – and that apart from the odd moments of epiphany, we gain our skills and experience by absorbing information from other rich sources – our own stable of mentors. So – who are my own ‘rich sources’ of pure gold? Who are my mentors? Let me introduce you to a couple…
Advice: Twitter 101: A primer…
So… what is Twitter? Ah, the multi-million dollar question… Perhaps it’s easier to answer what Twitter is *not*, first:
• Twitter is not exactly like a chat program (MSN, iChat, Skype, etc), but it does let you communicate back and forth with friends
• Twitter is not exactly like sending an SMS from your phone, but it does let you broadcast news and other messages to many people
• Twitter is not exactly like a blog, although it does let you get to know people over time
• Twitter is not exactly like Facebook, although it does let you find people and see what they’re up to
• Twitter is not just a fad – it fills the otherwise empty niche of ‘real-time written communication’ – although it seems to be the mainstream media’s darling this year!
What Twitter *is*, is a free system of writing messages of no more than 140 characters, so that anyone in the world who is also on Twitter can *follow* you, and thereby follow the stream of messages you’re writing.
Advice: Stuck sending emails with big attachments? Get Dropbox and let the magic happen…
It’s happened to the best of us – we try to send an email to a client, colleague, or family member, and we cram in one too many attachments. We press ’send’, and wait for the progress bar of life to tell us that our email is on it’s merry way when – uh oh – it bounces back to us with a gibberish technical message saying, in effect: ‘too big, try again’.
Let me show you an awesome bit of *free* technology that lets you send and recieve files of any size across this Internet – and it all happens as if by magic.
Advice: Skype 101: A primer…
Have you heard of Skype but were afraid to ask about it…? Don’t panic – it’s been a mainstay of voice communications for computer-folks for a long while, but there’s still lots of you (us!) out there who need to be introduced to the concept… one step at a time…
Advice: Two screens are better than one
What used to be the height of luxury for computer professionals has now become an affordable and very real productivity boost for small businesses: adding a second monitor to your computer.
Advice: Crossing the digital divide: 5 steps to filing with style
The ‘digital divide’ is said to delineate ‘Generation X’ from ‘Generation Y’ – those who grew up with personal computers vs those who grew up before them. While the definitions of the range of ages of these two generations differs depending on who you talk to, I would suggest that it’s not so much age-based, but confidence-based.
That said, let me pose a few typical computer filing situations, and show you how to ‘file with style’ in the virtual world, and feel more confident with your own digital information.
Advice: A coffee and a blog for breakfast
How do you start your day? Coffee, tea or fresh OJ? Perhaps a slice of toast and the morning paper? For a lot of the population, it’s not only the morning wake-up routine, but it’s also their chance to get their daily dose of news and events.
Newspapers are still a fresh and consistent source of local and regional news and events, with their wide range of columns and inserts, but (you *knew* there was a ‘but’ coming, didn’t you?) newspapers are edited for the general population, with general interest and general topics that generally please everyone…
Let me show you a way to pick and choose your own topics of interest from around the world, and roll-your-own newspaper, so that you can start the day with your perfect selection of news, columns, and advice – and begin your day with coffee and a blog for breakfast.
Advice: Googling 101: How to get better results from your Google Searches.
Just like getting to know your way around your local library, you really have to get to know Google if you want to find things faster and easier – the good news is that there are many tips, tricks and techniques to getting the most out of searching for things on the internet – so sit back, and I’ll show you some of the best ones.
Advice: The long lost art of writing plain text emails
Email – love it or hate it, it’s ingrained into our personal and business lives – the communication tool of choice for many small businesses, due to its speed, reach, and universal appeal.
Email has changed the way we write our business communications. Compared to typically quite formal written documents, an email allows us to be [...]
Advice: The Science of Getting Things Done – Part Two
Last month I introduced a concept of ‘Getting Things Done’ – a bit of an Internet phoenomenon, whereby all your emails in your inbox, and all your files on your computer are attended to with a firm application of some really easy to follow rules – rather than let lie dormant for weeks or months on end.
This month, we continue – onwards and upwards!