30Boxes vs. Google Calendar

In early February I wrote about coordinating schedules with your team.  I didn’t actually provide much new information, but rather was asking the question how geographically dispersed teams can do centralized scheduling without the benefit of some big computer in the sky (an exchange server) doing the heavy lifting.  I mentioned 30Boxes at the time as a possible solution.  I’ve been playing with it over the last couple of months and see some great possibilities.  TechCrunch just did a good quick review and it’s worth a read.  Today Google released their Calendar webapp.  I’ve used 30boxes a bit more than Gcal, but I wanted to give an early comparison between the two. 

Let’s look at 30Boxes first.  First, 30b is very simple to use.  You can type “meeting on Thursday at 2 with Jim” and 30Boxes figures out exactly what you mean and adds that to your calendar.  The ability of 30b to parse real world English is pretty amazing.  It’s not perfect, but it’s very, very handy.  You can even add a bookmarklet to FireFox that, when clicked, opens a little box for adding appointments.  Click “new event”, type in your real English language appointment and it automatically gets added to your 30Boxes calendar. 

Calendar View– Here’s a view of my calendar from April.  It’s pretty straightforward, not overly sexy.  I’d say it’s clean though.

 

Sharing – 30b has all kinds of ways to share your calendar.  First, when you’re entering an appontment you can invite another person to that event simply by adding “+joe@abc.com” to the end of the description.  Beyond that there are many ways for people to subscribe to your calendar or a subset of it.  You can choose to share the entire calendar, a special shared view or even create a custom view.  Then, as you can see in the picture to the right, each view offers a number of ways for people to subscribe that view.  These include sycing to Outlook 2003 (with an add-in) or 2007.

Importing – In early March, 30b added this feature, but it’s not nearly as clean as GCal’s.  It’s a great start though and will surely be improved.

 

Let’s take a look at Google Calendar now.  It just went public today, as far as I can tell but people have been writing about it for a while though, like here and here and countless other places.  Most folks seem to think that GCal would be released in 2005.

GCal Calendar View – Here’s how April looks in Google.  Not all the appointments are the same as the 30Boxes calendar because I don’t have everything synced up properly.  Google actually represents my Outlook calendar pretty well, since I imported it.  I really like the Google view better, especially for multi-day activities.  They just seems to pop out better.

 Sharing – Gcal doesn’t offer quite as many sharing options as 30Boxes.  Gcal provides you with basically two views and two ways to subcribe, XML or iCal.  I thinks these are solid options, but without the tagging options available in 30boxes, I don’t suppose there are too many choices.

Importing – GCal hits a home run in this department.  You can import from a variety of sources, including Outlook.  You simply browse to the right file, (CSV or iCal) and away you go.  It’s fast and easy.

Summary:  For my purposes either of these calendars will work fine.  In 30Boxes favor is the English language appointment parsing and a ravenous user community.  It wasn’t 30Boxes who wrote the Firefox bookmarklet, it was the community.  I don’t think there will be the same kind of adoption for GCal.  While Google gets enormous number of users, I don’t think they inspire the same community of committed developers that other startups (like 30Boxes) do.  Also in 30Boxes’ favor are numerous tagging and subscription options.  There are just all kinds of ways to catagorize, tag and share your information.  30Boxes is really set up to do social calendaring, plugging in well to thinks like chat, Flickr, blogs, etc.

In GCal’s favor is the ability is the strong user base and the attractive layout.  GCal also offers more calendar views day, month, 4–day, etc.  But it’s primarily a calendaring application that isn’t concerned so much with the social aspects of calendar sharing.  Whether this is a strength or weakness is up to you to decide.

The year of the tablet? Wrong question...what's most appropriate?

Rob Bushway wrote a great post on “the year of the tablet” and I think he’s right on the money.  Our emphasis shouldn’t be on the tablet per se, it should be on the experience that ink and a convertible or slate form factor brings.  That experience adds significant productivity and even entertainment value.  Rob writes:

I believe focusing on "Tablet this" and "Tablet that" is really selling short the future of inking in a multitude of devices. The hardware will happen over time. What we are really interested in is transparency in inking functionality throughout the mobile experience from ultra-mobile device to 17" laptop, from Windows Mail to Outlook, to Search boxes to the Inking on the desktop. Whether that device is a slate, a convertible notebook, touch computer, or an ultra-mobile pc, it doesn't matter. We enjoy the ink experience and see the productivity benefits of it [emphasis added].

He’s on the button.  I have a passing interest in technology, but I have an abiding interest in what works to help me get stuff done.  Last week I was at our annual field conference in Slovenia.  During one free/meal time I showed up with my Moleskine journal instead of my tablet.  Someone asked me, “Oh, are you giving up on technology?”  “No,” I said, “this is just a better tool for this context.”  Normally, I always have with me either my journal, my Sony CLIE or my tablet PC, depending on the context…depending on what I need to do and where.  Today, for example, I spent the morning in a village looking over some home construction/renovation we’re doing as an organization.  I can’t take my tablet out there, but my Moleskine is perfect.  That’s where the mobile computer trend is heading: more and more appropriate for a given context.

Check out this chart that Rob included in his post.  It’s from the Moble Platform Division Briefing at Microsoft:

It’s clear that in the minds of the MPD folks the trend is only getting more “personal” more ubiquitous.  But focus is not on “tablet,” but on usability.  Bring it on. 

The State of Online Feed Readers

TechCrunch gave a great over view on the state of online Feed Readers or Aggregators.  I think I prefer the term “feed reader” to “aggregator” because it is more clear.  A feed reader lets you “subscribe” to things on the web that you want to read.  It allows you to monitor interesting things without wasting time visiting countless websites.   Feed Readers come in different flavors, web-based, stand alone versions, and plug-ins for Outlook.

 

TechCrunch has reviewed nine these web-based readers before, but not in comparison to each other.   The bottom line:

If you are looking purely for performance, Google Reader and FeedLounge are the fastest in our tests. Bloglines and Rojo are the best choice if you are looking for a feature rich application (and Rojo blows Bloglines away on “web 2.0″ type features).   None, however, yet approach the speed and agility of the best desktop based readers like NetNewsWire and FeedDemon.

 

Check out the article for details. 

 

NewsGator Oneline overhaul

Yesterday I wrote that NewsGator is one of my "must have" applications. NewsGator uses RSS, or "Really Simple Syndication," to bring you up to the minute news, blogs, sports, images, audio and more. If you don't really understand RSS, check out Newsgator's explanation here.
Why bother? Here's one example. The president of my organization has a blog and it has...well, just two entries. The vice-president of my division also has a blog; he also has two entries. My immediate boss blogs...he has lots of entries. How do I know when they've posted something new? Do I check their blogs every day? Not likely; they don't post often enough. So what if I could leave the checking of these sites to my computer. That's what an RSS "aggregator" does. It pulls in content from the places you chose, when you chose and deposits it where you chose.
The Newsgator suite of applications does this very well. NG is actually a series of applications: an Outlook add-in, a stand alone reader, a Mac client and a web-based reader. You can use as many or few of the products as you want, but they all synchronize with each other. That is, if I read a blog entry or a new article in my Outlook add-in, it automatically marks the article as "read" on the web-based reader as well.

Marc Orchant and Ed Bott both have great write ups of the new deal.

Set up a home wireless network

Many of us use wireless networks at home or office. Setting one up might be easier than you’d think. Lifehacker has a great primer here.

Office 2007 interface preview video

I am becoming completely taken with the new Office interface.  You only see what you really need to see at any given point.  It’s a tremendous boon to Tablet users; no more navigating down infinitely nested drop-down menus…yuck.  If you want a better understanding of what’s coming, check out this streaming preview video from Microsoft.  Some people are worried about relearning a whole new interfact, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much.  If you look for stuff where it ought to be you probably find it.  If you look for it where Microsoft used to hide it, you’re in trouble.  The designers have done a great job putting all the various controls where they intuitively belong.

via Download Squad

Bery bery nejse masheen

I finally got my TabletPC back!  The service guys finished with it last week, but it took serveral days to get down to Skopje.  In fact, my colleague Carolyn, who happens to live in Skopje, picked it up from the service guys.  She said that they were a little reluctant to part with it.  In fact, when she came they were patting in gently saying, “It’s a bery bery nejse masheen.”  I agree!  In the end they put in a new battery, new motherboard and gave me a new power supply.  They told me that the power up here is terrible (ya, thanks) and that a more powerful power supply would help safeguard the thing.  Who knows.

Using synctoy I synced back all my data from my wife’s laptop, including all my Outlook information.  In just a few minutes I was up and ready to go.  Of course, I immediately made things interesting by installing the “technical refresh” of Office 2007 beta and Onelook 2007 beta.   I can’t tell you how much I missed Outlook 2007.  Going back to OL2003, which is what my wife uses, really cramped my organizational style.  As good as 2003 is, and it’s great, it just doesn’t compare to what 2007 has going for it. 

All that aside, here’s what I missed most about my own computer:

Newsgator – Newsgator is a wonderful thing that tracks all the stuff I want to track, blogs, websites, etc.  Newsgator gathers all that information for me and allows me to read it either on their website, or in Outlook.   While I was able to track my news and blogs on the Newsgator website, there’s no beating having it all delivered straight to Outlook.  This week Newsgator released several upgrades and new products.  If you’re interested in reading blogs at all you have to try Newsgator.

ActiveWords – I’ve written about this program before, but it’s like a macro progam on steroids.  Nuf said.

Outlook 2007 – The features in OL2007 just rock.  I’ll have to write more later on this.

Onenote 2007 – Another must have program.  Onenote is my one-stop place for all my notes, doodles, projects and place to save neat website clippings.  It now syncronizes with Outlook.

GetRight – GetRight is my ubiqitous download manager.  When your internet connect is spotty you need a reliable program that can seamlessly resume and schedule downloads.  I have 24/7 Internet, but I don’t have much speed.  GetRight is also great for downloading podcasts for the same reason.  It has a built in podcast downloader that checks my feeds automatically.  I can then download or schedule the download when it suits me.

Okay.  That’s it.   Forunately I got it back in time for our organizational meetings in Slovenia next week. 

               

 

Sounds like a great jump start

I drank the cool-aid two years ago next month...and it's been great. Seriously, "Getting Things Done" is the only "time management" system I've ever used that provides me with the information I need when, and where I need it. Last month when first my Palm PDA died, followed by my laptop I was able to transition pretty seamlessly to a Moleskine notebook and a pencil. That's right, one of the powerful things about GTD is that it's technology independent. That can be key in the life of a missionary when you don't know when the electricity spirits may or may not smile.
I hope that I can actually attend one of these seminars while home in the US next year that one of the GTD Roadmap seminars while home in the US this next year.

GTD jump start by ZDNet's Marc Orchant -- I attended David Allen's Roadmap seminar in Santa Monica on Friday. This one-day seminar is a reformatting of the two-day Getting Things Done seminar I attended a few years ago and it has refreshed my enthusiasm for Getting Things Done in a couple of ways.

My next PDA?

    I’ve been a long-time user of the Palm PDA.  My first one was the almost original Palm Pilot Professional…and I loved it.  My most recent PDA has been the Sony CLIE TH55.  I’ve loved my CLIE too. It has all the features I’ve ever wanted in a PDA, including wi-fi, MP3 player and voice recorder.  With it I can work on Word docs, PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets.  I’ve taken notes for many meetings with this baby, and the battery life is measured in days, not hours. 
    Unfortunately, I recently dropped it and broke the screen.  Since then I’ve been thinking about my next “external brain.”  I’ve thought about some of the new Palm devices which are rumored to be coming out, including the Treo 700p, which is the next generation Treo running the Palm OS.
    But then a couple of weeks ago Microsoft’s “Origami” viral marketing campagin finally reached fruition with the awkwardly named UMPC device.  The Ultra-Mobile-Personal –Computer is a full featured Tablet PC in a very, very small package.  That means a full-featured Windows XP device in something the size of a half a sheet of paper.    For a pretty decent overview of Origami/UMPC check out this ComputerWorld article (thanks Dennis).
    A number of companies are preparing to roll out UMPC’s in the near future, including new-comer, Founder.  James Kendrick pointing to a Layne Heiny post, gives some more details.  Those include:

• Memory 256MB/512MB DDRII memory
• Display monitor 7 "W
• Hard disk 30G
• I/O port 1 power source connection
• 1 microphone jack
• 1 telephone jack
• 2 USB 2.0 connections
• Port duplication connection
• Wireless
  accesses the net In sets at the blue tooth module and the 802.11b/g
  non- wire card, may through clear the GPRS function the blue tooth
  handset or the wireless local area network realizes the Internet visit
• Keyboard Folds

This
is just an example of what's coming.  The first generation will
certainly be missing some things, but I believe that in the long run,
this is the future of handheld computing.  For some more Origami
resources, check out this link. 
As I said in the beginning, I've been a long time Palm user.  But with
an UMPC I get all the power of a "real" computer running Windows
XP/Vista in an almost Palm-sized package.  These are going to be
devices to watch.

Want to be a Office 2007 Beta tester?

I’ve been involved in the Office 2007 Beta test of for the last several months.  For the most part, I’ve LOVED it.  Even though we were warned over and over to avoid using the beta in a “production environment,” that is, where it really counts, I’ve been doing just that.  Later this year Microsoft will be opening up Beta 2 to the public and has is still signing people up to participate in that. 

 

If you’re interested, it's not too late to sign up to receive Beta 2 of Office 2007.

Mastering Your Domain

Gotten tired of AOL or Juno or some other provider?  Did you change your internet provider only to lose your email address?  Ever wonder how difficult it is to have your own website and “domain.”  Ed Bott has a great post on establishing your own online presence.  Get your own domain, like “www.singfiel.com” or “www.greatchurch.com.”  It’s actually not very expensive or difficult and the tranportability of your identity is hard to put a value on.  These days, for about $5 a month, you can have your own “.com” address; your for as long as you pay your bill.   Check out his post Mastering your own domain

 

Ministry and the Knowledge Worker

When I felt God direct me to pursue full-time service I never would have believed I my day-to-day life would have much in common with today’s knowledge worker.  I imagined I’d be off in the jungle or city, visiting with people, or preaching and teaching all day.  So go youthful fantasies.  In fact, I’ve found the reality of my life quite different.  In any given day I might be coordinating the schedule of a visiting “short-term team,” working on a grant proposal worth tens of thousands of dollars, preparing lessons and sermons, thinking through up-coming team meetings and having coffee with villagers so poor they can’t afford aspirin.

            Keeping the first things first in my life is a constant challenge, and one I frequently feel I fail at.  I’ve also learned that, in addition to the lessons learned in seminary on “classic ministry,” I have a lot to learn from today’s knowledge workers as well.  CNNmoney.com posted an article by Ellen McGirt outlining the realities of the "modern era of work."  The article is pretty long, but worth the read.  At the end Ellen suggests these “five paths to sanity.”

1. Keep your meetings rare. Surveys show that most people find meetings a major time waster. Use them sparingly, keep to an agenda, start and end on time. And unless someone is expecting a baby, or using technology is a key part of the meeting, turn off all cellphones and BlackBerries. No passing digital notes.

2. Show your technology who's boss. Most of today's devices and software actually can be set to be less intrusive. You just need to learn how: Switch off the ping that heralds the arrival of an e-mail, create folders into which incoming messages are automatically shunted. When busy, let outgoing messages alert others to when they might reasonably expect to hear back from you.

3. Give yourself a time-out. Devote an hour to uninterrupted thinking and planning every day. First thing in the morning is safest, but anytime is good. No calls, no e-mail, no chitchat. "If there's an emergency, someone will come get you," says organization expert Julie Morgenstern. "Use this time to think strategically about your work."

4. Say no. "Sorry" isn't the hardest word--"no" is. But not saying it to desperate colleagues or harried bosses is the quickest way to overload your schedule and muck up more important goals. Focus first on meeting your stated objectives. Also, consider family and personal time when filling your calendar: Work-centric employees are more likely to report feeling overloaded than those who plan for their personal lives.

5. Delete. Surveys show we waste 20% of our day on nonproductive activities. Cut out or dele- gate anything on your to-do list that doesn't have long-term consequences for your work. Be ruthless. And while you're at it, don't let a stuffed e-mail in-box sap your will to live. When reviewing each e-mail, make an on-the-spot call to delete, file, or reply to each one--even if the response is, "I'll get back to you on this later."

 

Via Jason Womack

 

Tales of repair woe...and hope

Yesterday I was returning from a conference in Bitola, Macedonia through Skopje, its capital.  My national colleagues and I had spent four days out of the range of my cell phone which only works in Kosovo.  The cell phone system is the subject of another post, but I had been wondering if any progress had been made on the repair of my Tablet PC.  We were stopping in Skopje for lunch anyway, and the repair center is almost right across the street from one of the McDonalds there.  While we waited for our food ( in Macedonia you order at the counter and then sit and wait until they bring your food) I walked across the street.  When I entered the service center I was a greeted by a very helpful man.  The actual technician who had been working on my tablet was out, so I was asked to sit in a conference room while the call was made.

 

Good news!  While I was in Bitola my tablet had been repaired!  I was told that the battery had been defective and been replaced.  A flash of doubt passed through my mind, but was quickly eclipsed by my happiness at the relatively speedy repair.  The man suggested that I test it to make sure, but I passed, anxious to get to my Big Mac “Big and Tasty” and my colleagues.  When I got back to my waiting burger, however, I flipped my tablet open and pressed the power button.  Nothing.  Not a light, not a chirp … nothing.  I flipped it over and detached the battery, hoping that it wasn’t seated properly or something.  Sure enough, the battery was brand new, manufactured in January of 2006 in fact!  I reseated the battery and tried again.  Nothing.  Then I went to look for an outlet.  The countries in the Balkans tend to not put outlets anywhere convenient, but at last I found one and plugged it in.  Again, nothing.

 

I had been vaguely suspicious about the “battery problem” because I’m pretty sure every laptop I’ve owned, every Thinkpad at least, would run fine on AC without the battery installed.  At any rate, I dejectedly headed back across the street to the service center and revisited my new friend.  Again we called the tech in the field and gave him the bad news.  He said that unit had been powered on and charging fine the day before.  He said he had hoped the battery was the culprit, but had ordered a new motherboard the same day he ordered the battery, it just hadn’t arrived yet.

 

As with many of my experiences in the Balkans, I have mixed feelings.  I’m very grateful there is an authorized IBM service center in Macedonia.  I’m very grateful that they can do warranty work and that this repair won’t cost me a dime…or a euro.  At the same time, the guys very nearly sent me back to another country with a unit that had been properly repaired.  I didn’t think it was rocket science to diagnose that more than the battery was faulty.  Anyway, hopefully the new mobo will be here next week.  Then I can try to figure out when I can spare the better part of a day to travel down to Macedonia and back.  Skopje is a two-hour drive away during the best of times, and there is rarely a “best time” to go there.

 

As we say here in Kosovo, “shka me ba”  in other words, “what can you do.”

 

What I miss about my tablet

It’s been interesting to be forced to work on a non-tablet PC again as my primary computer.  My Lenovo X41 tablet is still in the shop where, the techs tell me, the parts are on order and perhaps will arrive next week.  I didn’t realize something until I read Eric Mack’s post on Toshiba service this morning.  When I called down to Skopje yesterday, I actually talked to the actual guy who was working on my tablet.  He could tell me in detail what the problem was and assured me it would be taken care of shortly.  Of course, he’s not responsible for the vagaries of the Macedonia postal system and customs service, so we’ll see what happens.  I haven’t seen many Toshiba customers able to claim this.  Of course, I don’t know what the customer service experience in the US is like for IBM/Lenovo customers either.

Anyway, over the last few days I’ve been mentally comparing my recent tablet/non-tablet experiences.  I’ve tried to mentally factor out a lot of issues.  First, my wife’s laptop is a nearly five-year-old Pentium III Thinkpad.  So I’ve tried for factor out performance issues in my comparison.  Second, I’ve tried to factor out all the little personalizations my Tablet got.  My can’t-live-without applications like ActiveWords, various firefox extensions, tweaked Office applications give me tremendous increases in productivity that I’m lacking on this older laptop.  But yesterday I had two different experiences where my “lack of tablet” functionality was painfully obvious. 

One: At 8:30 yesterday morning I had a meeting with some German, Albanian and American colleagues.  Together we are helping to put together a series of seven evangelistic events in June in cooperation with Luis Palau Evangelistic Association.  We met at the café in our community center around a small table. 

(A) First, I felt really dumb trying to prop this big cludgy laptop onto of a small café table. A typical laptop creates a huge visual/interpersonal barrier when put on top of a table.  So instead of putting it on the table, I set it on a couch next to me.  That created the awkward experience of not being able to listen and watch people because I was always looking sideways at my laptop screen.  With my tablet in my lap it is much easier to remain engaged in the conversation with no non-verbal barriers.

(B) We had been sent some dummy schedules, which I had printed into OneNote.  This normally allows me to write with my pen on top of that “printout.”  Part of the meeting agenda was to refine the focus for each of the seven events, how many we expected to come, times, dates, etc.  OneNote is the perfect application for this kind of brainstorming and tweaking.  We even had to go on the web to consult the World Cup soccer schedule and plan around it, something I never would have thought about except for my German friends.  So we began to tweak; first we decided to slot our Police event into this place and move our professor’s event over here.  Then we decided to dial back the number of civic leaders we would invite to their event and so forth.  All I can say is that was a very awkward process to do with a keyboard.  It just wasn’t natural.

Two:  Yesterday afternoon we had our weekly team meeting in my home.  Each week we get together for prayer requests, updates on various projects, etc.  At one point in the discussion we were talking about ways to transfer more ownership of the church plant we are working on over to our national co-workers.  We had a number of options at play in the discussion.  Again, I was taking notes in OneNote which is my habit.  During that discussion I immediately felt the need to start drawing circles, arrows, and process doodles to help me map the conversation.  OneNote is perfect for that!  Normally I would expand the “paper” a little bit to the right of that agenda item and doodle away with my pen.  Then later I can refer back to those doodles in my notes, which is a great aid in helping remember why I was thinking what I was thinking.  But it was the oddest sensation to look down at my hands and realize I was trapped by the keyboard.  I could only type.  This probably sounds odd, but a pen in your hand triggers all kinds of mental processes that a keyboard does not.  In fact, I believe a keyboard actually keeps you from being as creative as you might otherwise be.

            So that’s my tablet-less update for today.  I’ve got some more things to write on the upside of having restricted computer usage, but that’ll have to wait for another day.

 

 

My Tablet PC....dead...and in Kosovo

My posting has been pretty sparse lately and that’s because my fairly new IBM/Lenovo X41 Tablet PC….croaked.  It all started a couple of weeks ago when suddenly the battery wouldn’t charge above 48%.  Then that number began to gradually decrease.  While we were having important leadership meetings last weekend, a 3-day marathon session where my tablet was driving the data projector and taking minutes, the battery died to 0%  Then mysteriously, in the middle of the meeting, it just powered off for no particular reason…and it wasn’t because the municipal power went out, which happens here daily.

After a minute it powered back on and our meeting continued but oh, the embarrassment.  Can’t you feel my pain as for months I’ve been trying to sell everyone on this Tablet only to have it fail during mission critical meetings?  Anyway, we continued with our meetings, but a couple of days later it wouldn’t’ power-on at all.  No AC indicator light, no battery light, nothing.

So what does a IBM/Lenovo owner do with a 6-month old tablet when he lives in Kosovo?  Fortunately, we have an authorized IBM service center in the next country over, in Skopje, Macedonia.  The only problem is it is two hours away.  Except this winter the main road that connects Kosovo with Macedonia was closed due to landslides and it’s still closed.  People now have to travel to the other side of the country to another smaller border crossing.  Anyway, my colleagues were heading to Skopje that very morning for medical reasons and so I had about an hour to get the Tablet ready.

I quickly pulled the hard drive out and put it into an external enclosure.  That let me copy my entire data partition onto my wife’s Thinkpad, ensuring that I had all my stuff while my tablet headed to the doctor.  Since I already had an existing profile on my wife’s computer, all of my current Outlook contacts, calendar and email opened right up.  I was a little surprised at this frankly, and was thankful that I’d been unintentionally clever.  A short time later my tablet was on it’s way to Skopje with my colleagues and I was checking my email.

 So I’m writing this on my wife’s old but reliable T23 Thinkpad.  It’s Pentium III and is without all my critical little tools like ActiveWords, Onenote, MindManager, BibleWorks, etc.  It’s also missing all my Firefox extensions and everything else that puts the “personal” back into the Table PC.  Yesterday I talked to the service guys in Skopje.  The actual tech working on my unit wasn’t in at the moment, but he did know that they’d been able to get it power up again.  Hopefully it will be fixed by the time I head out to a conference in Macedonia next week.

So what’s the moral of the story?  1) Buy quality hardware from a trusted manufacturer.  Know where you can get your unit serviced and have the information available.  2) Have a backup strategy and use it.  I actually hadn’t backed up my data in a month or so…ya, I know, dumb.  3) Know how to pull the drive out of your computer and copy its contents somewhere else.  This is what saved my bacon this time.  Fortunately I had an external drive enclosure laying around that made this pretty easy.  4) Have good friends who are willing to drive many kilometers out of their way to drop your sick PC off at the doctors.

Reading what you want to read in 23 easy steps...really

I used to cruise all around the web reading things that interested me. Not any more. Now the information I want to read comes straight to me each day. It's called RSS and it doesn't' involve giving your email address, your mother's maiden name or any other private information. RSS brings information, or "feeds," right to your desktop. I subscribe to well over one hundred feeds. Can you imagine how long
it would take to surf to a hundred web pages each day on the off chance
that they'd changed something? I don't have time for that and neither do you. RSS fundamentally changes the way we get information. It's not all that difficult to get started.

The Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn writes a great intro to RSS here: Chicago Tribune | Eric Zorn.
He's using bloglines, which isn't my preferred RSS program, but it's free and works well. I've been using Newsgator for the last year or so. Why? Because Outlook is always open on my desktop and Newsgator plugs right into it. All of my subscriptions show up in folders very similar to my email folders.

If you want to learn more in less time, RSS is the only way to go.

via LifeHacker

Publishers getting on the e-book wagon

jkOnTheRun is linking to a BusinessWeek article today the hints that gradual changes are afoot in the publishing business.  This year Google, Random House and HarperCollins will move more that 50,000 books into e-formats.  The key is going to be the distribution model.  Right now e-tailers like Amazon require you to download an ebook…obviously. Apple’s success with iTunes and Sony’s forthcoming Reader are going to challenge thi somewhat.  In another post JK writes that:

Author Scott Sigler first made news when he decided to release his book EarthCore as a weekly podcast last year. Sigler produced the audio book himself and released it a few chapters at a time via podcast and garnered 10,000 subscribers. The innovative author has now achieved a "second first" by putting the audio novel on the iTunes Music Store. The entire 20 episode audio book can be purchased from iTunes for $9.99 and it will be interesting to see how well this sells. It could pave the way for other authors to self-publish in audio format.

The publishing industry is changing.  You can bet that many people, both authors and publishers, will be watching these ventures. 

 

 

Away with the overflowing inbox!

How do you feel when you look at your email inbox?  Many of us would say we feel vaugely sick.  Most everyone gets more email than they ever want to see and many are driven by it.  They are always waiting for the next email to arrive so that they know what to do.  That’s a terrible way to live, frankly and isn’t very productive.  It makes you reactive instead of proactive and the weight of undealt with emails is a tremendous mental drain.  So what do you do with all those emails sitting in your inbox?  I would suggest you come up with a system that keeps your inbox empty of ALL mail.  I don’t get that many emails in comparison with most, maybe 20-40 a day (not counting spam).  But unless you get well over 200 hundred a day, it is possible to keep your inbox empty and your head clear.  It is possible to refuse to allow your inbox to drive your day.  Read each email one time and then process it.  Here’s how…

 

Julie Daniel, a staff coach for the Getting Things Done organization offers us six different types of emails and what to do with them.  I’ll list them as they were summarized here at What’s the Next Action.

 

• Email you've read and there’s no action associated with it and you don’t need to keep it for reference. So delete it!
• Email you've read and there's no action associated with it right now but perhaps on a later date. So incubate it or file it!
• Email you've read and decided there is an action but you are not sure what the action is. So incubate it or defer it!
• Email you've read and decided there is an action and you know what the action is but you haven't come around to doing it. So put it on a Next Action list in the appropriate context!
• Email you've read and decided there is an action and you actually did the action. But now you are waiting on some sort of reply from someone or they need to track the outcome of that action. So put it on a "Waiting For" list!
• Email you haven't read yet. Those are the only emails that should be in your Inbox!

 

If you do this you’ll relax more, drop fewer balls and feel more in control of your life and, especially, your inbox.

Related...

New version of Microsoft Office finally named

Hey, for those of you who are following the new version of Office scheduled for release this next year, Microsoft has just given it the stirring name of "2007 Microsoft Office System." I'm loving the Beta, to be honest, and think people are really going to enjoy this new product when it ships.

Jensen Harris gives some information on how to participate in the Beta 2, if you're interested.
Chris Pratley also gives some good info.
You can find out which products go with which suite here.

Microsoft is also going to bundle OneNote into the Home and Student version, which is pretty exciting. OneNote is an app I could no longer be without.

How effective is email?

I've been growing increasingly disenchanted with email as a communication medium lately. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I'm getting disenchanted with the way it's used, not with the medium itself. It's one of the least effective forms of communication because it lacks all the meta-language of phone call or better yet, face-to-face communication. The "meta-content" of your voice like tone, pace, pauses, etc., are all missing from email as is facial expression...duh. Some studies suggest that almost seventy percent of communication comes through this meta-language.

What's problematic is that, according to this University of Chicago study, people consistently overestimate their ability to convey tone in email. Check out this Lifehacker post about the study. To boil it down:

The reason for this communication disconnect, the researchers find, is egocentrism...

Think about. We are more and more chosing modes of communication which are easiest because they leave the other partner out; they begin and end primarily with the "sender". We don't have to (immediately) respond and alter our tone, pace or choice of words, to be understood by the "receiver." Unfortunately, with email it is all about ME. When communicating let's try to pick the most effective modes first.

1. Face-to-face
2. Telephone/VOIP
3. Voice mail
4. Email

Good luck communicating!

Great Tablet PC Demonstration

While Tablet PCs are catching on, it's still a challenge to demonstrate to people quickly what is different about them. The differences go way beyond simple differences in hardware. The difference is in the experience.

This week James Kendrik posts an outstanding video demonstration of some his favorite applications. Notice I didn't say "tablet" applications. These are all great applications that work normally with Windows XP. With a tablet, however, they get a whole new level of usability. It's a good demo of how to use:

• Outlook
• OneNote
• Internet Explorer
• MindManager
  
• Activewords
• and others.

These are all programs I too use almost daily (with the exception of JVC Gantt, which I'd never seen. If you are curious about what different 'ink' makes head on over and download the 17MB video.

jkOnTheRun Audio Edition: jkOnTheRun Audio Edition #11- Tablet PC demo video

Ink isn't about 'geek' it's about communicating

Yesterday I had another one of those "this is why I have a tablet" moment. I was communicating, via Skype and Windows Messenger Live (thanks for the invite Rob!) with our field book keeper in Macedonia, the next country over from mine. We run a holistic ministry center in my city and I was talking with the bookkeeper about how to best communicate the financial details to our mission team and our national co-workers. She and I have been struggling to come up with a graph that best illustrates the data I want to communicate, but I just couldn't get it across to her.

I looked down at my WM Live window and noticed a pen icon....a ha! I quickly sketched the type of income/expense graph I was looking for in the Messenger window. This was the first time I'd used messenger and it took ten second. I hit send and a moment later heard her begin to laugh.

"You sure love your new toy, don't you!" she said.

"Ah, ya. But it's all about communicating. Now you know exactly what I'm looking for, don't you," said I.

I'll be the first to admit that I like gadgets because they are cool. But at the end of the day, I like them because they get the job done. It's not about 'geek;' it's about communicating.

Speed-Reading Techniques

I don't remember who to 'hat-tip' for this; the page has stayed open in my browser for days. Most of us are exposed to enourmous amounts of information these days. None of us have time to read all the things we might, but this page has some great techniques to build your capacity to read more in less time. They're not tips...tips are minor adjustments in behavior that bring positive change. Good techniques are long-term, major adjustments in paradigm that will cause significant down-stream bonus. Tips just require that you remember, techniques require that you practice.

I've been experimenting with speed-reading since high school and probably read faster than most, but this page if full of ideas that challenged some of my assumptions and gave me insight into getting what I want out of a book.

SPEED

An open letter to publishers

I've been riding this e-book horse pretty heavily recently, but this really is the future of book publishing.  Does this mean the end of paper editions?  Of course not.  Most people still prefer to read a real paper book, all things being equal.  But the thing is, not all things are equal.  Lately I've been trying to digitize as many things as possible, specifically my Albanian language study material.  Why?  There are lots of reasons I am growing to prefer ebooks over paper ones...in fact they are the same reasons everyone else gives:

1. Portability - ebooks don't weigh anything.  I can read a book easily on either my IBM X41 Tablet computer or my Sony CLIE.  I almost always have one or the other with me. 
2. Accessibility - they're always with you when you need them.  This goes beyond portability; the book is quickly accessible to me.  In fact, I can open an ebook almost as fast as I can pull a paper one off my shelf and open it to the correct page.
3. Searchable - this is a  major plus of ebooks.  Last week I was writing to a blogger friend about the book, Naked Conversations,  I was reading.  I was looking for a particular quote about Buzz Bruggeman.  In about five seconds I had searched through the book and found the right quote.
4. Mark-up-ability - Okay, this isn't a word yet.  Paper books can be scribble on, underlined, and notes can be taken.  But you can do the same in an e-book, depending on the software one is using.  With Adobe Acrobat, for example, you can highlight text and make notes about those highlights.  What's even better is that you can then create summaries of all your comments and notes, along with page numbers, etc.  Wouldn't have that been great when writing those college term papers?

Craig Pringle sums it up better than I in an open letter to publishers.  In his intro he says:

This post was inspired by my recent experiences around two books by Michael Linenberger.  I will hold this transaction up as an example but it is not in any way atypical.   This is not about any one author or publisher.  I have ordered Michael’s books and look forward to reading them.  This post is to everyone who writes or publishes a book.  It is an open letter and feedback is welcome and encouraged.

 

How does your team coordinate schedules?

Our team in the Balkans is geographically distributed over wide region.  We have personnel in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia and use a wide range of internet connectivity options from dial-up, city-wide wireless and cable-modem.  Our field has tried a number of internet based calendaring options to help everyone coordinate the field-wide schedule.  None of them have really worked though.  People with dial-up have trouble with web-based apps, others aren’t geeky enough to see the point, etc. 

 

Web-based calendaring applications are nothing new, but in the last few days a number of people have been writing about something new called “30 Boxes.”  The beta is supposed to be released tomorrow (Sunday).  What do you use to coordinate scheduling over a geographically dispursed team that doesn’t’ have access to a central server? 

 

For more on “30 Boxes” check out these guys.  It looks pretty sweet.

Thomas Hawk

jkOnTheRun

Download Squad

Scoble

 

 

 

Foreign photocopier frustrations

Had one of those weird, geeky-cross-cultural experiences today.  We have a wonderful digital, networked photocopier at our community center/church-plant.  We offer extremely low-cost photocopies for the community, especialy the university students.  We also offer free, limited photocopying for the local teachers.  Not only will our copier photocopy, but it will also has a scanner, document-server and print functions built in.  We’ve made good use of those functions as students and others make use of our networked computers.  Last week we had the copier serviced and, as part the servicing, the technician reset everything to default…thanks.

As you might guess, this brought scanning and printing and other network functions to a screeching halt.  This is no big deal you say.  Surely someone calling themselves the ‘missionary geek’ would have everything up and running in no time.  Here is where one of those irritating factors of missionary life surface.

Our photocopier actually came from Switzerland in an earlier life.  There it enjoyed a full and purposeful life in some small- or medium-sized office.  But somewhere along the line, it sinned and was sent to Kosovo.  It brought with it, however, its native German- and French-language packs.  That’s right, our copier only “speaks” French or German.  The whole interface is set up for only those two languages.  Unfortunately for me, both of those languages are far from my adopted Albanian.  Fortunately for me, most of the time the icons on the LCD display are pretty straightforward.  Other times, technical abbreviations like IP and DHCP are the same in any language…I guess.  But I could not get the thing to print from our computers to save my life.  I’d set it up the first time, but maybe I just got lucky.  Finally I changed some 28-letter-long German word from ‘on’ to ‘automatic’ and all was well again.  Sometimes you have to take confort in the face that most of the time you can’t irrevocably break anything by pushing buttons and seeing what happens.  Hey, it works for me!

New ebook/dead-tree combo offer...portant of things to come?

Eric Mack points to one new publisher who appears to be an innovative, or at least new, approach to book publishing.  Publisher, Pragmatic Publishing is giving customers the ability to purchase books in three different ways:
1. Books in print, for this who want the physical book
2. eBooks in unrestricted PDF format with free lifetime updates
3. Combo Book + PDF* for people like me who want to enjoy the book in both formats

If you follow the comments you'll see people asking when mainstream publishers are going this route; Pragmatic is a fairly small publisher.  I would buy books like this in a minute.

 

Sharpening the axe...in ministry

Brad Isaac writes about Abe Lincoln's productivity secret today. It's reflected in this famous quote:
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

I've been pondering this from the context of productivity in ministrysince I read it . What does my axe-sharpening look like?
1. This one didn't come first, but it should have. Giving attention to your inner life. You cannot be on the outside what you are not on the inside. That is, I cannot be externally (in reality, not just superficially) godly, disciplined, focused, etc., when I am not so internally. This is the beginning place of "productivity." Ultimately, I don't want me quest for productivity to result in making widgets faster and with less effort. I want to be productive so that more people can hear the life-changing Gospel.
2. Building quality, strategic, transformational relationships. This may seem strange in a post about axe-sharpening, but people are the only things that are going to be around 10,000 years from now. People are the vehicles for God's grace, not laptops, phones and PDA's. At the same time, some relationships have more "leverage" than others. My relationship with my wife and kids has both the greatest long-term benefit and the most long-term risk. Blow it with them and most of your other relationships will suffer too.
3. Learn to use your tools. It doesn't matter whether your tools are mechanical, electronic or natural. Since I'm a lttle geeky, I'll mention a couple of a couple computer related things. I am stunned with how much time people spend with computers and how poorly they know how to use them. I know one person who regularly struggles for hours with a web-based email account because they are too busy to set something up in Outlook, Thunderbird, etc. They waste hours waiting for pages to load, attachments to upload, etc. Others have never learned how to type, or never learned a keyboard shortcut. Take some time to learn a new feature about a tool you already use regularly. Doing so saves time, lowers frustration and will help you get things done quicker with better results.
It's been good to reflect on this a little bit this evening. I don't know about you, but all too often I find myself happily banging away on some stupid tree without taking any time to stop and do a little self-reflection. Hmm, I'm off to do a little axe-sharpening.

Who needs electricity...ya, sure

The electricity has been terrible this week!  It’s been going on and off randomly…and staying off for long periods.  Back when we first got here it went off and on like clockwork…mostly.  You could rely on carefully scheduled power outages to screw up your day.  Now, however, you never know when it’s going to go out…or come back on.  I got up about 6:20 today to find the power out and the house cold.  Heating water for coffee on the stove isn’t a big deal, but it’s not as convenient as our ubiquitous hot water heater.  That baby goes from stone cold to boiling in about 30 seconds…when you have power.  Fortunately our wood stove still had hot coals in it.  It went from hot to blazing furnace in about five minutes…a relief when the temps are FAR below zero like they have been this week.

It’s not really a big deal, but its’ a little annoying.  What’s funny is that KEK, the Kosova Electrik Korporation siad that this week all of Kosova would have power rationing of only one hour off, five hours on…during the time of mourning for Rugova.  Watch out, whenever KEK makes a promise of more power you can forget about it.

We’re pretty accustomed to power outages at this point. They’re a daily occurrence.  A guy just has to keep his laptop batteries charged up and he’s in business.  But it is tough when your internet is down, and you can’t read the morning papers with your instant coffee!  It’s such a tough life ;)

Flagging outgoing mail -- More Outlook 12 goodness!

Melissa MacBeth fills us in on more Outlook 12 goodness today.  She’s been blogging a lot about making Outlook, not just an email client, but a productivity center.  I am really, really liking what I’m seeing so far.  For example, all of us get and send email…duh.  But many times we send email about a particular project and can’t take the next step until we receive a particular response.  For example, maybe I’m working on a budget and need Joe’s input before I can finish that budget section.  I send Joe and email, asking for the information and then BCC myself with a dummy address I use for just this purpose, something like JeffsWaitingFor@abc.com.  When I get this email back, I copy it over into a folder called “waiting for.”  Then once a week, or more regularly, I review that list of “waiting for” emails so I’m reminded to check for Joe’s information.  If you work on a small number of projects this isn’t really necessary, but as the amount of email and number of projects grow, it’s important to know always know what are the next actions.  This is all right out of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” which I’ve been working on implimenting for nearly two years.

Today Melissa posts that this isn’t necessary any more.  Now Outlook as a feature that lets you tag email that you’re writing.  This is too cool.  That is, when I write to Joe for budget information, I click “follow-up” which allows me to set a reminder on when to follow up with Joe about his budget information.  The this flagged email message shows up on my task list at the appropriate time.  This is awesome if you like to track your mail this way.

The folks at MS are doing really, really good work on Outlook 12.  Check out her blog for more details.

 

Sony Reader...to ebooks like iPod is to music?

The Wall Street Journal has an article on Sony's new Reader device. It is the first device to use the new digital ink technology that is supposed to be super good for batteries and super easy on the eyes. If memory serves, it uses the battery only to flip the little pixels from black to write...that it, only when you turn your page.
I love digital books. I probably read more books electronically now than in paper. Do I miss paper books? Sure I do. Do I like having real, genuine paper books on my book shelf? You betcha. BUT, they're horribly inconvenient. Since I always have either my laptop or my Sony CLIE in my pocket, I always have an ebook with me. Maybe it's a novel, maybe it's a free classic or something new from Amazon.
Some time ago I cross-posted Michael Hyatts posts here, here and here. Michael is the CEO or Thomas Nelson and is all eyes on the electronic book market. In some ways this new Sony device has all the makings of a great device. Michael wrote about the necessity of making the product iPod-like...that is, a simple process from purchase to download to grab-and-do. According to the WSJ, several publishers have made arrangements with Sony to do just this...provide an iTunes type experience.
I still don't know what I think about a dedicated ebook reader. I can't envision buying one myself. Why bother when I can buy what I want and read it on my laptop or Palm? the new device boasts 7,500 page turns per charge. But good grief, as bad as the electricity is here in Kosovo, I can still charge my gadets. I don't know, I'm not convinced, but I'm happy to see them try!

Performancing 1.1 released

I’ve lost track of how many different blogging agents I’ve tried.  None of them seem to fit quite right.  Performancing 1.1 is no exception.  It’s a very clever extension to Firefox that’s handy to use, but still isn’t perfect.   Performancing allows you to split your screen and post from within your Firefox window.  This new version includes better Technorati support, uses del.icio.us integration (which I still don’t get) plus trackback and some other stuff.  It’s definitely worth taking a look at.  It makes inserting hyperlinks very easy, it captures the active URL and has a lot of nice features.

My main beef is that I get an error when I try posting to Blogger about half the time.  No big deal, but it’s annoying.  When that happens I just copy my post to Outlook and send it that way.  Maybe the problem is on my end…I don’t know.  I’ve searched the forums and it’s a known issue.  Try it out if you’re looking for a simple but powerful way to get your message out.

Tabletology and Office 12

The ladies at Tabletology are blogging about Office 12.  They've said they haven't violated the non-disclosure agreement that we all have to sign.  I've been using this for the last month and can agree with their conclusions.  I love this version of Office!  I think you're going to too.

Acrobat and Naked Conversations

I’ve been reading ebooks for a long time.  But last night I downloaded my first Adobe Acrobat formatted ebook, Naked Conversations, by Robert Scoble and Shel Isreal.  I had been eye-balling this book since I first started “hearing” Robert talk about it in the beginning.  When it was finally published, I definitely wanted to read it.  But how to get it?   I assumed I would order it from Amazon and have someone “mule” it over for me from the US in the spring.    I was very surprised, therefore, to find a digital edition on Amazon.  Until now, all the ebooks I’ve purchased have been through Fictionwise or E-reader.  I had never really considered Amazon as an ebook retailer!  I don’t know how I missed that.

 

I started reading and immediately found things I wanted to underline, highlight or remember.  Acrobat does’t handle annotations all that well, nothing like “PDF Annotator.”  But I learned that it does do some things PDF Annotator doesn’t.  I had a vague memory of Tracy at StudentTabletPC talking about using Acrobat to annotate.  I went back to search on her site and found this post.

 

Oh my word.  When you underline or highlight in Acrobat it actually keeps a reference of all those things you’ve marked up.  You can’t mark up in ink, but you can underline and highlight.  One of my good friends is working on his doctoral dissertation on leadership development dynamics in the Balkans and I immediately thought of him.  Can you imagine doing serious research and marking up your ebooks as you go?  When you’re done working through a book you can generate an abstract of all the comments you made, complete with page number!

 

I’m not sure I’m converted to Acrobat as an ebook reader yet, but it sure has a lot of potential.  If Adobe would just get on the bus and support ink, we’d they’d have a pretty killer app.  Okay, now I’m going to get back to my reading.

Loren says: Can software lure you away from the keyboard?

Loren, the creator if InkGestures says:

Marc Orchant: "Ink Gestures has increased my 'Tablet Time' significantly. I've remarked on any number of occasions that I continue to favor the convertible form factor for Tablet PCs because of the amount of writing and editing I do every day. In the short time I've had to experiment with Ink Gestures, I've found that I can now spend a much greater amount of time in slate mode using the pen than has ever been possible before."

My experience is similar. Case in point: I used to never use the built-in ink features in Word. I don't know why. I just never did. Then I stared using InkGestures while working in Word. And my mindset started changing. Word's built-in ink support didn't seem so far removed from how I was working. So I started using it more. I can't imagine going back and only typing in Word.

Yep, one application or one feature can change the way you use another.

This is so true.  I’m constantly finding ways to extend the way I use my tablet.  Tablets bring whole new meaning to the word “extensibility.”  The extend and bring added value to applications you use every day.

 

InkGestures beta available for download

I’ve been following Loren Heiny’s work on this for some time now.  It looks like a killer use for anyone with a tablet that does a lot of editing in word.  Using the blow gestures you can insert new text, change formatting, change line spacing, etc., all without ever tromping through a nested menu.  Very sweet.  Download a copy of InkGestures and try it out.  Here is a sample of the gestures.  It’s still in beta, so more are likely.  The tablet just keeps extending its usefulness on so many levels!

 

Related...

Lifehacker: 11 minutes before the next interruption

Here are some stunning studies on productivity of the American worker.  Can you believe this?  The average office worker can focus for only 11 minutes before they’re interrupted.  I work from my home with a six year old and a four year old and I thought I was interrupted a lot!!
 Constantly-distracted workers in busy offices are able to focus on a task for an average of 11 minutes before they're interrupted, a new University of California study shows.

Once they were interrupted, it took on average of 25 minutes to return to the original task, if they managed to do so at all that day. Workers in the study were juggling an average of 12 projects each, a situation one subject described as "constant, multi-tasking craziness".

This is the same study cited by the TIME magazine article we pointed out yesterday. While the results aren't hard for me to believe, the study used a random sample of 36 office workers to get this data. I'm no researcher, but that seems like a small group to me. What do you think, lifehackers? About how long are you able to focus on a task before you get interrupted at the office?

Why modern offices only let you work for 11 minutes [The Herald]

from  Lifehacker. 

 

 

Productivity-Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Great post from 'a million monkeys typing.' I don't know about you, but I regularly tweak with my productivity system. I've pretty much settled down to Outlook, Onenote and a Moleskine journal (plus my Sony Clie for mobile work. But the relationship between Outlook and Onenote has huge potential that can always be massaged. Plus, in Outlook you can always change the screen fonts, filters, categories to get things just "right." The moleskine I use regularly when I'm out visiting with people in villages, or homes here in town, or drinking coffee in a café. It doesn't pay to be too highly visible as a gear hound.

I think I'm a confirmed Tinker/Spy. What about you?

a million monkeys typing » Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Posted January 4th, 2006 at 12:35pm

I’ve lately been coming to grips about why so many people (myself included) spend so much time constantly tweaking their productivity systems. This is an evolving thought, so bear with me while I let my brain leak for a bit.

While the most apparent reason, of course, is procrastination –tweaking our systems makes us feel like we’re somehow accomplishing something while simultaneously avoiding any real work– I’ve noticed that there are four chief archetypes of people that obsess about their systems (although I doubt that anyone of us is wholly one or the other). I’m calling them Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Spy.

Skype 2.0 official released

For all you missionaries using Skype, version 2.0 is out.  I’ve been running the beta for the last several days and it has some nice features.  It’s more customizable and has some nice new options.  For example, you can now group contacts.  I have all my missionary colleagues in one group for example, family in another.  It also supports video.  Most of us probably aren’t going to have the bandwidth for this, it’s nice to know it’s available. 

 

The Skype website also says:

• Enjoy our best ever call quality.
• Easily sort your contacts into groups like ‘colleagues’, ‘friends’ and ‘family’.
• Change your mood message and show your local time, so people know where you are and how you’re feeling.

 

 

Hat tip to Mark Orchant

 

 

Answering Tablet Questions

Trevor has been writing some high-quality posts lately. His latest is on typical tablet questions. You've definitely got to check this out if you're interetsed in tablets. I don't usually get the kinds of questions other tablet users get. I can't really take my tablet out around town in Kosovo. It's just not appropriate in a place like this. In a country with seventy percent unemployment I try to keep a low profile technologically. My tablet didn't cost any more money than the average high-quality laptop, but it sure looks like it did. Anyway, I second all of Trevor's points here. Plain-old laptop users, we are among you and we are growing stronger. ;)

The Student Tablet PC: Answering Common Tablet Questions

Answering Common Tablet Questions

Owning a tablet makes us a bit more unique than other students (or people in general). Tablets still aren't mainstream, and until they are we tableteers inevitably face all sorts of questions, comments, and criticism about our amazing devices. From the "hey that's a giant palm pilot!" to the "Where's the keyboard?" to the "OMG, you just broke your laptop!!"

Office 12 Screen Shots

If you're curious what the next version of Microsoft Office might look like, head over to Paul Thurrott's site for a peak. Several people are point to this, so I'm not sure who to hat-tip.

Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Office 12 Beta 1 Screenshot Galleries

Review of Active Words

Trevor Claiborne over at The Student Tablet PC site has written the review of ActiveWords that I've always wanted to write. He does a great job of explaining the program that really does "make your computer smarter" or "puts the personal back in personal computer". I've been using AW for about a year now and couldn't live without it.
ActiveWords saves me huge amounts of time by automating things I do every day. Check out Trevor's review and see if this wouldn't make your life easier.

The Student Tablet PC: ActiveWords Overview

ActiveWords Overview

Now that Buzz has essentially made activewords free to all tablet users (link)[Correction: The free ActiveWords offer expired on 12/31/05. ActiveWords does offer a generous 60-day trial, and the program is WELL worth the money], now's the time to check it out. I also figured that there would be a lot of new activeword users, and I wanted to help get them up to speed and introduce them to some of the more powerful functions of activewords. More after the jump...