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Showing posts from August, 2007

Video: Gmail: Behind the Scenes (Final Cut)

I have come to realize that I'm a Google fanboy... but there's good reason why I enjoy most if not all of the services and products that Google offers, they're GOOD! Gmail is by far the best webmail service out there, and not that I've tried them all, but that's the point! It's a good sign that I'm not moved or interested in trying again Hotmail, Yahoo!Mail, etc, because I'm really happy with my Gmail account. The space and the features that I get are superb for being free, and why would I want to move? Ok, well without going down a rat hole, here is the final cut video Gmail users submitted to Google for the Gmail: Behind the Scenes collaborative movie .

Getting to Zero

In case you missed it, like I did, Merlin Mann has an excellent Google Tech Talk presentation about managing your emails: Inbox Zero . Watch his presentation and grab the slides in PDF format from the site. I'm personally going to try this, although it might be hard with my current Inbox count being 2,177 items.

The Focus Problem

Some days, it's easy to get into the work I have laid out in front of me. I think of it as interesting or worthwhile and I finish it as fast as I possibly can. Other days, I have a really hard time getting started. I know I have a pile of work to do, and that it's not going away, but unconsciously I find myself distracted away, looking for a new subject of interest online, or getting caught in the "Option Loop." The loop is simply thinking about all the options, but getting stuck not starting or finishing any of them. It's almost like a mental deadlock. Most of the times I am able to regain focus and productivity by: Getting a cup of coffee or a high-caffeine soda Turning on the lights Adjusting my chair Walking around a little bit Talking to someone else about my projects Unfortunately, there are times when none of the above works. The biggest problem is I know the best time to start is now , so I have no excuses. How do you get into your work when you'r

Cheat Sheets

Cheat in a good way! What if you could have a quick reference for some of the more obscure properties of CSS or a Regular Expression assertion? Yeah, sometimes you just can't remember what property you're supposed to use to show the text font with a hot-pink background. What if you could have a *gasp* Cheat Sheet!? You can! Dave Child has an excellent website where he has created cheat sheets for the most popular web programming languages, MicroFormats, and even World of Warcraft! Do yourself a favor and checkout ILoveJackDaniels.com's Cheat Sheets.

How to Report a Software Defect

As a software engineer, I've had the pleasure of receiving bug reports that make no sense whatsoever, and asking for additional info leads to dead ends and frustration. I really like what Joel recommends should be on a good bug report: Steps to reproduce, What you expected to see, and What you saw instead. But I have a couple of points to add, since in my experience people skip the basics: First and foremost, test it again to make sure that it is a valid bug. Specify what is not working, and where I can find it in the program. Avoid non-standard abbreviations. Proofread the bug report before submitting it to the resolver for any ambiguous information. As I started to write this post I thought I was very clear on what I was going to write and what I wanted exactly to be in a bug report, but, as I kept typing I started to remember all those pesky bug reports that annoyed me because they take forever to research and solve (especially the ones that end up being no-bugs). If you think

Walk It Off

Walk everyday for 30 minutes at least. Seriously, if you have a good pace, that should be approximately 2 miles, and by the 3rd day of walking, you will feel a big difference in your body. Plus, walking around the neighborhood is good to know your surroundings and socialize with your neighbors. Not to mention the health benefits you're getting with at least 30 minutes of daily exercise. It doesn't sound like much, but it makes a big difference. Try it and tell me how it goes!

Impressed with Blogger

I must say I am impressed with Blogger. I love being able to customize things, and Blogger seems to give me enough bells and whistles to play around with to make me feel happy and in control. Thanks Blogger for giving us so many knobs, switches and buttons to tinker with, you've come a long way.

The Evolution of the Personal Web

One word: Blogging. Is this what is has come to? Not too long ago, one needed to be pretty tech-savvy to install a script on one's own website and after trial-and-error successfully setup the required components to create a "blog" (which back then was known as content management systems -- I guess the CMS initials were not trendy enough). Now, one can create such a site in a matter of seconds. The biggest timesink is in finding the title and webaddress. Oh, did I mention blogs are free? Well, not free as in posting whatever content you want, but as in you have no financial obligations. Really, web logs -- sorry, I mean BLOGS -- have filled the internet with a lot of "crap," yes even this blog might be considered crap by some people, but the amount of spam and content cloning has increased significantly, because anyone can make a few dollars by posting the same information, plagiarizing what someone might of taken the time to develop, research and create and c