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Recently Written
- 8 Ninja Uses for Binder Clips
- Reasons to Get a Tattoo (and Reasons Not To)
- Getting Things Done with 37signals’ Backpack - Why I’m Switching Back
- 11 Tips for Better Tech Support
- Cranking Widgets Theme Updated!
- Keep Your Notes in Order with the Daily Scratchpad
- The Single Most Useful Contact on Your iPhone
- Happy Monday: Odds, Ends and other Minutiae
- Bloggers: Show the World What You’re Up To
- Describing Twitter in Plain English
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Reasons to Get a Tattoo (and Reasons Not To)
I have lots of tattoos. Something like 30 at last count, if memory serves. As tattoos have grown in popularity and social acceptance, it’s very likely that your average 20-something has one or more tattoos. And while I’m certainly not an expert on the art of tattooing, I’ve got a good deal of experience with tattoos (mostly because I get lots of people who want to show theirs to me) and can enumerate fairly confidently what are good reasons for getting a tattoo. I can also tell you what are not good reasons 
People’s tastes in tattoo design has always fascinated me. Everything from beautifully ornate recreations of their mother’s High School yearbook photo to a cup of coffee and a donut (seriously, I’ve seen it). Far be it from me to tell somebody I think their tattoo is dumb (to their face, at least), but I think there are some pretty hard-and-fast rules about choosing a design for your next tattoo.
11 Tips for Better Tech Support
We’ve all been there. Something’s dreadfully wrong with your trusty computer - you can’t print, you can’t get on the web, you can’t play Bejeweled. For whatever reason, the problem is major enough to warrant one of the most desperate acts you can imagine - a phone call to tech support.
Now, before we dig in, let me tell you that I’ve done my time answering the tech support phone calls. I spent a good 3 years at it, so I have a pretty good idea what I’m talking about. And while I didn’t enjoy it for the most part, it was an enlightening experience. The support calls that were the most pleasant (or least unbearable, it could also be said) were with people who took the time to perform one or more of the steps I’m going to outline here. Trust me folks, this is the real freaking McCoy.
The key to making things work with your tech support representative is to make things easy for them. I know that there are a great many jackasses out there who feel some sense of entitlement and indignation when speaking to people in service roles, but believe me - you want them to be happy.
The Single Most Useful Contact on Your iPhone
Like most adults living in America today, I get many phone calls. Some from my wife, my mom, my brother, my friends. But sometimes, I get phone calls from the local health club, the local car dealership or somebody trying to get me to buy 5 pounds of veal.
Unsolicited phone calls. We all hate them with a raw purple passion, but - if you have a phone - they’re almost as certain as death and taxes. It sucks, but that’s the freakin’ reality of the situation.
This little gem occurred to me just a few days ago. This past weekend, I’d taken our car into the local Toyota dealership for it’s oil change/tire rotation/etc. maintenance visit. It went very well, no hiccups or accidental scratches, none of that. Then, the following Monday morning, I got an email from them asking to take a short survey about my service experience. Took less than 2 minutes and I was happy to do it.
How to Not Screw Up Your New Job
It’s one of the best feelings in the world, heading in for your first day at a new job. Everything feels fresh and new, you feel like you’re starting with a clean slate and that you’re really going to ace this one. You’re just so positive about everything, especially if it’s the kind of job you’ve been hoping for and working toward for a long time. You know, the kind you see on commercials for online employment sites where the dude in the tie is doing the arms-raised-high and both-feet-hitting-his-lower-back-type jump, fueled by that new job joy.
But, starting a new job can be especially difficult for some. Perhaps you just can’t seem to fit in, no matter where your career takes you (this happens a lot more often than people think, I assure you). Here are some things to avoid doing (many of which I’ve personally witnessed) that will go a long way in getting your ass on the outside curb quicker than you thought possible.
Trick Out Your iPhone with These Smart Playlists
As I mentioned previously, i received an iPhone for this past Christmas. While I really love it, having to go from a 60gb iPod which held all of my music to having only 8gb of space took some getting used to. I started out by hand-picking various albums and tracks and changing the contents each night in preparation for the next day. It got to be pretty arduous, needless to say, and I was only listening to about 15% of my music, and it was almost entirely tracks that I really liked. In other words, roughly 85% of my music was sitting quietly in iTunes with very little hope of making it onto my iPhone. I sought a way to change all that…
Being a big fan of the Macbreak Weekly podcast, I’d heard Andy Ihnatko discuss his fantastic book, iPhone Fully Loaded. Wanting to really get everything I could out of my new toy, I ordered myself a copy (great book, highly recommended). One of the best chapters in the entire book is “How to Make 8 Gigabytes Seem Like 80″, which directly addressed the problem I was having with the music rotation. So, a good bit of what I’ll share below has been built upon the tips given by Andy in his book (which you should go buy).
6 Websites That Will Certainly Make You Smarter
Ah, the Internet. It’s one of those things that regularly inspires awe in me, even though I spend several hours a day interacting with it (both professionally and recreationally).
But with such an immense amount of information, it’s difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. While there are many fantastic websites chock full of accurate data and intelligent ideas, there are probably 100 times more that are pretty much useless. A sad fact, but a fact nonetheless. Which is why it’s so important, if you spend any amount of time poking around the web, that you have a few oases - diamonds in the rough, if you will.
In my many, many hours of perusing the Internet, I’ve come across my fair share of websites. I’ve selected a few that I consider to be the least likely to rot your brain (but be warned, all of these can very easily rob you of an entire afternoon if you’re not careful).
How to Work Effectively for 24 Consecutive Hours
In my line of work, having to stay at the office through the night in order to meet a deadline is a reality (albeit an occasional one for most of us). Well, my number has come up a couple times in recent weeks. A work project fell behind and required a borderline-unreal amount of work be completed in an extremely short time frame (as is usually the circumstance surrounding the “all-nighter”).
So, after having plowed this road yet again, I’ve had some time to reflect on what I had to do in order to not only stay awake, but crank out code of reasonable quality. While such circumstances aren’t ideal for “knowledge work”, sometimes you simply have no choice but to buckle down and not raise your head until the job is done.
Here are a few tips for making the most of your 24-hour shift:
The Magic of the Dumb Guy Principle
We all face challenges. I’m not talking about having to make a touch decision or anything like that - I’m talking about challenging tasks. Things like changing a diaper for the first few days of having a new baby, or learning how to change the motor oil in your car by yourself. Things that have clear, well-defined goals that we know theoretically how to achieve, but simply lack the know-how.
I’m not sure why, but I have a hell of a time building IKEA furniture - anything that comes with more than a handful of parts and I’ll read the directions 2-3 dozen times over the course of the project. And it’s not that I’m especially dim or have a hard time following simple instructions - quite the opposite actually. And because I like to think that I’m a fairly intelligent guy, there’s one little mantra that constantly rings in my head when I’m stabbing myself in the eye with a Swedish allen wrench:
Superstar Interview: Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani Talks Beer and Productivity
When somebody first start digging around for GTD and productivity-related websites, it won’t take long before they arrive at Lifehacker.com. A fine mixture of links to quality articles and products, as well as full-length features, how-tos and all sorts of other goodies. Like it or not, it’s hard to deny that LH is a force to be reckoned with.
Behind the behemoth sits Gina Trapani. Powered by a staff of stellar writers and a love for all things lifehackery, she keeps the music playing. And being such a fan of their site, I was especially excited to get the opportunity to ask her a few questions. Enjoy!
Bloggers: Want to Tap into the Pool of 58 Million Facebook Users?
I wanted to start by saying that I hope everybody had a fantastic holiday season and new year! I’ve got a bunch of stuff in the hopper for this little blog for the coming year, so be sure to stay tuned to find out what’s ahead
Social networking sites are popping up everywhere. Bookmarks, videos, pictures, you name it - there’s a website out there that will let you share all of this stuff and more with all of your Internet-aware buddies.
But even for those who haven’t drank this particular flavor of kool-aid yet, the name ‘Facebook‘ is quickly becoming the most notable example of social networking (except, perhaps, the oft-loathed MySpace). Everybody and their college-aged buddy has an account, and many people live and die by it as a way of interacting with current friends, as well as making new ones.
So, how is a budding blogger to tap into this gigantic group of potential new readers and subscribers? Well, I’m glad you asked…
