All of my work and data used to reside solely on my laptop. Files were versioned and backed up, but I didn’t need to maintain copies on multiple machines. Life was easy. No synching was required. But I started working from home recently and my preferences began to change. Since I’m no longer as reliant upon my [...]
When I’m up against a tight deadline, I tend to avoid tasks which could unnecessarily eat up precious time. These tasks aren’t always the most challenging or difficult, but I recognize them as having more than one possible solution which will result in my over-thinking, over-researching and/or over-architecting (aka wasting time.) Time-gobbling task get flagged with a //TODO comment [...]
What’s the worst thing about using a wireless mouse? The batteries eventually die. What’s the best thing about using a wireless mouse? The batteries eventually die. You see, I have a problem. I am a mouse addict. I’m nearly helpless without one and when the mouse batteries die, I come face to face with my addiction [...]
What is “Rubber Ducking?” The phrase was made famous by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas in the book The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. A book, by the way, which is required reading for all coders. In fact, it is time I reread it. You may already be familiar with this term, but in [...]
Unquestionably, effective communication is a key ingredient to delivering a successful project. I could rant on and on about avoidable day-to-day issues which exist only because of miscommunication, under-communication or (gasp!) over-communication, but I will save this for another day. Instead, today’s lesson hones in on the primary vehicle for poor communication — email. I [...]
“I appreciate the offer, but I simply don’t want one,” I said. “I know it will completely take over my life. I will wind up working around the clock and that’s not healthy. I need to turn work off some time. Truly, thanks, but no thanks…” As if I had never said a word, a [...]
Do you need to change the location of our IE favorites? Maybe move the favorites from your local machine to a network share? This is how: 1. Start Regedit 2. Go to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders 3. Double click on Favorites in the right hand panel 4. Enter the new location 5. Click on the OK button [...]
There are numerous way one can manage and monitor their favorite blogs. Some choose to have an aggregator such as RSS Bandit running on their desktop. Others may use one of the many online services, such as Bloglines or NewsGator, which are available. Not surprisingly, Firefox provides another option: Live Bookmarks. With Live Bookmarks you [...]