Productivity Tip: Grilling At Work (Morale Boosters)

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 05/09/08 at 12:05:41 pm

Grilling at Work

I haven’t come up with a good productivity tip in a while but I think this one is important. I mentioned grilling at work in the title but it could be any fun thing that you can do to help break up the time at your day job.

Now that Spring has finally hit Minnesota I had purchased a cheap $10 charcoal grill at Wal-Mart. We have this nice cement patio area out back with picnic tables and everything and it’s never used by any of the businesses in our complex. Up until recently we have only used it for storing e-waste and cardboard boxes that we need to get rid of. Over the last few weeks we have been randomly picking days where we will bring in some brats or burgers and our lunch hour will be spent firing up the grill and cooking them to deliciousness.

The best part about grilling at work is you get a level of freedom that makes you feel at home. It’s the same reason that I sometimes walk around in my socks at work and I have a growing collection of desk toys that I can play with, not because I want to just slack off but because I’m in the office for 9+ hours a day and if it were a more strict environment I wouldn’t be able to stand the monotony. I think that alone plays a big part in why I job hopped so much when I was younger, I’ll get bored or I’ll stop liking or even caring about my job and I want to move on to something else. My tasks here are just as stressful if not more then any other place I’ve ever worked at but because of the relaxed environment I’ve been with this company for almost 2 years and I’m just as content with coming into work today as I was when I started.

Some companies will have morale boosters set up for their staff; they will do drawings or have little random perks that will get people excited about doing their work. With my company it’s a little different, everyone has their own work load and we’re so busy that if we want that sort of thing we need to create it ourselves. The sad part is I think there are plenty of other people that are in the same situation and they are too afraid to pin a colorful poster on the wall let alone launch a screaming monkey at a coworker. The point is morale boosters can make all the difference.

Productivity Tip: I had a To-Do List.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 03/10/08 at 09:03:18 am

For some people weekends are reserved as a time to get rest and downtime from the work week, they might go out and do something but for the most part it’s spent at home in front of the TV. For others the weekend might be used for hobbies and things they enjoy like spending time in the yard gardening, in the garage making a bird house, riding a bike, going skiing, golfing, whatever.

Then there are people like me who use the weekend for a combination of things but there’s a set of goals in mind. Goals that need to be accomplished because once we’re back in the work week they can’t and won’t get done. The goals can be anything, playing a game, working on a project, getting sleep, going to the bank before it closes because it’s open for like 5 minutes on Saturday, anything. It may sound like I have too much structure for simple tasks but I feel that if you plan things out the time and resources can be used more efficiently and that makes all of the difference.

Here’s an example, these are some of the ambitious goals that I had for this weekend –

  • Fix the broken handle on my nightstand.
  • Clean up my bedroom.
  • Wash and clean my minivan.
  • Get an oil change.
  • Get a hair cut.
  • Play a game.
  • Watch or go out and see a movie.
  • Update software on my desktop.
  • Work on my new advertising project.
  • Label DVD’s.

While I didn’t get everything on my list accomplished I still managed to have a very productive yet relaxing weekend. I purchased matching replacement handles for my nightstand and the TV stand. I spent a few hours essentially detailing my vehicle and I got most of the salt stains and other misc. winter damage cleaned up. I got an oil change and haircut yesterday. I played a game of WarCraft III with a friend and I updated my Adobe and Microsoft Office software on my desktop like I wanted. I cleaned up my bedroom yesterday afternoon and last night I seen No Country for Old Men despite it coming out on DVD tomorrow. To top it all off I watched an entire season of Ice Road Truckers on The History Channel.

Unfortunately, I only had a chance to work on my new project for a few minutes, and I didn’t have time to label my growing stack of DVDs. But still, I accomplished most everything I wanted because I knew how to use my time.

I think as far as productivity tips go this is a big one. Making a list of things to do in a set period of time, especially low-priority things that would otherwise be ignored will increase the chance of them getting done.

Syncing with Google Calendar just got easier.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 03/06/08 at 10:03:07 am

I recently wrote about a guide to sync your Outlook calendar with Google Calendar that was honestly somewhat complicated and takes a while to set up. What Google needed was a single application that could do the whole process quickly and easily, and yesterday that application was released.

The new Google Calendar Sync is a godsend for anyone looking for synchronization between Outlook and Google. It takes less then a couple minutes to set up and it can do 1 way syncing both ways (for backing up or instant migration to or from Google) and complete 2 way syncing between Outlook and Google Calendar. The best part for me is now that I want to use my Outlook Calendar on multiple computers this little application can also use Google Calendar as a medium for seamlessly transferring my events between my various Outlook installs. Very cool.

More information and the free download is available here.

OpenDNS: A true gem in DNS speed, reliability, and security.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 02/23/08 at 02:02:44 pm

OpenDNS isn’t a new service, in fact the startup launched back in 2006 and it’s had plenty of coverage from all of the big tech sites including Slashdot, TechCrunch, and Wired News but I guess I hadn’t paid attention to what the service was all about until just recently. OpenDNS is a free service that gives users an alternative to their ISP’s DNS services by offering servers with an unusually large cache and an aggregated list of sites deemed guilty of phishing and adware that it in the end can make our web surfing faster and safer. The service is as simple to set up as changing the DNS settings in your router or PC to the one’s OpenDNS provides.

If you register a (free) account with OpenDNS you get a ton of other options such as customizable content filtering, site blocking, statistics, shortcuts, and typo correction. Now my nightmares of accidentally opening up my collection of online gambling bookmarks in front of my boss can be a thing of the past!

The bulletproof uptime and speed of OpenDNS is what really caught my attention. Up until now I’ve been using DNS IP’s that belong to Level3, a leading telecommunications provider. While Level3’s servers are reliable, they aren’t technically “open” for public use and you don’t get the control and features that an actual DNS service like OpenDNS has to offer. The speed of OpenDNS comes from the extreme lookup caching they have set up. You would think that DNS caching would be a nightmare for an admin/developer type like myself but OpenDNS has thought of this with its ability to easily manually refresh a cache of any particular domain through the online interface.

The bottom line is OpenDNS offers features you wouldn’t imagine possible from a typical DNS server and for people like myself who have reliability problems with their defaulto ISP provided servers OpenDNS acts as a perfect alterative.

Side Note – Paul Stamatiou recently wrote a short entry about the community and some of the new features behind OpenDNS, check it out.

FlickrBackup: A must have for any Flickr user.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 02/21/08 at 12:02:43 pm

The way I see it, there are 2 different kinds of uses for web based photo sharing services like Flickr and Picasa Web Albums. The first is casual usage where you just sort of upload whatever photos you happen to take on a given day with no real structure or quality control. The 2nd way is sharing and archiving your photos where the service, in this case Flickr, is your only organized-centralized-source for all of your pictures.

I’ve been slowly merging to the latter and this week I think that process has been completed. I have uploaded everything to Flickr, family photos, vacation photos, photos I take for insurance purposes you name it. Since I have moved everything to Flickr I have been utilizing the permissions features for the first time too. I don’t want the general public to have access to family pictures so I can restrict the photos to my family only. Other photos I might just want friends to see and I can restrict those too, simple.

In fact there is only one problem with archiving everything on a single system and that’s redundancy. I don’t think I could ever trust an online service with something so important… I mean what if Flickr were to suddenly shut down one day? Or there was some major crash and somehow there was permanent data loss?! It could never happen, it never has, but for some people like myself that’s still not a risk we’re willing to take. I needed a way to back up all of my photos on Flickr and at least keep my photoset structures in-tact. Automatic backups would be cool but I think even semi-monthly manual backups would be sufficient.

My search quickly came to an end when I stumbled upon an application that can do all of the above and it’s appropriately called FlickrBackup. FlickrBackup is a Java powered, open source application that allows you to back up your entire Flickr library with just a couple clicks. By default the software will keep your sets together by putting each set into its own folder. It also allows you to keep the photo’s name and EXIF data in-tact for a seamless restoration if needed. Additionally, FlickrBackup has a sister plug-in called FlickrEdit which is very similar to the new Uploadr application. It allows you to easily make quick changes, upload and restore your photos onto Flickr. Best of all because it’s all open source software it’s completely free for personal use.

Now I can rest easy knowing that all of my photos are backed up onto my home file server… and maybe backed up again on a mirrored secondary drive. There’s no such thing as overkill.

Windows Vista Trick: Who needs NetStumbler?

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 02/11/08 at 10:02:48 am

Give this trick a try the next time you find yourself with nothing to do on your ‘Vista powered’ notebook.

Get into the command prompt, punch in the netsh command and hit enter.

Then type in wlan show networks mode=bssid like this –

After you enter the above command you should end up with an instant detailed survey of the wireless networks around you, like this -

DIY: 155 Dollar PC

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/30/08 at 11:01:57 am

Paul Stamatiou recently did an entry on how to build a basic PC for close to $200 bucks (without a case). Although his tips were good, some of the hardware used could have been cheaper. Obviously you could get a used box from your local PC wholesaler for next to nothing but if you wanted brand new components to piece together yourself for a small File Server/NAS, Firewall or a simple web surfing/word processing terminal for the kids how cheap could you go?

I wanted to give it a shot, so here’s my Do-It-Yourself PC for just under 155 measly dollars –

I picked out all of the components from the ever popular NewEgg.com so if you really wanted you could easily purchase this setup and build the computer. Unlike Paul’s rig mine has a case included in the original price but no optical drive and only 512MB of ram. Still, this little machine could easily do the tasks I mentioned running Windows XP, Server 2003, or your favorite Linux distribution.

Small form factor motherboards are cheaper than ever but for some reason the cases are ridiculously expensive. For a case I went with an Athenatech A100SC MicroATX with a 200W SFX Power Supply, $42 seems a little steep for a generic case but it has decent user reviews.

The motherboard + CPU I found is a PC CHIPS M789CG with a VIA C3 Samual 2000+ (800MHz) low voltage CPU. Very basic, very low power consumption which again is ideal for a small file server. This motherboard also has the typical integrated video, ethernet, and sound, for 50 bucks you get what you pay for.

Next up is memory. There are plenty of name brands that offer low priced ‘value’ RAM and if you dig around the internet enough you can find a good deal. For this project I went with a 512MB stick of PQI Power Series DDR 400 (PC 3200) memory which again is sufficient for basic tasks but you could always spring for more.

If your building NAS or media center box you’re going to want a bigger hard drive, but if you’re going cheap then this 40GB (7200RPM) Western Digital Caviar Hard Drive will fit the bill at just 38.99.

The only thing this little PC doesn’t have is an optical drive which you might need for installing an operating system and device drivers, after that I think most people could manage without. I have no doubt that you could find better hardware on sale somewhere, I was disappointed to see that most of the stuff on Paul’s List is no longer available and the entry is just a few days old.

This is really just a proof of concept that you can build yourself a PC for next to nothing. If anything, putting it all together could keep you busy for a few hours and if you run into cheap faulty components the RMA process will give you even more time to enjoy the DIY computer goodness.

Sync Google Calendar with Outlook Automatically.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 01/19/08 at 02:01:04 pm

Here’s a little productivity tip I found for people like myself that want complete calendar synchronization between Outlook, Google Calendar, and a Windows Mobile Smartphone. I’ve come to rely on my smartphone to remind me of my everyday business, expenses, meetings, events etc. but at the same time I wanted the ability to access the same information in my Outlook at work and online with Google Calendar. Now when I have an appointment coming up my cell phone, iPod, Outlook software, and Google Calendar will all alert me to it, simultaneously!

By following this somewhat easy to follow guide and using this piece of open source software you too can enjoy schedule synchronization bliss with Google Calendar.

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