MousePotatoPower

The Internet is all about free. Most of the time the shared information is created and meant to be shared for free, sometimes it is not. Cheatsheets are documents that contain useful reference information for applications or programming languages. Here are some of my favorite cheatsheet websites

• edocr (searchable repository containing single-page cheatsheets all the way up to small books)
• CustomGuide (a training website that offers free cheatsheets for different version of MS Office applications)
• ilovejackdaniels cheat-sheets/ (cheatsheets for programming and web development stuff)
• Mashable (a list of keyboard shortcuts for web apps. Mashable also posts awesome lists every so often)

While I was living in Japan, I wondered why Japanese housewives were such good cooks. My mind wandered through other topics like “why are most American housewives such good cooks”, “why can’t a lot of men cook”, etc…

When the light bulb went off in my head, I was positive that it was simply because of practice. If you are a Japanese housewife and you make breakfast for your 2 kids and husband each day, pack a lunch for the same 3 family members, then prepare dinner every night for 10 to 20 years, how can you end up being anything except GOOD?!

This is an old article about the secrets of greatness, I have seen links to it twice from different sources, so it’s about time that I share it with you. Everybody speaks with envy of “naturals”, individuals that just seem to have been given extreme talent without having to work for it.  The truth appears to point in the direction that there aren’t very many people born with prodigal talent.

People like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Warren Buffett weren’t born as geniuses. They practiced. Then they practiced some more. After everybody else quit, they probably practiced more. Even though they became the greatest in their field, they did not stop practicing.

Naturally, prodigies exist. There are very real instances of people that are BORN with superhuman skills, but they are few and far between. Have you ever wondered why prodigies are well-publicized when they are kids, but then you never hear about them continuing to be successes as adults.

Some researchers believe that practice really does make perfect (or at least it can hone your skills). If you practice enough of ANYTHING, there is a good chance that you will become great at what you do. The bad news is it may take 1o years.

“The ten-year rule represents a very rough estimate, and most researchers regard it as a minimum, not an average.”

There is hope for the rest of us…the normal people who were not born as prodigies.

The critical reality is that we are not hostage to some naturally granted level of talent. We can make ourselves what we will. Strangely, that idea is not popular. People hate abandoning the notion that they would coast to fame and riches if they found their talent. But that view is tragically constraining, because when they hit life’s inevitable bumps in the road, they conclude that they just aren’t gifted and give up.

Maybe we can’t expect most people to achieve greatness. It’s just too demanding. But the striking, liberating news is that greatness isn’t reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone.

A few months ago, I was shopping for a new computer monitor.  I was amazed when I saw a computer monitor that had an iPod dock on its base.  My monitors will typically last at least 3 years.  Sticking an iPod dock onto a monitor is a pretty bold statement as to how long iPods will be around and how much they have become a part of our lives.

The monitor was a decent price at the time, but I decided to skip it anyway.  Rather than spend over $400 for a new monitor, I found a couple of ways to make a different iPod accessory.

Lifehacker.com and Instructables.com both have great tutorials for making an iPod earphone cord-wrapper for FREE.

Make a foam cord-caddy at wikihow.com

A cord wrapper in 5 minutes or less at instructables.com

Recently, I needed a list of files in a specific directory on my computer. The list has to be editable so that I can sort it and search through it. There are tons of small utilities available online that claim to print a list of files from a folder/directory in Vista, many of them will create a text file (which is what I want). Some are free, some cost money, all of them can be downloaded from websites that I don’t trust.

Microsoft’s own Knowledgebase article doesn’t work with Vista, so I spent part of my evening searching for a free way to print a directory listing in Vista.

1. Navigate to the folder you want, but do NOT enter the folder
2. hold the shift key down and right-click on your desired folder
3. select Open Command Window Here (vista) or Command Prompt (XP)
4. in the Command Window type: dir /b > someFilename.txt
5. hit Enter to make your file listing
6. type exit to close the Command Window

Look in your desired folder, a new file called someFilename.txt will be there. It will contain a list of all the files in the same folder.

Let’s explain.

dir is an old-school DOS command called directory. It generates a list of files and directories and displays it on the screen.

/b is an optional switch that tells dir to use a bare format with minimal information. Switches customize the output of dir. Here’s a few other switches to use with our dir command:

• dir > filename.txt - this is the default format that dir gives
• dir /on > filename.txt -”/o” specifies a sort order, “n” makes it sort alphabetically

If you feel like you need to experiment more, techrepublic.com.com (no, that’s not a typo) has a pretty good article on Dir command options.

The greater than sign “>” redirects the results of dir to somewhere else. In this case, into a file called someFilename.txt

At work, I deal with a lot of e-mail issues.  Today, somebody had trouble sending an e-mail:

• The e-mail was an 8-page newsletter made in MS Word
• the newsletter was 15 MB
• There were only about 8 graphics in it, mostly digital pictures
• The last page was a 1-page scan of a letter from the president
• The e-mail was being sent to 144 employees within the company
• It was also being sent to approximately 100 non-employees outside the company

244 recipients x 15 MB = a whole lot of e-mail

In an effort to reduce the load on our servers, I found this great tutorial on compressing graphics in Word.  It also applies to Powerpoint.  About 6 mouse clicks and Word compressed the 15 MB attachment down to 4.5 MB.  Taking out the 1-page scan dropped the newsletter down to an amazing 450 KB.

In Powerpoint 2007, you’ll need to click on a graphic, select Picture Tools, then find the Compress Pictures button on the new Ribbon interface.

There are times when I absolutely HATE advertising.  Commercials, ads in magazines and newspapers, online ads, it doesn’t matter, there are always examples of supernatural idiocy.

I followed a reputable link to an article about cooking tips today.  When I arrived at the target website, I was a little disappointed that the article was so “short”.  By the time I got to the 2nd page, I was getting frustrated that I could only read for 30 seconds before having to click to the next page.  On the 3rd page, I gave up reading the article and decided to write a rant on the dumb design of the website.

The layout at RealSimple.com is pleasing.  I like the colors and the navigation.  The only gripe I really have is the amount of content vs. the amount of ads (but it’s a big gripe).

Example of bad layout

RealSimple limits their page to 885 pixels wide, no problem there.   This particular page is 1800 pixels tall.  The size of the article?  400 x 800 pixels.  After squeezing in the article title, an article summary/tagline, a picture, a set of links to print or e-mail the article, and a set of small navigation arrows to move the next/previous page, there’s only enough space for 4 paragraphs of reading material.

So now, we have a 5 page article.  If a visitor has the patience to read through the whole thing, you’re going to give them 20 ad impressions from this one article.

Stretching out 1 article to multiple pages is a great way to keep visitors from getting bored at overly long content and it is an excellent way to squeeze out more ad impressions, but this is ridiculous for a couple of reasons.

the screen space for navigation on each page (including the site search, is ALMOST the same size as the article)
for me (your mileage may vary), the article wasn’t even worth reading all the way through.
the ads take up more screen space than the article.
the ads slow down the page loadtime, frustrating vistors even more.

Bring value to a customer (good content, usable website) before you try to take value from them (ad revenue).