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15 Aug 09 Being A Better Worker

Being a better worker is all about time management.  We all have a ridiculous amount of things to get to in one day, and sometimes that mountain can look pretty insurmountable, but keeping on top of it isn’t impossible.  Plus once you do get your day under control you’ll find yourself being a much more productive worker, and that’s better for you and your company.

-Firstly, organize everything.  Don’t just make sure that your work environment is well organized and neat, but make sure that your day follows suit.  Set aside time for phone calls and checking your email so that you don’t get bogged down trying to keep up with both, as either could end up dominating your day and interfering with how much actual work you are able to get done for that day.

-Secondly, don’t fall into the work distraction pitfalls.  These include mostly bringing in aspects of your personal life to work.  Such as browsing the internet, making personal calls, having a non-work related conversation with coworkers.  All of these are huge time wasters and will significantly cut into how much work you are able to complete each day.

-Thirdly, try using one single planner for all of your daily goals and activities.  This way you’re never confused or having to check more than one place to keep yourself organized.

-Fourthly, figure out your work strengths and weaknesses, and be completely honest in your self assessment.  This way you can focus on your strengths in a clinch to get work done and done well, and also be aware of your weaknesses so that they do not dominate your performances.  By pointing out your weaknesses you can become a more complete and better worker.

-Finally, know when to take a break.  It’s unhealthy for your body to sit down for long periods of time, as it constricts blood flow to different parts of the body.  Every 60-90 minutes you should be taking a quick 5-10 minute break where you stand up and take a few steps, either to walk away from your desk for a moment or to just walk around your office.  Your mind and body will feel much better, and in the end you’ll get more work done because of that.

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12 Jun 09 Extend Your iPhone’s Battery Life

Anybody who uses an iPhone as their primary personal organizational tool for your business and personal life knows that the battery life of the unit leaves something to be desired.  And that’s putting it nicely.  Really if you’re relying on your iPhone to manage your life, and you rely on using 3G to do so, that battery is going to die very fast.  But there are a few things you can do to at least prolong your battery’s life, in the long term and short term.  Some of them you probably didn’t even realize would help.

Such as leaving your iPhone on all the time.  Take advantage of the sleep mode, and don’t turn your iPhone off when not in use, as it takes more extra juice to turn the unit on and off than if you had just left your iPhone on in the first place.  Also try to consolidate your personal and business emails into as few email addresses as possible.  This way there are fewer email addresses to check, meaning your iPhone won’t have to burn energy tapping into the network to keep up with them.

Edit your brightness settings so that your auto brightness is turned off, this way you won’t burn power by keeping your device monitoring your surroundings and automatically changing the screen brightness accordingly.  You also want to keep your screen brightness as dim as possible, but so that you can still see everything just fine.  This way you aren’t consuming any extra power by lighting the screen more than is necessary.

And finally, if you rely on Wi-Fi often for many of your iPhone tasks, make sure that you use it sparingly, and remember to turn Wi-Fi off after use.  Keeping an internet connection like that is a huge power drain on your little iPhone, and you’ll find the battery dying very quickly should you leave Wi-Fi on for long periods of time.  But make us of it sparingly and you’ll be fine.

Beyond that you just want to ensure that at least once a week you’re using up almost all the battery power in your iPhone’s battery to just about the point it runs out of juice.  Then you want to charge the unit until it’s back at 100% power, that way you’ll extend your battery’s long term life, and will consistently reset the device so that your battery won’t lose it’s charge as quickly as it would otherwise.

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21 May 09 Is A Netbook Right For You?

Not everybody has the same high demands for computer usage.  In fact most need a home comp just to check email, chat online, and perhaps do a little banking and shopping.  If that’s all you’re doing at home a desktop or fully outfitted laptop seems a little pricey for the privilege.  But there is another option that’s been growing in popularity for some time now.  And that is the Netbook.

A Netbook is basically a smaller laptop, outfitted with less hard drive, processor power, RAM, and a smaller screen, just to outfit you with the basics necessary to use the internet.  As that’s essentially all a Netbook is for, but they are remarkably useful in that sense and purpose.  You don’t really need a load of extra features for your computer if all you’re going to do is use the internet, otherwise you’re paying too much for extras you don’t need that are only designed to jack up the price.

The other great thing about some Netbooks is that many of them have built in internet connections, meaning they go through a wireless network, like a cell phone on the 3G network, so that you can connect from anywhere.  Given a Netbook’s fantastically long battery life, you’ve got a machine that can connect from anywhere for long periods of time, making them extremely versatile and useful for conducting basic business on the go.

But then there’s the major problem with a Netbook.  They’re really only useful for conducting basic computer tasks, like your internet needs.  Anything to do with multimedia, games, or business that requires the use of different applications such as Microsoft Office Works becomes really difficult when applied to a Netbook.  The smaller screen makes using anything like Word a huge pain, as you’ll need to scroll around your typing a ridiculous amount.  And the smaller processor and storage space just doesn’t allow for running any program that requires a lot of real time memory.

So I would say Netbooks are all well and good for accessing the internet, but not really anything else.  Which is exactly what you should think about before purchasing one.  Sure a Netbook will end up being half the price of a much better full size laptop, but with that price difference drops off more than half the tasks that the laptop would be able to excel at, that you’ll find your Netbook can’t handle.

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