As part of my Getting Things Gone process I use the Flag for follow-up function in Outlook to identify messages I need to respond to at a future date. In the past my macro would simply place them unscheduled in a folder called “Follow-up” and I would need to schedule them and categorize them later. I have replaced this process with a new Quick Step that I call “Flag, categorize, and move” which does exactly the name describes. When I select a message and click on the Quick Step I am prompted to categorize the message and then it is moved to the “Follow-up Issues”. I use categories to identify the follow-up context, like @Phone or @person name to trigger my follow-up when it is relevant.

Using this technique I could have just as easily prompted for a follow-up date but I choose not to add the additional step for every item I move.

You will also notice that I have two Quick Steps entitled “@Paul” and “@Julio” which are based on the “Flag, categorize, and move” except the automatically set the category to the proper context. These are two of the most common follow-up categories so I chose to make click options to speed up the process. I have purposefully chosen not limit the number of Quick Steps to minimize clutter and decision making when I am filing and managing my inbox.

Reader question: How would you use Quick Steps to make managing your in-box more efficient?

Technorati Tags: Blog, Business, Clients, Getting Things Done, Google, GTD, life hacks, Lifehack, Mail, Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook 2010, Quick Step, Servers, Windows

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My first and most prominent observation is Office 2010 hasn’t changed that much from Office 2007. There is nothing earthshattering and nothing shocking, like the transition to the ribbon in 2007, and this is great news for those looking to upgrade! The biggest change is the ribbon is now ubiquitous, including Outlook, and it is used rationally and sensibly in Outlook to make the software easier to use.

Equally important to the lack of major changes in the software is the fact that the file formats have not changed from Office 2007 to Office 2010 so in my testing it is fully backward compatible with my coworkers running the prior version. This point has made it much easier to make the transition individually without worrying that I won’t be able to interact efficiently with my coworkers.

Among the biggest changes to Office 2010 was an overhaul of Outlook which makes it much more intuitive:

• Microsoft transitioned the menu from the traditional menu that was still in use in Outlook 2007 to the ribbon that became the standard in most other Microsoft Office applications on the same. For those who are running Office 2007 this is an easy transition and it simplified the menu layout so more functions are displayed in the menu context.
• Another great function that has been added to Outlook is the “Quick Steps”. This is a wizard driven macro builder that is similar to the mail rules but is intended to run “on-click”. One of the most popular blog posts on my site is Outlook Macro: Flag and Move Message to Follow-up Folder and Quick Steps allowed me to eliminate the need for code and quickly enhance the functionality of what I was using the macro to accomplish. Without a doubt I would say this is the single most powerful feature added to Outlook.
• The second most helpful function I have found in Outlook is the implementation of “Conversations” within the folder view. This is similar to grouping a view by subject in earlier version but the feature now allows you to consolidate a conversation regardless of which folder it appears within. By using conversation you can easily consolidate the never ending e-mail strings that frequently fill out inboxes into a single view only showing the most recent—this allows the user skip the messages leading up the most recent without looking at the interim messages.
• As a fan of using “Getting Things Done” and making my storage process simple I have become a fan of using full text indexing and search features in Outlook and Windows I have found with Outlook 2010 the way that the search functions are organized they are more intuitive to use and find information.

After my first week of use one of the questions that come to mind is, “Is the upgrade worth the money?” My response would need to be, “It depends.”

I would say that if you are a power use of Office, or more specifically Outlook, it is probably worth the upgrade to take advantage of the new Outlook functions. This is especially true you are a GTD’er who uses flags and categories extensively. As radical as the suggestion sounds I find the new functions in Outlook would likely pay for the upgrade alone.

The next question that comes to mind, as an IT executive, is, “Is a corporate wide upgrade worthwhile?” My response would need to be, “It depends.”

In my experience the average corporate user is not a power user and doesn’t use their tools effectively to begin with—in fact the average user probably doesn’t extend their use of Outlook beyond e-mail into the contacts or calendar functions. If you have already made your corporate standard Office 2007 most uses will not find the upgrade compelling enough to bother but Office 2007 and Office 2010 are very close in functionality, look, and feel so they can probably live happily in the same environment. If you have not yet upgraded to Office 2007 the upgrade may be worthwhile since Microsoft has proven the ribbon (one of the single most disruptive changes in Office 2007) is here to stay for at least one more version.

The bottom line for me is the verdict is still out if Office 2010 is worth the upgrade for the average user or average company currently running Office 2007 since very little changed on the surface.

Technorati Tags: GTD, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Outlook, Office 2007, Office 2010, Outlook 2010, review

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Technorati Tags: FAQs Help and Tutorials, how-to, howto, Mail, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Windows

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Among the concepts they cover are:

1. Reduce the number of places you read e-mail
2. Let some e-mail pass by
3. Reduce the number of places you manually file messages
4. Process your e-mail using the 4Ds
5. Reduce you to-do list to once list
6. Work in batches
7. Use good judgment when sending e-mail

While these topice aren’t uncommon GTD sources the Melissa MacBeth does a great job refering each topic to a how-to.

Technorati Tags: David Allen, Getting Things Done, GTD, Mail, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Time Management

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A couple weeks ago I upgraded my laptop from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10. This was my third time using the automated upgrade available through the built in upgrade manager.

As usual my experience was that Ubuntu made the upgrade simple and I only had one minor issue related to my sound device not working following the upgrade. After Google Search and search of the community forums I was able to find an easy resolution.

Now if only it were this easy and inexpensive (free) to upgrade to Windows 7….

Technorati Tags: Google, Laptop, Searching, Ubuntu, Windows 7

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1. Improve GMail Search Result by Mastering Advance Search Like many on the Internet I have been a devote...

Like many on the Internet I have been a devote GMail user for a number of years and have grown to love the fact that it allows me to store gigabytes of e-mail on-line. Of course with this much content it becomes unwieldy to find just the right e-mail without mastering a couple of search skills.

The most important thing a GMail user can learn are some of options available for advance search and how to combine them to narrow your selection.

Advance search simply refers to combining keywords in a structured way to allow the Google search engine to operate that way the user intends. For example, instead of simply typing “John” and hitting search you can qualify the message with “from:John” or “to:John” to get only the messages that were sent from or to John. The first sample will include all messages that contain the word “John” while the the other two will provide just the messages from or to him.

Google has a number search terms available for use including:

• from – Used to identify the person who sent the message.
• to – Used to specify a person in the recipient list.
• subject – Used to search the subject line.
• has:attachment - Is used to identify messages that contain attachments.
• quotes – Are used to provide exact phrasing for the search.
• in:inbox – Limits the search to the in-box.
• in:anywhere – Searches all ares of Gmail except the Spam and Trash folders.
• after – Returns only messages sent or received after a certain date.
• before – Returns only messages sent or received before a certain date.

(Google offers a complete list of additional terms in their Support page)

Once you learn the search terms you can combine them to gain control over your messages. For example you want to find all messages from Bill regarding an Halloween party you may type a search phrase as follows: “from:bill after:10/1/2008 before:11/1/2008 subject:halloween or party”. Assuming Bill is a common correspondent this would return a much narrower set of results than just searching on “bill halloween party”.

Once you have a firm grasp of the search techniques you will be able to quickly and efficiently recall messages from your GMail in-box.

Technorati Tags: Getting Things Done, Gmail, Google, Google search, GTD, Productivity, Search, Search Engines, Spam, Web search engine

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A couple months ago I explained how I installed Ubuntu on my Acer Aspire One, unfortunately following that post the screen got damaged so I hadn’t been using the system. Recently I was talking with a co-worker who wanted to use watch MLB.com on his television to catch his hometown team when they were not broadcast locally; this gave the broken Aspire a new breath of life as a media player.

While this wasn’t a terribly complicated project I found it was a good way to take re-use the laptop with a broken monitor in a constructive way.

First, thing you need is a television that can accept VGA inputs. While this may seem to be pretty straight forward, when I bought my living room television I wasn’t considering this option and as such it doesn’t have the required input. If you have a television with a VGA input you it should also have an audio input for the laptop output.

Once you have a television with the appropriate input all you need is a VGA cable and an appropriate audio cable (usually mini plug to mini plug but could be mini plug to RCA). Since I also wanted to be able to control the computer from across the room I added a wireless keyboard and mouse, but before doing so I was controlling it from another laptop using the built in remote desktop functions (Vino).

Once connected to the television I can use the laptop as a media player for almost any media I would like, or on-line content like Youtube or Hulu.

Bill of Material:

Technorati Tags: Acer Aspire, Hulu, MLB.com, RCA connector, Television, Ubuntu, VGA connector, YouTube

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I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to do the Ubuntu install and that most functions worked out of the box.

Before starting the install I did a test run of a persistent Ubuntu 9.04 install from USB (available from pendrivelinux.com). This gave me an opportunity to validate that some of the historic “pain points”, in particular, the display, wireless, and audio would work. After a couple minutes of testing I was able to confirm that all functions were substantially working. From there I simply rebooted the laptop to run the install to my hard drive from the USB drive.

Upon completing the install there were only two areas that needed to addressed, both of which were minor, the LED for the wireless was not working and the sound/mic wasn’t working. To address the LED issues I just loaded linux-backports-modules-jaunty and to get the sound/mic to work I changed the sound devices in System|Preferance|Sound|Sound Capture both of which were detailed on the Ubuntu help site.

Following the install I am impressed with the performance, even on the lower end 1.6GHz Intel Atom and 1Gb of RAM. I have enabled the enhanced graphics themes and don’t notice any performance issues that would imply a sluggish graphics card.

As was the case with the prior version (Ubuntu 8.10) it is extremely easy to install software thought both the “Add/Remove Programs” and the Synaptic Manager so you can quickly get your productivity applications functional.

After the first week of running the new OS and going fully Open Source I have been pleased with the experiment and don’t plan to go back to Windows on that hardware any time soon.

Technorati Tags: Acer Aspire One, Intel Atom, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Open source, Operating Systems, Ubuntu, USB flash drive

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Among the most significant features users may find is the ability to save documents to PDF, XPS, and Open Document format without additional add-ons. While much of the world is running Office this will be a godsend to people interacting with organizations who don’t run Office as a standard.

A complete list if updates is available here.

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I recently asked my Twitter community how to make the tool relevant in a business to business exchange since business purchasers don’t always have the same passion for your service as a consumer may.  Among the great responses I received were a couple stand outs.

First @MarkBonham pointed out that “[Social Media] is great for building awareness/brand with a target audience.  You want them to view you as an expert.”  Creating community interaction, responding to questions, and providing information not only allows you to stay in the forefront of your consumer’s consciousness but also reinforces your expertise.

@choirshark reminded me that even if the buyer isn’t passionate Twitter and social media remains a good way to engage.  Since social media is about Community, Context, Conversation and Collaboration you have an opportunity to continually reinforce your presence with the “cloud of influencers”.

While the content of the message may not be not be directly tied to your product and service offering you can use Twitter to remain in your consumer’s vision.  For example if you sell toner cartridges you may offer online printer support to keep your message in the forefront.  As long as you are providing value to the community they will endure some product placement among your messages.

It is important to keep in mind that within the context social media you need to provide valuable content or conversation to engage your community or they will revolt.  Since social media is about community not consumers they need to be engaged in the conversation and content.  This is no different than product placement in television-American Idol viewers most won’t mind a Coca-Cola cup in front of Randy or Simon, some viewers will be bothered by the Ford “music videos” inserted between commercials, and you would likely have viewer exodus if Fox allowed the advertising to have an obvious influence on the remainder of the content.  The viewers and community participate because they gain value from the experience.

To get the most value from social media a business my remain relevant, participate, be engaging, and helpful.

Technorati Tags: Advertising, American Idol, B2B, Business to Business, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Company, Product placement, Social media, Target audience, Television advertisement, Twitter

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Contributed under creative commons license by thingermejig

In a recent article called “The Light Bulb Showdown” on The Simple Dollar blog there was an analysis of the best deal between LED, CFL, and incandescent light bulbs. While this may not be the most exciting discussion it is noteworthy because it happens to be one of the easiest ways for consumers to save on their energy bills.

When researching the best light bulbs it seems that LED bulbs are the Holy Grail for energy conscious consumers but according to The Simple Dollar they have a way to go when it comes total cost of ownership.

In a test of a 7.5 watt LED, a 13 watt CFL, and 60 watt incandescent bulb they had a total cost of ownership over a 30,000 hour lifespan of $144.49, $43.65, and $187.82 respectively. While the energy savings is significant for an LED bulb the initial cost raises the total cost of ownership beyond the CFL.

While the LED may not be ready for prime time yet there are some ways to minimize your energy cost and leverage the best lighting options:

• Choose the smallest bulb that meets your needs. Most appliances will take a 40 to 60 watt incandescent bulb but since this isn’t a primary light source you can likely replace that bulb with a 5 watt CFL to reduce your overall operating cost.
• If you don’t need significant light in your bedroom replace the lights in your bedside lamps with 5 watt CFL and select either a directional light or a light colored opaque lampshade.
• For outdoor lighting there are a number of solar LED lighting options that will provide 8 to 10 hours per charge. In an outdoor environment an attractive LED lamp may provide a better looking option than a brighter, grid driven lamp and can serve the same purpose weather decorative or security lighting.
• Buy dusk to dawn, timer driven, or motion sensing light fixtures when using lighting for security purposes to ensure they are turned off when not in use or needed.

By choosing the correct light bulb and fixture consumers can save money with their casual energy use.

What are your energy saving tips?

Technorati Tags: Alternative Energy, Compact fluorescent lamp, cost savings, Electrical, energy, Incandescent light bulb, Lamp, Light, savings, Shopping, Simple Dollar, Solid-state lighting, Technology

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Contribuded by WTL Photos and used under creative commons license

Over the past couple year’s career changes have made me a much more mobile professional and as such I have become heavily reliant on my laptop, wireless, mobile internet, and Blackberry. I have also shifted my work, reading, and communications patterns over time to become more efficient and effective in my personal and professional communications.

Over the past couple months I have written a number or posts about my mobile workspace, how I integrate my laptop and Blackberry to provide a single information system, and how to work more effectively when on the road. One of the tools I use but have written little about is staring me right in the face…the internet.

As a laptop user I tend to carry most of my documents with my on the run but since the internet has become readily available to me I have started to make the shift for many of my daily communications tasks to the cloud and away from my CPU. Below are a couple examples of how I remain in touch and efficient with “my head in the clouds.”

• First and foremost I sync my Blackberry over-the-air (OTA) and though the clouds with Outlook, which I use as my desktop personal information manager (PIM). This keeps my calendar, contacts, task list, and work e-mail in check regardless of my locale. This allows me to remain active when most would be down because I know my next actions and have a way to remain in touch and reach out to my contacts. Of course the backbone of the wireless communication is the phones data services that ride over the internet.
• Over the past couple years I have moved my personal e-mail to the web, starting first with switching from POP to IMAP (which allowed me to keep my e-mail on the server and connect from multiple locations) and now I have settled on Gmail to provide me web based e-mail. I not only use a traditional @gmail.com address but also my personal domain on Gmail, which provides me access on my Blackberry (with their mobile applications) as well as my laptop or any other computer with an internet connection. Beyond their great spam and virus monitoring service I have the convenience global access anywhere I am.
• Over the years I have used fewer non-web sources for news and human interest and moved exclusively to the web, and in particular to RSS feeds. I receive not only local news but a daily stream of special interest and personal interest stories from trusted international, national, and local sources, as well as independent bloggers. In the past I used a couple desktop RSS aggregators for track my feeds but I have recently shifted to Google Reader and away from my desktop to allow me to review the daily articles from either my Blackberry (using Google’s mobile application) or any desktop with internet access. I can now read and skim my daily news as I stand in line or save articles for reference or an in-depth read later.

For personal communication I have become an avid user of social networking tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (some of my most common) to stay in touch with my friends, family, and business contacts. I have defined a purpose for each of the tools I use to ensure they remain effective for me rather than becoming a distraction.

• While I have a MySpace account I have invested more effort into Facebook because I found in the beginning it met my needs and lifestyle better than other social networking tools. I use this site primarily to communicate and stay in touch with friends and family rather than business contacts since it offers enough applications (like photo sharing and messaging) that are easy to use for quick updates. This has become increasingly important since I moved 1,600 miles away from my home town and family in 2007—I can used Facebook to stay in touch and let the grandparents, aunts and uncles remain connected with my children and family better than through phone calls.
• Over the years I have become an avid LinkedIn user, although I am not a LinkedIn Open Networker (LION). I use LinkedIn to remain in touch with former colleagues and business partners (present and past) and make connections to support my professional life. I have found this to be a great tool to reconnect with trusted contacts and receive answers to questions, advice, and find referrals. I stream network updates to my RSS feed to gain additional contacts and see profile changes (like career changes) in my existing network.
• Twitter has become a daily tool over the past couple months. I started using it to centralize my status updates among my various social networking tools but have begun using it to reach out to my local community and make meaningful contacts. Over time I am seeing my usage shift to information gathering and sharing as my relationships expand.

While this is just a small sample of the tools I have chosen to enhance my productivity the shift from being PC oriented to cloud oriented is one I expect to continue. The tools are becoming increasingly robust and my connections to the internet are becoming increasingly fast and stable. I will continue to seek additional tools to improve my work and social process.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Getting Things Done, Gmail, Google, Google Reader, GTD, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Open Networker, mobile, MySpace, Productivity, RSS, tools

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Like most corporate employees I work with a shared network attached printer. The hassles of leaving my desk to pick up my print or the risk of losing the documents among the others that will pop off the printer are nagging annoyances. To combat this I frequently pause the print queue and release it when I am ready to retrieve my batch of documents. To ensure I don’t impact my co-workers and I can prepare documents to print when I am traveling I install my network printer as a local printer, rather than a network attached printer, so that I can queue documents when I am disconnected from the network.

To accomplish this, I first configure a local printer by creating a standard TCP/IP port that will appear as follows once configured:

After the printer is configured properly you can simply Pause the printing from the queue and release it when you are ready to retrieve your documents.

While this isn’t as technical as writing a batch script I find that I usually identify documents I want to print while I am working on them can then use the printer settings, like duplex or collation, by taking advantage of the drivers’ functions; which saves even more time.

Share your Windows productivity tips by adding a comment.

Technorati Tags: Batch file, Getting Things Done, GTD, life hacks, Lifehack, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Printer, printers, Printing, Productivity, Queue, Technology, Transmission Control Protocol, Windows

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In a recent survey of technology workers that allowed 330 respondents to choose their four most critical tools to ensure productivity from a list of eight:

• Laptop
• Desktop PC
• VPN access
• Mobile Phone
• Blackberry
• Desk Phone
• Video Conferencing
• Assigned desk

The results were interesting because the priorities were listed as:

• Laptop (88%)
• Mobile Phone (74%)
• VPN access (68%)
• Blackberry (46%)
• Assigned Desk (37%)
• Video Conferencing (23%)
• Desktop PC (20%)
• Desk Phone (18%)

As I look at the list and consider my own tools I tend to agree with the list but find that I can pare it down further to just Laptop, Blackberry (serving as both a phone and modem), and VPN access. With just these three items I can effectively work in most environments because I can access my e-mail, intranet resources, and internet resources that I need to be effective.

The most interesting item on the list is the obvious shift from a tethered to a wireless world; people need cell phones more than their desk phones.

I am further intrigued by the implications of this list to other areas of the organization since the focus has been primarily on technology workers but I think it is worth considering the impact from the executive office to the inventory clerk. Over the years I have been working in information technology I have witnessed the shift to connected executives who effectively work in airports via WIFI and Blackberry and materials staff with Nextel’s for direct connect. The message is clear people need to be near the action and want tools that place them there.

How is your organization implementing the tools that make technology available where it is needed?

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Getting Things Done, GTD, Information technology, Intranet, Laptop, Management, Mobile Phone, Nextel, Nextel Communications, Personal computer, Technology

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Since I allow Twitter to update my Facebook profile and FriendFeed comments I make on Twitter will frequently spur conversation in a number of venues. I also find it extremely easy to interact with the community since I manage my Twitter account with both TwitterBerry (from my BlackBerry) and OutTwit (from Outlook).

In a recent blog post on TwiTip Darren Rowse covers some of the details of how to effectively use replies in his post “Twitter as Dinner Conversation”. He likens direct messages to whispering, @replies to normal conversation and @ replies inside the comment to telling others about the subject. I found this to be a helpful analogy to understand the meaning or each method.

Over the past couple months I have found Twitter to be a valuable tool to reach out to my real world and virtual contacts and continue to try to become more effective at using it as a tool.

Leave a comment and let me know how you are using Twitter? Feel free to reach out on Twitter, I reciprocate with most followers that are obviously not bots.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Darren Rowse, Facebook, FriendFeed, micro-blogging, On the Web, Outlook, Social network, TwiTip, Twitter, Web 2.0

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Photo credited to Arbron

In a recent article on TwiTip Darren Rowse provide a number of hint for Twitter users who are looking to interact for business purposes. While these tips apply to Twitter they reach much further into other social sites.

1. Be more interested in helping than making money.
2. Create relationships first.
3. Introduce your company at the right time and place.
4. Don’t repeat the same message.
5. Reach out a helping hand.

The message is clear, if you want to uses Twitter or any social media to do business you first need to be social. The new technology is great for real time interaction but social applications are not a one sided relationship like traditional marketing tools and there are humans at the other end receiving the message. Unless your product is the information you are providing people will not follow your updates if you aren’t fostering the relationship and providing useful content.

Technorati Tags: Business, Darren Rowse, On the Web, Online Communities, Social media, Social network, social networking, TwiTip, Twitter, Web 2.0

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I found the list to be inspirational and provoke thoughts about what I could be doing in my organization to improve the way we do business.

Technorati Tags: Business, Chief executive officer, International Business and Trade, it, Magazines and E-zines, Managment, Services, Small business, Social Sciences, Technology

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To speed up the process of flagging and moving the message I have created the following scripts to move the task to a follow-up folder and flag if for start and completion the following work day.  This allows me to review and schedule the task that are processed for follow-up after I have filed the items that need no further action.

I have created a button on the Outlook toolbar to perform this task on the select item but could easily modify the provided code to add additional subroutines that would flag or categorize the items in an infinite number of combinations.

To use the following code just copy and paste it into the macros in Outlook 2007:

Sub FlagSelectedMessageForFollowUpAndMove()

On Error Resume Next
    Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder, objInbox As Outlook.MAPIFolder
    Dim objNS As Outlook.NameSpace, objItem As Outlook.MailItem

    FlagForFollowUpNextWeekday
   
    Set objNS = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")
    Set objInbox = objNS.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)

'Note to users  ***  You need to change the folder name and it must be a sub-folder of the inbox
    Set objFolder = objInbox.Folders("Follow-up Issues")
'Assume this is a mail folder

If objFolder Is Nothing Then
        MsgBox "This folder doesn't exist!", vbOKOnly + vbExclamation, "INVALID FOLDER"
    End If

    If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count = 0 Then
        'Require that this procedure be called only when a message is selected
        Exit Sub
    End If

    For Each objItem In Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection
        If objFolder.DefaultItemType = olMailItem Then
            If objItem.Class = olMail Then
                objItem.Move objFolder
            End If
        End If
    Next

    Set objItem = Nothing
    Set objFolder = Nothing
    Set objInbox = Nothing
    Set objNS = Nothing

End Sub

Sub FlagForFollowUpNextWeekday()
'Based on code presented at: http://skillzdesign.com/blog/2008/01/02/flag-microsoft-outlook-inbox-items-for-follow-up-script/

    Dim Days As Integer
    Dim DayOfWeek As Integer
   
   
    Days = 1
    DayOfWeek = DatePart("w", Now() + Days)
   
    Do Until (DayOfWeek > 1 And DayOfWeek < 7)
        Days = Days + 1
        DayOfWeek = DatePart("w", Now() + Days)
    Loop
   
    FlagForXDays Days, "Follow Up", "@NotAssigned"
   
End Sub

Sub FlagForXDays(intDays As Integer, strFlagRequest As String, strCategories)
'Based on code presented at: http://skillzdesign.com/blog/2008/01/02/flag-microsoft-outlook-inbox-items-for-follow-up-script/
'Modified by Marc Rohde (http://marc.rohde-net.us) to the flag by a number of days.
   
    Dim Item As Object
    Dim SelectedItems As Selection
    Dim dtTaskDate As Date
   
    dtTaskDate = CStr(CDate(Format(CDbl(Now) + intDays)))
   
   
    Set SelectedItems = Outlook.ActiveExplorer.Selection
        For Each Item In SelectedItems
            With Item
                .ToDoTaskOrdinal = dtTaskDate
                .TaskDueDate = dtTaskDate
                .TaskStartDate = dtTaskDate
                .FlagStatus = 2
                .FlagRequest = strFlagRequest
                .Categories = strCategories
                .FlagIcon = 6
                .Save
            End With
        Next Item
End Sub

Technorati Tags: Client, Cut copy and paste, Flags, Getting Things Done, GTD, Macro, Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook, tools, Visual Basic, Windows

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Photo by recursion_see_recursion under Creative Commons

injunction against building a wind farm in south Texas. As I read the article I was disappointed that this is another example of why alternate energy policies are destine for failure in the United States and our reliance on foreign oil will remain a long term problem.

The lawsuit has been undertaken but a couple groups including The Lower Laguna Madre Foundation and The Costal Habitat Alliance citing concerns about the wind turbines place migratory birds at risk. The Lower Laguna Madre Foundation is planning to file a lawsuit under the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act because they believe the wind farm will be located in the flyway of migratory birds. I think these lawsuits are a better example of the “Not in my back yard” attitude that American’s face than a genuine concern for the wildlife that may be placed at risk. Furthermore, even if there is concern for the wildlife shouldn’t there some need to prove that wind farms will lead to problems with migratory birds?

The argument has been continually made that we cannot drill for oil in Alaska because it spoils the natural beauty and will have an impact on the natural habitat. We often extend the argument that a pipeline failure would be disastrous and the environment impact is too great to risk. We them make the same arguments about off-shore drilling near our own shores.

Now there is a valid alternative, with proven feasibility, governmental and private industry support and environmental groups are expressing the same irrational concern that the turbines will chop up a few migratory birds. Come on! Explore the alternatives!

We have extraordinarily high fuel prices that impact our ability to compete on the market with the rest of the world, the proportion of budgets going to transportation costs are increasing, and I will grant the environmentalist that the foot print and impact of producing oil is unacceptable in the long term. This is the reason we need to look at renewable and clean energy as an alternative.

John Calaway, the Chief Development Officer for Babcock & Brown (the company developing the wind farm), points out “…renewable and non-depleting energy is the way of the future. We personally believe that wind energy is by far the most benign energy source…compared to coal-fired or nuclear energy. Our project doesn’t use fresh water and does not release emissions.” Wind, water, geothermal, and solar energy are valid alternatives that need to be explored and developed to provide Americans and the world clean and inexpensive energy alternative.

Ask the readers:

Do you think there are serious concerns about the environmental impact of a wind farm? Am I off-base in my assertion that the organizations fighting the wind farm are more concerned with the visual appeal, land use, or precedence that allowing a wind farm will cause?

Technorati Tags: 78526, Alternative Energy, Business, Renewable, RGV, Rio Grand Valley, Rio Grande Valley, United States, Wind farm, Wind Power, Wind turbine

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Following the client upgrade you will be prompted to upgrade your plugins; for fortunatly all the plugins I use had an automatic upgrade.

In total the process took less than an hour and I am able to post again.  I have had client upgrades that were more complicated than this.

Get the latest copy here

Technorati Tags: Backup, Blog, blogging, Delete, Freeware, Plug-in, Plugin, Technology, Upgrade, WordPress

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1. Unbuntu 9.10 Upgrade User Experience A couple weeks ago I upgraded my laptop from Ubuntu...

This book is intend for readers who already have a general understanding of project management techniques and doesn’t present itself as a training manual for any one technique. Instead the authors present the pros and cons of each and discuss how each approach is well suited to specific situations. The best summarization of their conclusion, which I happen to agree with is:

• Neither agile nor plan-driven methods provides a silver bullet.
• Agile and plan-drive methods have home grounds where one clearly dominates the other.
• Future trends are toward application development that need both agility and discipline.
• Some balanced methods are emerging.
• It is better to build your method up than to tailor is down.
• Methods are important, but potential silver bullets are more likely to be found in areas dealing with people, values, communication, and expectations management. (p. 148)
  

The book is composed of six chapters and five appendices with the “meat” of the book comprising less than two hundred pages so this is a quick and easy that makes good reference material when reviewing implementation methods.

I think this book fits easily into a market where most topical coverage is focused on either one methodology and they are each touted as the best approach for project management and execution. This book presents the rational argument that each method has its place and its use.

Technorati Tags: Book Review, Business, Management, Managment, Methodologies, Methodology, Programming, Project and Program Management, Project management, Project Managment, Richard Turner

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• Keep supplies at the point of use
  
• Print in “draft” mode to save ink
  
• Keep a scratch paper tray
  
• Make your printed documents come out in the proper order
  
• User scratch paper by default and print on new paper only when necessary
  
• Label your printer’s particularities
  
• Just don’t print
  

I would add seven additional hints and trick that I find particularly useful:

8. Set your printer to default to multiple pages per side. Many printers will allow you to print to or more pages per side, I default my print driver to 2 pages per side to use half as much paper and only change it to one page per side when absolutely necessary.

9. Invest in a printer capable of duplexing and use it. I extend my saving further for most printed output by printing in duplex which allows me to net four pages per piece of paper when used in conjunction with printing two pages per side.

10. Use a laser printer. The cost per page is significantly less on a per page basis when printing on a laser printer than an inkjet, not to mention they are generally faster.

11. Choose a multifunction device. There are multifunction printer, copier, fax, and scan devices that meet the will meet the needs for users from one to a large department; choose a multifunction device to eliminate the waste created by investing in multiple devices that serve a single purpose.

12. Pause your print queue. If you are working with a shared printer and will be printing multiple documents, pause your print queue until you are ready to retrieve the documents from the printer to ensure that they are grouped together and other jobs don’t slip between yours.

13. Take your print off the printer. It never ceases to amaze me how many print jobs go unclaimed with a shared printer. Even in my small work group with about ten people sharing one printer there is almost always a piece of paper just sitting on the printer. If you don’t need it, don’t print it; if you need the hard copy pick it up!

14. Just don’t print. In a different vein than Lifehack suggest often we are printing documents for the benefit of others, like hand outs at a meeting. Save yourself the hassle and use a projector during meetings to avoid the extraneous print-outs that are generated. If somebody wants a copy following the meeting you can always e-mail it later.

Enjoy the savings and efficiency you will gain from improving your printer use!

Technorati Tags: Duplex printing, Efficiency, Fax, GTD, Hardware, Inkjet printer, Multifunction printer, Peripherals, Printer, Printing, Productivity, Technology

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The primary concern for intranets is the rigid structure within which user need to work with limited content management, static content, and a general inability for employees to participate in the knowledge sharing. This is contrasted with the vast online social communities that allow free form content and user led content building.

To overcome the limitations and truly use the intranet as a source of organizational knowledge companies need to break the rigid bounds of the old intranet and consider tools that empower their employees to generate content and share it in a way what is meaningful to their work.

It seems at the most rudimentary level management plays a couple roles in a successful intranet:

• Provide a flexible infrastructure that enables collaboration.
• Establish minimum procedural guidelines and usage guidelines.
• Create a culture that incentivizes collaboration, knowledge transfer, and organic learning.

Employees ought to be able to create connections on their own though linking and tagging to allow them to document tribal knowledge and relationships that may not be apparent using traditional business intelligence tools and method.

The corporate intranet can be a powerful tool if companies allow employees to generate and share content that becomes relevant over time rather than just rigid content that is know at the time of implementation.

A couple tools that may help spur knowledge development and sharing are:

Sharepoint

DotNetNuke

PHP Nuke

Drupal

Joomla!

Community Server

Technorati Tags: Andrew McAfee, Content management, DotNetNuke, Drupal, Harvard Business School, Internet, Intranet, Joomla, Technology, Web 2.0

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“My boss [the CEO] once stood in my door and said ‘before we open a new store, before we even put the first shovel in the ground, we know what weekend the store will open and what the promotions will be and everything else; why can’t you tell me when this project will get done?’,” Kilcourse says. “I didn’t know what to say. So I just looked at him and said ‘What we do [in IT] is really, really hard.’ He just glared at me and walked out.”

I think this is a very simply explanation of a very complex problem.

Update:  Thanks to Brian Kilcourse for the comments on the post.  If readers are interested in learning more about Brian’s work you can visit his companies site, Retail Systems Research.

Technorati Tags: Business, Chief information officer, Consulting, Humor, Labor, Project Managment, Technology

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A couple months ago I tried WordPress and was fairly impressed with the product but when I wanted to point my domain at the server I hit a brick wall. Essentially the only way I could find to accomplish this was to install the software on my own hosting account. Ultimately I decided to use Blogger.com at that time since I didn’t want to pay hosting fees (albeit small) to host my blog.

In the mean time I found I had reason to establish a hosting account for another reason and my domain came due at a friend’s recommendation I got a GoDaddy account with hosting when I did the registrar transfer. I was pleasantly surprised by an automated WordPress install.

While my work schedule has been hectic, and the registrar transfer took longer than expected, I finally complete the migration last night with a couple observations:

• I was excited to see that the WordPress has an import function for a number of blogging software types, including Blogger, unfortunately it didn’t work. Every attempt gave me a time out until I just gave up. After a number of Google searches on the topic I found the problem was common, there were not obvious repairs, and I could just as easily copy and paste the contents from my Blogger account.
• WordPress has proven to very easy to extend with readily available plug-ins and themes. I searched the WordPress site and found a number that I wanted to test and it was easy to install each by uploading them to the appropriate folder and activating them. I am sure over time I will explore other options but ease of configuration is probably one of the most important things because I don’t want to spend too much time messing with configuration.
• I was able to quickly configure Word 2007 as my blogging client—I really like this feature since it lets me blog offline and upload the contents when I am back online.

While I mention at the opening that I spent the past couple weeks migrating it really wasn’t too bad and was delayed by external circumstances. Really the process was more like the following:

If it were not for the waiting time associated with the domain transfer I could have completed the entire configuration and had the new blog live in on evening.

The process was incredibly easy and I look forward to spending some time over the next couple days playing with alternate configurations.

Technorati Tags: Blogger.com, blogging, GoDaddy, migration, WordPress

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