DisSuggs4u

It has been a number of weeks since my last post, and the main reason behind that is that I have not had the time to write. Between the insanity surrounding the year-end holiday season, work commitments revolving around proposal writing and attending oral presentations, and several projects in and around the house, I simply ran out of time to write. Or, as my wife would more correctly point out, I failed to “make” time to write.

This concept of “making time” was foreign to me, I must admit, until my wife introduced it to me shortly after we started dating. Up until that point, I ran through life being a slave of time and often not being able to get things done because I “ran out of time.”

Since adopting her “make time” philosophy, I have to admit that I feel much more control over my life. As an added bonus, I am now able to spend more time being productive as opposed to “wasting” time. It is a great feeling to no longer be a victim of time and to instead take charge of my schedule.

This also fits very well with the whole Getting Things Done (or, as I like to say, Getting “Stuff” Done) work/life management system. I plan on writing more in the future about how I have implemented GTD in my life.

For now, I will just say that I am going to work hard to make time for this blog.  I may not post every week, but I will continue to post.

So, we are right around the corner from Microsoft finally unleashing their next operating system, Windows Vista, upon the public. I cannot help but think that this will be another mediocre product from the folks in Redmond. This will not be for lack of effort or for trying to be all things to all people. Far from it. However, I do believe that this is also the main reason why Vista will not be good in the long run.

You see, with Vista, Microsoft fails to even remotely consider one of the basic principals of product development: K.I.S.S. How do I know this? Well, for starters, (Continued)

Most people do not know this about me, but I am a sucker for watches. Be them for the wrist or the pocket, nothing piques my interest more or gets my imagination rolling like the beauty of a well designed timepiece.

The category of my object of obsession is specifically limited to those watches with a mechanical movement. None of that digital, quartz, atomic-synched, battery powered mumbo jumbo with a combination altimeter, gps, heart rate monitor, and tea timer for me. No, I much prefer (Continued)

So, a little under a month ago, I wrote about the global e-mail plague.

Well, It seems as though things have gotten worse. As of this writing, the spam filter on my e-mail client of choice has nabbed 10,686 messages.

Since e-mail older than 30-days automatically gets trashed, that means I have received almost 11,000 spam messages in a month.

Wow.

I stumbled across this the other day and thought I would share with those who care.

Though I do not have to access it often, there are some times where it is helpful to change a particular setting within an application to suit whatever the immediate need is. And, while it is really easy to do this by simply clicking on the application name from the menu bar and then clicking on “Preferences..”, if there is a keyboard shortcut for the same action, then I am all over it because they usually save lots of time.

Enter: Command-comma.

Use it whenever you want to open up the preferences for the application currently in “focus.”

Granted, this is not earth shattering, but it definitely is a time saver. And, it totally beats the pants off of anything Windows has to offer. (Please, if anyone knows of a keyboard shortcut in Windows that does the same thing as Tools -> Options, please pass it along.)

Last January, my wife and I took the plunge and purchased one of the (at the time) new iMacs from Apple with the Intel Core Duo processor. This decision did not happen overnight. In fact, it had been something I was contemplating for well over a year before I actually made the purchase. Being a (for the most part) lifetime PC user, I needed to make sure that the transition was going to be as smooth as possible.

Let me just tell you, it could not have been any easier. (Continued)

I love stuff like this… [Originally from here.]

LEGO Group is producing 15 billion components a year–that’s 1.7 million items an hour, or 28,500 a minute. Tire production accounts for some of that number; the factory also produces 306 million tiny rubber tires a year. In fact, going by that number, LEGO is the world’s No. 1 tire manufacturer.

Amazing.

LEGO is probably one of the best creations on the planet. I cannot tell you how many hours my sister and I spent growing up creating things out of LEGO. Whether or not we were creating some new form of space/land/sea/air transport device, a model of our “dream home,” or some type of Rube Goldberg contraption using marbles, LEGO occupied our minds and exercised our imaginations for hours on end.

Of course, quite often a fight would ensue whenever one of us was using a “keystone” piece that the other one desperately needed in order to complete their master work. (And, by “fight” I mean ripping apart the other’s creation — while they were not looking — in order to abscond with the necessary piece… which usually resulted in some form of fisticuffs or retaliation once discovered.) Ahhh… childhood.

Still, LEGO is a wonderful, wonderful toy… though surprising how expensive they are. And while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, there is no comparison. If it is not LEGO, it is junk.

Amazing.

The “spam” folder on my e-mail client of choice has acquired 5481 messages since October 15th. That is a lot of junk mail.

Surprisingly, it seems to be getting worse. My e-mail client automatically deletes spam messages older than 30-days, and that folder normally hovers around the 2500 mark. So, in the past month, it appears to have gotten twice as bad as normal. Crazy.

How is it that people who send this junk are still around? (Continued)

Buzz: This is an intergalactic emergency. I need to commandeer your vessel to Sector 12. Who’s in charge here?
All: [pointing up] The Claw!
Alien #1: The Claw is our master.
Ailen #2: It decides who will go and who will stay.

So true. So true.

Perhaps there is hope yet for our little republic. Much has changed over the past week, some of which was unexpected but very welcome. There is a lot of hope and promise in the air, and I like some of the ideas that are being floated (especially increasing the minimum wage).

The proof is in the results.

“The people have spoken.”

Congress, your move. We will be watching.

…and dropping down a hole.

So, last Friday I took advantage of early voting in my area.

For those of you who have not tried it, early voting is supposed to be a convenience for people who want to get the pain of voting over with earlier than normal. In all truth, it is much faster and more convenient than actually voting on election day. However, only marginally so.

For instance, I waited in line for over 40-minutes before even stepping foot in the room where actual voting was taking place. My time in line was not without its entertainment, though. (Continued)