Comments (2) I would call this the “Productivity Plugin”. And its rather simple.
A plugin that restricts to only one instance of browser (maybe in kiosk mode), and limits the user to open up only 5 tabs simultaneously.
Consider how much time and resource we waste by opening so many browser windows and tabs, which we have even no time to look at. And how much time and resource this simple plugin would save. This is something the machine should force us to do.
Definition of the problem
You are most likely familiar with those annoying interrupts. Remember when you are concentrating on a project and your phone starts ringing. Or when you are reading something important and an instant message window pops up. Or you are searching for somethine when an incoming email catchs your attention. This is more or less the way we used to live.
Now answer to these questions for yourself:
1- How many flagged-to-follow-up emails do you have in your inbox?
2- How many overdue tasks do you have in your to-do list?
3- How many un-seen movies do you have in your digital library?
4- How many open tasks do you have at the same time?
5- How many whitepapers and documents you have downloaded and never read?
Using the most enhanced technologies of our era, we are still too much inefficient.
How this happens?
Your friend does not know that you are busy or concentrating before calling or messaging you. Your computer doesn’t know you are thinking or working before popping up a pop-up window. That is because of lack of information about your current status. (No, changing your status to “Busy” in your instant messenger doesn’t even help).
The solution
This solution worked almost fine for me, but the right solution for you would vary depending on your job type, position and attitude. I simply suggest removing all time-killers from your work computer. I have removed all instant messengers, games, video clips, … from my laptop. However I have all sort of entertaining stuff on my home computer. I also do not open my Microsoft Outlook unless it is necessary. I removed or reduced the phone ring tones and silented my cell phone at work.
The alternative solution would be different logins on the same computer for different sort of things. For example a ‘work’ login and a ‘personal’ login. And you should limit your work desktop.
Another suggestion is avoiding web surfing unless it is really necessary. Because web surfing (especially with tabbed browsers) will take you to the sky. Just open up your browser, do your job, and close it immediately. If you keep it open, you will end up browsing news and weather and download and other websites.
Just convince yourself to leave this sort of stuff for home.
Other suggestions:
1- Use a computer with only limited set of vital application for your work. I personally like minimal Unix based workstations.
2- Do not open houndreds of tabs in your browser. It just eats your memory and it is so inefficient with more than 5 tabs at the same time.
3- Do not stare at the monitor watching progress bars when transferring big files or burning CDs. Its a real time killer. Just leave your desk or turn of your monitor when you have nothing to do with your computer.
Does it work?
I wouldn’t even bother writing this if it doesn’t have worked for me. I have to tool to measure my efficiency, but I can feel how much it worked for me. A 20% to 30% of increased efficiency would be expected.
Recommended reading:
- Lifehacker
- 43 Folders
- Meet the Life Hackers
- Technorati Tag: Life hacks
- Del.icio.us Tag: lifehacks
There are many buzz out there about Yahoo Music Engine, ml_ipod and many other softwares that work with ipod.
Unlike Yahoo! Employees, YME could not survive a full day on my computer. It was one of most idiot piece of software I have ever seen.
Beside being super slow and its ugly interface, it has detected the iPod as soon as I hooked it up to USB port. Then I started browsing my music library and selected some albums and synced up with the iPod. So far so good. But when I selected the albums on my iPod, it turned out the iPod is not able to play them. Guess why?
YME does not know iPod can not play WMA. That simple. The solution:
1- Uninstall YME from your computer, remove remaining file from its directory and clean up your registry.
2- Re-format your iPod completely. Because it stinks.
3- Use your iTunes to update your iPod. iTunes is the logical choice. It is supposed to be the best software for this reason (however I don’t like it, but at least it works fine)
I can’t live without adblock. However, without a good block list, it is not useful at all. And of course, I am carefully maintaining my very own blocklist. So why not share it?
I will update this list at least once every week, and you can grab it from right side of my blog. Please post your feedbacks as comments.
Comments Off I was maintaining iranperl website for a while, which was dropped due to lack of time and resources. Now, pm.org has generously accepted to host iran-pm mailing list. To join this mailing list, simply follow this link and enter your subscription information.
They have been using the same template for almost 10 years. Now the new website looks modern and professional. However, not all pages was updated (including search page template).
I really liked the new design.
Update: Announcement from Murray Stokely
To be frank, the way we categorize our digital music library is inefficient. MP3 tags are unreliable and inaccurate. This is the problem I have with my iPod. Using iPod you can create playlists based on tags (Genre, Artist name, Album name). But it’s boring. And you will fed up with your playlists and shuffle them. And it is boring as well.
Many people have been working on this so far. The most simple way overcome this is to shuffle your music, and play it in random order. But the problem is that its out of your control. You may have hear the tracks you dont like. And the problem is that when I like an artist or album, I don’t like all of its songs. The current methods does not satisfy my (and everyones) needs.
Solution:
Organizing music based on mood. Whether its slow, or fast, happy or sad. This is the way people like to organize their playlists. And you might say MoodLogic. MoodLogic does the same. Along with many other exciting features, it organizes playlists based on moods. And its a very brilliant idea.
And it can be an idea for a new OpenSource project as well. MoodLogic is the one and only solution that understands the music, and does not only rely on tags.
So why not other media jukeboxes (iTunes, WMP,…) do this? Or maybe some software that listens to music (analyzes it in fact) and recognizes its mood and adds it as a tag? Maybe its not an easy thing to do, but it would be a very popular thing.
There is such a big gap in digital music world, which no one has seriously worked on it. Lets do it and make the life easier.
Comments Off I’ve moved to a new server. Guess what? Another FreeBSD.
Now you may have experience faster access to this website from everywhere around the world.
Update: I have also upgraded my MT to 3.2 from 2.6 after ages. And it is so far so good. There was only some minor problems with plug-ins I am using, which is solved now.
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