Computer Interaction Behaviours that make me want to kill unicorns

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As I get older I get less patient with other people, I guess that is just inevitable and the kind of behaviour I note in my parents that I swear will never happen to me, and due to the inevitability … Continue reading

Facebook Messages hits Australian users – my first impressions

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Facebook Messages hit my Profile last night, and it claims to be Text, Chat & Email in one simple conversation. I get the feeling that Facebook expect Messages is going to be huge; exactly what every other social messaging service … Continue reading

I’m Posting every week in 2011

I’ve decided I want to blog more. Rather than just thinking about doing it, I’m starting right now.  I will be posting on this blog once a day / once a week for all of 2011.

I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similiar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.

If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.

Did I say how much I love WordPress?

Free your mouse hand today

Shortcut-KeysUse Microsoft Office much? How many times a day would you chose to File > Save As?

As a student and comms man who writes a bazillion reports I do it… let’s say quite often.

I never use a mouse though.

F12 is the only key I press for that repetitive report writer’s nightmare task.

How many times do you sit looking at Microsoft Word and need to open a brand spanking new blank docucment? File, New, choose which type and click ok? Nuh uh.

Ctrl N. Simultaneously and voila – new word doc ready to roll.

Do you hate the way Word is configured so that every time you open a doc from someone else it opens in reading preview which I personally despise and thinks my retinas agree?

Configuring Word to open and action documents exactly how you expect them to is a crucial timesaving, productivity gaining (ugh weasel words) activity that I insist you do right now.

In Office 2007 click the ribbon, and at the very bottom under all the file actions there is a button sort of hiding by blending in a little too well called Word Options. Click it and go nuts, configure how documents open, how your colour theme looks, how different actions and responses can word, oops I mean work.

In Office 2003 right click an empty space inside a blank word dock and chose Properties, then click Themes. Chosing a different theme can even increase the performance of slower older computers. Worth checking out those options.

And what is a docx document I hear you ask your neighbour?

A docx document is the standard default word document type if you use Office 2007. Stupidly it isn’t backwards compatible, which means that if you use 2007 and your pod buddy uses 2003 then she wont be able to open your docx document.

I haven’t found a solution for that setting yet so unfortuanatly all I can recommend is that every time you use F12 (that’s right kids, Save As) that you must select the default ‘Save As Type’ drop down menu item and change it too Word 97 – 2003 Document.

Do you know any other time saving productivity tips for Office products?

Apple’s iPad – weighing up the pros and cons

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I have been reading about it, dreaming of it, pondering purchasing, interpretting Jobs’ reality distortion field and generally weighing up the pros and cons about the illusive iPad. And I have decided what you will most likely do with it … Continue reading

Not convinced about the need for all this 'Social Media?'

If you are one of those people who sit around bagging me for the amount of times I check my iPhone or sit logged in at my computer checking my updates, watching videos, sending tweets, taking videos and posting them to Vimeo and YouTube and still don’t quite understand why or what makes it tick then you need to sit back and understand a few things.

Let’s start with this really cool video.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

200 billion of the 247 billion emails sent last year were spam? WTF? Apart from that you get the general idea when the map data shows up about Social networks in Australia. Did you catch that bit? Go back and watch it again – it’s about 3:40 on the timeline and shows Social Networks by country. Now not completely sure how data accurate that is but we (Australia) show up as 100% saturated in Facebook.

I am not the only one! Get the hell off my back!

And just for experiments sake I have been fasting from Facebook for a full week now. It started with Feb Fast where I abstained from drinking alcohol for the month of February and decided to continue that into March and for the next wee while, as I feel pretty good for it, and I got to thinking, am I really spending too much time on Facebook? Do I really get that much value out of it?

And shockingly the answer was – wait for it – no. There are moments of pure gold when my really clever and interesting friends share really clever and interesting things, but mostly it is filled with mind numbingly stupid comments about waking up, sleeping, eating, vapid thoughts and loose gay men sleazing all over each other. That comment colours the gay community one way but I’m sorry and feel the need to apologise and simultaneously condemn them/us. Gay men seem to turn every Social Network I have trialled into a chat room or pickup joint quicker than you can say can Alakazaar Boob Job Nipple Twister. So I have given it up for now. I can do without it. I am blogging more, that is for sure…

Anyway, I digress. Check out some of those stats on the above video. Facebook alone serves up some 260 billion page views per month.

The blog you are reading right now is one of 126 million. That’s impressive.

YouTube alone serves up 1 billion videos a day!

Ahh fail whale, how I love thee

Ahh fail whale, how I love thee

I personally love a picture – you know the adage – one picture tells a thousand stories. Well check out this very clever infographic from the guys over at Mashable that tells the state of the internet in 2009.

Then consider this one that dishes up the goods on Twitter perceptions of Google Buzz.

Very clever those guys at Mashable are, so what about you – still trying to tell me you still don’t get the need for all of this Social Media stuff? My mum is 78 and even she get’s it.

What is wrong with YOU?

Google Wave, Google Buzz… Index this *flips bird*

188912-google-buzz_slide1Have you heard about the latest buzz word, yeah Google Buzz is the buzz and I have no idea why I need, let alone want it.

I signed up for a Gmail so I could enter competitions, sign up for pointless crap and generally give it to anyone I never wanted to find me so that all the telemarketers and internet marketers could send their rubbish their and I would never have to bother with it.

So when I found out about Buzz I thought I better check it out and find out if it offered me any real value, but of course I missed the boat. I didn’t have anyone in my contact list that I remotely wanted to connect with and so my Buzz doing a hostile takeover of my Gmail and adding everyone I emailed offered zero value to me.

I ended up with the most boring Buzz list ever, a grand total of three people autoconnected to me. Wow. I am freaking out about how cool this thing is right now. So I followed a few key journo’s and social media gurus who were all postulating on the possibilities and pathetic-ness of this new attempt to pull the reigns in on social media but after a few weeks I have totally decided that I just don’t give a shit. Not one little bit.

I have been a Facebook junky, it has purpose, in fact many purposes and I can use it how I like. Or not, whatever the case may be. Twitter is fun and connects me with the world and has an immediacy when things happen, like MJ getting snuffed, or when the iPad was released. It’s currently racing towards ten billion tweets so it must have captured a few peoples imagination.

About the best thing I can think of about Google Buzz, are the videos being created. Look at the gobsmacking quality of this launch video from the Search Giants. Got much money to through at PR? Hmm?

But this one really sums it up quite well. Google is taking over the entire planet and there is no stopping them.

Like a moth to a flame, a social media network to a digital native or an iPhone to touch-screen to a geek, Google want in on everything that is going and they ain’t afraid to beg, borrow, steal or do a complete hostile takeover of the digital devide if necessary but they seem to be fucking it it up, pardon the language, mostly of recent attempts.

And this is after the failed attempt that was or is Google Wave. I mean what the hell did that actually do? They said it was going to replace email. Um yeah, like that was going to happen.

I really really, really wanted to like Wave. It thought it was going to be super-awesome. But after fumbling around pointlessly with that for a few months, dying for an ‘invitation’ at first made it appear all the more important to get, but ended up as a shite way for a Beta test.

Then I thought, no hang on, it has to be useful doesnt it? Google created it! It must be super-awesome! So I convinced a bunch of work colleagues to sign in sign up and sent out invitations for a Wave collaborative creative session.

It was so dam confusing and the notification process was non existant, oh that’s right because it replaces email, that no one knew when we were going to be online and sharing or even if someone had posted something for your to see.

So we thought, lets all sign in at the start of the day and then sit there and watch it in real time. Cause that sounds like fun right? Hell no.

We started telling each other stories off-line using email about whether you were signed in and had seen this video (insert link from email) and then realising that it was just utter non sensical, un-user friendly rubbish.

But again, the videos are amazing. This Wave of Pulp Fiction is jaw dropping. Pity the real thing isn’t anything like it.

Now if you were really interested in what is going on in the world then you would know that this is really what it is actually all about.

I swear this is the best video ever made in the whole world.