smart computer use?

I’m not sure how this one slipped by me, as I use WordPress pretty much every day. A co-worker pointed out to me that there was a WordPress.tv now online. Yeah!

Online video for the purpose of learning how to use WordPress to it’s maximum benefit is great. At the office we frequently need to figure out how to better train people how to use WordPress, and this new video resource at WordPress.tv fits very nicely for that purpose.

There is video content teaching the the most basic of WordPress operations, such as creating a new post, all the way to technical stuff such as installing WordPress on a local WampServer.

I tend to like to read content more than watching videos myself, but I’m slowly warming up to the idea of watching videos on the web for learning purposes. I can’t skim as easily through a video, and need to learn some patience, but watching a video can go into much more visual detail when required, which can help greatly in learning processes.

Another thing I should mention is that I find WordPress.tv to be a great model for video blogs. It has a simple and clean layout, is easy to navigate, and puts all the focus on the video content and the followup comments. Good stuff.

I’ve recently noticed I have fallen into a sort of “groove” while working at a computer, regarding music.

I find that music, when implemented correctly into my work flow can greatly increase productivity, but at the same time, it can be just as decreasing of productivity when not implemented correctly.

A Few Cases Regarding Music & Productivity

#1 – Fresh work day

Ok, so let’s say that I’m just beginning a day of work and know that I’ll be programming/developing and need to focus.

In this particular case, I’m usually best off if I don’t have any sound going on in the background, even music. Why? I’m not quite sure yet, but it seems that right away in the morning I like to keep the environment peaceful and once I slip into the developer groove.

If all goes well as I start my work for the day, I will fall into the developer groove and zone out to my work, which is what I want to happen. I don’t hear anything going on around me anyways, and in this case, music in the background might actually prevent me from getting into that groove, strangely enough.

In this case, I find it best to not have any music or talk radio to enhance my productivity.

#2 – Later in the work day

Now as the day goes on, I might start to feel a little burned out and start to slip out of the developer groove. This is not a bad thing, it’s just what happens. Hopefully I’ve accomplished quite a bit by this point, usually I have.

Now I’m starting to get distracted by other things at this point in the day. I might even feel like not working at all anymore at this point, and my attitude starts to shift to “cripes, I wish I could just leave and come back later” – but I can’t do that and have to stick it out for a couple more hours.

This is where music can now be a tool to my productivity. I can pop on the earbuds and get some mad Clutch (or insert favorite band here) guitar riffs and vocals going on the MP3 player and all of the sudden I’ve got a little energy boost (without ingesting caffeine!) and can probably still keep working for a while more without needing too much of a break.

Great. So that is a good example of injecting some music to break up a burned out afternoon.

#3 – Working in the evenings or at night

Any web developer will tell you that they are no stranger to pushing work days late into the evening and through the night if needed. Sometimes you are just in that groove and want to keep working since you are holding a good train of thought or ideas and code is just flowing so well.

Well, at the same time, we’re usually getting a little punchy (tired) at this point too, especially if we’ve been working during the day as well.

When I work in the evenings or at night, these are the time when I pretty much never work without music playing.

I almost need it to stay awake. Plus I’ve also probably spent quite a bit of the day in quite solitude (if I had been in a developer groove) and the music changes it up a bit.

I’m not exactly sure why, but I always have music on if I’m working in the evenings or at night, and it keeps me productive and is hardly ever detrimental.

The Lesson

Ok, I’m getting at something here, but I’m not sure what yet, so roll with me on this one.

I’m not saying this pattern of music with work will make you productive. I’m more or less outlining that I have found a “groove” that works well for me. This is half the battle, finding what works well for yourself.

You should pay attention to how music affects your productivity, and then implement it in the best way possible to enhance your productivity. You may already have a good groove for this technique, but haven’t really thought too much about it yet. Now you can!

The Follow-up Example

As I write this, it’s hitting very late afternoon. I’ve been sitting and working in silence all day and have been nicely in the groove.

I’m now starting to slip, and should probably get some Fear Factory going on that MP3 player, haha!

Haha, this almost made me laugh.

Back when I first started submitting articles to article directories and article sites, I eventually added ArticleTrader.com to my submission list. I added some of my core articles. But I noticed that it seemed they weren’t going to get approved any time soon, especially after checking back for a couple weeks without any action on their part.

Well, that was on (by the best of my estimations) about October 12th, 2008.

Now it is January 27th, 2009, and all of the sudden I get a bunch of approval emails in my inbox, from ArticleTrader.com!

At first, I didn’t even consider that the emails were anything from ArticleTrader.com, I thought maybe something glitched at EzineArticles.com and I was getting approval emails again, or something like that. I hardly thought that any sites I had submitted articles to were still mulling over approval of the said articles.

So… I can estimate that it’s gonna take about 3-4 months to get an article approved and live at ArticleTrader.com, that’s pretty slow! I guess I’m not sure how effective putting articles on their site is anyways, but that was kinda funny to see.

Ok. I’ve been wanting to set up dual monitors on my main home PC for a long time. I never did until now, mainly because of the financial reasons.

Well, I had some tech money to spare in my business budget this year, and decided it was time to get two monitors.

The Benefits

Why do I want to monitors? The benefits of a dual monitor setup are quite profound. From PCWorld:

Stefan Thibeault, a programmer at a clothing manufacturer in Montreal, is convinced of the value of using dual PC monitors. Doing so has given him a much larger electronic workspace, eliminated such annoyances as the need to frequently alt-tab between applications and cut down on his trips to the printer.

Hmm, “Less alt-tabbing and less trips to printer”, you say?

Those are the exact top 2 reasons why I wanted dual monitors. It’s great. I used to have to print of simple text documents just so I could put them on a document clip next to my monitor for reference when typing. No longer. Dual monitors eliminated that.

I also used to have to to a lot of alt-tabbing between browsers, editors and other windows during complex web development projects (and even simple ones). All the tabbing and such was non-productive, I’d often tab away from a screen and then forget what I was even working on. Being able to keep more windows visible at all times helps keep me on task quite well, it’s much tougher to mentally wander.

The Initial Setup

I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on dual monitors, here’s what I ended up spending (I thought I got by pretty cheap):

• Two 24 inch Westinghouse LCD monitors for $220 each(on sale at Best Buy)
• A Geforce 9600 GT with dual monitor outputs for $120
• Two 10 foot VGA extension cables for $20
• Two DVI to VGA adapters for $20

So, basically all this hardware cost me about $700. Not bad considering that I would be upgrading from a single 19 inch LCD to two 24 inch LCD monitors, all for $700. Not bad at all.

The Catch

Well, once I got everything set up, I noticed that one of the Westinghouse LCD’s was broken. It had a stuck red pixel and the native resolution did not center at all on the monitor. Too bad, the other one worked perfectly.

After I found out that the one LCD monitor was bad (it took me a week to figure out it was the monitor and not my video card or drivers), I brought it back to Best Buy to get a replacement. They were out of that model though, nuts. I did get it for a great price, and that’s cause it was a discontinued model. So, now I wasn’t going to be able to have matching 24 inch LCD’s no matter what I did.

So I just returned the one broken one and got no replacement. I wish I coulda figured out that it was broken more quickly, I might have been able to get a replacement. Oh well.

Now I’m basically running a 24 inch and a 19 inch LCD side by side as dual monitors. That is still pretty slick and I really like it.

Every laptop computer user has a situation where the laptop is sitting on top of furniture or on your lap, on a soft cloth surface. This can heat up a laptop, to the point of meltdown if you are not careful.

I’ve always been tempted to buy a laptop pad designed for home use, the kind with a wooden platform and a soft pad attached underneath of some sorts. But why? Something like that, from a store, is going to cost $10 – $20.

I don’t really feel like spending that much money on something that fundamentally simple.

Here’s what I do.

I just use a 3 ring binder or a book as a laptop platform.

I would guess that most people have a bookshelf with books and binders of sorts. Just see what you’ve got on your own shelf. Atlas-sized books work good for larger laptops. You’ll keep your laptop computer off of cloth surfaces that promote overheating, and you’l save yourself $20.