Live Writer

For those of you interested in writing a blog, you might be interested in a product called Windows Live Writer.  This is client software that allows you to write your blog locally and publish to the blog when you’ve finished.  You can use it to create drafts to store for posting later, or to remind you what to write about.  Take a look: www.live.com.

Kstan.

A response to the question "how's work?" from a buddy of mine to is wife in an email:

"work isn't as insane, but it is still busy as a beaver in the midst
of a forest, with dull teeth, a blindfold, and two broken arms, with a
washed out dam, a 50 yard walk from the forest to the river, and in
the middle of a blizzard, with a family of handicapped beavers waiting
for him to finish repairing their dam-house. plus he's chewing gum.

and you can quote me on that."

Live Mesh

www.mesh.com

This is a pretty interesting service from Microsoft. It offers 5 GB of storage and the ability to access your computers from anywhere. This is especially appealing to people who have multiple computers and would like to keep everything in sync.

I’m impressed

 

A Clean Inbox

http://www.43folders.com/2005/02/18/quick-tips-on-processing-your-email-inbox

I’ve recently begun keeping my gmail inbox virtually empty, under 10 emails.  A few technological features of gmail enable this; fast searching for finding emails later, archiving, and labels.  Along with the functionality just described (which is common to many email programs, not just Gmail) I apply a checklist to each email to determine what happens to it. 

After reading an email I find that it falls into one of three categories; needs a response, requires and action, or is purely informational.  For purely informational emails, I determine if needs a label (or in some cases an automatic filter) and then immediately archive it.  If it requires a response I respond to it and then archive it; it will reappear in my inbox if my response does not close the issue.  If I am unable to respond right away I leave it in my inbox.  The article above suggests using labels like “requires response”, but you go with what works here.  If it requires action I star it and leave in the inbox.  If I ever get to the point of checking my starred items folder more frequently it’s possible that I won’t even leave those in the inbox.  By doing that I’ve greatly reduced the number of emails in my inbox.

I’ve found that a vast majority of the emails I receive don’t require any response or action.  Because of this I’m able to keep my inbox tidy.  This practice made me realize I should probably do the same with all the “stuff” in my house.  There is no point in keeping stuff for the sake of keeping it.  I hope to apply a checklist of sorts to all my stuff with the goal of reducing clutter.

Giving

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121418580830795863.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The article says that US citizens gave over $300 billion to charities.  Giving to religious organizations is up over 4% and totaled over $100 billion.

The crazy thing is that in the US, collectively, $300 billion is a drop in the bucket.  What I mean is that most people who give could give more and still not really feel it.

Nerf

http://view.break.com/521743 - Watch more free videos

Got this from another blog I read.