Which portable device is right for me this time? (VOL054)

May 20th, 2010

Welcome back to the podcast!  This week’s edition: “Which portable device is right for me this time?”

As someone who has more gadgets and electronics than I’d care to mention (mostly out of fear that someone may hold an intervention and put me in virtual group therapy), one thing I have learned over the years is that although a device is built to be portable, it isn’t always convenient.

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Finding your way using Windows 7 GPS (VOL053)

April 30th, 2010

Welcome back to the podcast! This week’s edition is Finding your way using Windows 7 GPS.

When you go about your day on auto pilot, rarely do you need to change the direction you take to reach your destination. But on occasions when you are forced to take detours—like I have been recently while going to work—you might just find that there are all sorts of ways to reach your destination that you never knew existed.

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Be aware. Be very, very electronically aware. (VOL052)

March 19th, 2010

Whether you look to Miss Manners, the Cybercouth Tiger, Mother, or some other manners maven, they will all say that being polite will make people more receptive to your message.  So, how can we hone our electronic communication skills to this degree? Let’s take a look at a few of the most egregious e-mail etiquette errors and discuss how certain situations should be handled. Read the rest of this entry »

Where’s Waldo? Where’s anything, for that matter? (VOL051)

March 5th, 2010

We have a special guest joining us this week, Ms. DigITal Entity. She is a computer chip with an extensive memory and a unique ability to communicate. We’ve all encountered situations where we wish we knew what our computers were thinking; well, DigIT, as she is known to her many friends and family, provides that insight.

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Move away from the mouse and keep your hands on the keyboard! (VOL050)

February 26th, 2010

With the rise of smartphones comes the luxury of accessing our e-mail wherever we roam. These days, it seems that no matter where you go, you’re likely to hear the tap-tap-tapping of fingers across mini QWERTY keyboards and virtual keypads as people all around you type out those all-important e-mail messages.

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Recovering from the Deep Freeze (VOL049)

February 19th, 2010

In the summer, frozen treats are a delight. I have to admit, when I hear the ice cream truck coming down the street on a hot day, I still scramble to gather up some money and run outside (usually in bare feet on the scorching pavement, but who has time to look for shoes?) to flag it down so I can enjoy an ice cream cone, some water ice, or maybe even a Drumstick.

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English as a first language (VOL048)

February 5th, 2010

I’ve often thought about what it would be like to have to learn English as a second language. Some of us who use it as a primary language still have a lot to learn. There are many tricky nuances to watch out for, and plenty of opportunities to botch a grammatical rule or two.

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“OMG! Can iTouch it?” Using the iPod Touch to be more productive (VOL047)

January 22nd, 2010

While driving into work today, I got to thinking about what kinds of technologies that I have that have fundamentally changed the way I go about my day. You know, those little gadgets that you never leave at home. The kind that, if temporarily misplaced, have you frantically running around like an addict looking for a fix!

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You might think I'm crazy: How to count cars with Excel (VOL046)

January 16th, 2010

There is a wide range of music on my iPod: everything from classical to ’90s alternative. When I put the playlist on shuffle, anything goes. I might hear the soothing strains of Mozart’s “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” or the raucous refrain of Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping.” Um…everyone else has that on their iPods, right?

The other day, the song “Counting Blue Cars” by Dishwalla came on and I found myself singing along with the lyric: “We count only blue cars…”

Nerd that I am, I couldn’t help but immediately conjure up an Excel formula to help them out:

=COUNTIF(Cars, “blue”)

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Whatever it is, make a note of it! (VOL045)

January 9th, 2010

There’s a joke by the late comedian Mitch Hedberg in which he recounts a transaction that he feels did not require any documentation: he got a receipt when buying a donut. As Mitch had stated in his trademark deadpan:

“I’ll just give you the money and you give me the donut…end of transaction. We do not need to bring ink and paper into this.”

This scenario might seem a bit ludicrous, even for those who prefer to document everything almost religiously. But with the increase in activity on social networking sites, the minutiae of everyone’s daily lives seems much more prevalent now than it was several years ago. Read the rest of this entry »