Take your dog to work day? They need a special day to do that?

Today is Take Your Dog to Work Day.  It’s been happening as an annual event since 1999.  Unfortunately, in my experience, too many office buildings bar bringing pets to work, to make it a common occurrence.  Of course at the offices of Enquiring Mimes everyday is take your dog to work and for that matter, take your baby to work day.

Kaley at Work Everyday

Kaley at Work Everyday

I often whine at the noise and distraction of working in a home office in what could easily be called one of the most distracting households in Mountain View, CA — the truth is, I really like having a chance to interact with Sandra, Kaley and Jake every day.

More on TYDTWD at Sandra’s SanSan’s Pups.

Trying to work on the couch

Trying to work on the couch Photo credit: Sandra Chow

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Merlin Mann echos Nike — Just do it

Merlin Mann
Image via Wikipedia

Late weekend post when I should be cooking dinner.

I’m always a fan-boy of Merlin Mann and his straightforward approach to telling you to just starting to do things.

Here he is in an NPR radio show saying don’t worry how much you’re going to suck when you do something, because doing something is better than nothing, even if you suck.

I think I agree.

The Sound of Young America

Now on to dinner, hope I don’t suck.

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My new best friend — AutoHotkey

autohotkey-logoWhen you’re like me, a natural time waster, you need to be as productive as possible when you are working. That’s why I have recently learned to love AutoHotkey, a free Windows download that allows you to automate repitive actions, create hotkey and scripts and at its most basic is really easy to use.

Some of AutHotkey’s key features include (their words):

  • Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder.
  • Create hotkeys for keyboard, joystick, and mouse. Virtually any key, button, or combination can become a hotkey.
  • Expand abbreviations as you type them. For example, typing “btw” can automatically produce “by the way”.
  • Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.
  • Convert any script into an EXE file that can be run on computers that don’t have AutoHotkey installed.

The basic idea is you create text file scripts with small coded fragments that can replace text as you write, perform simple actions or perform more complicated actions.  The script needs to run once to be put into memory and then each time you need it, it’ll be there.

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Work on your masterskill — typing

typeweb_logoI’m old enough that when I was a kid learning to type meant you either wanted to be a secretary or a reporter. I took typing in High School, without enthusiasm, figuring that someday I’d have someone to type for me.

As I started to write more, I did eventually learn to hunt and peck on a manual portable typewriter seeing myself as an apprentice Hemingway.  Then something happened.  Sometime soon after 1981 when IBM introduced the PC, suddenly being able to type became a masterskill.   After a PC landed on my desk I realized I better learn to touch type.  I swung with Mavis Beacon, commercial typing tutor software that been available since 1987, and somewhat learned to use the full keyboard.

Now, TypingWeb allows you to learn typing and practice your typing skills,  online, and for free.   After free registration, you can begin your typing skill-building with exercises and visual cues.

typing_screen

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What’s up with old friends? Updates to our favorite apps.

Here at Enquiring Mimes we have a set of Web apps that we use every single day.  We’re always happy to see them improved, so here’s a summary of what’s new around our world of working online.

Oh yeah, it’s also a good time to give them a try if you haven’t yet.

gmail_logoGmail – Our always favorite web mail has made it easier to perform Google searches while you’re reading your email.  Through the Labs technology, you can place a Web Search widget into your sidebar that when searched, does not disrupt emails you might be reading or writing.  Also, new today, Google has made it much easier to import email from older web email services (read Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL).  Now you have no excuse not to move to Google, Jim.

gcal_logo Google Calendar – The Google To-do list function called Tasks which had previously been integrated into Gmail is now also available in Google Calendar.  It’s a good way to create tasks with due dates and be able to see the To-Do items created in Gmail in your calendar.

zoho_logo Zoho – The Zoho office suite continues to develop and evolve, some of the more recent updates include being able to gadgetize (a word?) your Zoho documents and apps and put them in blogs, websites and Facebook.  Zoho is an excellent alternative to Google Docs for a free web office suite plus extras.  It is now spiffily accessible from mobile devices such as the iPhone.

evernote_logo Evernote – The best note-taking, information sharing uber-app around continues to update their product.  Recently they’ve added support for Blackberry mobile devices, the ability to direct your Twitter messages to Evernote account and localization into Russian.  We’re still waiting for Evernote for the Android G1.

mindmeister_logo MindMeister – This web-based mind mapping tool continues to be spruced up and enhanced.  What’s new includes localizations for German and Japanese, inline images, new formatting and a new widget for embedding your mind maps externally.  Since mind mapping is not a skill that’s in everyone’s repertoire,  playing with Mindmeister is well worth the time.  If you are of us who find it easier to visualize your world rather than just see it as lists, you’ll be surprised to find how intuitive it can be to create a mind map of exactly what’s on your mind.

vlc_rc1

VLC – While not a web app, VLC, the open source video do-everything is approaching their production 1.0 release with a release candidate.  The RC sports a spiffy new user interface and, as always, VLC is the best and easiest way to view your digital videos.

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