Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Updated: Don't be the crumply traveler

Mrcrumplyman Do you look rumply and crumply when you travel? You don't have to any more. I am happy to say I was invited to be a guest author on Lifehack.org this week, writing about wrinkle-free packing.

As I mention in the article, I've tried every cool method for packing that I could find, but I've finally found one that works. So go over there and read it and, when you are ready to pick up the supplies, here is your shopping list:

  • Eagle Creek Pack-It Folders (I recommend 15" or 18" size for men's clothing - check the recommendations on the product page)

  • Eagle Creek Pack-It Cubes (I use these for Zone Bars, socks, underwear - which I roll and put in a Pack-It Cube, etc.)

  • Lands' End Wrinkle-Free clothing for men or women

  • If you're still worried about wrinkles (for example, suit coats that stay in any folded configuration for a long time can develop creases, or you may make mistakes in folding) I recommend my trusty friend - Wrinkle Free Spray. Simply spray it on, smooth out the wrinkles and it's dry and ready to wear in a couple of minutes. Also works to remove "hanger shoulders" from knit shirts.

I swear by these things, and get comments all the time from my fellow travelers on how unrumpled I look. In fact, this week at the meet-up in London, both Adrian Trenholm and the (blogless) Christopher Morgan commented about how tidy my shirt looked for having traveled from the US the day before (and that was in the evening after a full day).

Why not give it a shot? I started with one, and now I have two for longer trips.

Oh - and wouldn't they make a great gift for that traveler in your life this holiday season?

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*Beyond* Beyond Bullet Points

Recently, I shared my enthusiasm for the book Beyond Bullet Points, and the presentation method it's helped me learn. Since then, I found out about a Beyond Bullet Points PowerPoint add-in that's made it even easier for me to create high-impact presentations. This add-in was co-developed by Cliff Atkinson, the author of the book, and NetCentrics. I've been a loyal customer of NetCentrics' Getting Things Done Add-In for Outlook for a couple of years now, and they've done a phenomenal job on this add-in, as well.

This product adds a number of toolbar options into PowerPoint, providing easy-to-use guidance that helps you achieve the results described in Cliff's book. One of these options is a "Create New Story" button, which brings up a story creation toolkit that guides you through establishing the main elements of the story you'll be presenting. Following the various screens in the Create New Story process made it very easy to work with. The process felt a bit like creating a screenplay (or so I imagine - I'm not a screenwriter, but I watch a lot of TV). Click the screenshot to get an idea what this new toolkit looks like.

The add-in also puts in some tools to help you manage different color palettes, fills, and other actions that help you create a uniform color scheme throughout your presentation without having to constantly use PowerPoint's (somewhat clunky) color selection dialogs.

One of the key activities in creating a Beyond Bullet Points presentation is use of the slide sorter to create the storyboard, and use of lots of graphics to tell your story. This add-in provides tools to help there, as well. You'll find shortcuts on the button bar to change views, add speaker notes, turn the slide thumbnail view on and off, and a number of other things. Yes, you can do most of that within PowerPoint, but having them right there within easy reach saves some time and hunting.

The bottom line? I am still an enthusiastic advocate of the Beyond Bullet Points method and I urge you to read the book and give this technique a whirl. I also recommend you download the trial version of this add-in to help you create your first Beyond Bullet Points presentation. Once you do, I'm confident you'll find it as impressive as I have.

[Updated] Are you in the loop?

I'm in the loop now. The FilmLoop, that is. I heard about this from Guy Kawasaki (ironic because FilmLoop doesn't run on the Macintosh yet). It is a photo broadcasting ("photocasting") system--enabling you to push pictures to people (as opposed to pushing people to pictures). It's like photo sharing on steroids, and it's very cool - and it's free to consumers.

Filmloop_small_1

You probably don't have FilmLoop already, so the first thing that will happen is a one-click download and installation of the FilmLoop player. This will take less than a minute, and it is the first and last time you'll do it. Then the first loop will load.

You can go to the FilmLoop home page (http://www.filmloop.com/) to download the player. Or, if you prefer, I created a little filmloop with some pictures I took in New York (including one of me, Guy, and a friend of ours having dinner a couple of years ago). You can both download FilmLoop and subscribe to my New York loop by clicking here.

Once you're up and running, I'd love it if you'd also subscribe to another loop called "Faces of Genuine Curiosity" and add your photo to the loop. Just drag and drop onto the loop while it's showing on the screen, then click on your picture and add a comment telling me who you are. This will be a cool way to show some of the folks who hang out at this bus stop.

You can also click on the button in the right navigation bar of my site, under the "Feeds" section

Other FilmLoops for you to check out:

By the way - Mac users can sign up to be notified when the Mac version is available.

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[Updated] Projects: Getting everyone on the same page at a lower cost

In my line of work, we often deal with project plans, and we use Microsoft Project to create them.  Project plans are a great way to keep everyone on the same page.  However, it can be challenging to share project plans because Microsoft Project costs several hundred dollars per license, and that's expensive just to let someone view a project plan from time to time.  Project offers the ability to export projects to HTML, but the view is very limited and kind of a pain to deal with.

I recently discovered an excellent - and much more cost effective - solution.  It's the Steelray Project Viewer.  The viewer provides a very robust means to view and print project plans by reading and displaying native Microsoft Project files.  It also provides far more capability than the HTML exports provided by Microsoft Project, in that it allows you to browse resource sheets and usage information, a task calendar, and other useful views of the project.

For a unit of 1, the cost is about $35 US and it goes down in quantities. There's a free trial available, as well. 

If you work with Microsoft Project plans and want to share information more effectively without the cost of a full license of Project, why not give it a whirl?

Update: I've been using this a bit longer and have found another very useful feature: Steelray makes it very easy to search within projects. If you're looking for a particular task, resource, etc. this tool makes it a snap to find it without having to navigate through the various views.

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Check out my new little friend

Serendipity is my friend today.

In a distracted moment this evening, I wanted to run Notepad on my laptop to put some quick & dirty notes in.  For some reason, I didn't use my ActiveWords "notes" trigger, but decided to go to the start menu and use the Run... command to launch Notepad.Logo_coolpad_xsm

However, instead of typing "Notepad" on the run line, I typed www.notepad.com and found myself looking at a veritable treasure trove of great HTML tools.  Helloooo Notepad.com!

For starters:

  • a utility to generate html and javascript that will mask your email address from harvester "spiders"
  • a utility that makes it easy to find the HTML codes for colors so you don't have to futz around in a paint program

But wait - there's more!

There is a bunch of very useful stuff in the way of HTML tutorials, geared toward new and intermediate HTML coders.  Includes basic coding, tables, scripting, fonts, and a whole lot more.

Sometimes mistakes pay off.  Enjoy.

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