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.
Wow, I just found out that I got picked, or nominated, or mystically appointed as a "Red Hot Blog of the Day" for August 6 in Technology, by RedOrbit! Thank you, RedOrbit!
And, to make it even sweeter, I'm there alongside Tim Ferriss (author of the awesome book "4 Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich" ) who was also selected today.
By the way - Tim's book just hit #1 on the NY Times Bestseller list - congrats, Tim!
Read MoreOK, so it's totally funny if you have any interaction with software development, and it may be funny to other people - but I laughed out loud:
The topic is "New Programming Stereotypes for Web 2.0" - a sample is below - and it's not the funniest one. Click the link if you're curious which stereotype gets "...+2 Charisma against DBAs if they have an English Accent."
The Blogger Dude! Let me blog that. Can I? I'll totally give you credit. Can you send me the code? Where do you blog? You don't have a blog? Er...OK, how can you possibly code then? I mean, join the conversation, man. Step up, seriously. You've got no juice. I googled for you and found nothing. That's going to make it hard for you to be a good developer. Listen, I'll make you a blog, stop by anytime. You watch, everything will be better once you blog. Coding? Really, who has time, I've got a dozen subscribers that are counting on me.
If that doesn't float your boat, here are a couple of random thoughts I'd like to share:
Blogger or not, you've got things to share -- so head on over to Joyful Jubilant Learning and share your favorite learning links.
For the uniquely lucky 07/07/07, JJL is seeking to gather 777 learning links that reflect the "7 Wonders of Joyful Jubilant Learning," Listen, Laugh, Learn, Link, Love, Live, and Leap to Wonder.
Now you, too, can be a Joyful Jubilant Learning Contributor, even if you don't have a blog! And spread the word to any other learners you know.
Read MoreOne of the consequences of my dabblings with Beyond Bullet Points (see related items, below for more) is that my PowerPoints now have lots of graphics, which often makes them huge. This has made them a challenge to email, send around for collaboration, etc.
I have found an awesome solution: PPTMinimizer. This product's sole mission in life is to help you squash your bloated PowerPoint files down to a much more friendly size (and it also optimizes presentation files from StarOffice and OpenOffice). It does its job by using a number of techniques to reduce the size, including optimizing the pictures and embedded objects (like graphs that are fed by Excel data, for example) to make them more space-efficient.
You simply open one or more files with PPTMinimizer, set your options (or use the defaults like I do) and click a button to optimize the files. You have the option of saving to a new name or replacing the original, and you can also drag & drop files onto the PPTMinimizer window to add them to a list.
The coolest function, in my opinion, is it's Outlook integration. Any time I send an email that has a PowerPoint deck attached to it, PPTMinimizer displays a dialog asking me whether I want to optimize it or not. If I say "Yes," it quickly optimizes it (most files take only a few seconds), reattaches the optimized file to the email and completes the Send process.
If you want to try it out, you can download a free trial version which lets you optimize something like a dozen files. I got to about 7 optimizations and paid the $29.95 (US pricing) to buy the key to convert my copy to a full version. By the way, they offer quantity discounts and there is an enterprise version available that can crawl your local and network drives and optimize any presentations it finds.
As you can see from the screen grab I've included here, the results are impressive. I routinely reduce the size of my files by over 60% - way cool.
Related items:
Hey - why not create an online radio station that fits you perfectly? If you haven't heard about it, Pandora does just that. You create any number of stations that match your musical taste.
It's pretty simple and it's free. You simply create a new station, enter the name of an artist, and Pandora plays one of their songs to confirm they've got the right artist. Pandora then uses the power of the Human Genome Project to find other artists with similar qualities and creates a streaming radio station for you.
As songs play, you can click on Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down icons to help them learn more about what you like or don't like.
You can check it out without even registering, then if you like it just create an account (your song doesn't even stop playing).
If you don't want to be chained to your computer to listen, there is also a fee option. That is $36 per year and allows you to stream to your home or to certain mobile phones.
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