Great Time Saving Tool

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For a short time, now, I've been using Evernote to keep track of ideas for blog posts to write. I have found it very handy and easy to use. You may be thinking something like, "If you're using that tool for blog ideas, why haven't you posted anything in...like...forever!?" Good question.

Actually, I have been writing...just on my main blog. On the technology side of things, I just haven't had a lot of stuff come my way that seemed like it would be useful to write a post about. That is, until now...


Back to Evernote. While I have been using it for a while, I have not really taken the time to really get into the finer details of what you can do with it.


Thankfully, Craig Jarrow, the Time Management Ninja, has. And he has posted a very interesting list of ways that you can take advantage of Evernote for quite a number of different things. While it is certainly not an exhaustive list of what Evernote can do and how it can be used, it certainly opens up the doors for ideas on how to use it in a variety of situations.

Enjoy!

Windows Services Stuck in “Starting” Status

If only this could have pertained to Suse Linux that title would have been almost completely alliterated. I can picture it now…”Suse Services Stuck in Starting Status.” Say that one five times fast. But, alas, it is not Suse Linux, it’s the wonderful world of Windows. (See? I still got a little of the alliteration going.)

Enough of that, however. You are likely more interested in how to resolve this issue than seeing how witty I can be. If you have found this post because you are looking for a way to resolve this, my guess is that you have at least one computer that is having this problem right now and you need a solution.

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Send RSS Feed to Facebook Groups

I recently searched out how to set up a Facebook group so that you could have it automatically populated with content from an RSS feed. After searching for quite a while, I found lots of discussion groups, blogs and forums full of people asking the same question. Now, I have good news…

You can do it!

There is a Facebook application out there now that actually allows you to do this. I installed and configured the app several days ago, but I had to wait until the new post I wrote appeared on my group. What’s nice is that it makes it appear as though it was posted not only to the group, but by the group.

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Surface 2.0

I don’t feel the least little bit of hesitation saying the I love my iPad. I still think that it’s just about the coolest thing since the USB thumb drive. My Droid X is pretty cool, too. It does some really cool things and, even though these cool things drain the battery pretty quickly, I still like it.

The Microsoft answer to touch-screen technology like iPads and such is called the Surface. They recently released the latest version of this technology. While Surface is not in the price range to make it a household item like Droids or iPads or some of these other hand-held technologies, it is still a really cool device.

Unlike the hand-held devices, Microsoft Surface tends to be more of a table-top or even wall-mounted device. After all, if you watch the video introducing the Surface, they are using a Samsung 40” HD screen. Not exactly something you can tuck under your arm and carry around with you.

There are several different case studies showing how various places are using the Surface. You can see short videos from places like the Manchester Visitors Center, Hard Rock Cafe, the hotel Rio’s iBar, Sheraton Hotels and even on the popular entertainment news show, Extra.

Random Text

Have you ever needed to generate just a bunch of random text in Word? This may sound a little weird, but it can happen. Perhaps you’re working on a document template and you want to make sure the layout is going to look the way you want. Maybe you’re trying to troubleshoot a printer and just need a document with some text. Whatever the case, Microsoft has a nifty solution for you.

With Microsoft Word (I believe the feature was introduced in 2007) you an automatically generate a specified number of paragraphs using the RAND command. To  use this command, wherever you want your random text inserted in your document, just type in the following:

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IT Professional Community

I’ve worked in IT for over 15 years. Some of the companies have had fewer than 100 employees and a single location. Others have had a handful of locations within a single state. Currently, I’m with a company that’s in over 20 states with over 800 separate locations that have technology that must be managed, supported, maintained, etc.

During this time, I have seen varying levels of maturity in the area of IT processes, tools, structure, etc. That has also led to a number of changes, not without some growing pains, as things grow and necessarily change processes, tools and structure in order to handle the increasing complexity and demand to support a larger technology infrastructure.

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Wonder Wheel

Sometimes, I wonder if it’s even possible for the folks at Google to come up with something cooler than what they’ve already done. These guys just seem to outdo themselves all the time with new tools and gadgets.

The latest one I came across is called the Wonder Wheel. This is such a great context sensitive, train of thought search tool! It’s almost too difficult to describe without showing you how it works. To that end, I’ll have to use some pictures to really do this justice.

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