This year I used Google Maps to plan my trick or treating route. This way we won’t forget to hit any sweet spots, and we can more efficiently rake in the treats.

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Photo by Alicia Cermak

Technology can be a harsh mistress, a sultry siren wooing you into total electronic nirvana. That’s why in the information age it’s increasingly more important to unplug for a while and reconnect with the real world.

Here are some tips to get you started:

1) Office Yoga - even with a highly ergonomic keyboard sitting in front of a computer all day can take its toll. Give office yoga a try.

2) Go On A Hike - with Everytrail you can look up some seriously serene locations for hiking, biking, and other activities. Its integration with Google maps will make computer geeks feel at home planning a trip.

3) Learn An Instrument - with all the free resources out there it can be fun and easy to pick up an instrument. I recommend the guitar. Also, learning the guitar has the dual benefit of also making you better at Guitar Hero.

4) Start A Book Club - before the Internet, people used to get information on a thin flexible medium called “paper.” Paper is actually made from trees, and is sometimes bound into a square package called a “book.” You can find resources here for starting and running book clubs.

5) Take In A Sporting Event - getting out of the house and socializing with fellow fans is the best way to enjoy a game and make new friends. I recommend ComedySportz. It’s the only sport that combines the athleticism of chess with the thrill of bowling.

Now get out there and enjoy the real world before its too late!

These days everyone’s first stop for information, any kind of information, seems to be Google. For instance, if you want to find out which rehab clinic a specific celebrity is currently occupying, you could easily find out.

Not surprisingly, Google serves millions of queries for famous names, but chances are they also receive a few queries for your name. To know when people use Google to dig up dirt on you, all that’s required is a Google account, credit card, and five minutes of time.

1) Setup a Google Adwords account here
2) Create a fake ad, something ridiculous so no one will click on it (remember clicks cost you money)
3) Choose the keywords you want to target, make sure to put in all permutations of your name

Once everything is setup you can use Google’s excellent reports to track searches for your name. When done right, this handy service will cost nothing. Although, in case you suddenly become really popular, remember to set a small monthly budget.

Here is my ad in action:

Everyone at ArcStone has a multi-monitor setup. Long ago I convinced ArcStone’s owner of the vast productivity benefits that come with more screen real estate. At first, like many people, he was a skeptic. However, after using multiple monitors himself, the value became apparent.

Some might argue it simply amounts to what you become used to. I disagree. I see a significant drop in my productivity when I work out of the office, and have to rely on my laptop screen alone.

If you have the means, I urge you to try adding another monitor to your setup.
Here are some examples of ArcStonians multi-monitor setups:

Our Top Sales Person

Our Systems Administrator

Yours Truly

I have adopted an email technique that works well for short quick messages to colleagues I find myself sending fifty times a day. Quite simply, I put the entire message in the subject line, leaving the body blank.

Recipients can then assimilate the entire communication without clicking on the message. For people who leave their email up all day on a dedicated screen the messages roll in like IMs, making the only effort needed to read them a quick glance.

I apply the following thought process when sending subject only messages:

1) Will the message be short enough to display in its entirety?
2) Does this user already have my contact info? (send a normal message to new contacts so they have your full signature)
3) Will the user need to reply to you with detailed questions and/or responses?

Consider the following example of a typical short message:

Subject: Meeting
Body: I am double-booked this afternoon. Can we reschedule our 1PM meeting for tomorrow?

Subject only version:

Subject: Meeting - I am double-booked this afternoon. Can we reschedule our 1PM meeting for tomorrow? - Best, Nicholas

Don’t forget to end your message appropriately. Just because its all in the subject line doesn’t mean you can forget your manners.

Having a cluttered desktop doesn’t just look unattractive, it seriously hampers your productivity. It always starts the same way: You receive an important email attachment and you think, “Hey, I’ll put this on my desktop so I can find it easily” or “I need to use this file right away–I will drop it on my desktop and file it away later.”

Twenty attachments, downloads, and new files later, your desktop is like a pig on roller skates: unwieldy and bloated. But don’t fear gentle readers, I have five tips to help you reclaim this valuable real estate and impress anyone who happens to glance at your screen.

Tip #1 - Pick A Nice Desktop Background
If you have a great image on your desktop, one that you actually want to look at, it provides a bit of subtle, subconscious motivation not to cover it up with file icons.
Read the rest of this entry »

A common thread from everything I’ve been reading and thinking about lately is that an effective worker or firm (any type) must constantly seek new ways to maintain and improve productivity. I’ve been on a non-stop mission to drive up my own person efficiency for about a month now, and just by taking five minutes a day to really think about it, I’ve made remarkable strides, though I know I have a long way to go.

I realized that since getting my MacBook Pro, it’s the only computer I use at home and at work. But I have two great computers at home too–a Windows box and a CentOS Linux box each running 2+ GHZ and 1+ GB Ram. They were going to waste! So I hauled them into the office and stuck them under my desk, plugged them into my previously empty KVM switch, and now I have a lab server (Linux) which mirrors our development and production servers to speed update times and allow for easy collaboration with others in the office and a Windows box which I’ll use for testing.

For any computer worker who has a strong desire to be more productive at their job, I have one small tip–invest some time and money (if need be) in learning to type faster. I’ve seen a hundred programmers who can’t go more than 40 or 50 WPM. It’s what we do at least 40 hours per week… so why not take the time to learn to do it exactly right?

Greetings, new readers. My name is Austin and I’m a developer here at ArcStone. Most frequently I develop in PHP, but I have also done web application development in Java, Ruby [on Rails], Perl, Python, and other sorts of development in C#, C, C++, and Tcl/Tk. This series of articles will attempt to explain the technically complex (and thus often misunderstood) parts of my job for the non-technical or less-technical readers. This is a good place to start if you’re curious about what web application development is like, and more importantly, what it’s like to work with ArcStone to develop your web application. Read the rest of this entry »