Have you ever really wondered just how much time in your work day is non-productive or simply busy time? In order to manage your time better you have to become a master planner of your time. This allows us to be more proactive than reactive in our work day. What are some of the ways that let our productivity fall apart during our work day? Let me site some for you. How about the good ole “Got a minute” meetings that crop up in work environments where it is acceptable for anyone to interrupt anybody at any time? Do you have a pop-up email notifier? If you do, do you see the email subject and click on it? How about your Smart Phone or Blackberry notifications, does your hip vibrate every time you get an SMS, Chat, Email, Call or Voice Mail? For you MAC users, are you using Growl, or some other global notifier? The list can go on and on. The point is all of these so called conveniences are causing us to become reactive in our work day which takes away from our ability to become proactive. If you are more reactive than proactive, you should give these six easy steps a try. It won’t be easy, and you will have to promise yourself that you are going to stick to your guns come hell or high water! Read the rest of this entry »

So I am watching the opening ceremonies from the 08/08/08 Olympics, a date fact that the NBC staff played up big time as if there was going to be some big event tied to the date somehow. Well if you were watching, you know that nothing like that ever materialized. What did stand out however, besides the fact that Bob Costas should fire the hair and make-up person that colored his hair flat brown, was the incredibly bad audio feed. The commentary during the carrying of the torch was more like a whisper, with the crowd noise drowning out the audio feed. Hey fella’s in the truck! Push the slider up on the board! (This is an apology and a correction, apparently it was not NBC, but Dish Networks High Def Feed only)

All the NBC failures aside, the show that the Chinese put on was outstanding, a massive effort in choreography, the mix of technology and art was perfect. I specifically thought that the creation of a gradient using giant stamp pads and the feet of all of the athletes, across the earlier created image, was very clever. I would imagine that we will see that image for years to come.

I saw this clip on Today this morning and it brought a tear to my eye, so I thought that I would provide the clip with another outlet, because for any fellow animal lovers as am I, this is what it is all about…

Seems like a funny title since this blog is just getting started and, well, I am probably everyone at this point. But I thought that I would take a minute and remind everyone out there who seem to think that it is perfectly fine to forget about the history of the greatest country in the world, just exactly what Independence Day or more commonly called 4th of July in the USA is all about.

In the good ole’ USA, Independence day is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. And of course it is about cookouts, beer, brots, fireworks and good times, but it is certainly more than that.

I would like to personally thank the brave men and women of our armed forces, who put it on the line every single day so that we can remain a free nation and enjoy what our country has become.

OK, so this is probably not going to get the pub that Oprah’s Book Club gets but hey, there is some really great reading out there that I thought I would share over time with you. I think that any time you can get a review or endorsement from your peer group, the more you can trust those results.

How many of us have had, or still have to, put up with an abusive person in our workplace? I am sure at some point that this has happened to us all. Or perhaps, and I sure hope this isn’t the case, YOU are the one dishing out the abuse. In either event I have a great book for you to read.

“The No Asshole Rule - Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”

This book is authored by Stanford University professor, Robert I. Sutton PhD. Sutton has been published as an expert on this topic in the esteemed Harvard Business Review. It is a nice smooth read that claims itself as “The definitive guide to working with - and surviving - Bullies, Creeps, Jerks, Tyrants, Tormentors, Despots, Backstabbers, Egomaniacs, and all the other assholes who do their best to destroy you at work. Enjoy the book.

What did George Carlin mean to you if anything? I am not trying to date myself here, but this guy was to comedy as were the Beatles to music. A man that was way ahead of his time, his progressive style and willingness to approach topics that were considered taboo by many, illuminated what a refreshing and true talent he was. George, comedy and the rest of the world will miss you. May you rest in peace.

As promised readers, I am going to take my own learning experience and use it to explain ColdFusion TAGS and how one might make use of them. Of course you can get a really in depth view using the livedocs provided by Adobe. But I thought that perhaps sharing my experience outloud would actually benefit me as well as be helpful to others that are learning this excellent development language.

<CFABORT>

Let’s take a closer look at this handy little devil. This tag falls under the category of Flow Control and for good reason because that is exactly what the tag does. It stops the processing (or flow of), a ColdFusion page at the point that you place the tag in your code. The great thing is that it returns everything that was processed preceeding the tag. Therefore this is a handy tool to use to track down errors in your application.

It has a very simple syntax consisting of only one attribute.

So that’s it on this easy to use flow-control tag. Remember livedocs is a great reference tool visit it.

I used to be a good CF programmer. I was certified on all available training levels. Then I decided that a career change was in the best interest of my family so I moved away from coding. Fast forward 2 years and once again I was offered a position with my current firm which has required me to reacquaint myself with  ColdFusion and all of the companion technologies that help to create a pleasing user experience. I must say that it is like starting all over again, (yes I am whining). That said though, I thought that I would use the opportunity to do just that and start all over again. While doing that I realized that there are just as many people as ever out there that are looking for a great way to create dynamic content and know absolutely about ColdFusion. There are many popular choices like Ruby and PHP and of course .NET but for my money and the growing demand on speed to market there is only one clear cut choice and that is ColdFusion.

I am going to explore a new Coldfusion Tag at least once per week so stay tuned all you new CF’ers.

Whoa, what a surprise it was for me today my first Kernel Panic. I was happily working through my day when all of a sudden my mac book flashed a fancy screen and told me that I had to hard boot my system.

Hmmm, can you say blue errrr, gray screen of death? well I booted the thing as instructed and the message came back. Well as a new MAC user (and very pleased I might add) my cute little Apple bubble was bursting so I called tech support because after trying everything that Apple suggested I couldn’t get any response from the operating system. So naturally since nothing that Apple suggested worked I was driven to keep trying those things over and over again as if by some chance my nightmare was going to end. Not to be - after a few more tries I couldn’t even get the Kernel Panic error to show up, the computer just started beeping, 3 beeps over and over again. Time to take it to the shop. Got to the shop and this was the dialogue:

TECH: So it just beeps 3 times over and over again

ME: Yeah

TECH: Do the beeps sound like MEM-O-REE, MEM-O-REE, over and over again

ME: Huh?

TECH: I think you have some bad RAM lemme check…

5 minutes later tech walks out of the back room and the nightmare had ended as quickly as it had started. All because of a bad RAM stick.

Well, I know that smoking is not the glamor sport that it used to be say back in the 70’s when it was considered sexy if a woman smoked, but I must say that I do enjoy a good cigar. There are so many different types to choose from. First you have to decide if you like mild, medium or full bodied. Then choose the wrapper, natural, maduro, corrojo, ligero. Then the filler, then the binder, OMG it can be somewhat intimidating for sure. But once you find the one that you like well there is nothing like it. Sit back, chill and enjoy a moment to yourself.