Midspot

Technical insanity at its best!

How To Beat Writing Fatigue

Being in the computer business, I find myself in a lot of meetings with network maps being drawn on the white board that I would love to capture effortlessly to my computer for later retrieval.

What I usually do is hand draw everything and then try to go back to a program like Visio to capture them on my computer.

Not anymore. With ScanR I can just photograph the white board, email them, and have them send me back a PDF of the drawing. Excellent.

I have not yet tried their free service but I hear it is great.

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The Secret of Sure-Fire Headlines

Copyblogger has a great collection of headlines that grab attention. I have condensed them below:

1. Who Else Wants [blank]?
2. The Secret of [blank]
3. Here is a Method That is Helping [blank] to [blank]
4. Little Known Ways to [blank]
5. Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
6. Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]
7. Now You Can Have [something desirable] [great circumstance]
8. [Do something] like [world-class example]
9. Have a [or] Build a [blank] You Can Be Proud Of
10. What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank]
11. Give Me [short time period] and I’ll Give You [blank].
12. If You Don’t [blank] Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later.
13. The Lazy [blank’s] Way to [blank].
14. Do You Recognize the [number] Early Warning Signs of [blank]?
15. See How Easily You Can [desirable result].
16. You Don’t Have to Be [something challenging] to be [desired result].
17. Do You Make These Mistakes?

These are great examples of eye catching headlines and now that I see them I can’t believe how much I click on stuff like this everyday.

Go ahead and get the usage examples and increase your traffic!

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What Everybody Ought to Know About Herbergers

On Halloween night, when we went shopping, Tandra told me before we left that we get a coupon for 20% an item if you bring in a canned good for some food drive thing at Herbergers.

Since we were both planning on buying multiple pairs of jeans for our upcoming trip to Vegas (tomorrow yeah!), we took a plastic bag filled with 6 or 8 cans of peas, corn, etc.

We get to the store, thank God it’s empty, and look for someone to cash these cans  we are carrying around in an old cash wise bag. We find someone in customer service that gives us a coupon for each can and off to shopping we go.

First off we head to the Levi’s rack to find myself a pair or three and find that they are on sale. I asked Tandra if the coupon can be used on sale items and she checks and says yes. So after finding 4 pairs that fit, this is a record for someone like me that requires like a 36 inch length, we head to the counter to pay.

I put the jeans on the counter along with the coupons and the clerk says, “Sorry, these coupons can’t be used on Levi’s.”

Big surprise. These department stores are always giving away these coupons that never work for anything.

So I pay for the jeans anyway, because I need them and we go on to find Tandra some.

She finds some “non-Levis” and heads to the counter on the other side of the store to checkout.

Guess what? The coupon doesn’t work for her either because it’s an “unbelievable value”. Thanks Herbergers.

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Halloween Night

Last night we went to the mall to skip the trick or treaters.

Not that we don’t like kids, but since our house is all taped and plastic all over we could not open the front door and it became a hassle for the few that managed to ring our doorbell before we left. (Yes we had candy)

Anyway we found out that Halloween night is the perfect shopping night.

Most of the stores we went to int he mall were completly dead (except for the main hallway where kids were trick or treating the stores)

We even went to Super Wal-Mart and found the same to be true. I think next year Halloween will be our big shopping night for the year to avoid the crowds, even if our house is done!

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Install Pad to the Rescue!

Every time I load Windows I wish there was a better way to install all the programs I use on a day to day basis in one simple step.

Now there is! Welcome to Install Pad:

It takes a list of your favorite programs and will download and install the ones you pick. It doesn’t need to ask any questions, so you can go do more important things. InstallPad can resume downloads you’ve canceled, and can even try and find the latest version of your program online.

Lifehacker also created some install packs to go with it:

The Lifehacker Pack software list is our most complete list of essential apps (updated for November 2006!). Download the InstallPad Lifehacker Pack list, which includes:

PC Rescue Pack

The PC Rescue Pack’ll come in real handy in a few weeks at Thanksgiving when Mom and Dad ask you to fix their computer. Download the InstallPad PC Rescue Pack list, which includes:

Media Pack

Oh, you free-loading, BitTorrenting, DVD-ripping, MP3-sucking, podcasting, remixing, iPod-trading media whiz, you! Download the InstallPad Media Pack list, which includes:

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The ultimate webdesign usability checklist

A pretty good checklist to go through before you launch a new website.

Much of this is old hat / common sense, but a good collection:

    Technical

  1. Did you validate your (X)HTML using W3C Markup Validation Service?
  2. Did you validate your CSS using W3C CSS Validation Service?
  3. Did you check your website in at least IE, FF and Safari?

Full Article

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Microsoft Aquires Firefox

Or so the site says!

http://www.msfirefox.com/

I love funny parodies like this.

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Mobile calls allowed on half of all airlines by 2008

Finally some good airline news:

Almost half of all airlines plan to offer in-flight mobile phone connectivity for passengers by the end of 2008.

The figures in the annual Airline IT Trends survey show an appetite for a range of in-flight passenger communications, with 59 per cent of airlines also planning to offer internet and email access by the end of 2008.

Article Link

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How to Solve the Soda Stealer?

I have a fridge in my office at work that I use to keep soda cold and so I can buy it by the case instead of paying $1 per 20 ounzer at the vending machine.

Lately I have noticed that the cans seem to disappear faster than normal. Monday night my suspicions were proved. I left work about 6pm on Monday which was after everyone else in the office was gone. There were 2-3 sodas in the fridge. I am sure of that, because I made a mental note that I would have enough for the next day but would need to pick some up the next night.

I came in on 7:30 Tuesday morning, which was before about 90% of everyone else. I opened my fridge to grab a can of diet root beer and the fridge was empty!

I’m pretty sure the cleaning crew is to blame. I have heard reports of them clearing out candy and snacks in the IT communications room downstairs on a regular basis.

My question is how should I catch them or what to do?

My initial thoughts were to rig up some sort of motion camera to record them in the act, but this may take more time than I’m willing to invest. My other thought was to leave them a nasty note in the fridge telling them that I had them on camera and to knock it off before I took further action, but I sometimes leave opened bottles of pop in the fridge and don’t want to take the chance of them “vandalizing” them…

So what to do?

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Attention AVG Antivirus Users

FYI:

GRISOFT is announcing a new version of the AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition. This new 7.5 version with improved performance and user interface is available. Users that are using AVG Free 7.1 will be provided with a specific dialog, within the next few weeks, with the opportunity to choose the right option fulfilling their needs. AVG Free 7.1 version will be discontinued on 15th of Jan 2007.

I highly recommend this product. I have been using AVG antivirus on various machines for a few years now with zero problems. Glad to see they are continuing a free version, although I mis-read at first when I saw the discontinued notice…

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