Tag: Computer Tricks

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Computer Joey: Easy Video Conferencing

( #Skype, #GoogleTalk )

I have been meaning to do a post about video conferencing for the last 2 months but school and work have gotten in the way. With the news about Microsoft buying Skype for $8.5 billion, people are talking about the service and video conferencing in general, so I thought it would be a good time to do a tutorial.

I tried Skype a few years ago and didn’t like it. I was not into the software and I always had problems with the video; but I will accept that things have probably changed a great deal over the last three years (and I suspect Microsoft will add many new features including Xbox functionality). Video conferencing never held much appeal to me until recently: I have a few friends who don’t live close and we video conference a few times a month (or we will let the cameras run while we are watching the same movies so we can see each others reactions).

Since I don’t use Skype, the service I have been using is Google Talk. Besides a small plugin, you don’t have to install any software and works on almost any computer. Additionally, if you have a gmail account, there is no need for additional logins. While this is a really simple set up, I will still walk you through it.

Before we get started, you obviously need a gmail account, if you don’t have one, go sign up and come back.

1. In order to video conference, you need a camera. Most laptops have built in cameras, but if you don’t have one, logitech seems to be the go-to brand for all things web-conferencing. I am currently using the C510, but the C310 is a little cheaper and will work well.

2. Once your camera is sorted out, you need to download the Google Talk Video Chat Plug-In. Click on the “Install Video Chat Plugin” button. Follow the directions based on your operating system (should only take a minute).

3. Once the plugin is loaded, go to gmail and log in. On the left side of the screen you will see the chat section. If you don’t have friends in your chat list, you can invite them by putting in their gmail address (in the text box shown below). If you do have friends in the chat list, look for a video camera icon next to their name – that means they have a computer that can video conference.

4. Click on the person’s name and a new window will pop up (usually in the bottom right corner of gmail). If the person is available for video chat, a button with a video camera will appear in the upper left corner, click on it.

5. You can now video chat:

Skype’s purchase is going to bring attention and improvements to all of the services—this is good news to consumers. I hope this tutorial was helpful and you find excellent ways to video conference. Try to stay off of Chat Roulette!

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Kindle Review

( #Kindle, #Amazon )

I bought a Kindle over the weekend. I have been thinking about buying one for about two months. I went back and forth between Amazon, Barnes and Noble (Nook), and Apple (iPad) before I just said screw it and went with the Kindle.

The reason is the e-ink. I thought it would be easier on the eyes and it is. On Friday night I bought the device at Target. I opted for the $189.00 version because it has free 3G connections for downloads and for things like Wikipedia. I thought that would come in handy. Once I turned it on, I was immediately impressed with the screen, size, and weight of the device. It is super light and small, but doesn’t feel cheap. It was very simple to connect to Amazon and once I did, I purchased and downloaded my first book which took a few seconds to download.

The book is 600 pages in paperback form and I read it in less than 24 hours. My eyes feel great. I love not having to turn pages, the Kindle remembers the last spot you read, so no more bookmarks, and it even highlights quotes people thinks are memorable (but it can be turned off). I spent the morning searching Amazon’s free selection of classic books. I downloaded a few I own in hardcover that I haven’t read in a long time. I can see impulse book shopping becoming very dangerous for me this year.

The Kindle has a built in web browser, but I didn’t mess around with it too much yet. I went to this website and it rendered well for black and white, but I wish Amazon would have a Google Reader applet for RSS feeds, but they are trying to get people to spend 2 bucks a month on their own bullshit RSS feed subscription plan, so I don’t think it will happen anytime soon.

My initial thoughts are that I am really impressed with the device, it is easy on the eyes, and I am very worried about my wallet since they make it so easy to download books.

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How to set up a RSS Reader

For those technically inclined, this may seem a little rudimentary, but I cannot tell you how many times I tell people “I found this article in my RSS reader and I thought you would like it” and I get a blank stare back. My motivation for this article comes from Facebook’s ever increasing privacy violations – I am prepping to get away from the service and I plan on taking everyone with me.

Personally – I don’t need Facebook. I have a website where I can publish whatever I want and control how it is viewed. I know most people don’t want to run their own websites and are perfectly content with Twitter or Facebook, but I want to make sure you can keep in touch with… me!

My own ego aside, RSS feeds are a fantastic way to read news, keep tabs on your favorite musicians, and much more. Another great feature is you can mark them as saved and go back later or even share them with friends in a variety of ways.

For this tutorial, we are going to use Google Reader. Yes, I know Google does some semi-creepy stuff with your data, but at least they don’t force you into sharing things you don’t want to (first week of Buzz aside).

INSTRUCTIONS
Update: Google retired their Reader function several years ago, I currently use Feedly as my RSS reader of choice, most of the other instructions apply.

1. You need a Google account. If you don’t have one, go to Gmail.com and sign up for a new account. If you have a Gmail account, skip to step two.

2. (Updated) Once you have signed up, go to Feedly. You will be see a welcome screen…
Note: You can use your Google account to sign in with Feedly (or you can create a separate login)

3. In the top left side of the screen, you will see a button that says “Add a subscription”. Click on that button…

4. Type your favorite blog or website and then click the add button (SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT!)

5. You will see that once you hit add, the blog or website will be added to your “Subscriptions” section

As you read through the posts, the RSS reader will mark that selection as read and the number of unread items highlighted in bold will decline.

6. By default, Google Reader shows all items in your RSS feed all the time. You can change that setting in the upper area of the article window. By clicking on “Show: New Items” the reader will only display new posts. This can be changed back and forth at any time.

7. At the bottom of each article, there is a control panel that will allow you to star, share, email, and do other things with the post. You can look at your starred items in the left side control panel, there is a “Starred Items” Folder (the same goes for shared items)

8. If you look at the left side control panel, you will see “People that you follow”. Click on “Search for some people”. This will take you to a screen where you can put in your friends Gmail addresses and be able to easily see what they are sharing and visa-versa.

That takes us through the basics of setting up RSS feeds. Have fun finding sites to add to your reader.

Before I go – one last hint. Several websites like LifeHacker and even the New York Times have different RSS feeds formatted in different ways. Some sites only give you the headline of the article, other sites give you the full article. Most sites offer both, but you will have to find the link to the full feed. Don’t get frustrated, you should see an RSS feed icon that looks like this:

That should give you the link to the properly formatted RSS feed. But give it a try, you will get the hang of it very quickly.

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Thoughts on Working from Home

It’s the American dream: roll out of bed, put on your slippers, and start your work day. Your commute can be as short as reaching over to your night-stand, grabbing your laptop, and turning it on. Almost any worker would love to be able to work from home and an ever increasing number of companies are allowing their workers to do it. Being a frequent remote worker, let’s talk about the pros and cons for corporations and for the workers

PROS:

  • Workers have more flexibility with home/work life. Theoretically, this enable workers to be more productive. The ever decreasing line between home and work becomes almost invisible (which isn’t for the weak at heart).

  • Reduced office overhead: Reduction in real estate needs, network strain, office equipment, office supplies

  • Reduced stress on transportation: Less traffic on the roads, less people on the trains

  • Better labor pool for organizations (essentially every market)

  • Privacy: Assuming you are working alone at home in a home office, you can be a loud as you want, have conversations on speaker phone, don’t have to worry about offending someone sharing a cubical wall with you

  • Better tools: My monitor is better at home, my chair, keyboard, and phone are all better in quality and functionality. Hell, my internet connection is MUCH faster at home. If I could use my own PC, that would also be better.

  • Reduced Costs: In a time where companies aren’t giving out raises and are given no options to reward employees – working from home allows workers to save money on travel (gas, train fees, parking, wear on your car), food (I buy when I am in the office), and clothes.

  • Not involved in rumor-mongering

CONS:

  • Less face-to-face time inhibits team building

  • As a worker, if you are not seen and heard – are you being forgotten? (See the last few paragraphs)

  • Invites the possibility of massive slacking

  • You aren’t as informed of issues/chatter that might impact your job

  • Infrastructure cost: VPN and virtual desktop infrastructure like Citrix are needed so workers can actually work (I have a whole counter point this issue, but I will save it for another article)

The last two years I have found myself working from home more often and it is most definitely a perk to my current job that I enjoy a great deal, but with great power comes great responsibility. Many managers fear that their employees are sitting at home and performing personal tasks and errands instead of working. I cannot speak for other remote users, but allow me to share insight into my remote work day:

6:45 AM – 7:30 AM: Eat breakfast, catch up on personal email, get my mind ready for the work day
7:30 AM – 9:00 AM: I start my day and catch up on emails and paperwork
9:00 AM – Noon: I am in a block of teleconference meetings during this period – EVERY DAY
Noon – 1 PM: Assuming I don’t have a lunch time meeting, I will go to the gym
1:00 – 2:00 PM: This is the witching hour for project managers – I don’t know why.
2:00 – 4:00 PM: More Meetings
4:00 – 5:00 PM: People don’t seem to set meetings at this time as they are leaving the office, I typically catch up on emails
5:00 – 6:00 PM: I cook dinner and eat with my wife
6:30 – 8:00 PM: I typical check emails, speak with my manager who is finally coming up for air, and do any reports/paper work that I need to get done.

10 hour work day every single day. Some days I don’t leave my desk for 8-10 hours. Slacking? I don’t think so. Now let’s review a day in the office.

NOTE: I car-pool with my wife unless there is a situation that would warrant me driving another car to the same location, because of this, I am on her schedule the days I go into the office because she has more specific requirements around when she has to be in and when she can leave.

5:50 AM – 6:30 AM – Wake up and get ready to go to the office
6:30 AM – 7:10 AM – Traveling to the train station (this can take 20-40 minutes depending on traffic)
7:10 AM – 7:45 AM – Take train into the city, walk to office building
7:45 AM – 8:15 AM – Get PC started, open email, run down to the cafeteria to get breakfast (oatmeal if you were wondering)
8:15 AM – 9:15 AM – Conversations: either in the cafeteria or people coming to their desks, the good morning hellos and water cooler talk starts. I am usually 5 minutes late to my 9 AM
9:00 AM – Noon: Same block of meetings
Noon – 1:00 PM: Lunch (typically at my desk answering emails)
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Same block of meetings
4:00 PM – 5:15 PM: Travel home
5:00 PM – 6:15 PM – Gym
6:15 PM – 7:15 PM – Dinner
7:15 PM – On: Veg out on the couch

I am much less productive on the days that I go into the office and I am far less inclined to come home and sign in after a long day (and I don’t have kids to deal with – which is another point I will get to). A major productivity impact is the office environment itself: I have to be concerned about volume control (I am loud, everyone around me lets me know…), who is overhearing sensitive job related conversations in the isle (which often forces me into hiding in conference rooms or un-used offices). When I don’t put myself in a private location, I am often interrupted on calls from people stopping by to ask questions or just to say hi – this is a perspective that people who have had offices for years tend to forget (it’s easy to have an open door policy when you know it can be closed and people will respect that). All that complaining aside, working from home is most definitely a privilege – and like any privilege, it shouldn’t be abused. A worker shouldn’t run out for 2 or 3 hours at a time and not be accessible without telling anyone. W@h shouldn’t be used for daycare: to this point, when I have children, I will be going into the office every day. A child cannot understand why you can’t talk to them during a teleconference and I don’t want to have to explain it, that’s when it’s time to give up the dream (at least until they are in school).

The managerial fear of workers abusing the remote office is strong. In my experience, managers seem to think that if a worker isn’t in the office, they aren’t working. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure there are people who abuse the system, but I am willing to bet they would have performance issues in or out of the office. If someone isn’t getting their work done, revoke their right to work remotely – its that simple. The same managers who worry about their employees not being on-site are usually stuck on the phone all day themselves, barely leaving their offices and most definitely not out shaking hands and kissing babies, what value does it add to manager or worker? Managers need to resolve their trust issues and have confidence in their ability to adjust to managing remote workers. There has been a 74% increase in remote work since 2005,there are now 17 million people telecommuting at least once a week and 20.7 million people working part time and starting business in their homes, remote work is not a fad, and should be a means for a company to reduce costs to off-set rising operational increases and health insurance costs.

Just because you can work from home all week, doesn’t mean you should. Assuming you don’t live hundreds of miles from your home office, you should set up a schedule with your team and manager so you are all in the office at the same time. Once or twice a week is really enough to “feel like part of the team” and getting the benefits from remote office. The hybrid approach allows companies to save on real estate if they go to a “hotel-office” set-up, where people come in and work in unassigned cubes. In my opinion, this is absolutely the best possible work arrangement.

The corporate world is at an interesting crossroads: Personal and home-based technology is surpassing the tools available in the work place. Companies that need to lock down their employees due to security risk concerns are not keeping up with productivity and communication tools that are revolutionizing the way people function in the other areas of their lives. In many cases these tools are free (I know this is a security issue for most companies), or have very low cost secure pay models that have little to no downside (I am looking at you Google apps). The corporate world needs to get a handle on what is going on with technology and how people work because they are letting money fly out the door by paying for tools that just don’t work as well as low-cost alternatives. I am mentioning these tools because they will only further-enable the remote worker revolution.

More to come true be-loggers.

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Email Best Practices

I have come to realize that a good portion of my life has centered around email. When I got out of college I was assigned to the email support team of my company and quickly became the one stop shop for 40,000 employees email accounts, I did that for four years. I also started a small computer repair shop/consulting firm during that time and did a good deal of small business email configurations. During my time as “Computer Joey” (that was my business’ name if you didn’t figure it out) I also had a chance to talk at schools about technology and how to be safe on the internet. Those talks came to mind when I was building a contact list for my homeowners association. Long story short, I think it would be helpful to list some pointers about incorporating email into your life:

  1. In your email address, refrain from putting any personal information (besides your name) before the “@” sign. Examples of this are: Your birthday (JohnDoe01051975@yahoo.com), your home address number (NancyDoe80@yahoo.com), Any part of your social security number, Don’t include your zip code, don’t include your age, etc.

  2. If you are still in the work force, try to avoid using “cute” email address names like “SweetSk8rgurl@yahoo.com”. If you lose your job you don’t want to put an email address like that on your resume, and checking multiple accounts can get tiresome. On the flip side, if you are retired or close to it you might want to avoid putting hobbies into your email address. Example: “Mustanglover40@hotmail.com” could make you an easy target for an internet scammer. They might find an in by sending you an email about Mustangs or classic cars.

  3. Try to avoid using the email account that your internet service provider’s (Comcast, Verizon) gives you. If all of your friends know your email address is John.Doe@comcast.net and you decide to change service providers, you will lose that address and your friends might not be able to find you. I suggest signing up for a free account at Yahoo, Gmail, or Hotmail. They provide a huge amount of space for free and those accounts tie into to other great free services. My personal recommendation is Gmail but you should check them all out to see what you like best.

  4. Try to avoid forwarding chain letters. If you don’t know what a chain letter is, basically any email that asks you to forward to all of your friends is a chain letter and spammers can use those chain letters to get your email address.

  5. On that note, whenever you are sending out an email to a large group of people, use the BCC feature (BCC = Blind Carbon Copy). There is always somebody in the group who decides to Reply to All and the next thing you know your inbox is full with generic responses, this will eliminate that problem.

  6. You should not use company email for personal use. You can’t control your friends from emailing you something you should not get at work, don’t put yourself in that situation. I would also suggest that students leave their school accounts for school only (it is an easy way to find someone).

  7. Don’t say anything in email that you would not say to anyone’s face. It is easy to form a sense of detachment when you are sitting in front of a computer, remember there is a human being that is going to read that email.

I think that is good for now. Good luck out there on the internet and try to be safe.

Other Useful Email Tips: