I want you to stop for a second and think about this: when you boot your computer, how many windows do you have to push away until you can get a clean desktop to start working with?

How about this: do you remember the last time you were working on a task and some stupid window popped up asking for some kind of confirmation? Do you get this window often? Don’t you wish the computer was smart enough to remember your choice and not display it over and over again?

If you resonate with any of the above, then today’s automation tip will fit you just perfectly.

Automation tip #3: Push away annoying buttons and dialogs with Push The Freaking Button
Level: Intermediate
Approximate time saving: 2 – 10 seconds per window or dialog
Tools required: Push the Freakin Button (PTFB)

Setup

1. Download and install PTFB (works on all versions of Windows)
2. For this example, I will use an annoying log in window from Gmail Notifier which pops up every time the application starts even though it remembers all my login credentials! Here is a screen shot:
   
3. You won’t believe how easy it is to get rid of this window once and for all! After installing PTFB, find the big button on the upper left which says Single Press:
   
4. Now simply click on the that pesky OK button in the Gmail Notifier dialog.
5. PTFB now added a record for this window and will auto-click this window for you after 1 second (by default).
6. To test it, leave the Gmail Notifier window open. Click on Start Watching in PTFB. Viola, that login screen’s gone! (come on, you have to admit that was pretty cool. Somebody’s clicking away things for you!)

Tips

1. If 1 second (the default time it takes PTFB to click away the window for you) is too long, you can reduce it. Simply select the line matching the Gmail Notifier target in the PTFB, and click on Edit. Now select Triggers tab:
   

Side Notes

1. So okey you caught me, I’m still running a trial version of PTFB. It costs $30 to get the full version. For me, I’ve seen enough value from this software to convince me it’s worth the money. For everybody else, the 30-days trial period should give you a pretty good idea whether it really makes your life easier (hint: the more windows you have “targeted”, the more difference this software will make for you).

In the first post of this series, I’ve talked about how you can find and access any file in a split second using Google Desktop. While Google Desktop can also be used as an application launcher, it doesn’t do a very good job at that.

If you’re unfamiliar with what an application launcher is, here is a short description:

Application Launcher is a fancy term for a simple tool – a piece of software that stays in the background and, when you type a given key combination, gets up and helps you find the right application, file or action you want to execute. Instead of moving your mouse around, aiming and clicking at things, you just type a shortcut (usually Ctrl+Space), start typing the name of the program you want to execute and hit Enter. Simple and fast, and takes a tenth of the time you’d have needed to search the shortcut with your mouse.

Now if you’re wondering whether the title of this post is somewhat exaggerated, then let me break it down for you:

I did my homework: I’ve surveyed most of the popular Windows application launchers, including my all-time favorite one, ENSO. It turns out that the application launcher I’m presenting today requires by the far the least amount of keystrokes to do the job. Why? Simply because it doesn’t require you to type any shortcut (like the Ctrl+Space mentioned above) before you start typing the name of the application you want to launch. So let’s see how that’s possible.

Automation tip #2: Quickly launch your favorite applications and websites using Direct Access
Level: Intermediate
Approximate time saving: 8+ seconds per application or website
Tools required: Direct Access

Setup

1. Download and install Direct Access (works on Windows XP and Vista, requires .NET Framework 2.0)
2. The default application screen will look something like this:
   
3. For this example, I’m going to show you how to launch Internet Explorer. Assuming you’re running Windows Vista (this also works on XP), find Internet Explorer shortcut in the Start Menu. Right click on the shortcut and select: Add a New Abbreviation to Direct Access.
   
4. You will now get the Add New Command screen. Direct Access has already filled some of the details for you and all you have to do is type an abbreviation that sounds natural to you for the application you want to launch (in this case, Internet Explorer). I’ve chosen simply ‘ie‘. Click Save when done.

Usage

1. Once you’ve set up your abbreviation for any applicaiton you commonly use, you can type that abbreviation from anywhere, anytime (literally speaking!) to launch the application.Suppose you’re working on a Word document, and you had to Google something, the fastest way now to launch Internet Explorer is to simply type ‘ie’ in your Word document or wherever you are. Here is what you will get:
   
2. That red square is a little unobtrusive hint that says if you meant to launch Internet Explorer, then would you please just hit the Shift key. When you do that, Direct Access will remove the ‘ie’ abbreviation you typed and .. wait for it ..launch Internet Explorer :)

Tips

1. If you happen to choose one freakishly odd abbreviation that you wouldn’t normally type anywhere, you can launch your application even faster by telling Direct Access to ignore the confirmation pop up (that red square). To do that, simply uncheck Confirm in the Add New Command dialog (see the screen shot above). Now anytime you type that abbreviation, your application will automatically launch without bothering you to confirm with the Shift key (which by the way is configurable).
2. To add a command to launch your favorite website, copy the website address from the location bar in your browser and add it to Direct Access by clicking New Command > Open Website on the toolbar:
   
   Paste the address of the website in the address field and type any abbreviation you would like to use for this website:
   
   Click Save. That’s all. Now you can use type the word ‘face‘, as in the example above, anywhere and anytime followed by Shift to access Facebook.
3. By now, you’ve probably seen something new in your desktop: an orange ball setting on the bottom right:
   
   Play with this ball for a while. Try right clicking on it and see what options you get (hint: anything you drag to this magic ball can be magically turned into a wicked command!)

Side Notes

1. The power of Direct Access doesn’t stop here. As a matter of fact, I’ll be using it to demonstrate another automation tip in the coming days. So stay tuned!
2. There’s a hefty price tag on Direct Access: $40. Yeah I know, too much! But hey, I’ve found this piece of software so useful that it made sense to invest that amount of money in something that would save me cumulatively hours of clicking labor. Incidentally, Direct Access goes as far as calculating really how much time it has saved you so far!

No one really measures these kinds of things, but you’d be surprised to learn that I’ve personally watched countless people (including my mom) navigate mazes of complex folder hierarchy to get to some file or a document they’ve been working on. Worst yet, some of my very own coworkers still manage to use this old-school way of accessing files. And for the record, I work in a software development house. Imagine my frustration when I ask someone I’m working with to find me a file or an e-mail in their archive and they spend the next 10 minutes or so going through their folder mess, most of the time giving up at the end and asking me: “do you really need it?”.

So I decided enough is enough. Hey everybody, there’s a much much … much faster way to find and access any kind of file in your entire hard drive in a split second, even if you don’t recall the name of the file! Stop for a second and take a wild guess what that is. (Hint: it’s not this stupid dog)

Automation tip #1: Use Google Desktop to find and access any file in a split second
Level: Beginner
Approximate time saving: 5 seconds – 1+ minute
Tools required: Google Desktop

Setup

1. Download and install Google Desktop (recommended for Windows XP, Vista, Mac and Linux)
2. Allow up to 2 hours of idle time (first use only) for Google Desktop to scan and index your entire hard drive in the background.

Usage

1. My preferred method is to double tap the Ctrl key (in Windows) to bring up the big rounded search box from anywhere.
2. Start typing either the file name or a word from its content. As you type, the most relevant search results are listed below.
3. If the file you’re looking for is listed, navigate to it with the arrow keys and press Enter to launch it.
4. Otherwise, select the first choice in the menu (Search Desktop for your search term). This will be bring up a complete list of all file matches.

Tips

1. For more advanced search (like if you remember the date you created the file as opposed to its name), follow step 4 above and click on ‘Advanced Search‘
2. Google Desktop also integrates into Microsoft Outlook and searches your entire e-mail archive, so you can just as easily find an e-mail in a split second.
3. If you’re part of a home or office network, you can just as well search shared folders with the same speed. Just go to Google Desktop Preferences and add the address of those shared folders to the list of scanned folders
4. Geeks only: Google Desktop has some cool advanced search operators for more granular searching results. Click here to learn how to master Google Desktop.

Side Notes

1. If you’re using Vista, rest assured Google Desktop works way faster and is more usable than Vista’s built-in search indexing feature. Trust me, I’ve tested it myself. I strongly suggest you disable Vista’s built-in search indexing feature and use Google Desktop instead.

Ever since my post about my secret to productivity (automation), I’ve been meaning to compile and present the complete list of all my automation tools and tricks. In that post, I’ve mentioned briefly some of the things that I automate in my desktop and browser.

This time around, to celebrate the relaunch of the blog, I’m starting a 24-day post series (the biggest I’ve ever embarked upon) with 24 ways you can use to automate your digital life.

With “digital life”, I mean your daily interaction with your PC, including the desktop operating system and the browser. So essentially the tips in this post series are categorized as either Windows- or Web-related. It’d be interesting to see how many of the Windows-related tips can be applied to the Mac. However, all Web-related tips should be relevant to anybody using any popular operating system.

Every one of these automation tips is explained in dead simple terms with a step-by-step procedure for implementing it. Non-tech savvies as well as geeks should find this material useful and come out with at least one or two automation tricks under their belts.

So what do I mean by automation and what’s in it for you?

What’s automation?

In this context,

automation is the process of letting your computer take care of things you usually bother with on a regular basis.

That’s about as simple as a made-up definition can be :) Of course, feel free to read the more nerdy one.

To reiterate on my previous post:

By automation, I mean putting an end to manually doing those nasty repetitive tasks that kill your productivity by wasting your time and sucking up your energy.

What’s in it for me?

I live by a rule that says if something I do on my computer occasionally or frequently can be streamlined or completely automated, then that’s the way it’s has to be done. There are many advantages to this rule, including:

• Not feeling like a donkey doing repetitive donkey work. We’re humans and we’re capable of so much creative thinking. How about we leave the “donkey” tasks to the computers and we focus on more important things?
• Reducing your mental and information overload. In this hectic digital age, having so much to do on your mind inevitably boosts your stress level. Automation can help you forget about things computers can take care of so you can check one more thing off your to do list.
• Reducing your overall daily interactions with computers. I used to be the opposite, but now I believe that life’s too short to spend it in front of a speechless monitor. When you look back at your younger years, it will seem like it’s gone by in a blast when you only get to interact most your day with a piece of equipment. Don’t trade your life for tech.

What can I automate?

The possibilities are endless. Various tasks can be completely or partially automated. It’s just a matter of spotting those tasks and knowing which tools to use to help you with them.

In fact, that’s what I’m here for! Let me give you a rundown of all of the automation tips I’m going to share with you over the next 24 blog posts:

Windows-related:

1. Locate files faster
2. Push annoying buttons and dialogs
3. Launch applications faster
4. Backup important files
5. Maintain and clean up your PC
6. Check for updated version of installed software
7. Change computer settings in different networks
8. Watch your favorite TV shows
9. Synchronize your music collection
10. Avoid typing common phrases
11. Resize multiple images at once
12. Reduce your clicking in half

Web-related:

1. Keep up with news and web sites
2. Simply scroll instead of repeatedly clicking ’Next’
3. Fill out entire forms automatically
4. Comment and follow up on a post’s comments
5. Synchronize your bookmarks
6. Delete unwanted recurring e-mail messages
7. Auto-login to websites
8. Post links to multiple social news sites
9. Browse photos on Flickr faster
10. Save and share Office documents online
11. Set text size and encoding once for any given site
12. Generate random, disposable e-mail address for registration on annoying sites

Stay tuned!

You can bookmark this post, as each point will be updated with a link pointing to the detailed instruction post. As an alternative, you can subscribe to this blog to get all those cool automation tips delivered to your e-mail or feed reader.

So given this newfound obsession with Facebook, how can we, if not cure it, find a way to make it worthwhile?

I had this simple idea a while ago which was: why not we actually use Facebook for what it was intended? That is, why not use Facebook to maintain and grow our relationships with the people we care about?

Instead of going on a mission to show off just how many “friends” we have added (if they’re indeed real-life friends), it’s much better to take advantage of the critical mass Facebook has achieved (i.e., the number of people we know who are on Facebook) by constantly staying in touch with them through various means and features available in Facebook.

As a matter of fact, I plan on doing just that. I have about 60 friends on my Facebook. Not much, right? I don’t care! As long as they’re all friends I care about (some being more than the others), I inted to use whatever resources Facebook gives me in order to keep a healthy and steady relationships with all of them, despite the distances that now set us apart and our busy lives.

If this sounds like something you would want to do, then let me share with you 3 effective ways you and I can use Facebook to do that:

1. Everyday, do at least 1 thing to someone in your friends list to let them know you’re thinking about them.

It can be a simple poke (which is a neat little way of saying hello, i have nothing to say but hi). Or you can go all the way and send a personal message to them asking about how they’ve been, what they’re up to, etc.

Between those two, there are countless other ways (e.g., Walls, Super Wall, Graffiti) to make touchpoints with a friend in Facebook. Just remember, the more time you dedicate for a gesture, the more it will be appreciated by your friend and the better your relationship will grow as a result of that.

2. Take advantage of special occasions

A thoughtful “virtual” balloons, cake or flowers with a simple message, sent on a friend’s birthday, can do wonders to your relationship. You can use the Free Gifts application as an alternative to Facebook’s pay-per-gif module (1 dollar for a virtual gift, you must be kidding me!). The right sidebar on the home screen in your Facebook shows a list of upcoming birthdays for your friends. Never miss those!

If you’re also aware of a happy or sad occasion a friend of yours is going through, then you can leverage those as well. I’ve found that people usually post their current state of affairs on their Facebook status message, or they do that using certain Facebook applications, like Moods.

Keeping in touch on special occasions is by far the most powerful means to strengthen any relationship. If relationships were like a video game, those will get you the most “points” (like running over an old lady with a tank few times in GTA).

3. Get to know your friends a bit more

Believe it or not, Facebook can tell you a whole lot about your friends you didn’t know about in direct contact. This of course assuming that:

1. You both have fairly completed and customized profiles.
2. You have added applications that describe your personality, such as Likeness, and invited others to add them too.

Though not necessarily filed under “keeping in touch”, those little activities we do together, like taking personality quizzes and stuff, keep us indirectly interacting with each other, which is great for keeping the momentum of our friendship alive and kicking.

But why not just get a life, a real one!

I felt like I have to clarify this: what I’m trying to do with Facebook isn’t meant to replace going out and meeting your friends in real life and having a good time. It’s just meant to complement it.

However, in cases where that isn’t possible any more, like when we are distance apart, then the role of Facebook becomes even stronger in helping us stay in touch all the time, almost to the point where distance fades away and it feels like the fire of our relationship is burning all over again.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve been able to get you to buy the idea of using Facebook primarily for keeping your existing relationships strong and going, instead of endlessly adding new, most of the time superficial, ones.

Though we may continue to be obsessed with using Facebook, we can at least tweak this obsession to be a means to end, which is having ever-lasting strong relationships with the people we care about now, or the people who were once very close to us, but have since drifted apart.

Some of you, even my friends, don’t know that I am passionate about photography ever since high school. At that time, I won the photography class award for creating a portrait photo composition of my brother, using a darkroom technique of combining two negatives to create transparency effect in the composite photo (anybody know what that technique is called?). The winning photo was also featured as a Photo of the Day on PhotoPoint.com in October 6 2001. However, I lost that precious photo when that site went out of business on December 2001. I still hope of finding that photo stashed somewhere, someday.

Anyways, fast forward to 2007, my interest in photography is still on and that’s why I hang out at Flickr almost daily. I don’t take photos anymore, but I enjoy browsing interesting photos. Coincidently, “interestingness” is the exact term Flickr uses to describe a regularly updated patch of the most “beautiful, amazing, moving and striking” new photos on Flickr.

Here is where Web 2.0 comes into play:

I needed a way to get those photos delivered to me as soon as there is a new patch. Naturally, I was looking for an RSS feed for only the interesting photos on Flickr. While that wasn’t available on Flickr website, a simple search in Google returned a result of some guy who posted this very exact RSS feed. Here is the address:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/InterestingFlickr

So I subscribed to this feed and I usually receive 100+ new photos a day in my Google Reader. Granted, not all of them are interesting to me. However, there are usually 5-10 photos a day that simply stand out as plain gorgeous and amazing. I usually add those ones to my Flickr favorites collection, and I’ve been doing that for the past couple of months.

Now here is the punch line: if you like what you see, then you can too subscribe to my favorite photos stream using this RSS feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AlaeddinFavPhotos

Think of this collection as the combined goodness of Flickr’s finest photos, excluding the almost-pornographical ones that might get you fired at work. I promise to keep this stream of photos consistently fresh and interesting.
How to get your own favorite photos feed:

1. Get Firefox browser.
2. Install Greasemonkey extension.
3. Install Flickr user favorites feed script.
4. Find and share your favorites RSS feed link in your Flickr favorites page.

For a while I've been wanting to share our cool way of sharing stuff at work. In any typical office working environment, you've got a lot of e-mails flying back and forth between desktop workers. The e-mails are mainly forwards of interesting videos, pictures, articles or documents found on the Web or received through personal e-mails. Most of them are non-work related. Hell, when I got back from my vacation last week, there were 215 e-mails sitting in my inbox, of which about 10% only were related to my project. Most of the others were simply links to interesting sites and articles from my friends (honestly, some of them weren't even that interesting).

The Problem

While I appreciate the gesture, sometimes it gets really annoying to mix work- and non-work-related stuff in the same inbox and having to sort them out. Furthermore, getting frequent new-mail notifications can be very distracting and it often breaks my creative flow.

The Solution

While reading the above, you might have thought of some pretty basic solutions to this problem, including:

• Only check your e-mail few times during the day (you might run in the risk of missing an urgent work-related e-mail though).
• Set up filters for e-mails coming from your friends to go to specific folders and disable notifications for these e-mails.
• Completely block such incoming e-mails and avoid them altogether.

All options are valid and can really work. However, long ago I've thought of another solution that makes use of RSS feeds to share all content that can be aggregated in what's called feed readers (e.g., Google Reader, Outlook 2007).

Basically, if most of all of the content that is shared comes from blog posts, photos, videos and the like, then you can share them with your co-workers using a "pull" model, which goes like this:

1. You subscribe to the cool websites that you often share with your co-workers.
2. You receive cool new stuff in your feed reader (I'm using Google Reader as an example here).
3. You share them by clicking on 'Share' under each interesting item.
4. You tell your friends to use their feed reader (for example, Outlook 2007 can read RSS feeds) and subscribe to your shared items. (OK, so you can send the feed address of your shared items via e-mail, but just this once ). For example, here is my shared items RSS address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SharedByAlaeddin. You can see the posts I share on a regular basis in my Shared Reading page.
5. Your friends receive any newly shared items in Outlook when they choose to.
6. Everybody lives happily ever after!

Conclusion

It may sound like a long process to set up, but the benefits are tremendous. For one thing, the "pull" model to get your co-workers' shared stuff sounds a lot better than being "fed" those things whenever they will. Your attention is a valuable asset and you should have complete control over it.

You might be asking: what’s productivity got to do with music? The simple answer would be: it takes the hassle out of finding, playing and organizing music, and keeps it a pleasurable experience! Does this sound like something you want to have?

I reckon that lots people are either using the default media player that ships with their system (e.g., Windows Media Player on Windows PC), or are using third party music players either because they have to (read, iTunes) or because they chose to.

When you have the choice of which media player you use to play music on your PC or Mac, it amazes me how many people settle for the default media player, and it really makes me feel sad seeing how many hoops they jump through to try and do the basic things like playing and rating songs, building play lists and managing their music collection. So if you’re that person, then take a couple of minutes today to read and find out about the world’s best media player.

Everybody, I want you to meet Winamp. A brilliant free media player that will rock your world with its super-friendly user interface and ease of use. If I had to describe Winamp in one sentence, it would be:

What Winamp is for music is much like what Firefox is for the web!

Quick overview

It's probably one of the oldest and most popular media players in the world. Currently in version 5 and going, it has gone through a lot of fine tuning to make it such a stable and efficient piece of software.

To get started with Winamp, first download it from the official website. Installation is pretty fast and simple. Once installed, it will launch with the default "modern" skin that looks something like this:

To start playing some tunes, drag your music (files or folders) to any part of Winamp and it will automatically add them to the play list and start playing. Sorry to disappoint you, but it's just that simple!

Of course, there are more than one way to do things with Winamp, but I'm trying to showcase the simplicity of this player and how it can save you time and make you more productive. 

By the way, some of you folks might recognize Winamp from it's old look (which I frankly prefer because I'm more emotionally attached to it )

So how can you boost your productivity with Winamp?

I realize that if you're not a fan of this awesome player, you are still not convinced that it's any different than the good ol' insert-name of your-favorite-player that you're used to. Well in that case, check out this list of top 5 features of Winamp that will give you a productivity boost:

1. Global keyboard shortcuts
   Want to stop the current song? Perhaps you just want to skip a couple of songs? If so, who says you need to do that by a) clicking on Winamp b) clicking Stop or Next button. By going to Winamp preferences, you can set custom keyboard commands for over 50 commonly used media player commands, all done from any application, even if Winamp is minimized or hidden in the tray bar.
2. Jump to file dialog
   When you're suddenly craving a certain song, please don't go scrolling through that fat play list to find the song. In Winamp, finding a song could never be easier. In fact, I'd say this is the single most superior feature that is unmatched by any other media player out there in terms of speed.

   All you have to do is press J in Winamp (or set a global shortcut) to bring up the Jump to file window. Now type any word you remember about the song including name, artist, album, file name or path. No matter how huge your list is, Winamp instantly shows you relevant list of matches that you can Up or Down through and then hit Enter to start the song.

3. Blazing-fast files addition
   So you just installed Winamp and you have a huge folder of music files that you'd like to add and start playing, how do you do that?

   Just hit the Insert key on your keyboard and browse through the dialog for your music folder (I told you there is another way to add files didn't I). Once located, click OK. Winamp will load all your music files in a split second! I have about 36 GB of music which I loaded up in exactly 1 second. Talk about saving time!

4. Trim your music collection
   When dealing with large music collection that builds over time, sometimes you want a quick way to permanently get rid of "bad" songs without jumping to and deleting the file manually.

   Here is where the beauty of Winamp shines. Much like Firefox, Winamp has a huge collection of add-ons (aka plug-ins) to add or customize it's functionality. One of them is called Deleter. When installed, it adds an icon to the tray bar. One click on the icon and the songs currently being played gets deleted and moved to recycle bin and the next one starts. Sweet, isn't?

5. Rate as you listen
   We talked about global keyboard shortcuts. One thing you can do with them is assign 5 keyboard shortcuts that correspond to rating songs on a scale from 1 to 5.

   As you're grooving to your music, if one of the songs sounds really catchy, just press the keybaord combination for rating the song, say like WinKey + 5 = 5/5 rating. The beauty of this is that you can do it while you're working on any other application.

   Later on, you can use your rating to transfer those awesome songs to, say, your MP3 player. To do that, bring up Winamp's Music Library window (Alt+L). Under Local Media on the left, click on Top Rated play list. This is a Winamp generated list of songs you rated previously 3 or above. You can play this list by clicking the Play button under the list. Alternatively, you can right click on Top Rated on the left and select Send To > Your MP3 Player (it would be listed if it's plugged in).

And many, many more!

I've listed above 5 features that make Winamp stand from the crowd in terms of productively enabling common usage scenarios. However, there are many more features waiting for you to discover and fall in love with!

Go ahead and download it today and starting fiddling with some features like the awesome built-in equalizer or the feature-rich integrated Media Library. Take your time and you'd be thankful later on for the time and effort it saves you on the long run.

If you've been using Winamp for a while though, what's the single best feature that you can't live without in Winamp? Let's try and expand the list above with YOUR experiences.

What’s my secret?

One word: automation.

Let me elaborate on that a bit:

By automation, I mean putting an end to manually doing those nasty repetitive tasks that kill your productivity by wasting your time and sucking up your energy. I’m talking specifically about the tasks we do as we interact with our computers.

Why automation?

Two reasons:

1. Less work
2. Less distraction

With every little or big repetitive task you automate, you win back a chunk of time better spent doing creative work.

Also, with automation, you have better chances at maintaining a steady flow of creative state. In other words, those little tasks won’t be responsible for interrupting your train of thoughts, anymore.

How do I identify those repetitive tasks?

Oh boy, they’re everywhere!

The problem is, we’re so used to doing them we don’t even recognize their impact and the potential of automating them. They can be as simple as minimizing a window, pushing a freaking button, to more complex ones like keeping up with news, blogs, etc.

What do I do about them?

Simple: look for and get a software to automate the process of achieving them.

To this end, there are two categorizes of such software:

1. One that can generally automate any task
2. One that is meant to automate specific tasks

Software to automate any task

In the “any” category, there’s one amazingly useful tool I use called: AutoMate (bet you didn’t see this one coming)

AutoMate tasks are assembled via drag-and-drop, without writing a single line of code. This allows automated tasks to be developed really rapidly. It includes over 140 available actions and triggers, enabling you to build tasks that automate a wide variety of network and computing operations, such as: windows manipulation, automated FTP backup, job scheduling, data or file replication, application testing, data entry, etc.

Software to automate specific tasks

This is a bit tricker. There are lots of tools out there that aim to help you achieve specific tasks. For example, my favorite program launcher, ENSO, helps me launch any program I want with few keystrokes from any application. For reading news and blogs, my favorite RSS reader, Google Reader, helps me keep up with all the cool stuff happening on the internet.

Tasks I automate

To give an example, here is a (hopefully) complete list of every task I can think of which I automate by utilizing certain software and the reason of automation:

Minimize, Maximize, Close Windows

• StrokeIt (read my review)

Reason: Faster and more natural.

Push annoying buttons and dialogs

• AutoMate

Reason: Very simple to configure and works like magic!

Aggregate latest news and blog posts

• Google Reader

Reason: Fast, lots of keyboard shortcuts, integration with Firefox.

Locate files

• Google Desktop

Reason: Again fast, easy to use (double-tap the Ctrl key).

Launch applications

• ENSO Launcher (read my review and here is why I bought it)

Reason: Unobtrusive, relevant, pretty. 

Play music

• Winamp

Reason: Lightweight, easy, global keyboard shortcuts, lots of plugins.

Conclusion

The point to take home is this:

To improve your productivity, try to spot the tasks that you do repetitively which you think can be automated. Chances are, there’s a piece of software out there that can configured to accomplish this task. I have a knack for always discovering such pieces of software, so if you’re in doubt, let me know and I’ll try and offer you some advice. 

Further Reading

Here are more great posts by various bloggers regarding their productivity secrets:

1. Productivity Tip by Jenn Givler
2. Productivity Tip – Just Start by Andrew Garrett
3. My Key To Productivity by Matt McDonald
4. How Productive Are You? by Tish
5. Time management for graphic designers by Rob Cubbon
6. Productivity Tips 2.0 by Stephen
7. My Most Powerful Productivity Tip by Ellesse
8. Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Ian McKenzie
9. Ultimate Guide to Productivity by GTD Wannabe
10. The ultimate productivity tip by Matthew Cornell
11. My single best tip for productivity by Brett Kelly
12. My Key to Productivity by Andrew Barbaccia
13. Blog Even More Efficiently by Scott Hartshorn
14. The Greatest Productivity Tip in the World by Gary Vaughan
15. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project by Joy Slaughter
16. Single Best Productivity Tip by Leo
17. Join the Ultimate Guide to Productivity by JC
18. My top productivity tip by Steven Aitchinson
19. Phil Gerbyshak
20. Virtual Assistants and Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Key Business Partners
21. Ultimate Guide to Productivity (My First Meme) by Geoff R.
22. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity – What’s your secret? by Mary Ann Copson
23. Continuously Increase Productivity by Embracing the Optimization Mentality by John Wesley
24. Increase Productivity by Conquering Procrastination by Gia Combs-Ramirez
25. Ultimate Tip To Reach GTD Nirvana by Andrew Flusche
26. Productivity Secrets Project by Lisa Sabin-Wilson
27. Maximizing Productivity by Ah Pek
28. Thoughts on Productivity by Rowan Manahan
29. Being more Productive with your Marketing Efforts by Chris Brown
30. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Don The Idea Guy
31. 5 Productivity Tips That Help by Brett Evans
32. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Sue Olson
33. Productivity Tip for Students (From the Other Side of the Fence) by ispf
34. There’s only one secret to increased productivity by Colleen Wainwright
35. 8 Productivity Tips to Take Control of Your Life by Krista
36. Choices Are Made Long Before You Decide – Productivity Tips by Jonathan
37. Secrets to Productivity by Randa Clay
38. Up Your Productivity and Profits too! by Andrew Wee
39. Meme Tagged, Meme Slayer…I Give In by Wayne Porter
40. Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Janet Barclay
41. Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Lorraine Pirihi
42. Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Kathie Thomas
43. 14 Tips to Get More Done in Less Time by engtech
44. Work-Life Balance and Productivity by David Bohl
45. My Contribution to the Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Harrison
46. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Wendy Piersall
47. How Productivity Comes From Clarity by Adam Kayce
48. How To Stay Focused For Greater Productivity by Dawud Miracle
49. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity – Wanna Share One Big Secret? by Ponn Sabra
50. My Productivity Secret – The Joy of Flow State by Chris Garrett
51. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity – MomGadget Style by Gayla McCord
52. If you don’t have passion and purpose, greater productivity won’t help you! by Alister Cameron
53. Building a Home Business One Weekend At a Time by Tony Clark
54. Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project by Jennifer Louden
55. Be Aware, Make Choices by Alex Fayle
56. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity by Digging into the Blogpond
57. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity meme by Doris
58. Ultimate Guide to Productivity by KM
59. Ultimate Guide to Productivity for Adult ADD Sufferers by Deborah Petersen
60. How to become a Productivity Super Hero who Rights Wrongs, Saves the Environment, and Rescues Cats from Trees by Aaron Potts
61. Zugunruhe Ultimate Guide to Productivity: Time Budgets by Tara Robinson
62. Are Your Secrets For Personal Productivity by Lisa Mills
63. Blogging Productivity & Criticizing Goals by Andy Beard
64. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity – what’s your secret? by The Kiss Business
65. Secrets to Personal Productivity by The Practical Chick
66. The Ultimate Guide to Productivity — What’s Your Secret? by Derrick Sorles
67. Instigator Blog: Productivity Tips by Mitch Owen
68. The Childlike Secret to Productivity by Kim & Jason
69. Just Do Something, Already by Lorna
70. Productivity Secrets by Angela Smith
71. Maintaining Productivity In The Midst Of Interruptions by Lexi Sundell
72. The Key to Dunking Your Doubts and Unclogging Your Optimism by Adam Kayce
73. A Nice Collection of Productivity Ideas by Dan Markovitz
74. My Ultimate Guide To Productivity by Vlad
75. A stupidly simple way to have a productive day by Jonny
76. My Secret to Productivity is Not Really a Secret by Char Polanosky

Believe it or not, there came a period when I kept thinking "the web sucks, there’s nothing to do, nothing to read, nothing to watch!". I would launch the browser, and stare for a while in the blank white canvas, thinking: "so now what?". I had no good use of the web except for emails and chatting.

That was between 2004 and early 2006. Sometime mid 2006, I discovered something that would make a bigger impact in my life than anything I’ve ever tried before!

That thing was Netvibes; a wonderful online service that puts everything you’d ever want to do on the web in a single customizable page. The odd thing is, nowadays, I don’t use Netvibes (for some reason). However, credit goes to Netvibes for introducing me to the wonderful world of really simple sex syndication, otherwise known as RSS feeds (click here if you don’t already know what that is).

So I went ahead and gave it a shot. I added some preset feeds for popular sites and later discovered some more on my own, such as LifeHacker.

Fast forward to this day: I am one hell of an RSS addict who realized so many benefits from using RSS that I can’t even count. However, it occurred to me yesterday why not think of the top 5 things you achieved by using RSS?

So here they are. While reading this, try to think of things you achieved by using RSS and share them in the comments section.

1) Realize my career passion

Since I got my undergraduate CS degree in 2004, I’ve been trying out so many things in hope of discovering that one true passion that would shape up the rest of my career. I started with web development, moved to system analysis, contemplated software engineering, project management, and even business administration. However, I never really felt at heart that any of those is what I’m meant to do.

That was until one day I discovered a blog about software development called Joel on Software. Amongst many things, Joel writes about elements of interface design and human factors that I found immediately fascinating.

Long story short, I began exploring more in this field by subscribing to dozen blogs that explore software usability. The more I read about it, the more I realized I’m meant to do this.

Right now, I’m preparing for a masters degree in Human-Computer Interaction and, moreover, I’m launching a dedicated blog that talks about this stuff (stay tuned!).

2) Learn about wonders of Web 2.0

Netvibes takes the credit here too. What I have seen after Netvibes were a bunch of similar sites (Pageflakes, YourMinis, etc) that had something in common. That thing was elements of Web 2.0, so I set out to find out what this term I kept hearing about.

Fast forward April 15 2007, I gave my first ever public speech about Web 2.0, which has now become yet another passion of mine, all because of the many blogs I subscribed to that that explore this topic in depth (e.g., Read/Write Web).

3) Develop my presentation skills

Readers of this blog know that I have an inexplicable love for public speaking ever since college. Again, with RSS, I wanted to take this to the next level by learning how to be professional speaker. Many blogs offer wealth of information in this regard, most notably Presentation Zen. One of my career goals is to be a renowned public speaker in what I do.

4) Learn about blogging and starting my own blog

Before this blog, I had this cheesy creepy site that I spent about a month coding. It was what they call "Web 1.0"ish. It had this god-forbidden guest book like the old days. It was basically a piece of crap.

Then I learned about blogs and blogging as a consequence of using RSS. Beginning 2007, I started this blog to be the place where I write about things that are interesting enough to share with the rest of the world. Furthermore, I subscribed to dozen blogs that teach the art of blogging, most notably Daily Blogs Tips.

5) Enhance my writing skills

When you start such a venture as a blog, your success depends, among other things, on how good a writer you are. You learn to write in order to capture attention and present worthwhile content. That’s exactly what happened with me. Of course, I have not developed my skills out of thin air. Again, I’ve subscribed to many blogs that offer tremendous insight into proper copywriting, such as ProBlogger and Copyblogger.

Conclusion

I guess the point of all of this is to prove that if you’re not using RSS, then you’re likely missing out on a lot of good stuff. I may be an extreme example, having more than 100 subscriptions in my news reader of choice, Google Reader. However, you can subscribe to only dozen sites and still manage to keep up with them on regular basis. This will not just save you time, it’d open your mind to bigger realm of possibilities!

* Image of RSS Icon by contentXXL

One of my all-time favorite services that is going to have a prominent mention in my speech is the world-class VoIP telephony service known as Skype. What’s odd about using Skype as an exemplar in this presentation is that it’s really not a web-based service to start with. However, the principle I’m highlighting today is really not specific to Web 2.0; it’s in fact applicable to lots of products and services on or off the web.

Many people refer to this principle as the network effect, which is:

A characteristic that causes a good or service to have a value to a potential customer depending on the number of customers already owning that good or using that service.

Furthermore, some people talk about reaching the critical mass which is the turning point where each subsequent addition of new customer adds a valuable point to the existing customers (I’m calling them ‘Subscribers’ in my speech).

A fine point to remember about critical mass is that once you hit that stage, people will perceive the value your product or service has to offer to be equal or greater than the price they’re paying for it (also known as utility:price ratio). Practically, this means that after this point, the major factor attracting new customers to you will be based on the fact that alot of other customers have already signed up for it.

Here is a snapshot of a slide that’s part of my treatment of this principle:

So how did Skype reach its phenomenal success and wide user adoption? In other words, how was it able to hit the critical mass and beyond?

The secret is in employing 3 killer builders of network effect, the last of which to join the rest only about a week ago. Let’s explore them in details.

1) Extrinsic motivation

When promoting a new product or service, we’re essentially trying to reach out to as many people as we can in order to spread awareness about the goodness of what we’re offering. Usually this involves using variety of motivation techniques to get the public interested in trying our product or at least pondering its usefulness to their lives.

Among those techniques are the following:

• Fee waivers: basically cutting a percentage of the price off for early adopters for a period of time. A fine example in this case is Google Checkout, which is trying hard to compete with the already established market around PayPal by offering a $10 bonuses on $30+ purchases.
• Viral marketing (aka, word-of-mouth): Employed by Skype and pretty much adopted by every Web 2.0 startup out there, viral marketing represents a great driving force to get people genuinely interested in our product, simply because people believe other people far more than marketeers. However, part of this technique is based on a relatively solid network effect already in place to help kick off the self-replicating viral process (that is, people telling other people about this “cool new thing” they’ve just tried out).
• Good-old aggressive marketing: including ads, affiliate or even permission marketing.

Those are just ones off top of my head, but go ahead and share some other types of motivation you can think of in the comments.

2) Not relying solely on network effect

This is actually quite interesting to think about: we’re asking you to reach a critical mass in network effect by not relying on network effect to do that. So how can that be possible?

Well it’s simple: think Skype, or maybe del.icio.us. What do they have in common? We know they’ve both hit their critical mass points and now enjoying evermore popularity, but what truly is different about the nature of these services?

Both services can provide enough value to customers without network effect. Let’s see how:

• Skype followed its launch in 2003 with introduction of SkypeOut service that lets you make calls to landlines. This was a quick and smart move aimed at eliminating the need for everybody to get Skype in order for you to get some value out of it.
• del.icio.us was built by a guy who wanted to bookmark pages and store those bookmarks on the web for easier access anywhere. The very nature of the service didn’t require other people to signup in order to get sensible value from it. However, when such momentum happened, the service gained even more value and turned into an organic search engine that returns relevant and filtered results.

Of course, this is not applicable to every conceivable product or service out there. There are those whose very nature relies on gaining as much network effect as possible in order to start producing relevant value. A good example in this case is a new online service called Criteo which offers site recommendations to readers based on visiting habits of other readers of the same site or blog. I’ve tried this service when it was launched and then abandoned because, you guessed it, not enough network effect was captured yet so it didn’t produce any relevant recommendations, at the time.

3) Turn your service into a money-making machine for customers

I believe this the ultimate technique that has the most potential for boosting your network effect because of its green appeal to customers.

Let’s examine two prime examples for this point:

• In an even smarter move, last week Skype introduced Skype Prime, a new service that lets people charge other people for Skype voice and video calls. In a way, Skype is calling out to all existing and potential new users: “hey, what if we let you capitalize on our product by using it to charge your clients and make some good money?”. What do you think people’s reaction to this would be ;)
• By utilizing the long tail and offering shares of the profits for site owners, Google Adsense has become the most widely deployed context advertising platform on the web by a wide margin.

Something to think about in the case of Google Adsense since there are many parties involved (Google, publishers, webmasters): where’s the network effect here?

Conclusion

A key concern for businesses starting up or trying to win over competition is how to attract users prior to reaching critical mass. By taking these prime builders of network effect in consideration, there is a higher chance the product or service being promoted will reach the desired critical mass and sustain an ever-growing network effect.

However, key considerations must be taken to prevent congestion or saturation in the network, stopping any future uptake. This means that at all times, a business must ensure that the formula for the network effect works this way:

new customer = added value for existing customers + more reasons for new customers

First of all, for those who are not familiar with ENSO, it’s a software by Humanized that currently encompasses a program launcher and universal spellchecker/dictionary. Actually each one of those is sold separately. I gave quite a detailed overview of ENSO in a previous post, so read that if you want to find out what’s quite different and interesting about this software. But if you want to know whether the software is really worth buying, then read on.

Last week, my 30-days trial period for ENSO has expired. Honestly, I’ve gotten used to it during this period. But I didn’t want to make the decision to purchase it until I’m damn sure that I can’t go without it. I said fine, let’s have another 30-day trial period, only this time without ENSO’s services.

That didn’t work out too well.

I gave in and purchased ENSO Launcher couple of days ago. My friends thought I was crazy to shell out 20 bucks for a utility software even though there are several other free alternatives. Truth be told, I did my homework; I have tried most of the recommended alternatives during this period, notably a program called Launchy. Google Desktop was another viable alternative, even though it’s not meant to be a program launcher, but more of a desktop search engine. However none of them really hit the spot, for me.

So why ENSO?

Two simple reasons:

1. It prevents me from switching mental context.
2. It stays out of my way.

Let’s explore this a bit further by contrasting it to the alternatives I’ve considered:

Google Desktop is cool. It’s free. It indexes your whole computer and brings you relevant results within a second. With some tweaking, you can get to be completely hidden and only come up with a search box when you double-tap the Ctrl key. However, its shortcomings as a program launcher are twofold:

1. It returns more results than I need for a simple program launch, which is quite distracting (see point 1). If I type ‘Word’ for instance, the first result entry is ‘Microsoft Office Word 2007 – Start Menu’ but then there are 10 other entries below with the word ‘Word’ either in the filename or in the contents.
2. It comes up right in the center of my screen with no way to move it. That’s right where I’m usually working with something. (see point 2)

Google Desktop, check. (Note: I still use it for searching though)

Launchy, on other hand, was the closest I’ve come to replacing ENSO if it weren’t for one simple problem: it’s stupid!

First of all, if I type ‘Word’ in it, the first place to look for results is obviously my start menu because that’s where you’d find programs I would want to launch frequently. It doesn’t do that (see point 1).

Second of all, it won’t go away by itself. If you bring it up, then you gotta hit ESC if you no longer need it. It won’t go away by itself if you change the focus to a different application. I’m sorry, but for me, that was a deal breaker (see point 2).

Launchy, check.

Reasons applied to ENSO

Now let’s see how ENSO won me over by applying the above two points:

When you hit Caps-Lock, ENSO’s semi-transparent welcome message is shown in the upper-left corner of the screen. As you type a command, the text goes right underneath it and the results (if it’s an ‘Open’ command) are shown below as well.

Case in point: it stays out of my way!

Furthermore, ENSO’s results are minimal and most of the time relevant to what I’m trying to do.

Case in point: it prevents me from switching mental context by not forcing me to think too deeply on which choice to go with, as in the case with Launchy and Google Desktop.

Did I mention ENSO’s freakin’ stylish?

The beautiful and simple typography with the semi-transparent backgrounds that ENSO sports right out of the box are simply gorgeous! It’s also minimal (no borders and stuff) so it will do little less to distract you from whatever it is you’re doing.

One more reason

I’m not ashamed to admit it, but part of my decision to purchase ENSO was based on supporting Humanized, the company who made ENSO possible, and the work they’re doing in the software usability department. I’m a regular reader of their weblog and, having keen interest in software usability, I’m always impressed by their thoughts, methodologies and their ambitions to “making our computing life simpler, more peaceful, and more productive”.

• A “welcome-back” message for returning visitors.
• Ability to embed a visitor’s name and MyBlogLog avatar anywhere in either the welcome or welcome-back message. Special thanks to Andrea Micheloni’s “Welcome back” plugin for inspiring this feature.

I’ve mashed up a plugin that lets you put out a message anywhere on your blog for new visitors, and hide it for returning visitors. A little background is in order: I’m generally dissatisfied with the way most current blogs are set up. When a new visitor wanders in, what he usually finds is a collection of seemingly random posts with no quick way to tell what’s the blog’s all about and who’s behind it. This information is usually present in some sort of an ’About’ page up there on the menu. While that’s fine for lengthy background and author bio, what’s missing on the front page is a prominent warm welcome message that greets the new reader and gives him a quick overview of the blog. The purpose of this message isn’t only to inform, it has a subtle effect of making a new “hostile” reader who’s ready to scan the entire blog page in mere seconds a little comfortable and willing to spend some more time exploring the rest of the blog. Ultimately, what we want to do is get the reader’s attention, make him feel welcomed, and give him few tips on where to find stuff on the blog. In my opinion, this has a much higher chance of converting new readers into regular ones on the first visit.

At first, I’ve done fair bit of research for such plugin for WordPress that would give me this missing feature. I found two different plugins for that:

1. Welcome Visitor!
2. What Would Seth Godin Do

However each one lacked something in my opinion. The first one was not intelligent enough to detect returning visitors who are already familiar with the blog and don’t want to see the welcome message anymore. But the second one did account for returning visitors, but was not flexible enough to let you insert the welcome message anywhere on your blog, whether it’s in the sidebar or right below the header menu.

So I decided to bring them together to achieve the desired functionality. The resulting plugin is largely based on the first one (thanks Kaf!) so the instructions for installation and usage are all the same. The only thing I’ve added is a little input box in the configuration screen to specify after how many visits the welcome message is hidden, which defaults to 2.

Download Plugin: Welcome Visitor! Reloaded v.1.1

There are couple of additional features which I think would be nice to have in future versions of this plugin:

• A different message for returning visitors (when the welcome message is not shown). (Update: this is now implemented)
• Little ’X’ button to let the user dismiss the message. The plugin will never show it to them again.

But this is the first version for now. Hit me up with comments, suggestions or anything else regarding the plugin. By the way, I’m curious as to what you think of my very own welcome message which is shown on the blog homepage. Also, is having my picture up there generally too creepy?

Being a borderline perfectionist by nature, I’ve taken it as a rule from day one to always write posts in which I present something new or add a twist to an existing idea or conversation. In doing that, I’ve always put one question in mind: What’s in it for my readers? Whatever it is I’ve decided to write about, this question always helps me shape up the entire post into something meaningful and useful by the general population of my blog’s audience. It even helps me completely discard ideas that I perceive having less of an intellectual value.

In order to present a complete story in the ideas that do make it, I’ve gradually built up slew of tools that help me take my ideas from inception to complete, well-written posts supported by visual illustrations. (I’m a visual learner, so naturally I rely on visuals to convey my ideas). Today I’m going to let you in on the tools of my blogging trade. Not that any of them is unheard of, but I believe that having them combined and using them effectively should help you get your blogging in shape and make a bigger impact with consistently hit posts!

1) Capturing Ideas

Google Notebook

Why?

• Google Notebook is an online tool for capturing notes, images, URLs, snippets etc.
• Google Notebook integrates tightly with Firefox making capturing ideas for posts as I visit various websites that much easier and convenient.
• Google Notebook lets you reorder notes. I use this feature to prioritize post ideas.

2) Research

Google + Mozilla Firefox

Why?

• Umm, I’m just going to pretend you did not just ask this question :)

3) Organizing Thoughts

Mindjet MindManager

Why?

• Lets me quickly brainstorm the structure of the post without worrying about any technical details yet.
• Helps organize the flow of ideas in a logical fashion.

4) Stock Photos

Hemera Photo Clip Art + Google Images + Flickr

Why?

• Hemera Photo Clip Art is the most comprehensive collection of high-quality photographic clip arts with transparent backgrounds. Very professionally shot and organized.
• Google Images is quick for common photos like logos or screen shots.
• Flickr has a huge collection of interesting photos that are released under Creative Commons license.

5) Photo Manipulation

Ulead PhotoImpact + Microsoft Office 2007 + FastStone Capture

Why?

• I’ve been using PhotoImpact since 1997 and I’ve grown addicted to the simplicity yet power it delivers especially with its preset templates.
• Office 2007 delivers such expressive visual power that it became an essential tool for my my charts, diagrams and even visual effects needs.
• I’ve tried numerous screen capture utilities but nothing came close being as lightweight, simple, powerful and easy to use as this free utility from FastStone (also check out their free and fast image viewer, an all-time favorite of mine as well)

6) Online Storage

Box.net + divShare

Why?

• Box has awesome embeddable audio widget that I use around here in this blog to share some wonderful music.
• divShare has a better upload limit and also integrates with WordPress via a DivShare Uploader Plugin.

7) Dictionary

WordWeb

Why?

• I’ve discovered this aweseom freeware on CNET Download. Ever since, it became an essential tool for me that always sets quietly in the system tray waiting to be summoned via Ctrl+Alt+W to come up with meanings and thesaurus on the current word I’ve copied to the clipboard. Very handy and well done.

8) Tunes

Winamp

Why?

• I always do my writing with some music on. And this is my all-time favorite player since kindergarten. I usually play some ambient tunes while writing. What do you play?

Conclusion

I know that there may be handful of other tools that can do similar job and probably are less expensive (and I’m actually curious about which ones you do use), but the point of this post is to give you an idea of the kind of tools that any blogger will need on a regular basis. Armed with this knowledge, I hope that I have inspired you to be a better blogger by dedicating a bit more time to writing quality posts. Collectively, our ultimate aim is to maintain a quality threshold throughout the blogosphere. Indeed, this will help push this new media main stream and afford it wider credibility and acceptance.

In this part, we’ll turn our attention to the computer keyboard. This mildly sophisticated device has received the least amount of innovation in the brief history of the computing era. This is understandable, given the simple purpose of this device which is either typing or sending commands. In the typing department, one of the most notable innovations, in my opinion, was the introduction of the natural keyboard layout in 1992 by Apple and then later in 1994 by Microsoft. The latter has gained wide popularity and adoption which proved that overall people were concerned about the ergonomics and fitness of their computer usage experience. For me, I never really bought into this layout, I guess because it kind of broke my natural typing orientation.

But what I really want to bring to your attention today is a key innovation regarding the second purpose which is sending commands. Historically, most of the improvements in this area have been on fitting bunch of extra keys around the keyboard to act as shortcuts for commonly used commands. This is great! But the genius guys at Humanized have gone a step ahead and crafted a wonderful and versatile software that is way ahead of its league. What this software can do is something I’ve never seen before, and I’ve seen a lot on similar grounds. So read on to find out how this software promises to revamp your whole computing experience for good!

Hi, my name is ENSO

They called it ENSO, a Japanese word meaning “circle”. It is drawn in circle (duh!) that symbolizes enlightenment, strength, and the universe. The reason it’s a partially open circle is to also symbolize that it is not separate, but is part of something greater.And it’s certainly is. ENSO does not replace anything in your desktop. It just sits quietly in the back waiting to be summoned to perform wonderful things for you. What kind of things? Glad you asked! Let’s run through some of the cool features ENSO gives you out of the box.

I can start your favourite applications, files and even websites

ENSO Launcher is the part that can do all that and then some. While there are numerous so-called “application launchers” out there, this one does it differently, and does it with a style!

The idea here is that if you’re the type of person who relies heavily on using the keyboard or if you’re typing something and don’t want to switch over to the mouse, you can fire up quick commands in a human-natural form to open your favourite applications. Wherever you are, it goes like this:

1. You hold down the Caps Lock key
2. Meanwhile, you type “open …” followed by the name of the application.
3. Just release the Caps Lock and there you go!

While this may seem like a lengthy process, it happens really quickly. This is because the ENSO is very smart in the sense that:

1. You don’t have to type the full name of the application because ENSO filters the available results as you type more characters.
2. You can press TAB to auto-finish the command

“C” is highlighted because it’s the only character I’ve typed after the “open”. That’s all I need!

The rest of the choices, shown above, are ones you can also choose by navigating down the list with the Down arrow key.

Now, what if the thing you want to start isn’t an application but rather a file, folder or a favourite website. Well, why not teach ENSO about so that next time you’ll be able to start it just like we did above. Let me show you how that is done:

1. Navigate to the file, folder or website of your choice.
2. Highlight the address (usually up there on the address bar in Windows Explorer or your browser).
3. Issue the “learn as open …” command.

Next time, it doesn’t matter which application I’m in, all I need is “open r” to start my news reader

I don’t know about you, but for me that’s a brilliant simple way to teach a software something. It’s also natural to think about it. “Learn” or “Open” are all words used by humans and now my computer understands them, now that’s what “humanized” is all about!

There are host of other commands (as of the current version) that you can also play with:

• go {window name}
• close
• maximize
• unmaximize
• minimize
• open with {program}
• quit
• undo unlearn
• unlearn open {command name}

Wait, I can also help you with your writing

This is yet another part of ENSO that can do wonders for you. Ever needed to run a spell check on something you wrote on a website or some application but the functionality just wasn’t there. Perhaps you wanted to do simple calculation on the spot without having to break your concentration by opening external application? Well that’s what ENSO Words is all about.

The way it works is very similar to the Launcher. You select the text and issue the desired command. If it’s a spell check or calculation commands, ENSO Words will replace your text in-place. If the text isn’t replaceable, as if you’re reading off a webpage, ENSO will remember the result and let you put anywhere else where there’s an editable area.

In addition, it can do any of the following things (as of the current version):

1. Define any word you select or give you synonyms for it.
2. Calculate any four-function mathematical formula you have at hand.
3. Count the number of words or characters.
4. Transfer your text into upper or lower case.

Conclusion

While I didn’t cover every command in detail, I hope this quick run-through gave you a good idea of the capabilities of this innovative software. It goes without exaggeration that once you try ENSO and get a good grip of it, you’ll learn to appreciate it so much that it would feel awkward if you have to do the simple things it lets you do without it. For me, I was addicted from day one and now consider it an essential part of my productive computing arsenal.

Still, other people, especially in the publishing industry, use voice, or spoken words, as a means to dictate text as well as to tell the computer what to do. Voice recognition, as a technology, has evolved rapidly in the last decade that it’s now considered a very productive and feasible way for interacting and typing text given the right circumstances. Obviously, using voice is the most natural way for us to interact.

But what about the other popular mechanisms, namely the mouse and the keyboard? The question that inspired this post is: has these two mechanisms reached a point where it seems “natural” for us, as humans, to use them to interact with our computers? If no, then can we add a “human” touch to these devices to make them easier and more natural to use?

The answer is: we certainly can! In this post and the next one, I’ll let you in on some wonderful applications that can dramatically shift the way you use your mouse and keyboard, respectively. The beauty of these applications is that you don’t have to abandon what you’re already used to, you just need to get used to wonderful new interaction techniques that can vastly improve your interaction experience using these devices.

So today, we’ll start with..

The Legendary Mouse

What can you do beside clicking your way around?

Let’s start at the beginning. A computer mouse is the second most natural input mechanism after the voice. Why? Simply because it’s a physical device that we can control, hold, move around and even play with. It was invented in 1964 by Douglas Engelbart who gave it this nickname because of the tail that came out of its end.

There hasn’t been any major changes to the way the mouse works since its invention. Certainly, there were improvements in the design and operation which included:

• More ergonomic designs
• Elimination of the “tail” (cordless mice)
• More buttons
• Scrollwheels
• Higher precision using optical and laser beam instead of tracker ball

Nevertheless, the concept of using the mouse remained the same: you move it around and click on things that appear on your screen. In my opinion, the act of clicking or double-clicking (triple-clicking? give me a break!) on graphical user interface (GUI) elements has some major shortcomings, despite being customary:

1. It forces you to precisely position your mouse cursor on the exact element (e.g., button) that you need to trigger. An offset by as little as 0.5cm could lead to a totally different and undesired action.
2. It is slow, especially with the default OS settings.
3. On the long run, and if used excessively, it can lead to serious health issues, most notably numbness and tingling in the thumb and index finger that may develop into Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS).

Fortunately, there are things you can do to make using the mouse a more productive interaction device. For example, you could:

• Cut the clicking in half! Yes you can do that if you make the middle mouse button, for instance, act as a double clicker. (Cool Mouse can help you do that [Windows only])
• Increase the speed and acceleration of the mouse, so the cursor moves a lot faster with the same physical mouse movement.
• Have the cursor smartly snap to elements you’re likely to move it to, like the stupid “OK”s on dialog boxes.
• Using the scrollwheel on the mouse instead of clicking the scrollbar found on most GUI screens.

However, I’m not satisfied with the above improvements. Remember, my original purpose in this post is to “humanize” my interaction using the mouse. What do humans do when they communicate? They talk right? Cool! Thanks for the info :)

But seriously what else do they do? Along with verbal communication, we also do a lot of gesturing. Formally speaking, A human gesture is a:

a form of non-verbal communication made with a part of the body, used instead of or in combination with verbal communication. The language of gesture is rich in ways for individuals to express a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and affection.

So what happens if we port this exact concept to the world of computing? Well, we could flip a computer off since it was unable to install any updates but insisted that we restart anyway, although that probably won’t be of much use beside letting some steam off.

However, there’s a smarter way. We can fire up mouse gestures!

The Power of Mouse Gestures

A mouse gesture is a way of combining computer mouse movements and clicks which the software recognizes as a specific command.

My bet is that we’ve all been doing mouse gestures without even realizing it. Have you ever done a drag-drop operation (no, not this kind)? That’s a mouse gesture! However, the beauty here is that this idea can be generalized much further to include virtually any application you use and any gesture movement you dream of!

Being able to issue an appropriate gesture for an appropriate action using your mouse doesn’t only make things easier, it makes using your mouse “feel right” again. For example, to delete something, say incoming email, instead of the usual way, why not quickly draw an ‘x’ in any size you prefer:

Cool, huh! Let’s see how you can do the same and much more.

StrokeIt: Free Mouse Gesture Recognition

I’m a PC user so I’m sticking to what I know and I know this: StrokeIt (download) is one of the best, if not the best, free mouse gesture recognition software for Windows. In fact, it’s partially what inspired this post. I wanted to tell everybody about this great little appplication and what it can do for you. The rate of recognition is unbelievably fast and accurate. It runs out of the box with a myriad of gestures and associated actions. And here’s the punch line: you can teach it your own gestures the way you like them and associate these gestures with specific applications or make them global to every application on your system.

To start off, you should recognize the repetitive tasks you usually do with the mouse and define a gesture for them. You can use one of the built-in gestures (which correspond to the English alphabets) or again you can draw your own gesture.

Secondly, you should define the mouse button that triggers the drawing. For me, I’ve set the middle mouse button.

Here is another favourite gesture of mine: a close gesture which closes the current application. It’s drawn exactly like a “C”. Remember, your “C” doesn’t have to be a perfect half-circle, it can of any size and you can also draw it backwards.

Can you already see the benefit of drawing such gestures instead of, say, reaching for the red ‘X’ button or closing the application from the taskbar? I think the benefits lend themselves pretty clearly:

• It’s faster.
• It’s more flexibile.
• Above all, it’s just more natural!

Conclusion

With just little bit of learning and getting used to, mouse gestures can provide the next powerful and intuitive means for us to interact with our desktops. However, they’re not meant to completely replace clicking on various GUI elements, but rather complement them with more human-friendly actions (i.e., drawings) that provide alternative ways to achieve the same thing.

But wait, here’s an idea: Can we completely elminate clicking altogether? Think about it: A desktop-based interface that features the same graphical elements you’re used to (buttons, lists, etc), except you don’t need to click to move around. You can do so with mere gestures, like hovering back and forth over a button once!

The question is: after getting used to, would this kind gesture-based system make its way into mainstream acceptance? Or are we so hooked on clicking that we can’t imagine a world where computer mice are buttonless?

Alright, I’ll admit it, I could be little biased here seeing how I’m a die hard fan of the Firefox browser. But like most of you, I have used IE a lot in the past and still do occasionally. In writing this though, I’m trying to be reasonable and really come up with a reason why on earth would IE persistently put site creators’ wishes ahead of its users with respect to font size!

In the old days, prior to insert your favorite non-IE browser here (see, unbiased), regular desktop users had little choice regarding their web browsing experience. We grew up with a not-so-gold spoon in our mouths called Internet Explorer. We learned to take what it gave us thinking that this was a “good enough” choice for us. That’s ok, because through that, we learned that there is a tremendous opportunity for making our lives in cyberspace a little easier.

But we were often confused, nevertheless, by the very nature of IE, especially when we wanted to make the font size a little bigger to make stuff easier to read. Call it a double standard or anything else, but we always wondered why IE was willing to increase the font size of some sites while ignoring our wishes for some other sites. We were never really sure what was the reason behind this, but we often thought it does so to preserve layout of the site, preventing it from looking horribly ugly on larger font sizes. That’s fine, we thought, site creators deserve to have their design kept intact. After all, they did spend long time crafting it.

Wrong!

Sorry, did I startle you? Didn’t mean to, but since when do users make compromises that support bad usability decisions implemented in a software. Whatever happened to putting users first, which was supposed to be a cornerstone for modern human-computer interaction designs. We could argue that IE does put users first, with “users” referring to site creators. But this argument is not valid because IE’s main audience are the people who are using it to surf the net, duh!

Here’s a little secret for ya: The reason why IE was willing to enlarge the font size of some sites and not some others is the following:

What is happening in many cases is there is coding that is setting an absolute pixel size for the text. This can happen in several ways. In our case, and many other the websites, the problem starts with our template design and CSS file.

A CSS file is a great convenience. It allows a website to have common definitions that drive the look and feel of each web page. This saves webmasters from adding extra code to every page. Moreover, if we wanted to make a global change, we edit the CSS file and not every web page. In our case, that would be hundreds of pages.

In our CSS file, we have the following line:

font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;

The font-size part is the root of the problem. That line tells the browser to set the font size to 12 pixels. The problem is Internet Explorer doesn’t resize pixels. One way for me to solve this problem is to use ems rather than pixels. Em is another typography measurement, but it is relative and scales as the user elects to change their font size.

Yep, you heard right, the problem started from the site creators themselves, choosing to specify (often on purpose) the size of the font in fixed-form pixel format. While that is an obvious design mistake, IE’s response, as opposed to other browsers, was simply: “hey, those people seem really serious about how exactly big they want the font to be, I guess I gotta stick to that” Well, here is a little tip you should stick right up your … : how about disabling the menu all together in such cases, this way we (the users) won’t be frustrated, busting our brains out trying to figure out why this thing isn’t working!

As if this wasn’t enough, here are 2 more observations, from software usability point of view:

1. Have you noticed how the Text Size menu is safely tucked away inside the View menu? This way, we can successfully hide user interface complexity from novice users, helping them wear out their vision faster on freakishly small font-sizes site creators like to choose to support their high-heeled web design fashion! Better yet, they will most likely choose to print out the content they’re trying to read which, as we all know, is very environment-friendly.
2. I personally would like to meet the person who came up with the following scale (Smallest, Smaller, Medium, Larger, Largest) to help us “humanize” the choice of our font size and ask him: “Exactly how big is Larger?” And “is Largest the largest possible font size in the whole wide world, including all the continents, the oceans and the mountains?” I’d like to think there was a room for one more choice: Larger than Life!Speaking for me, I would rather have the following images” ((”Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cibergaita/54692929/“))” to choose from:

   

   At least this way I can relate: the bigger the smile, the happier my eyes will be!

   Would you like to know how other popular-by-choice browsers are doing this scale? Check out the following images” ((”Source: http://www.smackthemouse.com/ie7bzoom“))” and try to figure out which browser each image is captured from:

   

   

Alright, enough rambling. My true aim from this post was to present a case-in-point scenario for few software usability design guidelines which I’m going to summarize below:

1. Always put the needs of your users first and design according to their perceived and studied usage pattern.
2. Choices = headaches (I’m not too fond with the number of choices, especially the ones in the bottom of the second picture above)
3. Design for usability first, layout second (this goes out for all webmasters in the house)
4. Visual clues are just as important as the functionality itself.

I really can’t remember the last time some new technology just ‘wowed’ me this much, not by a feature or two, but by the entire package as a whole. Apple took about two years in the development of iPhone, and boy were those two years worth the while!

Yes, they were!

You see, unlike other blogs, I’m not going to exhaust the list of all cool, amazing, incredible and sophisticated features of this new phone. All I want to talk about is one thing; one thing that kept striking me all throughout the keynote; one thing that I have always, always, wanted in a freakin’ smart phone: usability.

I believe this factor in mobile phones (and other electronic devices in general) has long been overlooked to the point that it comes last on the list of desired features. Piled-up features together with average or poor unit design all add up to increasing what Alan Cooper describes in his book, The Inmates are Running the Asylum, as: cognitive friction. Here’s a brief description of what this fancy term means:

It is the resistance encountered by a human intellect when it engages with a complex system of rules that change as the problem permutes.

In his weblog, John Wood rephrases this in an easier way:

.. when our tools manifest complex behaviour that does not fit our expectations

So what does this have to do with usability and the whole iPhone thing, you ask? Well, let me give you a neat little formula to make this clearer:

Less cognitive friction = more usability

In other words, the more you design your product to be intuitive, understandable, predictable and consistent, the less cognitive friction you inflict on your users which translates into a much improved usability. Usability is the key to simplicity, so in the end you have one awesome product that packs set of amazing features into a clean interface even a 5-year-old can operate. Oops, I just described the iPhone!

Steve repeated certain keywords fairly often in the keynote I couldn’t help but take note of them. For instance:

• "it’s simple"
• "it just works"
• "the way I want it"
• "how I want it"
• "when I want it"
• "it’s smart"

In my opinion, all those are just synonyms for usability. Without a single doubt, Apple has done an outstanding job in this area. It exceeded by far what the biggest mobile phone makers in the world have been doing for years. Hell, it set a new standard for user-mobile experience. No longer do you have to put up with a phone that gives you one fat button that is supposed to do different functions depending on the screen you’re in. Steve said it, for more than a decade, computers were designed to give us custom options (e.g., different buttons) for each context we’re in. Well, it took the genius of the innovative people at Apple to say: "hey let’s do that for the phone as well"! And so they designed a phone with no static hardware buttons but slew of context-driven soft buttons and finger gestures that are meaningful and easy to learn" (("There’s some debate going on why mechanical or hardware buttons are more useful than soft buttons"))".

I’m not trying to deny that iPhone has its own set of "alleged" flaws which are being debated. There’s no doubt that such new innovation will bring (in its first phase) its own set of problems. However, all I wanted to say in this post is that we all have something to learn from the amount of thought and hard work put into making this device as human-friendly and cognitively-frictionless as possible. Tech newbies and savvies alike will find it easy to learn and operate. Steve’s perfectionism shows all over the device!

So, thank you Steve, and thank you Apple, for raising the bar and setting a new standard for how mobile devices are ought to be in the 21st century. You’re the new leaders of the pack, so innovate on!

In a nutshell, by using Twitter, me and my friends will be able to actually keep in touch all the time. This means they will get updates instantly whenever I decide to let them know of something I’m doing or about to do. It’s sort of a microblog, meaning you’ll be posting short status messages every now and then whenever you feel like it.

What makes this service unique and compelling is the variety of ways you can use to do all of this. Currently, you can use combination of the following to post your updates as well as get updates from people you choose to follow:

• Web (through Twitter website)
• Instant messenger (I use GTalk to post my status updates, I send the messages to a virtual Twitter contact who takes care of posting it on the website and notifying my followers)
• SMS (although this be bit costly, but it’s useful if you don’t have access to internet connection)

Everything about this service screams “let’s keep in touch and socialize”. I believe it’s a wonderful service, a one that is gaining popularity and momentum.

So go sign up now and add me (http://twitter.com/Alaeddin) to your friends and let’s have our little fun with this amazing service.

I recently installed AVG Anti-virus software on my mother’s laptop and found out it was bloated with some sort of Win32.Pr virus that spreads through all exe files it finds in the system. Though it seems not to be harming, I went ahead and told the software to clean all those infected exe files.

Obviously, the AVG Anti-virus software is made up of exe files as well. So as soon as I installed the anti-virus, the aforementioned virus got to them. So while scanning the system, AVG identified its own exe’s as being infected. I said OK, no problem, clean your shit.

But it wasn’t cleaning that it did, it was quarantining (or moving to secure “vault”). And it quarantined its own exe’s (specifically, it’s quarantine module which manages the files in the quarantine). I ended up with 1.6 GB of quarantined exe’s (pretty much all the exe’s in the system) with no way to get them back!

What a lovely situation! I had to format the whole system and install a fresh Windows and the first thing then was to install the AVG software to prevent any similar future situations.