Given the fact that I don’t need the cards at a regular frequency and the number on the card is the most important feature I decided to choose an electronic method of storing it so I could carry it with me on my smart phone. To make it easy I decided to use the “Notes” feature of Outlook because they sync with my Blackberry to the “Memo” section. This will ensure I have it in my phone, which I am rarely without and never without when traveling, and it also ensures I have a backup on my corporate network and laptop.

While my form matches the function I was looking for you could also use an only document (such as Google Docs) or print a laminate a single card to replace the multiple cards you would eliminate.

Reader question:

Do you have a favorite technique to eliminate clutter from your wallet or purse?

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Photo by Tony Case (Great Beyond) used under Creative Commons

According to “How David Allen organizes his tasks” he maintains his next actions in Lotus Notes as To-Do category with a simple category that defines the context like “Projects”, “Calls”, “At Computer”, etc.

This process is similar to the quick steps I use to organize my tasks using Outlook 2010 and earlier versions.

I follow three easy steps to get new items from my in-box onto my task list.

1. Flag the message for follow-up, which moves it to the To Do list (a consolidation of task and flagged items).
2. Categorize the e-mail with a context that is relevant. I use @Phone, @Project, @To Approve, @person name (in particular I use this to identify tasks I have delegated for follow-up during review meetings).
3. Move the items to a follow-up folder to avoid cluttering my in-box. This is an important step and with Outlook the software will show all flagged items in the to-do list regardless of the location.

While these three steps may seem too involved to be efficient I have used macros in Outlook 2007 to accomplish these tasks and Quick Steps in Outlook 2010 to make most sorting “one click”.

After I have the messages sorted I can use the To-Do list to execute based on deadline and context to constantly keep the balls in the air.

Reader Question:

How do you manage your task list to be more efficient?

Technorati Tags: Clients, David Allen, Getting Things Done, GTD, IBM Lotus Notes, Mail, Microsoft Outlook, multitasking, task managment, Time Management, Windows

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Below is a speech he gave at the Business of Software Conference in 2009 and featured on his own blog recently.

Among the take away from the speech is to make software as simple possible but include features that will drive usership and eliminate complexity. He provides some great examples in an interesting speech.

Technorati Tags: Business, Business of Software Conference, development, Joel Spolsky, Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems, Usability

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One of the biggest challenges I seem to face when dealing with customers and suppliers is coordinating our schedules for meetings. As a Microsoft Outlook and Exchange user this challenges is inherently easier to overcome by using the Schedule assistant and “Free/Busy” tools.

I use Google Sync to overcome this challenge by synchronizing my work calendar with a calendar on my personal Gmail account. I can then publish the HTML address of this calendar to any contacts I may need to coordinate to provide them my schedule. Since I don’t explicitly provide access to the calendar my contact will only see a view of my free and busy time to allow them to schedule meeting times.

I have found that making my calendar available eliminates numerous e-mail exchanges to synchronize times, especially when there are multiple people involved in a meeting.

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Technorati Tags: Clients, Exchange, Getting Things Done, Google, Google Calendar, Google Sync, GTD, Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Windows

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Used under Creative Commons by thegoldguys.blogspot.com

Seth Godin made a simply but insightful observation that if more people took responsibility at work rather than seeking authority more would get done.

I have managed quite a few people over the past couple years and over time I have been told, “I could do more if you I was a manager.” Or, “I don’t have the authority to discipline people to make them do what needs to get done.” The reality is they seem to misunderstand the correlation or responsibility and authority—by become an authority by becoming responsible not the other way around.

In my years in business there is one common thing I have noticed, problems are begging for somebody to solve them. In most organizations people turn tail and run from the real problems and people who are looking to become leaders in the organization simply need to recognize a problem and take responsibility for solving the problem. The result will likely be that the person solving the problem will become a technical authority in the problem area and with a history of being a problem solver they will also become a sought after resource in the organization.

Responsibility begets authority—get off your ass and take responsibility.

Technorati Tags: Business, responsibility, Seth Godin, Training

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This video certainly doesn’t explain how to “game” Google but the concepts extend how to make your good and relevant content more noticeable in  search tools.

Technorati Tags: Google, Latent semantic indexing, PageRank, Search, Search Engines, Twitter, Web search engine

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I have spent quite a bit of effort honing my skills to make sure that I get things done and more importantly get the right things done but one of the great equalizers seems to be the e-mail in box.

I have found a couple great blog post that are worthy of sharing as well as some links to my past posts to get the Inbox back in order:

1. Time Management Ninja offers 7 Ways to Be Ruthless with Your E-Mail
   1. Don’t be afraid to delete.
   2. Not all e-mail is worthy or a response.
   3. You open in, you own it.
   4. Don’t subscribe to mailing lists.
   5. Don’t read e-mail when you shouldn’t.
   6. Don’t let e-mail rule your time.
   7. Set expectations around your e-mail.
2. Inbox Zero has the links to the original articles that appeared in 43Folders that explain the concepts better than any other source.
3. Total Workday Control by Michael Linenberger covers both a workflow and best practices that follow well into the GTD processing
   1. Delete
   2. Act Now
   3. Mark for reply
   4. Convert action items to tasks
   5. Setup a follow-up task
   6. File the e-mail using categories
4. When filing post I recommend keeping the filing system simple by letting your computer do the work of indexing.
5. Forbes offers an overview of e-mail management in pictures
6. Among the “Five simple rules for keeping am empty inbox” on DownloadSquad is an overwhelming message that e-mails tend to be distractions and a go as far as to say “No one needs to look at their inbox more than once an hour”.

Reader Question:

What sites and post can you recommend to help get the inbox back in order so you can focus on getting the right things done?

Technorati Tags: Blog, Clients, e-mail, Efficiency, Getting Things Done, Inbox Zero, Mail, Mailing list, Merlin Mann, Time Management

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By sorting by conversation Outlook displays your e-mail sorting the most recently discussed topics first (essentially a trending topic view) but then collapses older related e-mail messages based on subject underneath the most recent. This allows me to review only the most recent on the topic before moving the entire group to my reference folder using a Quick Step button. As you can see from the graphic, I am able to minimize the number of messages I need to look at before filing them to the appropriate location.

Using this tool has made sorting and addressing e-mail significantly faster because I have found that it can reduce the number of messages I need to review by 50% or more based on the fact that many e-mails arriving are part of a larger conversation.

If you are interested in implementing this technique Microsoft offer configuration information in their online help.

Reader Question:

What is your favorite Outlook feature to minimize your inbox size?

Technorati Tags: Email, Getting Things Done, GTD, Inbox Zero, Mail, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2010, Windows

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Welcome back Google Sync!

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To be clear, this solution doesn’t allow net metering (the practice of selling power back to the power company when you produce more than your needs) but rather it is intended to offset your power bill by generating some of the power you consume from renewable sources.

Unlike the larger roof based systems most buyers are aware of, which cost $20,000 to $30,000 the Clarian’s target price point will be about $600 to $800, which can be offset by tax credits just like the roof based system and an expected pay back in four years or less.

The base model with a single panel, the expected energy production is 30 to 40 kilowatt hours, which is enough to light an average home using high efficiency light bulbs.

While this isn’t a solution to power your entire home with renewable energy given the ease of installation and portability for renters this appears to be a reasonable solution to make local renewable energy more mainstream.

Technorati Tags: AC power plugs and sockets, Business, DIY, energy, Net metering, Renewable, Renewable energy, Solar power, Wind Power

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This morning when booting my Windows 7 computer I was greeted an error stating: “The server is not responding properly. Verify that the Credential Manager server is properly installed on the target server” when trying to log in. Interestingly this we not the first time I had see the problem since a co-worker was having the exact same issue late the day before; unfortunately I abandoned him before I found out how he resolved the issue.

Upon searching the web I found that this problem is related to the security software installed by the OEM that, among other things, provides the biometric security and manages the “key ring” of stored credentials (i.e. user names and passwords).

Most articles and resolution talked about logging into the computer in safe mode to bypass the credential managers but there is a slightly easier method I found on my Windows 7 computer.

The first thing I did at the login screen was to choose the option to “Swipe finger to log on”, of course this didn’t work since the Credential Manager was not responding but within this screen there is an option that says “Log on with Wizard…” in fine print at the bottom of the screen.

Within the Wizard screen you will see a box with your user name, domain and password but you are looking for a “More…” option in the lower left hand corner of the screen, which upon selecting gives a drop-down menu with an check box stating “Do no lot onto the Credential Manager”.

Upon selecting the option to bypass the Credential Manager I was able to type my user name and password to get into Windows.

While some of the horror stories I read went into grave detail about disabling the software, which I considered, but when I decided to document the resolution steps for my co-workers I rebooted the computer and the problem didn’t reoccur. The only repair actions I took in between logging in and rebooting was going into the Credential Manager to see if there were any readily available options to disable the software if I needed to.

At this time I am leaving the Credential Manager software running since I have discovered how to bypass the “Verify that the Credential Manager server is properly installed on the target server” error and will take more aggressive steps to disable the software if the problem becomes more than an intermittent issue.

I am interested in knowing if this resolved my readers issue and if it didn’t what scenarios may be contributing to the fact that this didn’t resolve the problem.

Technorati Tags: Booting, Credential Manager, error, fix, Login, Microsoft Windows, security, Windows, Windows 7

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I have been using LinkedIn for a number of years to stay in touch with my business and social contact. While I actively use the site I found that it is easier to monitor the network activity on the site from my favorite RSS reader and see when my contact make a link to somebody I already know.

To activate the feature you simply need to click on the orange RSS icon to the right of “Network Activity” on your LinkedIn home page. From there you will be taken to the configuration screen which provides the URL for your RSS feed.

Once the feature is enabled you will be able to monitor all network activity, the most important of which is when your contacts connect with a new contact. You can simple click on the new contact and request a connection as well. This has been particularly effective as an early adopter because I am not seen a larger number of my former co-workers and business contacts join the site and I get notice as soon as a mutual contact finds them.

What is your favorite tip with for your favorite business social networking site? (Leave your tip or a link in the comments)

Technorati Tags: Clients, Feed Readers, LinkedIn, RSS, Social network service, Uniform Resource Locator

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Among the most interesting and educational sights on South Padre Island is the Sea Turtle Rescue Center.  The center is locate on Padre Boulevard near the South Padre Convention center and is comprised of a small give shop and educational center and nearly a dozen tanks containing injured sea turtles.

The rescue center is run by a non-profit organization called Sea Turtle, Inc. which has a mission to rescue, rehabilitate, and release injured turtles as well as educate the public about conserving these endangered animals.  Aside from operating as a veterinary hospital for rescued turtles proceeds from the recovery center are used to help fund three conservation projects in Mexico, Guyana, and the United States of America.

After visiting the Sea Turtle Rescue Center guest will undoubtedly have an appreciation of the natural and man-made risk sea turtles face while enjoying close interaction with these majestic creatures and their attentive caregivers.

Technorati Tags: Endangered species, Mexico, Rio Grande Valley, Sea Turtle, South Padre Island, Texas, Turtle, United States

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As part of my Getting Things Gone process I use the Flag for follow-up function in Outlook to identify messages I need to respond to at a future date. In the past my macro would simply place them unscheduled in a folder called “Follow-up” and I would need to schedule them and categorize them later. I have replaced this process with a new Quick Step that I call “Flag, categorize, and move” which does exactly the name describes. When I select a message and click on the Quick Step I am prompted to categorize the message and then it is moved to the “Follow-up Issues”. I use categories to identify the follow-up context, like @Phone or @person name to trigger my follow-up when it is relevant.

Using this technique I could have just as easily prompted for a follow-up date but I choose not to add the additional step for every item I move.

You will also notice that I have two Quick Steps entitled “@Paul” and “@Julio” which are based on the “Flag, categorize, and move” except the automatically set the category to the proper context. These are two of the most common follow-up categories so I chose to make click options to speed up the process. I have purposefully chosen not limit the number of Quick Steps to minimize clutter and decision making when I am filing and managing my inbox.

Reader question: How would you use Quick Steps to make managing your in-box more efficient?

Technorati Tags: Blog, Business, Clients, Getting Things Done, Google, GTD, life hacks, Lifehack, Mail, Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook 2010, Quick Step, Servers, Windows

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My first and most prominent observation is Office 2010 hasn’t changed that much from Office 2007. There is nothing earthshattering and nothing shocking, like the transition to the ribbon in 2007, and this is great news for those looking to upgrade! The biggest change is the ribbon is now ubiquitous, including Outlook, and it is used rationally and sensibly in Outlook to make the software easier to use.

Equally important to the lack of major changes in the software is the fact that the file formats have not changed from Office 2007 to Office 2010 so in my testing it is fully backward compatible with my coworkers running the prior version. This point has made it much easier to make the transition individually without worrying that I won’t be able to interact efficiently with my coworkers.

Among the biggest changes to Office 2010 was an overhaul of Outlook which makes it much more intuitive:

• Microsoft transitioned the menu from the traditional menu that was still in use in Outlook 2007 to the ribbon that became the standard in most other Microsoft Office applications on the same. For those who are running Office 2007 this is an easy transition and it simplified the menu layout so more functions are displayed in the menu context.
• Another great function that has been added to Outlook is the “Quick Steps”. This is a wizard driven macro builder that is similar to the mail rules but is intended to run “on-click”. One of the most popular blog posts on my site is Outlook Macro: Flag and Move Message to Follow-up Folder and Quick Steps allowed me to eliminate the need for code and quickly enhance the functionality of what I was using the macro to accomplish. Without a doubt I would say this is the single most powerful feature added to Outlook.
• The second most helpful function I have found in Outlook is the implementation of “Conversations” within the folder view. This is similar to grouping a view by subject in earlier version but the feature now allows you to consolidate a conversation regardless of which folder it appears within. By using conversation you can easily consolidate the never ending e-mail strings that frequently fill out inboxes into a single view only showing the most recent—this allows the user skip the messages leading up the most recent without looking at the interim messages.
• As a fan of using “Getting Things Done” and making my storage process simple I have become a fan of using full text indexing and search features in Outlook and Windows I have found with Outlook 2010 the way that the search functions are organized they are more intuitive to use and find information.

After my first week of use one of the questions that come to mind is, “Is the upgrade worth the money?” My response would need to be, “It depends.”

I would say that if you are a power use of Office, or more specifically Outlook, it is probably worth the upgrade to take advantage of the new Outlook functions. This is especially true you are a GTD’er who uses flags and categories extensively. As radical as the suggestion sounds I find the new functions in Outlook would likely pay for the upgrade alone.

The next question that comes to mind, as an IT executive, is, “Is a corporate wide upgrade worthwhile?” My response would need to be, “It depends.”

In my experience the average corporate user is not a power user and doesn’t use their tools effectively to begin with—in fact the average user probably doesn’t extend their use of Outlook beyond e-mail into the contacts or calendar functions. If you have already made your corporate standard Office 2007 most uses will not find the upgrade compelling enough to bother but Office 2007 and Office 2010 are very close in functionality, look, and feel so they can probably live happily in the same environment. If you have not yet upgraded to Office 2007 the upgrade may be worthwhile since Microsoft has proven the ribbon (one of the single most disruptive changes in Office 2007) is here to stay for at least one more version.

The bottom line for me is the verdict is still out if Office 2010 is worth the upgrade for the average user or average company currently running Office 2007 since very little changed on the surface.

Technorati Tags: GTD, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft Outlook, Office 2007, Office 2010, Outlook 2010, review

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Miller, takes on the effort to understand the components of storytelling and explains how they apply to living a life that is a good story rather than just telling a good story. He recognizes his life is his story, and although a successfully author and speaker, his life isn’t compelling; he is wasting his time on trivial things like making up stories rather than living an extraordinary story.

Upon the realization that he needs to make his life extraordinary he leads us into how he changed his own story to make it better. From a grueling trip to Machu Picho to impress a girl, to a cross country bicycle trip, and finally the eclectic cast of real world characters that he begins to surround himself with the story changes for the better and becomes an inspiration to live a different story.

At the heart of Miller’s wisdom is living takes action not desire. Our happiness takes action not desire. He spent his life drifting, like many do, wishing for a better story and inventing a better story in his head and writing them for others to ready but he didn’t really understand what it is was to live. If we want to have of life of meaning we need to live and take responsibility for our life—we can’t expect others to fill a void.

This is a book about Christian spirituality but it isn’t preachy. Miller takes on the topics with Christian views of God but recognizes the flaws of man and our free will within God’s plan. I wouldn’t consider this a traditional self-help book but rather an autobiographical story that explains how the author found meaning and improved his life. For me it was an inspiration to try to live a more meaningful life.

Technorati Tags: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, book, Christianity, donaldmiller, donmiller, God, Million Miles

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Video Link

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Cover via Amazon

I recently completed Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner. This is the follow-up to their best-selling Freakonomics. Super Freakonomics is a little out of the normal productivity and business genera that I normally review on this site but it was a funny and interesting book.

The authors, Levitt and Dubner, take a different slant on microeconomic analysis by looking at analyzing such topics as:

• Why do prostitutes earn less on an inflation adjusted basis now than at the turn of the century and are prostitutes better off with pimps or on their own?
• Is television ruining a society by causing crime or improving the lives of women in rural Indian society?
• Which is more dangerous: drinking and driving or walking home drunks? (…at least for the drunk)
• Do car seats really save lives?
• Can more pollution actual eliminate global warming?
• Is it possible to cause moral decline in monkeys by introducing money?

While most would find a book about microeconomics boring and tedious but the authors’ humor and interesting topic choices did a great job keeping me engages and wanting to keep reading more. While there were points I would gladly argue with their conclusions I was never bored and enjoyed reading this book.

I would defiantly recommend this book.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Freakonomics, Global Cooling, Global warming, Stephen Dubner, stephen j dubner, Steven Levitt, Television

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Among the concepts they cover are:

1. Reduce the number of places you read e-mail
2. Let some e-mail pass by
3. Reduce the number of places you manually file messages
4. Process your e-mail using the 4Ds
5. Reduce you to-do list to once list
6. Work in batches
7. Use good judgment when sending e-mail

While these topice aren’t uncommon GTD sources the Melissa MacBeth does a great job refering each topic to a how-to.

Technorati Tags: David Allen, Getting Things Done, GTD, Mail, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Time Management

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In the past I have written about GTD techniques and my ubiquitous capture system and from the beginning I have noticed a shift in my methods and techniques.  This week I had a bit of an “ah ha moment” when reading a blog post entitled “File Under: Miscellaneous“.

The problem with the Old World

In the tangible world of wooden desktops, filing cabinets, and hanging file folders (I hate those things!) data capture and retrieval takes a lot of forethought.  In my own hard copy files I have a section for Project (major heading) and then a folder for each project (minor heading) I also have a section for hard copy Purchase Requestions that have been returned from my purchasing department.  This all appears organized and easy to file and retrieve documents but after a couple months of use (maybe less) you will find a dilemma–where to I store a purchase requestion related to Project X?  Now I need to consider a set of rules to handle this consistently.

These indexing and referencing problems become more challenging with much larger collections.  Have you ever considered asking why most libraries divide them fiction collections by authors name and their non-fiction by subject?  What happens when I want to find a vampire romance novel?

These are problems in the tangible world because I can’t have the same hardcopy in more than one place at a time.

Breaking the Paradigm in the Digital World

When I first started building my electronic capture system it was based on my hardcopy process.  Identify information, move it to relevant folder, and retrieve it based on my working knowledge of the system (where do I put my project related purchase requsitions?).  This worked well, at least as well has the hardcopy systems that I was already working with.

A couple years into using my capture system I discovered indexing tools I could use to index and search the contents of my desktop like Copernic, Google Desktop, and Windows Search.  Each of these tools provides an efficient desktop index that will allow full text search of the documents stored in your computer and when utilized in conjunction with the extended properties if a document (i.e. keywords filed in a Microsoft Office document) can all you to quickly find relevant data in any indexed folder.

This shift from a directory based system and process is no different than the world experienced when they moved from the early version of Yahoo! (remember when it was a directory not a search engine?) to Google.  The world recognized directory based systems scaled very poorly the outbreak of the Internet, on a micro level this is what many of us managing electronic capture systems learned.  The more data you have, the more referential relevance you have, the more you need to run an index based retrieval process.

The paradigm shift has a little bit of overhead (quite literally some processor overhead to maintain the indexes) but once you embrace the concept most people will recognize there is much less effort involved with an index based system.  While I personally choose to maintain some documents in hierarchal folders, like dividing reference documents from projects, to allow me to archive them once they are no longer active other document types, like e-mail, just get moved from the in box to an archive folder.  I no longer need to put much mental effort into sorting because it is easier to just search for the information I need when I need it.

Consider the impact of this shift in much larger reference systems, like a library.  Google Books epitomizes the strength of full text indexes, consider the search for “ubiquitous capture system getting things done”, I can quickly pull up some relevant passages from the text I want to review and reference.  This method would allow me to concurrently store my non-fiction novels both my author and subject making it much easier to find the Twilight series when I want to read vampire romance novels.

By embracing index based systems I made my storage system as simple as possible and never sacrifice the ability to retrieve information much more quickly than my former directory bases system.

Technorati Tags: David Allen, Getting Things Done, Google, Google Books, GTD, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Search, Search Engines, Web search engine, Yahoo

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A couple weeks ago I upgraded my laptop from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10. This was my third time using the automated upgrade available through the built in upgrade manager.

As usual my experience was that Ubuntu made the upgrade simple and I only had one minor issue related to my sound device not working following the upgrade. After Google Search and search of the community forums I was able to find an easy resolution.

Now if only it were this easy and inexpensive (free) to upgrade to Windows 7….

Technorati Tags: Google, Laptop, Searching, Ubuntu, Windows 7

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Like many on the Internet I have been a devote GMail user for a number of years and have grown to love the fact that it allows me to store gigabytes of e-mail on-line. Of course with this much content it becomes unwieldy to find just the right e-mail without mastering a couple of search skills.

The most important thing a GMail user can learn are some of options available for advance search and how to combine them to narrow your selection.

Advance search simply refers to combining keywords in a structured way to allow the Google search engine to operate that way the user intends. For example, instead of simply typing “John” and hitting search you can qualify the message with “from:John” or “to:John” to get only the messages that were sent from or to John. The first sample will include all messages that contain the word “John” while the the other two will provide just the messages from or to him.

Google has a number search terms available for use including:

• from – Used to identify the person who sent the message.
• to – Used to specify a person in the recipient list.
• subject – Used to search the subject line.
• has:attachment - Is used to identify messages that contain attachments.
• quotes – Are used to provide exact phrasing for the search.
• in:inbox – Limits the search to the in-box.
• in:anywhere – Searches all ares of Gmail except the Spam and Trash folders.
• after – Returns only messages sent or received after a certain date.
• before – Returns only messages sent or received before a certain date.

(Google offers a complete list of additional terms in their Support page)

Once you learn the search terms you can combine them to gain control over your messages. For example you want to find all messages from Bill regarding an Halloween party you may type a search phrase as follows: “from:bill after:10/1/2008 before:11/1/2008 subject:halloween or party”. Assuming Bill is a common correspondent this would return a much narrower set of results than just searching on “bill halloween party”.

Once you have a firm grasp of the search techniques you will be able to quickly and efficiently recall messages from your GMail in-box.

Technorati Tags: Getting Things Done, Gmail, Google, Google search, GTD, Productivity, Search, Search Engines, Spam, Web search engine

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A couple months ago I explained how I installed Ubuntu on my Acer Aspire One, unfortunately following that post the screen got damaged so I hadn’t been using the system. Recently I was talking with a co-worker who wanted to use watch MLB.com on his television to catch his hometown team when they were not broadcast locally; this gave the broken Aspire a new breath of life as a media player.

While this wasn’t a terribly complicated project I found it was a good way to take re-use the laptop with a broken monitor in a constructive way.

First, thing you need is a television that can accept VGA inputs. While this may seem to be pretty straight forward, when I bought my living room television I wasn’t considering this option and as such it doesn’t have the required input. If you have a television with a VGA input you it should also have an audio input for the laptop output.

Once you have a television with the appropriate input all you need is a VGA cable and an appropriate audio cable (usually mini plug to mini plug but could be mini plug to RCA). Since I also wanted to be able to control the computer from across the room I added a wireless keyboard and mouse, but before doing so I was controlling it from another laptop using the built in remote desktop functions (Vino).

Once connected to the television I can use the laptop as a media player for almost any media I would like, or on-line content like Youtube or Hulu.

Bill of Material:

Technorati Tags: Acer Aspire, Hulu, MLB.com, RCA connector, Television, Ubuntu, VGA connector, YouTube

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