Blog: website

An article by lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com/5896093/use-an-analog-alarm-clock-to-disable-forced-screensavers) showed how someone discovered a new use for an analog alarm clock.  The second hand registers as movement if the mouse is placed on top of the clock (see picture below) when not in use.

So, if you are inspecting the workplace and see a mouse perched on top of a clock, this may be the reason. [more]


 

Read Articles without Clutter:  There is a new “Reader” button on Safari, under IOS 5 (ipads, iphones), that allows you to read the web page textual data without the surrounding clutter (advertisements).  This button is located in the url window as shown below.  There is similar functionality for other browsers supplied by Readability:  http://www.readability.com/. [more]


 

If you travel often, it's nice to have a fairly automated way to keep up with trips.  Tripit.com will collect and organize flights and other reservations (car, hotel, etc.) for you.  The account is free and the iPhone app is also free.  I've been using it lately and found it very useful.

You can forward the confirmation e-mail message from the airline, etc. to plans@tripit.com and it'll automatically create and organize the trip information for you.  Of course you can update things online but the forwarding e-mail feature saves a lot of time. [more]

You can access the trip information from your iPhone app - which is really handy when you're on the road.

There is also an option for Tripit to send you reminders when it's time to get a boarding pass, etc.  Also, you can have it send you reminders (by e-mail, SMS, etc.) re: airline boarding gates, flight status, etc.


 

We frequently use comments in Word documents as part of our information security audit process and I finally looked for a keyboard shortcut to insert a comment.  The shortcut is Ctrl+Alt+M.  However, the most useful thing I found when looking for this was a comprehensive Word 2007 keyboard shortcut list at http://www.keyxl.com/aaa367b/5/Microsoft-Word-keyboard-shortcuts.htmKeyXL.com has keyboard shortcuts for all types of Microsoft, Adobe, Google, and other applications.  It's definitely worth adding a bookmark for if you're a fan of using shortcuts.


 

ServerFault.com is a new site that describes itself as "a collaboratively edited question and answer site for system administrators and IT professionals."  It's free and no registration is required.  The site is kind of like a cross between Yahoo Answers, Wikipedia, and Digg.  Anyone can ask questions on the site.  Other users can vote questions up or down and that affects how visible the question is on the site.  As users answer questions, those answers can be voted up or down and marked as "the answer".  All questions and answers can also be edited like a Wiki.  What you end up with when you run accros the site from google is usually the question your looking for and right below it the best answer to the problem.  Unlike forums where the best answer is the last post in the thread or burried in the middle.  Plus if the something changed and a once correct answer is no longer valid then the correct answer can be edited to be made correct again.  The site was basically built because the developers hated the spamy nature of Experts Exchange and how it always ranked high in Google for their own questions they searched for.  You can read the FAQ (http://serverfault.com/faq) or the About page (http://serverfault.com/about) for more details. [more]

I've been using Server Fault's sister site for a while now while and have found it really useful.  It's URL is StackOverflow.com and it's geared toward software developers.  It started up late last year and already has over 190,000 questions.  Server Fault has been up for less time and only has around 6,000 questions, but it has the potential to take off like Stack Overflow.