Productive Thursday

Digging Deeper: Searching in Windows

June 23, 2011 by Tom Wijsman. 9 comments

In the series of digging deeper within our files, we’ve had Spotlight and mdfind on Mac OS X. Now we’re back with a Windows counter-part article; where we will outline Windows Search and Search Everything for Windows…

Next in our series will be an article on digging deeper in Linux! 🙂

Better Know your Wireless Router

June 9, 2011 by jcrawfordor. 11 comments

Almost everyone these days has a small box with antennae somewhere in their house. It may look innocent, but while it’s killing your babies it’s also applying multiple filters and rulesets to the thousands of packets coming in and out of your network every day. Wireless routers are ubiquitous today, but there’s a lot of people (even those very competent with computers) that aren’t quite sure how their router should be set up. In this tall post, I’ll show you through the common options and settings on a home router and explain what each does and how you might want to set them, along with some tips for a fast and secure network.

A second look at Soluto: Add-ons and Crashes.

May 26, 2011 by Tom Wijsman. 1 comments

Remember our first review of Soluto where we took you through the installation procedure, improving your boot time and what PC Genome might be? Soluto has released two new features this week, we are going to check them out and tell you what PC Genome really is about!

Never heard of Soluto before or are you new to it? Let me give you a summary:

Soluto’s goal is to bring an end to the frustrations PC users encounter, with transparency, killer technology, and the wisdom of the crowd. Soluto’s software combines low-level technology with collective wisdom to detect PC users’ frustrations, reveal their causes, and learn which actions really eliminate them to improve user experience.

You should already know the boot feature from last review and there were only some minor changes there so in fact it means that you can now “chop” it, let’s instead see how we can “lighten” your web browser and “heal” those annoying crashes.

How do I plan my vacation? Geek edition

May 19, 2011 by Tom Wijsman. 2 comments

Summer is coming, did you plan your vacation yet? Looking for something else than those pre-made vacations? Read on, we’re going to look at software that helps you plan your vacation in a more productive and geeky way.

Even if you did plan your vacation or went for a pre-made one, you might get to know more about the area you are going to be in on your vacation.

Looking for your ideal location, hotel, banks, shopping, restaurants, info, beautiful places and more…

Google Earth should be your first stop to search for good weather, a location that’s close to the sea or perhaps snowy mountains. Then, you can look around the place and get to know it by watching pictures, 360° panoramas, walking routes, webcams and videos. If you like the place you can start looking into the hotels, knowing where the bank and shopping center are alongside the touristic routes and restaurants.

Be sure to know where the info points are so that you can still go and ask for something more specific; it can happen that you need to visit the local police, garage or doctor. Well, let’s hope it doesn’t happen, but it’s better that you know how to reach those in advance…

A first look at Soluto: Elegant anti-frustration software.

May 12, 2011 by mokubai. 5 comments

Soluto bills itself as “anti-frustration software.” At the moment it is simply a rather elegant Windows start-up program manager, but what sets it apart is that simple elegance and the wealth of information and options that it gives to the user. There is also an intriguing peek at the future of Soluto in their PC Genome Project.

The Soluto website itself is pretty minimalistic, giving you only as much information as you need; a “download” link, an quick video description, and a couple of recommendations from users are all that grace the page past the obligatory logo and title bar style navigation buttons.

How to get your questions answered?

May 2, 2011 by Tom Wijsman. 1 comments

Sometimes, when you pose a question about a problem that you have for which you are dying to get a solution, you seem to barely get attention. You are about to give up on your problem… Wouldn’t it be a good idea to do a small effort to get a lot of attention to your problem? Examining how top questions get a lot more attention will learn us how to get attention.

First off all, we need a bad example and a good example of questions in order to do some comparison. As the active questions result in a mix of good and bad examples, we will be looking at the hot questions and month questions instead.

Two hot questions that look bad just by looking at the exterior are these:

I’m really sorry if your question is listed here…

Two hot month questions that look very good and received much attention are these:

Don’t the differences look interesting? You can really tell them apart, so there is something we can do about the first questions.

Organize your space to be more productive

April 14, 2011 by kronos. 2 comments

Does your work area look like this:

or this:

or how bout this monster:

If it does, then you’ve got a problem. Having an unorganized area leads to major issues with productivity. If you have to spend a half hour just looking for a spare part vs. a quick 5, then you’re wasting 25 minutes. We’re going to go over some steps on what to do with those crazy unorganized areas:

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