How to Make an Insanely Simple Paperless Filing System

This is a guest post by Arjun Muralidharan, author of The Productive Student, a new blog about productivity for college students and all productivity buffs.

Mark’s paperless project has always been a favorite of mine to follow. He uses DevonThink to manage incoming documents from his Fujitsu ScanSnap.

It’s a good system, but for me, it lacks two things:

1. It doesn’t handle all my files, such as Word documents, Keynote presentations and other file types well.
2. Third-party software independence.

In accordance with GTD, I like to have a comprehensive system that’s cross-platform and can live independently from software such as DevonThink.

While a system with DevonThink will work for many of you, I’m sure some of you out there will value a more flexible, portable system.

Here’s my filing system, using just Mac OS X and Quicksilver, and optionally, Leap.

The System

Single Alpha System

I have hanging folders for each letter of the alphabet as my physical storage system. I find this system works extremely well, as far as retrieval is concerned. There’s a maximum of 26 places I can look for in the worst case, usually you can narrow it down to 3 or 4.

It takes 10 minutes to make but is extremely easy to navigate as you’ll see.

This system resides within a Reference folder. This folder practically holds my entire life.

Filing Stuff

This is where Quicksilver comes into play. Quicksilver can be described as a launcher for Mac OS X, but it basically provides instant access to a lot of functionality and interaction with files. You can get it at Blacktree Software.

Let’s take a typical scenario:

You have file that’s landed in your inbox, either by downloading it from the internet, an email attachment, or a direct PDF scan from your scanner. Here, I have an eBook version of George Orwell’s 1984.

I want to achieve the following: Put the file into my system in a folder named “eBooks”.

Two problems arise:

1. The folder eBooks doesn’t exist yet.
2. Conventionally moving a file is a pain in the backside.

With Quicksilver, it’s easy:

1. Highlight the file with your mouse (click once).
2. Invoke Quicksilver.
3. Type “E” to go to your “E” folder.
4. Press Tab, and type “N” to select the “New Folder” command.
5. Press Tab again, and type “eBooks”, and Enter to create the folder.
6. Now type Command+G to drop your highlighted file into Quicksilver.
7. Press Tab, and type “M” to choose the “Move to…” command.
8. Press Tab and type “E” to go to the E-Folder.
9. Use the arrow keys to drill down to the “eBooks” folder, and hit Enter.

While the instructions seem lengthy, once you get used to it you’ll find it extremely fast and comfortable to do. The last two steps are necessary because Quicksilver will not have indexed your newly created folder yet, so you have to manually drill down. No big deal.

Retrieval

Finding a file is extremely simple, thanks to Mac OS X and the OCR software included with most scanners these days, including the Fujitsu ScanSnap. Since the files are simply living as normal files within the OS, Spotlight search finds them with ease.

Hmm… I had that cool novel about Big Brother… what was it called?

Ah, there it is!

That’s my portable filing system. It’s flexible, cross-platform, and I can whack all my files on a thumb drive and walk to Windows as well. If you enjoyed this, be sure to stay tuned to Mark’s blog right here and my new blog over at The Productive Student.

Reader Question - Emailing Your Boss

How to write emails to your boss

Don’t try to impress your boss with the length of your email. Most of the time they will appreciate a short and to the point message. If you need to explain something in more detail, consider listing the main points as bullets at the top and add the rest of your explanation at the bottom or as an attachment. This allows them to quickly grasp the issue without reading through several hundred words.

Another advantage of a short message is that it is more likely to get read. If your boss is busy, they may read a short email and leave longer ones to be read later.

You can help your boss prioritize your emails, by adding a short code in the subject. For example, anything you need to tell your boss just to keep them in the loop should have a subject starting with FYI:. You can create other prefixes based on whatever works best for you. By helping your boss categorize emails before even reading them you increase the chances that your important messages will get prompt attention.

Often the best thing to do is to sit down with your boss and ask how they prefer for you to communicate. Some bosses like status reports throughout the week via email. Others prefer to handle everything in a weekly meeting. Having this discussion with your boss shows that you value their time and work style and can lead to a much stronger working relationship.

It is also a good idea to figure out how many subjects to deal with in a single email. If your boss sorts emails into folders and then deals with them, you probably don’t want to write an email the covers 10 different topics. At the same time, your boss probably doesn’t want to come in Monday morning and find 20 short emails from you about various things. Usually it is a good idea to batch FYI type messages, but separate emails by topics for items that require your boss’ answer or action.

Paperless with the Kindle

James Harris has some interesting thoughts on going paperless when it comes to magazines. In particular he looks at how his Kindle has changed the way he reads. I have a Sony Reader which uses a similar screen and I agree with him that it is a very pleasurable way to read. Here are some quotes from his post.

We are really very close to having a paperless society that pundits have talked about every since I can remember. People always exclaim they hate reading off the computer screen even though they spend hours a day doing so. Now the Kindle offers a better way to read, even better than paper, and that starts to suggest going paperless is possible.

I’m a little less optimistic. I think we have a long ways to go before the infrastructure for really being paperless is in place. I agree that all the technology is there, but things have to hit a critical mass before they really become useful and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Paper is still very inexpensive. The used paperback I bought for $1.00 is very durable and I could go through 300 of them before approaching the cost of an electronic reader. Even more important, the books still retain some value after I read them. I can give them away, sell them, or trade them in for other reading material.

I think electronic readers would start making sense if a $15 book was now $3 or $4, but they aren’t. Publishers are trying to keep the prices only slightly lower than the print editions even though they are basically one-time-use.

Consider a DVD, you can buy it for $15 or rent it for $2.50. (I know that technically you can read your electronic book again, but in actual use you probably won’t read an electronic book over and over again.) The use of an electronic book is more in line with renting a DVD. However, to buy a book for the Kindle, you’ll pay $10 while a hardback will typically cost $15 to $17. Paperbacks will usually run a bit less and if you buy the book used it can be substantially less. You read the book and then eventually delete them if you run out of space on the Kindle–or you keep it around indefinitely. With the physical book, you can resell it, if you purchased it used, you’ll probably only be out the shipping costs to purchase it–maybe a bit more. You can share your ebook with other people who you trust to use your $300 digital reading device, but that is about it–oh and you can’t read something else while they read it.

When it comes to magazines and newspapers the economics are a bit different. A newspaper typically has very little value a few days after it is published (unless you keep birds and need something to line the cage). So there is pretty much no resell value in a newspaper and it is unlikely that you will loan the paper to someone else. The Wall Street Journal on the Kindle costs $10 per month. At $120 per year it is about the same cost as the physical edition along with the online access option.

I feel like I’m getting more for my money with paper but I actually read more stories when I get the Kindle edition.

That is an interesting observation. Based on the numbers above, he is getting more for his money when buying a book. It would probably be a better test to see how he feels in 18 months after the novelty of the Kindle wears off a bit. One of the nice things about something like the Kindle or Sony Reader is that they are limited use devices. When you try to read on your computer it is easy to jump around opening other browser windows, looking things up, and clicking on interesting advertisements or links. The electronic readers are much more focused on reading, so it tends to be easier to read longer stretches at a time with them than on the computer.

An interesting side note is what Steve Jobs said about reading books on the iPhone. He basically said, “people don’t read any more”. Interestingly enough people do still buy books. So even if reading is going down book purchases are still going well. But if people are buying books they aren’t reading, they are probably going to be more interested in something that will sit on their bookshelf than a file that other people can’t see.

Do you use a digital reader of some type? What do you think it would take for digital books to really take off?

Getting the Most from a Large Monitor

Recently I read about a study that showed productivity increased (up to 52% increase for certain tasks) when people used a larger monitor–up to 24 inches. After that productivity started dropping off again. Having used monitors 24 inches or larger for the past 3 years, I’ve learned a few things about getting the most from screen real estate. I think I know why productivity doesn’t continue to go up with even larger screens.

To use a larger screen effectively you have to break a lot of bad habits developed over years of using smaller display devices. This is a lot harder than it sounds. In this article I want to explore some of the ways to get more from your screen as well as some tips to force yourself to use your desktop more effectively.

1. Don’t Maximize Out of Habit

People who are use to a 17 inch monitor tend to maximize the current application. This seems to be especially prevalent in Windows users, but I’ve seen many Mac users do the same thing. On a 17 inch monitor, this may be exactly what you need to do in order to see the whole application. It is hard to work when you constantly need to scroll back and forth to see everything.

However, when you do the same thing on a 30 inch monitor, you often end up wasting screen real estate. Most applications are designed to work on smaller monitors and there is no advantage to spreading them all over your screen. If the application simply stretches the contents of the window across the screen, you aren’t benefiting from the extra space.

This image is of Productivity501 maximized to fill the screen. While it is a very fine looking site, notice that 2/3rds of the space is just wasted with a lovely black gradient. We could open two more sites of the same width before we’d have to start minimizing and maximizing to jump from window to window.

Some people may prefer to maximize an application in order to block out other windows so they can focus. While this makes sense, the bad habit of maximizing everything isn’t worth developing. If you need to block out other things, minimize all the other windows and keep your desktop clear of clutter.

In some cases maximizing your application will actually make it more difficult to read. If you have a large monitor, try opening a text file, make it fill the screen at a normal sized font and then try to read it. Your aren’t made to read text like a long CNN ticker all the way across your screen. In normal reading your mind uses the shape of the paragraphs to help keep its place. With a super long line of text, it is easier to get lost and you have to spend a lot more effort on the reading process instead of the content.

This isn’t to say you should never fill your screen with an application. There are some applications that work very well full screen–particularly video/audio editing or large spreadsheets. But by default you should try to keep things at their most efficient size so you can open other applications while maintaining full visibility. This is especially true if you are trying to work with more than one application at a time.

2. Optimize Your Applications

Some applications are setup to take advantage of large screens automatically. Excel is a good example. If you fill your screen with Excel it will show you more cells and you can view more of a spread sheet at a time. Other applications take a bit of configuration to make things work efficiently. Since we talking about Office applications lets look at Word.

Word lets you view things in variety of different ways. With a smaller monitor the most effective way to view your page is in Web Layout mode. In Web Layout mode, your text wraps to the width of the screen. This means you can read a complete sentence without needing to scroll side to side - regardless of what zoom level you use or how big of font you are typing with. It isn’t a WYSIWYG layout. It is designed to let you focus on writing not layout.

Web Layout mode is great if you have a smaller monitor or bad eyes. It is also good if you are trying to work with several programs at the same time and need to see your text in a thin window. This image shows an example of Word in Web Layout mode (on the right), Email (center top), preview of this article (center bottom), and the window I’m writing this article in (left).

The Web Layout mode lets the text wrap to fit the screen. This keeps you from having long lines, but the height of the window makes it easy to see a lot of text.

However, on a large screen, if you are only working with Word and no other applications Web Layout doesn’t really take advantage of the larger screen. If you switch to the print layout you can see an entire page as it will be printed. This can be ideal if you are working on a shorter document or working with Word while referencing web pages or other documents in other applications.

If you are just focusing on writing, you may want to change the settings to allow two pages side by side. In the newest version of Office for OS X that is adjusted by going into the View > Zoom settings. You can select how many pages you want to show on the page at the same time and it will automatically adjust the zoom size to make them fit.

Other applications can be optimized in other ways. For example, I do most of my programming in Eclipse. Eclipse organizes open files in tabs. This is very efficient on a small monitor or when you only want to dedicate half your screen to Eclipse and the other half to a web browser or Dreamweaver. However, when you plan to work in Eclipse only for a long period of time you can split the document window in two and display to sets of tabbed documents side by side. This is extremely efficient if you want to work on Java code in one window and the corresponding HTML in another

3. Rotate Your Monitor

Most monitors are wider than they are tall. Most documents and files are longer than they are wide. This means we are constantly trying to fit vertically oriented materials into a horizontal space. Many monitors are made to rotate 90 degrees so they are tall instead of wide. For many types of applications, this is ideal–especially if you have a medium size monitor (22- 24 inches) and are working on something that is vertical and requires a lot of detail. Examples would be doing the layout on a single page flyer that uses a lot of graphics, working on an excel spreadsheet that is very long but not very wide, or working on your dissertation past the point where your eyes start to blur and you need to set your zoom to make the words as big as possible.

Writing code can benefit from a vertically oriented monitor but often it will encourage you to write longer methods than you would with a monitor with less vertical space. A rotated monitor can also be a great way to read on the computer. You can keep things large so there is as little strain on your eyes as possible. The vertical layout allows you to see more of the page while maintaining a shorter side to side scan distance.

4. High Resolution

I have seen people buy a large beautiful monitor capable of very high resolution, decide everything is too small and fix the problem by bumping down the resolution. If you plan to do this, don’t buy a monitor. Go to Walmart and buy a big LCD television with a DVI or VGA input. LCD televisions are lower resolution to start with and you’ll pay a lot less than you will for an equivalent size (physical size) monitor.

Here are two screen shots on my 30 inch display. The first is at 2560 x 1600 pixels. The second is at 1280 x 800 pixels. Notice how much bigger this site looks in the seconds. The site isn’t actually bigger, the screen is just using 4 pixels as a single pixel in the low resolution version. This means windows take a lot more space on the screen since every pixel is now 4 times as big.


With an LCD monitor the highest resolution possible is going to be the optimal resolution. (There may be some exceptions to this in monitors that try to “fake” higher resolution, but this isn’t the norm.) At optimal resolution each pixel in the computer maps to one pixel on the screen. If you use a lower resolution, each pixel in the computer maps to multiple pixels on the screen. This will usually make things look fuzzy.

If you need to make things bigger while maintaining high resolution look in your operating system settings. Windows allows you to change the font size used in menus and on the desktop. OS X was supposed to have the ability to fully scale everything in 10.5, but it didn’t make it into the final version.

Also consider adjusting your applications. For example, in Office you can set your zoom size to make things bigger. In code editors you can adjust your font size. With web browsers you can adjust the font size up and down. (Apple + and Apple - on the mac)

When I first upgraded from a 24 inch monitor to a 30 inch, I had a friend ask me if I found myself pushing back from my desk because of the monitor size. Actually I found the opposite was true. I had to move closer to my monitor than I had with the 24 inch because the new monitor had more pixels per inch than the older one. This meant I needed to be closer to make things the same relative size in my field of vision.

There is talk about making operating systems with complete resolution independence, but that hasn’t happened yet. When it does, you will be able to adjust the size of everything on your screen while still maintaining the best quality possible.

5. Setting Proper Program Sizes

If you don’t feel you are using your space efficiently and your applications just seem to get larger and larger until they fill the screen, here is a trick that might help you. Try temporarily adjusting your resolution down, adjust your programs until you can see them–even if this means simply maximizing all of them, then go back to your regular resolution. The applications should stay the same size (from a pixel standpoint) so when you go back to full resolution they should be much smaller and you can arrange them on your screen however makes the most sense.

This seems to work best if you have a very large monitor with high resolution. On a 20 or 22 inch monitor it might not help you very much.

This is just a trick to help you resize your applications. You can do just as well by watching for empty space and trying to avoid it. If you find you are spreading single applications wider than they need to be, simply resize them down.

This image shows Wordpress when I was writing this article. All the white space on the right hand side is a good indication that I’ve stretched my window more than what is useful. By itself this isn’t a bad thing, but if I have to minimize windows or move things around to get to other applications I’m trying to use at the same time it slows me down. By making the window less wide I now have more room for my other applications. Which means less time spent switching back and forth.

6. Watch Your Workflow

Watch how you actually use your computer. If you are constantly minimizing and maximizing applications, see if there isnt’ a way to keep them both in view at the same time. Even if your monitor isn’t big enough for two applications side by side, you may be able to get some of the benefits by overlapping them with one sticking on the right and one on the left. This lets you switch back and forth without needing to maximize from the dock or menu bar.

Keep in mind that you probably have years of practice in not using a large screen. It will take some time to identify the best way to use it for your particular setup and needs.

Group Interview - Organized Computer

Everyone has a different approach to organizing their computer files.What single tip would you give someone to stay productive in their computer organization?

Take time to think about the top-level folders. How do you normally refer to, or think about, things? Then label the top level accordingly and put the ensuing files where you intuitively would refer to them. I confess, I tried to convince myself that because it is a computer, somehow it would organize me! Alas, I find that I have to be intentional and schedule weekly sessions with the computer just like a would a client. Steve Roesler from All Things Workplace (rss)

I’ve actually had good luck with self organization using DEVONThink. Once you setup your structure and file some of your documents, you can have it automatically file future documents based on their contents. So if you are filing a contract, it will look for other documents similar to the contract and suggest a place to put it. This works reasonably well, but it still requires some effort. I think the idea of taking some time each week to make sure things are getting unorganized is an excellent idea.

Regular clean-outs. When you have 100GB’s of space, you don’t feel the need to trash anything. Going through a semi-regular dump of all unused files is helpful. Scott H Young from ScottHYoung.com (rss)

Large drives make it easy to keep junk. It is hard to force yourself to spend a lot of time cleaning up your documents when 30 minutes worth of work only frees up .5% of your drive. Having some type of regular schedule for cleaning things up can help keep things from getting out of hand.

Delete as much as you can, or back it up onto removable media. However, I am an extremist when it comes to simplicity. I use Picasa to manage my photo collection on an 80gb hard drive, but I burn all my photos to DVD and remove them from the hard drive once they are a month old. I just can’t handle the data clutter. We accumulate so much data on our computers. Do we really need it all? If so, find a program that will catalog the data for you. Otherwise, get rid of it. I know data storage is cheap, but our time and ability to process it all is a limited resource. John Reeve from Intervals find time (rss)

I tend to be very paranoid about optical media, so I don’t like to trust my data to be just in one place. John does make a good point about keeping your stuff cleaned up on a regular basis. It is a lot more difficult to force yourself to edit photos from 2 years ago than it is to choose the 5% “keepers” from the past weekend. Finding a good way to organize all of your data can be pretty difficult–particularly with things like photos, videos and audio. I’m having good luck with iPhoto for my pictures, but if I wasn’t using a Mac I’d probably look at Picasa again.

To arrange things so that person can find his or her files. I organize so it fits me, not someone else; idea of what fits for me. I have a fairly broad file organization, because I’m one of those people who need to see “everything out.” I don’t care if I have lots of folders that don’t have much in them. Johanna Rothman from Managing Products Development (rss)

Good point. Another important principle is to be open to restructuring things if your current structure doesn’t seem to be working well for you.

My single tip would be to structure your folders logically (in a tree structure, for instance), and to use names that clearly indicate what is inside. If you don’t have that habit after one year you won’t be able to find things easily. Daniel Scocco from Daily Bits (rss)

Personally I find that creating a logical structure is a lot more difficult than it sounds. I find myself constantly re-arranging things to try to get a reasonable structure that makes it easy to find things.

Put dates consistently in file names. If you can’t remember a client name four years later, at least you’ll remember when you were working on the project and still be able to find a file. For example, recent project I worked on with Leo Babauta of Zen Habits is titled 080312_ZenHabitsPost.txt. Erin PJDoland from Unclutterer (rss)

I do this as well, but I use a sightly different format. I will try to name everything as 20080325-filename.jpg That way if I sort the file by name, it will show up in the correct order. With a 2 year date, you’ll probably be fine going forward. I started doing this back in the 90’s so the 4 digit date helps keep things organized even if it was from last century. I have an automated process that renames all of my pictures before I import them to my computer. This is particularly useful if at sometime in the future you need to change all of your documents to a different format and the file date changes.

Use online office tools Glen Stansberry from LifeDev (rss)

I think this is particularly useful if you have to use a bunch of different computers and you almost always have a high speed connection. My preference is to have my hard drive sync with online office tools, so I have access from where ever I happen to be, but I can easily use my computer offline if I don’t have a connection to the internet. IMAP email is a great example of this. I can login from the internet to check my email using webmail, but I can also go through and deal with emails while driving in the car without a connection and just have everything sync up when I get back on the internet.

Folder Template Video

Several months ago, I did a post where I talked about creating folder templates. I’ve created a short You Tube video that shows the folder templates in action. I’m a bit disappointed with the You Tube quality, but I’m going to post it anyway in hopes that someone will find it useful.

Reader Question - Checking Email Abroad

How do I access my email from a foreign country?

In most countries you can check your email just like you do in the US. If you are using a web mail provider like Gmail or Yahoo, you just have to find an internet connection. Many countries have internet cafes where you can use their computer for the internet by paying an hourly fee. If you are in China or another country where they limit citizen’s access to certain sites on the internet, it might be more difficult to check your email.

If you are traveling with a laptop and want to download your mail, things should still work about the same as in the US. Many internet cafes will let you connect into their network with your laptop for the same hourly fee.

When you are using another computer, be sure to clear all your browser settings. Be especially careful not to let the browser remember your password when you check your mail. If you are using your laptop, it is a good idea to make sure that you check and send email through a secure connection and that you aren’t sending your password as clear text where others can see it by watching the network. Also if your email provider offers SMTP on a port other than 25, you should use the alternate port. That way if some of the providers block port 25 to fight viruses that send spam, you’ll still be able to send messages.

A few weeks ago I had a discussion with some people who were missionaries going into countries where they were not allowed. The wanted to know how to avoid the government viewing their emails. I told them that if they used something like Gmail over the web on their personal computer, they were probably pretty safe. The traffic is encrypted between their laptop and the Google servers in the US. However, they would need to be careful about any unencrypted sites the visit.

Another problem would be using a public computer. Even if the connection to the email service is encrypted, the computer itself could be recording your interactions. If using a standalone mail program (instead of web based email) they would need to make sure that all of their traffic was going over SSL for both sending and receiving.

American Express Concierge 3

On Mondays we’ve been discussing working with a remote assistant.  We’ve taken a brief side trail for a few weeks looking at actually trying to use American Express’ concierge service.  This week I’m going to show an attempt to use the service to find housing in Mexico.  My wife and I lived in Durango Mexico for a few months and couldn’t seem to find any type of furnished housing.  I figured the concierge would be good at locating this type of thing–especially since dealing with lodging in other countries seems to be something American Express advertises they do well.

Here is the message I sent:

 I am looking at spending some time in Mexico next fall. Specifically I am looking at the town of Durango in the state of Durango. Could you see if there are any furnished apartments/homes available down there?  At this point I’m just looking to get an idea of what would be available and what the pricing would be.

Here is what I need:

- At least 2 bedrooms.
- Accepts a small dog (around 9 pounds)
- Highspeed internet connection
- No scorpions

Thanks!

Mark

I got a message back saying that I needed to contact their “Villas of Distinction” department.  I called them and when they realized I was looking for something longer than 3 months, they directed me back to the concierge service.  The representative offered to call the concierge service and get them back on the task for me only to call me back an hour latter saying that they wouldn’t talk to her an I would need to call them back.

I emailed them back again with the following:

I spoke with Michelle and was told that they only handle very short term type arrangements.  I’m looking for something for 3 months.  Michelle tried to call concierge to tell them to go ahead, but concierge wouldn’t help her help me unless I sent a response to my original request (see your response below).

I’m pretty confused why you couldn’t take Michelle’s call and look up my original request.  It very much seems like I’m getting bounced around which does away with the benefits of this type of service anyway.

I’m trying again.  Please see my original request below.  If the concierge who receives this just doesn’t feel like helping, please pass it on to someone who can be helpful.  Also please include the name of the person responding so if I get the run around again I can at least know who I was talking with–especially if they try to pass me off to a different department.

Thanks

Mark

For the careful readers out there, you might be able to detect that I was a bit frustrated with getting bounced around.  It seemed like the concierge service was getting paid to respond to requests–not necessarily do anything useful with them.

A few days later I received their reply:

I hope your day is going well. After contacting some companies in Durango, DGO I unfortunately was not able to find any companies or private properties for rent. I also consulted the Durango Tourism that informed me there weren’t any agencies in Durango who deals with property rentals. The Durango Tourism suggested perhaps placing an ad in one of the local papers or searching the paper classified. I believe the market for rentals in Durango, DGO is not in great demand.

Paper: The voice (La Boz De Durango)
Phone:  52-618 812 9911
Website: www.lavozdedurango.com

Paper: The Sun (El Sol)
Phone:  52-618 811 2100
Website: www.oem.com.mx

Paper: El Siglo
Phone: 52-618 813 7080
Website: www.elsiglodedurango.com.mx

I do apologize I was not able to locate a rental property for you. If there is anything else I can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to contact us.

While this is useful, it isn’t what I had hoped for.  In their defense, the concierge does seem to have legitimately tried to locate a place.  And if nothing is available it definitely isn’t her fault.

My experience with the concierge service is that (for the most part) they won’t be able to do anything faster for you than you can do it yourself.  Many times it will take longer because of the back and forth required.  A couple people have suggested that calling in will get you better service because they can ask you questions on the phone.

One thing interesting to note is that the concierge service isn’t even provided by American Express directly.  It is provided by a company called Circles Company Associates, Inc.  They provide concierge services that you can bundle with the products you offer your customers or as a perk for employees.  So if you are big company you can give all your employees concierge services by signing up with Circles.

Their service might be a little more useful if you are in a big city or traveling to large cities. They can probably do a better job of finding a great restaurant in Chicago than finding a place to stay in a non-vacation area of central Mexico.  The bottom of their emails usually encourages you to call them about sending flowers or gifts for birthdays or special occasions so that might be another area where they shine.

American Express Concierge 2

Last Monday we looked at using the American Express concierge service for scheduling a tuneup on my car. This week we will try something else. I have been looking for radiometers to send as a corporate gift to some of my clients. (A radiometer looks light a light bulb but instead of a filament it has metal vanes that spin in the sunlight.) Unfortunately most of the ones I’ve found for sale were packaged for kids science experiments. The radiometers are fine, but the packaging doesn’t look very “corporate”.

I figured this sounded like a job for super concierge, so I called them with a request. I explained what I was looking for and in particular asked them to find a radiometer with packaging that didn’t look like it was designed for kids.

Initially the responded with a very nice handmade radiometer, that was well outside of my stated budget. It seems they had misunderstood and were looking for a really classy radiometer instead of a normal radiometer in decent packaging. Emailed back explaining this.

Several days later they replied with:

Dear Mr. Shead,

I hope your day is going well. As you requested in your email to American Express Concierge, I have researched some additional options of a radiometer. I have detailed these online options below for your review. What a great promotional item for you to give to your business colleagues. As it sits on their desk, they can wonder at seeing thermodynamics in action with this wonderful Crookes invention, and they will be reminded of your business at the same time! I have included the shipping options for 10-20 items, and also detailed the previous suggestion we sent you.

Vendor: American Science & Surplus
Address: Online
Phone: 888-724-7587
Website: http://www.sciplus.com/singleItem.cfm/terms/7793
Item: Radiometer - Item #3817P1
Price: $10.95
Details: Another oldie but goodie. 5″ high evacuated clear glass stand 3″ in diameter at the top. A four bladed vane is balanced on a needle inside the sphere. Because opposite surfaces of the vanes are black and white, incident radiant energy is absorbed or reflected to a different degree. The result is a spinning vane. The brighter the light, the faster it spins. Simple, but compelling. Brief explanatory instruction sheet included.
Shipping: $5.95 for 1 item; $15.95 for 10 items; $18.95 for 20 items
Payment: American Express not accepted

Vendor: Science Stuff
Address: Online
Phone: 800-795-7315
Website: http://www.sciencestuff.com/prod/P-c/0525
Item: Radiometer - Item #0525
Price: $11.99
Details: 4 vanes, black/silver 3,000 rpm in sunlight
Shipping: $8.35 for 1 item; $10.18 for 10 items; $12.11 for 20 items
Payment: American Express accepted

Vendor: HobbyTron
Address: Online
Phone: 800-494-1778 or 801-434-7664
Website: http://www.hobbytron.com/Radiometer.html#4761
Item: Radiometer - #GEN-100
Price: $8.95 On Sale
Details: You have seen them on the science shows and marveled at them in museums, and now you can own one too. The Radiometer is a glass bulb with four suspended vanes inside. The vanes are blackened on one side, and they rotate when exposed to strong light. Just place the bulb in the sun, or next to a lamp, or any other healthy light source, and watch the vanes spin faster and faster according to the light’s intensity. No batteries are required - the light makes it go! Learn the mysteries of light, mechanical, and heat energy (but most of all have FUN) with the amazing Radiometer.
Shipping: $9.48 for 1 item; $9.57 for 10 items; $10.31for 20 items
Payment: American Express accepted

Vendor: Edmund Scientifics
Address: Online
Phone: 800-728-6999
Website: http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp?pn=3116000
Item: Hand Made Glass Radiometers - #3116000
Price: $49.95
Details: See the science and beauty of the power of the sun come together in this exquisite hand-blown, hand-crafted glass radiometer.
The highly sensitive vanes carefully balanced inside the radiometers take on energy when struck by the molecules heated by sunlight.
The vanes’ shiny sides reflect the heat, which is absorbed by the dark sides. Energy is released as the heated molecules kick away at great speeds, causing the vanes to revolve within the vacuum; clear, blue or amber glass; 8 x 3 “; gift wrapping available for $4.95 each
Shipping: $8.95 for 1 item; $39.95 for 10 items; $39.95 for 20 items;
Payment: American Express accepted

Please let me know if you need further information about these products, or if I can do anything else to assist you. Let us know if there is anything else we can assist you with, whether around the house, at work, or with travel information or weekend plans. We are here 24 hours, 7 days a week

Not bad. They didn’t look up the packaging and much of the information has obviously just been copied from the e-commerce websites, but they did included pricing and the shipping information. Also they show if each place can take American Express. The concierge can place the order at places that accept the AmEx card.

They did find a good deal, so I emailed back telling them to purchase one of the selections and asking that they locate a different box I can put it in.

Please order me 20 of these. Also I checked with the company and the packaging isn’t quite what I want–it is aimed at kids. Can you find some other type of packaging for the item itself?

Mark

They replied with:

Dear Mr. Shead,

Thank you for your email. I spoke with Hobby Tron and the packaging of these items is a simple yellow and black so I do not believe it will appear childish to the recipients. There is an issue with our making the purchase on your behalf however; Hobby Tron does not accept American Express directly though payments can be made though PayPal. American Express concierge is not permitted to may purchases utilizing PayPal due to security concerns. Hobby Tron will accept other credit cards directly but not American Express. I am sorry that we cannot place this order on your behalf.

Vendor: Hobby Tron
Address: NA
Phone: 800-494-1778 or 801-434-7664
Website: http://www.hobbytron.com/Radiometer.html#4761
Item: Radiometer - #GEN-100
Price: $8.95 each
Details: Packaging is simple black and yellow box.

Please let me know if would like us to find alternative sources for this product, or if I can do anything else to assist you. If you need assistance with any Valentine’s Day plans we would be happy to assist you.

Ok they say the packaging isn’t going to have a bunch of smiling kids on it, but I have to order it myself. I can do that. A week or so later, I got the order. I opened the large box and was greeted by the smiling faces of many children holding radiometers. This isn’t the concierge’s fault. They called and were told that the packaging was just a simple two color box. Now I’ll ask them to find a different box for me….

Michael Sampson on the Dvorak Keyboard

We’ve talked about the Dvorak keyboard before when I learned Michael Sampson was making the switch. Since it has been a few months, I thought it would be interesting to checkup and see how it was going so I sent him a few questions about the change. checkout his responses below.

What promoted you to switch to the Dvorak keyboard?

There was one main reason that I switched: I was suffering from severe RSI in my left lower arm and hand, and I needed to find a better way of doing things. I knew of the Dvorak layout, and had recently read Mark Hurst’s excellent book (Bit Literacy) in which he talked about his own transition from QWERTY to Dvorak. So I did some online study on the Dvorak layout, and three “facts” stood out to me: (a) some people had been able to make the transition within 4-8 weeks, (b) if you could type 50 words per minute on QWERTY you could do double that on Dvorak, and (c) some people had found that the transition had eliminated the RSI that they were experiencing under QWERTY, due to the less intensive typing movements.

How fast did you type with QWERTY?

I actually don’t have a number to give you, and I think that a pure number is largely a theoretical measure that may not mean anything in practice. What I was able to do with my typing was:

1. interview someone across a table, look them in the eye, and pretty much type word for word what they were saying, and the essence of our conversation;
2. attend a conference and live blog what was being said by the speaker … and I could take notes so quickly that I could even capture the Q&A, and press “publish” while the applause was still going on; and
3. type completely “mindlessly” … the mechanics of typing were completely ingrained that I didn’t need to think about what I was doing.

How long have you been on the Dvorak layout and what are your typical speeds?

I made the switch to Dvorak in September 2007, with the expectation that I would be fully up-to-speed within 4-8 weeks. And by “up-to-speed”, I mean according to the measures above, not a word-per-minute rating.

I am not back to where I was with QWERTY, but I think that I am getting there. Perhaps another 6 months … so a full year for the transition … and I’ll be there. I was super glad that there were no major conferences to attend in the last few months, because I wouldn’t be able to live blog them.

When I started the transition, I purchased a Dvorak keyboard overlay for my Apple keyboard. This was a rubberized overlay that fitted over the keys, and had the Dvorak letters in the right place. Now that I can fully type Dvorak, I just use a stock standard keyboard and trust my fingers to go to the right place.

Looking back would you make the change again?

I think that, on balance, I would. I wanted to get rid of the RSI, and that has cleared up completely, even though I still spend all day glued to the keyboard. It has, and is, taking a lot longer to transition that I thought it would, but I know that my fingers and hands work less now than they did before, and that’s good. One of the measures that struck me when I was researching the change was this: in a full day of typing, a QWERTY typist will move their hands 16 miles, but a Dvorak typist will only move them 1 mile. Big difference.

The other reason that I said I would still change was that I made the change with the idea that I will be typing for the next 35 years, and thus my measure wasn’t not done in the short-term.

The biggest annoyance I have is that mobile devices don’t permit Dvorak input. So I have to type QWERTY on my BlackBerry or Treo 500v, and I am pretty sure that the new iPAQ 210 Enterprise Handheld will be a no go for me because it won’t accept Dvorak input on an external keyboard.

Do you have any problem switching back when you have to use a QWERTY keyboard?

I have not tried to type QWERTY again, and don’t want to try. I have given it up for good. When I have to use a QWERTY keyboard, I watch the keys and do not touch type.

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about making the change?

• don’t make the change for the short term
• once you have started, stick with it. Keep going … it will eventually come.
• know the reasons that you are changing, and when you are discouraged, pull out the list and review and recommit to those.

And finally, I don’t think of myself as a “Dvorak typist”; I just type to get my work done. Typing is again almost completely mindless, as I want it to be, and I forget that most other people do things a different way.

I really appreciate Michael taking the time to answer these questions.   Be sure to checkout his site at http://www.michaelsampson.net.

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