Bill Gates on XP

This email is a pretty interesting account of Bill Gates trying to install Movie Maker.

Breaking the Internet

I just saw a video where someone explained that typing Google into Google can “break the internet”.   I sent the link to my dad and then went and tried it at Google.  I immediately (I’m not joking) got a message from my remote executive assistant saying that her internet was down.  I think I broke the internet in India.  Sorry about that everyone.

Messing with Other People’s Time Management

I write a lot about how to be more productive, but what if that really isn’t your thing? What if you don’t like productivity? What if your goal in life is to ruin productivity for other people.

In an effort to expand our readership to people striving for unproductivity, here are six things you can do to guarantee that your co-workers get as little done as possible. Productivity501 takes no responsibility for the results of actually implementing any of these ideas.

1. Randomly put entries on their calendar like: “1:30 meeting with John White Important!” or “Call Sally 535-321-1242″. Place them far enough in the future that they won’t suspect you did it.
2. Write in fake delegated tasks and followup reminders: “Ask Joe for status of XYZ presentation.”
3. Setup their copy of MS Word to autocorrect their boss’s name with “The Silly Clown” or “The Surpreme Ruler of Canterbury”
4. Switch their phone display to Hebrew.
5. There are still a number of “Fax Back” services out there where you call in, select the documents you want and then give the system your fax number. Call in an use their desk phone or cell phone number.
6. Put an ad on Craig’s List saying that you have 4 Superbowl, Hannah Montana, or Blueman Group tickets that you aren’t going to be able to use and you’ll give them away free to whoever tells you the funniest joke on the phone. List their work number.

Understanding How Different Genders Think

One of my consulting clients has a company thats purpose is to help lower the divorce rate in America. One of their big goals is to teach people how to understand each other. Here is a short excerpts of one of their videos explaining the difference between the way men and women think.

Obviously this is a generalization, but it is a useful reference point for planning discussions with people of the opposite sex–not just your spouse. For example, if you are a woman trying to negotiate a business agreement with a man you should be aware that he is less likely to see the holistic benefits of the arrangement. He is more likely to view the deal in isolation instead of seeing the advantages (which will be much more obvious to you) of all the side effects that might be beneficial for both of your companies.

If you are a man trying to sell a business arrangement to a woman, you will have an easier time if you can push the side benefits and focus on how the deal with help both of your companies holistically.

A small amount of thought along the lines of “how will the other person perceive what I’m saying” can go a long ways toward creating successful mutually beneficial agreements–both in your personal and business life.

Thinking For Yourself

This morning I read a news article that started out:

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Some women in Springfield are regretting their decision last week to get a tattoo from a door-to-door tattoo salesman. link

Um.  I think I would have seen that one coming.  One of the biggest differences I noticed in Mexico was the fact that people expect to rely on their own good judgment.   In the US I find people tend to think:

• If it is legal it is right.
• If it is for sale, it must be safe.
• If I’m not physically prevented from doing something it must be ok.

In the US if you are near a cliff there would be a rule that says you aren’t allowed to go near the edge.  There would probably be a fence or other obstacle to keep you away from where it is considered dangerous.  In Mexico, there would be no such rule.  If  you are lucky someone might say “you might want to avoid going near the edge of the cliff because it is slick and you might kill yourself”.  In Mexico you are expected to think for yourself–if you do something dumb and get hurt it isn’t any one else’s fault. (At least that was my experience there.)

While I appreciate the extra safety in the US, I’m concerned that we’ve take away so much basic responsibility from people that they no longer feel the need to run things through even a basic level of safety checks.  If someone shows up on your doorstep with homemade tattoo equipment and offers to give you a “great deal”  something somewhere in your brain should sound a warning bell.

I suppose common sense is a difficult thing to teach, but I’m afraid our society is teaching people to how to ignore it.

Tuesday’s Tip: Removing Superglue

Have you ever gotten superglue all over your fingers and had to live with it for two weeks as it wore off? There is a simple way to take it off, but first let me tell you a story.

When my wife worked in the ER of a large county hospital in Dallas she saw a lot of very strange cases. One of the most interesting was the guy who came in with his eyes closed. Evidentially his wife had accused him of looking at other women and they got into a fight. Some how he decided that he could prove that he wasn’t looking at other women by super gluing his eyes closed. (I am not making this up.)

After the glue dried he began to think it wasn’t such a great idea and got some people to drive him to the emergency room. My wife said the doctors and nurses laughed at him for awhile and then gave him Vaseline to rub in his eyes.

Petroleum will break down super glue, so you can easily remove it with gasoline. However a less flammable and less dangerous solution is to use Vaseline to rub the hardened glue off your fingers.

Self Inflicted Insult

Most of the readers of Productivity501 are very nice and gracious.  That is why I was surprised when I found this comment in my moderation queue.

When I read this, I was at first a little hurt.  I consoled myself by deciding it was some type of new blog spam or something.  As I got ready to delete the comment I realized that the ip address looked familiar.

It turns out that I posted the comment as the first thing that came to mind when I was trying to solve a problem with the email notifications last week.  I had forgotten about it. I felt better knowing that my insult was self inflicted.

In college I had a friend who would call himself and leave encouraging messages on his voice mail at night.  By the morning he would  forgotten about this and check his messages only to be surprised by an encouraging message from his past self.

Visual Voicemail Confusion

My wife and I have used Vonage for our home telephone service for several years.  Overall we’ve been very pleased with the service.  It was especially useful when we were living in Mexico.

One of the great features is the way that voice mail shows up with your email as an attachment.  I use a Blackberry that isn’t capable of playing a .wav file so when I’m on the road this feature is only useful to help show me who called so I can call them back.

Recently they introduced a feature called “Visual Voicemail” where for $0.25 they will transcribe your  voice mail and add it to the message along with the .wav file.  This seemed like a great idea, so I signed up for the service.  I’m not sure if there are real people doing the transcription like Jott or if it is being done by some type of voice recognition software.

Whatever system they use, it doesn’t seem to deal very well with Texas accents. Most of the messages have errors but it is possible to get the general idea of what was being said. However, this is the transcription of a message from a native Texan:

“Oh. Wow that’ll out 810 dollars. Me. I’ve many in. Right. I. Calling he talked i can’t i you know that got enough match. I can making i because i had like i kept the right. They tried and and d yet. On to the car she wants nothing happens it i can’t like it. Click accounts. Top box enter and then. I was like. I don’t have to work at i ma’am right wing it. Sounds really crazy. In. Version. I was calling from. Access. He is working. That weekend or christmas which is usually what like at. Which actually can exit out at the end of it. Come up before christmas. That. I wanna do it’s gonna plant i you know you i think even trying you know how many telling her that we can a person to 7 thirteen worry. Weekly. When. We he and he said that often is that is very try decided to connect. Like down there. Up. Hon any anyway. About that. Indiana. i think that’s it. Upcoming coming again. Kind of right now right. Wow. 1 night. but. I have. Right it seems like we don’t you like a common ever i got. Ninety i.”

I read the message several times and even read it while playing the wave file.  I have absolutely no idea how they came up with this transcription.  The punctuation leads me to believe that this was done by a real live person.

Somewhere in India there are probably a few people joking about what horrible accents American’s have and how it is impossible to understand what they are saying.