"What is this killer feature", you ask? "What's so cool that I can do in Outlook to make me more productive", you say? Is it the RSS feeds? No. Is it easier Task creation? No. Is it better integration with SharePoint? No.

Here is how you can customize MS Outlook to boost your productivity:

1. Turn off email message notifications. This includes the envelope icon in your system tray, beeps and sounds, and especially the popup window that displays when new messages arrive.
2. Change your mail account settings to only check for new messages every few hours instead of every few minutes. Heck, even go for every four hours.
3. Scan your inbox and deal with only the important messages that really are important (e.g. the network is down, etc). Save the rest for later.
4. Every morning, empty your inbox. Respond to messages requiring your reply, and add tasks to your day for messages that require you to do something. Delete and archive all messages appropriately.
5. Extra credit: create a message filter that dumps all messages where you are NOT in the "To:" field to a folder named "CC" or "Copied". Arguably, since these messages aren't directed at you, you can assume they don't require your immediate attention and you can deal with them the next morning (see previous item).

I've been using this system for about two weeks now, and I've been surprised at how much more productive I've been. I haven't measured my productivity in any way, but I know I've gotten more done. Because I've reduced the number of interruptions that Outlook causes, I can stay focused when I need to. My tasks get knocked out more quickly because I can stay in that super-developer zen state of mind for longer periods of time.

Be careful with this system though. Your place of work may have an expectation that employees should respond immediately to all messages. If so, that's unfortunate, and unrealistic. You should only need to immediately respond to the messages that really do require immediate attention (emergencies, etc). If someone needs your attention urgently, that's what instant messaging is for :)

Seriously, use your common sense and do what's right in your work environment. I think the chances are good that you can make some of these changes with Outlook (or any mail program) without most of your coworkers or customers knowing. Arguably, you'll be able to respond to their requests and needs more effectively by being able to focus on tasks better because of the reduced interruptions.

Disable all of your message alerts:

tags: outlook email productivity work office

I'm a bit RSS impaired. I subscribe to about 35 feeds through Google Reader and it's more than I can keep up with. Almost daily I see about 30-60 new items, and my reaction is to mark all as "read" and close my browser. It's barely even worth my time to skim through them and find the articles I'd be interested in.

How do people with 200+ feed subscriptions keep up? Do I just not value taking the time to sit and read? I just can't consume information that way these days. I'd rather spend time writing posts wondering how other people consume large amounts of information.

tags: blog read web reader rss

You can't beat corn on homemade pizza. Yes, Femi, it's true.

Mmmm.

Ok, so food pictures just never turn out good on web pages. It kinda looks unappetizing. But trust me: green peppers, canadian bacon, and corn on pizza can't be beat. Except for maybe straight-up pepperoni. With corn.

tags: corn pizza dinner cooking

Create your own comic strips with your own images online with Comeeko. Oh what a time waster this is going to be!

I've tried it but haven't created anything worthy of posting yet - just some experimenting. What an app though... basically they provide full blown image editing right in the browser. The image effects are pretty awesome considering it's all client-side.

tags: fun comics

I got a call from the county electrical inspector saying that my electrical permit was expired. He said unless I could finish my electrical work for him to do a final inspection on Monday morning that I'd have to renew (and pay $50) my permit.

So, here I am this weekend finishing all of my electrical work instead of getting ready for painting. Basically I've had to wire up all the outlets (23 of them), switches, light fixtures, and fans. Yesterday I got all of the new circuit breakers and circuit hookups completed in the electrical box. As of this morning I have 8 more outlets to go and need to put up all of the switch/outlet covers.

I've also had to figure out my double 5/8" sheetrock issue in the studio with respect to the outlets. Outlets come with about a 1" screw on them so that you can install them on one layer of up to 5/8" sheetrock. For my double layers, I had to pick up some 1.5" screws (2" for the ceiling fixtures). I wasn't sure how it'd work but it ended up working great.

The positive side is that all of the electrical work is getting done - for good! It's awesome because now there is light everywhere in the basement - something that I haven't ever had. Working in the dark is lame, let me tell you.

So, I expect to finish the electrical work today and be ready for the final inspection tomorrow morning. Next weekend we're out of town for my cousin Matt's wedding reception (he already had the ceremony in Vegas), so maybe we'll paint in two weeks - unless I can muster enough motivation after Eva goes to bed on the weeknights.

I said muster.

tags: electrical work basement inspection house homeimprovement

I've updated the WPF 3D Tutorial to work with the latest WPF code in .Net 3.0. The update is long overdue, as the .Net 3.0 bits have been out for some time now. Both the tutorial text and source code are now up to date.

This was partially motivated by the fact that I'll be giving a talk on 3D construction in WPF in a few months. My old WPF code needs to be dusted off a bit.

tags: wpf 3d code tutorial programming

I uploaded quite a few of the pictures we have of the basement remodeling project up to Flickr, so now there's a more complete history of what the project has looked like - from bare concrete walls to sanded drywall. You can view the entire photo set here. It's crazy to think that the whole space used to be bare.

Today the contractors did their final steps and the drywall work is 100% complete. Now I need to clean up a ridiculous amount of dust. Next we're moving on to paint, doors, and flooring. It feels very odd to be thinking about those things now... they used to feel like unreachable parts of the project.

tags: basement pictures house homeimprovement work

Rock on, Eva.

tags: tshirt slayer daddy eva

I recently installed Windows Vista on my new work laptop, and have been having trouble getting Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition with the Team Foundation client to work correctly. Without installing some required service packs and updates, I encountered Package Load Failure errors - or VS 2005 decided to not work at all.

Here's a list of steps you need to take to get VS 2005 with the Team Foundation client working on Vista:

1. Install VS 2005
2. Install VS 2005 SP1: download
3. Install VS 2005 SP1 Update for Vista: download
4. Install the Team Foundation client
5. Install the VS 2005 SDK: download

In my case, I missed the last step, and as a result I had problems loading the Source Control "package" part of the Team Foundation client. It's weird (and annoying) that the TFC would have a dependency on the SDK, but so be it. Follow these steps and you should be on your way to VS on Vista wonderfulness.

tags: visualstudio vista code programming .net configuration

The contractors will be here this week to mud and complete the finish coats on the walls. They were ahead of schedule last week so I'm guessing they could be done as early as Wednesday, otherwise they were estimating they'd be done on Friday.

I can't help but walk down in the basement a few times a day just to look at it - even if I don't have a reason to. It's pretty exciting to see progress being made.

tags: basement mudding homeimprovement house drywall contractor

The Subtext upgrade to v1.9.2 pretty much went without a hitch. And as for the new skin - now that I've had some time to live with it I'm not sure how happy I am with it. Nikki mentioned that "kindohm.com" isn't very noticeable right away on the home page, and now that's bugging me. I may make a few small changes to account for that.

tags: subtext site web blog upgrade

I may be brave and attempt to upgrade my site to the latest version of Subtext. It'll involve an upgrade to ASP .Net 2.0, a database schema change, and some web.config merging. With luck, there'll be little downtime. At worst, I won't get a good chance to fix any major problems until Tuesday if I run into anything I can't solve tonight.

The change will also coincide with a new site skin, which is not the same as this new skin that I previewed before. I ended up hating that design :)

tags: subtext site web blog upgrade

What a day. The basement is now completely covered with drywall. A single guy showed up today and did the remainder of the basement in about 6.5 hrs. It would have taken me about a month with the help of three other people! Pictures are available here.

Tomorrow the tapers and mudders are coming, and they'll be working all through next week. It's hard to believe that this project is now on its tail end. It's really easy to see the light at the end of the tunnel now that we can see the walls and get a feel for the real space now. It looks so weird! We're pretty excited about it.

tags: drywall basement contractor house homeimprovement project work