SnakeLegs

ABC reports that Americans fit 31 hours of activity in each 24 hour day.  Driving and cell phone usage are the most obvious doublings.  Watching TV, working on the computer, and ignoring the wife is the most obvious tripling.
On my lunch hour I go to the gym and walk on the treadmill, but I can’t [...]

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Java developers and testers should use FindBugs to find and fix Java bugs.  It’s free, and the FindBugs team has concentrated on having a high hit ratio, as developers won’t use lint’ing tools that spew out pedantic non-errors.  FindBugs can run standalone or as an Eclipse plug-in.  Watch the Google Labs video linked on the [...]

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When making charts, graphs, or other figures to be presented to an audience, use a safe color palette, and use color-alternate hints to differentiate data (e.g., shading, hatching, varying line thickness).
“How to make figures and presentations that are friendly to Colorblind people” is the best document I’ve seen on the topic.  Save the PDF for [...]

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Pie charts are worse than useless.  Use a simple table or bar graph.

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I encourage most everyone I talk to to view the online Stanford Energy Lectures given by Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute.  There are five lectures of about an hour and a half per, and Amory is an interesting speaker.  It’s great knowledge and pertains to efficiency in general, not just electrical.

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A recent LifeHacker thread on natural water flavoring has me thinking I should have a couple of small pots in the office, so I can grow cucumber and mint.  I’d have never thought to put a sliver of cucumber skin in my water.  Cucumber under fluorescent lighting should do fine, and mint is impossible to [...]

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PowerPoint presentations almost always suck.  There’s a reason for that.

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At church, after the singing and liturgical items are done, the lights are dimmed and the sermon begins, which struck me as odd the first few times.  But having been stuck in business presentations with glaring overhead lights, it really is better — you relax more and can concentrate better.

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PBS Nova “Ape Genius” program.  Explains the 15% of behaviors “The Office” doesn’t.

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A lot of junior Windows admins think that the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is sufficient to test the security of IIS websites.

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Server BIOS time should be set to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).  Doesn’t work with Windows, though, which is why a lot of people don’t bother.  POSIX systems use GMT, so follow something like OpenBSD’s FAQ on the matter.

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I was searching for an old essay today and ran across this, so I’m tagging it for future perusal.  Computer reading.

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Play a very loud annoying sound for 10 seconds.  Then play the exact same 10 seconds, but add on 5 seconds of the sound growing softer and more pleasant.  Then ask someone which sound they prefer.  They’ll pick the second sound, even though it’s annoying for longer – it includes the exact 10 seconds of annoying, plus [...]

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Yummy recipe.

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Here are the Royal National Institute of Blind People’s “Clear Print Guidelines.”  Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if within the next ten years the average font size increases, until everything feels like a Reader’s Digest large print.

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PCMag collection of free software
Noticeably lacking in the Finance list is Microsoft’s Accounting Express.

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My recent reading, primarily on cognitive topics.

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Sacrilege!!!

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Here are good sources of free TrueType/OpenType fonts.

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