Speed Up Your Computer With Fewer Language Files
In a time when storage is cheap, and our portable devices have hard drives that are as big or bigger than what our desktops could hold just a couple of years ago, cleaning up your computer is less and less of a concern. Install all of the programs you want, there’s plenty of space on that hard drive, right? But please, people, cluttered hard drives still need to be kept clean of excess files and defragmented on a regular basis.
As I did an install of a new program, it indicated that the translation files would be 30+ megabytes. Seriously? And I only really need the American English files. I certainly did not need…pig latin?
I did a search on my computer for “lang” and found folders with more than 8 megabytes in language files for languages I do not speak. Always be cautious when deleting elements of a program, but also be cognizant of what you’re installing in the first place. It could keep your computer running faster and smoother.
Project Management Supports Productivity
In law school, I was more organized than any other time of my life, until now. I had writing assignments, client tasks, and reading that had to be completed, often on a daily basis. But what was unique about my busy days was that they were for the most part, very predictable. Clients needed research into the factual and legal aspects of precedent cases with subsequent legal documents produced for hearings, professors needed research into the factual and legal aspects of precedent cases with subsequent legal documents produced for grading, and professors needed the students to read massive amounts of material each night to even hope to understand their classroom lectures. Research and writing, research and writing, and reading is what it boiled down to. I didn’t need a project management tool to know what was coming up for my evening ahead or the next day’s classes.
Client work in the search marketing industry has been a bit different. I am currently working on SEO, PPC, social media, and reputation management. Each of these core areas requires research and writing, but the tasks are inherently smaller in focus. Writing an optimized title, doing competitive link research, adding tracking codes to PPC ads and keywords, submitting content to social news sites, organizing RSS feeds, the list goes on and on. I have previously mentioned that I love my USB stick with GTD TiddlyWiki, but I’m finding that my claim of tracking progress with projects just isn’t working out that well for me on my USB stick. Enter Clocking IT. It may not be the prettiest project management solution, but it’s free, and it really aids in tracking progress. I create each of my websites or projects as a client. Each “client” then appears in the column under “projects” and individual milestones and projects fit under the client and then there is a task level. It is easy to add time to really track each task, and completing a task is a simple checkbox. It’s not integrated to go offline, but it does what it says.
Corporate Social Media Strategy - Sprint Ahead
The corporate social media strategy embraced by Sprint is very attractive to me, (as was their Sprint flashlight ad), and puts them directly at odds with the branding of Cingular and AT&T as “The New AT&T”. It is discussed at Phone News, that the ads, “don’t tell you one good reason to go with Sprint over anyone else.” While this is true, I do not see that as a fundamental flaw in the advertising campaign. The new Waitless.org site is pretty cool. I disagree that it “establishes [no] more than a tenuous link to Sprint.” I encourage you to see where your time goes each day with their “calculate your time” tool, and then discover how to live a more productive lifestyle.
People switch networks for a number of reasons. The only reason I am going to switch from one carrier to another, is based on the network and the price. I am not one to switch my network to purchase a brand new iPhone, (available only on AT&T). This ad campaign has the potential to grab people on many different fronts. The fact that they haven’t indicated pricing points or innovative phones or other reasons to go with Sprint over another network does not mean it isn’t a good ad campaign. And it is, in fact, a great viral marketing campaign. Sending an e-card is generally boring, (though I quite like them at Sprint Sweets, minus the long load time). Showing people something, like how to take off a shirt quickly, chill soda, or parallel park, is engaging because it is humorous, entertaining, and creative, while sticking to their “sprint ahead” and lifehacking branding.
I applaud this corporate social media strategy and effort, and look forward to seeing them incorporate reasons to switch as the campaign continues to evolve.
