Advanced Management Skills » Technology Tips http://amskills.com World-class Training & CPD for Consultants, Managers & Value Practitioners Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:50:04 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Technology Tips http://amskills.com/technology-tips/ http://amskills.com/technology-tips/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:34:43 +0000 Mark Law http://amskills.com/wordpress/?p=1713 wanda_smallThe fluent use of technology has become a key life skill. It allows us to make new contacts, land new assignments and rapidly add value at work. It keeps our professional skills sharp, our knowledge of the world current and even indulge in a little industry research. Technology skills are the hallmark of the modern business professional.

Yet there is a dark side to technology. If we are not careful it becomes an obsession, a black hole into which we pour time, money and even our sanity. Technology teases us with its promise but drives us crazy with its complexity, poor design and unreliability.

So how can we quickly get down the learning curve? How do we sort the good from the bad? Where should we start? Here are a series of insights to help you make the most of technology.

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]]> http://amskills.com/technology-tips/feed/ 0 How to Easily Save Web Content http://amskills.com/saving-web-content/ http://amskills.com/saving-web-content/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 05:41:21 +0000 Mark Law http://amskills.com/?p=4190 Do you ever get the feeling that web surfing is a bit like driving a car on vacation? We pass through all sorts of interesting places yet if we need to capture their essence we need to go to the hassle of pulling over, climbing out, preparing the camera and then take the photograph. On the web we have to go to the effort of bookmarking a page (useless when the web site changes) or perhaps copying and pasting the web page into an MS Word file and figuring out where to save it on our hard drive. What a hassle!

We use EverNote to quickly tag and clip web pages as we browse. Not only is it extremely easy to use, it stores your precious information on the cloud so you can access it anywhere. It even automatically includes these clips in your Google searches. The basic version which is very good is free. Thoroughly recommended!

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]]> http://amskills.com/saving-web-content/feed/ 0 Better than Google… http://amskills.com/better-than-google/ http://amskills.com/better-than-google/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:32:20 +0000 Mark Law http://marklaw.wordpress.com/?p=1384 Surprisingly, Google isn’t the best research tool on the web. There are hundreds of search engines out there, many of which are much better for the job at hand. All you have to do is Google ‘search engines’!

However, for a different take on search why not try Copernic Agent instead? Copernic Agent (available from www.copernic.com) has major advantages over Google:

  • Uses hundreds of search engines from around the world
  • Uses a simple point and click to select countries of interest
  • Ranks search results by relevence
  • De-duplicates identical hits from multiple search engines
  • Saves your search results allowing you to record your tracks
  • Can be set up to let you know when a web site has changed

If you combine the above with Google Translate or BabelFish you can get machine translations of foreign language web sites. Although not accurate they allow you to get a sense of what is being said. You can arrange a more accurate translation later on.

Note that the Google Translate is also magic for helping kids with their French homework. You too can be a ‘homework hero’ in dozens of languages. Beware, it doesn’t yet do Latin!

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]]> http://amskills.com/better-than-google/feed/ 0 Podcasts for professionals… http://amskills.com/podcasts-for-professionals-2/ http://amskills.com/podcasts-for-professionals-2/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:45:44 +0000 Mark Law http://marklaw.wordpress.com/?p=209 How to use the ‘dead time’ in your life productively

Keeping up-to-date in the fast moving world of business, technology and science is a real challenge for busy professionals. Why not download podcasts onto your Gizmo (SmartPhone, iPod or portable media player) and listen to them during your dead time (i.e. travelling or at the gym)? Here’s how to do it:

  1. Acquire a suitable media player (I use a Windows SmartPhone with a 2GB microSD card)
  2. Install podcast software on your PC – I use the free program ‘Juice’ from http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/
  3. Subscribe to podcast feeds by clicking the + button in ‘Juice’ and copying & pasting podcast URLs in. See below for a list of my favourite podcast feeds. For a wide choice you can use the podcast directory built into ‘Juice’ or one of the many podcast search engines available, including ITunes.
  4. Go into ‘Preferences’ in ‘Juice’ and choose a directory to download podcasts to (I use c:\temp\podcasts)
  5. Download your podcasts into onto your hard drive by clicking the relevant button in ‘Juice’
  6. Create a directory on your gizmo (PDA / mobile phone / mp3) player called ‘podcasts’
  7. Just before you travel upload your podcasts into this ‘podcasts’ directory on your gizmo
  8. Enjoy your podcasts!

My favourite podcast feeds are (copy and paste the URLs into the podcast software on your PC):

  1. Peter Day: World of Business (BBC) – http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio/worldbiz/rss.xml
  2. Peter Day: In Business (BBC) – http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/downloadtrial/radio4/inbusiness/rss.xml
  3. Evan Davis: The Bottom Line (BBC) – http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/bottomline/rss.xml
  4. World Technology (BBC) – http://www.theworld.org/rss/tech.xml
  5. Digital Planet (BBC) – http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/downloadtrial/worldservice/digitalplanet/rss.xml
  6. Scientific American – http://www.sciam.com/podcast/sciam_podcast_r.xml
  7. The Economist – http://www.economist.com/media/rss/economist.xml
  8. Business Weekly (BBC) – http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/bizweekly/rss.xml

I’ve collected hundreds of hours of these fascinating, useful programmes which I listen to both on the move and on a particularly sadistic cross training machine at the LBS gym.

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]]> http://amskills.com/podcasts-for-professionals-2/feed/ 0 Turbocharge your web browsing… http://amskills.com/turbocharge-your-internet-browsing/ http://amskills.com/turbocharge-your-internet-browsing/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:44:24 +0000 Mark Law http://marklaw.wordpress.com/?p=220 Two simple tips here:

  1. Install Google Chrome browser (or similar) – much faster than Internet Explorer (BEWARE you may still need IE to get full functionality from some web sites)
  2. Install AdMuncher – it eats adverts before they hit your browser and gives you much faster and more pleasant browsing experience

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