Boing Boing: Archiving email on Gmail

Mark at Boing Boing shares a great, no-brainer tip for making sure all your mail gets backed up to Gmail automagically.

I asked people to resend certain emails, including Charles Platt, and he gave me this great tip: set up a rule in Mac's Mail.app to send a copy of every email that goes in and out over to a Gmail account. That way, you'll always have a searchable archive of all the email you send and receive.

And, of course, I heartily second Mark's love for the indispensable SuperDuper.

Generic Moleskine?

Attention- Juggling in the High-Tech Office - New York Times

NYT talks with Ed Reilly of the American Management Association on technology's "double-edged impact in the workplace."

Q. Do all the distractions mean that people don't have time to think deeply about what they're doing?

A. There is certainly some indication that in middle to upper management, that can be a problem. If you don't properly organize your thinking and your time, you can end up concentrating on the urgent rather than the important. You can get tied up being a traffic cop in terms of answering e-mails, when in fact those things can be answered later. Management, particularly the more senior management, needs time to think.

Q. If people have a sale happening on eBay, are using several e-mail platforms and their cellphones and their office lines, does that fracture their attention span?

A. Absolutely. When people switch gears and move from one process to another, our brains require some amount of time to begin thinking about something else. Forget the amount of time you actually spend browsing on the Internet and reading things you don't really need to read for your job. Just the fact that you're switching back and forth means you're not organizing your time correctly.

Q. What impact do the distractions have on working-level people?

A. There's a curious anomaly. These tools produce more productivity. But it doesn't imply that everyone is working at maximal effectiveness. There's a general consensus that managing the quality and quantity of work from knowledge workers has proven to be more difficult than managing the work-study processes that added so much productivity to the industrial age. For example, you can assign people to customer relations jobs. They will, if you make them, respond to, say, 120 inquiries a day. The real question is whether they take a few more minutes to think about what the customer really wants and try to be responsive.

For my money, though, this one is the quote of the week:

Companies go to great lengths to set up lists of authorized approvals, meaning who can approve what size of purchase. But you will find that people who are not authorized to spend $100 on their own are authorized to send e-mails to people and waste hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of company time.

I get IE Error_ cannot open the internet site operation aborted

Fix at this site: http://www.nirmaltv.com/2007/08/08/how-to-fix-internet-explorer-cannot-open-the-internet-site-operation-aborted-error/

detail below:

It is hard to believe that I am the only one receiving this error. So I got into Firefox to post this message.

I normally read the site in my RSS Reader, but for videos I have to come to the site.

Here is a site I found with a fix to your javascript:

MacBreak 38: Path Finder

As promised, here's the latest video podcast episode of MacBreak, in which Leo and I have a look at Path Finder, an application by Cocoatech that (in my opinion) handsomely compensates for many of the deficits in the current OS X Finder. It also has a ton of cool features, preferences, and geegaws that most any Mac nerd will love.

New to me in this episode: according to Leo, Woz (cough) likes Path Finder, too. Cool!

Finally, here's some earlier coverage of Path Finder on 43f.

Direct downloads of Episode 38:

• Standard video (450p)
• HD version (1080p)

Subscribe to MacBreak for free

• iPod version (Subscribe in iTunes)
• 1080p (HD) version

Putting Geeks in Context

43folders.com - One way around the geek's problem with GTD contexts? Step away from the computer. (4:37)

More at Odeo.com...

• PingMe - What *Should* You Be Doing? - "Not a good time? Pings are interactive! Just reply to the message to reschedule for a later date or time." [via: digg/kevinrose]
• [Quicksilver going Open Source?] - A1c0r said: "Future core development - whatever form it takes - will take place largely in open source." Now there's an intriguing development.
• Random iPhone User Tips - O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog - Great tips and picks -- love the business card idea.
• In the Loop - The OmniDorken and I spoke at Apple yesterday, and I was as happy as a little girl. Ken used the occasion to announce that Ethan has officially joined the OG team and will be moving Team Schoonover across the pond. Yays, all around!
• First Encounter with an OLPC XO / A 12-Year-Old’s Review - Joey gets his adult-sized hands on a "One Laptop Per Child" machine.
• iPhone Wallpapers - Chris Glass has made some lovely photos to use for iPhone wallpaper. Man's got a great eye.
• xkcd ["The Internet has always had loud dumb people..."] - "WHY NOT TELL LOUIS ARMSTRONG TO HIS FACE"

Money-Saving Secrets: RealSimple.com

This article from the March, 2006 Real Simple has some handy tips on plugging the "money leaks" in your life. Leaks to plug include:

• Paying bills by snail mail
• Paying the minimum on credit cards
• A cell-phone plan that doesn’t match your needs
• Eating out on vacations

You can't spell "success" without "suck." A technology update full of laughter, tears, and Yosemite Sam-like hollerin'. And you might just learn something.