Goo Gone

I love it when someone comes to me with a problem that I can help them with. Must be the "wanna fixit" part of my personality. You know, the one that gets you into trouble when people just want you to listen ... but that's another story.

Last week my secretary made a "grr" sound while her head was buried in the supply cabinet. Knowing that "grr" usually indicated a respectable level of frustration, I inquired "wassup?"

Apparently there was a fair amount of unruly sticky goop in the cabinet that was refusing to be removed. I said "Ahh! I have just what you need! I'll bring some Goo Gone from home. It removes sticky stuff. Works like a charm!"

Today I brought a bottle of Goo Gone to the office and a little while later I heard a "Wow, this stuff is like a miracle!" coming from the area that "grr" came from last week. I quietly and smugly smiled.

I wish technology were more often as dependable. Here's a scene that happens all too often: Someone comes to me with a problem, I propose a technology based solution (Ah! Try this calendar, or wiki, or mail list, or document creator, etc.) and even go so far to demonstrate it ... and then it fails in some way. Instead of feeling like the Techno Saviour replete with flowing red cape, I feel more like a door to door used vacuum cleaner salesman trying to hock his wares.

People "tsk tsk", smile politely and dismiss my strategy as "too complicated" or "not something they are interested in ... Not sure why tech stuff so often fails at precisely the moment that I place high hopes of getting that "Wow, this stuff is like a miracle" response. Gremlins, unreasonable expectations?

Grrr ...

Does anyone know of some Tech Gremlin Goo Gone?

MediaMax

Although there are some restrictions for the FREE account, 25GB of online storage is pretty cool! Check it out here:

http://www.mediamax.com

What should we be teaching?

There exists a plethora of opinions and theories on what we should be teaching in school. What should we teach our kids? These students will someday grow up and need to fend for themselves and run the country! Most people agree on the need to teach 'em math, reading, science, history, and now even some technology skills.

This article discusses some areas that are not often considered in the "formal" education realm. Personal Finance. Communication. Social Skills. Sales. Time Management.

Take a read at the article, come back here and let me know what you think.

I'm Back!

Actually I've been back from our Europe trip for quite sometime, but simply didn't post. It's one of "those" things y'know? Something you know that you "ought" to be doing, but kept skipping for one reason or another ... again and again. Like exercising, eating right, flossing, changing your oil, or pulling the weeds out of your yard. It you skip doing them only a little, no biggy. But if you skip it chronically, people notice and things can go ... bad.

So I'm back. I'll do my best to keep current. Just like exercising and flossing, it's easy to stop, but just as easy to get back going again.

So with no further delay, my current post:

What in the World of Education, Technology or General Geekiness has caught my attention at this time?

PDFs

Portable Document Format documents are a double edged sword. They are great because any computer can read them. Mac or PC. You only need to download FREE software (Adobe Reader) to read a PDF. The bad thing about PDFs is that, unless you have specialized ($) software you can't make one or edit one.

What I found:

Here is a link to a bunch of software that will help you with your PDF creation woes.

Here's another option PrimoPDF. Basically it acts like a printer. You choose it like a printer from your computer. When you "print" however, it doesn't come out of your printer, but instead creates a PDF. Most Mac applications have been doing this, built in, for years.

Another solution is PDFOnline. The concept here is to upload a document (Word, etc.) and they will email you the PDF version. Pretty cool!