New ways of working in windows

Over the last couple days I was actually working on a way to put up a to-do list on my laptop screen, in a way that made it always visible. I ended up purchasing Actual Windows Manager. It was such good value, I thought after 2 hours of testing.

Actual Windows Manager can do very interesting things to all windows on a Microsoft Windows Operating System. I’m using Window 7.

The Ghost feature is the one that works well for me with my to-do list. Now my to-do list is always in sight on my computer screen, but faded out so as not to cause distractions. (you may need to click on the screenshot at left for a bigger view).

This shot only shows use of the transparency features – and this simply means how see-through you make the Ghost! LOL. My ghosted to-do list will live in the same spot (unless I move it) on top of all windows I open!! Yes – I can minimise it if I want. With Actual Windows Manager I can even set a time for it to be automatically minimised. So, I’ve done just that. After 10 minutes it will minimise and go to the taskbar. If I click it again on the taskbar, it comes alive and is ghosted until I need to do something with it. The Transparency features are very useful for other things of course. Yes – you can do this stuff without Actual Windows Manager however it is not as easy.

Well – “why am I going through all this effort and cost?” – you may be wondering. If you’ve been following me I’ve lost the battle with sleep – and I am really determined to make better use of my waking hours. This means I need to get things done more efficiently. I spend a lot of time on my computer as well as on my Samsung Galaxy S phone. So yes there are to-do lists there too. However, when I’m on my computer I really want to see my to-do list in the corner of my eye. Notepad was the simplest, though I know I could have brought my Google to-do list to the desktop in the same way. I was looking to make this small but not too small.

I reckon that if I can push two more hours into my waking day that’s worth a whole lot. I cost my time at an average of £120/hr. So 2 hours is £240/day. Over a year I’m therefore worth the order of £90,000 better to myself if I’m more organised and efficient. So – for the naysayers – lets imagine I was very poor at this. Lets say I got back only 15 mins a day in efficiency savings that’s still £10,950 worth of value to myself – tax-free!! So me spending say £200 this year on this efficiency drive is, I think a good investment.

Sending men Haywire

Gina Carano, star of the movie Haywire, is a Muay Thai and Kickboxing champion, and former American Gladiator 'Crush'...

Not only is Haywire a different type of action movie, Carano is the 'eye' in the eye candy.

Observation on non-duncey behaviour

While listening to a radio 4 programme this morning on criminal justice, I was reminded of an incident that happened where I live about two weeks ago.

Early one morning, at around 3 AM I heard a male voice shouting "Keisha! Keisha!", accompanied by a very loud banging (such as a fist thumping on a door and the door vibrating). My bedroom window being open, the sound was very disturbing. This continued for some hours, with the thumping and shouting happening at the various doors in my area. You can see from the photo he was spoilt for choice on the doors.

At around 5 AM I came downstairs. Suddenly the banging started at my door. When I opened the door there was a young black guy asking for Keisha. I told him there was no Keisha living here. He went a few doors away, and began banging on that door (incidentally the doorway Keisha did live). Keisha did not respond.

Then came the banging on my door again. When I opened the door the young man was still there, asking to speak to Keisha.  I told him there was no Keisha living here (again), so he went to another door - not Keisha’s - and began banging over there. No one answered. This merry-go-round went on several times, each time he banged on my door he appeared to be more irritated and more disoriented. I suspect that he might have been on drugs from his behaviour.

The last time that I told him that Keisha was not living at my address he became very aggressive,  and threatened "to put a ‘cap’ in me". I left my door open, turned around and picked up my phone.  I dialled 999, requested the police (in England the operator asks which emergency service you need, whether fire, ambulance or police). I reported to the police that there was a strange man in front my home who threatened to shoot me and whom I suspect might be hiding a gun, and also that he appeared to be on drugs.

Within 2 minutes, two police officers arrived at my door. The taller of the two approached me and address me, "Good morning, sir. Did you phone the police?” to which I replied, “Yes.” The other in the meantime had approached the young man who was still on my lawn. The police had responded so quickly, he was still there hurling threats in my direction. The taller officer again addressed me, enquiring as to what was the problem, and I pointed to the man (early 20’s) on the lawn, saying he was threatening to shoot me.

I was astounded when the police officers, both of them then approached the man and addressed him as “Sir, what are you doing here?” No duncey tactics and attitude for these boys! The man explained he was trying to contact his girlfriend and that his phone battery had died. He switched his phone on, it did come on, but again I was astounded when the police officer took out his own phone and tried to call Keisha using the number supplied by the man. Again, I can’t see a duncey doing this!

After getting no answer, the officers to the man, “Sir, you have to move on. You can’t be disturbing the people here at this early time of the morning”. They  still hadn’t touch him at this point, merely walked alongside him to escort him down the long path and out of the area.

Now, the reason I am blogging this is to highlight a number of things:

1. The response time of the police in England, as differs from dunceys on the Rock. No excuse about not having cars available here!
2. The seriousness with which they took the telephone report.
3. The attitude which they approached me, the complainant.
4. The attitude they approached a possible lawbreaker!
5. The methods used to diffuse a hazardous situation… keep in mind two unarmed officers (English police do not carry guns) approached a possibly armed, potentially hyped up, drugged-up man.
6. The effective, yet completely polite way they removed the man from the area. No batons were wielded nor guns drawn.

Sad to say, I harbour little hopes that dunceys will be similarly trained or become intellectually mature within my lifetime.

Timeleft–follow up.

I’ve been so impressed with TIMELEFT3, that I’ve purchased four licences for the full version!! Auction addicts on Ebay can also benefit from this big time. This thing will watch your fav auctions like a hawk!! LOL.

Timeleft3 may look complicated to some, but I assure you that it is very very easy. Look at it this way.. if it takes you an hour to learn, how much headache and time that could save you over the next year? Think of all the stress it’ll save. Once you set up your reminder events you can confidently forget about them. Use your brain for other useful things instead of checking and worrying!! Trust me – this is worth 10 times the cost of the software (for me). It doesn’t replace Google Cal, Task Lists or Outlook etc.. this is another tool in your toolbox to get on with life. DO IT NOW! Thank me later! And yes – I’m nearly always right!

All these options are clickable and easily selected. I’ve set this up to show maximum nag/nudge capabilities of this tiny but very useful software. For things that you might easily forget this doesn’t let you off the hook, in a very nice way.

This nag is for my car’s MOT (an annual health check required by law). If you drive without this it is a criminal offence. So I can never afford to miss this event due in 26th May. I’ve used the ‘multiple rule’ on this one i.e. I get reminders ‘annually’ and ‘weekly’ from March.

But sometimes when you remind yourself of an event, you need to know what it is about instantly. So when I ‘enable actions’ I get this window that allows me to select the last relevant file. When the alert goes off not only a notification is  on my screen but the last relevant file as well.

Dysfunctional Country

Apparently it’s only okay if the Captain doesn’t say it, so read it or not below. [Yuh know - dee Rockian assholeness about me having to be physically present on allyuh Rock and rolling arong in dee mess, so as to have any legitimacy to diss allyuh Rock.]

“If a family were engaged in widespread corruption, deceit, hypocrisy, and violence, it would be described as dysfunctional and unstable. That is precisely how TT appears to the rest of the international community. It is run by incompetent politicians, corrupt businessmen, and murderous thugs. It is an on-going political and criminal bacchanal. The political faces change, but the self-serving farce continues in different forms. Its politicians have little real understanding of the meaning of integrity or honesty.”

R Wyndham
via e-mail

Newsday Letter 2012-01-20