Customizing Firefox's Search Bar

Something else I discovered about Firefox: adding other searches to the Google search field in the toolbar. I had no idea there was anything but Google to choose from, or that you can add lots of other searches and sites. Just click the down-arrow next to the "G", which is to the left of the search box, to see a short list of other sites which can be searched quickly right from your toolbar. And, if you click "Manage Search Engines" at the bottom of the list, you can customize your list and add search engines and popular lookup sites from a list.

Knocking email as sensationalism

I've noticed an interesting trend. Several business-advice books I've read lately have made a point of suggesting, sometimes pretty strongly, that to improve productivity, we should all steer clear of using email so much. Don't ever check it first thing in the morning! says one book. Try to use "social networking sites" instead! says another. Other books have emphasized what a time-waster email can be.

Personally, I disagree. I should qualify this right away by saying that this may be because I'm unusual in that I've always been careful in how I handle email. I think I was aware since way back in the misty, distant days of my Internet use, about 12 years ago, that the Internet in general, and email in particular, are powerful and potentially dangerous, and I've always treated them with respect. I've always done everything possible to avoid spam, avoided mailing lists, and discouraged unnecessarily chatty email correspondence, to name a few examples. I've never made it my life, as some people seem to, but pretty much have always been the boss of it.

Also, I'm pretty conscious of how I use my time in general, and so not susceptible to being randomly distracted by the receipt of emails during my work time.

So email has never gotten the best of me. It's never wasted my time or distracted me from more important work, and I don't believe I've ever used it thoughtlessly in such a way as to detract from a business relationship.

And I question the email-avoidance advice that seems to be common these days, because it seems to me that the problem isn't the tool, but how it's used. Email still seems to me to be an excellent means for certain types of communcation, used with care.

Actually, I suspect that those authors gave that advice partly just for the shock value. What a radical thing to say! Can it be true? People read it, and then pass on the revolutionary concept to their friends, providing lots of buzz-marketing for the book.

Using Google Calendar's "Notifications"

I've recently started using Google Calendar. I've always been the old-fashioned paper-calendar type, but I decided to give this a try, in my ongoing effort to create a business with a truly portable office.

Although I kind of miss my paper calendar, which doesn't have to be logged into, can be scribbled on at will, etc., there's one aspect of Google Calendar which has begun to be very useful to me: "Notifications".

Using Notifications, I can set up the program to send me an email a few hours, or a day or a few days, before each "event" on my calendar, as a reminder. This is useful not just for appointments, but for the type of thing I ordinarily handle by using lots of sticky-notes taped up around my office - reminders of things that need to be attended or prepared for in the future. For example:

• hosting accounts which are going to automatically renew for the years (and hit my bank account with a sizable charge)
• transfers from my PayPal account to my bank account, which take 3-4 days, which I need to confirm
• my automatic computer backup, which I'd like to not have interrupt me in the middle of doing something on the computer

Of course, it's also handy for appointments, deadlines, and remembering to get to salsa dance class! But using it for less traditional reminders is even more useful, since it really is effective in clearing my life of the multiple small paper notes that I use for this type of thing.

As far as adding volume to my email in-box, this doesn't bother me at all, simply because (1) my in-box isn't out of control, (2) this is useful enough to warrant using email to get my attention, and (3) I just read and delete the reminders, so they aren't much of a burden.