PowerPoint Don'ts

I just caught this on LifeHacker and had to share it. I love all his points and unfortunately I think I may have at one time or another done all those things mentioned in the presentation ... I'm trying to learn from my mistakes though.

Work Related iPhone Apps

As promised here is my review of some of the work related iPhone applications I've tried since I got my phone in December.

I haven't found many applications that are directly related to technical writing or training development. Though I have found some applications that help me at work.

MyToDo—I am a list maker and I keep a running To Do list at work as a way to help me remember where I'm at with my projects. The MyToDo application gives me a place to input the items I need to get done and organize them into different lists. It lets me keep the things I need to do for church separate from the things I need to do for work and so on. This is also great for those work items that I remember I need to do when I'm at home and away from my paper list.

Dragon Dictation—I'm still experimenting with this application, but I am excited about the idea. This application allows you to use your iPhone as a dictation machine. The speech recognition takes some time to get used to your voice, but this is great for the notes and such that you need to keep and don't have time to type them up. The only downside to this application is that it does not save the text for you. You have to copy and paste it into a note or other application.

So, there you go, the work related applications that I like. What do you think? Are their any others that you use?

New Toy--iPhone

I recently purchased an iPhone after drooling over one for months. I'm loving it and all the apps. Over the next few days I will share some of my favorite writing and geek related apps. So stay tuned

Want to Help??

As I've seen the pictures and video coming out of Haiti I've wanted to help. I donated to a charities that is send people and supplies to Haiti.

Today I found another way to help, The Extraordinaries. This website asks people to help tag pictures from the earthquake area to assist in the search for missing people. Its simple to do and doesn't take long.

Just click Haiti Quake on the home page to get started.

Thanks!!!!

I've been spending alot of time the last few days going through the survey responses and I have to say a big thank you to all of you that took the time to fill out the survey.

I got a good number of responses (95 total) and great comments. Thanks for you honesty and ideas.

I'm presenting this research at the eLearning Guild's January online forum. I'll post more about what I found after that date.

Research Help Needed

I'm putting together a presentation for the eLearning Guild's January online forum and need your help to complete my research. I am researching people's experiences learning online, whether through videos, full classes, or just short tutorials and need your experiences.

If you can spare 5-10 minutes, please complete the survey.

Feel free to link to this post if you know of other sites that this type of research might be applicable too.

Geeky Things I'm Grateful For.......

Geek Dad last week posted his list of geeky things to be thankful for and it inspired me to create a list of my own. I'm not sure its geeky enough, but its a start.

5. Joss Weadon, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and others
Thanks for bringing "cult" and "geek" TV to the main stream or at least prime-time television. And thanks for giving the world some of the best female heroines. Life or at least TV would have been boring the last few years without Buffy, Sydney, Kate, Sun, Echo, and others.

4. Tivo
Tivo has revolutionized the way TV is watched, at least in my house. I don't have to run home anymore to make sure I catch every minute of Lost or Grey's Anatomy. I can just watch it when I have time. Plus I don't have to make the non-geeks in my house watch Sanctuary, Doctor Who, Robin Hood or any other SciFi or British show that they won't admit to enjoying.

3. Adobe
I will admit this company's products could also be listed under things that frustrate me the most. But I don't think I could do half of my job without Adobe's products. From writing documentation in FrameMaker to capturing screen demonstrations inCaptivate my work life is easier thanks to them.

2. Skullcandy Ear Buds
I'm not sure that these can really be classified as geeky, but they do come in lots of colors. I'm picky when it comes to headphones/ear buds and my metallic blue Titan ear buds are my favorite. They get rid of the background noise in my office, so that I can keep the volume low and not destroy my ear drums.

1. Harry Potter, Bella Swan, the Guernsey Literary Society, and others
During college I lost my love for reading. It just seemed like I was reading one Norton Literature Anthology or Technical Writing text book after another. Then I stumbled upon the first Harry Potter book at a Barnes and Nobel. After a reading session that ended at 3am, I found I loved to read again. So I'm grateful for all the somewhat geeky or flat out geeky literature out there that has kept me up at night just trying to finish next chapter.

So there is my list, what do you think? Anything I left off?