Thoughts on many things
-
Start a new Google Doc/Sheet/Slide deck straight from the address bar
I recently learned of a nifty little trick for users of Google’s Workspace services (i,e. Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms etc.): You can start a new document, spreadsheet, slide deck and so on from the address bar of your web browser. Simply enter the appropriate command (below) into the address bar, hit return, and watch as…
-
A further metric for support
I have previously written about key metrics for support departments – and I stand by everything I said then. I have, however, come to the conclusion that another metric should be placed under consideration. A quick recap, however, of the metrics I proposed then, as well as what they are intended to measure: Resolution rate…
-
Improving your Google-fu
Search engines can be a great way of finding what you’re searching for. Using them to their fullest extrent, however, requires a bit of knowledge about how to structure your searches. These examples are some that I use on a regular basis: Quotation marks searches for everything between them “James Brown” returns results matching James…
-
Hacking team software used by criminal cartels
Back in 2015, I wrote about the Hacking team data breach. Among other things, I wrote: Police departments are run for public service, Hacking Team is run for profit. Police departments are subject to independent oversight, Hacking Team is not. […} Had they been a company founded in solid morals and ethics, they wouldn’t have found themselves…
-
Should you start a blog?
A friend recently contacted me through LinkedIn, writing: Hey!I see that you’re posting regularly to your blog, shared here on LinkedIn. I’ve been wanting to start a blog where I write about the things I learn, specifically related to my field of study (removed to protect their privacy), but I find it pretty scary. It…
-
State of the Blog 2021
This is the sixth year in a row where I return with a summer retrospective article. These are meant to be the summer counterpart to my end-of-year roundup series. As a result, some information will be duplicated across the two series of posts. We have all been affected by the corona virus pandemic, and I have mostly been relegated…
-
How to block everyone who likes a tweet on Twitter
I am a relatively active Twitter user. One of the things I do in order to keep Twitter a fairly enjoyable place, is to actively use the Block feature. I usually leave it at blocking individual users, but some tweets are simply so nasty that I don’t only want to block the user that tweeted…
-
Memes: A bad way to get your information
As a denizen of the internet for a quarter of a century, I have seen more than a few memes. Some funny, some less so. Some are highly informative, some are entirely for fun, and far too many are entirely misinformation. Whatever the case, I generally find that memes are not a good way to…
-
The engineer’s estimate
-A formula for success I try to keep out of trouble at work as much as possible. I do so for many reasons, chief among them being because I far prefer being praised to being yelled at. There is a relatively simple way to achieve this; make your promises rarely and in such a fashion…
-
Calculating percentage change in Excel
If you do a lot of work in Excel, odds are you’ve needed to calculate a percentage change. Luckily, Excel does this for you quite readily if you simply apply a basic formula of (New Value – Old Value)/Old Value. There is, however, a pitfall that you’ll not get the values you expect if the…