Discover how mastering email communication can boost business efficiency, avoid common pitfalls, and ensure secure, respectful online interactions.
Turkey Revenge
The turkeys are pissed this Thanksgiving they are seeking revenge.
Germs Infest 60% of Americas Phones
60% of Americans sleep with their phones, harboring germs. Cleaning regularly with UV sanitizer or alcohol wipes can help keep your phone and bed germ-free.
Smartphone Sanitizing: A Practical Guide
Securely erase personal data from your old smartphone before recycling. Protect your identity from hackers—easy steps to follow.
Why Soft Skills Matter in Today’s Job Market
Boost your career with essential soft skills like communication, teamwork, and emotional intelligence. Learn why they’re crucial for workplace success.
5 Ways Taking Notes Can Improve Your Life
Jotting down everything that happens at your daily meetings can boost your productivity and make your workday better. Handwritten notes are a powerful tool for creating the neurocircuitry through the hand-brain complex supporting the brain’s capacity to retrieve information. Here are a few examples of how taking notes with a pen and paper can make your life better.
1. Make a Million
How often has a million-dollar idea flashed through your brain and then it’s gone? They can come to you in the shower, at the gym at lunch and if you don’t write them down, you will forget them as soon as you enter the office or sit down at your desk. Carrying a notebook with you can change that. Just scribble your million-dollar idea down and carry on.
2. Be Better
Taking notes will help you improve the quality of your work (work and personal). Your notes are your personal external memory storage. Your notebook can be a “refresher course” on all the things you have picked up through life.
Taking notes can make you look good – to your boss. If you’re in a meeting and are seen to be writing all the key factors and ideas down, this is a subtle hint about your character. It shows you have determination, can self-motivate, and are efficient.
3. Check It Off
Notes can help you keep your To-Do list up to date. Studies have shown that as soon as you walk out of the room – your brain will automatically forget what was discussed. Writing things down can stop this from happening. So when the inevitable change comes thru you have a base to build your new day (or week).
4. Be Your Own Master
You have a plan. You need to stick to it. But it is all too easy to get sucked into a whole host of conversations, “busy” activities, and, of course, the ever-addicting world of social media. Taking notes can help you stay on track and do the things you need to do rather than put them off for “tomorrow” (or get sidetracked by the never-ending flow of emails, text messages, and phone calls).
Jotting down as and when you get more requests piling in helps you prioritize them. This allows you to focus on the activities that are really urgent, rather than those you feel are urgent. You don’t have to constantly derail your day because someone thinks their request is the most important thing you’ve heard all day. The world doesn’t work like that, and you shouldn’t either.
5. Taking Notes Reduce Stress
After a meeting (or any activity at work) your brain will be cluttered with loose ends, ideas, and just a boatload of information. This isn’t good for your stress levels – having a cluttered mind can feel unsettled. Taking notes is a sure-fire way to regain control of your thoughts.
Studies have shown that stress-free minds are more productive. Being stress-free physically increases your brain’s density in the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for much of our conscious thought and reasoning, and the ability to focus through emotional turmoil.
Controlling stress is extra critical during the COVID pandemic lockdowns. The U.S. Institute of Mental Health says that long-term stress may lead to serious health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other illnesses, including mental disorders such as depression or anxiety.
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For note-taking – I use a pen and paper notebook. I can take it pretty much everywhere to capture those million-dollar ideas. I know that many like to take their notes on a laptop or tablet because they think it’s easier to edit and organize their notes and tasks. But research (PDF) says using a laptop or tablet may be slowing you down and cluttering your notes with irrelevant information.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
5 Unexpected Things You Can Do With Coffee
The average American drinks over 3 cups of coffee a day, leading to a lot of used coffee grounds. Coffee is good for more than just waking you up in the morning. Most people throw grounds in the trash but before you throw them away, consider some of the things that can be done with used grounds. Take a look at this list and find the perfect recycling tips and tricks so you can enjoy your coffee again – even after you’ve finished sipping your morning cup of Joe!
Stop Stinks – A whiff of coffee in an unexpected place always puts a smile on my face. You can use coffee grounds to make your environment better. Instructable Living explains how to neutralize funky smells in your fridge, car, gym bag, or any other place that makes your nose wrinkle. You can make a coffee-scented air fresher by collecting dried coffee grounds into an old pair of pantyhose. Not only can coffee grounds get rid of the funk in your fridge – they can get rid of stubborn smells like garlic, onions, or fish from your hands. Just mix a few coffee grounds into your soap and scrub until your fingers no longer smell
Turn Your Plants Blue – According to Healthline, coffee grounds release nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, and other minerals that stimulate plant growth. Coffee grounds also repel insects that might damage those plants. You can sprinkle coffee grounds directly on the soil and turn your Hydrangea blue.
Coffee Slime – Slime is a huge hit, especially with older kids, namely middle school kids. While on the one hand they’re growing up and want to appreciate adult smells/flavors/tastes, like coffee they also have this incredible attraction to the gooey and gross. You can make coffee slime
Catch More Fish – Outdoorsy website Gone Outdoors recommends letting worms wriggle around in coffee grounds for a while before putting them on the hook. They cite “fishing experts,” that almost guarantee anglers will catch a fish if they use coffee-smelling worms as bait. There are even coffee-scented lures on the market.
Walk Safer – If you live in an area where snow and ice are likely to pile up, keep your used coffee grounds handy. Coffee grounds are “green” and don’t cause environmental harm compared to the traditional de-icer salt. Save those grounds and sprinkle them along walking areas this winter. The Farmers Almanac says you can use coffee grounds to melt ice. Java Presse explains that used coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen, a known ice-melter. More likely though coffee grounds increase friction and reduce your risk of slipping.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Veterans Day 2020
Thank a Veteran today
Veterans Day in the U.S. is observed annually on November 11, which celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans. It coincides with other holidays including Armistice Day and Remembrance Day which are celebrated in other countries that mark the anniversary of the end of World War I. Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 when the Armistice with Germany went into effect. At the urging of major U.S. veteran organizations, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Why Do We Call Them Dongles
If you remember the days before digital rights management (DRM) you also remember having to connect a piece of hardware to your PC to make a piece of software work. The hardware required to activate your software was commonly referred to as a ‘Smart Key.’ Smart keys or dongles are plugged into a computer port and controlled your access to one or more software applications – early copyright protection.
The first time I ran into a “smart key” was setting up an Avid video editing system on a fancy new PowerMac G3 back in the day. More recently I saw techs struggle to set up a way to use a “not so smart key” in a high availability VM environment. “Dongle” now refers to “any small module that plugs in and sticks out of a socket.” But why are these things commonly call dongles and where did the weird word actually come from? That’s a matter of debate — The Atlantic dangles several promising origin stories.
Dongle origin stories
A Poetic Origin – The oldest theory is that dongle came, from the literary world. The article explains that the word “dongle” has been frequently used in poetry, as an onomatopoeic term for the ringing of bells (as in “ding-dong”). As an example, this 1915 poem, “The Bells of Berlin”:
The Bells of Berlin, how they hearten the Hun
(Oh dingle dong dangle ling dongle ding dee);
No matter what devil’s own work has been done
They chime a loud chant of approval, each one,
Till the people feel sure of their place in the sun
(Oh dangle ding dongle dong dingle ding dee).
Ummmm – Does that ring a bell with anybody?
A College Entrance Exam – If the poetry idea does not ring true for you – the author offers another theory. They found a claim by Ian Kemmish in a chat about the etymology of “dongle” has its roots in a logic question in a Cambridge college entrance exam.
The first time I saw the word was … in 1976 … It was a “logic” question. The question 
described a mythical computer with various controls … described various combinations of control actions and their outcomes (‘the babbocks break’, ‘the dongles droop’ etc) … ‘dongle’ was coined by someone who had taken that paper … remembered the word used to describe something on a computer that drooped….
Well – Does that origin story make the grade?
Another UK theory – The University of Pennsylvania’s language log says the word ‘dongle’ emerged around 1980. They base the claim on the U.K. magazine MicroComputer Printout’s report that dongle, “has been appearing in many articles with reference to security systems for computer software.”
A Madison Avenue Invention – If U.K. origins don’t work – the article tries to sell you another one. The word “dongle” appears in a 1992 ad for the information-security company Rainbow Technologies (SafeNet >> Thales), in Byte Magazine. The ad claimed that “dongle” was a derivation of its inventor, Mr. “Don Gall.” This was untrue, Ben Zimmer on the NYT notes, that the story, “was so egregiously false that the company happily owned up to it as a marketing ploy when pressed …”
A Corruption of the Word “Dangle”- According to P.B. Schneck in the 1999 IEEE paper Persistent access control to prevent piracy of digital information “… the word may be a corruption of ‘dangle,’ … given the shape of most dongles … though it doesn’t directly explain the shift in vowels form “a” to “o.”
It is Magic – The Atlantic seems to give up and attributed the origin of “dongle” to an unknown neologizer. They conclude that “dongle” just sprung up from the minds of some unknown figure in a process of “de novo creation.” One expert blames the phenomena of phonesthesia, or sound symbolism. He believes dongle, ” … appeared out of the blue in recent decades — among them bling, bonkers, bungee, dweeb, glitzy, gunk, and wonk.”
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Despite not knowing why we call them dongles – dongles are still with us.
Want to connect your laptop to a television? You’ll need a dongle.
Want to track your dog’s activity? Buy a dongle.
Trying Chromecast? You’ll also be dongling.
They are still causing much frustration and controversy.
The ultimate solution to the HA VM dongle problems was to and replace the application – In the interim, they used a Digi usb anywhere device to get more than one VM to connect to the Digi device.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
