Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
How do we learn, well, anything? We watch how others do it. It’s how I learned to throw a baseball, smoke a cigar, drive a car, open a can (poorly–don’t ask), and so many other things.
Computers are no exception, either. The best way to learn which software you should use, which computer to use, how to set it up, and what the heck to do with it all, is to see exactly how they do it. In the tech world, people often will review products that might be great, but that they don’t use themselves; the best of the best, tend to be used by the best of the best.
A few smart people, around the Web, have been compiling and sharing what those people are doing—from their favorite software, to the contents of their bag, to what their desk looks like.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Every night, between when I go to bed and when I get up, I get about 25 emails. To answer your question, no, I’m not nearly important enough to be getting emails in the middle of the night.
Those emails are all newsletters, or Spam, or Ticketmaster trying to sell me Jonas Brothers tickets just because I went to 19 of their concerts. The vast majority of the email I get is of absolutely no interest to me – and I don’t think I’m alone.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Once people figure out you’ve got some computer know-how, you’re sure to get bombarded over and over with questions like “my computer’s on fire. What happened?” and “should this be ticking like that?” Often, these are problems we could fix on our own computers, but with someone else’s, it’s a lot harder. If it’s someone else who’s far away, it’s even worse.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
I don’t often hate things—I’m a pretty even-keeled dude. But I hate, despise, and utterly loathe the “Reply All” button that comes in every email client. Actually, those verbs don’t even really describe the level of my feelings, but I can’t say what I just said out loud because then my Mom, who reads this blog, would yell at me.
Point is, the Reply All function, which has become basically the standard way for dealing with a common thought or document among a group of people, just doesn’t work. It leads to people receiving emails who don’t need to, chains getting long and unwieldy for everyone involved, and allows for “thanks!” emails to get circulated to infinitely more people than actually should be thanked.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Email’s a weird thing. It’s one part revolution, making communication faster and easier than it’s ever been before, and allowing people to connect on an instant, simple level. It’s also one part time-sink, one part source of stress, and one part constant overwhelm thanks to the never-ending stream of emails that tends to boil up into everyone’s inboxes.
Love it or hate it, you really can’t avoid using email these days. And, to be honest, I wouldn’t want to – the advantages and uses are too many to lose out to the pain I feel in my soul thanks to the 15765 emails sitting in my email inbox at the moment.
So, since we’re stuck with it no matter how we feel, the only real solution is just to make email work a little better for us.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
This was originally my column for my school newspaper, the Cavalier Daily. But as seems to happen periodically, it’s just right for The 2.0 Life too.
As an outgoing college student with zero interest in actually going to grad school immediately, I’m on the job hunt. Unfortunately, that puts me in league with a crazy number of other people, both students and non-students, in a time when there are fewer and fewer jobs to be had.
It really is a scary time to be looking for a job (or even a summer internship), but thankfully, there are some great tools on the Web designed to help you not only find, but land, the job of your dreams.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
In fairness, this has nothing to do with the topic of this site. But it’s been so helpful and meaningful in my life recently that I figured I’d share.
I’ve got way too much to do, and not nearly enough time in which to do it. Know the feeling?
I’ve spent the last couple of months taking on new thing after new thing. I’ve been interviewing for jobs, writing for my school newspaper, working with a PR company, freelance writing, writing and editing my blog, and working on a pretty awesome new project for and by students, creating a space and community for my generation. Oh, and then there’s school, friends, homework, and that thing called “fun.”
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
The Web is this funny being, constantly teetering on the line between hugely productive and hugely wasteful. As easy as it is these days to know more, do more, and be part of more, there’s an easy slope toward wasting your time doing spectacularly barely-productive things. Sure, you’re reading Wikipedia, which is all well and good, but there’s usually something more productive to be doing.
But the solution obviously isn’t to unplug, turn off, and disconnect from all these things – that’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (Is that the right way to use the saying? I was going to look it up and make sure, but I don’t care – it’s an awesome saying, even when used inappropriately).
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