Sound: #26 Making (or listening to) Music Together

I looked at the sites and enjoyed Project Playlist. It took me a little while to get to understand what I was doing. The one that was the most fun was JamStudio. You can have a ball with this one. Although my song sounded like it was skipping. I had to go back and change a few of the beats. This one site that could help me learn my chords maybe that is a big maybe. The another big maybe I can finally play my guitar.

#25 Sound: Am I a music pirate? It's hard to know.

I have learned the process of burning CD's. It gets a little addicting for me. I have the IPOD that I place music on but don't have the capability to hear the music while I am driving. So in order for me to hear a few of my favorites I burn them to a CD and play them in my car. Recently I burned a few what I call exercise music for fitness instructors to use in class. Now I did not sell them for a profit. I gave them as a gift. I think musicians do benefit from sharing music online and are protected by copyright laws. I think it helps in their popularity. And they still are making profit. It's nice to just buy one song rather than having to buy the artist whole CD just for one song that you like.

#24 The Sound of Music

I received a IPod for Christmas and have downloaded different songs from different sites. My favorite is Itunes. Mainly because that is the first site that I tried and I find it easy for me to use. It took me a little while to understand it but now I enjoy looking for my music to exercise too. My favorite radio station is 92.1 Praise. I listen to this station when I get a chance to at work. I also listen to 99.1 Sunny.

Spring Cleaning #30 Take a Load Off our Drives

I do not have access for the S: drive. For some reason if you computer is on the county domain side the drive cannot be viewed. As for the P: drive Support Services uses the H: drive. Files are created there for Support Services staff to use or share. It contains databases that the staff uses every day. As for adding material to the drive I have done that. But it is usually a copy and paste of a folder from the previous fiscal year. As for spring cleaning my supervisor is in charge of the drive and would have to go through it to determine what can be deleted.

As for the Z: drive. I use this one constantly. I did have some personal photos which I have now moved to a USB. Most of my photos consist of coworkers and staff events. I save them in case I need to use them for a future scrapbook or in case we need to look at a past staff member to remember who they were. My Z: drive really needed to be cleaned up. This exercise gave me the opportunity to do that. I guess I really didn’t think about what I was really saving to this drive. But now I will be more cautious of what I save. The USB’s really are helpful and saving material to clear up drives. The oldest file I had was one I created while working in Acquisitions. It was six years old. Truthfully it was not very important why I kept it saved I don’t know. As for being organized I guess I need to do some fine tuning on myself.

Spring Cleaning #29 Email

I have three personal email accounts through Yahoo, Hotmail and Google. I use one for personal use for instance for friends and family, one email for creditors and one for web sites that ask you to sign up before looking at their web sites. I only use HCPL for work related items or at times for personal use. At times my family will send a quick email to tell me to check my personal email. After I read the email I usually delete it or forward to my personal email. Sometimes I do respond to a personal email but once I’m done with that email I delete it. One thing to always remember is that personal emails are not private and can be viewed and retrieved by Network Services.

I created three folders to move my emails to. I created one for informational emails that I might need to hang on to for a little longer. I created another one to put emails from my supervisor. The other folder I created is for Auditing/Purchasing information that I need to hang onto for a week or two.

I will have to get into a routine of deleting, moving, and forwarding emails more often. Maybe start skimming through emails on Friday’s and clearing out before a new week starts. I have deleted files in my in box. I had 194 emails. My box is now down to 3 emails.

Spring Cleaning #28 Don't Clutter Up Expensive Cyberspace

I read the GTD article from Wikipedia. I agree with writing or making lists of tasks to be done; whether it is for the current day or the next day. For me personally when I write a task down it’s basically a goal to accomplish for the day. If there is one task I did not complete at the end of the work day then a move that task to the top of the next day’s tasks.

The one thing I did like in this article is the Process part and I need to put this into practice. It describes how the workflow is followed. This gave me some different views on handling a few tasks. In dealing with what the task item action requires, if I can do a task in two minutes then I should get that task out of the way. Never put anything back into the “in”. Meaning if it is a task you really don’t want to handle at the moment but you know it needs to be done. If your hands touched the items to read you might as well complete the tasks rather than putting it aside. When you put items aside they can easily get buried with other work piled on top. If the item needs to be filed might as well do the filing when you complete the tasks. Again things can pile up.

I mainly use calendars for appointments and reminders. I never put any of my tasks for the day on the calendar.

I did try the Ta-Da list and Bla-Bla List both about the same. However I don’t know if I would really use the sites since most of the time I tend to write down my tasks on Dry Erase board and it is easily accessible to me. Plus I don’t have to sign into a web site to type in the tasks for the day. It is also accessible for others to view what my tasks are for the day.