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Easy Zooming in Outlook Calendar

I sometimes like to “micro” plan my day’s events using Microsoft Outlook, to plan for a series of consecutive 10 or 15 minute tasks.  To switch to this view requires a convoluted series of mouse clicks, and then an equally time consuming task to revert to the usual time resolution.

Zoomed-in View	Zoomed-out View

I created an Autohotkey script that allows you to use the control-minus and control-equals (remember it’s below the plus key,) to instantly zoom in and out of your Outlook calendar.  I would prefer to use the standard control-mouse wheel zoom, but for unexplained reasons, the script became unreliable in that configuration.

Download the executable, or see the source:

The Science of Choice

Lifehack.org has a great article on managing perfectionism,”Getting to Good Enough.”

And at the New York Times, a similar article discusses a small study that showed how spending too much time spent making optimal choices robs us of often hidden opportunity costs.

Instant Email or Texting (SMS) Using Launchy

I frequently send one-line emails and/or text messages to my wife throughout the day.  I configured Launchy so all I have to type is alt-space, cherylemail, tab, and the contents of the short email.

1.  Download and install Blat (a command-line mail client.)

2.  Add a new Launchy runner command (see image below.)  In the Program field, enter the path to the Blat executable.

3.  Use something like this in the arguments field: (Don’t miss the leading hyphen.)

- -to “yourfriend@domain.com” -f myemail@mydomain.com -subject “Quick Note” -body “$$”

Effects of Caffeine Consumption

There is an extensive article in the current (March 2008) issue of the “Nutrition Action Health Letter” published by the well-respected Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI, the organization primarily responsible for getting us mandatory nutritional facts printed on food, among many other accolades.)

They summarize the current knowledge about caffeine and its effects–caffeine provides many possible benefits and few side effects (excluding pregnant women.)

The side effects listed are:

1. It may cause sleeplessness if taken within a few hours of bedtime.
2. If at least 300mg/day taken, fertility may cut odds of pregnancy in half
3. At least 200mg/day may increase risk of miscarriage.
4. People susceptible to migraines may be at increased risk with daily caffeine exposure.

The benefits of caffeine according to current research are:

1. Decreased risk of Parkinson’s disease
2. Decreased risk of Gallstones,
3. Improved mental performance,
4. Headache reduction
5. Improved mood
6. Better athletic performance.

What caffeine does not cause:

1. Caffeine does not counteract alcohol’s detrimental effects,
2. There is not enough data to determine if birth defect risk is increased, but the FDA recommends avoiding caffeine-containing foods and drugs if possible.
3. Caffeine does not increase risk of:  heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis (as long as you increase your calcium intake slightly,) dehydration (it’s not a diuretic,) PMS, weight loss, or stunt growth.

Take Notes in the Shower

I had been racking my brain for an easy solution to be able to write down the ideas I think of in the shower.  Then one day, I realized I already had the solution in the bathroom.  I commandeered my daughter’s bathtub crayons, and now whenever I need to write something down, I write it on the shower wall.  Plus my wife and I write each other love notes.

Free Online Backups

With my recent move to a paperless office, I decided I to start doing backups more consistently and to find an online solution for this.  Previously, I had been using an IDE to USB cable to sporadically do important backups by manually copying important data like photos, my Outlook file, etc. to an old hard drive.  Then I put the drive in my fire safe and lock it.

I found out about Mozy, an online backup service that comes with great software and allows you up to 2GB of free online backups.  It has been working great for me.  I split off my really big files into a separate folder, and keep those backed up locally in the fire safe, but 99% of my scanned files are now backed up online automatically at no cost.

Instant PDF Search

I just scanned a reference book I use daily in the kitchen called Keeping Food Fresh. I wanted to quickly and easily look up items from the book, so I created a Launchy command that will allow me to look up a string in any Acrobat file, and open the file at the position of the first match.

All I have to do is type “alt-space,” food, tab, and then the search term.  The script does the rest.

The Autohotkey script is as follows:

Quick To-Do List Entry

I use ListPro as my main list repository.  To quickly add items to my lists, I type “alt-space, tab, todo, tab,” and then whatever line of text I want to add to my todo list (groceries, tasks, etc.)

To accomplish this, I use Launchy with the below Autohotkey script.  Inside Launchy, use the runner plug-in with the path to the below Autohotkey script as the command and “$$” (including quotes) as the parameter.

Move Tab to New Window in IE7

Many times I have wanted to move a tab into a new window in IE7, but have been frustrated that the tab remains in the old tab group when you press control-N.  Install this Autohotkey executable in your Windows startup folder to make IE7 behave sensibly, so when you press control-N it moves the currently open tab to a new window. 

Alternately, you can do this manually, by pressing “control down, n, w, control up,” or add the below Autohotkey code to your startup script to change the behavior of control-N so that it does not duplicate the current tab, but relocates it.  Maybe someday Microsoft will fix this undesirable behavior.  Firefox users, look here.