Spring has begun and it’s time to get rid of your winter clothes and take out that light spring outfit. But it’s also that time of year where you need to do big spring housecleaning. It’s out with the old and in with the new.
But this doesn’t only apply to your house. There’s one other thing that needs to be cleaned and it’s perhaps the more important one: your computer.
As businesses strive to keep up with technology, they’re allowing more and more flexibility in how an employee works. And thanks to developments in technology and the internet, the modern day office now comes in all different kinds of shapes and sizes.
Naturally, one office space is never as effective as another. Each one generates a different atmosphere and environment that directly affects how you work. Fortunately, there are many ways to optimize your workspace no matter where it is.
We decided to take a look at 3 common types of the modern day office with a few basic tips on how you can improve your productivity at each one.
This standard office space is slowly being traded in for alternative working methods. It’s no mystery that your environment has a direct impact on your well-being. In most cases, we’re used to sitting an average of up to 8 hours in front of the desktop, which can take a toll on your health. From incorrect body posture and eye strain to carpel tunnel syndrome and back aches, the computer desk can be full of health risks over the long run.
But, you can improve them. While your office space might not be able to equal those of Google’s, whose creative workspaces are geared to keeping their staff inspired, you can still try to get it suited to your own comfort level. Try changing and practicing a few small things to improve your overall productivity like:
This is usually the office space for freelancers, outsourced or online workers, work at home moms, pro bloggers, and employees who live too far to commute. This type of office comes with great benefits. You save on gas, traveling time, money spent on lunch, and you can easily fit in personal appointments or schedule home deliveries.
Unfortunately, a ton of distractions exist. Working from the comfort of your own home doesn’t give you the same busy feeling of a productive business office. Instead, you have easy access to your entertainment system, a cozy bed, and your spacious backyard.
How do you keep your worker hat on? For starters, try to:
In a post-PC world that’s focused on mobile gadgets, the concept of the “mobile office” is now more widely accepted. Many companies in fact are turning to a mobile workforce, which makes sense as it saves time, increases productivity and reduces overhead costs. And you can get your work done from wherever you are.
Despite this, working on a mobile device does have some drawbacks. You’re restricted to a small screen size, a touch-screen keyboard, and limited hardware resources. Under those conditions, you need to find the right set up and the perfect balance to working effectively on a single device.
As a mobile worker, consider a few adjustments like:
There are a dozen of little tweaks you can make to keep your productivity levels up. These are just a few. So start taking careful stock of your workspace and figure out if your current set up is helping or hindering your work.
We all spend a good part of our time on the computer, and as paperless workers, we’re conditioned to find the fastest way to get things done. But are we ever working as effectively as we could? Probably not.
And it’s not because we don’t try. It’s just that we often overlook the most common place where we can tweak our routines to make them even more efficient. It’s the one place where we all start from: the desktop.
With a few simple changes and customizations, you can eliminate the seconds you spend on extra desktop clicks, searches, and toggling. Take a look.
First thing to deal with is icon clutter. Everyone suffers from it. It’s easy to rack up stray shortcuts over time via software installations and quick saves to the desktop. If there are ones that you don’t need on a regular basis, delete them. Shortcuts are only good for tasks or software you access on a daily or weekly basis.
Second, consider the type of shortcuts you create. Ones that help you perform repetitive tasks are the most efficient. Consider email reports you send on a daily basis. If they all contain the same formatting and the same outline, create a template for it and then generate a desktop shortcut to quickly call it up (right-click on the template file and select “Create Shortcut”). A desktop trick like that can shave minutes off your routine.
Did you know that you don’t have to stick to just one desktop? Dexpot is a handy tool that will let you set up multiple virtual desktops. It’s perfect for anyone working on more than one project at a time. Each desktop is kept separate, but easily accessible via hotkeys, thumbnails and across different monitors, as well.
You should also consider putting your desktop real estate to good use. Categorize and organize your icons. Tools like Fences and Nimi Places keep your desktop shortcuts organized into different zones for quick access. Both tools come with customization features like filtering options that can keep your work area in order at all times.
Or you can take things up a notch by cleaning up your desktop completely. RocketDock can give you a minimalistic work area by keeping all your favourite shortcuts, folders, and applications in one neat and tidy dock you can easily access when you need it.
Then there’s your Taskbar. You can adjust and customize it through the Control Panel. Auto-hide it, group similar buttons together, or show window preview thumbnails. Make it work with your everyday tasks. For example, if you take a lot of tutorial screenshots, you may want to auto-hide the taskbar completely so you don’t have to crop it out later on.
A desktop can also be effective in other ways. Starting on a new task? Create a flow chart or cheatsheet reference image of the process and set it as your wallpaper. Or download a motivational image for those times when you need an extra push. Your desktop can be more than just a dumping ground for shortcuts and files.
Having quick access to programs is a necessity. While the desktop allows you to avoid the hitting Start menu button, you can get even more efficient with a desktop app like Launchy. Like its name suggests, it will let you launch applications from it just like you would with the Start button, but it can also launch documents, files, bookmarks, folders and more.
You can launch your daily web browser apps right from the desktop. Browser apps usually require an opened browser to access them. However, a tool like Chrome App Launcher, will not only let you access Internet based Chrome web apps directly, it will also let you access packaged Chrome apps that “run as separate, standalone software that can also be used offline, unlike traditional browsers,” according to PCWorld’s review.
It may seem like an insignificant thing to reorganize your desktop. You may even think that small details like desktop shortcuts won’t matter. But it’s the little things that add up. So keep your desktop in order. It can either make or break your productivity!
An interesting tidbit for this week. There’s a new format on the block and it looks like it’s drumming up some buzz as the next PDF-Killer.
The last one to hit the industry, if I remember correctly, was the XML Paper Specification (XPS) format about 4 years ago when Microsoft Office 2007 was being released with XPS creation capabilities. This time around, it’s the CDF format—Computable Document Format, a newly innovated open format that puts “interactive documents” on another level.
Having been developed by the team over at Wolfram.com, the CDF format uses mathematical computation technology to render the live interactive element of its content. The company is known for its computing software program and platform, Mathematica, which, in a nutshell, is used for computing data visualizations needed in fields dealing with complex data, information analysis, and mathematical formulae.
What is the CDF format?
According to the site, the CDF is “as everyday as a document, but as interactive as an app.” Instead of simply viewing static text, images, and tables, with a CDF document you can manipulate them through inputting data, clicking on controls, and moving sliders. If you have a graph with data calculated and projected over time, you can modify those values and see the changes visualized–on the spot.
Looking at the CDF files they have on-site, you can see why it’s being called a PDF-Killer. From a user point of view, the CDF format shares a lot of the same basic similarities and uses as the PDF: it requires a file viewer (CDF Player), can contain different types of content, and is only editable in Mathematica or other CDF content creators (creating an interactive CDF actually requires a bit of coding rather than a one click creation method, though).
The PDF already has interaction capabilities with the ability to play videos, Flash games, and manipulate 3D objects. But so far, as Conrad Wolfram (strategic & international development director of Wolfram) points out, those types of interactivity are pre-generated for you.
The CDF format provides a unique way of creating, consuming, and understanding informational content. As it is with all formats, though, each has its own strengths and uses, some of which are necessary, some not. Simple resumes and articles, for example, are still perfectly fine as a PDF. Live data and textbooks, however, may be better in CDF.
Rather than a question of will the CDF replace the PDF, I think the question facing PDF users is how the CDF format will interact with PDF files over the long run. The format was just launched, so it’s still in the early stages of adoption. So far, as per the FAQ, you can import content from PDFs and the CDF Player plugin is only supported by web browsers (no embedding CDF files in PDF, for instance).
Download the CDF player and take look at a few CDF examples in action for yourself.
Veering away from XPS this week, I’ve got the next posting in the ABCs series for you. It’s been a while, but here it is. This week, it’s about the history, the mechanics and the product. A little vague? What does this have to do with the PDF?, you ask. Read on.
GUI
From creation to manipulation and accessibility to view-ability, the GUI’s function is crucial to working with PDFs. Yet have you ever wondered about the history behind the interface you use? The first rough idea of a GUI was conceived of by American engineer, Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) in the early 1930s. In his essay “As We May Think,” published in 1945, Bush describes a device he called the “Memex” that would transform physical gestures into technical commands. A user could call up and display multiple “book” files on a desktop screen and jump through pages of content with the movement of one’s hand. Yet, it was only theorized about until Douglas Engelbart (1925-2013), inspired by Bush’s idea, decided to develop and implement the idea into a prototype. In 1968, the first working GUI was demonstrated.
The first marketable GUI using computer was invented by Xerox PARC in 1973 with the Xerox Alto computer. It was further enhanced by Apple’s revolutionary Apple Lisa PC ten years later in 1983. And by the 1990’s, the GUI of Microsoft’s Windows OS improved the functioning of the GUI into the one you know today. Of course, the interface has also been developed and used by a number of individual computer companies over the years, and it has come a long way in terms of looks and usage.
The goal for the GUI nowadays is to provide the most functionality within the least amount of space. And Adobe Reader 8 is just one example in its simplicity. Perhaps in the future our PDF viewers will do away with the GUI altogether, and use virtual reality as a way of “handling” PDF documents!
Hash Function
So far, we’ve made it so that electronic docs would be an easy way of storing and recording data. In addition, it prevents data from being physically lost or stolen– invisible and intangible until opened and printed. Yet, that also means that security has transferred from playing a physical role to a digital one. And just as you need a sense of security when physically locking doors, you also need it when securing electronic documents.
You already know that information security is important to the PDF and can be done with the click of a mouse. Yet, one of the things behind that simple move is something called a Hash function . Hash functions or algorithms play a role in creating a digital signature which you’ve undoubtedly used in the past to secure your PDFs. It is that digital signature which is made up of a hash and encryption key.
A textual message or document is made into a smaller data version of itself through a “hashing” process. When this happens, the content of the message is encoded, using a hash function. The hashed version of the message is called a message digest, which is, in turn, encrypted with the author’s private key. The resulting encryption of the message digest is the digital signature that you attach to the original PDF Document. All of this is done behind that one deceptive click.
And although the term “hash” may seem a funny word to refer to a security/encryption element, according to definition sources, it caught on in the 1960’s because it described the way in which hashing algorithms work—they “chop and mix” up the data being secured.
Investintech
The ever changing nature of the electronic world is not a new concept. Software and gadgets continually evolve within the fast paced environment of technological innovation. And Investintech has also been caught up in that forward momentum with the recent release of Sonic PDF Creator v.2.0. And, with its more-advanced-than-v.1.2 features (support for more formats, document toolkits and formatting capabilities), you can now create better PDF documents than you did before.
Of course, we’ll aim to surpass this 2.0 version in the future as well and continue to push the PDF creation envelope. It’s just a matter of checking in frequently to see what new creation features we’ll have in store!
‘Til next time. Stay tuned!