Please let us know what tips topics would help you be more effective, reduce your frustration, expand your imagination.

19-Feb-10	Voice Mail vs Answering Machine Everyone chooses what to do in-house and what to outsource. Always there are tradeoffs, with time, money, convenience. One such choice has to do with what system you pick to answer your phone when you are not able to take the call: an answering machine or phone-company voice mail. In my view, there is no contest. The answer is....
11-Feb-10	Digital Nation  Wondering what it all means? Where it is going? Don't miss this on-line program.
22-Dec-09	Lost and Found Whether you received a digital camera as a holiday gift or already have one, an easy means of self-identification should your camera be misplaced is to take a photo, with your camera, of information identifying you.  Should a stranger find your camera and look through the photos on it, he or she will see how to contact you to arrange returning it. Click on the link above for a photo and more information.
04-Nov-09	Upgrade or Die The digital tools world eats itself for breakfast daily. Almost anything you buy that uses electricity and serves an ICE function (a new acronym! ICE=Information, Communication, Entertainment) loses its relevance and functionality before you even get it home. Tomorrow there will be a "new" version of something that will inevitably make that item less useful, or, perhaps, not work at all. The computer world is defined by innovation and upgrades. If you put yourself on the digital tools road—who can avoid that highway?—your life will involve more "maintenance" than you might imagine. Hammers don't need upgrades, but virtually all digital tools do. Your favorite tool might not upgrade. Your choice is to throw it away—buy a new one!, or drop that tool from your digital tools belt. Workarounds? Lots of money, ibuprofen, or, call your friendly JoeBay U upgrade psychiatrist.
09-Sep-09	Save Money! Save Carbon! The buzzwords on the "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee" Section of the "Houston we have a problem" Energy Newspaper have the abbreviation DSM, which stands for "Demand Side Management". The short version of this mouthful came from your grandmother who always told you to turn off the lights when you leave a room. DSM, then, means that there are new rules no longer just on the horizon but soon to be knocking on your door; freely translated, these rules mean that your grandmother (now taking the form of your friendly electrical utility, Opalco) will effectively pay you to turn off the lights if you do it during certain times of each day. Those times are called the "peak" demand period.  Want to know more? Click on the "Save Money! Save Carbon!" link above.
06-Aug-09	Free Long Distance You may have seen the abbreviation VOIP and heard stories that long distance calls can be made for free on the internet. The stories are basically true. VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol, which is the engineer's way of describing another use of the internet: long distance telephone calls. One service that is particularly neat is Skype, which allows you to make not only a voice call, but a video call (voice and picture) to any other Skype user anywhere in the world, free. The software is free, and the cost per call is zip. You'll need a DSL connection, but most folks have that. For more information, click the "Free Long Distance" link above.
30-Jul-09	Use Your Computer to Help Others Whether you leave your computer on 24/7 or only turn it on when you need it, that computer is generally loafing while you use it to write email or watch a YouTube presentation. You could "loan" some of that unused computational power to any number of projects that operate under the philosophy that "many hands make light work." Various non-profit organizations are looking for volunteers who will add their computer's shoulder to the wheel of big, hard to solve problems. One computational challenge concerns proteins, the building blocks for our bodies. When proteins have difficulties, we have difficulties. To learn more about how easy it is to have your computer help solve Alzheimers or Lou Gherig's Disease, or improve rice strains, or look for extra terrestrial intelligence, or work on many other problems, click on the link "Using Your Computer to Help Others" above.
21-Jul-09	iTunes U If information is power, iTunes U is the information equivalent of Star Trek's dilithium crystal. iTunes is accessible from either a Mac or a PC. Many people imagine iTunes contains only pay-as-you-go music downloads, but iTunes has a wealth of free, high value added resources. Aside from podcasts (more on this in another tip), iTunes offers iTunes U, a cornucopia of lectures, presentations, and courses from colleges, universities, institutes and individuals from all over the world. Read more about iTunes U at JoeBay U, or, venture forth, download iTunes from Apple.com on your PC (it is already there if you have a Mac) and click on iTunes U. Click on the iTunes link, above, for how to do it info.
14-Jul-09	Learn a Few Keyboard Commands Many computer users use the mouse to perform actions that could be done faster and with greater accuracy if done with the keyboard. A common task is to either "cut and paste" or "copy and paste". To discover the equivalent keyboard commands for commonly used menu actions (like "copy" or "paste"), look at the symbols shown to the right of the pop-down menus. For a Macintosh, you'll notice ⌘C to the right of the "Copy"  option on the "Edit"  menu. Click on "Learn a Few Keyboard Commands" above for more on this topic.
07-Jul-09	Backups Realtors will tell you "location location location" A wise digital tools advisor will tell you "backup backup backup". Don't whine. Don't procrastinate. Do it now. All hard drives fail. Repeat after me: "All hard drives fail. MY hard drive will fail. If it fails right now, will I be happy?" There are many backup options. Get one! Use one! Do I sound like mom? Brush your teeth! Click "Backups" for more info.

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