Chance encounters…
By DanB | July 15, 2008
It was a coincidence. I stopped for lunch at McDonald’s a few days ago. While I was standing in line a gentleman asked about the pen in my pocket. It turns out that he is a pen collector. One of my interests is pens – fountain pens specifically. His name is Jim. We sat down and enjoyed an interesting discussion about pens, watches, sales, communication, and chance meetings over lunch. Both of us were off our normal path. It was a chance meeting in an out of the way location.
Why bring this up? What chance meeting will you have today? Tomorrow? What will it lead to? You never know. My wife and I frequently meet people in the most unlikely places that share similar interests. I don’t think there is anything special we are doing other than showing an interest in the people we meet.
One of the things Jim and I discussed was how even common courtesies are missing in our daily lives. He and I had both spoken to the order takers with a friendly hello and a friendly goodbye. We watched the other people go through the line and didn’t see anybody else do the same. Why is that? It took no more time and just added a personal element to an otherwise routine interaction.
One of my mentors emphasized the distinction between frustration and fascination. He would speak about being in a traffic jam. You can be frustrated with the situation, or you can be fascinated with the various things going on around you.
So what does any of this have to do with productivity? Everything. Since your overall attitude affects everything you do it is important to keep a pleasant approach. Many times your productivity depends on the actions of another person. A little personal interaction can go a long way to helping everyone’s tasks go a bit smoother.
How interesting will your next interaction be? Do you have an interesting chance meeting to share? Go ahead and share it below. Who knows the information in your post may become a chance encounter for a random web surfer.
Have a productive day!
~ Dan
Popularity: 21%
Topics: Communication, TNPC News | 9 Comments »
Time flies…
By DanB | July 2, 2008
It’s fast. I can’t believe how fast time passes now. Each year seems to fly by faster. June was birthday month here. Both my wife and I celebrate in June. We are exactly five days apart. So we take a week of celebrating between the two of us and our family.
I posted the previous note on the blog. That is the best place to put your comments. That way everyone can benefit. Had some interesting private emails on the gasoline ideas. You can find the previous entry here:
http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/
Moving forward what happens? I’ll post each message to the blog when I send the email. If you want to comment please do it there. The volume of email coming in here is just too great and I heavily filter my mail. I don’t want to miss your message.
TNPC receives a lot of free stuff. Books, software, etc. I want to share that with you. So here is how we will do that. At the end of the month, starting with June, I’ll take a list of everyone who posted a comment at the blog and do a random drawing. It doesn’t matter which post you comment on. I’ll see it.
So let’s get going. For the moment the hot topic is still gas prices. Most people write to tell me you should buy the same dollar amount each time rather than the same volume of gas. My answer to that is this. Buying the same volume allows you to travel the same distance regardless of the price on any given day. That is most important to me.
Your situation may be different. I live in a small town and have fewer choices to fill up from. Someone told me that some gas cards save you a certain amount on each gallon. That’s great - except - the closest Shell to me is almost ten miles. And I rarely drive past it. On the other hand I have four Valero’s within a one mile radius of my home. Go figure.
Well that is all till next time. Go post at the blog and maybe I’ll be sending you some free stuff:
http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/
Talk to you soon.
~ Dan
P.S. watch for a special note on 3 July. If anyone what is special about that date I’ll send you a package of TNPC DVD’s. First correct answer only!
Popularity: 24%
Topics: TNPC News | 33 Comments »
Can this save you a little money?
By DanB | May 28, 2008
This will be TNPC’s 10th year of publication. It has been a long
time and the Internet has gone through many changes. One of those
changes forced us to change our name in 2003. Spam filters had
gotten so aggressive that our original name was swallowed up. Hence
the start of the acronym TNPC.
Many people wrote yesterday asking what had tied up my time. In a
nutshell I accepted a job outside the house and our children are
beginning to have many activities outside the house. The combination
has me busier than I ever remember being in the past.
My plan at this point is to send shorter emails more frequently.
In the past your copy of TNPC tended to be more lengthy and With so
much email flooding your inbox you will find the shorter issues
easier to digest. We will use the blog to share even more hot tips
and ideas. This will give you and other readers the chance to share.
That brings us to the item for today. As We all know gasoline
prices are rising quickly. The price of gas brings mixed feelings
for me. On the one hand it is disheartening when I have to fill the
tank then on the other hand, my day job is with an oil company.
My family is large. We drive a large vehicle. My wife took a road
trip recently and it was over $120 to fill the tank. Toward that end
someone sent me this little tool:
http://autos.msn.com/everyday/gasstations.aspx?zip=&src=Netx%3C%20/A%3E
Type in your zip code and see the local gas prices. Truthfully, it
isn’t that useful to me. All the local stations are just a few
blocks from my house. To reach any more I have to drive to the next
town. But maybe it will help you.
It could be useful when planning a trip to know when and when not
to fill up.
Related. I wrote a blog post a couple of years ago on how I was
applying dollar cost averaging to my fuel purchases. You can read
it here:
http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/2006/01/19/gasoline-and-dollar-cost-averaging/
Let me know what you think. If you have an opinion or tip that will
help others leave a comment at the blog.
Talk to you soon.
~ Dan
Dan Butler
TNPC Newsletter
Popularity: 36%
Topics: Money, TNPC News | 23 Comments »
I almost fell for it…
By DanB | June 21, 2007
It’s scary how easy is to be snared in an email “phishing” attempt. I have told you how to avoid phishing attempts several times in the past. Now get this - I almost fell for one of these scams just last week.
The particular email that arrived in my inbox claimed to be from PayPal. The subject was “Restore Your Account Access.” Normally I just delete these and go on. This time was different. My PayPal account had been restricted. I was eagerly waiting on a reply from PayPal that access had been restored.
When I saw the email I almost clicked the link. Almost. It is easy to see how people fall for these phishing attempts. What caught my eye and kept me from clicking?
First I took my own advice and just logged directly into my PayPal account. The account was still restricted and there was no new information to be seen.
Second was the very handy “Display Mail User Agent” Extension inside Mozilla Thunderbird. I use Thunderbird for my email and have several extensions installed. This particular extension does one thing - it shows an icon telling you which Mail User Agent (MUA) or email client was used to create the email. In this case it said the email was created in Microsoft Outlook.
None of my official email from PayPal has been written in Outlook. That should have been my first clue. Here is a picture of the false PayPal email along with icon from “Display Mail User Agent”:
This experience brought to mind a local news story from last year. It seems a lady had her eBay account hacked. She was adamant that she never shared her account details with anyone. Then she showed how she only clicks on links in emails from eBay. Obviously she was caught in a phishing scam and didn’t realize it.
What happened with my PayPal account? They restored access the very next day.
You can read a previous article on phishing and how to avoid getting taken here:
http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/2007/01/10/safer-email-tips/
Be careful out there.
~ Dan
–
© 2007 Dan Butler
Dan Butler is the Editor-in-Chief of TNPCNewsletter.com and the
author of the amazing new book that shows you how to save your
identity, get your email read, and put more time into the things
you really enjoy…
Popularity: 79%
Topics: privacy/security, TNPC News, Email | 20 Comments »
Gee, I wish I had thought of that.
By Al Gordon | June 5, 2007
For most of us, electronics are like the weather: we complain a
lot but don’t do anything about it. So periodically you come
across products that solve those complaints and make you wish
you had done more than just gripe. This is the first in an
occasional series of items I have found that intrigue me in that
way.
Top of my list: SimulScribe (simulscribe.com). It is a $10-per-
month voicemail service that you can use to replace your
cellphone, office, or home voice mailboxes - or any combination
of them. That alone is valuable, giving users a needed central
collection point for messages. But the key innovation in
SimulScribe is that it uses speech recognition technology to
transcribe your voicemail and then sends it along to you as an
email that contains both the transcript and an audio file.
Transcriptions aren’t perfect - bad connections and certain
voices fool it - but they are usually good enough to give you
the gist of the message and let you assess its urgency. When in
doubt, you play the audio.
This is a huge time-saver: no wasted calls to check on empty
mailboxes; you get the messages as they come in. It is a plus
for smartphone users, as you can discretely check your voicemail
on screen without making a call. I personally find it helpful
since I pay little attention to my cell while I am using my
office phone and vice versa. My guess is that sooner or later,
all voice mailboxes will work this way.
Check out the SimulScribe service here:
© 2007 Al Gordon.
In addition to his computer interests, Al Gordon is a political
and media consultant in the Boston area.
Popularity: 63%
Topics: Communication, Productivity, Email | 1 Comment »
3 Tips to Streamline Your Voicemail
By DanB | June 4, 2007
TNPC Newsletter
by Dan Butler
04 June, 2007
Thank you for reading TNPC - I really appreciate it. This week
three easy tips to streamline your voicemail.
You can read this issue and previous issues at the blog:
http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/category/newsletters/tnpc/
If you have a comment on this article please leave it at the blog.
~ Dan
3 Tips to Streamline Your Voicemail
by Dan Butler
Voicemail. It is all around us. Use these three easy tips to
spend less time jumping through voicemail hoops. Some simple
changes to the way you use your voicemail can bring big time
savings and increase your information flow.
Popularity: 84%
Topics: Communication, TNPC News, Productivity | 4 Comments »
Laptops Causing Health Problems
By DanB | May 30, 2007
Many uses of computers can cause problems. I recall using a bad chair while writing a book. I could barely move during that time. Now I use a nice expensive chair and it makes a lot of difference.
Had the same experience with a computer mouse years ago. Started noticing changes in my hand so I switched to a Logitech Trackman Marble and the hand changes ceased.
Article in the Daily Mail about laptops causing back problems in users. Here is a quote:
Millions of others are at risk of “irretrievable damage” to their spines, necks and shoulders because of poor posture when using laptops, it was claimed.
The main specific problem mentioned in the above article is bending and straining to look down at your laptop monitor. The same problem exists on desktop systems. Make sure you monitor is high enough that you don’t bend your neck to see your screen.
I am tall and have to raise the monitor quite a bit. My preferred method has always been a stack of phone books. Cheap, easy to locate, and you can easily scoot the monitor around on the desk should you need to.
If you are experiencing pain be sure to check out the Trigger Point Therapy Workbook we frequently recommend. Read our review of that book here.
Popularity: 50%
Topics: Life | 1 Comment »
Pegasus Email Client Being Flagged as a Trojan…
By DanB | May 18, 2007
Over the years I have highly recommended the Pegasus email client. I still do if you are an advanced user.
David Harris the creator of Pegasus sent this email that talks about Norton Antivirus flagging Pegasus as a Trojan. It is not. If you use Pegasus and Norton read this note carefully and protect yourself.
The Pegasus Mail web site is:
Since a signature update on May 15, Norton Antivirus has begun detecting the Pegasus Mail executable program, WINPM-32.EXE as a trojan horse called “Trojan.Dropper”. The first symptom most people will have of this problem is the deletion of WINPM-32.EXE during a system scan.
Firstly, we wish to stress that there is no trojan horse in Pegasus Mail: the Norton Antivirus program is producing a “false positive” - an incorrect analysis based on poor or erroneous signature information.
Secondly, you will not be able to recover from this problem without first amending your Norton Antivirus installation, since it will automatically delete any attempt to download or reinstall the Pegasus Mail program.
There is a comprehensive thread describing this problem and offering some short-term workarounds on our community web site, here:
http://community.pmail.com/forums/thread/659.aspx
It is our belief that you will get very little technical assistance from Symantec on this issue, but we urge you to try anyway if you encounter this problem. We have instructed our lawyers to send urgent messages to Symantec in an attempt to get this resolved as quickly as possible, but once again, current experiences are not giving us much faith in their responsiveness or sense of moral responsibility.
IMPORTANT: if you suffer from this problem and attempt to reinstall Pegasus Mail (assuming you use one of the workarounds to prevent NAV from deleting it as you do so), you MUST use the “Upgrade” option in the installer in order to retain access to your existing settings and data.
– David Harris –
Popularity: 66%
Topics: privacy/security, Email | 2 Comments »
TNPC More on Security…
By DanB | May 18, 2007
TNPC Newsletter
by Dan Butler
17 May 2007
Last issue we talked about routers in general and default
passwords in particular. The advice to change your default
password carries over to everything you do. Bank accounts,
online accounts, email accounts, your ISP account and many more.
Always change the default password in any account. You should
also consider your PIN numbers as passwords and change those
defaults.
People have been asking me how secure credit and account
information is online. I still feel that online data is in
general more secure than offline data. Why? It is a numbers
game. How many people online know how to steal your data? A
bunch. How many people offline know how to steal your data? Many
many more.
The difference is volume. An online theft can contains thousands
of accounts at once.
The other major difference is how the stolen data is used.
When your card information is stolen offline it has a higher
chance of being used. Since you will not hear about the “major
security breach” it can be more difficult to figure out where
and when your data was stolen. Read the rest of this entry »
Popularity: 100%
Topics: privacy/security, Communication, TNPC News | 2 Comments »
Just How Widespread are Security Breaches?
By DanB | May 17, 2007
Here is some interesting data on what is happening to your private information. etiolated.org shows graphs and other statistical data on security breaches. You will find it interesting.
Popularity: 58%
Topics: privacy/security | No Comments »