Parent Hack: Tag Your Kid’s Backpack to Make Sure They Get the Right One

Do you have small children starting back to school soon?

If so, here is a fun article (2 words: Shriky Dink) on how to help keep your child’s backpack from getting confused with another.

How To: Listen LESS and Learn MORE

In this day and time of ever-increasing amounts of information, it can be hard to keep up. If you’re like me, you may have started supplementing your reading with audio books or podcasts. However, with the large amount of audio available, how do you ever listen to it all AND retain any of it?

Well, my solution to one accidentally presented a solution to the other. It all began when I bought my mp3 player last December. I started downloading different podcasts to listen to on my way to and from work and on my lunch break. Soon, I found several that I really liked and was going back and getting new ones from the same source each week. It wasn’t long before I found that I had more audio to listen to than I had time to listen. So, while I was playing around some of the menus one day, I found the setting that allows for me to speed up or slow down the audio that I am playing. The scale on my player goes from -8 to +8. Using the +8 setting increases the speed of the audio approximately 20% over the original recording speed. Doing this allowed me to speed up my audio (without any noticable change in pitch or quality) and allow me to listen to more in less time.

At the same time, I found that I was having to pay closer attention to what I was listening to, simply because everyone was talking faster than I was used to. So, as I began to get used to the speed of the audio, I found that I was actually able to remember more about what I had just heard than I was when I was listening to the audio at normal speed. Now, I don’t know why this is, I just know that it works for me. I’m sure there is some theory or psychological explanation for it, but, frankly, I don’t care why it works, just that it does.

So, if you want to pack more listening and learning into your day and not sacrifice time, try speeding up you audio.

WARNING: I have found that once I’ve gotten used to the higher speed audio, I want to speed it up even more, which I can do on my mp3 player. Also, if you get used to the faster speed of the audio, listening to the same program at normal speed can be dangerous to your sanity. It just seems like everyone is talking sooooo sloooooowww.

Save $$$: 25 Ways to Cheap Ways to Keep Your House Cooler

There is a great article over at MSN Finance on how to have a cooler house this summer, without heating up your wallet.  This covers great ideas such as using your landscaping to help cool your house and making sure your not leaking that cool air out into the neighborhood via leaky doors and window.

With the really hot days of summer to come, I’m sure we can all find a thing or two here to help keep us just a little bit cooler.

Excel Tip: Create a Hidden Workbook to Save All Your Macros, Scripts, and Formulas

If you’re like me, you use MS Excel quite a bit.  I love Excel.  I personally think that it is the greatest piece of software ever created.  In my position with my company I get a chance to use it quite a bit, and often find myself reusing the same bit of VBA script or the same formula for many different projects.  I get really tired of rewriting the same script, recording the same macro, or trying to remember exactly how I built that last formula before I can use it again.  If this ever happens to you, you will understand the frustration.

Well, a couple of years ago I stumbled upon a great tip that has saved me considerable time and frustration, and has even made me look like a hero several times.  The magic lies in a small, somewhat hidden folder within the Microsoft Office installation folder called “XLStart”. 

“What’s so magical about this folder,” you may ask.

Well, that’s what I am about to show you.

First, let’s focus on those often used macros, scripts, and formulas that you have saved in many other Excel workbooks, text files, Post-It Notes, and other divers sources.  Round all of the little nuggets up and save them to one work book.  Make sure that your macros and scripts do not make references to specifically named sheets in the original source.  If they do, I have found that it is best to either change them to the generic “Sheet#” naming that Excel uses by default.  You can also have the script prompt you for the desired sheet name if you like.

Second, try to find a way to organize all of the formulas and macros in a way that you will be able to easily find them.  I find it very useful to put the name of the formula and/or a small explanation of it just above the cell you are saving the formula in.  You should also have some sample data for the formula to use, just so you can remember exactly what it does, just in case you don’t use it for a long time.

Next, save the workbook you have just populated to the “XLStart” folder.  If you used the default installation, the folder should be located using the following path:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART
Just remember to name this something beside Book1.  I named mine “MacroBook”, just to make things obvious for me.

The last and my favorite part of this is to hide the workbook so that it doesn’t get in your way every time you open Excel. To do this, just go to the menu bar and click “Window” and the “Hide” and select the workbook you saved.  Now, close Excel.  It will ask if you want to save the changes you made to your workbook.  Click “Yes”. 

Now, every time you open Excel, this new workbook with your great macros and formulas will be opened in the background and ready for use.  To use a macro, simple click on the macro button like you would to run a macro as if you just made it in your current workbook.  The macro selection box will pop up and you will see all of the macros listed for all open workbooks.  They will show up in the format WorkbookName.xls!Macroname.  Simply select it an run it.  To use your formulas, simply go to the toolbar, click “Window” and then “Unhide”, select your hidden workbook and it will appear.  Then, simply copy and paste the formula you would like to use into the workbook you are working on.  When done, simply re-hide the book you had hidden.

This may seem like a long way to go save some simple formulas, but trust me, if you have any complicated formulas or macros that you find yourself re-creating very often, you will quickly come to love this little tip.  So, give it a try and let me know how you like it.

How-To: Another Great Use for a Binder Clip

Well, you’ve used your binder clips for binding stacks of paper, as a chip clip, and maybe even as a cable holder for you workstation, but here’s a use you probably haven’t thought of, courtesy of LifeHacker, use your small bider clips to keep your toothpaste tube rolled up.

We all know how annoying it is to try to squeeze that last bit of toothpaste out of an almost empty tube. Starting at the bottom and rolling it up as you go really helps to get every last bit out of the tube, but it never seems to stay rolled up. Not a problem anymore.

10 Great, Low-Cost Sunburn Remedies

Once again it’s summer, which means swimming, hiking, mowing, and a mirad of other outdoor activities.  All of which lead to sunburn, one of the nasties that we have to endure if we are to enjoy summer to the fullest.  If your like me, you want to be able to treat the burn without having to flop down a bunch of dead presidents to do it.  Well, look no more, Thrifty Mommy, has given us 10 great remedies that involve things that you probably already have in your house.  So, view and enjoy. 

Remember the sunscreen and have a great summer.

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Crafty: Make your Own Wine Stem Markers

There’s a great post over at Curbly on how to make your own wine stem marker. If you’re a craft person and often to go or have parties where wine glasses are involved, this may be something you will find interesting.

How To: Be As Happy As Your Dog

Ian McKenzie has a great post over at his site about how to learn from the simple wisdom of your dog for a happier life.  There are some really great nuggets of truth and wisdom here.  I plan on using many of these while I am enjoying my much needed vacation next week.

Freeware PC: Antivirus

OK, so you have your PC up-and-running and now you need to protect it from the viruses that you have to come to expect in email and on the internet. Well, I have tried a couple of different free antiviruses, but my favorite has to be AVG Free. Currently in version 7.5, AVG Free, is a full-featured, yet easy-to-use program.

Beginning with an easy to use console, you will find that AVG Free gives you the ability to do not only full system scans, but also scans of selected files, folders, or entire drives. Also, once installed, you can simply right click on a file and select the “Scan with AVG Free” option and scan your newly downloaded files to ensure that they are safe to open and run.

AVG Free also allows for automatic updating and scheduled scanning, making very easy to keep up-to-date on the latest threats, knowing that you will be protected.

Last, but not least, AVG also allows for real-time protection. So, if you are downloading programs, music, movies, etc. from web sites that are off the beaten path, AVG will catch any of the downloads that have viruses in them.

Overall, AVG Free is a great product that is easy to find, easy to use, and actually works as good as it says it will. If you don’t already have an antivirus running, hurry up and get AVG Free and make sure that you are protected.

How To: Remember Names After Meetings

If you work for a company that has lots of meetings with lots of different people and have the same trouble remembering names as I do, I have a great tip for you. Over at his blog, Gurno.com, Adam Gurno has posted a great tool for remembering those names. I used to use this at a previous job when I had meetings with people that I didn’t often interact with. It works really well and is very simple. Basically, the idea is to draw a rough map of the meeting area and map out where each person is sitting. This way you can have a mental image of which face was where and a hard copy of each name in each position to go with it. That way when you see one of your meeting participants again you have a better shot at remembering their name.

I used to employ this method my simply drawing the table and participants either at the top of my paper or in the margin. I would suggest being subtle about this and let everyone believe that you’re just really good with names and faces.

Adam expands on the basics of this method with some very good ideas, so it’s definitely worth checking out.