Does it ever make sense to benefit from somebody else’s pain?

Often. Let me give you an example that has been one of my favorites ever since ten minutes ago.

I received in the mail today a Transcend 8 GB SDHC flash thingamajiggie that I bought in anticipation of eventually owning an ASUS eee mini-laptop, a cheap yet powerful gizmo that is all the rage right now among persons who want a lot for a little vis-a-vis electronic portability. But my Dell Vostro 1000 did not recognize the SDHC card. Of course I’d like both the Vostro and the eee I’m eventually going to own to recognize the card so that I can use it to flip stuff from the Vostro to the eee. Now, the main point of the SDHC is to expand the eee’s flash-drive memory, and of course it would be possible to use a different kind of flash card to transfer files between the two machines, using the USB ports. But it certainly would also be convenient for the SDHC card to work on both machines.

As I say, though, the Vostro 1000 refused to recognize the SDHC card. Was completely inert. As if the SDHC card were not even in the slot.

Internet. Google. I found a post by a guy who’d had the same problem, relating a long horror story about all the trials and tribulations he suffered while trying to find a driver for his Vostro 1000 that would recognize the SDHC card. At the end of the post he supplied a link to the required driver. I downloaded the file, unzipped it, ran the executable, rebooted the machine, and voila! my laptop now recognizes the card.

This lazy short cut of learning from somebody else’s sweat and tears without actually suffering all the same sweat and tears oneself works for many other things too, which is why it’s such a good idea to have division of labor, history, etc.

Gosh, I feel so intimidated sometimes by persons who seek to verbally bully me. What can I do to deflect their assaults?

Setting aside more violent possibilities, you can read The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense by Suzette Haden Elgin. It’s been years since I looked at it but I recall that Elgin offers some sound insight about what’s going on in these assaults and techniques to defuse them. She has also published several sequels on the subject.

Probably the most important thing is simply to abstain from discussions in which the other person isn’t going to be at least as semi-reasonable as you are. Have the presence of mind to suggest that the matter be addressed when emotions have cooled a bit. Decline to get dragged into a combat you can’t win. That’s often easier said than done, of course. The whole point of verbal intimidation is to throw you off kilter so that you don’t have the presence of mind to defend yourself properly. But if you’re conscious of what’s happening, that’s half the battle. Even dead silence is often better than being lured into a position where the other guy can just stomp on you at random. If you’re not an unprincipled screaming manipulator and other guy is a veteran unprincipled screaming manipulator, he’s just going to be a lot better at hitting below the belt than you. And more willing to do it than you. So don’t play.

Jay Morrisay offers some thoughts at his self-help site.

When are you going to do another post, PayPerQ?

That’s a very good question. Soon. Very soon. Oh, wait, this is one right now, isn’t it?

Several weeks ago I got a new Dell laptop. Still with the XP operating system, because I wanted the memory for apps that I believe Vista would have hogged and because I had heard all the stories about incompatibilities. Even so, I decided to double the RAM shortly after the system arrived, from 1 GB to 2 GB.

Of course, the laptop’s price dropped another $100 or so right after I got it… Dell declined to give me a rebate but did give me a coupon.

I’ve installed a bunch of new software (new to me anyway), including various browsers in addition to the familiar Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, and another I had started using more recently, K-Meleon. More soon on the browsers and other software. I’m particularly happy about one of the browsers I discovered, but a couple others are also doing a thing or two that I am glad to see them doing. Though Firefox gets the most press as an alternative to IE, seems many more innovative browsers have been popping up over the last few years than I realized.

Why add a typewriter to your writing-tool pool?

In the previous blog entry I reported that I had hauled the typewriter out of the hiding place and might try to use it now and then as an alternative to the PC.

In general I want to increase the ubiquity and variety of my writing tools as an aid to productivity and bulwark against sloth. The typewriter is on a stand in the bedroom, along with a few books I need to consult for the writing chore I have in mind. I figure if I don’t want to stumble into the office and fire up the PC I might still hack away at a job on the typewriter, then port it to the PC once there’s a draft. The retyping won’t be that much of a loss of efficiency, at least not for short projects.

Another addition to the pool is the NEC MobilePro 900 mini-laptop that I picked up second-hand from an Amazon vendor recently (the model is also available from eBay sellers). Circa year 2000 vintage, of a line that isn’t produced any more. There’s a certain skimping on programs and memory for the sake of the light weight (about a pound) and the instant-on capability. With the appropriate wi-fi card it can hook into the Internet at hotspots. Surfing the web is a trawl compared to what a regular PC can do, but it’s still cool to be able to check email online or scan some headlines. While the MobilePro’s keyboard is usable, the care required to type on it does slow down typing speed. But the little critter also has a USB port. I’ve used it for a flash drive and also to plug in a regular keyboard. With a splitter, it can accommodate both a keyboard and a separate mouse. (What I need is a keyboard integrated with a mouse pad.) The MobilePro’s screen isn’t that great for outdoors, but it’s visible enough indoors.

The tradeoffs are fine if the main reason for having the machine is to be able to take it anywhere and turn it on and start typing a second later. Price was an issue when the MobilePro was new (about $900, about the same as a fully featured if more cumbersome laptop). But now you should be able to pick it up from the secondhand market for less than $200.

The third tool I’m adopting is a simple memo pad for jotting chores and notions that occur to me before they fade into oblivion. One for my pocket, another for bedside along with the yellow legal pads for longer scribblings. Seems obvious, especially for a “Columbo” fan, but yeah, I’m just getting around to it. I used to call my voicemail a lot to leave messages and reminders to myself, but that’s going to be a little harder to do now that I’ve discontinued my landline phone service (still doable from my PC or with my Tracfone). But that’s another story. Anyway, transcribing a litter of phone messages is cumbersome too. Might as well just retype the scribblings.

Update 12/29/07. You know, scratch all that. I ended up stashing the typewriter for now and buying a new laptop that I recently set up in my bedroom. And although I used the memo pad for a while, I don’t bother any more. Still the most efficient way to leave a note-to-self when I’m away from the computers is to leave a mesasge on my voice box or call Jott to send myself a (possibly typo-ridden) email. I don’t use the MobilePro very much and once I get an ASUS eee, a more functional light mini-laptop that is going for about $400 or less (I really want one!) I doubt I’ll ever use the c. 2000-issue MobilePro with its relatively rigid and limited capabilities.

Can you turn a typewriter into a word processor?

A long time ago in a technological environment far, far away, an article in Writer’s Digest proposed a way to keep up the flow of writing that is repeatedly interrupted by the necessity of putting another sheet of paper in the typewriter once every 250 words or so.

The advice was to use a long continuous roll of suitably wide paper, obtained perhaps from factory overstock. The roll, perhaps 8 and 1/2 inches by 50 feet in dimension, would gradually be used up as you typed away, but not so fast as an 8 and 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper would be used up.

Of course, you were supposed to try this with first drafts only, not final copy. Until electronic submissions became commonplace, editors still always wanted manuscripts to be submitted in sheets. Market listings never included a request that manuscripts be submitted in the form of tubby industrial paper rolls. But the point was that by obviating the need to replace pages as you went along, you’d enhance the creative flow that was most important when you were first coming up with the words, not quite so important when pruning and polishing them.

The piece appeared probably in the late 70s. Has the advent of word processing killed the utility of this notion? Maybe. But there is something to said for handwriting or typing as an alternative to electron juggling, to relieve sameness or to ward off the demon of obsessive-compulsive blue-penciling. It’s easy to edit as one goes along on the computer; and hard, at least for some writers, to train oneself just to let the words flow happily or crappily and amend and repair later. So maybe I’ll try to scrounge up one of these paper rolls and see how it goes, now that I’ve hauled out the electronic typewriter.

How can I get stuff done now as opposed to later?

That’s a tough one. You like to procrastinate, don’t you? Don’t try to deny it.

Sheer brute discipline is required, but it can be exercised in short, relatively unintimidating bits. Once you’ve brought order to your desk, gotten the kids to stop squalling,  collated the materials and tools you need to begin,  etc., you then need to actually begin work on  the urgent task that you would really much rather defer until, um, Judgment Day or something like that.

The only answer is to get started on the job despite your feelings of trepidation, ennui, guilt, whatever it is. Break up the job into bits, and start on the first bit. No matter how uncomfortable you feel about doing the work, how strongly you long to chase daisies out in the backyard instead, surely you can do that one ten-minute preliminary thing that you need to complete before you can move on to the next ten-minute thing. You can. I know you can.

The notion of productive procrastination proposed at the LifeClever site also has much to recommend it: If you really, really, really, really “must” procrastinate on an urgent task, if it’s a lapse you just can’t avoid, at least procrastinate by undertaking some other important job instead. Even if you’re putting off the Most Important Thing (MIT) until later in the day or until tomorrow, you’re getting stuff done that you’d have to get done anyway.

But give the MIT a shot, ten minutes. Then maybe ten minutes more. Once you’re into it maybe you’ll be on a roll. And then you won’t even want to procrastinate.

How can you process all the urgently relevant and interesting information being hurled at you?

You can’t. What you can do is steer and prioritize.

Ross Dawson has some common-sense tips at rossdawsonblog.com. These including setting goals, so you know which information really does need your close attention and which you can ignore or skim; picking the right sources of information, like a well-edited periodical in your field; setting aside regular time for reading; improving your reading and note-taking skills; aggressively filtering low-value email and other time wasters; being open to useful information that falls outside your usual filter or sources; maintaining personal contacts; and “Sleep[ing] on it!”

Dawson notes that although filtering and being open to insights from outside the filter may seem contradictory, they’re not; and it pays to do both. It’s a matter not of letting yourself be infinitely distracted, but of keeping your antennae up so that if some bits in the data stream do cue you to a possibility worth further investigation, you’re ready to zero in. There are a million leads we might serendipitously pursue as we amble along information highways and byways. In navigating these leads we must be both alert and disciplined.