Either You Succeed or Explain

Too many tabs? Go vertical!

If you're a bit like me, you now have about 20 tabs open in your browser. Let's not go into the psychological reasons for that, but it probably have something to do with a very short attention span.

I found this cool Firefox extension which changed my browsing experience. It's called "Tab Tree Style" and it shows the tab headers on the left side rather than on top. The result: I can have more tabs and easily see all of them at a glance. Navigating between the tabs is easier than ever and I get full size tab headers, so if a site shows information in the header I can see it. For example, GMail shows the name of the current folder. No more cramped headers on the top of the page. The cost is screen real-estate on the left. This is not a problem for me since I use a wide screen and more web sites are designed for regular resolutions. Highly recommended.

I was so pleased with this transition, that I immediately thought about my IDE. I usually have at least 20 files open. Even on my wide 20" monitor, I see about 7 headers. In most cases, I work with two files, side by side, which means I see even less headers. Navigating the rest of the files is a pain. So, I looked for a solution.

I found an interesting plug-in called "EditorViewer". This plug-in provides a list of open editors. Since this is a separate view you can place it where you please. I placed it to the left of my editor.

It's close to what I was looking for, but not exactly. The plug-in seems to be deserted. Nobody touched it since it 2005. You can download it here (download link is missing from the site). There's no "Eclipse update site", but it does work on Eclipse 3.3.1 (and on a Mac). I think it should take less than a day to write something which fits my needs, so maybe I'll write myself, if I can find some spare time :-)

Productivity tip: discipline yourself with RescueTime

When I tell people that I'm now working for myself at home, the first reaction is usually "wow, that takes a lot of self discipline". True, it does. There's no replacement for healthy self discipline. However, as with most things in life, there are levels of gray here. I always seek ways to improve.

I found this great tool that helps me keep going. It's called RescueTime. It's a small little gizmo that sits on my machine and monitors what I'm doing. I can then log into the RescueTime web site, see a graph that shows how much I've worked and when. It logs tasks according to the process being executed or the web site being visited. Monitoring URLs is important since many applications are online today. I can then tag the activities with tags like "work", "fun", etc., and get a summary of my activities according to my tags.

So, if you tend to lose track of time reading your RSS feeds or in IM chats, this will give you the required feedback to get back on track. It's like a mirror, providing silent, yet deadly honest, feedback.

RescueTime supports PC and Mac, and is currently in private beta.

Some more presentation tips: engage your audience

I came across this great post by Neil Patel. I can relate to these tips and it's worth reading. Keeping up all these principals across days of training is not an easy task, but it's the only way if you want to really educate people and leave a residue.

I want to focus on talking with the audience rather than to them. Some people may find it hard at the beginning. So here's my tip: Plan discussions in advance. Find the spots in the presentation where you can turn it from talking about your material to discussing a topic.

Here's some pointers:

• Look for points (decisions, opinions) that may be controversial and ask the audience what they think. If the decision looks trivial, play the devil's advocate and show them the other side, eventually reaching the correct conclusion.
• Ask instead of tell. Before presenting your solution, ask for their solutions. The best thing is to lead the audience to your solution, but be prepared to accept other solutions as well.
• Turn audience questions back to the audience. Unless the question is about pure facts, the person asking probably already has an opinion. Hear it. Let others react. Even if the answer is plain facts, maybe the audience can deduct the answer. This only shows you're broadcasting on the same wave length.

Training tip: use Keynote's Presenter Display!

Most people who give presentations from laptops with external projectors are either not using their laptop internal display or mirroring the slide on this display. Apple's presentation software Keynote (part of the iWork suite) has this amazingly useful feature called 'Presenter Display'. Instead of just mirroring the current slide, you get a customizable display that shows you:

• Time. In a big font. I can read it from across the room. This is great since I never wear a wristwatch when giving presentations. Even if you do, constantly peeking at your watch is not recommended. It's better to just momentarily lower your eyes to your laptop.
• Elapsed time for the presentation. If I know I have X minutes for the presentation this is very useful. During a long training, I can immediately see that I'm over an hour, so it's a good time for a break.
• Current slide.
• Next slide. I can't count the number of times I started wondering what's on the next slide while talking. I know all my slides, but I sometimes forget the exact order. A quick peek at my screen is enough to recognize the slide.
• Presenter notes. I never use those, but if you do, you can get it as well.

The internal screen of the laptop is turned to the presenter and becomes your 'cheat sheet'. I can't emphasize how useful this is. I used to print out handouts to help me with determining the next slide, but this never helps since I never have time to flip pages and find the right slide.

I like Keynote. I'm a long time Microsoft PowerPoint user and I don't regret switching to Keynote. I can't say that one is better, there are many similarities and differences. However, the 'Presenter Display' feature is a real jewel missing from PowerPoint (I didn't experience PowerPoint 2007, maybe there's something similar).

Training tip: how to review a layered architecture

I'm in India, giving a training to a class of young developers. The focus is coding under a given proprietary framework and architecture, most of which I designed when working in Amdocs.

I find it in many frameworks and systems: there's a layered approach with components interacting with each other. I found a great way to review the entire architecture and flow.

I handed each of the students a note, with a type of component (or a given generic component like a helper or factory). In turn, they formed a row, each according to his/her order in the process. They explained what they were doing, how and who are they calling next. Of course, if any of them got stuck with the answers I quickly opened it up for the whole class. It's important to keep the interaction flowing.

It was a fun way for reviewing the material. I spiced it with some humor and it was a very pleasant exercise. I'm sure they will remember it. It took about 45 minutes and nobody got tired or bored, although it was all just reviewing the material they knew. Plus, it makes everybody participate, even those who usually don't, and without being too intimidating (like a test).

Training hack: keeping classroom discipline

A great trick I learned from a former colleague, during a sales person conference. Set it up as a ground rule before you start presenting: if a person is late/falls asleep/cell phone rings/... then that person will have to stand in front of the class and sing.

It works like a charm. The class stays sharp and you get a comic break every now and then.

It popped into my head since the last time I tried it was in India and I'm scheduled to travel to India next week to give another course. The last time I did it, I "rewarded" my students by singing a song in Hindi at the end of the course (it wasn't such a reward... but at least they got a chance to laugh).

Oh... and don't turn this into American Idol... some people love to sing in front of audience... :-)