In our quest for true Power User status we need to have a spartan looking desktop. Eliminate the clutter of icons and URLs that inhabit your desktop. Learn to use the Start Menu to start programs now that you have it working properly. If you have a few programmes that you insist in starting from the desktop, organize the shortcuts in folders.
Your desktop should look something like this uncluttered desktop.
MS Windows XP allows the user to select either the Luna Graphical User Environment (GUI) or the Classic GUI, or a mixture of both. The Classic GUI without any wallpaper uses fewer resources and it standardizes the things we do on the PC.
To get the Classic GUI, right click on the desktop and go to the Themes tab. Select Windows Classic, click Apply then go to the Screen Saver tab and select None for the screen saver, then click Apply, followed by OK. This will give you the Classic View without any screen saver to use-up resources and interrupt processes going on in the background. The screen saver and wallpaper are useless resource-hogs that are not needed.
Next, right click on the taskbar. Make the following selections: Continue reading ‘How To Be A Power User 101′
A whistle blower is a person who discovers illegal activity going on in government and exposes that illegal activity.
Jeffrey Monaghan, who was arrested for leaking documents that prematurely revealed details of the government’s climate- change plan, was not a whistleblower. If he released the documents, then he violated the terms of his employment and committed a criminal offence.
Monaghan might like us to believe he is a crusader for the public good, but that is no more creditable than his claim to be an anarchist while working for the government and a member of a “collective” that runs a book store. Don’t let this nomenclature-challenged individual, and his media groupies, confuse you. He’s not a whistleblower and he is not an anarchist. Shame on the so-called journalists for using this incorrect nomenclature.
Investigators often need to conceal who is calling. These two Web sites can help with this.
craigsnumber.com assigns you a telephone number for up to one month. Calls to this number are forwarded to your telephone.
spooftel.com allows you to change the caller ID information that is displayed on the receipiant’s end.
craigsnumber.com is free, spooftel.com is not.
Most people can write 35 words per minute. However, most students after 1 year of instruction can not write 60 words per minute (wpm) using Gregg or Pitman shorthand. After two years of instruction, half will not reach 80 wpm. Now you know why shorthand was the most frequently failed course and is no longer taught in High School. It is not a matter of shorthand being obsolete, especially for the Investigator or Reporter. It relates to the basic failure of these systems to be easily taught, and more importantly, retained.
A usable system based on the roman alphabet, rather than an obscure and entirely different alphabet, shortens the learning curve. It also lets the student instantly write short forms for the 10 most common English words, which make-up about one quarter of all the words we use. In business correspondence, we normally use only 422 words according to some experts.
An alphabetic system that uses very few symbols, and easily understood rules, should get most people to 80 wpm if it concentrates on the most common words. Such a system may be easily transcribed years later as it will follow certain rules and it uses our normal alphabet. Alphabetic shorthand systems fall back on longhand to define an abbreviation or where clarity is important. These two considerations are critical to any type of Investigator. Investigation notes and notebooks must be accurate, complete, legible, and usable years after the investigation has been completed. The system must also be adaptable to the type of notebooks normally used to record the investigation’s progress. Gregg, Pitman and even Teeline shorthand are far less adaptable to the small notebooks used by Investigators.
Don’t resist learning to write this type of shorthand. Unlike traditional symbol-based shorthand, you won’t fail the course. Failure here only means you will improve your note-taking speed by only two times instead of three. This system won’t make you a court reporter or Hansard recorder, but it will make you a better Investigator.
There are a few shorthand systems like this, but the easiest to use and the least expensive to learn (in time and money) is the Quickhand system. At $25.50 from Wiley in Canada or at Amazon on our Book Page.
Quickhand A Self-Teaching Guide
ISBN: 9780471328872
Author: Grossman, Jeremy
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, New York
Author: Grossman, Jeremy
Publication Date: February 1976
Binding: Paperback
Illustrations: Yes
Pages: 152
Dimensions: 9.96×6.74x.38 in. .61 lbs.
