Personal

New Blog Site

Josh Evitt — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:39:00 GMT

If you are still subscribed to this blog, then please subscribe to my new blog at http://blog.joshevitt.com/Rss.aspx. For historical purposes, all posts currently on this site will remain here for the foreseeable future, but all new posts will be posted to http://blog.joshevitt.com. Thanks!

Failure

Josh Evitt — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:32:00 GMT

Wil Shipley recently wrote a post titled Failure is Success. In this post he states that failure is something to be strived for and that nature is full of examples where failure is critical to success. An example he gives that resonated with me is that when weight-training it's critical to push the muscles to failure; otherwise, they won't grow stronger. For some reason, probably because I'm currently on a weight-training program, that statement really hit home. I have no problem pushing my muscles to their failure limit or pushing myself to my physical limits. As the saying goes, "No pain, No gain!" However, when it comes to pushing myself to my intellectual limits, I all too often stop short, presumably because of a fear of failure. Realizing that failure can lead to growth, even in intellectual pursuits, is a powerful concept. Perhaps the next time I reach my intellectual failure point, instead of stopping short I'll accept the fact that it's highly probably I'll fail and realize that that's ok and continue on.

Katrina

Josh Evitt — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 01:00:00 GMT

Like many other people over the past week, I've been mesmerized by the images shown on TV about the devastation after Hurrican Katrina rolled through the Gulf Coast. I've been extremely disappointed with the response from FEMA and our government. Last night, a person who travelled down to New Orleans to help rescue survivors was interviewed by CNN. He said that on his way into the area, they saw bus after bus leaving with no people inside, but they had no problem getting to people who needed help with their truck. He said that many people weren't stranded by Katrina, but by red tape. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case for far too many people. Nick Bradbury has some interesting commentary regarding his feelings about the response. In contrast, it's been great to see the Internet community, and communities across America, come together to do whatever they can to help. One example is CoffeeCup Software, based in Corpus Christi, TX, who is accepting goods that will be delivered to shelters around Texas to help those that have been relocated there. There are many other examples of this type of generosity.

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of people that are affected by this disaster, there are thousands of pets and animals that are stranded and dying in desperate need of rescuing. For some people, these pets are the only companions they have. For others, they are a part of the family. So, when giving to the Red Cross or to the Salvation Army, please also consider giving a portion of your donation to the Humane Society of the United States.

UPDATE: Here's some more links to organizations that are helping save animals in the Gulf Coast region:

• American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
• American Veterinary Medical Foundation
• Humane Society of the United States
• Katrina Found Pets
• American Humane Association
• LSU School of Veterinary Medicine
• Noah’s Wish
• Petfinder.com: Animal Welfare Disaster Resources
• American Kennel Club
• Katrina Pets Need Help

Service

Josh Evitt — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 21:34:00 GMT

When I started my new job, there was the typical flurry of activity to get me set up for work, such as getting the appropriate software licenses, getting my work space set up, and ensuring that the Flavia supply was well stocked. The usual stuff.

One thing that's been interesting is that while listening to several of my coworkers deal with vendors to get me set up with a few things, I've noticed that it's taken several weeks to get any answers or to get the issue resolved. If it were just a single vendor or if it seemed like an isolated incident, then I probably wouldn't have noticed, but there was a few days where it didn't seem like any vendor could provide us with answers or even return our calls! These weren't difficult issues that we were having; we just needed a different license file in a few cases. While this type of service is to be expected in most retail situations, I was surprised to see it happening with professional services companies. Is it naive to expect good service from professional service firms? I hope not.

New Beginnings

Josh Evitt — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 21:29:00 GMT

This past week, I started a new position working with my good friend David Neal. I'm very excited to be in my new position and working with ASP.NET and C# on a daily basis. It was a difficult decision to leave a job I was at for over five years, but I think it was time for a change. This new position will provide a lot of new and interesting challenges that I'm looking forward to.

Working at Transcender was a huge and wonderful learning experience. Over the past five years, I had the great pleasure and honor to work with some of the smartest people I've ever met. I've learned about many different technologies, and I've had the chance to be a part of helping thousands of people further their career through IT certifications.

Even though I've left Transcender, I'll still be commenting about certification news and information on my blog, as I still believe that certifications are worth pursuing and that they're beneficial to your career.

Word ALT-F3: Quick Auto Text

Josh Evitt — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 13:27:00 GMT

via Roy Osherove:

Alt+F3: create auto-text entry.
Just select the text and press Alt F3 and you can save the text for future use..

I use Word everyday, and I can see where this shortcut will definitely be helpful for me. The text that you capture becomes available on the Insert --> AutoText menu. If you use Word as your editor in Outlook, then this text also becomes available when creating e-mail messages.

The Art of Note-Taking

Josh Evitt — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 13:18:00 GMT

Michael Hyatt, president of Thomas Nelson Publishers, has recently posted an article about note-taking titled Recovering the Lost of Art of Note-Taking. I agree with his premise: taking effective notes is an art. The article contains the following main points about note-taking in meetings:

1) Note-taking enables you to stay engaged.
2) Note-taking provides a mechanism for capturing your ideas, questions, and commitments.
3) Note-taking communicates the right things to the other attendees.

He also adds the following helpful hints for making your notes more effective:

1) Use a journal-formatted notebook.
2) Keep your meeting notes as a running journal.
3) Use symbols so you can quickly scan your notes later.
4) Schedule time to review your notes.

I'm involved in several meetings a week. I find that taking notes during the meetings definitely helps me to stay actively engaged in the conversation taking place. Like Mr. Hyatt, I've found that using pen and paper is the most effective method for me to capture my thoughts before, during and after meetings. I may transfer some of these notes to computer at some point, but I typically keep all of my notes on paper. For me, the additional overhead of maintaining a separate application for notes isn't worth it for the added ease of use that this approach might provide me. I've found this is also true for jotting down ideas and other information not related to my meetings. For this type of stuff, I keep a separate notebook that I'm trying to train myself to keep around at all times so that when an idea strikes me or I need to remember something, I can jot that information down.

TheGuitarBlog.com

Josh Evitt — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 11:22:00 GMT

One of my passions besides technology is the guitar. I've played guitar off and on for the past 15 years (even taking 2 years of classical guitar lessons in college), but have recently started playing quite a bit again. To coincide with playing again, I've started a blog for guitar-related news and information: www.theguitarblog.com. There isn't much content there right now, but I'll be adding content over the next few weeks. I'd love to hear other guitar players' thoughts on the site, such as what type of info you'd like to see, etc. So, if you play guitar, then let me know what you think.

As far as site technology goes, I decided to try Wordpress for the site. Although I love .NET and won't be abandoning it any time soon, I was intrigued by the recent 1.5 release and wanted to check it out. I also wanted a reason to play around with MySQL, which Wordpress uses for the back-end database. I found installing Wordpress to be extremely simple; the 5-minute install lived up to its name. Additionally, Wordpress provides a pretty robust administration console that is easy to use. If you're looking for an easy-to-use blogging system and you don't have access to SQL Server or .NET, then I would recommend looking into Wordpress.

It's not about politics...

Josh Evitt — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:01:00 GMT

...it's about math. Personally, I think that the President's proposal to overhaul social security is a good one. I'm still very interested in how such a plan will be implemented, but if it's only half as successful as Dave Ramsey's social security calculator indicates it can be, I'm all for it.

48 Days to the Work You Love

Josh Evitt — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 22:28:00 GMT

While I'm on the topic of local businesspeople, Dan Miller has written several books on how to get a better job or make more money doing what you want to be doing. His book, 48 Days to the Work You Love, provides advice on how to send out resumes and interview, as well as a lot of other advice on how to go about getting your dream job. His book, 48 Days to Creative Income, is geared more towards entrepreneurs with advice and ideas on starting your own business. He also provides career coaching advice, and sends out an interesting weekly e-mail newsletter.