January 2008
Monthly Archive
Writing Room for Google Documents
Posted by Michael on 17 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Productivity, software, Michael
(no time to read my ramblings? Jump to the script here)
Heh. When procrastination brings productivity. I was working in Google Documents on my thesis, and felt that something wasn’t quite right. The header was taking too much space and on my 13.3” widescreen every vertical pixel is precious.
So I came up with this tiny Greasemonkey script that allows to toggle the header bar in Google documents, providing more room for working. Plus I wasn’t really feeling like working on the thesis ;-)
Example after the jump
…from this…
…to this…
You can find the script here.
Kickstarting the Chicago Project
Posted by Michael on 11 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Chicago Project
So this is it, many of you already know it, but now I’m telling everyone.
The rumors were true :-) , I’ve decided to apply for a semester (2 actually) at the University of Illinois in Chicago, for a Master of Science in Computer Science.
There are various reasons. First and foremost, I really like the idea of living in a completely different place for a while. And by completely different I mean not Italy.
Then there’s the academic appeal of the whole thing, that I recognize as the only real motivation to study that I have right now.
The next steps to advance the project are many, but most of them can be fit into one of these 3 categories
- Graduation (cause the Politecnico of Milano is still out to get my blood, 1 endterm, 2 full exams and a thesis…)
- Money (in every shape and form I can manage to raise from now to the deadline for the payment)
- A enormous, massive, gargantuan amount of PAPERWORK
Caveat, this project can (CAN!) get canceled anytime, as the number of things that can go wrong along the path is rising at an exponential rate. So expect the “Chicago - UIC” category to turn into a sea of tears. Not saying it’ll happen. But it’s possible.
So what, did I turn this blog into a personal diary? Not really. Although I plan to document my efforts in “full disclosure mode”, everything that happens to me might as well apply to one of my potential fellows in the project (that can feel free to add comments and suggestions, as well as their own experiences). The rationale is that other people that might want to “jump the pond”, and spend some time in the USA, could benefit from this informations.
The 70 Best Lifehacks of 2007
Posted by Michael on 02 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Productivity, stumblings, Michael
Happy new year to my readers.
Things have been a little slow here at S11, but something’s coming up :)
In the mean time, as a filler I’ll show you this link
Year in Review: The 70 Best Lifehacks of 2007 - Lifehack.org
2007 has been a year of renovation for me. I managed to meet most of my NYE Resolutions (and that “most” in place of “all” is the reason why I do NOT have resolutions for 2008. Graduation is among the 2007 casualties…)
I worked on myself in the productivity and personal development area. It sounds stupid, I know, but I did enjoy trying to follow small pieces of advice that look nothing different than “common sense”, but when put all together give a nice perspective of what I do right and what I do wrong when it comes to deal with personal productivity. Plus, I love the term “lifhacking”.
Time flies. I feel old thinking about how fast last year flew by, but I can say that I’m pretty satisfied of my 2007 and eager to do even better in 2008. I rank pretty high in the motivational scale these days, and I’m full of projects…
Don’t worry, I’m not turning this blog into a personal diary or something, but…I don’t want to jinx it so, as usual…
…stay tuned, more to come.
