October 2007 Blog Posts

Productivity Tip 2 – Uninterrupted Work Time

The most productive way to work to just concentrate on one thing and do it, Multi-tasking makes you fill efficient (look at how many things I'm doing in the same time) but it's a productivity killer – you spend a little bit of time re-orienting yourself every time you switch tasks, and that time adds up - you could get things done faster if you did them sequentially. Also, in today’s connected world, when you’re flooded with e-mail, phone calls and instant messages in addition to the traditional co-worker or boss stopping by and breaking your concentration it’s a wonder anyone...

Null Argument Exception When Printing to the Microsoft XPS Document Writer

I have a problem with printing in WPF, it happens consistently on my main development machine but I haven’t been able to reproduce it anywhere else. And I have a solution.

yaTimer 2.0 Automatic Update Released

I've uploaded yaTimer 2.0 into the automatic update server, If you click the “Check for Updates” button on the main menu you'll be prompted to upgrade. And I messed up the auto-update installation again, so most of my customers wouldn’t be able to update from within yaTimer. As always, updates are free from the web site at: http://www.yatimer.com/Upgrade.htm I've fixed the auto-update bug and I hope that the auto update service will work for the next version. Now that version 2.0 that I worked so long and hard on is finally done its time to think about what to do next. I have my to-do list...

Productivity Tip 1 – Write a Task List and then Just Do It

The biggest productivity problem in procrastination, you have things to do but you just can’t get yourself to do them. You may try to delay your next task because you suspect (or know) it will be unpleasant, you may have more interesting things to do or you just have too much e-mail (or blogs) to read. The solution is to just do it and get it over with, this is a technique I found useful: Write down what you have to do, break down large tasks into smaller ones so all tasks take less than 2 hours (or whatever...

yaTimer Version 2.0 Released

I am very happy to announce that yaTimer version 2.0 has been released today. You can now download a trial of the new version or upgrade for free from any previous version. The new version will be available using yaTimer’s automatic update (by clicking “Check for Updates” on the right side of the main menu) sometime later this week.

Productivity Tip 0 – Introducing the Productivity Tips Series

I'm starting a new series of posts on my blog and this time it's not a technical topic that is only interesting to developers. This series in about improving your productivity, or specifically your time management - most people know that if you actively manage your finances you can get more out of your money, the same way if you actively manage your time you can get more done. Getting more done is not only about work, if you can do the same amount of work in less time you can spend the extra time having fun with your family, reading good...

yaTimer 2.0 Almost Finished

I haven't posted much in the previous few weeks, this is because I was too busy working, several projects I'm involved with are getting close to finished (and to deadlines). yaTimer is one of those projects I've been working like crazy getting all the little details right and now finally all the features planned for this version are finished. yaTimer now has to go through several days of rigorous testing, and then, if I don't find some huge bug I'm going to finally release version 2. As with all previous versions I had to make painful decisions about which features are going to...