February 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How to print a directory listing

I needed to create a list of all the information products I had purchased over the past two years in order to see what I had already read and what I needed to study.  I wanted to be able to manipulate the information in a spreadsheet.  Here are the ways I found:

Folder Size

Download the free Folder Size application from the people at Mind Gems to scan any directory on your PC.  The output report will tell you where your fat-files are hiding, should you need to clean up disk space.  This program solved my initial problem–why is my hard drive so full? but it wouldn’t produce a printed listing of a directory’s contents.

Add the Print Directory capability from Microsoft

Add the Print Directory menu item to your Explorer drop downs (link goes to an official MS help site), and you can print the listing from any directory with a right-click of the mouse.  This is better than nothing, but not by much.  The file goes to the printer automatically, and then deletes itself.  You don’t have the opportunity to open the file with MS Excel first and manipulate it.  Your printed listing comes out in whatever order the directory was sorted in.

Return to DOS

Are you old enough?  Do you remember managing your PC from the command line?  To tell the truth, I barely do.  But “barely” was enough.

From the Search box at the bottom of the main menu listing (if that won’t find it for you, maybe you shouldn’t be doing this), type cmd.  You’ll get the DOS window.  In that, type

dir full_directory_path > filename.txt

Dir command for DOS

Running the dir command at the DOS prompt


Open the *.txt file with Excel, allowing Excel to recognize how to handle the information, and you’re set.
(You don’t need to see the content in the image; the spacing is all you need.)

Filed Under: How to 680
March 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Frustrated Frugality

I can, in some cases, be exceedingly careful and frugal with my money; not all the time or I’d be considerably more well-off.  I set the thermostat at 80 in the summer and 65 in the winter.  I save the clean water that runs while it gets hot and use it to fill the dog bowls.  I saved spare change and increased my downpayment on my own home by 1.5%, enough to put me in a different category for PMI. 

Then the lid caves in on the septic tank in my rental property, and I discover it’s possible to spend $1500 before 9 AM on a Monday morning.  That’s hard to do.  House closings don’t start that early.  Stores that sell expensive merchandise don’t open that early.  Car dealers aren’t open before 9 AM.  The repair person showed up with a backhoe at 6 AM and the new tank was delivered at 7 and a good bit of the dirt was pushed back by 9 and I signed the check and they all left.  I suppose I could offer the fill dirt for sale, but not until the earth pushed into the old tank has thoroughly settled, and it takes a LOT more dirt than I have on hand to make up a $1500 bill.

It may have been possible to prevent this problem.  The last owner of the house told me where the tank was.  We took her word for that and carefully avoided parking on that part of the yard.  She was wrong.  The current tenant has parked where the tank actually was, and eventually, the lid cracked, taking enough of the tank with it to prevent repair by replacing just the lid. An entirely new tank, taking up a huge section of the yard was the only solution.

There is no discount fix for a broken septic tank.  There is no DIY solution, either.  The only answer is writing big checks to people who have access to and know how to use big equipment.  I am practicing gratitude, for knowing plumbers who return calls, who know the guys that can replace septic tanks, who show up ready to work at 6:00 AM on a Monday morning, even if that means they’re operating a backhoe before I have a chance to mark the gas line.  I can try more gratitude for its being July, so the gas was not flowing at the time the backhoe sliced through the line.

I don’t want to say “now I’ve replaced every system in that house,” because it’s still running on its first central air conditioning unit.  But when I read David Giffels’ All the Way Home, I could identify.  It’s never done.  There’s only so much money you can save.

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March 3, 2010 By 2 Comments

Umm… Uhh…

There’s a simple solution to the non-words “umm” and “uhh” in public speaking*:  it is virtually impossible to “umm” and “uhh” when you are making eye contact with a specific person.

Umms and uhhs happen when you look at your notes, the wall, the ceiling, the floor, or a crowd = collective, not crowd = individual therein. They never happen while you are looking directly at another person’s eyes. Try it for yourself. Observe how people make eye contact when they speak, or don’t, at the next meeting you attend.

If you’re on the phone, look at a picture of a real person. (Caveat: make sure the person in the picture is someone who elicits appropriate vocabulary for the call. You don’t want to accidentally slip into baby talk during a marketing presentation.) In a pinch, speaking to a drink bottle or a coffee cup, pretending it has eyes, will do, but a picture of a real person is better.

*Some people in the online business community don’t realize that recording a teleclass or webinar to create an audio file for subsequent sale is effectively the same thing as public speaking. While a live audience may forgive Umms and Uhhs and the doubleplay “umm and,” people who listen to the content while driving find the filler words slamming into their brain like bricks. Look at a picture of a business colleague. SPEAK to that picture. The number of filler words in your audio file will decrease dramatically. (See the post, Creating High-quality Audio Files, for additional tweaks that will make your files sound more polished and professional.)

You can substitute your dog for a person; dogs cooperate more than cats. Fish are useless.

The first time you try to make eye contact with a real person when and every time you speak, your eyes will hurt by the end of the day. Then, you’ll start noticing how few people make eye contact all the time.

Spread the word. Make eye contact when you do it.

We discovered this solution in Powerful, Persuasive Speaking, a two-day class presented by Alan Hoffler of Mills Wyck Communications. If being more persuasive would help you be more effective in your work or vocation, we cannot recommend this class enough.  In my session, one professional (NSA) and one pretty good amateur speaker both observed marked improvement in delivery skills.  People with no prior training in public speaking made amazing improvements.

Filed Under: How to 680, Leadership 303
October 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

USB Chargers & Gold Paint Pens

Once more, I carefully set one of my devices to charge overnight, only to find it dead as a doornail in the morning. Why? because the mini-USB connector fits both ways, AND, because the logo for the “wall” end of the charger is on THE BOTTOM of the connector.

Why would anyone do this? Once day, I’ll ask the nice people at Blue Ant. For today, I’ll get out my gold paint pen and mark the top side of the connector.

For the record, all of my other connectors are marked this way. I saw the logo on the blue tooth charger and (silly me!) thought that the logo alone would serve to mark the top. Ha! I will never remember that in this case alone, the logo marks the bottom.

Younger readers with good eyesight may well be able to distinguish the tree-like symbol that means “top” on a USB connection, from the “arrow” on the bottom, in all kinds of light. People who buy reading glasses by the dozen will understand why it might help to mark the top. White paint would work as well as gold, I suppose, but gold marks feel a bit more luxurious, for the same price. You can buy the pens at art supply stores.

Filed Under: How to 680
September 17, 2009 By 1 Comment

ICE Entries and, Your address book is a database

ICE = In Case of Emergency.  First responders are learning to find the cell phone of an unconscious person and look for an ICE = In Case of Emergency entry.  The numbers in that entry are to people who would be useful or should be notified that the cell phone owner needs help.  Help the EMT help you by creating the entry, and by making sure your friends and family members create ICE entries for their own phones.

Along the same lines, consider that most phone address books can hold more than phone numbers, especially for “smart” phones that sync to a PC and have a “notes” field for each contact entry.

I wish I could remember how the subject came up.  Someone asked when I had my most recent tetanus shot.  I pulled out my cell phone and went to “T” in the address book.  I had the answer.  My friend was astounded. (A friend recently needed an emergency tetanus shot, and went to the emergency room on a Saturday night. The total bill was $426, with only $27 of that being for the injection itself and the remainder for ancillary ER services.)

My dogs each have entries in my phone, with their microchip information and date of last rabies shot.

For that matter, the date of my own rabies series is filed under “R,” but that’s a long and different story.  (Make CERTAIN the administering nurse codes the injection as “treatment for exposure,” not “prophylaxis.”)

I know a woman who keeps her son’s preference in beer in his entry’s Notes field.  When he visits, she knows what to buy.  (I suppose, if one had enough sons with different preferences, it might be easier to create a “beer” entry, but that’s not the case in this particular family.)

I have the rental rates and minimum head counts for my favorite meeting space in the Notes field of its entry.

I’m usually pretty well prepared for planned medical visits, and I can assemble the relevant records a day or two before.  However, “tetanus” (in particular; there are others that have a similar unexpected quality) is one medical outcome that is often unexpected, the result of an unplanned trip to the ER or urgent care clinic.  I will almost always have my phone with me on that kind of visit.  Common sense note:  the notes I make are somewhat cryptic, and I don’t keep my entire medical history on a device that can be pickpocketed out of my purse.  However, I’d rather a thief find out my tetanus history than get a shot I don’t really need because it hasn’t been very long since the last one.

Filed Under: Backups 005.8, How to 680, Process 153
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