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    Bryan Sims

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    How to Be a Better Public Speaker

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    LecternHow to Change the World has an informative post that provides tips on how to be a better public speaker. The tips are compiled by the author’s friend, who is a professional singer. The post points out that public speaking is a performance art that is not substantively different from singing.

    My favorite tips are

    Bite your tongue. If your mouth gets dry in the middle of your presentation, try gently biting your tongue. Opera singers use this all the time to release saliva which moistens your mouth.

    Use your eyes all the time. Hand gestures, pacing around the platform can all be useful tools in presentation, but the eyes…ah, the eyes have it! If you can’t engage people with your eyes you will eventually lose your audience’s attention. Your eyes always tell people whether or not you believe in what you’re saying! Scan the room, select a person to make a point to, and look right at them. It’s a little intimidating for them, but it keeps you focused on the individuals who make up your audience. Keep moving to new people—right, left, middle—it works! If all else fails, look at each person as though you’ve loved him or her all your life—like mom, or your child.

    Get quiet. If you really want to get people’s attention, get quiet suddenly. It will scare the sound guy to death, but I guarantee the audience will pay attention. Singers use this trick all the time. That’s the “you could hear a pin drop” effect. Believe me, that’s what sells your talk!

    I already use the Get Quiet tip. I have found this very effective. I love the tip about biting my tongue. I don’t look forward to doing it, however, I often get dry mouth while speaking for an extended period of time. Thus, I am thrilled to find this tip.

    Using my eyes more effectively is something that I really need to work on.

    Jump over and read the entire post. I am sure that you will find something that will help you become a better public speaker.

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    Deleting an Undeletable File

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    If you are like me, you have tried to delete a file and windows has prevented you from doing so. Geeks are Sexy gives us three ways to delete these files, regardless of how much Windows wants to prevent you from doing so.

    My favorite tip is

    Solution #1: Kill explorer.exe

    • Open a command prompt
    • Navigate to the location where the locked file is
    • Press CTRL-ALT-DEL, click on “task manager”, select the Processes tab
    • Kill the explorer.exe process via the “End Process” button
    • Go back to the command prompt and delete the file
    • Bring up the task manager windows again
    • Select file->new task
    • Type explorer.exe in the “create new task” field
    • Press OK.

    The post includes two other solutions:

    Solution #2: Use The Windows Recovery Console

    Solution #3: Use Unlocker

    Head over to the full post to see the complete description of the three options.

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    Keeping Your Laptop Quiet

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    I just saw a great tip from Futurelawyer. Most of us have been in a situation where weSilent Laptop wanted to turn on our laptop, but we knew that the windows start up sound would load and draw attention to us. Futurelawyer’s tip is very simple:

    Take the speaker plug from an old set of earbuds; snip it at the end, and plug it in to your notebook. Presto, no sound.

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    Organizing your Catagories

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    From Daily Blog Tips comes 5 practical tips for organizing your blog categories. My favorite is tip number 3:

    3. Make sure they fit in 1 screen: if you ask me how many categories your blog need the answer would probably be: it depends (no shit). Some blogs will work well with few categories, others will need 10 or even 20, just make sure that all the categories fit in one screen. Why? Because it is damn annoying to have to scroll down to see the complete list. Imagine I am trying to figure where a specific post was placed, once I get at the bottom of your categories I will probably have already forgotten what was on the top…

    Check out the whole post to see the rest of the tips. Then, put them into action.

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    Travel: Judith Ann Inn, in Ocean Shores, Washington

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    Judith Ann InnWhile in Seattle, I had the opportunity to visit the community of Ocean Shores, Washington. While there, we stayed in a lovely place called the Judith Ann Inn. The Judith Ann offers suites rather than simple hotel rooms. The suite we had contained a comfortable sized bedroom, an eat-in kitchen and a large living room with a comfortable couch. Also included was a balcony that provided a view of the beach and “an elevated jetted tub” with a vOcean Shores Beachiew of the ocean. These amenities are standard in all of their suites.

    Additionally, the suite offered free internet, including both a wireless and a wired connection. The suite had speakers wired in both the living room and the bedroom, thus allowing you to listen to the free digital music throughout the suite. Additionally, the satellite channel selection was excellant. The suite also include a DVD player, in case you wanted to your own movies.

    I found our stay in the Judith Ann to be quite comfortable and I would not hesitate to stay there if I again visit Ocean Shores.

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    Color Your World

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    Adriana at I Heart Tech provides great advice for how to color code your entries in Outlook. Adriana explains the simple steps required to color your world:

    First, in case you don’t know, when you create an appointment, you can assign it a color (called a Label in Outlook). It’s very easy to customize the Label list. You can either go to Edit > Label > Edit Labels (not kidding) or you can look for the icon on your toolbar that looks like a little Rubik’s Cube and click on it. Edit and save.

    Check out Adriana’s whole post (and the rest of her blog while you are there).

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    Open Source Alternatives

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    If you are one of those people who hates forking over money to Microsoft and other software providers? If so, Open Source Alternative is the website for you. In its own words, Open Source Alternative’s mission is to

    provide easy access to high quality open source alternatives to well-known commercial products. And remember that open source software is also a freeware alternative.

    If you are looking for a free alternative for a commercial program, check out Open Source Alternative.

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    Televising Oral Arguments

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    While I was in Seattle, I was flipping through the channels and came across a broadcast ofTVW Washington Public Affairs an oral argument before the Washington State Supreme Court. The case was not one that I found particularly interesting: it dealt with the determination of what costs can be included in a restitution order. However, I found the the whole idea fascinating.

    Not only are the Washington Supreme Court oral arguments televised on Washington State’s Public Affairs Network, but they are also archived on the internet. In fact, they have audio only arguments back through 1996 and video and audio copies since at least 2004. The argument that I watched can be found here.

    I think this is a great public service. What a great way to make the legal system at least partially accessible to the public. Plus, by concentrating only on the oral arguments in the supreme court, you never have any concerns about witnesses or jurors being shown on television. The viewers see only the attorneys making an oral argument.

    After watching this, two questions came to mind:

    1. How many other states are doing this?
    2. Why isn’t Illinois doing this?

    I am constantly frustrated about how far behind that Illinois lags in moving forward in technology areas. The state of electronic filing in this state is absolutely abysmal. Further it appears as though any possibility of electronic filing is headed toward a hopelessly convoluted system where every county has their own version and own system.

    I don’t expect the Supreme Court to fix the electronic filing situation overnight. However, allow its oral argument to be televised and archived on the internet is a great step forward that Illinois and other state could take.

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    Seattle’s Hotel 1000: A Great Place to Stay

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    John Scalzi has coined Scalzi’s Law of Hotel Internet Connections:

    The more expensive the hotel, the more expensive and/or crappy the Internet connection.

    Generally, I would agree with him. However, while recently in Seattle, I stayed at the Hotel 1000, which violated ScaHotel 1000lzi’s rule. The hotel, which is not cheap, but is perfectly in line with similar accommodation’s in the heart of Seattle or any other major city, was one of the best hotels that I have ever stayed in.

    Internet access was available, without any additional charge, bother wirelessly and via a standard Ethernet connection. Additionally, the room had very nice touch screen VOIP telephones, and a 40″ HD LCD television.

    The accommodations were wonderful and the staff was very pleasant and helpful, giving excellant suggestions for dining as well as driving directions.

    The desk chair was also quite comfortable, more comfortable than any other such chair that I have encountered in a hotel room.

    The only complaint that I have about the hotel (and I admit that this is a very minor complaint) is that the complimentary paper was the USA Today. I generally prefer to receive the local paper, especially when I am in a larger city, rather than the USA Today.

    That being said, if the biggest thing I have to complain about is the particular complimentary paper that is offered, I don’t think that I really have anything to complain about.

    If you happen to be in Seattle and are looking for accommodations, I can unreservedly suggest the Hotel 1000. It is located at 1000 First Ave. Seattle, WA.