LogBlog

Logic Co-CEO John Matzek quoted in this recent Processor Magazine article:

Best Tip

Investing a substantial amount of money for an IT employee’s training almost always harbors the risk that he or she will use the skills learned to move on to greener pastures for more money. One way to mitigate the risk is to share training costs or schedule reimbursement after the training is completed. “You can offer a partial scholarship where an employee pays for part of the class and gets reimbursed after a certain amount of time,” says John Matzek, co-chief executive officer of Logic IT Consulting (www.logicitc.com). “Or the employee needs to work at the job for a certain amount of time before being eligible for a full scholarship.”

It is also good to keep in mind that keeping good employees involves more than just worrying that they might leave after acquiring better skills.

“At the end of the day, your organization needs to remain competitive to retain talented IT employees, and this requires offering some form of training or certification,” says Michael Taivalmaa, an analyst for Corporate Integrity (www.corp-integrity.com). “Who knows, maybe your next new hire sees you as their greener pasture.”

by Bruce Gain Processor.com

To read the full article go to http://www.processor.com/email.asp?emid=13163

Traditionally, to speed up Microsoft Windows Operating Systems we add more RAM (assuming the processor is fast enough). Though with laptops, we are seeing a different challenge where RAM is not necessarily the bottleneck slowing it down. The challenge we are running into lately with Laptops is that hard drives in Laptops often spin a lot slower than those in desktop PC’s. If possible, the best thing you can do is upgrade to a 7200RPM or Solid State hard drive.  Upgrading to a faster hard drive is not always an option, so fortunately there are 3 things we can do with Windows Vista to reduce how much it is relying on the hard disk, and speed it up significantly:

1. Use “ReadyBoost” to significantly increase the responsiveness of the system by reading commonly-used system files from flash memory (which is much faster than a hard disk). You can pick up a 2 pack of high-speed 2GB SD cards (typically used to store pictures in digital cameras) for about $30 at Costco. SD cards are easy to leave in the SD card reader slot on your laptop at all times. When prompted by Windows, choose “Speed up my system”:
   

   AutoPlay Options

   

   ReadyBoost options

2. Disable “Windows Search“. Although it’s a great and useful feature, it can slow down your laptop — so leave it enabled on your Desktop PC and remote in when you want to use it. To disable Windows Search, right-click “Computer” in the Start Menu and choose “Manage”. Navigate to “Services” on the left pane. Double-click on “Windows Search” in the list of services.
   

   Windows Search Service Options

   Change the Startup Type to “Disabled.”

3. Turn off the Sidebar. The Windows Vista Sidebar is a really cool feature that lets you put weather, an analog clock, and other fun gadgets on your desktop. It does take up resources, though, just like any other running program so if you want to squeeze some extra performance out of Vista you should disable the sidebar.
   

   Windows Vista SideBar (on the Right)

   To disable the Sidebar:
   Right click on a blank area of the sidebar and choose Properties.
   Uncheck the ‘Start sidebar when windows starts’ option. Hit OK.
   Right click on a blank area of the taskbar and choose ‘close sidebar.’

-Ira

There is a big misconception that multi-tasking is a more efficient way to work and accomplish tasks, yet many “multi-taskers” are wondering why they don’t have more time and balance in life. The truth is multi-tasking gives you the illusion of being more productive, but really slows down everything you do.

Recently the New York Times wrote an article on the matter and included the results of Microsoft’s study on Multi-tasking.

Excerpts from the New York Times Article:

In short, the answer appears to lie in managing the technology, instead of merely yielding to its incessant tug.

“Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes,” said David E. Meyer, a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan. “Disruptions and interruptions are a bad deal from the standpoint of our ability to process information.”

Another great article and executive summary was posted on the organizing site 43folders:

From: http://www.43folders.com/2007/03/26/nyt-multitasking/

Slow Down, Multitaskers, and Don’t Read in Traffic - New York Times

Yesterday’s New York Times front page ran an article pulling together the results of several recent studies looking at how interruptions and attempts to multitask can affect the quality of work as well as the length of recovery time.

Here’s one bit that really grabbed me:

“In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.”

“I was surprised by how easily people were distracted and how long it took them to get back to the task,” said Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft research scientist and co-author, with Shamsi Iqbal of the University of Illinois, of a paper on the study that will be presented next month.

And, from a PDF of another of the studies cited (“Isolation of a Central Bottleneck of Information Processing with Time-Resolved fMRI”), here’s a telling snippet from the article’s abstract (yes, most of the rest of it is well over my head):

“When humans attempt to perform two tasks at once, execution of the first task usually leads to postponement of the second one. This task delay is thought to result from a bottleneck occurring at a central, amodal stage of information processing that precludes two response selection or decision-making operations from being concurrently executed…These results suggest that a neural network of frontal lobe areas acts as a central bottleneck of information processing that severely limits our ability to multitask.”

My own feelings on the myth of multi-tasking are well-documented, but it’s fascinating to see research interest focused in this area — although it’s certainly not surprising, given its potential impact on knowledge workers and the industries that employ them. Again, from yesterday’s NYT article:

“The productivity lost by overtaxed multitaskers cannot be measured precisely, but it is probably a lot. Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex, a business-research firm, estimates the cost of interruptions to the American economy at nearly $650 billion a year…”

“The information age is really only a decade or two old in the sense of most people working and communicating on digital devices all day, Mr. Spira said. In the industrial era, it took roughly a century until Frederick Winslow Taylor in 1911 published his principles of “scientific management” for increasing worker productivity.”

“We don’t have any equivalent yet for the knowledge economy,” Mr. Spira said.

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