Working from home

Working from home – how to separate your work from your life

Most people have an easy time after-hours. They clock in at nine, leave at five and don’t have to worry about work until the next day. For the soloist at home it’s a different story. Work is always there, following you around like anattention-seeking puppy.* Here are some ideas you can use to make your work behave. 

Physically separate your office from the rest of the house

Make a room in your house into an office and keep all of your job-related items in there. Try not to go into your office after-hours unless you absolutely have to, and don’t bring your business documents into the rest of the house. That way you won’t have your work staring you in the face every time you turn around. If you don’t have a room to spare, you can cordon off an area using partitions or bamboo screens. 

Divide your communication between business and home
These days, whenever a telephone rings we feel the urge to answer it right away. By installing a separate phone line, you will be able to tell whether or not you’ll be at work when you pick up the phone. Having an answering machine attached to your business phone will help you to screen unwanted calls.  If you don’t want a separate line you can use a mobile phone, or set up a computer-based telephone program (like Skype) for your business instead.

Keeping a business-only presence online is easy. All you need to do is make a separate email account for work. There are plenty of free services that you can use, including Gmail and Hotmail.

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Creating computer separation can be a little trickier.  If you already have two computers, just keep all of your work documents and programs on one of them. If you only have one computer, it’s probably not worth spending money to get a second. Instead, most operating systems will let you create two different user accounts on the same machine.

Unless you own a laptop, you’re going to be confined to your office whenever you use your computer. If you can’t avoid using your workspace, make sure that it’s tidy and that your job-related items are tucked away out of sight.

Schedule your working time properly
Some people are at their best in the morning, while others work better at night. Running your business from home gives you the opportunity to get things done when your mind is at its peak. You can however find yourself in big trouble if you don't manage your time properly. 

 A lot of companies set working hours for their employees and you should do the same. Create a schedule and stick to it as much as possible. Give yourself enough time to do your work, but make sure that you add in sufficient break periods and be flexible enough to account for emergencies.

Add your tips and ideas

These are only a few of the many helpful tips and ideas out there on how to separate working from home from the rest of your life. If you have any comments or additions, please feel free to comment below.

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*No dogs (metaphorical or otherwise) were harmed in the writing of this article.

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White Tiger

Because I am such an avid reader, I tend to buy a lot of books and then run out of places to put them. Since I don’t like to waste space, I occasionally do a bit of a stocktake and put some of my older (or least favourite) books aside to be sold or given to friends. I was doing this the other day and came across White Tiger by Kylie Chan. I was a bit confused as to what it was doing in my bookshelf because I vaguely remember disliking it and I generally get rid of novels that I dislike as soon as possible. So I decided to re-read it and see what I could find.  

White Tiger is a book about an Australian woman named Emma who works in a kindergarten in Hong Kong. She the sort of person who takes the time to make sure the children enjoy their studies, but unfortunately her boss thinks differently. Disillusioned by her boss’s attempts to treat the students like robots, Emma decides to quit and concentrate on private tutoring. As luck would have it, one of the children that she is already tutoring (Simone Chen) needs a live-in nanny and her father is offering an insane amount of money for the job.

Things get interesting when she, Simone and Simone’s bodyguard Leo are attacked by some Chinese youths who explode into strings of black goo when hit. It turns out that Mr Chen is the Chinese turtle god and that the attackers are demons who wanted to kidnap Simone. Emma decides that protecting Simone is more important than anything, and so she is drawn into a world that contains ancient Chinese Gods, demons and martial arts. 

I am very glad that I kept White Tiger on my bookshelf. Although it starts off relatively slowly, things pick in chapter nine and this momentum is carried through the rest of the book. Chan provides some nice details about Chinese gods that I didn’t know about (I checked the accuracy online) and gives each god a personality that fits with the stories about them. Her main characters are also very three-dimensional and Chan takes the time to show elements of their personalities through minor interactions. For example, Emma and Leo show their creative (and sometimes immature) natures by playing pranks on each other. These include Emma dying Leo’s underwear pink, and Leo retaliating by putting fake rats in Emma’s suitcases.

One problem that I had was with Emma’s reaction to the weird things happening at Mr Chen’s house. If I were her, I’d be rather suspicious of working for someone without knowing what their job is, and why he would be offering so much money to a live-in nanny. Then there’s the fact that no-one will tell her anything when she asks them questions. Simone keeps telling her that the information she wants is a secret, and Leo is just as closed-mouthed. This however doesn’t seem to really bother Emma – in fact she shows a remarkable amount of disinterest in the world around her.

The other problem involves the ending of White Tiger (and this was what put me off the first time I read it). I believe that the first novel in a series should be able to stand on its own and this one doesn’t. The story ends very abruptly as if the author is saying that you have to buy the next book or else. 

I tend to respond to these sorts of novels by boycotting the series, but in the case of White Tiger I thought that it might be worth reading the second book, Red Phoenix.  To my disappointment this also ended in a bit of a cliffhanger but I was so caught up in the story that I kept reading. Before I knew it, I’d read the next trilogy and was enjoying myself very much. 

So I do recommend that you read White Tiger and the rest of the Dark Heavens series, but beware that the story still hasn’t finished by the end of the second trilogy.

Masterchef Australia drinking game

This isn't really a post about a media issue as such. My mum loves cooking shows, and so I've been watching Masterchef Australia with her. Watching the challenges is fun, but what gets me is the formulaic nature of this reality TV. You'd think that after a few seasons they'd be able to mix things up a bit (although they have done that a bit with the challenges this season), but it just gets so irritating when they don't.

So, in order to make the repetitiveness fun, my friends and I have developed a Masterchef Australia drinking game.

I prefer to use non-alcoholic drinks and take absolutely no responsibility for what happens if you don't.

Please feel free to add comments to this as I'm sure I've missed a lot.


Have one drink if:

• fire appears on screen, two if something catches fire that shouldn't.
• a contestant worries about being sent home. *
• a contestant says "I don't want to go home".
• a judge refers to some element of a dish as the hero or a cracker. *
• pasta dough or Mayo is made.*
• a judge makes a bad pun (very small sips for this or you'll be drunk or needing the bathroom within the first 10 minutes).
• George bounces up and down.
• a judge says "Should we try it?", "Should we start eating?",  "Let's try it" or something along those lines.
• George says something grammatically incorrect.
• someone mentions salt.
• someone uses butter in a dish that's not a dessert.
• someone refers to "beautiful food" or "beautiful ingredients".
• George uses his fingers to eat.
• anyone (judge or contestant) makes an inherited dish (eg grandma's).
• "I/She/He have no idea what I/they are doing".
• George has to taste a chilli hot dish.
• blue bandaids are seen.
• a contestant says "food is my life".

Have two drinks if:

• a contestant doesn't make their own ingredient from scratch (i.e. using ready-made breadcrumbs or pasta).
• one of the contestant comments negatively on another contestant's cooking.
• a contestant uses the term "shattered", "devastated", "gutted" or "disappointed".
• you see gratuitous product placement of something the judges have endorsed (don't bother with regular product placement as you'll be drinking constantly).
• someone cries.
• George says "Boom boom, shake the room".
• one of the judges says something about making a tough decision.

Have three drinks if:

• a contestant forgets to turn on an oven/stove or leaves something in the freezer for too long.
• someone has to call for a medic.
• something important falls on the floor.
• a contestant threatens to give up.
• Donna Hay is on the show and doesn't mention anything about food styling.

Drink the whole bottle if:

• Matt Preston breaks down in tears.*
• Matt Preston doesn't wear a cravat.

* indicates a suggestion that I found at http://klaused.blogspot.com/

Image source: Masterchef Australia logo

Creating this weblog

Right, it's time for me to write a bit about what I went through to create this blog. I chose to use Blogger because I've used it before as both a website and a blog for when I've gone on holiday. I've never used tumblr and so didn't want to get into something new that could eat up my time when I could be writing the blog posts.

I've used Blogger templates before, so I wasn't too worried about putting together a good-looking site, but this proved to be harder than I thought it would be. Firstly I had to find the right sort of template to fit the purpose of the blog. Then I had to a adapt the template to be exactly what I wanted (if you want to see the original template, it is called Revolution Lifestyle Two), which meant going into the code and figuring out how to change colours,fonts and other things. It's a good thing that have a degree in computing! If I had stuck with one of the templates offered as standard from the Blogger Template Designer I probably wouldn't have had all of this trouble but I wanted to be different, and I'm also an insane perfectionist when it comes to design. Right now though, I'm not a fan of blogger!

I've learned quite a bit through writing media issues up here. It's made me pay more attention to what's happening in the media, and encouraged me to listen to radio shows like Click and watch television shows like Hungry Beast more often. It's also given me a chance to put my views up without feeling that I'm just babbling uselessly, or wasting people's time by writing up rubbish.

What sort of blogger have I become? I don't think I want to pigeonhole myself at this point, especially since my knowledge is going to always be growing and changing. Let's hope that I'll be a good one.

Image source: Blogger logo

News gaming

I haven't had a chance to catch up on my Hungry Beast viewing until now, so I was just watching the episode "Play" when they put on a rather scary segment that prompted me to run to the computer and start writing this post.

The segment is about something called "Newsgames", which let you "play" a news scenario after it's been reported. For example, Kuma War takes real events from the 'War on Terror' and makes them into first-person single and multiplayer shooter games. Episode (#107) lets you take part in the raid on Osama Bin Ladin's compound so that you can kill the notorious terrorist. Footage from satellites, military records, reports from the Department of Defence and interviews with soldiers are all used to reconstruct the war scenes as accurately as possible.

Now, this didn't actually shock me too much. I've played first-person shooter games that are based around wars - such as Medal of Honor (WWII) and Medal of Honor - Vietnam (the Vietnam War). What did scare me was the game Super Columbine Massacre RPG (SCMRPG). Yes, they've made a game that, according to the website 'delves into the morning of April 20th, 1999 and asks players to relive that day through the eyes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, those responsible for the deadliest school shooting in American history.'

To be completely honest, I'm not sure how to react to this game. I'm still shocked and horrified by it, but now I've had time to think about it some questions have arisen:

1. What is the difference between this RPG and the first-person shooters for war games like Medal of Honor? Both of those let the player kill other people for different reasons, but the Columbine shootings were clearly against young civilians, making it a clear-cut good guy vs bad guy situation. But innocent civilians are killed in war too.

2. The SCMRPG's creator Danny Ledonne makes the point that people who play the game can get into the minds of the guys behind the shooting and therefore understand what they're going through (you can apparently choose whether or not to shoot, hurt or kill someone). Would this encourage people to do more or less violence?

3. Lots of books have been written on Columbine, and a movie has been made too. Does the interactivity of the game take it one step too far? Is it because we play games for entertainment purposes that entertaining people with this type of RPG makes it less horrifying?

Despite looking at these logical questions, the thought of these games still makes me feel sick inside.

Source: Hungry Beast – Episode 30 2011, television program, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney. News As Games? report by Marc Fennell, 25 May 2011. 
Image source: Kuma War - Osama
Image source: SCMRPG - Cafeteria
 

Attack of the killer eBooks - part 2

Back in 2010 I posted on this blog that I didn't think that eBooks would take over the market. Well, I still believe that but I have to admit that my attitude towards eBooks have changed since I bought a Kindle.

The Kindle is easy to carry and because it stores so many books I don't have to lug a whole box of books around. This is especially important because I plan to go overseas later this year. I haven't yet used some of the more advanced features such as the news download or the annotation options, but it's so much easier to search for what you want and the page-turn speed is remarkable. Of course there are disadvantages. I can't read in the bath and if something goes wrong while I'm on holiday (my Kobo died while I was in South Africa – luckily I had brought over some real books too) I'm left without anything to read.

'How could you betray us?' I hear the bookshops screaming, but in truth I haven't. I still love my printed books and will head over to any library booksale in a flash. I often do the rounds of my local second-hand bookstores and I know that you definitely can't get an author to sign a book on your Kindle (even if you could it'd be rather impersonal.) I guess that my attitude has changed so that I now realise that sometimes you have to choose the tool that fits the situation you're in.

Image source: Hand with knife

Erasing David

I don't generally listen to newsradio except when I want to catch up on the headlines, but my radio happened to be tuned to BBC World Service on Saturday and I'm glad that it was because I stumbled across a very interesting program. It's called "Click" and it's about global technology, social media and the internet.

The topic for this week was digital privacy and online anonymity. The host Gareth Mitchell was talking to a man called David Bond who has created a documentary about how the difficulties of remaining anonymous thanks to all of the technology that can be used to track you. He did his best to erase all traces of himself from online media such as facebook, ebay, online phonebooks and even called the airlines to get them to remove him from their flight databases. Then he asked people from the top private investigator firm Cerberus to track him down and catch him within 30 days, using only his name.

Apart from making me want to really watch the documentary, listening to the program got me thinking about privacy and anonymity which are a really big deal in the world today. David was trying for anonymity which I don't think he would be able to achieve (and from what I saw of the online trailer, he ended up getting rather paranoid), but privacy is certainly something that we put our trust in when information about us is entered into any technological device.

How many of you read the terms and conditions when signing up to a website, a service or buying a computer program? How about when you buy an airline ticket or use your credit card? I know that I used to just skim through them, but if you think about it, terms and conditions are long enough for their developers to hide anything in them. Just imagine if, after installing your latest word processing program someone turned up at your door demanding your firstborn child because you agreed to it in the T&C? Not only that, some companies will turn your information over to others for "marketing" purposes and you can't sign up to them without having that happen.

For me, the problem isn't that this is happening (because it's unavoidable) but rather my own attitude towards it. Not that I've done anything to have private investigators tracking my down, but that I'm willing to blithely give away that information to get services. I used to joke that when I signed up to Amazon they could hunt me down and force me to sell my soul, but I'm not sure if that's too far from the truth nowadays.

Video source: Erasing David trailer

Print vs online

This being a course about issues in publication and design, it's inevitable that I'd be posting on here about the differences between online and print publishing—especially since a lot of print publications are making the move to the internet, phones and tablet devices. Sometimes people will want to read what you've written in hard-copy rather than online (or both). Because this is such a big subject, I'm not going to write an entire blog post on it- I'll just be looking at the issues of eye fatigue and partial page view.

1. Eye fatigue.

This is one of the major problems that I have when sitting at a computer for an extended period of time. If I want to read a story, article or document online that's more than a few pages long I get tired eyes and a headache. That's because when we look at a computer screen (or one on a mobile phone,  iPod or other tablet type) it projects light directly into our eyes—no wonder they get tired and sore! In contrast, when you're looking at a piece of paper you only get reflected light so your eyes don't get as tired. In fact, that's why I like reading eBooks on my Kindle instead of on the computer or an iPad.
Something else to keep in mind is that a computer screen refreshes itself really quickly (just like a TV), so your eyes are constantly having to adjust. I didn't notice this until I saw some computer screens in the background of the Channel 10 news. It seems as though TV cameras pick up on this flickering, so have a look and see the next time they show a computer on TV.

So, if you're writing for print you can afford to put long blocks of text on a page (although using white space and design is essential to stop the reader from getting bored and wandering off). However if you're putting text online, make sure to break it up with pictures and white space.

(Go back to the top of the blog)

2. Partial page view

Depending on what your screen size and resolution is, you may not be able to read this sentence without scrolling down the page. This is another problem with putting things online. When you have a piece of paper you generally skim-read from the top-left to bottom right with your eyes picking up anything interesting on the way (unless you are from somewhere where reading is done from right to left). You can also see how big the page is and get an idea of how much text there is for you to look at.

Unfortunately this doesn't work when you transfer written information to an online format. A printed page will most likely have a vertical page layout whilst a computer screen has a horizontal one. This means that if you don't put the most important information at the top of your screen, readers aren't going to be able to easily find it. That's why it's a good idea to use a table of contents or menu if you're going to put a lot of text on one screen, or use internal links (like I'm doing in this post). It is of course better make lots of smaller pages and then use the menu/sitemap to link to them. Oh, and finally, don't think that reducing font sizes will help. Making your fonts smaller will make it harder for readers, and some of them will have default font settings for their web browser which will confuse your website!

(Go back to the top of the blog)

If you want to look at more problems and get tips on how to fix them, have a look at Looking Good In Print. This book will help you to make sure your readers have the best reading experience no matter which publishing format they choose.

Image source: Computer eye
Image source: Book and computer
Source: Parker, Roger C 2003, Looking Good In Print, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale Arizona

Blogging and quality control

Blogs, what would we do without them? Well we probably wouldn't be splashing our thoughts and personal lives over the internet as much (although Facebook and Twitter will also do that), but we also would have to search a lot less for good quality reading. Now I'm not saying that all blogs are bad (in fact, if you've continued to read my blog then I'm very grateful), but they have allowed anyone to publish themselves online, no matter how well they can or can't write. This has a major impact when you look at the quality of what we are reading online. 

 

Because I want to work in the editing and publishing industry it makes me very annoyed when I see books being published that really should have been through quality control first [1]. So when it comes to finding something good to read online I can get very frustrated when trawling through a lot of the rubbish out there. I was speaking to a journalist friend today who also gets upset about people publishing on blogs because they think that their writing is the best thing since sliced bread. She also feels that job opportunities are dwindling because blogs are taking over.

Of course there is a positive side to the prolificity of blogs, because somewhere, buried in the piles of slush are blogs that are worth reading. A friend of a friend wanted to write for a fashion magazine but couldn't get a job, so she decided to write a blog instead. She now collaborates with photographers from all over the world and her blog reads like a professional magazine. Quality blogs help you to get your name out into the big wide world so that, if employers like what they see, you can be headhunted.

I guess it all depends on whether or not you care to spend the time rooting through the garbage to find the gems inside.

[1] For example Eragon by Christopher Paolin was written when the author was sixteen - and it really shows. In fact, the only reason that it was published was because his parents decided to self-publish the book for him.

Image source: Quality control rejected

Blog blog blogging along

Blogs started out as places for people to post their thoughts on life, the universe and everything. They still do so, but I'm pretty sure that facebook has done it's best to shove the minutia of everyone's life in our face. So what are blogs used for these days? I use mine as a host for my book reviews, and I know that the site for the Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association is constructed in Wordpress, but what else is out there?

Well there are lots of blogging communities. They range from BlogHer (a women-only community) to MMO Social Network (where people share tips about making money). But according to Ink Rebels there are five types of blog:

1. Collaboration blogs: As the title suggests, this is one blog with a lot of authors. From what I can tell it's basically the same as a community blog.

2. How-to/tutorial blogs: I found these very useful because you can look at the comments to see if the tutorial is correct or worthwhile.

3. Travel/cultural blogs: These are full of people writing about their travel experiences. Because you can include pictures and videos from holidays, they're a lot more flexible than post cards. Plus other people can comment on their experiences of the same place and recommend it (or warn about it) to others.

4. Fashion/lifestyle blogs: Pretty much what the title says.

5. Personal blogs, which I've already talked about.

I already write for the collaborative blog A Writer Goes On A Journey, so I think that if I was forced at gunpoint to choose another blog to write I'd pick the community one because it feels like it would have more of a the direct connection with people than the other blog types do.

Image source: Blogging cloud

To GPS or not to GPS, that is the question!

To GPS or not to GPS – that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the myriad folds and tiny text of the printed map, or to take arms and listen to the directions of a disembodied voice.

I have been trying to decide whether or not to get myself a GPS. I’m not that great with maps because I tend to forget the directions and constantly have to pull over to remind myself of where I’m supposed to be going. I also have a lot of trouble reading maps when I’m a passenger because doing it while the car is moving makes me feel nauseous. These seem like perfect reasons to get a GPS but I’m a bit wary because of a rather bad experience that could have been avoided if I’d been using a road map.

Constitution Hill is located in Johannesburg, South Africa and is (as you can probably tell from the name) the seat of the Constitutional Court of the country. It’s an interesting place to visit because it used to be a prison during the years of the apartheid government. It has now been turned into a tourist attraction where you are shown what life was like for the prisoners during that time. The only problem is that, because it was a prison, Constitution Hill is located right next to the rather dangerous suburb of Joville. It is not exactly a place you’d want to wander into by accident—which is of course what happened.

My brother and I had just finished visiting the prison and were heading out to meet some of our friends when our GPS decided to play up. A new bypass had just been built but the GPS didn’t recognise where we were in time for us to use it. So we followed the instructions to turn into the next road on the right and repeat that twice to get us back to where we started. Big mistake. You see, we didn’t know anything about Joville at the time (and of course neither did the GPS – although it would have been a nice addition to the software for it to warn us about it) and so we innocently drove into the seedy underbelly of Johannesburg.

To cut a long story short we ended up being pulled over by a very angry black police officer who proceeded to verbally abuse us and then ended up giving my brother a pat-down search. I was shaking like crazy when we drove out and was even more upset when we were told that we had had a narrow escape for someone who had driven into the wrong part of town.

So can you blame me for being a bit worried about trusting a GPS?

Image created from: Hamlet and GPS

Defensible secrets—what is the DOD keeping from us?

Let me tell you a story about Australian troops in Afghanistan. It involves a successful mission by the Special Forces who manage to kill or capture Afghani insurgents, evacuate over three dozen women and children from a compound, and finish up with no civilian casualties. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if this happened? Well it did­--on October 18 2010 in the Shah Wali Kot region. There was even helmet-cam footage of the event! So why didn’t I hear about this until I watched this week’s episode of Hungry Beast?

The fact is that the video was never aired. What’s even more disturbing though is that no information about this operation was released by the Department of Defence (DOD) until a week after the event – and when it was, the media was given this headline: ‘Four Special Forces Soldiers Wounded During Operations’.

Is it just me or does this sound a bit wrong? Firstly, the delay. I understand the need for security, but the video was approved for release by the ground commanders and Australian Defence Force (ADF) – the people making the strategic decisions. And if the information was so sensitive, why was it published by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) within 24 hours of the event?

Secondly, why do we get only the bad news from Afghanistan? When our soldiers complete a task with a positive outcome, they aren’t getting our support or recognition. Even the media is getting the wool pulled over its eyes by the DOD, and they’re generally the ones responsible for manipulating information.

If this is happening when the Defence Minister Stephen Smith has assured us that the Defence Force and the Australian Government are being transparent as possible about the Afghanistan situation, what else are we missing out on?

Source: Hungry Beast – Episode 21 2011, television program, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney. Defense Secrecy report by Kirsten Drysdale, 23 March 2011.

Image source: Defence Secrecy

Attack of the killer eBooks?

Amazon claims that they are selling more eBooks than physical ones—at least those in hardcover format. With the extensive variety of eReaders available to the public there has been an explosion in the digital market. The question is, will these trends continue until eBooks have completely taken over?

In today’s society we are used to receiving information as quickly as possible, so the ability to download eBooks immediately is attractive. However, availability is limited because a lot of paper books aren’t in digital format. In addition, buying an eReader is quite expensive ($189 for a Kindle 3) so it will take a while before buying the lower-priced eBooks pays off.

There is also something about the feeling of holding a physical book that can’t be duplicated by a digital device. So unless prices drop dramatically and more eBooks are available, I don’t think there will be a takeover any time soon.

Source: Schroeder, S 2010, Amazon: E-books Will Overtake Paperbacks by the End of 2011, viewed 21 August 2010