adamyntium

Category: grab bag

  • Gmail user? The new "murder," er, "mute" function will have you crying tears of joy

    Lots of folks have noticed that five very cool new features debuted today in Gmail:
    1) Enhanced UI, with Reply and other handy features placed at the top of conversations.
    2) Notification when new messages have been made in the conversation since you started drafting your reply.
    3) Forward an entire conversation (all messages).
    4) Send chat messages to your friends using Gmail chat or GTalk even when they’re offline (the messages’ll be held for them).
    5) Get Gmail on your mobile phone with a rich app (not just slow Web pages).

    [Read more about these new gmail features]

    But what I have to share with you is even more deliciously glorious… especially for those of you who are on lots of mailing lists or who have boring (albeit perhaps well-meaning) friends who just won’t shut up.

    Friends, Romans, fellow GMail users… I introduce to you…

    MURDER!

    Oh wait, that’s not exactly right.  Officially, the new feature is called Mute Thread, or “Mute” for short.  Here’s how it works:

    THE OLD WAY:
    1) You’re reading some posts about the elections.
    2) You were once excited about reading this stuff.
    3) But at least one conversation is now on its 471th message.  You keep hitting Archive but the damn conversation keeps popping up every time someone makes a new post!
    4) You’re ready to tear out your hair.  The posters’ hair.  Your keyboard’s hair.  Er, keys.
    5) MAKE IT STOP!  MAKE IT STOP, PLEEEEEASE!

    THE NEW WAY:
    1) You get yet another annoying message in the same damn conversation that’s already been conversed to death.
    2) You press the ‘m’ key.  Unless a message is written *directly* to you (e.g., your name is in the TO spot), you’ll never see that message in your inbox again!

    In short, the Mute feature enables you to tell Gmail: “Archive this conversation AND all future posts in it… just have ‘em skip the inbox!”

    [See official Gmail info on Mute]

    I can think of only one downside to this feature at the moment:
    If you filter your discussion list mail into separate labels (say, “Prolific Politics List”) and already have those posts skip the inbox… then the M key will sadly have no effect.  It doesn’t remove labels, it just creates a “get out of inbox free”

    But that aside, I think this is a super-awesome feature, and one that—to my knowledge—is unique amongst major Webmail providers.

    So, go ahead, indulge in those high-traffic lists again.  And don’t hesitate to threaten any annoying poster, “Dude, if you write one more word about Rummie, you’re getting SO m’d!”

    DISCLAIMERS:  I work for Google.  I am not on the Gmail team.

  • Brief rant: to-do lists online

    I’ll keep this (relatively) short and sweet:

    I already use a fine to-do list software application (MyLifeOrganized), but since I’m aiming to move most of my life online, I thought I’d check out various online to-do apps.  I’ve been *shocked* at how every single app I’ve looked at falls into one of two categories:

    1) Slower than a dog.
    Sure, ajax is trendy and so [gag] Web2.0, but it sure beats the pants off having the damn screen redraw after every task add and edit!

    2) No way to specify a start date.
    Okay, this has to be the dumbest omission imaginable.  I mean, come on, I can’t work on [x] until my friend so-and-so arrives in three months.  I’m not going to start planning a birthday present for my sister until two weeks before her birthday.  I’m not going to start testing out music notation software packages until after the 2007 NAMM show.  Why on *earth* would I want all my to-do’s showing up as something to work on before I either want to or can work on them?!

    This is particularly discouraging to me, because Remember the Milk is clearly a very slick service with passionate and smart developers and an active community and so on.  So why on earth haven’t they implemented start dates for tasks?  This certainly can’t rank up there as one of the tough technical problems of all times.  I don’t see it posing a significant UI challenge, either.  Nor, I’d imagine, is this something that users would be scratching their heads over (“Start date? Hmm… that’s so confusing and overwhelming.  Whatever could it mean?!”)

    Grrr.

  • [Humor] Once again, attending a camp for swingers

    Tomorrow night I’m heading off on a plane to once again attend a camp for swingers.  As you can imagine, posting on my blog and sorting through my t-shirt drawers will be far from my mind. 😉

    Take THAT, Lisa Barrone 😛

    Anyway… if you’re interested in all the details (including lots of photos!), visit Swing Out New Hampshire’s Web site.

    See y’all in a week or two 😀

    [Added to reduce chances of some folks having a heart attack:  It’s a swing DANCE camp, people.  Lindy Hop.  Jazz music.  Sheesh… such dirty minds ;-)]

  • Don’t Download This Song! (listen to another gem by Weird Al Yankovic)

    Unless you’re a fan of the RIAA or a bitter, clueless artist… I urge you to run, er, click, not walk to go hear Weird Al’s new ditty: “Don’t Download This Song.” [warning: music autoplays].

    I’m looking forward to the music video promised for this evening, but in the meantime, you can hear the song in its entirety (and, of course, download it!).

  • T-shirt stats

    So, what do you do when you’re home alone on a Saturday night, you don’t feel like going out, and you also aren’t in the mood to be very productive?

    No, not THAT ;-).

    Why, you optimize your t-shirt drawers, of course.  Exactly!  And so far, I’ve determined that I have:

    • 13 Google t-shirts (fewer than half gotten since I became a Googler, interestingly enough)
    • 13 dance-related shirts
    • 13 other somewhat-decent shirts that I may actually wear (okay, this is weird… I had no idea my t-shirt collection was so bad-luckedly symmetrical!)
    • 5 [whew!] remaining t-shirts that I don’t want to be caught wearing, so I’ll donate these to Goodwill (:cough: unoriginal and oft-oversized swag)

    A sampling of some of the stranger ones:

    • “Got Blood?” with a full-sized mosquito featured.  This was a birthday gift.  I think it’s a rather neat shirt, and I love my parents, but sometimes I wonder about them :D.
    • “Sleep with me” with a domain name that unintentionally (in English) sounds somewhat similar to a sexually transmitted disease (but yes, S, I still like and wear this… I just have to deal with a few puzzled looks!)
    • “Dance Your Pants Off!” featuring SpongeBob SquarePants (I admit it, I bought this off the clearance rack at Target.  And a rather concerned bakery proprietor once seemingly-seriously urged me… “I ask that you keep your pants on in here, please!”)
    • “Single Red Alien Seeking Portly Humans”—a rather humorous 24Hour Fitness (gym chain) shirt.  The corresponding billboards added, “They’ll eat the fat ones first.”

    …plus a mock fraternity shirt, a BIIIIIIG cartoon frog, a fake Mastercard commercial (”…priceless”), and more.  Sadly, this doesn’t take into account the 20+ t-shirts I had that were stolen from me about 6 years ago.  So many college-memories-in-fabrics, lost 🙁

    Hmm… now that I think of it, the first four could be strangely (albeit sickly) tied together.  Odd.

    *  *  *

    So now the questions for YOU!
    1) What do YOU do when you’re feeling down / unproductive / anti-social?
    2) What kind of t-shirts do you have, and what are some of the stranger ones?
    3) Is this as bad as a cat-eating-a-cheese-sandwich post?

    *  *  *

    And now… a little something for those of you still bravely (or boredly) reading:
    A friendly Googler fellow gave me some cool (“Up and to the right!”) Google Analytics t-shirts (size: large).  I’m offering one of them to a humble (and limerickly talented) BLADAM reader, and yes, I’ll pay to ship it anywhere in the world for you :-D. 

    Just two key stipulations*: 
    1) You have to write an entertaining geek limerick below (doesn’t need to be Google-related!)
    2) You must do so when signed into your BLADAM account.

    Please *do not* post your address publicly.
    I’ll mail the winner in a week or so and get the info then. 
    (By the way… I *was* going to throw in Google Analytics and Writely invites, but the meanies that run those services went ahead and opened ‘em up to the unwashed masses before I could use those perks as additional prizes.  Curses… foiled again!)

    Good luck, and have fun!

    *  *  *

    * Obligatory disclaimer and contest rules:
    I work for Google, but I have nothing to do with Analytics or Writely, nor is this high-stakes contest in any way endorsed by Google, other Googlers, any specific Google fans, or any of my sane or insane friends.  Contest not open to Googlers or their immediate families.  Void where prohibited.  Do not give t-shirt to infants or children under three, as suffocation may result.  Bearer does not inherit the ability to fly or garner unusually high values of PageRank.  Do not taunt happy funshirt.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  Shirt is not meant to discriminate against liberals or those who are left-handed.  Not waterproof, fireproof, or catproof.  Do not ingest.  Remember, in an emergency, your nearest shirt may be behind you.  The answer is 42.

  • [Photo] And when they land, they’ll do so in an organized fashion

    Unidentified non-flying objects in San Francisco near the Ferry Building

  • Selfishly raising money for cancer, one photo annotation at a time

    I have an envelope on my desk from the American Cancer Society.  A very, very worthy organization, and one that I do indeed plan to support financially.  But—being the strange bird that I am—I’d like to do so creatively, selfishly, and, well, with your help 😀

    No, I’m not going to ask you to send me money… at least not until I’m masochistically running some 42K fundraiser race or whatever where I have to raise [$x] and [x] is some relatively high number.  Instead, I’m going to ask you to do work for me.  Let me explain…

    You see, I have thousands of photos.  Tens of thousands of photos.  Lots of them are pretty darn cool (if I say so myself) and many of them I’ve actually bothered to put online via Flickr or Fotki.

    But—and here’s where you come in—lots of the photos are sadly unannotated.  Heck, except for the country of origin, I probably don’t even remember anything about the people, the sculptures, the castles, the lakes… anything at all, really, and that’s rather regrettable IMHO.

    Why not, as my boss has so aptly done in the past, invoke teh lazyweb!  You, oh sundry and smart and good looking BLADAM readers from Amsterdam and Berlin and Cairns and every other letter of the alphabet… you probably can easily identify what goofy and beautiful people places and things I’ve taken photos of!

    So here’s the deal:  If there’s enough of a response, I’m prepared to write a check for up to $500 to the American Cancer Society which—when matched by my generous employer—will become 1,000 donated smackeroos… based upon how many of my photos y’all annotate.  [x] cents per reasonable (and typically brief) annotation per photo. 

    In the end, it’s win-win-win.

    – I get to remember and learn more about the places I’ve visited.
    – My photo pages may get better indexed and more frequently viewed… and they’ll be more interesting and informative for everyone, too!
    – You get warm fuzzies and certainly recognition and thanks on my blog at a later date :-D.
    – The American Cancer Society gets up to $1,000!  Plus more if I decide to do this on a yearly basis or others decide to responsibly copy-cat the idea.

    *  *  *

    I don’t yet have a timeline for this (though “by Thanksgiving this year” seems reasonable, no?).  First, I have to upload a bunch more of my photos from around the world!  Also, I’d love to hear (either privately or in the comments below):

    1) Where you’re from and what you think about this idea.
    2) Whether you’d personally enjoy participating by annotating my photos online.
    3) Any particular restrictions or guidelines you think I should set / anything else to consider logistically or policywise.
    4) Whether you’ve ever seen this sort of fundraising idea implemented 😀

    Thanks in advance for your comments and, ultimately, your support!  Remember, speak out—I’m only going to do this if I get a sufficient number of volunteers!

    *  *  *

    Update just a few minutes after I posted this:
    Here’s a very non-comprehensive list of where I’ve been and taken photos (I hope to make a more comprehensive list someday!)

    In no particular order…

    EUROPE:

    • Austria:  Vienna, Ischgl
    • Belgium:  Brussels, Antwerp
    • Czech Republic:  Prague
    • Denmark:  Copenhagen
    • Estonia:  Tallin*
    • Finland:  Helsinki*
    • France:  Paris
    • Germany:  Berlin, Mainz, Mannheim, Weinheim, Viernheim, Maulbronn, Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Strausberg, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart
    • Hungary:  Budapest
    • Ireland:  Dublin, Glendalough
    • Italy:  Venice, Rome
    • Luxembourg:  Luxembourg
    • Netherlands:  Amsterdam, Venray, Haarlem, Rotterdam
    • Spain:  Barcelona
    • Sweden:  Herrang, Stockholm
    • Switzerland:  Geneva, Berne, Lucerne, Interlakken
    • United Kingdom:  London

    NORTH AMERICA:

    • California: San Francisco, Daly City, Thousand Oaks, Los Angeles, San Diego, Marin, Santa Cruz, Oakland, Berkeley, Sacramento
    • Colorado:  Denver*
    • Hawaii:  Kauai
    • Illinois:  Evanston, Chicago
    • Maine:  Er, I forget where!
    • Nevada:  Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas*
    • New Hampshire:  Hebron, somewhere else
    • New York:  New York City
    • North Carolina:  Charlotte*
    • Other:  D.C.
    • Tennessee:  Knoxville, Gatlinburg
    • Texas:  Austin,
    • Virginia:  Newport News
    • Washington:  Seattle
    • Canada:  Vancouver

    ASIA AND PACIFIC

    • Australia: Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns
    • Singapore: Singapore

    LATIN AMERICA

    • Costa Rica: San Jose, Montezuma

    * I’ve visited here, but I don’t think I have pictures from this city.

  • A blunt note to HR folks and interviewers

    I wrote this quite a while ago, both to vent my frustrations and also to sincerely urge HR folks and interviewers to improve their practices.  I’ve had pleasurable experiences with most of the companies I’ve interviewed with in the past, but there has still often been quite a bit of room for improvement.  Also, I figured my rant below might make for a useful counterpoint to the plethora of interviewee-advice pages out there :-D.

    *  *  *

    Dear HR folks and interviewers:

    Write or call back when you say you will.  If you don’t, apologize.

    Don’t ask us about our salary history.  That’s rude and completely irrelevant.  Perhaps we were working for the Peace Corp.  Maybe we were wildly underpaid at our last job.  Or crazily overpaid.  Instead, tell us (at least a range of) how much your position is paying and we’ll let you know if that’s aligned with our expectations.

    Make job descriptions descriptive… complete with some day-to-day details.  Cut the jargon and market’y crap.  When your Craigslist ad contains verbiage about “best of breed solutions” and “every customer is #1” and “we offer GENAROUS [sic] benefits! [ahem, such as?]” we don’t know whether to laugh hysterically or run screaming.

    Make the interview day pleasant.  Let us know the names and positions of each person we’ll be interviewing with.  Don’t have us sitting in a room alone for 45 minutes wondering what’s going on.  Maybe even take us out for coffee or lunch with a potential colleague or a group of colleagues if we’re one of the finalists for a particular position.

    Consider starting off with at least a brief bit about your background to help establish a friendly rapport.  Help us see you as a (real, well-rounded) person we’d like to work with, not an adversary or mere interrogator.

    Be respectful of us and our time.  Don’t manage your scheduled phone interview call time on a “+/- 20 minute” basis.  Don’t be on a speakerphone.  Both of those behaviors scream to the candidate “You’re not very important and I really don’t want to be interviewing you.”

    Don’t be cheap-ass about reimbursements.  Reimburse us (promptly, please) for our transportation from the airport, for crying out loud, and the sandwich we grabbed in the terminal so we wouldn’t be starving when we sat down with you at the office.

    Make sure you have our latest resume, not one that you got from the recruiter 6 months ago.

    Remember that interviewing is a two way street.  You’re not just there for grilling us, you’re there to make us excited about your company and the position we’ve applied for (or you’ve recruited us for!)

    Cut it out with the stupid “strengths and weaknesses” questions.  Ask us to tell you about a favorite project or least favorite project, talk to former managers about us, anything where you’re bound to get more interesting and less fake commentary (e.g., “My weakness is that I tend to get too into my work and forget to eat lunch sometimes…”)

    Do share some of our key answers and info with future interviewers at your firm so we’re not asked the same question 5 times in one day.

    If someone at your company is consistently an unpopular or lousy interviewer, don’t have them interview people!

    Ask what we like in a job and work environment.  Ask what makes us happy.  Ask what stresses us out.  This is the sort of thing that’ll help determine if your job is a good match for us (and visa versa).

    And, for the love of God, if at all possible… please don’t make us fill out an application—by hand!—after we’ve already given you a detailed resume and other documentation with all the same info on it.  At least let us type it… please?  We’ll all be much happier 😀

  • 10 Steps Towards InfoSanity

    I was suitably inspired by this commentary on “keeping up.”

    And so I’ll ask you what I asked myself over the last few weeks:
    How many undealt-with messages do you have in your inbox?
    How many paper magazines or newspapers do you get regularly?
    How many RSS feeds do you subscribe to?
    How many “must see” pages do you have bookmarked in your Web browser?

    How many of these items make you happy, provide you with essential information, truly help you have a better life?

    I’ll tell you where I stood a few weeks ago. 4,000+ e-mails in my inbox.  Over 100 e-mails coming in daily (and no, that doesn’t include mails at work).  Many thousands of unread blog items. Nearly a thousand to-do items.

    Now I’m making progress. My inbox is down to fewer than 100 mails.  I’ve begun trimming my RSS feeds.  I decided not to renew two of my magazine subscriptions.  And I cleaned up my browser bookmarks.

    Here are some of the cleaning techniques I’ve used; perhaps you’ll find some of them helpful.

    1. I shifted over *all* my mail to Gmail.
    If I don’t read an e-newsletter within a day or two, I archive it.  It’s available to be searched for later, but now it doesn’t clutter my inbox and I don’t feel compelled to read it.  Gmail isn’t a perfect e-mail reader, but—among other cool features—its one-click (or one-keystroke) way of archiving is a beauteous thing to behold.
    2. I unsubscribed from a ton of e-newsletters.
    I asked myself—have I found anything hilarious, invaluable, or otherwise important to my well-being in each subscription that I don’t already get elsewhere?  When I answered no (and I did, quite often), that subscription went POOF.
    3. I learned to strategically answer personal mail.
    Wherein the past, I’ve often tried to respond right away… or I’ve found myself replying to friends’ mails literally a year or more later, now I’ve brought a better balance into play.  Is the e-mail a query that can be answered quickly and easily, something involving a time-sensitive issue?  I now try to answer that sort of mail either right away or within a day.  Is it more of just a friendly conversation?  My goal now is 1-2 weeks. Mails that I determine should be replied to at a later time get tagged with a month name, and I check each of those tags towards the end of each month.
    4. I adopted the handle-immediately-and-file habit on “impersonal” mail.
    I either immediately read/skim and file newsletters and receipts and such, or cut and paste the critical portion into my calendar, Evernote database, or MyLifeOrganized to-do list and then archive.
    5. I’m learning to treat RSS feeds as mercilessly as e-mail.
    Not brilliant, critical, hilarious, massively useful, or something from a friend?  I’m unsubscribing (though I have SO many feeds that it’s taking me a while to get through the list).
    I’m now using Rojo, an online reader.  Its overall UI and speed isn’t nearly as nice as my favorite desktop reader, NewzCrawler, but with Rojo I can catch up on work and personal feeds on my home computer (Windows), laptops (Windows), or work computer (Linux) as appropriate without having to worry about sync’ing issues.
    6. Down with tech magazines.  And most other magazines.
    Typically, the same content is available online, and in a more timely manner.  When I want to curl up in bed with something to read, or need something on the bus, I can bring one of those bound things with lots of text and no ads… I think they’re called a… a book or something like that!  And besides, after doing tech stuff all day, do I *really* want or need to be absorbing more tech in my free time?!
    7. I’m prioritizing my guilty pleasures (reading fewer opinion columns, spending less time IM’ing…)
    We can’t and shouldn’t cut out all the “lazy” activities (lolling around in bed with a crossword puzzle, watching The Simpsons), but we should wisely note that we can’t do *everything* we want and still accomplish all that we need to do (including sleep, exercise, and life planning).  Therefore, some stuff’s gotta go, whether that’s time spent playing video games, watching TV, beta testing non-work-related software, etc.
    8. I’m learning to be at peace knowing that I just can’t know everything
    Before I unsubscribed from dozens of e-lists and RSS feeds, I had this clammy fear that, oh God, I’m going to miss some critical posts on [x].  Overlooking the fact that the same info will likely turn up on another blog or journal that I read, there’s the more important retort:  So what?   So what if I’m 0.1 versions behind on my music player?  So what if I never hear that 73 Lightposts has just released a new, ultra-simple oh-so-amazing Web app?  Will my life go on if I never get to try yet another Goowyvibeycrunchy portal? [the answers, by the way, are:  I’ll live, that’s fine, and yes.]
    9. I’m purging without guilt.
    This is certainly related to #8, but… in RSS feeds in particular, I’m now much more ready to occasionally click the “Mark [entire directory of feeds] As Read” link.
    10.  I’m spending less time annotating; if I need it, I’ll search for it.
    Annotating and tagging takes time.  And there’s always the fear of… hmm… should I describe this in a more structured manner?  Use Access?  Excel?  It’s a lot easier—and sometimes just makes more sense—to archive it and forget it.

    *  *  *

    Of course, it’s a bit ironic that I’m patting myself on the back for getting better at infomanagement and yet spending 30 minutes writing a blog post about it.  But hey, if this post can save a collective few hours for other folks, then it’s worth it IMHO.  Besides, getting this stuff out there in writing is further discipline fodder for me (“I already told people I’m not taking a year to answer e-mails… now I have to stick with this…!”)

    Anyway, I hope my own discoveries are helpful for you.  Do chime in with comments about my tips, and please share some of your own!  It’s time well spent, I promise 😀

  • Thinking about going to law or business school? Here are some pointers.

    Are you thinking about going to law school or business school?  Or perhaps—like crazy yours truly—both at the same time?  This blog entry covers the following:

    – Is law school right for me?
    – Is business school right for me?
    – How do I narrow down which school to apply to or attend?
    – Okay, I picked a school and got in!  Now how do I prepare?!

    *  *  *

    Is law school right for me?

    Maybe.  Dont believe the hype in either direction ;-). 

    Signs that point to yes:

    • You like sifting through fine details
    • You are sure you EITHER want to practice law in some way *OR* are a real go-getter trailblazer who is secure forging a non-traditional path.
    • You like learning (I mean genuinely enjoy stuffing new facts into your head regularly, thinking hard about challenging issues).
    • You are comfortable mentally grasping and juggling ambiguities but ultimately comfortable making a hard and fast decision.

    Signs that point to no:

    • You’re very unassertive.
    • You don’t like dressing up.  While you CAN get a law degree and go into a career that doesn’t require you to dress “professionally,” the odds are against you.
    • You are dead-set on making the world a better place.  I add this with some reserve, but in my heart I believe that people who go into law with 100% altruistic motives tend to get jaded and burned out.  Want to really change the world?  Start your own company, join the Peace Corp, do volunteer work every weekend.  While you CAN do this stuff with a law degree, it just doesn’t seem like the most time or cost efficient method, IMHO.

    Is business school (an MBA program) right for me?

    Again, maybe :-D. 

    Signs that point to yes:

    • You love your company and they’ve offered to pay for your MBA to help you advance up the ranks.
    • You’re fascinated by the nitty-gritty underlying details of business… operational issues, financial underpinnings, etc.
    • You have a strong scholastic or employment track record but are looking to move in a different direction (e.g., from Finance to Marketing) and want to leverage new knowledge, new contacts, and a new line on your resume.
    • You’re looking to start a company, have a comfortable buffer of time and money, and can afford a two year thoughtful search for a winning partner or partners.
    • You really like people.  You like learning from them, working with them, challenging them and being challenged by them.

    Signs that point to no:

    • You hate, absolutely loathe buzzwords. 
    • You deplored college, studying, books, etc.
    • You’re not a people person.  The idea of “networking” not only scares but disgusts you.
    • Your company isn’t going to pay for your MBA and you don’t have reliable indications that an MBA will dramatically increase either your pay or your job satisfaction.  Remember the opportunity costs here: not only two years of often-high tuition (+books, etc.), but also two years of lost pay, two years behind in moving up a corporate ladder, etc.
    • You lack the grades / background / ambition to attend a top-tier (at least top-third) business school.  I might sound really snotty here, but IMHO, if you’re betting that the mere presence of “MBA from UnheardOf School U” on your resume is going to impress HR people, you’re sadly mistaken.

    *  *  *

    Okay, you’ve decided you want to go to business school or law school.

    How do I decide which schools to apply to, which school to attend?

    • Classes and clubs:  Look at the list of classes offered.  Ignore the every-school-offers-these classes like Torts and Contracts or Marketing and Accounting and such.  Are the “extra” classes in areas that fascinate you and are relevant to your career aspirations?  In other words, if you’re wanting to go into Entertainment Law—aside from quite possibly focusing on schools around major entertainment markets—you’ll want to be sure that a lot of relevant classes are offered in this context… e.g., Entertainment Law (duh), Intellectual Property, Negotiating, etc.  If you’re interested in starting your own company, you’ll want to see lots of entrepreneurship-related classes on the list!  Similarly, find out what academies and clubs are not only present but active on campus (e.g., Environmental Law Society, Marketing Professionals in Asia…).
    • External ratings:  Thumb through a book of ratings.  Sure, you can’t believe everything you read, but if one of the schools you’re considering has topped the list on the “Most Unpleasant Law School to Attend” or “Most Cutthroat Colleagues” for three years running, there’s a substantive takeaway there, eh?  Additionally, as unfair as it is sometimes (especially with schools resting on their laurels), reputation does count for a lot.  Graduating with a B average at Wharton vs. an A average at a no-name school, well, you can guess what will turn more HR-folks’ heads.
    • Location:  Unless you plan on getting into a top top top school (Wharton, Harvard Law…), know that your best chances for internships and employment right out of school will be in the geographic area of your school.  In other words, don’t go to a Chicago law or business school if you’re not interested in working in the Chicago / Indianapolis area.
    • Gut: VISIT!!!  When you’ve narrowed it down to 2-4 schools, fly out there and visit.  I know, I know, it may be expensive, it may be hard to take time off work, but even a $2,000 investment in this area will pay off in the long-run in terms of not only you making the best choice… but in knowing you made the best choice.

    *  *  *

    You’ve finally decided on THE school for you.  Great!  Now you’re wondering…

    How do I prepare for my first day of classes?

    Well, first I’ll tell you what *NOT* to do.  Don’t stress.  Don’t go out and buy textbooks and try to pre-learn material.  Don’t try to become an expert in trademark law or e-marketing or finance before you show up to school.  Instead, here are a few things you may indeed want to do before you arrive at your new school:

    • Get organized:  Find a system that works for you to help you manage your notetaking, appointments, and to-do list… whether it’s all computer programs, just paper notepads and books, or a combination of the two.  Get into a groove.  Know your system backwards and forwards before you step foot onto campus so you don’t waste time learning tools, figuring out processes; you need to be productive and organized the day you arrive.  Read my more extensive previous entry about organizing your life.
    • Practice being a people person:  If you’re really shy or not yet adept at networking, practice this before you get on campus.  Whether it’s toastmaster nights or exhibit hall’ing or social dances… practice introducing yourself, effectively chit-chatting, and LISTENING.  These skills—both in grad school and beyond—will perhaps be your greatest asset combo… more important than rote knowledge or usually even your grades in school!
    • Be prepared with the right physical stuff:  These include not only a stellar laptop (know it forwards and backwards, with software, BEFORE you arrive on campus!) but also a comfortable knock-‘em-dead interviewing outfit or two, lots of even-more-comfy and not-too-stuffy business casual wear, a snazzy (not too wild) haircut, and so on.  Hey, if you have a few months before you arrive on campus, why not also try for a new-more-fit-you; a deadline when you’re about to meet new colleagues, make new friends, and interview for summer internships is likely a fine motivator to *NOT DIET*, but rather change your lifestyle to be healthier and thinner.

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    And finally… you’ve made it to campus, you’ve started your first week and you’re pondering:

    How do I stay in tip-top shape and excel without losing my mind?

    • Eat right:  Fast, unnatural food is your enemy.  It will make you think sluggishly, get tired more quickly, and possibly make you look like a fat slob.  Not to mention hamper your sex life. 
    • Sleep well:  You know your body.  If you need 8 hours, get 8 hours.  And if you think you “do just fine” on 5 hours, you’re probably kidding yourself.  I know it’s insanely hard, but try to also keep to a somewhat-regular schedule.  Get up around the same time, even on weekends, even if it means taking a short nap.
    • Exercise:  Get some.  Doesn’t matter if it’s walking, biking, kickboxing, canoeing, etc., as long as it includes both aerobic and a strength-building components.  You WILL think better and sleep better and look better when you’re getting regular exercise.  Add workout times to your calendar (even your public one) so this part of your life doesn’t get squeezed out.  Teaming up with a workout-buddy (of either gender) can be very motivating, too, because it’s much more shameful to cancel when you know someone else is counting on you to be there ;-).
    • Destress:  Whether it’s yoga, meditation, praying, or simply sitting under an apple tree for an hour a week, do it.  You need to clear your head of derivatives, legal arguments, and grade point averages.
    • Socialize smartly and regularly:  Even if you’re not a drinker, try to make at least some of the weekly bar nights.  99% of the people will still respect you when you drink apple juice, but you’ll lose the networking, the friending opportunities, and more if you simply fail to show up.  Conversely, if you ARE a drinker, drink less than everyone else.  Going to an Laws of Corporate Taxation class (or trying to study ancient Torts minutae) with a hangover is a fate I’d not wish on anyone.  Drinking issues aside, make sure you allot at least some time every week to hang out with people outside of class, whether that’s the bar, a Christian Outreach club, an intramural rugby team or whatever.  You NEED that time away from your books, and—more importantly—you emotionally need connections that don’t have to do with an 801b wireless LAN or a finance studying group.
    • Don’t dwell unhealthily on the past or the distant:  Don’t harbor regrets.  And don’t spend all your free time calling home (to Mom, to boyfriend, to best friend in Boise, etc.).  Time spent on past and distant connections is time and emotional energy you can’t apply to the present and the local.  This doesn’t mean you should fail to learn from the past or break all ties with your girlfriend or best friend back home; rather, I urge you to balance your life and set appropriate expectations amongst the people you care about.
    • Avoid being an ass, and don’t burn bridges!:  You may hate your Contracts prof.  You may have hilarious and scathing stories to tell about your ex you shacked up with during your MBA section last quarter.  But zip your lips and stay mostly positive.  You don’t know when you’ll need the respect of that Contracts prof to link you up with your most-desired law firm, and you don’t know when you’ll depend upon your ex for a connection to that internship in Prague.  Beyond just future needs, I’ll just note this:  People may laugh at or even with the guy with the perpetually vocal, scathing, bitter wit… but they likely won’t want to work with him, hire him, or even help him.  Yes, this relates to gossip, too.  When in doubt, don’t say it, don’t even e-mail it, and definitely don’t post it on the Web.
    • Take notes, take notes, take notes.  Process them NIGHTLY:  The very act of note taking can help keep you awake during a boring lecture.  But more importantly, writing stuff down (or typing) will help stuff stick in your head more.  Even if things don’t make sense right then (I remember not even being able to spell a lot of the phrases thrown at me during lectures, much less understand some of the complex legal theories), trust me when I reassure you that you’ll have a better chance of understanding stuff later if you take notes from the get go.  And hey, don’t make the same mistake I did by writing notes and then processing/organizing them 2 days before your midterm; that’s the stupid, stressful way of preparing.  Instead, force yourself to organize/outline/clean-up the notes the same night you wrote them, or at the latest the next day (the upcoming weekend is too late, and will you really get to your notes then anyway?).  As suggested in my aforementioned previous article on organizing your life, especially take note on the people you meet:  name, what they looked like, where they’re from, what they’re studying, how you can help them, how they can help you, etc.  This database will be golden for you, honest!

    *  *  *

    Whew!  Okay, that’s enough for now, I think.  I hope this list is helpful, and—as always—please feel free to post suggested changes or additions in the comment box below!