Category: Random

I don’t have a category for this.

4 easy tips to become a better writer

As much as I get frustrated with some of the things I edit, my current job is teaching me a LOT about where people fall short in being able to communicate well in writing.    Up until recently, most of the editing I’ve done has been for a relatively small group of people. In any given job, I’d be editing stuff written by the same handful of people all of the time. Now, I’ll probably edit things written by 70+ different people each month, and from month to month, I only get a few repeats. As a result, I’ve started...

How to make actual money without leaving the house

There are loads of articles floating around the internet about how to earn money online, make money from home, etc. And most of them are, as you would expect, written for consideration, advertising scams, and maybe at best only have a couple of good suggestions while the rest are a complete waste of time. So I’d totally understand if you saw the headline of this post and thought, “Well, crap, she’s gone commercial. First ads, now this.” Though honestly, the ads are just one of the few ways that I’ve found to make use of my skills and resources to...

Experiments in hacking my sleep patterns: Why I may never be a morning person

I’ve read in so many places over the years that the most successful people in history were almost invariably early risers. Over the weekend, someone challenged me to 7 days of waking up “stupidly early,” as a way to test if it would improve my productivity. I asked them to define, “stupidly early,” and they replied, “two or three hours before you usually get up.” For me, that’s still a lie-in for most people–being self-employed as a freelance writer, I typically rise around noon (sometimes later if I was up very late engrossed in a book or a side project...

A couple of quick thoughts on Atlanta’s Snowpocalypse

The following was originally a comment on Facebook, but I did my thing and went on way too long, so I’m posting it here, as well. Ok, here’s what I see (and I’m not actually THERE at the moment, so I’m having to go by reports, so if I’ve gotten anything terribly wrong, let me know). They knew the storm was coming, but it was forecast to hit well south of the city. Atlanta was supposed to get a dusting of snow at worst–something that gums things up a bit, but isn’t a catastrophe. Nonetheless, the city proper had its...

Some brief observations and opinions on the direction of Windows

I originally posted this as a comment on Facebook to a post by someone who tried out Windows 8 and didn’t like it. Unsurprisingly, I have opinions on this. I have also added some additional context in italics throughout the post. The problem with Windows recently has been twofold: 1) computers have become ubiquitous, and therefore, the lowest common denominator of users has gotten lower and lower. 2) When the “average” user today is a lot dumber than the “average” user 10 or 15 years ago, and MS creates focus groups for features and UI, you wind up with a...