Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Ice Breaker


Professional or Not?  Ask your audience to take a little scientific test designed to determine if a person is a professional. Have them write their answers down.

            1.         How do you put a giraffe in a refrigerator?
                        Correct answer:  Open the door and put him in.
            2.         How you put an elephant in a refrigerator?
                        Correct answer:  Take out the giraffe and put in the elephant.
            3.         The Lion King is hosting a conference.  All of the local animals are in attendance                                     but one.  Who is not present?
                        Correct answer:  The elephant, he is still in the refrigerator.
            4.         You are slated to be the final speaker at the conference. Unfortunately, to get there you                           have to swim a river inhabited by crocodiles.  What do you do?
                        Correct answer:  You swim; all of the crocodiles are all ready at the conference.

Point: A professional looks for the simplest solution (#1).  Keeps things simple (#2).
Recalls facts (the elephant is still in the refrigerator and thus can’t go to the conference-#3).
And, uses his/her deductive skills in problem solving (the crocodiles are at the conference- #4).  Side note:  most four year olds score 100% on this.

source: www.cprs.org/membersonly/Playful_Activities_that_Pay_Off.doc

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Productivity: Cloud Storage Using Dropbox

Dropbox allows you to save your files in the cloud. You no longer need to use external hard drives or USBs to back up your files. Why should you back up your files using Dropbox instead of external hard drives or USBs? There are several reason as to why.

1) Simplicity
You can simply drag and drop the files that you want to back up on the Dropbox folder. The magic will then work on its own, backing up your files to the cloud.

2) Available on Any Platform
You can install Dropbox on Windows/Mac/Linux and you can even access your Dropbox on your mobile devices such as Android, iOS, WebOS, Blackberry devices. If you want to look for a particular file you saved on your Dropbox on a different computer without Dropbox installed, you can simply head to www.dropbox.com and download the files you would want to view.

3) Restore Previously Saved Files
Have you ever accidentally  overwrite your file with new changes and then have no way of retrieving the old file back? Since files on Dropbox folder are saved in the cloud, you are able to retrieve any old files that you may have overwritten.

4) Convenient.
Have you ever worked on something and then your computer just went dead on you before you were able to transfer your files into your external HD? With Dropbox, any activities you do in the Dropbox folder will be automatically synced to the cloud. If your computer is dead, you can install Dropbox on a different computer, and then your previous works saved on Dropbox will be downloaded onto your new computer.

5) Work on Files Offline
Dropbox can seamlessly work between online and offline connections. If you lose your internet connection while files are being synced, the half-synced files will not be corrupted. The syncing process will resume as soon as the internet connection is back.

Nothing is perfect, there is always con(s) accompanying the pro(s)

1) The cloud storage space is limited to 2GB for the free version, but you can purchase a plan to increase the storage limit.

2) Files stored on your Dropbox will be sharing local storage space of the computer the Dropbox is installed on. If you save 2GB worth of files in Dropbox, although you are storing them in the cloud, you will still be using 2GB of storage space on your computers.

To get started, you can simply click on this referral link to sign up for a Dropbox account. Both you and us will get 500MB additional storage space on top of the 2GB free storage space anyone receive when opening a Dropbox account. Next, you can start inviting your friends to join Dropbox and get 500MB additonal storage space per person for a maximum of 32 referrals.

Happy Dropboxing!