Weekend Project - Standing Desk

I've recently been contemplating about the whole concept of working at a standing desk. 

In fact, for the past week or so, whenever I had to read documents at work, I would make myself stand near the filing cabinet or at the pantry to read. I have an awfully nice pantry at the work place with a fantastic view...the filing cabinet though has got the perfect height.

My endeavours have received its fair share of stares and quirky comments from my colleagues who were curious about why I didn't want to sit in a perfectly nice chair to do my work. The only time I was made to stand in the past was as punishment for not bringing my textbook or completing my homework in Primary school.

A few of them got it when I explained about the concept that humans aren't meant to be sitting on their asses 8 hours a day but I figure that most of them might have concluded that I have finally lost my mind and politely walked away. 

In my defence, I guess the whole concept of standing and working have not quite got on in Asia although I'm not closed to the idea that I might have been an annoying distraction shifting from foot to foot and ultimately looking like the floor supervisor lording over my minions.  (just kidding). 

At the end of my one week experiment, I found that I was able to focus much better when reading long boring legal documents and further research on the internet convinced me that I should persist on.  

After a bit more research last night, I finally decided to bite the bullet and convert my home's work table into a standing desk. The final push to this decision were some articles that suggested that I could "hack" my way into a relatively cheap solution of a standing desk before deciding if this was something that I wanted to commit myself to.  

After a couple of hours of hard work (and alot of perspiration on a hot Saturday afternoon), Jamie's version of the standing desk is completed. (aka: the poor man's standing desk)

Ta-Da!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jamie's version of the standing desk (the cheap way)

Everything that you see in the picture that was used to convert my current table to a standing desk was abducted from some corner of the house, mostly forgotten and collecting dust, but now playing an important part on my road towards healthy living. 

I must not forget to thank my mum for being extremely supportive after I explained my intentions to her. She firstly gave me permission to scavenge the house for materials which I could put together to achieve the appropriate height and also gave me suggestions on how to put everything together. (Thank you mum! You are the best). 

As a result, total investment cost for my standing desk: $0!

Hooray!! 

I found the following articles extremely helpful when making my final decision to work at a standing desk. Enjoy!

Gina Trapani's Reasons for switching to a standing desk:

http://smarterware.org/7102/how-and-why-i-switched-to-a-standing-desk

Kevin Michaluk's Reasons for switching to a standing desk:

http://crackberry.com/standing-desks

Gina Trapani's blog after working at a standing desk for a year:

http://lifehacker.com/standing-desk/

Some ideas to do a DIY standing desk:

http://www.officefitness.org/2012/05/diy-standing-desk-plans-ideas/

Adam Pash's view on the benefits of working at standing desk:

http://lifehacker.com/5840754/forget-the-standing-desk-you-just-need-to-move-regularly

Blogspot banned in China but there always is a way

Spent the week in Shanghai and returned to Taipei with a few interesting finds - both professionally and personally.

Hey, did you know that blogspot is banned in China? Yup, indeed it is blocked by the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Felt so restricted just because I knew that I was not allowed to go where I wanted to go. You know, my desire to visit blogspot was not great to begin with, but just because I couldn't, I found that desire growing and became SO CONSUMED in finding ways to get around it. Well, finally I found my friend who was able to share with me 2 different ways of getting around the GFW. Satisfied, I went on to do something else. Hence, the REBEL in me. :P

I LOVE IT! That's just one of the reasons why I think China is so alive and exciting!!! Things are always evolving and people just don't play by the rules as much as they do in Singapore. (which of course you can take it in a good way or bad way :) ).

On a similar note, I'm reading a book by robert t. kiyosaki about financial literacy and the message I'm getting is that people in general has just got to be so much more INFORMED than they already are. Yes, we have to play by the rules, abide by the law, but if we do it in a dogmatic manner, we'll always be like the majority - stuck in the rat race. The rich get richer and the poor well....we get poorer. No robin hoods around anymore - steal from the rich to give to the poor. Its work smarter and not harder.

If you find me being too cryptic at this stage, apologies, my mind is not very organized right now. I haven't had my cup of coffee for the day. * hops out of chair to make Vietnamese coffee - I deserve it today...Its the weekends :) *

Anyway, came back from Shanghai with lots of GOODIESSS: interesting books and DVDs. Dirt cheap I tell you. Dirt Cheap. Anyway, I won't worry about me being bored in Taipei, so much to see, read and do. :)

Computer too slow during start up? Tried and tested method...

Recently, many people have been plagued by computer problems. A common problem would be that their computers would take a verrrrrrryyyy long time to start up. This could be due to a variety of reasons. ...............

FIXING THE DARN COMPUTER PROBLEM

Solution 1: The brute force method
Certainly, you can be like a certain *erhem* person that I know, and one of the solutions to the problem is to reformat the computer and install everything from scratch again. Get ready to do this every 6 months though.

Solution 2: Not the brute force method :)
Another way, which is tried and tested by yours truly and of course, it works......

1) Back Up Your Computer
Firstly, almost every article that asks you to mess around with your computer is going to tell you that the first step you should do should be a BACK UP. This is just in case you lose those precious pictures, music, important documents, they would be able to say:" Hey its not my fault, I told you to back up your computer".

So I'm not going to be any different. I'll tell you the first thing you should do is to do a BACK UP.

There are many ways that this can be done. If you have alot of $$ to spare, you could buy a nice expensive software such as Norton Ghost (don't tell me if you got the cracked version of it :P). Otherwise, if you are running Windows XP, you can use the included back up program. To find it, please following the path below:
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.

P/s: I couldn't be bothered with the first step so I basically skipped it. Don't ask me if you need me to walk you through the back up. I would be in an exceptionally good mood to walk you through it, if I couldn't be bothered to do it for my own computer, in the first place.

2) Clear out Forgotten Programs
This is pretty easy. Make sure that you are the administrator of your computer. Go to:
Start -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Program

Uninstall away................................

3) Free Up Wasted Space.
Okay, this one is also easy. Do the following steps:
a) Open up My computer
b) Right Click “Local Disk”
c) On the General Tab, click the “Disk Cleanup”
d) Select the desired files to delete, then click “OK”

4) Defragment computer

Once again, do the following steps:
a) Open My Computer, right-click Local Disk, and then click Properties.
b) On the Tools tab, click Defragment Now. The Disk Defragmenter opens.
c) Click your first hard disk, and then click Defragment. Note: Disk Defragmenter will work for at least several minutes, though it may take several hours. Get a nice book and relax.

5) Remove Autostart Programs
This is interesting. Well, normally when you install ANY programs, I think that there is a high high chance that the vendor will assume that you would want to automatically start their program running in the background everytime you boot up the computer. Needless to say, if all programs tried to autostart in the background, you'll end up waiting a long time for it to finish loading up before the computer will pay any attention to you again.

Well, no worries because there is a really simple way to "over write" that assumption with the following simple steps: (It works!!)

a) Click “Start” and then “Run”. Type: “msconfig.exe”
b) On the startup tab, you’ll see a list of programs or processes that are set to run when Windows XP loads

There are all sorts of programs that are running which you probably do not recognize. Before you start de-selecting them, it is strongly advised that you CHECK THE FILE AGAINST this website http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php.

Basically, I checked the website for all the file names that I didn't recognize and I'm glad to say that I was able to find every single program running on my computer in that website. I was able to quickly identify the programs that wasn't necessary. This website is really fantastic!

WAIT A MINUTE, I DID THOSE STEPS ABOVE BUT THE DARN COMPUTER PROBLEM DIDN'T GO AWAY!!!!

Ok, you might have done the steps above but found out that the problem still remains. Then, my friend, this might be a more serious problem than you think.

For starters, there could be viruses/worms/adware running in your computer and affecting its performance. This problem needs to be fixed because you won't like misbehaving programs that would open a backdoor for a malicious hacker to take control of your computer. Or allowing your computer to start behaving like an unruly child and becoming a total nuisance to your friends.

If the above sounds appealing to you. Leave your computer as it is. Otherwise, the next step will be to install an anti virus or adware program to start cleaning up your computer.

I'm personally using SpyDoctor and Symantec Antivirus.

For Spydoctor

I paid USD $29.95 per computer and it has a 30 day money back guarantee. But I'm telling you that ever since I installed the program, it has diligently been watching my back. Its a fantastic software and I like it so much that I'm to buy more copies to install other computers that I have.

This software is a keeper. For more information, you can go to this website: http://www.pctools.com/spyware-doctor/

For Symantec AntiVirus

After leaving my computer out in the big bad world to fend for itself for quite some time, I finally decided to renew my symantec antivirus license.

Symantec has a pretty good Live Update process that allows you to quickly and easily download and install new signatures. However, my experience with Symantec Antivirus has been less than enjoyable, so far.

Firstly, there was a spybot worm lose in the company attacking computers that have symantec installed on it, and then at home, I started to have Update problems which requires me to reinstall my antivirus software.

My renewal license cost me SGD $69.95 but I guess I'll keep my options open for new anti virus out in the market.

P/s: Symantec is one of the biggest antivirus company out there but...........................

WELL, IF ALL ELSE FAILS, REFORMAT AND REINSTALL. :)