sarahpullman's Blog

Working with Web 2.0 Apps

sarahpullman — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 15:36:38 -0800

When working in a text field to be submitted (blog post, Basecamp entry, Writeboard version, long blog comment, whatever)...

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS select all text and then copy it to your clipboard, before you hit submit. On a Mac, this means hitting apple-a, and then apple-c, before you hit submit. On a PC, ctrl-a, then ctrl-c.

There are no exceptions to this rule. It must become habit. If you do not make it habit, then you will become complacent, and one day, you will have fine-tuned all your brilliant words into perfection, and you will hit submit, and you will learn the harsh lesson of the 2.0 overlords. You will lose it all. Either your wifi will crap out, or some server somewhere will be down, or something else will happen. Do not take this lesson lightly.

For added security, I highly recommend installing a multi-clipboard program on your computer. I use iClip and I love it. That way, I have access to the last 10 things I've copied and pasted, and it has saved me many times.

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this post has been adapted and was originally posted here

Electromagnetic Radiation from Your Laptop

sarahpullman — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 17:27:55 -0700

Oh dear. Yet another thing to be wary of when it comes to laptop addiction.

For all that i love the portability that my 12 inch laptop affords me, I'm coming to accept that working at it full-time is *not* good for me. The postural problems that result from hunching forward over a laptop, and constantly looking down at a screen that's below eye level, are bad enough. But I've also started noticing something more insidious.

I been noticing that when I work at my laptop for a while, my wrists and hands get hot from the heat coming off of it. The keyboard is directly over the CPU, after all. Worse than the heat, though, is the feeling of "vibration" that I've been feeling. It doesn't just feel like my hands are getting warm – it feels like they're being pumped full of some kind of energy. As I've become more attuned to it, it's become more and more uncomfortable to me.

Last week, I had an appointment with a craniosacral therapist named Mark Levine, in Richmond Hill. While we were chatting after my (great) session, the topic of working at a laptop came up. He pulled up a little device he has that measures electromagnetic radiation. When he holds it over things, it registers the radiation coming off of them. As he held it over his MacBook keyboard, the little indicator shot off the chart. As he held it over his external keyboard, it barely registered anything at all.

He showed me that you really don't have to get too far back from the CPU for the EMFs to drop significantly – but when you type at a laptop, you really are working direclty in an intense field of radiation. Which explains what I've been feeling... and makes me rather nervous.

I've been meaning to invest in an iCurve and an external keyboard for a while now. No more excuses... I'm going to do it asap. It'll be much better for my back, and will hopefully also elimiate this creepy hot buzzy feeling in my hands that I've got as I type this!

This post was originally posted at Yoga for Geeks.

Come On, Breathe

sarahpullman — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:22:44 -0700

I just wrote a little something over at Yoga for Geeks... about how to practice breathing! You might think you know how, but I bet you could use some help. Years of bad posture, emotional tension, and never having been reminded how to do it naturally lead to chronic bad breathing habits. Computer users need to be aware of this, as a forward slouched posture tends to constrict the diaphragm and inhibit natural and full breathing.

Cruise on over there if you're interested in practicing something that you've probably largely taken for granted... and probably could be doing with a lot more ease and comfort.