I’ve been using Google Wave for a few weeks now.    In case you somehow haven’t heard of Google Wave before, here is a description from the website:

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

In simple terms, I see it as a dynamic message board.  It’s an interesting idea, but I haven’t been hooked on it yet.   It doesn’t feel conducive for everyday use.  I definitely do not see it replacing email or IMing anytime soon, like some suggest will happen. Seems more for specific group projects or interest groups.

Even then, you have to be able to wrap your head around the concept and features in order to be able to use it and I think the general public might be turned off to it before they get past the learning curve.

One of the hardest things at first is that you don’t have any friends when you first join.   Two things to help:

1) When you join Google Wave, you should get a wave in your inbox from Google that allows you to invite some friends.

2) In the search box, type “with: public” without quotes so you can browse and join public waves.    (see below)

I just got a bunch of invites and sent it out to a few people here at EMG.   Maybe I’ll have a change of heart once I start using it in a business setting.

Both Windows XP and MAC OS X have various options for screen capturing that are very useful.

Entire Desktop (including dual screens)

XP -  Press Print Screen to capture the entire desktop to your clipboard for you to paste into another program. Press Cltr + V to paste.

OS X - Press Command-Shift-3. The screen shot will be automatically saved as a PNG file on your desktop.

Press Command-Control-Shift-3. The screen shot will be placed on your clipboard for you to paste into another program.

Selected Window

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I recently received an ‘IT Insights’ mailer from a placement company I once worked for.  Included in that letter was a section on Developer Skills and what to focus on over the next 5 years.  I thought I’d take this opportunity to point out, comment on, and add my own two cents to the topics in this article.

The main topics of this article were:

• The big three languages
• People/soft skills
• Web development and services
• RIA (Rich Internet Applications)
• Mobile

Let me review these topics, but in a slightly different order…

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Here at EMG, most employees are running dual monitors. This helps to improve efficiencies by giving them more screen space to layout multiple windows and programs. I highly recommend the investment for anyone who multi-tasks with many programs. I find it so useful I’m considering a third monitor, but that is a conversation for later.

One problem I’ve always found was working with Microsoft Office Excel 2007. For some reason, when you open multiple excel spreadsheets (.xls or .xlsx) it opens one containing window for all of them. It does not create separate windows for each spreadsheet like Word 2007 does for documents. This is especially bothersome when running dual monitors because it is really hard to organize windows and properly use the space you are given.

If you find yourself with this same problem, you are in luck. I’ve found a simple way to open multiple excel documents, each contained in their own window.

Here’s how:

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