Today's random tidbit:

How many ways do we pronounce the four letter combo: 'ough'?

1. Though - rhymes with so
2. Through - homophone with threw
3. Cough,- rhyme with off
4. Tough, enough - rhyme with buff
5. Borough and its compounds - pronounced "burr-ah"
6. Hiccough - rhymes with up. I'd normally use the spelling "hiccup", though.
7. Bough (as in "Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly") - rhymes with cow
8. Fought, bought - rhyme with caught
9. and maybe even nought and ought, which some people pronounce the same way as fought and bought.
   

One that didn't make my list:

• Lough - another spelling for loch, a lake - like the Lochness monster... but it's an Irish, not an English word from what I can tell. It's not on my list because we often pronounce non-English words in non-English ways, and my point is how in normal English we pronounce 'ough'
  

Wish you could just pick up your cell phone and say "note to self - meeting with Joe on Friday at 4" or "note for Bob - will you call Steve and talk about the proposal?" or "note to blog", etc?

What if it would schedule the meeting, email Bob and post the text to your blog automatically?

Jott.com can do all of this and more. And it's free. Just call the toll-free number, and it will say "Who would you like to Jott?" you can say "myself" or "Bob" (if Bob is in your address book at Jott.com), or "google calendar" or "blogger," or many other things. It converts your speech to text, posts it where it should, and you're done!

I don't use it much anymore now that I have my Blackberry, but it's a great free service that I highly recommend.

Do you have to do repetitive tasks on your PC?

I've had to at past jobs, things like formatting multiple pages of an excel spreadsheet, or cutting and pasting things in a specific way - really monotonous work. Enter Macros.

There are several macro programs out there that can automate these mouse movements and keystrokes, often faster than you can.

Two recommendations:
First, a very simple macro program I've been using for years, WinMacro. WinMacro just records your mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes, and then you can play these recordings back at the same speed or faster, and 1 or more repetitions.

If you want more options, and want to program your macros, check out AutoHotKey. I first used AutoHotKey when I was having to do the same 10 steps for hundreds of accounts, it was all repetitive, except I had to enter account numbers and account balances for each one. AutoHotKey allows you to program in inputs, so you can have it ask for all the information you need, then it will use the mouse and keyboard to proceed through all the screens and/or multiple programs and put your information where you want it.

Today at an event for high school seniors, a slideshow was shown with photos over the last 6 years. Some of the students seem the same, some seem drastically different.

When you see years of your life flash before your eyes a lot becomes clearer. Things like...

1. That series of small decisions I made turned my life in a drastically different direction.
2. Decisions I made against that series (see #2), didn't matter in the end.

So, I think I ought to start making more consistent decisions (especially the small ones) in the direction I want my life to go, and I think I ought to start caring less about occasional decisions that go against the direction i want my life to go.