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Don’t you love it when you find ways to save time and simplify tasks? Isn’t it even better when it’s free?

Hopefully I can simplify the way you read this blog.

Did you know that you can read RodneyOlsen.net via email each day? Instead of having to visit my blog each day, it can visit you. Just click here, enter your email address, and you’ll never miss a post. You’ll get one email a day with anything I’ve posted on that day. It’s completely free and you can unsubscribe at any time so why not give it a go?

There’s also a link to subscribe to my RSS feed at the top of my right hand sidebar which makes updating easy if you read blogs through Bloglines, Google Reader, Yahoo, NewsGator, MSN or any other service. If you haven’t heard of RSS, Atom or site feeds before you can check out this article at Wikipedia for more information. Basically feeds make it a lot easier to read blogs and other information sources. If you read even a handful of blogs a day you can save a lot of time through feeds.

Can I encourage you to use one of these methods to get your free updates from RodneyOlsen.net? I’d love you to be part of the community that is continuing to grow here and I want to make it as easy as possible for you to stay in touch with every post.

Whichever way you choose to read my blog let me say thank you for doing so. I truly appreciate the fact that you take the time to read my random thoughts and participate in the conversation through your comments.

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I Trust Myself

May 18th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

3 comments

Spam I trust myself. I really do. I guess that’s why I’m opening so much spam email these days.

I’ve noticed that there’s an increasing trend amongst spammers to somehow make their emails to me appear to have been sent from my own account. Brilliant strategy.

There was a time that I would have been sceptical about receiving emails about 80% off a range of medications. In the past I would simply delete emails about reducing or increasing the size of various body parts. I can remember mornings when I would arrive at my computer and spend a few moments deleting emails that suggested I visit amazing websites that would excite me. I’ve even been known to send emails with winning investment advice directly to the junk folder.

Everything’s changed now.

These days I just have to open those emails because I’ve sent them to myself. I trust myself, so if I’ve sent an email to …. well …. me, it must be something worthwhile. I don’t remember sending the emails but they must be important or I wouldn’t have sent them. All I know is, if my name is in the ‘from’ field, there must be something good inside.

I wonder if maybe some of the medications involved can actually transport you forward in time. Maybe I took a pill that rocketed me a few years into the future. Once I got there, I must have thought, “These pills are great. I must tell ‘past me’ about them.”

I also wonder, do the spammers really think that we’re so stupid that we’ll see an email that has our own name attached and think it’s legitimate and open it right away to see what goodies await us?

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Vincent

Jun 18th, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

2 comments

I was reading yesterday morning that about 120 original letters by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh are to be exhibited, alongside the works he was writing about, later this year at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

His letters are rarely shown in public due to their fragility and sensitivity to light. Most of the letters being used in the exhibition are addressed to his younger brother, Theo.

The museum apparently owns over 800 of the 902 letters known to have been written by van Gogh. The museum intends publishing them in a book in the near future.

I wonder what’ll happen in 50 or 100 years when a famous person is being honoured in a museum. Will they display their emails or perhaps their Twitter account.

If you ever became famous would you like having your private correspondence put on display?

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Who's controlling your time?

Jun 15th, 2009

by Rodney Olsen.

2 comments

Remember when communicating with friends meant sitting down and writing a letter? You’d write your thoughts, hopes and questions, then pop them all into an envelope, lick the back of a disgusting tasting postage stamp and drop the lot into a mail box. (Now, I do understand that many readers don’t remember such times, but go with me on this one.)

A week later your friend would then find your letter amongst their bills and other mail in their letterbox. Some time within the next week or so they’d have the chance to read your ramblings and some time after that they’d start the whole process again by writing a letter back to you.

These days it’s all about email. You type your thoughts and questions and then hit send. If you haven’t got a reply within three or four minutes you start to wonder if your friend may have died without you knowing. Everything is instant and we expect immediate responses, even when we’re only sending the latest email ‘funny’.

Do you feel the need to reply to emails as soon as they hit your inbox? Emails call out to us with extraordinary urgency. We know that if we don’t attend to those messages now we’ll never get to them and we just know that the sender is sitting beside their computer, hitting refresh with one hand, operating a stopwatch with the other.

Have we allowed others to set the agenda of our lives? Would the world really fall apart if we took charge and decided to prioritise our own time? Would our friends and workmates really fall apart if they didn’t get an immediate response to their message?

Do you expect people to reply immediately to your emails? How long do you think is a reasonable time between sending an email and receiving a reply? Do you get annoyed when you don’t get an answer right away?

Are you letting other people control your time by feeling that you have to reply immediately to emails?

What are some of the other ways we let others control our time? Do you feel the urge to respond immediately to text messages? Will someone calling you on the phone take priority over someone you’re speaking with face to face?

Who’s controlling your time?

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