THE DESIGNER’S TOOLCHEST

Leave Nothing on the Table

CONTENTS

Summary

Productivity

Presentation

Health

SUMMARY

Suggestions for tools to use and habits to adopt to

1) Boost productivity

2) Boost marketability

3) Slow the ageing process by reducing eye-strain,

etc..

PRODUCTIVITY : PERL

Once you have a decent grasp of perl, you will pity

other designers when you see the way they deal with

text

Know your data, so you find the easiest way;

sometimes, elegance is evil

Being good with modules and CPAN makes you a

guru – which I’m not

PRODUCTIVITY : PERL/TK

If you do something frequently and depend on the

command line, consider GUI’ing it. Nothing wrong

with making your job easier and more enjoyable

PRODUCTIVITY : AUTOHOTKEY

It is sad that the Linux world has no equivalent

At the very least, you must install the KDE-style

drag and resize script to make window manipulation

a breeze

Setting up application-specific keyboard-shortcuts

is also a breeze

Highly recommend #s for the Sniping tool and #p

for mspaint (Windows 7)

PRODUCTIVITY : CADENCE

The Microsoft Office of the industry

Embrace it

Certainly, the tool can be improved considerably,

but, there is a lot you can do in with bindkeys and

macros to make your job easier and more fun –

which almost no one does

Be the bindkey-king of your office

PRODUCTIVITY : EXCEL

An Excel file is really a dashboard – giving you

access to your most useful info

At the very least, keep sheets for checklists,

mistakes, simulations you’re running,

accomplishments, ideas, opportunities, backlog,

documents

PRODUCTIVITY : DOCUMENTATION

Searchable text makes it easy for you to build your own

personal search engine

Maintain a diary and a list of files

Simple perl-script lets you search all your files in an

instant

Record what you did to get around compile errors, non-

convergence issues, etc and you’ll be getting stuff done in

half the time it takes everyone else

PRODUCTIVITY : MINDSET

Think innovation, victory, initiative – do worthwhile

things without being told to; be proactive; think user-

experience

Tenacity – be a dog with a bone – persevere till you solve

your problem, then share your solution

Geniuses think on paper – if you write the problem or

governing equation down, you might spot an alternate

approach; Questions are king

PRODUCTIVITY : ALT-ESC

The one empowering tool Bill gave us (till

Authotkey came along)

The third dimension in productivity

It’s amazing how many people (including my IT

guy) don’t know about this trick in Windows (you can

set your KDE shortcut to do the same in Linux). How

many times have you seen poor people click on the

title bar and move the window to see what’s beneath

it? All you have to do is hit ALT-ESC; Save your time,

energy, money, hair, eyes..

PRODUCTIVITY : FILES

Keep no important data on your laptop

All important data resides only on the server –

preferably on unix

Use samba server to access files from your laptop

VNC and Exceed are also your friends

PRODUCTIVITY : DEBUGGING

Frame the problem clearly and organize your data

well early – this will let you work smart instead of

hard. One brainstorming session can save you

weeks..

Have a best friend in the office – or many

A white-board and a second head are usually all

you need to come up with the solution yourself.

Sometimes, you just need one other person standing

there..

MARKETABILITY : PEOPLE SKILLS

Phew!

Politics is a fact of life. Embrace it in the right way,

not the evil way

Be upbeat; a bad mood can get your fired

Be an elevator person; collect good, clean jokes

Be a helper, a go-to person

MARKETABIITY : HTML/OFFICE

Most of the things you’ll want to do to make

yourself look better only take a few minutes

Most of the answers are online anyway

HEALTH : CTRL + SCROLL

Another trick almost no one knows about

Increase the font at the speed of thought by holding down the

CTRL-key and spinning the scroll-wheel of the mouse.

If you haven’t done so already, go full-screen with the window

your viewing

If you need to look at something else also, move it to the second

screen

Yes, please use a dual-screen system Save your eyes and your

hair

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER