Reducing waste

Recently I have been reading the book, "The Year of Living Danishly", about a London couple in their 30s who get the opportunity to move to rural Denmark for a year, and how their life together changes as a result (I should add that I borrowed this as an ebook from the local library).

It is a very interesting book, in that it provides a real insight into exactly how living is done differently, and in particular, the Danish approach to waste, design and longevity. I am not trying to say that the Danes are perfect - those who appear in the book seem to drink too much alcohol and consume too many sugary pastries for my taste - but as a nation Denmark seems to focus on modifying behaviours to limit the effects of the consumer society.

On the same day that my reading was drawing to its conclusion, I ran across a post in the regional paper about a New Zealand couple who were doing a road trip of the country explaining in simple steps how to work towards getting rid of your rubbish bin. Called "The Rubbish Trip presents Reducing our Household Rubbish: The Zero Waste Approach", the seminars aim to provide tips that attendees can pick and apply to fit their lives (website here). The idea is that those small changes will add up to larger changes in behaviour, and that over time, we become more thoughtful and make better choices.

But what surprised me the most were some of the readers' comments on the site. One poster asked "Will they tell us the downside too?" I was left wondering about this 'downside'.

In working to get rid of our rubbish bins, I could only see positive aspects, such as in reducing toxicity to both ourselves and our environment, lowering our collective carbon footprint, teaching our children to not buy into the throw-away society, retraining our local - and eventually national and international - providers, reducing our costs at the supermarket, and preventing more landfill... I couldn't see a downside.

When I mention toxicity, I have worked with career clients who have had to transition due to toxic overload syndrome: an illness which seems to often strike people in the health sector. We like to think that our cleaners and disinfectants can only do good for us, but that is not so. There are people amongst us who will have a allergic reaction to perfume, scented soap or even scented deodorant. Because of working with sufferers in the career sector, I no longer wear perfume, make-up, or use scented deodorant. I do use a very lightly scented soap and shampoo, but if I was seeing such a client, would have to shower again before seeing them to rinse even such lightly scented items away. As a nation, we simply don't understand the damage exposure can do, nor do we realise how little it might take to push each of us into overload.

I haven't been able to do away with my bin yet, or to yet consider it. I know I could bulk buy more to reduce the use of some soft plastics, and would be interested to see what else we could do, providing I make the moves one step at a time, and keep it a lifestyle choice, not a route-march. We currently use a soda stream for fizzy water, very rarely buy fizzy drinks, fill our own milk bottles from Oaklands (we are lucky where we live, as a local company, Oaklands, have vending machines for A2 milk, where we can refill our own glass bottles), compost, cook vege scraps for our dogs, use our own cloth and mesh bags to avoid plastic shopping bags. We go to a local fruit and vege shop and try to avoid buying veg in plastic. We get very little paper rubbish as all our bills and news arrive electronically, and we have no letterbox, but a PO Box with a "No Junk Mail" order. Any paper we do get is stockpiled to start the fire in winter. We keep any glass jars to put our own homemade jam into. We bottle our own fruit, and make our own apple juice from our own trees. We have a vege garden.

Despite all this, we still manage to have a full recycle bin every two to three months, and have a drum of other waste probably twice a year because our shopping habits are still fairly normal. We drink wine... and I have not yet found a way to easily bulk buy bubbly!

But I am still cannot see the downside in lowering our waste. I would be interested if any of you can find it for me.


Sam

References:

• Gee, S. (14 January 2018). Kiwi couple share benefits of life without a rubbish bin. Retrieved 15 January 2017 from https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/100490682/kiwi-couple-share-benefits-of-life-without-a-rubbish-bin
• The Rubbish Trip (n.d.). Upcoming Events. Retrieved 15 January 2017 from http://therubbishtrip.co.nz/upcoming-events/

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Byron Katie's Four Questions

Being angry can be like a drug. It floods us with cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine (stress hormones), heightens our heart rate, increases our blood pressure and breathing, our body temperature goes up, our brain focuses and concentration sharpens. What a rush! However, long term, feelings of outrage, anger and frustration are simply not that good for us. Each time the hormone flood fractionally increases our risk of all sorts of diseases.

Byron Kathleen Reid, known as Byron Katie, is the creator of a thing she terms "The Work". This is basically a set of questions which you ask yourself - reflect on - to work out how to let thoughts go which are part of your 'story'. By that, I mean part of the narrative we all tell about ourselves: the stuff that becomes true by telling and retelling. I am not going to get into the whole 'power of positive thinking' metaphysics that comes pre-packaged with this type of self-help work: you can read more on that here. Byron has a useful tool, essentially a stripped down cognitive therapy technique.

Apparently Byron was a very angry woman for a decade, ended up in some kind of half-way house, and one day woke up there laughing instead. She had experienced a mental shift which had enabled her to look at life with a completely different perspective. Since then she has become a self-help guru and author of New Age books.

(I don't know much about the lady personally, but having known a number of people who have gone through menopause with a incandescent, throat-ripping-out anger, I wonder if she was maybe early starter for 'the change'.)

Byron has simplified cognitive therapy to allow devotees to control recurring ideas and false or inflated feelings. We undertake what she calls 'the work' by asking ourselves four questions about those recurring thoughts, and writing down the answers:

1. Is it true? Is this written as absolute truth from where we stand? Factual? Sure?
2. Can you absolutely know it’s true? Think really deeply about how we know this is true. Are we really, really sure? What if we told that story to the other participants? Would they all think it was true as well?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe the thought? We are back in that space, re-experiencing it. What are we feeling? How are we treating the other participants? How are we treating ourselves? We have to be specific in recording as much as we can.
4. Who would you be without the thought? Now, this is a really interesting question: how much have we invested in this, and how much of this idea has become who we are? Step back and think how we would act with those other people if those feelings were no longer there. How we would feel? Do we like ourselves better with the thought? Or without it? Which way is kinder? Which way is more peaceful?

In reviewing our answers to these questions, we can decide if our outrage has substance, or if we just need to calm down and let it go. Byron calls this the 'turnaround': letting those thoughts go, while keeping our identity. We drop the drama, change our story, and be healthier without those stress hormones charging around.

This framework forms a set of rhetorical lenses to view our recurring mental processes from different angles, as Byron is really assuming at the outset that we are hanging onto something that really doesn't matter. The questions are not a cure-all for pyshcological or mental illness, just a way for us to view our anger or outrage differently.

Don't assume 'the work' will fix everything, but give it a try as a self-help tool.


Sam

References:

• Flintoff, J. (30 December 2017). Byron Katie: ‘Just ask yourself, is that thought really true?’. Retrieved 31 December 2017 from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/30/byron-katie-depression-change-joy-secret-stressed-thought?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=258616&subid=4915806&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
• Katie, B. (2016). The Work: The Power of Self-Inquiry. Retrieved 31 December 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O60DfNd4k_Y
• Tolboll, M. (2012). A Critique of Byron Katie and her Therapeutic Technique The Work. Retrieved 31 December 2017 from https://mortentolboll.weebly.com/a-critique-of-byron-katie-and-her-therapeutic-technique-the-work.html

read more "Byron Katie's Four Questions"

Universal Basic Income Pilot Study

NZ native tree showing epiphytes in symbiosis.

In the past I have written about universal basic incomes (here and here). I had thought that Switzerland was going to be brave enough to give it a crack, but their people voted no in a referendum (BBC, 2016). Fair enough. Giving all your citizens an income by right of birth is a fairly contentious issue: how will countries fund it? What ramifications will it have for the economy? For business? For innovation? For industry? For families? What will it do to work and study habits? What will the impact be on wages or salaries paid for people who want to work?

However, Finland picked up the baton, and are currently running a trial (The Economist, 2017). Starting in 2017, their first data collection is scheduled for 2019, which will hopefully gives enough time for the participants to get used to the programme. This will help to ensure that the reseachers can get clean, unambiguous results. This trial is, in my view, a very positive step.

If anyone was going to give this idea a crack, I think it was always going to be one of these five European nations: Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland or Norway. These nations seem to look at problems differently and come up with socially-focused solutions. All nations make mistakes (take Switzerland's long-standing reluctance to let go of Nazi war gold, for example), but there appears to be something about smaller, largely homogenous nations which is community-focused, rather than solely about businesses or the economy. I like that 'reversed' attitude of "let's look after our people, and then business will be all right".

As a business lecturer, my view could be considered heretical. But if we could think about business as currently being a parasite, feeding off the host - taking from the community to earn its living, and giving nothing back until the host is exhausted. If we shifted our thinking to an ephiphytic relationship, where business teamed up with the community and lived alongside rather than taking from the host, we could afford a UBI. A healthy host means a more sound and longer-term symbiosis between community and business.

Why do I make this analogy? A growing trend in media stories has been non-payment of local taxes for multi-nationals. That is driven by off-shoring, transfer pricing and tax havens: the legal cracks that appear between where companies are actually based and where they SAY they are based. These companies predate upon our citizenry to make their money, but give little back to countries where they make their money, while externalising business clean up to local populations. For example, Starbucks goes through millions of takeaway cups, straws and plastic tops every year, which the local community disposes of. Starbucks talks big about recycling, but actual recycling numbers are in the single percentage points: about 1%, last time I looked. There are many serial tax avoiders - and apologies, the data is for American companies only: GM, GE, Starbucks, Xerox, Weyerhauser, HP, McDonalds, CBS, Netflix, Goldman Sachs, IBM, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo... the list goes on to 100 (ITEP, 2017; USA Today, 2016).

So let us imagine what kind of UBI we could afford if our nations set fees for being able to team up with our citizens: an 'access' fee (like a fishing licence), if you will. It might be based on volume of sales, or on number of people participating. While the calcuating of what that fee might look like will be difficult initially, companies will get used to paying it, factoring it in to their price structure. It would also probably mean that avoidance strategies such as off-shoring, transfer pricing, externalities and tax haven practices disappear. The cost-benefit for these would no longer exist.

We would end up with business being truly good corporate citizens.

Anyway, just my two penn'orth.


Sam

References:

• BBC (5 June 2016). Switzerland's voters reject basic income plan. Retrieved 24 December 2017 from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060
• ITEP (2017). The 35 Percent Corporate Tax Myth. Retrieved 24 December 2017 from https://itep.org/the-35-percent-corporate-tax-myth/#.WMGvmBIrLUZ
• The Economist (2017). Northern pilot: Finland tests a new form of welfare. Retrieved 24 December 2017 from https://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21723759-experiment-effect-offering-unemployed-new-form
• USA Today (2016). 27 giant profitable companies paid no taxes. Retrieved 24 December 2017 from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2016/03/07/27-giant-profitable-companies-paid-no-taxes/81399094/

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Antivirus review: Sophos

PC Mag's AV review table by Ruebenking, 2017

As you may have read recently, I decided to change my home antivirus software. For many years I have relied on freeware, which has worked well to date. I was changing from AVG (here), and had tried BitDefender (epic fail which you can read more about here). Avast looks like it should be a good option, but as it is now the owner of AVG, and AVG has changed markedly from a "we will leave you alone" strategy to a "we will plague you many times a day with offers to upgrade to one of our paid pieces of kit" strategy, I decided to give Avast! a miss (Reubenking, 2017).

While the top contender appears to be BitDefender (Cox, 2017), as the freeware version (a) doesn't work, and (b) wasn't supported, I came up with two alternatives that looked relatively OK in their freeware versions: Kapersky and Sophos. I downloaded Sophos, and thought I would try it first. Mark Wycislik-Wilson has a good overview of what Sophos does and doesn't do on the TechRadar site. Please note that Sophos doesn't have a banking sandbox, but I have never used one, so wasn't that worried about that aspect. If you are, then Sophos freeware is not for you.

Downloading and installation of the software was trouble-free (here). You need to register first, confirm your email address, then download the software. After installation, all settings are done via the web here. You can have up to ten devices registered, which is very generous for freeware.

I will keep you posted with how this goes.


Sam
References:

• Cox, A. (2017). The best free antivirus to download in 2018. Retrieved 19 December 2017 from http://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-antivirus
• Reubenking, N. J. (2017). The Best Free Antivirus Protection of 2018. Retrieved 19 December 2017 from http://au.pcmag.com/antivirus-reviews-and/44373/guide/the-best-free-antivirus-protection-of-2018
• Sophos (n.d.). Sophos Home Register. Retrieved 19 December 2017 from https://home.sophos.com/register
• Wycislik-Wilson, M. (2017). Sophos Home review. Retrieved 19 December 2017 from http://www.techradar.com/reviews/sophos-home

read more "Antivirus review: Sophos"

Keeping it Real

When we start doing a research project we really need to think realistically about how much time we have got. An article or a report can easily take 300 plus hours to write, so we have to think carefully about how much time we have spare to prep, plan, research, write and proof it.

If we need three months to do the research itself, then realistically it will take a month to negotiate and plan the project, and at least a month to write it up. So that blows our project out to five months: twenty weeks. If we think about that in terms of hours, that's 15 hours a week for those twenty weeks. Do we have the time to take that long? Do we have the spare capacity to fit it into any less time?

In all likelihood, most of us won't have five months to do a project. Organisational demands will want it done in three months. That means we have two choices. Firstly, do the work the way we had planned, and increase our hours per week, in order to condense the time we take. Or secondly, narrow the scope of our project.

If we take the first option, that means we have to flag that we need to postpone other work that we are doing now, or get incredibly good at planning. No minute wasted. Planning done in detail: adjusted, followed, reported on, appointments made, tracking used.

If we take the second option, then we have a much more manageable project. By narrowing the scope, I mean using method, field or theme to make the data collection and write up more focused, so reducing data complexity (read more here). Sometimes this may mean breaking the project into a Stage 1 and Stage 2 project, which makes life so much easier!

Ideas for keeping it real, with either option:

1. Use a calendar to roughly plan out the timeline for the project. Think about what resources you will need, and when.
2. Get a detailed plan off someone who knows their stuff, modify it and use it (here). Stick to it.
3. Draw a map of your journey (here).
   
4. When you lose motivation, decide to just do five minutes (then that's another five minutes done - read more here).
5. Schedule blocks of time to work on the project, and turn off email, phone and non-essential internet to avoid distractions. Close your door, or work away from others.
6. Start with the big ugly bits that you don't like, then, once you have done some of that, reward yourself with the bits you do like doing.
7. Keep visualising the outcome.

Hope that helps!


Sam

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Benefits of Self-Drive Vehicles

Recently I watched a video by Continental (GaadiAdvisor, 7 October 2017), with their view on what the future will look like with autonomous vehicles. I liked their view. We do have issues to sort out: hacking; hijacking; working self-drives around accidents and natural disasters; operation outside urban environments; IT security; payments; driver's licensing, citizen ID etc, but I think the future is exciting, and those issues simply require more thought, idea sharing and the establishment of good systems.

However, I keep reading articles on self-drive vehicles in the main-stream media, and they keep (a) focusing on whether people will trust self-drives enough to get into them, and (b) missing the same key factors that are going to persuade us to trust the AI.

• Insurance. Already insurance is less on Tesla vehicles when engaged in self-drive mode, and insurance on NZ's existing vehicle fleet will increase as we are in a global market for risk, with an increasing road toll. Business insurance is expensive. You can see the accountants doing the maths already.
• Road Toll. International statisticians are suggesting a 90% reduction in accidents once fleets turn over (7 years in the US, 14 here; Crew, 1 October 2015; from McKinsey, Bertoncello & Wee, 2015). The cost of ACC in New Zealand will go down for those who have self-drive, because the risk is less, and up, correspondingly, for those who don't. Those accountants will like this too.
• Adoption Age. According to a Stuff article, 12% of AA members would take a self-drive. I would be interested to hear what the average age of the respondents was (Noon, 15 February 2018). I suspect that younger drivers, who have less of a car culture, will be more likely to take a self-drive car, and older drivers less likely (Shankleman, 13 February 2018). For the past ten to fifteen years there has been a growing trend in London not to get your driver's licence. You don't need it with the public transport available. This trend may well force the licenced driver requirement to be dropped fairly quickly.
• Cities. Self-drive vehicles work in cities, as taxi or bus services, in areas of good connectivity and high population. The convenience of the hail and ride on short trips or work commutes will overcome reservation. Sweden already has self-drive busses on the road (); Singapore is still trialling taxis with nuTonomy (now owned by Delphi; and a range of other initiatives at Huiling & Goh, 2017). Eventually children will be able to get to music lessons or sports on their own: but not until the technology has earned trust through performance.
• Time Saving. It is estimated that a city dweller might spend 90 plus hours looking for a park each year, and 18 hours queuing (Shankleman, 13 February 2018).
• Cleaner/Cheaper. Most self-drive vehicles are electric. Cleaner fuels, lighter weights, fewer moving parts, lower accident risk and lower environmental impact are likely to lower fleet running costs in direct and and indirect costs (taxes) (Huiling & Goh, 2017). It is estimated that a Chevrolet Bolt needs its first full service at 150,000 miles, not at 10,000 (Shankleman, 13 February 2018). Accountants again are going to see much better financials.
• Ownership. In cities you won't need to own, park, or service a car. You will simply hire the vehicle for your use. Ride services like Grab in Singapore will make public transport easier, providing the service itself is reliable. Why own a car - which depreciates from the second you buy it - when a service with less hassle and cost is available? Another one for the accountants: that and no parking.
• Congestion. It is estimated that self-drives will decrease congestion. We will have to wait and see on that one. However, if your business is in moving goods, at least you won't be paying wages for traffic jams: just lost asset time.
• Infrastructure. We won't need huge new roads. Car parks may be able to be turned back into green spaces. With a park and ride, we pay no parking fees. No traffic fines. No traffic police. No speeding. No racers unless they are on a race track.
• Shift in global power. The shift to electric vehicles means we are likely to be less locked into trading oil in USD/barrel. This will make a huge change to international politics (ZeroHedge, 14 January 2018).

This will all take some time to sort out. There will be teething problems. But this is the road we are on.


Sam

References:

• Bertoncello, M. & Wee, D. (2015). Ten ways autonomous driving could redefine the automotive world. Retrieved 15 February 2018 from https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Automotive%20and%20Assembly/Our%20Insights/Ten%20ways%20autonomous%20driving%20could%20redefine%20the%20automotive%20world/Ten%20ways%20autonomous%20driving%20could%20redefine%20the%20automotive%20world.ashx
• Crew, B. (1 October 2015). Driverless Cars Could Reduce Traffic Fatalities by Up to 90%, Says Report. Retrieved 15 February 2018 from https://www.sciencealert.com/driverless-cars-could-reduce-traffic-fatalities-by-up-to-90-says-report
• GaadiAdvisor (7 October 2017). Continental recently unveiled its ‘Bee’ autonomous car. Retrieved 15 February 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9__bf-s92S4
• Flinders, K. (24 January 2018). Driverless buses hit the streets of Stockholm. Retrieved 15 February 2018 from http://www.computerweekly.com/news/252433763/Driverless-buses-hit-the-streets-of-Stockholm
• Huiling, E. & Goh, B. (2017). AI, Robotics and Mobility as a Service: the Case of Singapore. Field Actions Science Reports, 17(2017), 26-29. Retrieved 15 February 2018 from http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/pdf/4411
• Noon, M. (15 February 2018). Self-driving vehicles may not be the road toll saviour. Retrieved 15 February 2018 from https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/101230501/selfdriving-vehicles-may-not-be-the-road-toll-saviour
• Shankleman, J. (13 February 2018). Self-Driving Cars Will Kill Things You Love (And a Few You Hate): Get ready for the long goodbye to car culture, many domestic flights, and insurance premiums. Retrieved 15 February 2018 from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/self-driving-cars-will-kill-things-you-love-and-a-few-you-hate
• ZeroHedge (14 January 2018). Will The Dollar Survive The Petro-Yuan? Retrieved 15 February 2018 from https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Will-The-Dollar-Survive-The-Petro-Yuan.html

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Goodbye AVG: Hello BitDefender

For many, many years I have used AVG's home version of antivirus. I wrote a blog post a while ago about an unauthorised - and very poorly designed - signature being put on my emails without my knowledge or agreement (here), but since correcting this I have been getting more and more pop-ups, trying to sell me added services, and third party products. I decided it was time to investigate how to turn the pop-ups off.

I went looking for some answers and came across a post by John Smith (2015), a computer tech who recommended - in the past - AVG to his clients. John was being driven spare by all the advertising, and the thread followed a torturous course between John, other frustrated users experiencing the same thing, and a range of AVG online techs. A couple of users posted some fixes, but, as the software has now moved on, basically it boils down to "you can't get there from here". There is no way to turn off the ads. If you have a paid version, you can turn off the pop-ups completely, but if not: you can't. The most you can do is to set all the pop-ups to 1 second in duration (the default is 20 seconds).

The pop-ups are particularly annoying for gamers, as the pop-up takes the focus off the game, so may lose the player points ...or the level itself.

The deal with AVG was that the home users would be supported by the paid, business users, a strategy which I particularly liked. Being bombarded by ads was not what I expected from this company. However, they have recently been bought out by Avast!, and so AVG is probably now a second-string brand whose customers Avast! don't mind alienating. Perhaps AVG home users may start seeing ads for Avast! products.

However, there were some useful tips embedded in John's thread from other users, so I started looking for another free alternative. I initially considered Panda for a while, but Adarsh Verma's and Paul Wagenseil's reviews persuaded me to try BitDefender instead.

Now: a couple of hints for uninstalling AVG. First, suspend the software. Secondly, uninstall it from Programs and Features, then download the AVG remover executeable file from here. Run the exe file after you have uninstalled AVG, then restart your PC. AVG has a nasty habit of leaving things behind, apparently.

I will report on BitDefender's performance once I have tried it for a while.


Sam

References:

• AVG (n.d.). AVG Remover. Retrieved 19 December 2017 from http://files-download.avg.com/filedir/util/AVG_Remover.exe
• BitDefender (n.d.). BitDefender Freeware Download. Retrieved 19 December 2017 from https://www.bitdefender.com.au/solutions/free.html?awc=2873_1513629024_c2be4443c4d99992afe20daee0f8cd40
• Smith, J. (2015). How do I make these AVG popups STOP??? Retrieved 19 December 2017 from https://support.avg.com/answers?id=906b0000000DA01AAG
• Verma, A. (2017). 10 Best Free Antivirus Software | 2017 Edition. Retrieved 19 December 2017 from https://fossbytes.com/10-best-free-antivirus-software-list-2017/
• Wagenseil, P. (2017). Best Free PC Antivirus Software. Retrieved 19 December 2017 from https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-antivirus,review-2588-5.html

read more "Goodbye AVG: Hello BitDefender"

Rename all files in a folder

Putting together a load of photos from a range of people and turning them all into an orderly slide show can be quite tedious when you have to rename 200 files by hand. However, Ed Bott, of TechRepublic, has come up with a great solution for renaming a WHOLE load of files.

Select the files to be renamed (Ctrl and A to select all the files in a folder). Right-click the first in our selected file order range, and click Rename. Then simply enter the new base file name for the entire folder and hit Enter. Windows File Explorer will change all the filenames, adding a sequential number suffix in round brackets to each.

For example, we can rename all the files "P1257806.jpg" and "DSC10562.jpg" to "Pete and Jen's Wedding (1).jpg" and "Pete and Jen's Wedding (2).jpg" etc.

I would recommend that we copy our base files, just in case we want the original file names at any point in the future.

Funnily enough, I have inadvertently done a wholesale rename, and I can only say "THANK GOODNESS" for the Undo command!


Sam

• Reference: Bott, Ed (6 December 2017). Windows tip of the week: Rename a folder full of files. Retrieved 12 December 2017 from enews.techrepublic.com/p/vsuzcGHoN6

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Windows Long File Name Error

Have you struck the problem of having moved items to archive storage then not been able to access them again later? Then you may have run afoul of Window's dreaded "greater than 260 character path" blockage. This is a teeth-grittingly annoying facet of Windows 10 where paths that are over 260 characters just give you a "you can't get there from here" message when you try to open the file, but don't give any warnings when you move items to archive in the first place.

Note to self: don't bury files in folders with long names, then move them to archive folders further down the folder tree. You can not open them ever again... or can you?

While Windows restricts the overall length of paths to 260 characters, there two ways to get around it in Windows 10 using a Group Policy or a registry hack. These won't work in every instance, but should work in most. This is done by enabling "NTFS long paths", as follows:

1. Group Policy method: Windows key, type gpedit.msc and press Enter |Navigate to Local Computer Policy | Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System | Filesystem | NTFS | Double click "Enable NTFS long paths" option.
2. Edit registry: Windows key, type regedit and press Enter |Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Group Policy Objects\ {48981759-12F2-42A6-A048-028B3973495F} Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Policies |Select the LongPathsEnabled key, or create it as a DWORD (32-bit) value if it does not exist | Set the value to 1 and close the Registry Editor.

However, if you are still running older versions of Windows - such as Windows 7 - there is a hotfix that you can request from Microsoft's knowledge article here by clicking the Hotfix Download Available link. If this doesn't work, there is a registry hack. Go to the following Registry key:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Policies
• On the right side, create a new 32-bit DWORD value named LongPathsEnabled. Set its value data to 1.
• Restart your device.

Thanks to Mark Wycislik-Wilson and Moices for these great tips.

Sam

References:

• Microsoft (n.d.). A file copy operation fails when files or folders have long paths in Windows Explorer. Retrieved 13 December 2017 from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2891362/a-file-copy-operation-fails-when-files-or-folders-have-long-paths-in-w
• Moices (2016). Microsoft ends the 260 long path limit (sort of). Retrieved 13 December 2017 from https://www.ghacks.net/2016/05/27/microsoft-260-long-path-limit/
• Wycislik-Wilson, M. (29 May 2016). How to enable paths longer than 260 characters in Windows 10. Retrieved 13 November 2017 from https://betanews.com/2016/05/29/long-paths-windows-10/

read more "Windows Long File Name Error"

Ideas for getting started

One of the hardest things when we are faced with a research project is trying to come up with a field or topic area (context or domain) that we are interested in, and to then narrow things down enough or intersect those ideas with a current theme or issue. Then we reduce our scope even further by thinking about how we might be able to find some primary data on this topic, and our approach or methodology will change what we find again.

So to provide some clarity about those three dimensions, those groups I mentioned include the following ideas which, following Veal (2005) we can use to hone in on an idea:

• Contexts & domains: Human Resources; Industrial Relations; Succession; On-boarding; Retention; Training and Development; Information Technology; International Management; Event management; Project Management; Strategic Management; Governance; Operations Management; Supply Chain; Logistics; Company law; Commercial law; Consumer law; Private sector; Public sector; Not-for-profit; Marketing; Economics; Financial Management; Accounting; Management Accounting; Marketing; Buyer Behaviour.
• Themes & Issues: Communication; Conflict; Culture; Entrepreneurship; Environment; Ethics; Gender; Ethnicity; Age; Stage; Leadership; Learning organisations; Managerial effectiveness; Motivation; Organisation development and change; Organisational behaviour; Climate change; Corporate Social Responsibility; AI; Digitisation; Technology convergence; career management; decentralisation versus centralisation; globalisation versus localisation; local versus national versus international.
• Approaches & methodologies: Subjective versus Objective; Positivist versus Critical/interpretive; Qualitative versus quantitative; Inductive versus deductive; Experimental versus non-experimental; Theory-building versus theory-confirming; Primary data versus secondary data; Self-reported versus Observed; Questionnaire-based surveys versus interviews versus Case study methods versus observations versus Focus groups. Exploratory versus descriptive versus explanatory.

For example, saying "I like the idea of doing something in HR" can become an HR domain project looking at the theme of succession conflict in small local companies with a subjective approach using a qualitative, inductive interview methodology. That gets us a lot closer to determining what our actual research question will be.

Grad Coach (2023) also has come good ideas for starting which can be viewed here:





Hope that helps you get started!

Sam

References:

• Grad Coach. (2023, November 24). How To Write A Research Question: Full Explainer With Clear Examples [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/42-d2HdbyS8
• Veal, A. J. (2005). Business Research Methods (Second Edition). Australia: Pearson Education (p. 20)

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What are Digital Experiments?

Have you heard of digital experiments? I had a weird idea that these were computer hardware experiments, but not so. Professor Matthew Salganik, presenting at the 2016 International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2), suggests that our past research “experiments were analog experiments, and now more and more can take advantage of digital infrastructure", which he calls 'digital' experiments. "What are digital experiments?" he asks. "I would say an experiment is more digital to the extent that you use digital infrastructure in the four main steps of experiments: in recruiting participants, randomization, delivering treatment and measuring outcomes”.

This is a good point: that by using digital tools, we are more able to randomise and anonymise data than we ever have been - with a couple of provisos. Our catchment pool needs to be large enough; and our call to action needs to baited well enough to access our intended audience, often through digital media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook, to access widely-diverse networks.

However, Matthew is not talking about using methods to contact anonymous participants. He is talking about medical and social research, where the more we know about participants, the clearer the effects of a particular treatment or intervention may be. Digital experiments allow for big data, and for cross-tabbing of multiple factors to isolate likely effects and, therefore, results. This ends up being very big stuff indeed. He suggests four approaches for setting up research: industry or NGO partnership to share cost while giving up some control; go it alone, using existing systems, which will also be a control compromise; go it alone, building your own experiment, which is costly and probably slow to get numbers; build your own product to get control, but high cost and slow to get numbers and the system can be used again and again by others. This latter is not very common yet, but with apps, may well be a way to get access to data, if there is a hook for use. View eight minutes of his conference presentation here:



This presentation is a tiny slice of a book he wrote, Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age, which explores the issues of ethics, analysis, recruitment of participants, reliability and research relevance.

Worth a read!


Sam

• Reference: Salganik, M. (2016). Experiments in the Digital Age. Retrieved 12 December 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=46&v=8CIYblSor5k

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Lost folder tree view in Windows 7 Save As

When opening files from email, I seem to have lost my folder tree (ie, the Windows hierarchy of folders) in Windows 7 Save As and Adobe Acrobat insert file dialogue boxes. Instead of the normal folder tree pane on the left-hand side, I get a list of folder names in a new column on the left-hand side of the normal view. This doesn't happen on all "Save As" actions, but only when I open files from an email - or when I am compiling files within Adobe Acrobat - so it may well have something to do with temp files.

In addition, the settings button was greyed out, so I was unable to tinker with the views to put it back to 'normal'. Grr.

For some time I have been looking for a solution when I thought of it. Recently I finally found a partial fix, thanks to pewpewpewlazerr, who finally managed to track down a solution in the Microsoft community after a lot of persistence. I am reposting pewpewpewlazerr's solution in case the Microsoft answer gets taken down, now that Windows 7 is no longer being supported.

• Go to Start | Run "cmd"
• In the DOS window, key (including the space before the forward slash):
  sfc /scannow
• This will take between 5-10 minutes. Just leave it running.
• Close the DOS command
• Restart your computer.

What this has done for me is to enable me to see the folder structures within the Save As window, although you won't be able to view the entire tree (see image above). It hasn't affected the Adobe Acrobat issue at all, unfortunately.

Still, it is much easier to navigate on Save As, and that will do me for now.

At some point in the future, I will start my search again!




Sam

• Reference: pewpewpewlazerr (5 January 2011). Suddenly, the folder trees on the left on 'save as'/'open' dialogs are missing... Retrieved 9 October 2017 from https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/suddenly-the-folder-trees-on-the-left-on-save/b0325c6b-982b-43e6-bbd2-088a88c301c6?auth=1

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