Being Productive With yEd

Posted on May 14, 2013 by John Poelstra

One of the drawing tools in my toolbox is yEd. It’s great for drawing relationship diagrams, particularly if you want to have them automatically re-swizzled. I choose yEd over a regular mind mapping tool like Xmind because it allows multiple relationships between a node.

Like every drawing program I’ve tried, yEd has it’s quirks too. Here are a few things I’ve discovered that might help you.

Changing the default shapes in a drawing by selecting an existing shape and applying it to others.
Rapid node creation with keyboard shortcuts that includes arrows at the end of the lines.

Another frustration with yEd I wish I could solve for you is the middle scroll wheel mouse behavior which zooms the screen in and out, instead of scrolling the page like any other applications you’ve ever used. It has the power to drive you crazy and there is no way to change it.

Here’s a simple tutorial for using yEd if you’d like to learn more about using it.

Another Amazing Seth Godin Interview

Posted on May 6, 2013 by John Poelstra

I don’t have a lot of heros. Seth Godin is one. I know that would probably make him cringe. He inspires me to think differently. He says something new and tells a new story that makes a point in every interview I’ve heard with him. He’s consistently humble, articulate, generous, and profound.

Here’s a great interview of Seth Godin by Krista Tippett on the radio program On Being (also recommended).

I highly recommend the unedited interview version.

Broken Breaking News

Posted on April 21, 2013 by John Poelstra

Breaking News Is Broken: Don’t watch cable news. Shut off Twitter. You’d be better off cleaning your gutters.

That’s the best headline I’ve seen so far about the bombing at the Boston Marathon. I was traveling last week and eating dinner by myself in a bar with four big screen TVs. In hindsight I wish I’d asked to be seated somewhere else.

In the hour I sat there I think I saw the explosion and mayhem at least a 100 times. Each time they came back from a commercial they had to show the explosions and gore again as a lead in to the story–sometimes multiple times. It was like watching September 11th on TV all over again. The sad and annoying reality of the whole thing is that it was all idle speculation and after an hour of viewing I hadn’t learned a single new thing. Who did this really help?

Why would I pay money to have this at my house? I wouldn’t.

When Will You Turn Pro?

Posted on January 20, 2013 by John Poelstra

I liked this Steven Pressfield interview by Marie Forleo about “Turning Pro.” I like that turning pro doesn’t cost any money and that you can decide to to turn pro at any time.

I love the energy, enthusiasm, and zany humor Marie brings to her work. She recently had a conversation with Jonathan Fields at The Good Life Project which I’m a big fan of.

SEO Is

Posted on January 13, 2013 by John Poelstra

Even though this was written a couple of years ago, it’s still true. Turns out I had clipped the quote below before coming across Bill Slawski’s thoughts on the same topic. It probably would have fit nicely with my first post if I’d realized it at the time, however it’s still a good reminder on its own.

From Bill’s post titled Good SEO,

Good SEO is not “cheating the system,” or “manipulating search results.” Good SEO is part of a marketing plan that makes it more likely that the good content you create will be found by people who might be interested in what your web site has to offer.

For those not in the Biz, SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” I’m finding it to be a fascinating other world universe that a lot of people don’t realize exists. This somewhat technical article in Wikipedia explains more about SEO, its history, and different techniques for ranking a site better.