Tag Archive for: Tutorial

A Hazel Rule for Getting TV Shows Into Plex

I remember binge-watching Smallville via DVDs that Netflix sent to me in the mail. I would watch four episodes in a row, then mail back the DVD and wait days for the next one to arrive so I could get the next four episodes. When streaming arrived, it was a miracle!

Sadly, a miracle that was too good for this world. Streaming has been on a steady decline for the past several years, while prices seem to increase more frequently than new seasons of hit shows are released. Streaming has turned into cable TV, and the magic is gone.

That is until I found Plex. Check out my original Plex post for more details about setting up a Plex server.

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Taming the Terminal

A few days ago, on a forum post, I saw mention of a podcast series called “Taming the Terminal.”

It turns out this is yet another example of why the open internet is awesome.

With the help of ChatGPT, I have been feeling more confident about writing code and working in the Terminal, so I figured I would check out this podcast to learn more about it.

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Automating My YouTube Videos

I trick my son (and myself) into putting away laundry by asking him to just put away his socks. Then we will come back in a minute and do his shirts. We repeat this cycle until all of his laundry is put away.

I find the same trick works on me. I want to make a new YouTube video, but that amorphous daunting task is challenging to start. I made this automation to help break up making a video into smaller tasks. This reduces the friction and makes producing videos much easier!

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Automate Your Meeting Prep

Meetings are a massive part of knowledge work. So much so that being good at meetings can change the trajectory of your career. Worst case, it saves you time and reduces the number of meetings you need to attend. Best case, your preparedness and follow-through brings you higher quality opportunities and career growth. The only cost is the time you need to spend to prepare.

I made a video about a shortcut I use to automate my meeting preparation, reducing my time investment to seconds while also improving the quality of my work. Let me show you what I did.

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Managing Emailed Tasks With OmniFocus

Almost all of my incoming tasks for work come via email. As much as I love an online collaborative task management tool, I just can’t get away from emailed tasks. So a few years ago, I decided to embrace the emailed task. I used some automation, and now, tasks I receive via email have the highest success rate of any work-related task.

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