F7 your way to a better career

I find typos in e-mail annoying. It’s a distraction that makes it hard to concentrate on the content of the message.

Some people don’t care about e-mail typos. They either don’t notice them or don’t mind them. Perhaps the majority are this way. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the case.

Should you care about typos in your e-mail? Perhaps you should, for a few reasons. While you may not mind typos in e-mail, some of the people reading your message might. If that person is your boss or someone else important then you’re making yourself look bad. Typos in my opinion just make you look sloppy and less smart. People who are perceived as sloppy and less bright tend to not do as well in terms of career and salary advancement and job security.

Also, e-mail has a way of being read by people other than the original recipients. So your message may end up being posted on a department Wiki, or forwarded to people you didn’t expect to see it. e-mails can be distributed much further than originally intended. If your e-mail ends up “broadcast” out then I’d think you would want your writing to look crisp and polished.

There is an easy solution. You can make yourself look good with virtually zero effort. Before you send that e-mail, just click F7 in Outlook to run a spell check. It’s fast, and Outlook does all the work. The image you project at work is important. This is a very modest investment in your time that could pay off well for your career.

Eclipse tips and tricks

I've been working in Java for around a year and a half now. One of the best things about Java is working with Eclipse. It is a very good product.

When I started out, I found the product to be complex and intimidating. That's no surprise. While it has a good user interface, it's a powerful product with a number of concepts to grasp. Some people like to jump right in with new technology. For myself, I don't like starting without knowing anything.

Before starting Java development, I wanted something to read for an overview of how to use Eclipse effectively. It turns out that Eclipse has such a document. Under Help, click Tips and Tricks. This will bring up the tips and tricks switchboard.

From the switchboard I selected the Java development option, then the platform option. Each option brought up an extensive overview of useful things a developer could use. I printed off both and read them over.

It took around 2+ hours to read both tips and tricks right through. It was time well spent. I gained a much better understanding of what was going on in Eclipse and how to use it effectively. Especially useful were some of the time saving features and shortcuts.

I'd say that the 2-3 hours I spent reading the tips and tricks that first morning paid off in time saved within around the first two weeks. After that it's been all gravy. The Ctrl+Shift+R trick alone that I didn't know about before has saved me more than the amount of time I spent reading the tips and tricks. There are a number of things I use all the time in there that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

When a new version of Eclipse comes out I reread the tips and tricks. They are updated to cover the features of the new releases. Also I sometimes absorb stuff that I might have overlooked previous times I read it.

So if you're starting out in Elipse, or even of you've been using it for a while, I recommend you read the tips and tricks.

Eclipse Javadoc tips

Lately at work we've been emphasizing Javadoc more. I here's a couple of things that I noticed Eclipse will do to make it easier to create Javadoc.

- if you type /** above a function then press Enter, then Eclipse will generate a Javadoc skeleton for that function

- Eclipse will also auto format your Javadoc content after you type it in. Type in the content from the Javadoc skeleton. Then select the Javadoc comment block and press Ctrl+Shift+F and Eclipse will do a pretty good job formatting it. So you don't have to manually edit your Javadoc for indents, column width, and line wraps. Just type in the content and get Eclipse to format it.


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I sent the above around to the developers at the office. Like my note before about Google desktop search, a few people appreciated it. I find it's good when you discover some tips about your work environment to send them around to your co-workers. You'd be surprised what people don't know and aren't using.