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Facebook a waste of time?

I’m not one of those people that checks their Facebook profile daily, and generally my visits are limited to sending birthday messages, checking for updates and messages, scribbling on a few walls, and rejecting invites to use the Zombie application

I’m not one of those people that checks their Facebook profile daily, and generally my visits are limited to sending birthday messages, checking for updates and messages, scribbling on a few walls, and rejecting invites to use the Zombie application — I get it, you bite people and your Zombie gets a new outfit. It takes five minutes, tops.

However, it seems that not everybody has that kind of self-control. Last week an Internet filtering company that tracks online traffic suggested that Facebook may be costing Australian businesses about $5 billion a year in terms of lost productivity.

Considering that Canadians are ranked second in per capita in Facebook use to England — Toronto was the number one region until bumped by London — it’s safe to say that lost productivity in the Great White North is likely well over $5 billion.

Apparently the situation has gotten so bad that many of my friends — many of them public servants — can no longer access Facebook from work computers.

While I can sympathize with those organizations, I believe they are overreacting.

For one thing, Canada’s Gross Domestic Product is about $1.2 trillion a year. That means a $5 billion loss in productivity is equal to about 0.4 per cent of our output — far less than we lose to sick days, employee turnover, and the kind of poor management practices made famous by the movie Office Space.

For another, I don’t think these kinds of studies take into account other variables. Most people I know don’t take 15-minute coffee breaks in the morning and afternoon, or a full hour for lunch. Most people work longer hours than nine to five, and give up the occasional weekend and holiday.

These studies also overlook the fact that most people who have access to computers and the Internet at work are far more productive than they would have been even 10 years ago thanks to e-mail, dynamic websites, e-commerce, PDF, collaborative software, and other technologies. Computers are also a lot faster, which means employees spend less time waiting for programs to open and projects to save.

Lastly, you have to take into account the fact that Facebook is still relatively new. When I first signed up for Facebook I would check my profile several times a day. Now that I have my Friends list locked in, the novelty has worn off. Over time people will use Facebook less and less.

Instead of banning Facebook, maybe company policy should be to allow the use of Facebook, Hotmail, MySpace, and other chronic time wasters during breaks and lunches. People will always make personal calls at work, and do all the things you can only really do from nine to five on weekdays — like banking, booking travel, making doctor’s appointments, dealing with government agencies, and so on. Why is using Facebook any worse?

 

Customize your keyboard

No two hands are exactly the same, just as no two keyboards are exactly alike. Which can be annoying. Very, very annoying.

On one of my keyboards the seldom-used Help key was far too close to the indispensable Delete key, resulting in a lot of frustrating waits for Help windows to load so I could close them again. The situation was so aggravating that I eventually performed a little surgery to my keyboard by prying off the Help key with a set of pliers — you can always open the Help window through the navigation bar anyway, so why bother having that key in the first place?

Another key that gives me trouble is the Caps Lock key. I don’t know anyone who types in all capital letters, so why would this key get a better location on the keyboard than the more useful Shift key? This is a function that’s better relegated to that little box with the Forward Delete, Home, End, Page Up and Page down keys.

The answer, if you don’t want to deface your keyboard with a pair of pliers, is to customize the layout of your keyboard.

If you have a PC, the answer is to download a little program called SharpKeys that lets you completely customize your keyboard. You can turn that Help key into another Delete key, or convert that Caps Lock key into another Shift key or even a left-hand Return button. Why not switch the Colon/Semi-Colon key with the more useful Quote/Apostrophe key while you’re at it, and give your pinky finger a break?

To download SharpKeys, visit www.download.com and use the search window.

For Apple users, things are a little more complicated. While you can set most of your system shortcuts in the System Preferences, your only hope of customization is using a third-party Keyboard that comes with software that allows custom settings.

 

Website of the Week

For people who live in small homes, it’s really important to be efficient in the way you use your space. A new website, http://floorplanner.com allows you to completely customize the layout of each room according to your dimensions and specifications. If you’ve ever moved all your furniture around hoping to improve the layout, and then had to move everything back again, this is a real time and back saver.