I was worried at first when I started my personal blog. I knew that all my friends and family would be reading it. How would I write a blog post so that it would be suitable for both my grandmother and my long time friends?

I was even more worried when I started this blog. I was going to have some kind of professional persona on top of my personal persona. Now my friends and family could read this site, and strangers and colleagues could read my personal site. How could I possibly express myself consistently to such a wide range of people?!

Well, it turned out to be not a big deal at all. It forced me to do something pretty great: it forced me to be myself. It forced me to be honest and transparent. I can't pretend to be something I'm not, because anybody can call me on it. Not on this site, nor on my personal site.

It took some time to get used to it, I suppose. I shared some things on my personal site I wouldn't normally share with everyone, but afterwards it was totally normal. I've also expressed ideas on here I wouldn't normally talk about with friends and family and I'm glad I've done it.

So when people tell you to "find your voice" when writing, they're not suggesting you try to create a brand new voice. Instead, you need to find your voice, the one true voice inside you, and share it with the world.

Maybe this is common knowledge to some, but I just figured it out today, so I thought I'd share it.

Before, if I wanted to find the maximum or minimum number in a list of 3 or more numbers, I'd do something like:

max = Math.max(Math.max(Math.max(a, b), c), d);
min = Math.min(Math.min(Math.min(a, b), c), d);

But Math.max and Math.min take as many arguments as you need, so you can do this instead:

max = Math.max(a, b, c, d);
min = Math.min(a, b, c, d);

Productivity is a hot topic these days, so I thought I'd contribute to the ever-growing mountain of hints and tips with a few things you can do to Get Things Done:

1. Make a to-do list

   Write down a list of all the things you have to do. When you figure out more things to do, just add them to the list. I just use notepad for my list.

2. Prioritise your list

   You don't actually have to write down the priorities somewhere. It's probably pretty obvious, so you just need to keep it in mind. The key is to do higher priority things first. For example: Finish the project your boss keeps asking about - high priority. Catch up on 2035 unread blog posts - low priority.

3. Go do the things on your list

   Seriously. Right now. Go do them. Don't even read the rest of this article. Go. Now. Do the dishes, or go back to work, or write that blog post or whatever it is you have to do. I'm not kidding. Close your browser.

4. Try not to spend 3 hours a day reading productivity tips

   Think of all the things you could get done with the time you spend trying to figure out how to get all these things done. Actually, nevermind, don't think about it.

I hope these tips are useful to you. Actually, if you're reading this far they obviously haven't been. So, seriously, either go back to work or just give up on being productive altogether. Whichever one is fine with me.

I wrote an article for the Working at Home on the Internet blog, about just that - working at home on the Internet. Go check it out.

As a Canadian living in Berlin, I'm constantly learning German, and the best resource is a good dictionary. Paul Hemetsberger's dict.cc is not only the best online English-German dictionary I've found, it's one of the best examples of how an online resource should act. Even if you have no interest in learning German, it's worth having a look just to see what makes a great site.

This site is optimized for people who will be using it regularly. You can click on 'Remove Ads' which will hide all the ads until you close the browser. You can also click on some section titles to hide the sections you don't need, which cleans up the interface, and these preferences are remembered using cookies.

There are simple features that make the site even easier. Alt+S will put the cursor into the search box, which is very handy when you need to do multiple searches. You can simply enter the URL dict.cc/word to automatically search a word (I wish Google would do this!). There is even a slimmed down "pocket" version at pocket.dict.cc, which has become the only web site I actually use on my cell phone.

Everything in the results is clickable. You can click on a single word to look up that word, double-click a table cell to look up the whole phrase, or click on a drop-down menu beside each result to reveal a number of options. You can hear a spoken sample of the word or phrase, which doesn't launch a popup or make you save an mp3 - it just plays instantly using Flash. There are also links to the word in the other popular online dictionaries, in case you aren't satisfied with the results or want more details.

Although some of the extra features require JavaScript, JavaScript isn't required to use the site. The JavaScript is completely unobtrusive - even the Flash is added to the page using JavaScript.

The site is built on contributions from users. This means that the dictionary is as up-to-date and complete as possible. For me, this is very important - I want as many alternative translations as possible to understand the different ways German words can be used. Anyone can suggest a translation or correct an existing translation, and all changes go through user-based moderation. And since the data is user-contributed, the author Paul doesn't claim ownership to the word list. It is available for download as a text file.

There are tons of other cool little features all over the site, too many to go into here. You'll have to play around with it yourself.

There is very little I would do to improve the site. Well, the HTML and CSS don't validate. And it would be better if there was a way to access the extra functionality (like the voice output) without JavaScript. But from a usability and functionality standpoint, it's totally perfect. Thanks, Paul!