I took child psychology in my sophomore year of college. The one thing I’ll never forget about that class is taking Myers-Briggs Type Indicator for the first time along with other personality and learning style tests. The result? ISTJ (Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judging). And I’ve tested ISTJ every time since then.

Even my daughter is into the personality test and came close with her guess that I was an ISFJ. She probably thought we were opposites since she’s an ENTP (Extroversion, iNtuition, Thinking, Perceiving). Introversion and extroversion don’t mean you’re shy or outgoing. Instead, they represent where you draw more energy from. Check out the 16 type descriptions. If you don’t know yours, this might give you a clue.

“The Secret to Helping Your Child Excel in School and in Life” at Lifehack introduces another test where you can learn more about yourself and multiple intelligences. This shows what areas we tend to easily understand and what areas are harder. The website explains, “For some of us it is relatively easy to understand how a flower grows but it is immensely difficult for us to understand and use a musical instrument. For others music might be easy but playing football is difficult.”

I test strong on intrapersonal and logical. Zilch on musical (no surprise). The only surprise is the linguistic score. These results reveal your stronger and weaker learning styles. For a good explanation of the intelligences, visit Family Education.

All of these assessments help us understand ourselves better and how you can better work with others once you figure out what they are. “The Secret to Helping Your Child Excel in School and in Life” gives an example of a teacher discussing the topic of  “the law of supply and demand” and how the teacher can best reach a child from each of the different intelligences.

Fascinating stuff. Here’s another to check out: True Colors.

Have you ever taken a personality or style assessment? What was it? What did you learn?

And now for your weekly links …

Brain food …

• Grammar Lesson – The Mistake That Bugs Me the Most. Good explanation of objects and subjects.
• How to Create a Social Media Marketing Schedule. Excellent tips that most people can implement to manage social media time.
• 5 email newsletters worth reading. And of course, I recommend Professional Services Journal from InternetViZ. (Disclaimer: OK, so the guy behind the company is one of my first clients and I’m a contributor. Seriously, it aims to deliver valuable info professional services providers can use. Want an email newsletter? Contact Hank.)

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

I rarely check out videos because chances are high that it won’t have captions or subtitles. But I bit on this Lenovo-produced video comparing its ThinkPad X300 to the MacBook Air [link: Dave Winer]. It presents a powerful visual message without using words.

But not one to let commercials sway me without research, I wondered how many attachments MacBook Air owners realllllly use. Lenovo smartly added attachments of products it has in its ultraportable Thinkpad X300 to the Mac Air to make people think thinner isn’t always better — you sacrifice some things.

Just looking at the two computers, the Mac Air still wows with its thinness. I found a twitterfriend who owns a Mac Air FabGal — check out our twitversation:

FabGal: Sorry, but mah MacBook Air could kick that ThinkPad’s ass. And also? It’s shiny! And silver! And my preshus. (drool)

Me: Mac Air does still look wowie wow wow. What do you add on to it regularly?

FabGal: I haven’t added anything to it so far. Everything transfered from iBook wirelessly. Am thinking of a superdrive, though.

So there you have it. One owner who doesn’t even have anything on her Mac Air. So seriously, how many Mac Air owners buy attachments and use them regularly? One attachment might not be so bad.

Nonetheless, the message comes through powerfully and will likely sway Windows users not to make the switch to a Mac … not just yet.

Back online at my main PC. Still shaky from the whole experience. What we had to do (Paul is my hero) is repair Windows. In doing so (thanks to Scotty), we learned that Netscape and Firefox hijacked some of the DLL files. Why is this happening?

We also learned that SyncToy and Carbonite don’t like each other. SyncToy backs up my data to the network drive while Carbonite backs up online. I’m going to look for another online backup system as I’m not comfortable with Carbonite because:

* It runs all the time (hence, SyncToy not liking it)

* The restore process was shaky

What I mean by a shaky restore process is that when I went to check to see what files had been restored on my laptop, nothing was “there.” I’m assuming that I can’t access the files until the store is completed. I might be wrong — but it just didn’t work for me. Besides, I need an app where I can schedule online backup at a different time from SyncToy so they play nice together. It’s important to backup to both a separate network drive and online.

SyncToy can’t backup to an online server unless it’s on the network. Besides, I don’t have a server big enough to hold my files. I plan to look at Mozy per Peter’s suggestion.

The most disconcerting thing is the Firefox and Netscape (Mozilla apps) theft of the DLL files.

BTW, the network drive had one problem. I couldn’t access it from my laptop. Gotta figure this one out.

Looks like the hard drive died. I don’t know what happened as when I got on the computer, the login screen appeared in low-resolution. After fiddling with it and watching the PC freeze — I had no choice but to turn it off.

What’s really annoying is that my network hard drive was off for the past few days. I wasn’t aware — so it didn’t get to back up any work I’ve done since … I don’t know when. I hope I can get to the data as I’ve written a few articles. Needless to say, this isn’t a good day.

It’s frustrating to finally get a backup system in place — even trying out Carbonite for online backup — and this situation doesn’t allow for a quick recovery. I started using Carbonite within the past week, and I don’t know how much of my data made it to its servers.

Here’s a faster way to lock a workstation without going through the CTRL+ALT+DEL route.

On the desktop (Window+M), right-click an empty area and select New > Shortcut.

Copy and paste the following into the location box:

rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation

Name the shortcut “Lock workstation” or whatever you prefer and click Finish. Click on it and the PC stands guard until you return and enter the correct password.

Thanks, Martin, for the reminder that rundll32.exe is already in the path.

Andrew Coates wrote in, “Firstly, I’m not totally sure how creating an icon is any easier than the ALT+CTRL+DEL option. Pressing those keys then hitting space I would say is more often then not going to be quicker than finding your desktop and clicking on an icon. However, if you are looking for a quicker way to lock your computer. Perhaps you should try Windows + L.”

I responded to Andrew saying the ALT+CTRL+DEL option requires selecting Lock Workstation. Since we have to lock our workstation so often, I find clicking an icon faster. However, the Windows+L will work for keyboard fans.

Update: I checked Windows+L and it didn’t work on my work computer.