Phaim (fāme) — Larry Becker’s Blog

I love being able to share things that help other people. I usually try to do that when I set out to do a blog post, but today I just have some information. (Although it might be helpful to somebody, and that would be great!)
I’ve been working on an invention in my spare time lately. [...]

Note: It should take you about 15 - 20 minutes for today’s blog post.
Do you have a goal, or even a few goals, that you’ve been thinking about for a while? Have you been thinking about doing things toward those goals and possibly even taken steps toward their realization?
If you answered yes to both of [...]

I’m 47 years old, so I grew up in a time before every home and every white collar job revolved around computers. During my childhood, adults generally expected to have a handful of full time jobs in their life and one (or possibly two) careers in their lifetime. Computers changed all that, and technological developments [...]

Yesterday I spotted a really cool post on LifeHacker.com. It was about the little mind games we play when we procrastinate by telling ourselves that we’ll get to it later. The gist of the article was that your future self isn’t any more likely to get it done than your current self. So do it [...]

You’ve heard, ‘Work smarter, not harder.’ And you’ve probably heard that you need to work harder from time to time. Really, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that you must work to be successful! Sitting there waiting, wishing, dreaming, won’t make it happen. Sure, dreaming is a part of the process, but far too [...]

“It’s Not Fair” is not an excuse
Back in Kindergarten we were taught that we should strive to be fair to others and that others should be fair to us. Our laws are structured to try to make things fair. We take things to court to try to balance things out when we have been treated [...]

Last week Scott Kelby’s assistant, Brad Moore, stopped by my office to ask if I’d guest blog today. Of course I said yes. Here’s the link. (I’ll be back here tomorrow.)

Adobe (and other software companies) have research that suggests a large number of customers usually skip an upgrade option now and then. In fact, just about every time there has been an upgrade available for Photoshop, I’ve personally received emails asking NAPP to please keep teaching stuff that will work on the previous version. Truth [...]

Lately I’ve been studying the work of well-known, contemporary photographers and designers and there’s been a side-effect that I wanted to share.
I have enjoyed NAPP’s Photoshop training since the beginning, and the 1-day Photoshop seminars before that, long before I was NAPP’s Exec Director. And over the years, Scott, Dave, Matt and countless columnists and [...]

Some time ago I wrote about the fact that it’s harder to be a generalist and it’s much more effective, when attempting to be successful at business, to find a niche and get good at it. Be known for a particular thing and then work on clients who need that particular expertise. Today I thought [...]