Redefinability

Twitter: Retweet Beta

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:32:00 +0000

So, I was just skimming through my feedly when I happened upon this TechCrunch article and decided to see if I was also being affected by this Twitter 'bug.' I logged in and was greeted with this:

A lovely little note from Twitter saying that I'm in the beta group that gets to try out their retweet feature. Fun! :)

So, what's happened so far? Well, not much. Except that a little "retweet" option has been added to the bottom of the tweets. Like this here:

You can decide as to whether or not you want retweets from those you're following to show up in your timeline.

And a little Retweets tab has been added to the right. There, you can view Retweets by others, by you, and your tweets that have been retweeted.

What's my overall opinion of this? Well, I definitely am liking it. The integration has yet to prove itself to be adverse. To me, it hasn't shown itself as being an intrusion on the design in any way, shape, or form. So, yeah, I'm definitely liking it. Good job, Twitter team. =)

P.S. Want to follow me?

Make Your Blog Green, Get Free iTunes Music! [Site Spotlight]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:43:00 +0000

You know all that hype about being environmental friendly and going green? Well, here's a way to get in on the fun if you haven't already (and if you have, keep at it!). Take a look-see at ECO-SAFE, a nifty little site I happened upon while browsing the wonderful interwebs.

What are they doing for you and me? Well, hey.. take a look at their widget I added to my blog (sidebar). See it? The three little green buttons? When you visit a site or blog with the widget added, you can take the page with you without printing it. Email it to yourself (or someone else). Or save (or send) a PDF of the page. Give it a try. The email button doesn't even open up a new window.

If this specific widget doesn't flow with your taste, of if you're looking for something horizontal, ECO-SAFE's got you covered. They've got a number of widgets for you to choose from, and you don't even have to register. Seemless, professional, free, and green, all in one go.

What's the cherry on top, you ask? The people over at ECO-SAFE are ever-so-kind and will buy anyone who adds the widget to their site/blog a free song from iTunes and may even feature your site/blog on their blog, giving you a traffic bump. Sweet, right?

You should definitely consider adding their widget. Won't do any harm, and will definitely make your visitors who like saving and sharing pages simply happy.

Kitchen Aromatherapy [Health]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:43:00 +0000

So, I was digging through my old notes from Psychology class and came upon something my AP Psych teacher shared with us. Whether you believe in the validity of the study of psychology or not, everyone (or almost) enjoys being surrounded by good scents.

Anyway, according to my teacher, certain scents have different effects on a person, kind of like how different colors affect moods. For example:

Result	Suggested Scents
Reduce Error	Lemon, Peppermint, Mint
Boost Productivity	Lily-of-the-Valley, Jasmine, Floral Scents, Lavender
Reduce Stress	Spiced Apple, Rose, Chamomile, Jasmine
Reduce Anxiety	Vanilla, Neroli, Lavender
Relaxation	Basil, Citrus, Cinnamon
Energize	Peppermint, Thyme, Rosemary

I'm not quite sure how legit this is, but that's what I wrote down, and definitely like the idea. Chances are you'll probably find these scents at the Bath & Body Works. Chances are you'll also find them at Yankee Candle. I, for one, am a great fan of candles, and these scents are on my winter holidays' list. Hey, if these scents increase productivity and reduce stress, why not?

Try it out. Next time you need to chill, light a cinnamon-scented candle or place some cinnamon sticks around the house. Need to get to work? Place some lavendar petals in a tray on your desk.

If this aroma therapy-like stuff doesn't work, well hey.. at least the place will smell wonderful!

Have anything to share and add? Please do in the comments!

WallWisher - Your Dry Erase Board [Site Spotlight]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:37:00 +0000

Don't you just hate it when you come across something great, but can't remember when or how you found it? Well, some time ago, I stumbled upon a great site.

One thing I must stress is the simplicity of the site. It's simple, and that's exactly what I was looking for. I like to think of WallWisher as a bulletin board, or a dry erase board. I was so excited when I came across this, because I had been looking for something totally simple. Sign up was pretty darn basic. You can even hook it up with your Google/Gmail account.

So what exactly can you do with WallWisher? If you're like me and absolutely love Post-It notes and put them up everywhere in sight.. well, this is basically the same thing, only on one page. There are several ways you could use this:

Share a computer? Create a wall and set it as the homepage. Leave messages, wishes, and reminders for each other.
Need to remind yourself of errands you need to run? Set it as your homepage and leave yourself some notes.
Leave short (up to 160 characters) notes to friends, or to people you work with on a project.

But it doesn't end there. Along with leaving short notes (160 characters), you can also post videos, audio, and pictures. So create a wall for yourself and some friends and leave each other some things to laugh over.

You can create multiple walls, set them to private or public, and choose your own personalized URL. Creating a note is seriously as simple as double-clicking. The look of the site, I think is pretty sweet. Nothing too complex - just what I need for self-reminders. I like it so much in fact, that I have set it as one of my homepages (I have two that open up in separate tabs).

So, go on and check it out. While you're at it, drop by their blog as well. I thought the design was cute. :)

Explaining RSS - The Easy Way

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:47:00 +0000

Sometimes, explaining things like RSS just isn't easy, especially to someone who doesn't understand computers and the internet. That's when you use your resources (AKA search engines) to find stuff(AKA others' work) to do the explaining for you! :)

If you haven't heard of Common Craft yet, you're seriously missing out. Their video, RSS In Plain English, became a huge success - and for a very good reason. It truly explains RSS in plain English, with cute sketches and everything. I showed this to a friend of mine some time last year, and she caught on right away. If you do check it out, watch some of their other videos as well.

I also came across this great (and bite-sized) blog post today that compared RSS to newspapers. Be sure to check it out.

If you don't fully understand the idea, or need to explain it to someone else, please check these two out, or leave me a comment, and I'll try to help you out the best I can. :)

Pledge To End The R-Word

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:59:00 +0000

Believe it or not, some people are offended by words others use in day-to-day language. So I'm doing what I can to step up against the use of a word I have particularly always found incredibly offending: the r-word.

Yesterday, I became the 40, 525th person to pledge against the use of this word as an insult. I urge you to head over to www.r-word.org and do the same.

You can also add a badge to your site/blog, as I've done over to the right.

Inspirational Bit

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:23:00 +0000

"Vision without action is a dream.
Action without vision is aimless.
Vision with action will achieve."

- Author unknown

Best iPod Classic Case [Product Review]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:54:00 +0000

(Image credit: overstock.com)
I take extreme care of all of my electronic purchases. Possibly because they cost so much. So before purchasing my iPod Classic 6G (while keeping in mind that I really wanted a Touch), I did some research on what case would keep my iPod the safest from scratches and fingerprints.

I found what has to be the most perfect, best iPod Classic case out there. The Belkin Remix Acrylic Case for the iPod Classic is everything I was looking for in a case.

* Affordable
* Clear
* Covers the screen
* Covers the click wheel

It is the only case that I've come across that covers the clickwheel as well. I'm sure there are others, but that just sold me. Sure, getting it onto the iPod may be difficult. It's a two-piece case, and I was relatively tentative when prying it open, in fear of breaking it. But it's definitely durable. It's extremely snug as well, not making the iPod look bulky.

On another note, it does leave full access to the headphones jack, the port on the bottom, and the lock button on top.

The only CON that got to me was that I couldn't fit the iPod on a charging dock with the case on, though that wasn't a big deal to me. I had no difficulty hooking it up to my laptop.

I was able to pick this case up at my local Wal-Mart, and also saw it at Meijer (but cannot find it on their site).

Would I recommend this product? Definitely.

New Layout

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:50:00 +0000

So, after a looong time, I came back to post on my blog, only to find that something had gone rather awry with the template I had chosen for my blog. Well, it was time for a change anyway. My long-time template seemed to put off a more breezy vibe.

I began with a quick Google search, just skimming over some just-ok selections when I followed a link and happened upon a site with many lovely templates! BloggerStyles has a great collection if you're looking to spice up your blog. I'm definitely liking the one I found there. And, since it's spring, you may consider going toward something a little different. Happy template-hunting!

Cut Onions Without Crying [Tips]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:39:00 +0000

Wow, I haven't posted in a long while. And for that, I do apologize.

Cutting onions a difficult task? Here are some tips.

When slicing and dicing onions, you usually feel a harsh sting that brings tears to your eyes. But if you chew on some gum, you won't feel the sting AT ALL. I did this today with half a stick of gum and it worked just fine.

Also, filling up a bowl or pot with chilly water, and peeling and cutting the onion while holding it under the water works.

A friend once told me that dumping the onion in the freezer a few minutes before works as well, but I've not tried this before.

And, according to Lifehacker, cutting a cone out on the underside of the onion where the roots come out works as well, as that's the part that makes your eyes watery.

Why Having a Good PR Matters

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:21:00 +0000

Of course, everyone knows that having a good PR (someone who deals with public relations) matters. But how much? Does the quality even matter? Yes, yes it does. I'll tell you a little story about some experiences I had yesterday.

As you may (or may not) know, I'll be heading off to college before I know it. Yesterday, I attended a college fair and following my counselor's advice, tried to stay away from the generic questions everyone asks, such as "how large are the average class sizes" (17-19) or "what kinds of activities are available" (there's something for everyone). So, I went around, firing questions like "what would you say incoming freshmen complain about the most" or "if you could change any one thing about the school, what would it be," as they're not spoon-fed those answers.

The reps that were at the fair basically had a direct impact on what I thought of their schools. A rep that could answer all of my questions in an easy manner automatically received major points for their school, as opposed to a rep that was far too figity or told me that the information I was looking for was in the brochure (two reps did this, and one of them had been a university I'd been considering).

Only one representative was able to make a huge, positive impact on my list, and major props to him for that, because up until that point, I hadn't even considered the school he was portraying. But now, it's definitely in my top ten, as opposed to a school that had been in my top five, but the rep wasn't really open to talking. He delivered his answers in neatly cut, short sentences. He simply refused to elaborate, no matter how tricky the questions were. Major loss of points.

After the fair, I headed over to Taco Bell to grab myself some lunch. I don't think I've ever seen anyone taking my order so cheerfully! Up until that point, my mood have been relatively bland, but after giving my order, I was instantly cheered up! The food was good as well. The chalupas were neither stale nor cold, as they usually are when I order them. On my way out, I picked up a hospitatlity survey to fill out later. I'll definitely recommend that specific Taco Bell to my friends.

Had the person taking my order been bland, I probably wouldn't have been as likely to think of it so positively. Had more reps been more forthcoming in answering my questions, I would have been more likely to consider them.

If you are a business of any sort and are sending out a representative, make sure it is someone who is easily approachable, someone who gets along with all kinds of people and can make conversation with everyone. Someone who can speak positively about the business, while answering any and all kinds of questions, thoroughly informing a prospective customer.

Remember, if someone isn't familiar with your business, your representative will have a direct impact on what they think about it.

Best Ab Workouts [Fitness]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:37:00 +0000

I'm sure you all already know that many people desire to have killer abs. Why? The abs are the "core" of the body, the center in a sense. Along with improving how you feel about yourself, strengthening your tummy muscles also:

improves your posture and balance
protects your internals
improves your strength and speed

But doing crunches isn't just enough. And you don't always have access to a workout machine or gym. Here is a video I came across the other day that has six amazing ab workouts. You can pretty much drop down and do these exercises anywhere! (Hint: Think about bookmarking the video from its original source, because it's definitely worth giving a second look!)

Here's the magical link!

It's on the MSN lifestyle site, for those of you who are wondering. If you'd rather copy and paste the link, here it is:

http://mindbodybalance.msn.com/?section=episodes&content=202_balance&source=msn?GT1=25048#/episodes/202_balance/

My Pandora Replacement [Music]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:20:00 +0000

Ok, so that's a fib. Pandora isn't really being replaced. I love Pandora! Instead, I'm turning towards an alternative for Pandora, and it isn't one of the services I had reviewed earlier. Recently, I've taken to using an old player I hadn't given much thought the first time around.

What's the alternative? Grooveshark. The look simply didn't catch me at the first go. But second time around, I learned that the interface is slick.

Some high points of the service:

* crazy nice look
* don't need an account to play music (but I still have one, to make playlists and such)
* can navigate the site without interrupting music playback. This one is huge. I hate having my music interrupted, or having to open the player in a popup.
* add songs to favorites, playlists
* view your recently played and recently viewed songs (I find this to be nifty)
* add people to favorites (this is a nice feature if you have friends on the site, I guess)
* view popular songs
* upload your music (I haven't, and won't try this, but it's available)
* "people similar to me" feature (not working for me yet.. maybe I haven't favorited enough songs?)
* recommendations (play a song, click Autoplay, and skip/listen/rate songs to your heart's content)
* get info on a song (and a list of similar songs)
* search by genre, artist, song, album, people, and playlists

Just take a look if you don't want to create an account. It's seriously pretty great. I've been pretty satisfied with the results. And when I'm not, I just clear the queue or skip the song. Or drag and drop the song into the trash can. Yes, you can drag and drop the puzzle pieces.

Give it a swing and let me know what you think!

Speed Dial Start Pages [Review]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:23:00 +0000

If you've used Opera before, chances are you're familiar with its Speed Dial start page. Recently, I've gone to thinking exactly how nifty this feature is. Chrome offers something mildly similar, displaying the nine most visited sites in a 3 by 3. But what if you don't use either Opera or Chrome? What if you want an on-the-go speed dial start page you can access from any computer? If you're looking for a speed dial like home page, have no fear. You'll find some great similar to speed dial start pages here.

In this article:

Yesterday, I set aside about two minutes per site (except for BonzoBox, as I've previously tried it out) to give each one a swing, then compiled some basic info on all of them.

*Note: If you will be using my data, please do drop me a note. It'd be greatly appreciated. :)

Also, the data table scrolls pretty far to the right. Sorry about the sizing issues.

Of course, there were some that I clearly preferred over others. BonzoBox seems to feature more on community rather than to serve as a basic speed dial tool. The interface of Only2Clicks seemed just a little gaudy to me, but that's just my preference. I wanted something simple, something that provided the Speed Dial feature, with more than just nine sites I could bookmark. SafariDial is excellent, but I don't like the box at the top (picky, I know). Same complaint with MyClusta.

So which did I deem best? Well, for me, it came down to Hompeage Startup and 3x3Links, because of their simplistic looks. Ultimately, I went with 3x3Links, because of the hotkeys, but I may revert to Homepage Startup because 3x3Links doesn't always correctly render in Chrome (my default browser).

Homepage Startup is an excellent one if you want to sort your speed dials into separate tabs, or want to share your homepage with others. It is about as upfront as you get, and you can see snapshots of the pages you've bookmarked.

While 3x3Links doesn't provide snapshots of pages, it does sometimes provide logos in their place, and does provide an option to upload logos/images. And while you cannot sort the sites into tabs, you can group them into folders - a hierarchy system of sorts. Also, if you're a keyboard shortcut lover like myself, you'll appreciate the hotkeys feature. If you're at a desktop, you can use your keypad to select bookmarks/folders. If you're working off of a laptop, you can still use the hotkeys feature - instead of hitting the numbers though, you must use 7 - 8 - 9 as they are, and u - i - o (as 4 - 5 - 6) and j - k - l (as 1 - 2 - 3).

Firefox users, I hear there's also a speed dial mimicing add on if you'd rather not register for something new. Give it a shot.

So, there's my run down. Do you use something different? Not like speed dials at all? Did I leave one out? Please do share your thoughts. :)

Email Reminder Services [Productivity]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:27:00 +0000

Even the best of us forget about appointments, projects, and birthdays at times. But not to worry - the world of tech has tools to help you keep in check, if you check your email often, like myself.

Now, there aren't only email reminder services - you can also receive SMS reminders and even calls! Great, right? Here are some services I've had a decent experience with:

Resnooze (optional registration)
forLater
Urge-Me
HassleMe
HitMeLater
Google Calendar (Google/Gmail account required)

(note: not all of these sites are ".com" sites, so to give them a spin, just click one of the hyperlinks or simply Google them)

Resnooze is probably the one out of these with the most options, aside from Google Calendar, but there aren't so many options that it doesn't even make sense. After entering your email and either a URL or title for your reminder, you can set a recurring reminder (daily/weekly/monthly). Slightly above the button that reads "Resnooze," you can click advanced settings to select a particular time at which you'd like for the reminder to be dropped in your inbox as well as custom intervals (3 weeks, 2 months, etc..). You can set up an account, but it isn't required.

forLater doesn't offer an option for recurring reminders. Instead, it's more for just one-timers. Enter your email, subject, text, and time, and you're ready to go!

Urge-Me is even simpler. Ok, it is the most simple reminder service I've come across. And it happens to be in beta, but that's beside the point. There are three boxes on their landing page: one for your email, one for the subject, and one for the date you'd like to be reminded by. So if you'd like to be reminded about something within three month's time, you'll get a reminder each month, then one two weeks before, one week before, and a few days before (according to their "learn more" page).

HassleMe does what its name suggests. If you like (*ahem* need) incessant reminders to keep you on task, this is the perfect tool. Give it a spin if you're horrible with keeping up with New Year's Resolutions or need to be reminded to do your laundry. Enter roughly how many days you'd like to receive your "hassle" and what you'd like to be reminded about, as well as your email. You never quite know when you'll receive your reminder, which is what makes this service unique. For example, I receive nags (set to roughly every day) to go eat an apple. Seriously. So, every time I log into my Gmail and see the hassle, I head into the kitchen, grab an apple, and proceed with checking my inbox.

HitMeLater is great. Seriously. It's one I've taken to liking a great deal. Why? If you happen to be too busy to respond to an email, but know you need to, forward it to 6hours@hitmelater.com to receive it again in 6 hours. Of course, this number can be changed (to minutes, days, weeks, and even months). Check out their site for more instructions.

Google Calendar is the only one of these that actually requires an account (but if you have a blogger, gmail, reader, or Google account, you needn't worry). Once you add an event to your calendar, you can go to the settings and set how many days before the event you'd like to receive an email reminder. Though I do have an account, I hardly use this. Guess I'm just not too big on calendars.

All of these are great in their own ways, but I'd especially recommend bookmarking at least HitMeLater and maybe even HassleMe.

For SMS reminders, phone call reminders, and more, check out Mashable's awesome list of 30+ Reminder Services.

Do you use something different to receive reminders? Prefer to use the old paper and pen method? Let me know in the comments. :)

Share Tabs, not Pages [Site Spotlight]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:27:00 +0000

We've got a plethora of URL-shorteners available to us, including TinyURL, Bit.ly, and is.gd. We use these to shorten urls in comments, emails, and Twitters. But what of it when we want to share more than one page? Should we copy and paste several shortened URLs? No!

Enter ShareTabs. ShareTabs is also a URL shortener, but it doesn't shorten just one URL. You simply visit the basic site, enter the URLs you want to include (be sure to put http:// before each one though), personalize the address if you wish, and tabify them! You'll be presented with a short URL that will open up one page with tabs along the top of the page. Simple, yeah?

When you click the shortened URL, you'll land on a speed-dial like page with previews of the tabbed pages. Very nice. The only downside is that personalized URLs for "social sites" won't show any preview. Aka, if I link to my Twitter, no snapshot will be available, but if I link to Twitter in general, a snapshot of Twitter's homepage will show up. Nothing big, because the tabs will render just fine. A snapshot just won't be available on the preview tab.

I haven't found myself using this much, but I've got some scenarios where I think this could be used quite well:

- Imagine yourself working on a group project. You've found several sites with research you think may come in handy and want to share it with a group member. Instead of pasting each link, one-by-one, you go to ShareTabs, enter the URLs, and IM your pal the link that will contain all of the pages, tabbed.
- Now, you're a teacher. To make it even more fitting, you're an elementary teacher who is taking her students to the computer lab. Now, all of these kids are reasonably slow typists, with the exception of Jill, who just taps away at her keyboard. You want to make the most of the time in here with your students, so you'd rather not waste time waiting for them to type out the URLs of each site you want them to visit. So you've already "tabified" the pages and have written the ShareTabs URL on the marker board. You tell them to type that in, and you're all set to go!

Here is an example I put together for you. I've also included the Twitter example so you can see what I mean (linking to Twitter, and to my own page).

Check it out. Even if you don't know what you'll use it for yet, it's a good tool to bookmark!

ShareTabs.com

image credit: wizardstower.co.uk & lifehacker.com

Write Better with OneWord.com [Site Spotlight]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:14:00 +0000

Just today, I came across an awesome online tool that I almost immediately fell in love with. OneWord.com is pretty straightforward in the service it does: each day, a word is presented and you are given 60 seconds flat to free write.

This site doesn't focus on teaching visitors new words, not in the least. The words are pretty basic. Today's was princess. When you visit the site, you hit the go button and are presented with the word of the day in the header. From there, you write away for 60 seconds, and submit what you wrote if you wish to. You need not register.

This is excellent for those who want to become better writers or want to practice coming up with something right on the spot. To me, the focus of this exercise is being able to spontaneously come up with quality content, being able to right my exact thoughts of the moment then and there.

You shouldn't care what others think quite so much. Don't think. Just write.

Give it a shot and let me know what you think!

Best Online Music Services [Review]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:41:00 +0000

Music is everywhere, from in our homes to in our pockets. American Idol, our cellphones, iPods, internet radios.. I'd say music plays a pretty big role (even if it's not too prominent) in today's culture.

Some time ago, I wrote a post about different "styles" of online bookmarking. This time around, I will be discussing the following four different online music services:

Chances are, you've heard of and/or used two or three of these. Last.FM has a good reputation of its own. Pandora has gained quite a bit of popularity over the past year or two. iLike .. well, they've gained a fair amount of traction. Blip.FM, you probably haven't heard of too much.

Last.FM could probably be classified as a social network. The community is fairly active. You can "friend" other users, send private messages to them, and leave shouts (comments). You can listen to radios by entering a certain artist's name, by tags, or by a user's library. You can see which artists and tracks have gained traction with the charts. And the site has quite a large database. And it's fun connecting with people with similar music tastes. I've had a number of users suggest new bands and songs through messages. Last.FM is a good site, but I primarily use it to "bookmark" songs I like. Any song I hear and like, I go to Last.FM to find and add it to my library, because I know I'll find it in their database. You can find me on Last.FM here.

Pandora is an old favorite. I, and a number of my friends, use it (but they just refuse to try Last.FM for some odd reason). Pandora, if you haven't heard, turns out music recommendations. Out of the four, I'd have to say it is the easiest to use (not that any of them difficult to figure out). The interface is pleasing and simple. You can enter either an artist or a particular song, or multiples of each, or a combination of both, or listen to a certain genre. You're certainly not limited there! However, Pandora is only open to U.S. citizens, sorry folks. That, and their collection isn't quite as large as Last.FM's, though it is decent. Also, I'd have to say that Pandora's community isn't all that social. You can add people and leave comments, but ehh.. their design just makes me not want to socialize. Pandora's a great tool for discovering other music you may (or may not) like, though, so thumbs up to them.

iLike is, I believe, the most popular music app on Facebook. I'm not too big of an iLike user, but they're definitely worth looking in to. The team certainly deserves props on their nice app. There is some social interaction, but not as much as on Last.FM. You can find concerts near you, connect with friends, link your iLike profile to your Facebook, Hi5, or Bebo account, create a playlist, and play the music challenge game, which can be fun if you have friends on Facebook (or Hi5 or Bebo) who have added the app as well. I resort to iLike when Pandora or Last.FM aren't helping me find new music. You can select from a number of radios, from personalized stations to the fastest spreading songs to specific genres.

Lastly, Blip.FM is probably one you haven't heard of too much, but it's definitely one of my personal favorites. Instead of listening to recommendations or selecting a radio or skimming through similar content, you choose the song you want to listen to. Blip.FM is like Twitter for music. You search for a song, "blip" it with up to 150 characters (which then will appear in the main stream on the front page), and try to earn "props" from other users. You can follow other DJ's if you like some of the stuff they're blipping, and hopefully you'll discover something new. My only complaint is that their search isn't the best. Sometimes, you have to dig to find the song you're looking for, but of course, this isn't always true. I personally enjoy Blip.FM. Give it a shot, you might too. You can find me on Blip.FM here.

This is a roundup of my favorite four music services. I know there are loads more, but these are the ones I'd recommend. In what order? Well, it'd most likely go:
- Pandora
- Last.FM
- Blip.FM
- iLike

The first three are ones I use on a regular basis. iLike, for some reason, just doesn't appeal too much to me. Pandora, I use just about every day of the week. And I hear their iPhone/iPod Touch app is pretty neat. Most downloaded, I believe. Last.FM is where I store my entire collection of songs I like. So, if I come across a song in Pandora that I'm really diggin', I open up Last.FM in another tab, and add it to my library. Blip.FM's good for some time-pass music listening.

These are my favorites. What do you use to listen to your music (besides an mp3/iPod)? Have you tried any of these services and not liked them? If so, what gave them negative points in your book?

Snackr - Your Feeds on the Go [Review]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:03:00 +0000

If you've been reading about my productivity /time management issues, you know from my last post that I've uncovered something that's helped me manage my RSS Feeds better: Snackr.

What is Snackr (snackr.net, by the way)? It is, in my opinion, the best desktop app by far. It is a desktop RSS ticker, scrolling your feeds alongside the edges of your screen. And it's got a cutesie name: Snackr. And the logo has a little bite taken out of it. Snackr, feeds, snacking on your feeds.. get it? Haha, cute.

Anyway, you can either add your own feeds individually, or you can integrate it with your Google Reader, which is what I've done, and it's proven to be quite wonderful. If I add a feed directly from Snackr on my desktop, it will be added to my Reader. If I click on an item and read it from the application, it will be marked as read in the Reader. Same thing if I star an item. However, if you would like to incorporate Google Reader integration, when you go to snackr.net , be sure to click source code at the top so as to download the test version that works with Google Reader.

Using it is pretty self-explanatory. Once opened, your feeds scroll by, and when you see something of interest, you click it to read it, and a dialogue box with the article/picture/post will appear to the side and the feed items will momentarily stop scrolling until you are finished reading/viewing the opened item. Any items older than a certain number of days (the "age" of the item is displayed beneath the title) is automatically marked as read (aka not displayed). You can change this through preferences.

If you are working on something and Snackr happens to be in your way, you can either collapse it, drag and drop it to one of the other edges of your screen, or just close it. You can change the opacity (so if you just want it to be completely see-through, well.. that's your choice).

The only complaint I have regarding it is that, at times, it pauses, but only for a second or two, but it's probably just refreshing.

Overall, I think being able to view my feeds as they scroll on by while I'm working on something else is easier than flipping through tabs, and am genuinely pleased with what Snackr has to offer. I would definitely recommend it.

Have you tried out Snackr or do you intend to? Do you use a different desktop rss ticker, or do you prefer to view your feeds in a reader (or receive them my email)?

Screenshots accessible on Snackr website.

Information Overload Series, Part III [Productivity]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:45:00 +0000

Note: This post is a part of a mini-series as I take you along on my journey as I attempt to solve my info-overload problem, in hopes of helping or altogether preventing you from going through a similar mess. If you have any suggestions, questions, or comments, please do share! [Part I ] [Part II ]

I fibbed, and I apologize for that. In my previous post, I had said I'd tell you of a tool that helped me unclutter my gReader yesterday, but am one day late.

So.. are you ready for this?

The tool that helped me spend less time in Google Reader is called Snackr. What is it? Well, it's a desktop RSS ticker. So now, instead of leafing through tabs to go from whatever I'm currently working on, I just glance to the side to see my feeds scroll on by, and if I see anything of interest, I click!

You can find my review of Snackr here.

I DO recommend giving it a try.

Ajwain, Salt, and Water [Health]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:47:00 +0000

I've got another natural remedy/tip for you! For those of you who do not recognize what is pictured to the left, in my home, we call it ajwain.

Those of you who are familiar with those seeds recognize them as carom seeds.

Carom seeds, taken with some salt and lukewarm water, are great for relieving stomach aches.

What you do is quite simple. Wash your hands completely. You will be taking this from the palm of your hand, literally. Take a cup and fill it with lukewarm water (just make sure it isn't cold). Next, bring out the jar of carom seeds and the salt. Take about half a teaspoon of salt and dump it into the palm of your hand. Take half a teaspoon of dry carom seeds and pour it over the salt in your hand. Now take your fingers, and mix up the little mixture to the best of your ability, as to not have all of the salt concentrated in one place. Now comes the hardest part of all (but it's really not that tough). Tilt your head back, toss it all into your mouth (do NOT bite the seeds), and wash it down with the water.

I don't know about you, but this natural remedy for stomach aches makes me feel better instantly.

While researching for some sites to back me up on this claim, I learned a few other things about carom seeds. Turns out, it (just like every other natural thing out there) has numerous benefits (when used in different ways), including:

- carom seeds are good for people with asthma and heartburn
- great digestive
- helpful with the common cold or headache
- relieves heartburns
- helps with toothaches and earaches

*note: These uses above don't comply with the salt-and-water use. The site I've linked to at the end of this post provides more information on what you use with carom seeds to help relieve the other issues.

These listed above are what I've found through my research, but the one I can claim validity of (for myself, anyway) is the use of carom seeds (with salt and water) as a stomach pain reliever. My mother used to give the mix to me when I was a little tyke, and I use it to this day when my tummy gets a-hurtin'. Below, I've provided a site I found with immense, helpful information on carom (not just the seeds) for you to take a look at. I found it all to be quite interesting.

- Benefits of Ajwain (Carom Seeds)

Well, there you go! I hope you learned something. If not, please do keep visiting, and hopefully, I'll be able to introduce you a little something new. Have a wonderful weekend.

Information Overload Series, Part II [Productivity]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:02:00 +0000

..And I'm back with part dos of my mini-series! Part one basically told you what was up: I was being drowned by information, all of which I'd brought upon myself! My inbox has well over 2000 unread items, I'm in numerous social networks, and I had subscribed to waaay too many blogs. The first problem I had wanted to tackle was my bloated Google Reader, and I hit it with full force.

As you may recall (or not, either way..), I was subscribed to 263 blogs. And of course, there aren't enough hours to read all of the content they generate in a day, so I worked on cutting back to a reasonable number. Tried snipping out all of that noise, and now I'm down to 178 blogs! Big difference, right? What is that.. a total of 85 blogs snipped out? Greatly reduced the noise that was buzzing in my gReader.

How? Well, one morning, while sipping on my lemon water , I went over to the reader and took a look at the trends page. Which blogs were completely inactive? Wait, this one hasn't updated since May 12th, 2008? After dropping a quick visit to the site to see if they'd relocated, I unsubscribed. Which ones was I just not reading? Unsubscribed. Which turned out content I didn't find interesting at all? Unsubscribed.

The next step was utilizing the tools available to me. Twitter was one. Quite a few bloggers now have a Twitter account, and some tweet about their latest posts. After checking out a blogger's Twitter stream and seeing if this was so, I followed them on Twitter and unsubscribed from their blog in Reader. So in a sense, I was just relocating. Now, instead of the unread number haunting me, I can just skim over the tweets. Much more helpful.

I also dug up a tool I had discovered around about May 2008, which I hadn't utilized due to the fact that I hadn't fully understood how it could benefit me. What is it? Well, you'll just have to wait and see. But I promise I won't make you wait too long, as it may benefit YOU as well!

In fact, I may even write about it later today!

Image credit: mikevardy.ca

GOTD [Site Spotlight]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:41:00 +0000

We all more than likely have a list of sites we visit on a regular basis. Sort of like a routinely ritual we fall into the moment we log in.

I'd like to share with you all a site I visit often: Giveaway Of The Day .

Giveaway of the Day, aka GOTD, does just what the name suggests. The team gives away one software title on a daily basis, at no cost. Yes, for an entire day, you are able to download a software title legally. The best bit? These aren't trial versions.. these are fully registered and legal copies.

Are the giveaways any good? Most certainly! But I don't recommend making a grab for every single one. A variety of software is offered, from converters and startup managers to editors and screensavers. If you're not quite sure whether the software offered is a good choice, check the ratings others have given it and scroll through the comments. This often helps me in making a decision.

These downloads are adware and spyware - free. The only limitations tend to be that you cannot use the software for commercial use and that you must activate it on the day it is given away.

A quick tip: be sure to uninstall any programs you no longer use to keep your desktops/laptops from becoming over-crowded with 'junkware.'

Hope this helps you in finding some great software!

Making The World A Slighly Better Place [Other]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:46:00 +0000

I'm going to share with you an experience I had yesterday. Nearly every Thursday, I volunteer in my community. Whether it be at a local library, shelving books and helping kids with their homework, or at the hospital, or just recycling, I typically devote somewhere between half an hour to two hours nearly every week.

Not because I have to, but because I want to. It makes me feel like I'm giving back to the wonderful community I live in.

So, yesterday I was out emptying recycling bins in a school when I entered the copying room where a teacher appeared to be running off some worksheets. Just as I picked up the bin to go empty it, she called after me and said, "Thank you. I really do appreciate it!"

I cannot tell you how great those two simple sentences made me feel.

Next time you see someone doing some sort of service, whether it be a cashier, nurse, teacher, janitor, bus driver, or maybe just the kind, elderly man holding the door open for you, offer them a "thank you" or "have a great day." Simple sentences like these are great moral boosters. By just uttering a few words, you will be making the world a slightly better place.

Image credit: suzylamplugh.org

TasteKid Recommendation Engine [Site Spotlight]

noreply@blogger.com (deepikaur) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:11:00 +0000

Recommendation engines.. you've more than likely heard of one or another. Pandora or Last.FM for music, LibraryThing for books, Digg for content, maybe Flixter for movies.

I'm going to share what is probably my personal choice in recommendation engines: TasteKid.

I discovered TasteKid through a Google search slightly less than a year ago. It popped up in the Sponsored Links. I clicked and definitely wasn't disappointed. Not only does the site have an easy-to-navigate look and a too-adorable appeal, the recommendations are up to par.

The site, though relatively new, focuses mainly on music, books, and movies. Emmy's (the mascot, thus the "TasteKid") recommendations are usually spot-on. Though I could see some ways the recommendations could improve (such as, giving more specific song or album names instead of bands), it is still pretty good (you'd still be better off putting in a band name rather than song names). But it's indeed an excellent tool. For example, if I put in Plain White T's and Jack's Mannequin (you can put in several bands/movies/books), the results that come out include some artists that I already listen to. If a band I've never heard of pops up, I can hover my mouse over the little blue question mark and I'll be able to read a slight description and view a YouTube video that (hopefully) has one of the band's music videos.

Give TasteKid a spin and let me know what you think.