Life Begun

Friendships and family are the most important things in the world. When life has you down, it is always your family and friends who will be the ones there to pull you out. But we often take these relationships for granted and don’t put the time into developing and maintaining them as we do with our careers. That can be a massive mistake. If you want to make sure your friends continue to be there for you, you should start reciprocating right now. Here are some ideas.

Photo By Fazen

1) Give a compliment – When you are familiar with someone and see them all the time, it’s easy to slip into taking them for granted. When is the last time you gave your friend a warm and genuine compliment without expectation of reciprocation or reward. Do it now. It will almost certainly be appreciated and yes, although you shouldn’t do it for this reason, it will likely be reciprocated. It’s not a difficult thing to do and it will help your relationship with your friend remain stable and on solid ground.

2) Help out their family – One large source of friction in people’s lives is often the “competition” between their family and their friends for their time. It may not be articulated like that, but it can be a source of stress to a friend to have to see you in favour of their family or vice-versa. A really easy way to ease that stress in their life is to do something for their family or a family member. It doesn’t have to be huge. Pick their baby brother up from soccer practice or something. Good deeds don’t go unnoticed and your friend and their family will appreciate it. Any tension will be eased. And your friend will feel better for it.

3) Know when to back off – While good friendship will always be one of the great things in life, it can also feel smothering to some people. There are a lot of assumed expectations and you are often, in many people’s eyes, competing for time with your friend’s family and partner. A sure fire way to have a worse relationship with a good friend is to put even more pressure on them to spend time with you. Don’t be the high-maintenance friend. Give them their space and it will be appreciated. You may even find that your friend chooses to spend more time with you as you are not putting pressure on them like the others in their life.

Friendships need to be worked on. They can be the most wonderful thing in your life, but you should never take a good friend for granted. A little effort in this relationship goes a long way.

For some of us, social settings are not the most comfortable place to be. Crowds can freak a lot of people out and it’s generally not something we’re used to doing. But there are certain things you need to keep in mind. Like typical mistakes that the socially challenged fall into again and again. Not good! Here are a few of the most obvious things that you can avoid to help you steer clear of socially awkward situations.

No Small Talk – No matter who you are, you need to have a few small talk options up your sleeve for those socially awkward silences. Usually asking the other person something about themselves can save this one. “Where did you get your shoes?” or “So how do you know the host?” are pretty common ones. Remember to keep a few up your sleeve.

Get Critical – If you’re in a group social setting with people who are not your closest friends, then there is almost no situation where criticizing others is going to be appropriate. Don’t criticize other guests, don’t criticize the food – just steer away from criticizing anything. It will backfire when you find out your new acquaintances organised the food and are friends with the girl wearing the ugly dress!

Dress Inappropriately – Make sure you find out beforehand what the appropriate dress standard is for any social gathering you are going to. Don’t be the odd person out wearing jeans when everyone else is wearing a suit. It is awkward and puts the spotlight on you therefore making the occasion far more stressful. A little planning ahead can help you avoid this one.

Get Blotto – If you can’t act like a normal human being when you drink, then don’t drink in social settings. More careers have been stalled by people ignoring this simple rule than almost any other social mistake.

Photo by Miss Loisy

Ignore People – Never ever ignore people at a social function. You never know who they are or who their friends are, but more importantly it’s just not a nice thing to do. You are better than that. When you are friendly to everyone (even the ones who are not friendly to you) then karma will be kind to you.

Hover Over the Food – Nobody likes a pig. Go to the food, take a small portion and step away. Allowing others to get their share of the onions on a stick goes a long way. And if you hover around the food all evening, people will notice.

Text and Call – If you’re in a social setting then you need to put the phone away unless it’s an emergency. This is becoming such a social mistake that current affairs TV shows are starting to do stories on impolite phone use. Don’t be the person who texts their boyfriend every 2 minutes and backs out of conversations so they can answer their phone. It’s rude. People notice.

Ok, some of these are worse than others are sure, if it’s an emergency or important then it’s ok to use your phone. But be aware that most people find any of the above quite rude. Is that the person you are? Is that the person you want to be? Only you can make that call, but if you’re still reading then chances are this type of thing is important to you and you should take the advice.

Getting your life in order sometimes takes a little bit of help. Luckily the good citizens of the internet are always coming to the rescue with awesome free software and applications that help us do exactly that. Here are a few of our favourites.

Mint.com – A fantastic and automatic solution to download your financials from your bank account and organise them. It’s great to know exactly where you are with money and know that you are going forward rather than backwards.

Remember the Milk -  A site that basically gives you a shopping or to do list. Never forget anything you need to do again with this great online application.

Read It Later – When you see something online that you want to read but don’t have time, you often spend more time searching for it later than you do actually reading it. This plug-in will let you keep a list of things to read later when you have more time!

Free Download Manager – Increase the speed of your online downloads by up to 600% and resume downloads that were interrupted. You can even share files with this one.

Open Office – We know we have talked about this one before, but it’s simply awesome for spreadsheets, word processing and anything else you could expect from an office suite. Easily as good as most paid software options!

Biz Plan 3 – If you have any type of personal commercial venture, then a good business plan is imperative. This program is a great place to start.

Retirement Forecaster – If you want to have a well financed retirement, then you need to start planning right now. The government won’t help you and unless you’re expecting a big inheritance, then you’re on your own. This software will help you plan!

Gmail rocks my socks. Besides the fact that you also get the rest of Google’s great tools for free like Calendar, Docs, and Feed Reader, it’s just a great way to organise your communications and your productivity. Here are a bunch more ways to make it even more awesome.

Image by YoavShapira

GTD Inbox – This is a great paid Firefox add-on that will be very useful in saving you a lot of time and helping you manage your time better. Inspired by the folks who brought us the “Getting Things Done” phenomenon.

Better Gmail 2 – From LifeHacker, this Firefox add-on gives you an entire new Gmail interface.

GSpace – Is another Firefox add-on to let you use your Gmail inbox as a file storage solution and you can access your stored files from anywhere!

GPhoto Space – Turns Gmail into a private repository of your digital photo collection.

Remember the Milk – From the makers of a fantastic productivity site, this add-on helps with your to-do lists!

Gmail Notifier – The Gmail Notifier is an application that alerts you when you have new Gmail messages. It displays an icon in your system tray to let you know if you have unread Gmail messages, and shows you their subjects, senders and snippets, all without your having to open a web browser.

Google Toolbar with Gmail Search -  As the link says. Pretty cool if you have a large volume of email.

Search Gmail in Firefox – Cool little script written many years ago.

Add Gmail Inbox to Your Feed Reader – For if you want to read your email with your daily news.

Use Gmail to Store Files (with linux) – If you have stuff you want to back up, why not use Gmail?

Gmail Icon Generator – If you want to put your Gmail address on the web, but don’t want spam, use this to make your address an image. (Way Cool)

Gmail Notifier for Trillian – If you use this popular IM client, then get notified of new emails straight to it!’

Log Your Trillian Conversations to Gmail – A great way to back up your IM conversations using Gmail.

Gmail as a Journal – Great way to use labels to use Gmail as a journal.

Remove Ads from Gmail – Need we say more?

Gmail Assistant – Get notified of mail in multiple Gmail accounts – very handy for online workers.

Gmail Remote Command – Use your Gmail account to control your PC remotely.

Google Gmail Loader – Import all your e-mail from other accounts into Gmail.

Gmail Manager Extension – Check your Gmail directly from Firefox without having to log in via the web.

Gmail Clipse Client – Manage multiple Gmail accounts under one email client.

Gmail Skins – Re-skin your email with some cool designs.

The incredible thing about Gmail is the amazing community of selfless people who develop tools around it. That they take time out of their day to develop such great apps, usually for free, deserves praise. But more than that it’s a great opportunity for us to get some great tech working for us!

It’s time for a little inspiration to start the week. I really like these mountain photos and hope you do too.

Photo by Papalars

 

Photo by Stuck in Customs

 

Photo by Swamysk

 

Photo by Oneeighteen

 

Photo by CW Ye

 

Photo by Unitopia

 

Photo by rla579

 

Photo by Swisscan

 

Photo by Miyukiutada

 

Photo by Luberon

 

Photo by Seema KK

One of the finest goals that anyone can aspire to is to educate themselves. Now education takes many forms and many people are able to educate themselves. And of course, there are the famous examples of successful people raising themselves up beyond what was expected of them and becoming massive success stories without the benefit of a college education.

The reality is though, that such stories are the exception rather than the norm.

College graduates dominate our politics, our companies and our social leadership. The great thing about living in a free and open society though is that you have the means to emulate their success at your disposal. Here are some reasons you might like to think about it.

 

Click on Image to enlarge.

While we haven’t included the exact statistics for women in our graphic, they mirror those of men. And women outnumber men in postgraduate entry by 59% to 41%.

The crux of all of this is play the numbers! Yes, you might be the next formally uneducated billionaire, but chances are your success will be more assured by going and getting a college education.

With wages of non-tertiary educated workers on a downward spiral, the dominance of college educated workers in positions of power in industry and government, it would seem logical that if you wish to emulate such financial and social success you should certainly be heading for the books.

Productivity is the hallmark of most successful people. We luckily live in an age where there are a huge array of tools and products that can help us become more productive. Here are seven free online applications that will help you increase your own productivity and hopefully become one of those successful people!

Photo by TXKimmers

Google Docs – When you need to create documents, spreadsheets or presentations – the bread and butter of most companies, then most people turn to Microsoft Office. The problem is that MS Office is extortionately expensive. Use Google Docs if you want similar functionality functionality in a familiar interface for free.

BaseCamp – If you do any type of group collaboration online on any type of project, then you need to check this site out. It has a huge array of features for sharing, delegating and communicating with all of the people involved in a project.

GoToMeeting – If you need to set up any type of meeting online or offline then this free tool can track everything for you. It also offers an online conferencing facility for paid members which can be handy.

SiteKreator – If you need a good looking website, you don’t always have to hire a developer. Just use this very functional and free online tool to present your own content on the web in a very attractive way.

ToodleDo – This is an online tool to track your daily tasks. It even has collaboration features and is aimed to help you become more productive. It’s also compatible with other online to do lists as well as a bunch of mobile devices. Certainly one worth check out.

SlimTimer – If you charge your clients by the hour or just want to keep track of how you are spending your time, then this free online timesheet tracker is a good place to start. If you know what you have been doing then you can more easily make changes to become more efficient with your time management.

Mint – Track your finances and know exactly where you are spending and getting your money. This lets you isolate areas of your finances that can be improved by either reigning in spending or expanding productive tasks.

Here are a few Firefox hacks to get you pumping with this awesome browser. If you like them, then don’t forget to check out our other article on how to speed up Firefox.

Image by Sparrow

Get Firefox to Use Gmail for Web Email Links

You know when you click on a “contact” link on the net and it suddenly launches Outook, but that irritates you cos you only have Outlook because it came with the computer and you don’t actually use it? Well here’s how to fix that.

1) Choose Tools >> Options and then click on the icon that says “Applications.”

2) Scroll down the list and find “mailto”

3) Select Gmail (or whatever one you want)

4) Click ok.

 

Get More Screen Space

If you’re like me you probably have about 500 toolbars installed with Firefox and well, it can get a little tough to actually see websites cos the screen space is so small. Do this:

1) Right click anywhere empty on the toolbar

2) Select “Customize”

3) Select “Use Small Icons”

4) Click “Done.”

There, that should free up a few centimetres for you.

 

Find Your Lost Passwords

A bunch of cool sites on the internet require logins. Logins require passwords. Passwords get forgotten. Here’s how to find them again.

1) Select “Tools”

2) Select “Options”

3) Click on the “Security” button

4) Click on “Saved Passwords”

5) Click on “Show Passwords”

And don’t forget to print them out so you don’t forget them again!

 

Increase Screen Font Size

I spend a LOT of time online. I am slowly (quickly?) going blind and I suspect I am not alone. Here’s a quick change you can make to the default setting of Firefox to help slow down that rapid decline:

1) Click “Tools”

2) Click “Options”

3) Click “Content”

4) In “Fonts and Colours” change default size to 18

Your optometrist will thank you.

 

Stop Others from Easily Seeing Your Browsing History

Ok, so some of us might value our privacy when surfing the internet. This hack won’t erase things and is certainly not a complete method to stopping people seeing where you have been on the internet, but it will stop the next person using the computer from seeing your browsing history by looking in the address bar.

1) Go to “Tools”

2) Click on “Options”

3) Click on “Privacy”

4) Click “Clear history when Firefox closes”

Actually, the privacy settings here are pretty straight forward to feel free to customize yours.

 

Go to That Site You Can’t Remember

It happens to me all the time. I recall some site I visited a day or two back (thinking at the time I would remember it) then can’t recall what the URL was! Here’s what you can do now!

1) Start typing the topic keywords in the address bar

2) There is no step two.

So for example, if the page was about cool Firefox hacks, simply type “cool firefox hacks” (without the “”) in the address bar and Firefox will go through all of your recent history that includes those keywords.

 

Make Firefox Load Faster

If you constantly visit the same sites, then Firefox is probably already storing certainly elements of those sites for easy and fast loading when you visit again. Here’s how to make that process even faster, by increasing the amount it can store.

1) Click on “Tools”

2) Click on “Options”

3) Click on the “Advanced” icon

4) Click on “Network”

5) In the “Default Storage” section change the “Use up to 50 MB” to 500

That means it should store even more goodness on your computer and make loading times slightly faster.

We’re all in this life together and whether you know it or not, everyone wants meaning in their life – many just don’t know how. The essence of meaning usually involves giving something of yourself. So we have come up with these fairly easy changes that you can make in your life to maybe give you something that you feel you are lacking.  None of these need even take a huge amount of time!

Photo by Swamibu

1) Volunteer – When you do something for somebody else without hope of reward, then you are close to realizing a fact that many regular volunteers already know. It makes you feel good!  Check out some volunteer opportunities in your location and pick up the phone!

2) Take Every Project Past Expectations – Modern living has led many of us to believe that close enough is good enough. The downside is that such an attitude leads to a sense of underachieving and worthlessness. When you do a job well, you will take away a lot of extra satisfaction. Whether it be your tasks at work, your relationships or your hobby, put in enough effort to exceed what was expected of you. The rewards will flow.

3) Adopt or Sponsor an Animal – There are thousands of homeless animals that need help either by giving them a loving family or by helping a loving family with the financial load of looking after an animal. Here are a few animals that are looking for sponsorship right now and of course, your local pound will be happy to help match you up with an animal looking for a home.

Photo by Iklash

4) Make a Donation – There are so many different charitable organizations who are looking for even the smallest amounts in donations. You know it will go to a worthwhile cause if you choose well. You probably don’t need that few extra bucks so why not give it to someone who does? Check out some great charities here.

5) Share Your Skills – There are so many different people and organizations that could really use your help. From local mom and pop stores who might need help doing their books to a local charity that might need help with a website. Define what you skills are and then try to match them up with people or groups that might need them. Simply offering your time and skills with no strings attached is always well received and you might even make a few new friends.

6) Forget the Crowd – This is a big one. Happiness is almost always inversely proportional to how much respect you pay to keeping up with the Joneses. Forget what your neighbours own. Forget what promotion the guy in the next cubicle got over you. Forget what brand Paris Hilton is wearing this week. You will be far more happy when you become your own person and follow your own path. Others will notice it and be drawn to you too.

7) Eliminate an Unproductive Habit – We all have poor habits that effect our personal and professional life. Too much time on the internet? What about watching TV? Spending money on useless knickknacks? Why not take that extra time or money and put it towards one of the other suggestions in this list?

8) Offer a Micro Loan – There are a lot of people who need a bit of a helping hand with money. In fact there is a great website to help both lenders and borrowers with small transfer amounts (as low as $25) between each other and help get people back on their feet in countries where small amounts go a long way. It’s a good thing to do and only takes you a few minutes to set up.

9) Forget the Money – If you are pursuing goals for a monetary reward only, then you will never have enough. It is an empty existence. When you do something, do it because it is the right thing to do.

10) Do Something Good Anonymously – True charity is anonymous. Do something knowing that the people who benefit from your actions will never ever even know your name. This will give you a sense of purpose and well being that you will never experience any other way.

Now with any of these changes, there is no need to get caught up in the size of the change. Small changes in your habits eventually lead to big outcomes. Just pick a few small things you can do and commit to making them happen.

Huge test coming up, cramming like the procrastinator you are and you need a few tips to retain all that academia from your art history class. No sweat, we have you covered, below you can find some pretty solid memory tricks that should help you out in your dire situation.

Photo by Pragmagraphr

1. Sleep, Rest, Eat – Did that make any sense to you? Your brain retains information more permanently after sleep, which explains why most people get delusional if they’re sleep deprived. So get some shut-eye and talk to me in the morning.

2. Music To My Ears – Listening to white noise, or classical music while studying stimulates parts of your brain that reading doesn’t, effectively allowing you to use a larger percentage of your brain when you didn’t even know you could!

3. Chewing Gum – Yes, yes, this is a big secret folks. Studies have shown that students actually perform better while chewing gum and taking a test, don’t ask me why, but it works.

4. Spicy Food! Maybe it’s a muscle memory thing that if you eat something spicy while you study, your brain will retain the information better. Wow, so I guess those hot cheetohs will finally get put to good use.

5. CRAM – Oh my, did I just commit the cardinal student sin by proclaiming that cramming may actually be GOOD for you. Well, yes, in a sense, cramming is good if you have a solid understanding of the information already. I don’t think cramming is good to learn from the get-go, but as refresher, it can help you access longer term memory on a shorter term basis.

6. Study partner – Teaching someone else material is a great way to retain information.

7. Pictures – The mind works better in pictures. If you have to memorize information or lists, then nothing works better than making a silly or funny picture of the items of that list in your mind. A extra secret is that we remember things to do with sex even more, so making that list into a sexual image is very powerful for recall.