sharkZapper, Take Control of Grooveshark...

Example with Cast of Cheers

sharkZapper lets you control your music from Grooveshark and see whats playing withou even having to switch tabs, gets live notifications and more

Only on Chrome: sharkZapper lets you control your music without having to go back and forth between tabs. I've spoken about how incredible I think Grooveshark is before, but it can be quite irksome having to always revert back to the tab its open in to use it.

Not Anymore!:  By clicking on the sharkZapper icon, you can pause, skip, favourite, and even search for songs right from the little dropdown window. You can also add a song to your library or tweak setting, all without having to search out your Grooveshark tab and open it. And if you're like me, there will be a lot of tabs to look through.

The only negative is that you still have to keep Grooveshark open, eating up valuable tab space.

sharkZapper is a free download, sharkZapper

Procrastination…

 

It’s funny to think that as I write this piece on Procrastination that I am in fact procrastinating myself. Working out any number of ways to avoid going to bed and be well rest for work tomorrow whilst also writing anything else but college work, so far I’ve done 4 reviews, a feature and a small piece on Facebook and have yet to make a single dent in the pile  of assignments that have looming due dates.

In the past few days the word Procrastination has come up a lot, be it in someone simply mentioning it in college, except everyone I know seems to be discussing it. How they are putting off assignments and have no idea why, how they have deadlines looming yet have no clue how to beat the slump, and recently I was linked to two interesting pieces:

One: A blog post written haphazardly about procrastination in the ramblings of a mad man and good friend… http://starkrantingmad.blogspot.com/2011/01/procrastination-watch-inception-before.html and the other is the video you will find when first viewing this post, presented to me by an artist friend who herself was procrastinating on an art project at the time.

I’ve decided to compile what is a simple list of a few tricks that require limited explanation to try and help you beat procrastination, I should really think of putting them into effect myself soon but I’ll find the time.

Music

If you are listening to music, and for most people this seems to be a must, they can’t sit in dead silence, that itself is far too distracting, listen to something new, and light, something you' can’t sing along too and distract yourself with. For me its a new album I plan on reviewing, I don’t fully listen to it but it doesn’t seem half as unfamiliar later.

Acknowledge your DISTRACTIONS!

One thing I’ve found that keeps me from doing work is other work, and this usually stems from emails from editors or others. Recognise that you have Facebook, have email to respond to etc. You CAN get back to it later, it will still be there. The time you have to do work won’t be.

Make DOABLE To-Do Lists

Yes, it would be fantastic to get 5 assignments done in the next 5 hours all worthy of high marks, paint that masterpiece that will one day sell for millions. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you can’t get an anything done to a reasonably high standard if you set yourself impossible restraints. Prioritise and get it done to the best of your ability.

Alternatively set yourself a time constraint to go wild in. Let all that work flow within a certain and see if that works for you. But just don’t try this the night before something is due, it could be disastrous.

Have a Status Board

Or at least some sort of way of documenting the work that getting done. it will help you have a clear understanding of how far along in your goals you are, and how you might go about achieving them faster.

finally

Face up to your Fear of FAILURE

The main reason anyone procrastinates is because you are afraid that if you set out to do something and you fail, it wasn’t worth doing.You’re mind is trying to keep you safe and in many ways sets you up to fail just so you won’t have to face that harrowing defeat… but imagine the joy you’ll feel when finally accomplishing something, and in some way being rewarded for it. It all just means taking a positive step in the right direction.

Ultimately get the work done, once its out of the way you can just go and enjoy yourself, instead of doing something fun with the constant worry that you have to come back to working or worse even, more procrastination.

PDF’s, convert them so they’re editable… (did I mention, its free!)

 

For Windows: If you work with PDFs regularly, particularly if you use Openoffice, you’ll want this little program. PDFZilla is a batch PDF converter that converts single PDFs to editable formats like Word documents.

For PDFs being so popular these days, they come with the annoying caveat that you can’t edit them with an expensive program like Adobe Acrobat… until now.

PDFZilla can batch convert any number of PDF files into Word documents, RTF, TXT, Images, HTML and more in just a few simple clicks.

This program is free until February 5th and is definitely worth having at that price.

If you are having issues downloading using this code. 8061822TWDV6YUK. And any issues you may face running the installer will require you to right click the program and click “run as administrator”.

PDFZilla Time-Limited Giveaway

More Email Etiquette…

 

Keeping on top of your massively overloaded inbox becoming too daunting a task? One quick way to organise through your emails is to reply quickly and concisely. Here’s a view on replying efficiently…

If you’re staring at that overbearing inbox and are considering the possible numerous amount of times you have tried to tackle it… and failed. well one solution to your problem is to ignore pure organisation and start replying efficiently… without removing quality.

A few simple steps start here:

• Be Concise
• Begin with “actions” first
• Number any questions
• Be concise and remember Clarity!
• Make a deadline
• Make note of projects you’ll start later
• Don’t send thank you emails unless totally necessary
• Ignore thoughts of angry or sarcastic emails (you don’t need to send them, they don’t need to read them)
• Never “reply all” unless its an absolute must.

The idea is to keep everything short and to the point, which is how emails should always work. They are not lengthy conversations or project starters, save that kind of discussion for face to face or at least Skype.

This is somewhat of a metal template for being concise, correct and polite but also efficient, and remind you that not all emails are in need of a reply. If you can delete it, delete it.

Should You Work For Free?…

 

Click the Picture

Get paid to write? Yes, please!

In a perfect world everyone would be paid for the work they did. Unfortunately however in many cases (mine being journalism for example) there are many arguments for working for free. There are also some stupid reasons, and the chart above might just help you filter out a few of them.

Jessica Hische has created a flow chart which might just guide you through the decision of whether you should accept the free work or expect payment for it. The chart seems to assume you are somewhat established so for all budding writers, you might find that it does not apply, but you can still use it as a simple guide or future advice.

If you’re already established and have jobs coming in from all directions, this chart is bound to help you in one way or another.

Saying no to people, particularly those in need and trying to hold promises that you just don’t have time for can be one of those bad habits that anyone can pick up, particularly when you’re used to saying yes to every job being offered,

This pretty flow chart will hopefully help those in need and for those that don’t find their solution in it, three questions you should ask yourself when asked to work for free.

1) Do you have the time?

2) Is it something you’re passionate about? e.g a band? a charity?

3) does it have the potential to help you get paid in the future?

You can see the flowchart in its entirety here

Grooveshark–Stream Music Freely…

 

There's not much to say about Grooveshark other than, IT’S AWESOME!

Its everything that i want and that i need in a music streaming site, and better yet, its totally free, if you’re willing to put up with a few ads, and yes I am.

Grooveshark can be your very own little music library packed with every album, artist or genre that you like and will even let you organise it how you wish.

Setting up your own profile couldn't be simpler, and searching for songs is just a quick search away, and then all you have to do, is listen.

You have your own favourites, your own playlists, you can even check out what's popular and what's playing now and to make this little site even better, its got Mobile apps so you can stream music literally anywhere.

Click –> Go to Grooveshark and enjoi :)

New Years Resolutions–Breaking Bad Habits…

 

Everyone makes a new years resolution, whether they are willing to admit it to everyone or not, or just something they keep to themselves but how often do you see people keep to these “Resolutions” and before you think about everyone else, when do you stick to yours?

Quitting bad habits can be difficult but replacing them could be your solution, the main thing to think about though is don’t just make the resolution, act on it for a day and then say you tried, that never resolves anything.

Categorize..

Start by Properly Categorizing your bad habits and recognising them for what they are. A recurring habit isn’t always plainly a bad habit, for example; biting your nails is a bad habit, but smoking is NOT. smoking is in fact a substance addiction much like caffeine and you may consider your excessive use of such substances as a bad habit, but its actually much more than that. the same can be said for overspending. Bad habits are really the little things that you can fix with a few tricks.

Substance addiction is a little more work and requires more effort than breaking a simple habit, so start with something small, quitting those 20 a day isn’t going to be as easy as just saying you’re quitting.

Helping yourself..

One solution to your problem, whether it is a bad habit or in some cases an addiction can be something as simple as making it public, I don’t mean letting the world know you smoke and you want to quit, but looking at those around you to help you fight off those negative cravings or every day rituals.

Another helpful solution is finding someone with a similar bad habit and seeing if they might want to quit with you, the buddy system. If they’ve already quit, ask them for advice, normally people are willing to help others fix irksome habits, particularly if they are also affected by said habit.

Take it Slow..

Nothing happens overnight, and no matter how quickly you think you can quit a habit, you can just as quickly pick it back up. When replacing an old habit with a new one try to make a conscious effort to remember. this can be frustrating, particularly when you forget or you slip up but nothing is solved instantly . The reason you picked up the bad habits in the first place are because they were easy and fit in with your lifestyle,

Practice new behaviours frequently, this will constantly remind you of the new goal you have set yourself and hopefully help you remember why you’re quitting. If you’re quitting a larger habit like smoking this will obviously take a lot more work and mental will power.

One trick to try, when attempting to stop biting your nails, take times like watching a movie and eave your finger near your mouth and see if you can consciously/subconsciously avoid biting your nails. This will help you in due time realise your negative habit. This little trick can be used for many things though, from starting a new diet to quitting smoking.

Let me know your bad habits, old or new, and how you have attempted to quit them or have you succeeded?