Have a serious soda habit? Part of the lure of the stuff is the convenience and fizzy texture, not just the sugar content you can get from lots of other places. How-to blog TipNut details one writer’s cheap, simple fix—giving water more appeal. A few of the fixes he recommends for fellow addicts: Keep a jug of water refrigerated at all times. It has to be prepared fresh daily or sealed well because once it tastes a bit stale, you’re turned off of it for awhile. When serving, pour over a full glass of crushed ice. The crushed ice added a bit of “texture” to the beverage that I felt was an acceptable replacement to the carbonated soda. If you find in the beginning that you just have to have some pop, keep a small bottle refrigerated. I found that giving myself a sip or two was enough to satisfy my craving.
Check out our previous posts for more tips on kicking soda pop or just sugar itself.
How To Beat The Soda Pop Addiction [TipNut]The Washington Post digs into the imperfect science of happiness and finds a few common “rules” that govern how we find and value happiness, many of them related to decisions and uncertainty. For instance, a number of experiments have shown that people tend to overestimate the consequences of events and decisions, to their detriment: Torn between life choices? The experimental results suggest the worst option is usually indecision — no matter what choice people make, they are more likely to be okay with the consequences than if they stay on the fence.
A study noted in the article also found that those who had to definitely choose a free item to take home with them ended up happier with their picks than those who were given the option of returning them later. Makes me think twice about some of my electronics purchasing habits. Photo by Pσrcelαΐηgΐrl°.
C’mon, Get Happy? It’s Easier Said Than Done [Washington Post]For the average Windows Vista session, the “Needs your permission to continue” prompts are just momentary, occasional annoyances which can be disabled or by-passed. But if you’re planning to do a lot of tweaking or installations, having a dedicated Administrator account—like the kind available in XP—can be mighty helpful. The How-To Geek blog shows how to enable (and disable) the account from the log-in screen:
Notely, the student-friendly web application we highlighted before last fall semester, has updated its offerings with a translator, whiteboards, grade tracking and other improvements. [Notely.net]
Wine, the interface through which Windows applications are commonly run in Linux, can get the job done on everything from iTunes to World of Warcraft, but leaves the programs’ menus and tabs a dull grey color and with widgets that don’t match your theme. Ubuntu/Linux blog Tombuntu points to a single text file that you can drop into your system to make programs run in Wine look like Ubuntu’s Human theme. The blog points to ways to go further with full-on theme integrations, but your apps will run even slower than normal. For most users, just a simple color fix will be enough to integrate Windows programs further into their open source desktops.
Stop Wine From Beating Your Windows Apps With The Ugly Stick [Tombuntu]TiddlySticky takes its name from projects like the original TiddlyWiki and its Getting Things Done variant, but scales down the functionality to serve as a simple take-anywhere sticky notes tool. Operating out of a folder you can stash anywhere on your system, TiddlySticky is basically a JavaScript-powered HTML file that lets you create sticky notes with different themes and automatically saves them as you write. It doesn’t have the same tagging/search/sharing functions as web apps like Jjot or Google Notebook, but it’s always available and makes for a handy bookmark in any browser. Thanks Hiroyuki!
TiddlyStickyWii Sports seemed like couch potato’s dream come true – a console offering to help you get fit and active while playing games. But a new study sponsored by Nintendo itself says that the health benefits of playing Wii Sports have been somewhat exaggerated.The study, reported in the British Medical Journal, found that Wii Sports players used just 2% more energy than players of other video games – burning an extra 250 kJ per hour. Waa. :( More »
Got half an hour to kill? Attack that clutter with Better Housekeeping’s 30 Minute Clutter Solution web tool. First use the drop down menu to choose the room you want to work on, then choose which part of the room you want to focus on. It’ll come back with tips like how to set up a “mail station” by the front door so you have somewhere to park incoming mail and your keys, or how to store toys in the kid’s room. More »
Here are two photography hacks which use a simple white tshirt to improve the lighting of your photos. They come from Darren Rowse of Digital Photography School.
In situations where you can’t use a reflector (and for minimising the set up needed) you can wear a white tshirt to reflect light onto the subject. You’ll need to ensure you’re standing close enough for the light to reflect.
And the other tip? When shooting with a flash you can diffuse its impact by bouncing the flash off yourself. This way the subject is lit indirectly, but with a white natural light.
Thanks for the tips, Darren!
DIY Reflector – Wear a White T-Shirt [Digital Photography School]
Self education can be a great way to get better at what you do, or explore different possibilities for future jobs or career direction.Kevin Kelly of the Cool Tool blog says he considered an MBA, but went down the road of self education instead:
“I figured out I would learn more spending $500 in self-education. So I devoted $200 for books and the other $300 actually starting a small mail-order business (the fee went for an ad). In two years I learned more about how business really worked than any MBA graduate I had met.”
He writes up a free ebook, the Personal MBA, which was put together as a guide for people who want to learn about business at their own pace, through reading key business books. One of the benefits of self education is that you can cherry pick the topics which interest you, and the Personal MBA site is set up to let you do that – there’s a reading list for each topic, ranging from applied psychology through to entrepreneurship and strategy.As with any course of study, you’ll probably get more out of your self education if you discuss your reading with others, just as you can gain immeasurably practical experience through running your own business.The original PDF version of the course can be downloaded for free here. Or the updated reading list is available on the Personal MBA website.
The Personal MBA [via Cool Tool] More »
