Archive for May, 2005

Developing Work Habit (and Advice on Novel Writing)

Crawford Kilian has a good piece of advice on how to write a good novel. He also has a part on developing work habit which is pretty enlighting for everyone:

Developing Efficient Work Habits
Different writers face different advantages and drawbacks in forming good writing habits. The circumstances of your personal life may make it easy or hard to find writing time, but time itself is not the real issue–it’s habit… » Continue

May 31 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 5 comments»

Access wireless on the “Serial port”!

I came across a technical-hack that involves the following simple house-hold items to create a wireless account from the serial port:

10 foot of wire (Any plastic covered wire will do)
A biro
A pencil (this may not be needed)
A copy of wifi-spy.exe (freeware)

How this works: You will connect 3 wires to your pc. 2 of them will go to your TV antenna. 1 will go to a water pipe/radiator to act as… » Continue

May 31 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 2 comments»

Coffee - Is it the evil drink?

Over in Steve Pavlina’s blog, he has a post on “How to Give Up Coffee”. He mentioned some reasons why one should give up coffee:

I can’t ignore the energy boost and mental acceleration that comes from caffeine. But I do notice negative side effects when I drink coffee. Caffeine seems to make part of my brain overactive and another part underactive. I become really good at doing things, but very… » Continue

May 30 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 9 comments»

Why RSS is more effective than email in term of one way communication?

NewsNiche has posted a article about his take on “RSS is more effective than email”.

That article is more into webmaster point of view, but in this post I want to add in a readers’ prespective - What are the benefits for subscribing RSS instead of email newsletter?

Protection: Anonymity on your identity (as NewsNiche mentioned).
Categorization: Feeds are usually already categorized. For instance if you are subscribing lifehack.org’s feed, you know

» Continue

May 30 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 9 comments»

Free online book: Common errors in English

There is a pretty handy site to look for those common errors in English. The list is pretty intensive with a bit of description. So is the author’s definition of an error in English?

The concept of language errors is a fuzzy one. I’ll leave to linguists the technical definitions. Here we’re concerned only with deviations from the standard use of English as judged by sophisticated users such as professional writers… » Continue

May 29 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 6 comments»

Weekend round-up

Round up for the last week posts:

» Continue

May 29 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 2 comments»

Quote of the Day

“A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.”

Memoirs of a Geisha - [Arthur Golden via Motivational Quotes of the Day]… » Continue

May 28 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 2 comments»

Top 100 Speeches

There is a page with top 100 speeches in mp3 or Real Audio format - Best of all many of them are full length and they are motivational and inspiring. It also great way to learn some public speaking skills from the best public speakers. Check it out.

Top 100 Speeches by Rank - [American Rhetoric]… » Continue

May 28 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 5 comments»

DIY Internet Phone with indoor wireless phone

Christoffer Järnåker has done a very good hack to convert his old indoor wireless phone to a Internet phone that can connect to computer and use with Skype. What he did is soldering the 3.5mm plugs to the circuit board. The most amazing part is he is using the trial and error way to find out the output and input point:

So, how did I do it? Not that simple… » Continue

May 27 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 4 comments»

Battery Types Do or Don’t Table

Follow up with the prevous entry regarding battery charging: Tips on travelling and batteries. There is a good information on the “Do” or “Don’t do” on handling such as Charging, Discharge, Service needs, Storage, and Disposal information for each type of battery (Nickel-cadmium (NiCd), Nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH), Lithium-ion
(Li-ion) and Lead-acid (Sealed or flooded)). You usually can find out what type is it if you look at the label on the… » Continue

May 27 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 3 comments»

11 steps to a better brain

Everyone want to be smart (including me), but is it just born with it? Am one cannot improve the brain once passing the learning ages? New Scientist has come up with some tricks, habits, lifestyle and techniques that help you improves your brain cells.

Smart drugs: Does getting old have to mean worsening memory, slower reactions and fuzzy thinking?
Food for thought: You are what you eat, and that includes your brain

» Continue

May 26 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 4 comments»

Getting Unstuck

Fast thinker Jeffrey Phillips has a good thought on how to get unstuck when you have completed a big projects and there aren’t any motiviation to move on to next task or basically there aren’t any next goal.

I think it’s like watching equestrians. If you’ve ever watched really advanced jumpers, you know that every once in a while a horse and rider get right up to a jump and… » Continue

May 26 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 2 comments»

New music management system for iPod

If you don’t like iTunes for one reason or the other, you may have a better alternative. We have found Winamp iPod Plugin which allows you to manage your iPod from within the winamp media library. It supports all versions of iPod, from generation 1 up to the iPod shuffle.

Latest version 1.20 includes following changes:

Autofill for iPod Shuffles
Advanced naming of files copied to iPod
Sync now updates modified songs
Last

» Continue

May 26 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | no comments»

How to be a productive blogger (writer)

Keith over To-Done has dropped off a post on how to be a productive blogger. This is sort of post not only you can apply with his suggestions if you are blogging, you can also use them if are writing anything.

There are 13 tips which Keith provided. I particularly want to highlight this one:
Don’t fear failure. Through failure comes some of the most profound learning. Fear can really put a… » Continue

May 26 2005 | By Leon | Tagged: | 5 comments»

Quick way to test dead pixels

“I don’t want to install any software to test my LCD!”
“I don’t want to click whole bunch of wizards or dialogs to test my screen!”

I have a solution for you. There is a web site that you only need to click once to test your screen. Remember to clean dirts on your screen before testing it - those dirts on your screen may look like a dead pixel!