LifeShaker

After hating every one of these ‘Productivity tools’ out there (for Mac) I pretty much just retrieve back my trusty little Mindmapping tool to pretend it’s got what I needed … Well, I’m wrong! MindMapping are good at mapping out website/dvd/business structures, sure we can make it into a GTD tool but at what cost?!

Luckily for me, someone passed along a great little tool called LifeShaker. Set a Goal - break it into smaller manageable steps - accomplish your Goal. I look at LifeShaker as the GTD version of the MindMapping.

You can hear me nag all day or just head over to watch some cool Vids on LifeShaker

One plus note, the shaker is both fun and very functional - on my end, I like to store alot of future e-zine ideas for KEEN since there are myriads of ideas, you can see why i have problems choosing themes each week, well now with LifeShaker, I can just click on the Shaker it randomly select a task for me, in my case a next issue’s theme :-)

Popularity: 26% [?]

Travel Popnet

Social-Networking has become the it game around the block - interest groups, travel guides, shopping communities, user generated ratings, comments, tips + tricks - you name it the web has got it. The latest to add to the mass - Yattit (a Hyatt travel community).

But how + where do we contain these informations?! For Sure I’d love to visit Tokyo but reading reviews and guides isn’t doing me any good, I need a place to keep those information (yeah brain isn’t doing all that good lately) the problem is: I don’t know when I’ll be going maybe next year maybe two years from now, if I keep it in my bookmark, it would be too messy, when I come back to those 100s of bookmarked links I’d have no idea what is what, and have to spend another day to revisit all the links … something I’ve learned from someone long ago: never do the same thing twice, you are just wasting your own time, Do it once even if it’s slow, finish and get done with it, then move on to an other project.

After I’ve jammed my bookmark’s folder with links I just pretty much give up in revisiting, I began to look for a new way of keep up with weblinks, that way i can do it once then forget it - when I come back a month, a year from now I wouldn’t have to revisit every single link to find that one link - I’ve find a tool what works for me: Travel Popnet

Travel Popnet doesn’t offer travel guides or user reviews instead it gives you a handy (very handy) button to place in your browser toolbar. Let’s see i find a new travel guide about New York so I want to save it for later use, all i had to do is to click on the handy Travel Popnet link button (in my toolbar menu) then it will be added to my NYC trip folder, I get to pick which subfolder to place the link in: Attractions, Events, General, Nightlife, Restaurants, Shopping, things to Do … or create some custom subfolders. If i do these tasks using firefox bookmark it would take me at least 2 hours to create, arrange, save, rearrange … oh wait what’s this link for? … rename, write description … popnet auto generate everything even descriptions, all you have to do is select the folder and save.

Let’s look at my example use of it - NYC is an ever changing city, lived there for 10 years, still find going back to visit a lot of fun, since i’m attending march of dime the 27th of April so i’m planing a trip to NYC (Looks like I’m still living in the past … oops it’s 2008) - almost everyday my friend would messaged me weblinks of NEW places in NYC that we are going to visit, and I also have my own interests that I want to visit (KIDROBOT … lol ), where do I keep all these websites? when I start to plan the trip it was in Jan. now March, will I be able to look at www.#%*$^&$.com know what the heck that is ?! that’s where Travel Popnet comes in handy, all links are neatly grouped into each sub folders ( that’s where my OCD kicked in … must make everything neat + clean ) Next to each link there’s a thumbnail + description. when you click on the link, you get an inframe preview of the website, that i like.

To add the Popnet Button, click on HOME tab … then More … select Popnet button and just drag that link to your browser’s toolbar. As you browse, with one click you can easily add current website into your popnet account.

Click on ‘your pages’ to view all the wonderful links you have saved for the trip. It’s very easy to use and I find it very useful for planning future big trips or a small local events. Sure that’s what the firefox bookmarks are for, but for that I’d have to (for every trip/event/interesting stuff) create a main folder then subfoders … why the mess when we know someone has made the tools to do it better and faster — hee hee I have to say I use Travel Popnet not only for trip planning but also for alot of web planning, I usually have a customized folders for inspiration, elements, back of my head, code snippets ETC … I’m pretty sure alot of the users have their very unique ways to use this tool.

Popularity: 24% [?]

SongBird

Well by all means iTunes is still sleek and functional but in fear of some of my less than proud softwares [em] been discovered by Apple via iTunes [some say it won't, some say iTunes are the evil child of Apple] heck I don’t want to risk it so maybe it’s time to find something else.

Ah! SongBird, which cave have I been in lately, how the heck did I missed this great muzak player, to sum it up it’s iTunes on SPEED - which unsurprisingly fits so well with my life style. [ I know please don't send hate mails telling me how iTunes has plugins as well, I ain't going back and that's final ]

Initial view of the SongBird’s main interface - a bit too dark … who am i kidding: Dude I just switched over from iTunes it’s like night and days for me. The player functions more like a music browser than a traditional ‘music player’, the player allows users to search music titles across myriads of music services and gives options to purchase [em] through different online services. [Em] there’s also an function which SongBird will find free songs of the tittle user enters, not that i’m encouraging it, just saying - torrent like functionality is also available.

Get ready for the WOW FACTOR?! It’s lightweight and fully packed with all the goodies you are accustomed to PLUS more.
I really enjoy the ‘Mash Tape’ toggle at the bottom of my playlist, where i can: click and see Lyrics as the selected song plays, check out artist bio, flip for some YouTube Clips.

If I have to say what bothers me the most about their UI : I’d have to say it’s the black scroll bar on 75% black background, sometimes i’m not even sure if i need to scroll [drag] up or down - there should be a better indication. Keep it in mind not everyone uses the computer in the dark hours, with day light and sun glare, black on ash gray isn’t very comfortable on the eye. All in all SongBird is a pretty solid piece of music player, as for now i’m sticking with them.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Drop it like it’s hot

Okay I’m really hot today as in Fever - I guess all that raining last night got to me.

wwwwwwwweeeeeeeell what did I do today staying home all day?! whatelse! Crank the heat up all the way up and run around the house in Hot Pants! Ahahah! NO SILLY, SLEEP!

Drink alot of soup and sleep then more soup.  Occasionally  check my gmail and plan a sunny getaways on Travel Popnets

farewell, I’ll be BACK

Tomorrow! (I hope)

Popularity: 4% [?]

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