The Simple Dollar has written an article discussing how you should choose your career. The article talks about how you should follow your interests, desires, and dreams instead of paychecks.

I definitely recommend this to everyone who has yet found their career. This is definitely very useful to me as I have just graduated high school and am going to college in Spring of next year.

[read How To Choose a Career: The Simple Dollar Way]

Start ++ is a definite enhancement for the Vista start menu. View pictures, play music, search with Google and Wikipedia, and do much more right inside your menu with this piece of software. Start ++ uses the search bar that is already in place on the start menu and allows you to use commands to do all these cool things. For example, when you type “g software,” you search for “software” using Google, then Start ++ uses the Vista start menu as an iframe to pull up the search results. Here is a list of other example commands you can perform using Start ++:

• play radiohead (starts playing a playlist full of Radiohead tracks inside Windows Media Player)
• pic dustin (this command would pull up pictures of me!)
• weather 98033 (pulls up the weather forecast for Kirkland, WA)
• d technology (looks up the definition for the word “technology”)
• imdb hancock (pulls up the Hancock movie profile page on IMDB)
• y revision3 (search for “revision3″ on Yahoo)
• l bill gates (search for “Bill Gates” on Windows Live)

Start ++ also allows you to add, export, and share your own commands with Vista’s start menu using a simple interface:

The software also features plug-ins for download so you can add even more functionality to the start menu. Go take a look at the plug-ins page to find a Digg, Twitter, and Google Reader plug-in. I can only imagine if a huge number of people get their hands on this and start making hundreds of plug-ins for different uses.

[get Start ++]
[source: Life Rocks 2.0]

Chances are that you probably have important documents or a rather large media collection on your PC, and that you would probably be really angry if you somehow lost all these files. Well, lucky for us, Lifehacker has composed a list of the five best windows backup tools with a good bit of detail. So head over to their article and check it out.

[via Lifehacker]

I bring you an excerpt from an article written by Dustin Wax called ‘Back to Basics: Setting Priorities.’ In this article he explains why setting priorities is key in becoming more productive and overcoming daunting tasks. My favorite part of this article, and the biggest lesson I took away from it, is the “Eat a Frog” approach. It basically explains how getting the hard part out of the way is much more easier on you and will make you much more productive. Here is what Mr. Wax has to say:

There’s an old saying to the effect that if you wake up in the
morning and eat a live frog, you can go through the day knowing that
the worst thing that can possibly happen to you that day has already
passed. In other words, the day can only get better!

Popularized in Brian Tracy’s book Eat That Frog!, the idea here is that you tackle the biggest, hardest, and least appealing task first thing every day, so you can move through the rest of the day knowing that the worst has already passed.

When you’ve got a fat old frog on your plate, you’ve really got to
knuckle down. Another old saying says that when you’ve got to eat a
frog, don’t spend too much time looking at it! It pays to keep this in
mind if you’re the kind of person that procrastinates by “planning your
attack” and “psyching yourself up” for half the day. Just open wide and
chomp that frog, buddy! Otherwise, you’ll almost surely talk yourself
out of doing anything at all.

[via Stepcase Lifehack]

I wanted to bring attention to a movie I watched recently. It’s called Frontier(s). It focuses on five revolutionists who are running from France with a bag full of cash in an attempt to escape the communist revoltion there. They head for Amsterdam and while the five split into two groups, they get separated, and so the group of two waits up at a hostel (a hotel), and that’s where the fun begins.

Called “The French’s answer to Saw and Hostel,” it is not hard to see why. While the level of horror rivals that of both movies, Frontier(s) has a little something else: an intriguing plot. As I sat and watched this movie, I couldn’t stop watching. I wanted to see what happened. So did all of my friends who watched it with me. They didn’t want to go to sleep even though they were tired. It was that awesome to us.

Overall, I think Frontier(s) is a somewhat unique movie for it’s genre and is a great movie to watch if your a fan of horror and an 18 year old boy who doesn’t pick a part movies like Rachel Ray picks apart the food. It’s out on DVD, so go rent it, and enjoy!

Whether you are running a business or just want to get your face on the web, SynthaSite lets you create a website, free and easy, for your personal use. You don’t need to know HTML, CSS, or any kind of programming language. You just simply need to know how to drag and drop and it pretty much does everything else for you.

SynthaSite gives you several templates to choose from. A good bit of the them allow you to pick from different color themes as well as change the banner.  SynthaSite also gives you the option of adding simple items such as a picture to more intricate objects such as a Google gadget. You can also add more pages to your page such as an “About” page or a “Contact” page, making it much more useful.

After you finish tinkering with your site, you can publish it to SynthaSite’s free subdomain or you can download the webpage and host it on your own host. If you host it on a subdomain, it gives you the generic “name.synthasite.com” address.

The bottom line is that SynthaSite creates possibilities that are virtually limitless for individuals who are not comfortable with programming languages and want to startup a website for their own use rather it be for their business, promoting a cause, or for their band. If you don’t believe me, check out the website I created in under five minutes. Nothing special, but it is just to give you an idea of how easy SynthaSite is to use. [Visit SynthaSite]

WINDOWS ONLY: If you are looking for a few ways to get more out of your system tray, take a look at E-Sushi software. E-Sushi has several little programs that add icons to your tray which allow you to take control of your CD/DVD drive, handle your recycle bin and gain power over your windows.

My personal favorite is called “TimeBomb” which allows you to set a specific time at which your computer can log off, reboot, or shutdown. There is more software from E-Sushi that I haven’t mentioned, so jump over and check it out.

A new, free open-source application for Windows and Mac users just popped up on the scene. It’s called Cabos. It works just like Kazaa and LimeWire using P2P file-sharing only all the extra fat has been trimmed. It is very lightweight and gets the job done; search for and download music, video, documents, and programs.

It also has a few “bonus” features included. Cabos allows you to initiate a search with the artist or track that is currently playing in your iTunes. It also has the option to import downloaded music directly to iTunes. That is very useful for people who use P2P as their main source of music, and iTunes as their music manager.

With an easy-to-use interface and a very low RAM usage, Cabos is by far my new favorite P2P client. [Get Cabos!]

Every time I complete a run, I am always trying to guess how far I ran. I don’t have to do that anymore thanks to RunningMap. RunningMap is a neat little website that allows you to utilize Yahoo! Maps and create routes on the streets where you live.

When you create a route, it will tell you the distance of the route in miles (for those of us in the U.S.) and kilometers (for our metric system buddies). You can simply create a route that is equal to a mile and run it back and forth depending on how many miles you wish to run (or bike!).

RunningMap also allows you to save all of your routes you created and to search for other routes created by users in your area. It even has the option to print the map, which might be useful if you want to take the route with you in case you get lost. (You never know!)

I like systems. A system has a pattern and sense of organization to it. Therefore, working around and with systems helps me increase my productivity. Are you the same? If so, keep reading; you are in for a treat.

I recently had the problem of developing a “fitness system” shoved in my face when I decided to really try to lose more weight. I did not know how I could incorporate fitness into a system that would be right for me. Then I found this useful little site called Joe’s Goals. Joe’s Goals is an application designed to help you, well, reach your goals. Check it out. It is essentially a website that incorporates goals and notes with a calendar-esque framework.

This works out very well for my fitness plan. You will quickly learn after playing around with Joe’s Goals, the columns are represented by the days of the week and the rows are represented by your choice of a ‘goal’ or ‘logbook.’ If you choose a goal, you will be able to place a checkmark for that goal on each day of the week that you complete that goal. For example, as seen in the image, I have a goal labeled ‘Just Water’ meaning that my goal is to only drink water. According to the chart above in the image, I have had nothing to drink but water since Sunday. On the other hand, if you choose a logbook, you simply write in a note for each day instead of a simple checkmark. This allows for much more detail and versatility. So according to Joe’s Goals, I ran 2 miles on both Sunday and Thursday.

I think you have got the idea by now. So essentially, to create your own workout routine just add your own desired exercises such as ‘bench press’ or ‘pull-ups’ in the form of a goal or logbook (a logbook is recommended for better detail) and simply update your Joe’s Goals chart.

Joe’s Goals even has a nice little chart feature so you can view your progress on your goals. If you look in the lower left-hand corner of the chart, you will see some text that reads ‘Report: 30, 60, or 90 days’ and simply click one of the numerical values to see how you have been making progress on your goals over the last 30, 60, or 90 days.

Have fun creating your own fitness plan and let me know if you figure out some other creative ways to use Joe’s Goals in the comments. Thanks for reading!