Manage Life

If you're headed back to school this semester with an iPhone or iPod touch in your pocket, you're in luck: The iTunes App Store is filled with applications to make your life easier as a student and as the hip young college type you are. Whether you're hitting the books or the bars, keep reading for a closer look at eight of the best back-to-school iPhone and iPod touch applications. (Not headed back to school? Don't worry, we've got a few in there for you, too.)

Evernote

You already know how to expand your brain with Evernote, and the Evernote iPhone app is a must-have element in that setup. You can capture and tag photos, text notes, and audio notes, as well as search and access any other note you've captured with Evernote. It's always in sync with all of the rest of your notes, so whether you want to quickly check your class notes on the go or need to snap a picture of a handout to and send it straight to Evernote, this one's a must-have.

Facebook

It may not do much to boost your studying, but Facebook for the iPhone is a must-have to keep your social life rolling while you're off at school. The Facebook application is arguably one of the best-made apps available through the App Store, providing you with quick access to all of your Facebook needs through a slick interface.

Brain Tuner

Brain Tuner is sort of like the iPhone version of Brain Age—if Brain Age were way shorter on features. In fact, all it really does is present you with 20 to 100 math problems and asks you whether the solutions provided are right or wrong. It times you and scores you based on your accuracy, and that's about it. It's dead simple to use, though, and isn't a bad option if you're just looking to retain a little mental acuity with a quick game here and there.

Pageonce

Pageonce's Personal Assistant application gives you quick access to managing your entire online life, providing shortcuts to vital information. You can check your phone plan to make sure you haven't gone over your calling plan keeping up with your long-distance sweetheart or get your bank balance before you head out for the night.

Wikipanion

What better supplement to your education than an application dedicated to your Wikipedia addiction. Wikipanion provides a simple, dedicated search box for browsing Wikipedia. There's not a lot inventive going on here beyond autocompletion for your search (which is nice), but hopefully this one will improve with more preferences in future releases.

CheckPlease

It's easy to end up losing money in the shuffle when you're trying to split big checks between large groups, and you're a poor student, so every penny counts. CheckPlease is an excellent tip calculator that also works wonders for quickly splitting up a bill—tip included—for your group. I've been using this one since it was released, and the latest update makes calculating the tip and splitting the bill a no brainer.

Google Mobile

The Google Mobile app isn't so much a must-have specifically for college students as much as it is a must-have for everyone. Firing up Mobile Safari just to get to a Google search box is a drag, and this one searches both the web and your iPhone from one bucket. With advanced features—like performing site-specific searches and quick local lookups—you can get all sorts of stuff done more quickly with this one.

Beer Counter

The kitchen-sink app of this post is Beer Counter, a simple app that does exactly what it sounds like: Helps you keep track of how many beers you've consumed. You're at college, after all, and it doesn't take much to let a night of drinking get out of hand. Beer Counter is there to keep you in check (or help you brag—whichever floats you boat).

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Got a great app you're counting on to get you through the school year? Tell us all about it in the comments.

Tags: Accuracy, Assistant Application, Back To School, Brain Age, Brain Tuner, Closer Look, Element, Evernote, Game, Iphone, Ipod Touch, Itunes, Math Problems, Mdash, Mental Acuity, Shortcuts, Slick Interface, Snap, Sync, Vital Information

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Mozilla Labs crowned their picks of best new and updated Firefox 3 extensions in a recent contest, but what about best extensions of all time? Last year we ran down our must-have Firefox extensions, but it's time for a refresh, this time with a little help from my friends. Yesterday I polled over 4,000 of my closest and most personal internet buddies about what extensions they absolutely must have installed to work comfortably in their favorite browser. Almost 100 responses later, we've got a solid list of the essentials. Check out the top candidates and cast your vote for your most essential extension.

Note: This list is skewed heavily toward web developer-type tools, because apparently mostly web developers follow me. Also, this poll contains only the extensions that got more than 5 mentions—dozens more got only 1 or 2 votes.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Kind of surprising how popular extensions like Delicious and Tab Mix Plus still are, even with Firefox's progress in those built-in features—also how many folks need IETab to view sites in Internet Explorer.

Check out the entire list of extensions that got votes here. If you were running your own personal Extend Firefox contest, which add-on would be the winner? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: Dozens, Firefox Extensions, Internet Buddies, Internet Explorer Check, Little Help From My Friends, Mdash, Media Polls, Mozilla, Personal Add, Personal Internet, Poll, Rss Reader, Type Tools, Vote, Web Browser, Web Developer, Web Developers

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

If you could just pick one or two (or seven) habits to create in the next few months — habits that will have the most impact on your life — what would they be?

I often get asked this question, because people are overwhelmed when it comes to starting positive life changes.

They ask me: what one or two habits should they start with?

It’s not an easy question. There are so many changes I’ve gone through, from quitting smoking to simplifying my life to reducing debt to many more. And they’ve all seemed life-changing, and they’ve all seemed important.

But if I were to start again, and had to pick one or two, it would be the one or two listed below. The list that follows is in order of what I think I’d do the first 6-7 months of changing my life … but realize that every person is different. No one should follow my choices exactly — you’ve got to figure out what works for you.

That said, if you followed the program below, and worked to develop these habits, you’d probably do pretty well.

“Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.” - Confucius

How to Develop the Habits
I’ve written a number of times about developing habits, but here are the basics:

• Do a 30-day challenge, focusing on just ONE habit.
• Write it out on paper, along with your motivations, obstacles, and strategies for overcoming them.
• Commit fully, in a public way.
• Log your progress.
• Remain publicly accountable — report on your progress each day.
• Have support for when you falter — either in real life or online.
• Reward every little success.
• If you fail, figure out what went wrong, plan for it, and try again.

Read more:

• 13 Things to Avoid When Changing Habits
• How to Establish New Habits the No-Sweat Way
• Engineer Life: Set Up Habit Changes So It’s Hard to Fail
• Autopilot Achievement: How to Turn Your Goals Into Habits

The Seven Little Habits That Can Change Your Life
OK, so now you know how to form a habit — and remember, only do them one at a time — but you want to know the seven little habits. Here they are, in my order of preference (but yours may be different):

1. Develop positive thinking. I put this first because I think it’s the keystone habit that will help you form the other important habits. Sure, positive thinking by itself won’t lead to success, but it certainly goes a long way to motivate you to do the other things required.

I learned this when I quit smoking — when I allowed myself to think negative thoughts, I would end up failing. But when I learned how to squash negative thoughts and think positive ones instead, I succeeded. This discovery lead to me practicing this over and over, until I was able to form just about any habit I needed. It’s been invaluable to me, and I think it could be to most people.

Focus on this habit first, and you’ll have a much easier time with any of the others. Start by becoming more aware of your negative self-talk — do a little tally sheet throughout the day, marking a tally each time you notice a negative thought. Soon you’ll recognize them, and you can squash them.

Read more:

• Top Motivation Hack: Positive Thinking
• Can You Spot These 10 Thinking Sins

2. Exercise. People who’ve been hearing me harp on about exercise might roll their eyes. Sure, exercise is healthy and all that, but how exactly is it life changing? I’m glad you asked:

• It makes you feel better about yourself, and more confident. That leads to better success with other positive changes.
• It reinforces the positive thinking habit — you need to think positive in order to sustain exercise.
• It relieves stress and gives you time to think — this leads to better mental well-being in your life overall.
• It helps with creativity. Don’t ask me to prove it, except to say that my best ideas and brainstorming sessions come from when I exercise.

Here’s how:

• 4 Simple Steps to Start the Exercise Habit
• How to Make Exercise a Daily Habit
• 7 Ways to Build the Exercise Habit

3. Single-tasking. The opposite of multi-tasking — you’ve heard me harp on about this one as well. Why is it life-changing? A couple powerful reasons:

• You’ll be more effective with your tasks and get more done. It’s hard to achieve important things if you’re constantly switching tasks and distracted by other “urgent” things.
• You’ll be less stressed overall and (in my experience) happier throughout your day.

Read more:

• How Not To Multi-task: Work Simpler and Saner
• Now Do This and the Single-tasking Philosophy
• The Magical Power of Focus

4. Focus on one goal. Just as focusing on one task at a time is more effective, and focusing on one habit at a time is more effect, so is focusing on one goal at a time. While it might seem very difficult, focusing on one goal at a time is the most powerful way of achieving your goals. When you try to take on many goals at once, you’re spreading thin your focus and energy — the two critical components for achieving a goal.

What if you have 5 goals you want to achieve? Pick one to focus on first. Break it into a mini-goal you can accomplish this month, if it’s a longer-term goal. Pick an action you can do today. Keep doing this until the goal is accomplished — do an action every day, finish the mini-goal, pick the next mini-goal to work on. Then, when your One Goal is completed, focus on the next goal.

Some goals are ongoing ones — like blogging every day, or exercising every day. In those cases, turn them into habits — focus exclusively on turning the goal into a habit, until the habit is ingrained. Then focus on the next goal.

Read more:

• A Simple Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Life Goals

5. Eliminate the non-essential. First, identify the essential — the things in your life that are most important to you, that you love the most. Then eliminate everything else. This simplifies things and leaves you with the space to focus on the essential. This process works with anything — with your life in general, with work projects and tasks, with emails and other communication.

This will change your life because it will help you to simplify, to focus on what’s important, and to build the life you want.

Read more:

• Eliminate All But the Absolute Essential Tasks
• Haiku Productivity: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential

6. Kindness. Yes, kindness is a habit. And it can be cultivated. Focus on it every day for a month and you’ll see profound changes in your life. You’ll feel better about yourself as a person. You’ll see people react to you differently and treat you better, over the long run. It’s karma.

How do you develop the kindness habit? First, make it a goal to do something kind for someone each day. At the beginning of the day, figure out what that kind act will be and then do it during the day. Second, each time you interact with someone, try to be kind, be friendly, be compassionate. Third, try to go beyond small kindnesses to larger acts of compassion, volunteering to help those in need and taking the initiative to relieve suffering.

Read more:

• 18 Practical Tips for Living the Golden Rule
• Faith in Humanity: How to Bring People Closer, and Restore Kindness
• A Guide to Cultivating Compassion in Your Life
• 25 Ways to Help a Fellow Human Being Today
• The No. 1 Lifehack You can Implement Today to Make the World a Better Place

7. Daily routine. It’s so simple, but creating a daily routine for yourself can make a big difference in your life. The best routines, I’ve found, come at the start and end of the day — both your workday and your day in general. That means, develop a routine for when you awake, for when you first start working, for when you finish your workday, and for the end of your evening.

How will that change your life? It will help you get a great start to your day, and finish your day by preparing for the next day. It’ll help you firmly root the productive habits you want to firm in your everyday life. It’ll help you focus on what’s important, not just what comes up. It’ll help you make sure you get done all the things you really want to make sure gets done everyday. And that can mean a lot.

Read more:

• Tips to Establish a Morning and Evening Routine
• 12 Ideas for Establishing a Calming Routine

“We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.” - John Dryden

—
You can now follow me on Twitter — the great experiment continues!

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg. I’d appreciate it. :)

Tags: 7 Habits, 7 Months, Aristotle, Change Your Life, Changing Habits, Choices, Confucius, Engineer Life, Habit, Har, Motivations, Natures, No Sweat, Obstacles, Quitting Smoking, Reducing Debt, Seven Habits, Success

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Windows only: If you download a lot of applications from the internet, chances are you've seen an MD5 hash next to the download link. This unique hash is used to verify the integrity of your download, ensuring that the file you got is in fact the file you were supposed to get. HashTab is a simple utility that adds a new tab to the Properties window of Windows Explorer that displays the file hashes for that file in several commonly used hash formats. To verify the authenticity of a download, then, you would just right-click the downloaded file, select Properties, and then compare the file hash in the new File Hashes tab to the hash posted on the download page. HashTab also compares files on your desktop to help you determine whether or not the files are identical. It's probably not for everyone, but if you do a lot of downloading and are interested in verifying the authenticity of those files, HashTab is a simple solution.

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Open-source FTP client FileZilla takes home the top spot in last week's Hive Five Best FTP Clients poll with an overwhelming 52% of the vote. The rest of the field was split up relatively evenly between 8% and 11%. That's good votin'.

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Mac OS X only: Free application Lockdown is a security alarm for your Mac laptop, complete with remote arming and a security camera. Your Apple Remote handles the arming, and once armed, the application's alarm is triggered by your laptop's motion detectors, MagSafe removal, keyboard or mouse activity, closed lid, or external device removal. When the alarm is triggered, your iSight snaps a timestamped picture and can even email it to you. Based on previously mentioned iAlertU, Lockdown doesn't currently add much beyond a slightly tweaked interface. However, it's been a while since we highlighted iAlertU, and since many back-to-school readers will also be heading back to the library soon, it's a good time to highlight both apps. Neither is foolproof, but a loud alarm in a university library could be all the extra security you'd need. Lockdown is freeware, Mac OS X only.

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