You Don't Have to Have an iPod to Use iTunes

iTunes

Apple celebrated the 6^th birthday of the iTunes store on April28th. If you have an iPod you probably already know about iTunes or have heard about it at least. According to a story at Mashable about the occasion., there have been over 4 billion songs sold. That is an awful lot of songs to be sold in such a short period of time, especially when you consider digital music to be a relatively new market and there really wasn’t a viable paid service to use prior to iTunes. What you might not realize is that you don’t have to have an iPod to use iTunes. In addition there is a lot of content available to be found on iTunes that is without cost. That’s right free.

iTunes has recently added the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd to their already varied catalog. In addition to songs, they have podcasts, television shows, audio books, and games that you can download. Apple’s Steve Jobs got behind the push to remove DRM from music, so iTunes does offer some material that is DRM free. DRM is a control that was built into music downloads (in addition to some other downloaded material) that highly restricted the use of the download to certain machines (computers, and MP3 players) as well as the ability to burn the downloads to a cd, and thus affected the portability of the downloaded material.

Podcasts at iTunes

What is free you’re probably asking yourself? Most all of the podcasts available at iTunes are free. Podcasts are kind of like recorded radio programs for the digital age that you can play on your MP3 player or computer (and many mobile phones can play them now a days). There is a wide variety of subjects available to choose from, in addition to those that are musically themed. Many popular websites are doing some sort of podcast. You can “Get” and subscribe to many of them without cost. If you’re at the sight of a podcast that you like or would like to hear, chances are that they have a “subscribe via iTunes” button somewhere to be found. By clicking on this button you’re brought to the itunes store and you’ll see the most recent editions of that podcast. Even if you don’t find the iTunes button at the podcast site, there is a good chance that you can find it on iTunes by doing a search. If you subscribe to a podcast, every time that you open iTunes on your computer, it will search the iTunes store to see if there is a new edition of your podcast, so you don’t have to worry about missing your favorite podcasts. Because of iTunes market dominance, most podcasters want their podcasts available at iTunes.

iTunes on my computer

In order to buy or “get” anything from iTunes, you will need to install the software on your computer. You’ll also need to set up an account, which did require a valid credit card when I signed up. So before you download remember that not everything is free, so that you aren’t surprised to see a credit card bill! In case you want to know where iTunes stores the material that you have downloaded, it is typically in a path similar to …” C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music” on a windows based computer.

iTunes offers a lot of content and much of it is free. So remember that you don’t have to have an iPod to use iTunes. Are you using iTunes? Have you discovered any unusual uses for it? If you have any other comments, I’d love to hear them. If you liked this article, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS or email, share it on del.icio.us or on Digg and pass it on to anyone that you think might appreciate it. Thank you. :)

On Deck…

I’ll be publishing posts about…

• The next in my series of weight loss strategies
• My next Spotlight on the web.
• More on productivity, web 2.0, social networking, family, parenting, health, photography, and other things that you can use.

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Put the World Times on Your Desktop

qlock

Have you ever called someone half away around the country or in other parts of the world, only to find out that you had called them at an inappropriate time? Why not put the world times on your desktop with qlock?

Qlock is a great little program that I have been using for years. Because I’m usually working on international project and I have family and friends scattered around the globe, it is good to be able to look at a glance to determine what time it is where you want to call.

Qlock's right click menu

Qlock allows you to put multiple clocks on your desktop. If you’re using the freeware version you can select sizes including small, medium, and large (this is referred to as skins in the right click menu). There are a variety of colors available, so that you can easily tell your cities apart at a glance.

Qlock is available as freeware and paid editions. Looking at the right click menu, you can see some of the features that are added to the paid version. Are you using qlock or a different desktop application that shows you the time in multiple cities? If you have any other comments, I’d love to hear them. If you liked this article, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS or email, share it on del.icio.us or on Digg and pass it on to anyone that you think might appreciate it. Thank you. :)

On Deck…

I’ll be publishing posts about…

• The next in my series of weight loss strategies
• My next Spotlight on the web.
• More on productivity, web 2.0, social networking, family, parenting, health, and other things that you can use.

Other Posts That You Might Also Like to Read…

• Are You Using Firefox As Your Web Browser?
• Do You Wiki?
• Wiki Basics
• Find Your Re-boot, Comments, and Thank You
• RSS for the Net Impaired
• More About RSS
• Are You Managing Your Digital Photos With Picasa?

Use The 2 Minute Rule to Super Charge Your Productivity

Photo courtesy of Chance Agrella

Do you find yourself drowning in things to do? Do you have a hard time deciding where to begin and what to do? Are you overwhelmed when you look at your email’s inbox or you physical inbox? When faced with a lot of tasks or things to do, why not use the Two Minute Rule to help super charge your productivity?

While David Allen might not be the person that came up with the idea, I first really heard the idea from him in GTD (Getting Things Done). I have since seen or heard varying versions of it everywhere. The basic idea is that if an item takes less then two minutes to do, why not do it now? You might even say that the Nike “Just Do It” slogan is an offshoot of the idea, albeit a very high dollar, slick advertising version used to sell sneakers and sporting equipment. Two minute tasks can be almost anything, from making a phone call, writing and email response, to a wide variety of other things. The main characteristic of them is that they don’t require a lot of preparation (much of this should already be done in order for it to qualify as a Two Minute item) and that you have to be able to fire them right off.

By taking action on your items that take less than two minutes to do as they occur (in real time, in a physical inbox, an email inbox, that are already captured for you in some sort of to do list, or via some other method), you do several things:

• You greatly reduce the possibility that the item(s) becomes lost in your to do list, falls through the cracks, or is just totally forgotten.
• 
  You avoid the hassle associated with capturing it in your to do list or system. Because these are items that take you less than two minutes to do, actually doing the item will often times take you less time than capturing it your system(s) and setting up the proper reminders.
  You actually accomplish something! I can’t help but think of a scene from Monty Python's Life Of Brian movie, where they go on and on about having a meeting to have a meeting to have a meeting (I’m sure that there has to be a clip of this on YouTube).
  
• Quick and dirty way of getting things done. This already makes you more productive, without having to do a lot of preparation, planning, and other work often associated with reaching the end objectives to many of the things that we want or need to do.
  
• You can win one battle against procrastination. Instead of putting things off or avoiding them, you’re moving forward.
  
• You build momentum and motivation! You’re now becoming an unbalance force in Netwon’s First Law of Motion (often referred to as the Law of Inertia) where a body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Using the Two Minute Rule becomes the unbalanced force. Your productivity and motivation can now be that bolder building speed rolling down the hill instead of someone trying to roll the boulder up a hill. Once you get started doing something, it is easier to keep “doing” as opposed to trying to “get started”.
  
• You are now “cranking widgets” and can get into a productivity “zone”, where you can focus only on the tasks that you’re doing. I’ll be going into more on “cranking widgets” in the next paragraph.
• 
  You can change gears. Sometimes you’re working on something or thinking about something and are at a roadblock as to where to go next or what to do next. Doing some Two Minute items can take your thoughts away from this and after you have completed some of them, you might find that break through that you were looking for occurs (either you have some new thoughts on it or something happens to influence your direction).
  

With so many things that you have to do, you have to define them (what it means, what needs to be done, and etc.) before you can do anything with them. In the defining of what needs to be done, it is easy to get lost in the decisions that you have to make and not accomplish anything. It is more taxing on your brain to have to make many of these decisions than to just do several of your Two Minute items. By working on your Two Minute items, you’re now doing what is referred to within GTD as “Cranking Widgets”. Cranking widgets is referring to manufacturing jobs where everything is defined and the worker knows the task(s) that they have to do, they can easily crank out 1000 widgets (or whatever the task(s) is/are) in the course of a shift as opposed to the many other people working out there that have to define their tasks. By switching from defining your tasks to doing a few of your Two Minute items, your mind changes gears and you might find that after cranking some widgets, that you can then go back to define and make those decisions about other more daunting tasks. With many of the other things that you want to do or have to do, you’ll need to define them properly so that you can get to the point where you’re “cranking widgets”.

By actually doing those small quick Two Minute items, you’ll feel productive and you can leverage this in a variety of ways. So why not use the Two Minute Rule to super charge your productivity? Are you using the Two Minute Rule and how do you use it? If you have any other comments, I’d love to hear them. If you liked this article, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS or email, share it on del.icio.us or on Digg and pass it on to anyone that you think might appreciate it. Thank you. :)

On Deck…

I’ll be publishing posts about…

The next in my series of weight loss strategies
My next Spotlight on the web.
More on productivity, web 2.0, social networking, family, parenting, health, and other things that you can use.


Other Post That You Might Also Like to Read…


GTD Overview
Tips for Working on International Projects
Keep Your Projects Simple Stupid
Why Aren’t You Working Your “Someday/Mabe’ Projects?Why Not Create Tasks Right From Your Inbox?