1. http://www.lifehack.org
Some awesome sites.
1. http://www.lifehack.org
Aug 29, 2014
1. http://www.lifehack.org
Aug 26, 2014
Replace “I Am” With “I Am Doing” to Examine Your Negative Feeling
When we're stressed or anxious, we'll often say "I'm stressed" or "I'm anxious". These are emotions and not a reflection of who we are. Instead, say "I am doing" in front of the emotion.
We've covered mindfulness before and this tip is a quick way to remember an emotion is a feeling and not a state of being. Inc.com explains three statements and their impact:
"I am frustrated."
"I feel frustrated."
"I'm doing frustration."
The third statement puts you in control of the emotion. Yes, you're feeling it, but because it's something that you're doing, you can stop doing it. In other words, you're putting your mental energy into solving the problem of the negative emotion.
It sounds a bit weird and it doesn't roll off the tongue, but that's the point. When you realize that stress, frustration, or anxiety aren't permanent conditions, you can change your outlook.
The Neuroscience of Motivation | Inc.com
Aug 25, 2014
How to Sit at a Computer
Sitting at a computer for long periods of time can take a toll on your body. By not sitting with the correct posture, it is easy to end up with back pain, neck pain, knee pains, and a tingling of the hands and fingers. So, if you are working with computer everyday, should choose a right way to sit a computer.
Aug 22, 2014
5 weak words copywriters and bloggers should avoid (and what to use instead)
When I first began writing, I was unsure of myself. My sentences were rife with meaningless words and fillers. What I didn’t realize is that by using them, I was sabotaging myself and my writing.
Weak words can sneak into our writing anywhere, anytime and when they do, they destroy the power of our work.
I’ve rounded up five weak words to avoid and some helpful tips for what you can use instead.
1. Really
Example: “The swimmer really performed admirably.”
Why it’s a problem: The word ‘really’ is a crutch. It is used to convey emphasis but it fails spectacularly in this. Really doesn’t tell us anything important and is inadequate as a description. It’s an example of the writing the way we speak but it just doesn’t translate on paper or screen.
There’s also the issue of considering what the word “real” means. Real is a fact, it is not imagined or supposed. It is genuine.
When you take this into consideration you’ll find that using really as an intensifier often conveys more emotion than we intended. If you are going to use this word, make sure to do so sparingly as to not lessen its impact.
Thankfully, this problem is easily remedied: “The swimmer really performed admirably.”
Can be changed into: “The swimmer performed admirably.”
Nothing is lost by cutting ‘really’ from the sentence but simplicity and function is gained. As Mark Twain said, “Use the right word, not its second cousin.”
2. Things/Stuff
Example: “The article said a lot of things and stuff.”
Why it’s a problem: While the writer may have a perfectly clear understanding of what ‘things’ and ‘stuff’ they are referring to, the reader does not. What things and stuff? Where things and stuff? How things and stuff? Which things and stuff? See where I’m going with this? There is too much left unsaid.
The author Kurt Vonnegut often gave this piece of advice, pity the reader. He didn’t mean this in a disparaging way. What he meant was that we shouldn’t make the reader do more work than necessary.
When the words ‘things’ or ‘stuff’ are used, an additional burden is placed on the reader to figure out what the writer is talking about. These words are simply too vague. The writer uses them to save time but it ends up hurting both the writer and the reader in the long run.
Let’s fix the example from above: “The article said a lot of things and stuff.”
Instead, we can spell out what the article says: “The article discussed the principles of interactive design.”
I’ve clearly picked an extreme example to illustrate this one point: specificity rules.
3. I believe/I feel/I think
Example: “I believe the author has a great point here…”
I had this Professor in college who wasn’t afraid of telling you just how crappy your writing was. One day he pulled me aside and said, “Andrea, you don’t need to say ‘I believe’ we already know it’s what you believe, you’re the one writing it.”
Why it’s a problem: ‘I believe,’ ‘I feel,’ ‘I think,’ do not inspire confidence in the reader, they do the exact opposite. Their use causes the reader to question the authors authenticity and honesty. These words make the writer sound unsure of themselves and the topic discussed. It also forces the writer to overuse pronouns and that’s bad news. Here’s why:
Computer programmer James Pennebaker analyzed over 400,000 texts in his mission to see what our word choice reveals about us. When Pennebaker analyzed military transcripts, his team could tell individuals relative ranks based entirely on patterns of speech.
What does this tell us? Our choice and use of pronouns reveals how we view ourselves and how we view our relationships with others. In short, it reveals our personality to the reader. This is fine in cases of autobiography but most of the time it only serves to weaken your work.
The use of words like, ‘I think’ or ‘I believe’ changes the focus of the sentence. Instead of the focus being on the subject, it is on the author. It’s like a big blinking neon light saying, “Hi, this is me the author talking, look at me sitting here talking about my opinions! Isn’t this great?”
It’s not great. You take the reader out of the piece completely which is generally something a writer wishes to avoid, especially if you are trying to persuade the reader.
Case in point: “I believe the researcher has a great point here.”
Instead try: “The researcher has a great point here.”
This causes the power dynamics to shift. The sentence goes from sounding wishy-washy, to sounding confident. It also places the focus back where it belongs. Bonus points to everyone.
4. Was/Is/Are/Am
These are forms of ‘to/be.’ What we are talking about here is the difference between active and passive voice.
Active voice: “Sally mailed the letter.”
Here the subject (Sally) is performing the action. It is clear what action has transpired.
Passive voice: “The letter was mailed by Sally.”
In this sentence, the subject has changed (letter) and is the thing being acted upon. The sentence structure is unnecessarily complex.
Why it’s a problem: Passive voice is most often used in scientific writing, and that’s usually where it belongs. It tends to be less engaging and requires the writer to use more words per sentence. Passive voice forces the reader to do more work to get to the same conclusion. Active voice allows for short, punctuated sentences that get to the point.
Generic Disclaimer: Passive voice does have its place, and not every form of “to be” represents passive voice.
5. Very
“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” — Mark Twain
My sentiments exactly.
Example: “Scientists are very interested in finding out more about the duck-billed platypus.”
Why it’s a problem: The word ‘very’ does not communicate enough information. It’s been called one of the most useless words in the English language. It’s one of those penny words that writers throw in to magnify another word. The only problem is, it doesn’t do that.
How does one avoid using the word ‘very’? Start off with a more descriptive adjective from the get-go. Instead of saying, “very good” say “wonderful.” Remember, your reader’s time is precious. It pays to be as concise as possible.
Another solution is to cut the word ‘very’ out of the sentence completely.
Again, nothing is lost by doing this: “Scientists are interested in finding out more about the duck-billed platypus.”
There is a seemingly infinite supply of wonderful words available to writers and let’s be honest, the word ‘very’ isn’t one of them.
The act of writing–from emails to articles and everything in between–involves taking the reader on a journey. Each word should move the reader closer to the conclusion of that journey. If it doesn’t, get rid of it. I promise your writing will be better off for it.
Source : thenextweb
Aug 20, 2014
The in-tools: ten technologies you should know about
Are you down with the hip young technologies? Are you grooving it up with Groovy or still keeping it oldschool with Java? Here’s an introduction to RebelLabs list of ten technologies that modern developers are using to kick ass. If you already know more half, give yourself a pat on the back.
1. Confluence
Released: 2004
Written in: Java
Alternative to: SharePoint
Confluence is a proprietary team collaboration software designed for corporate developer teams. Supporting 10,000+ organisations worldwide, the product is mostly used as an intranet solution. It often proves handy for reducing the number of company emails.
Atlassian, the only company to make it into the top ten list twice, got the wiki community all riled up up when it decided to cease Confluence’s support of wiki markup language.
2. Git
Released: 2005
Written in: C, Bourne Shell, Tcl, Perl
Alternative to: Mercurial, Apache Subversion
Fathered by the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds himself, Git is an open-source source code management system. A favourite in the Android project, Git’s main advantage over its competitors is its distributed approach. “Once you really understand the things that a truly distributed model like Git brings to the table, you really are never going to go back to the centralized model,” sas Torvalds.
3. Gradle
Released: 2012
Written in: Java, Groovy (also a top 10 technology)
Alternative to: Apache Ant and Maven
Gradle is a build tools unlike others. Traditionally project configurations are declared with, ugh, XML. Not so with Gradle. Using the basic concepts of Apache Ant and Apache Maven, Gradle adds Groovy into the mix for a DSL, while also automating tasks like build test and deployment. Making up 11% of all build tools used, Gradle is still lagging behind Maven, (64%) and Ant + Ivy (16.5%), according to a Rebellabs survey, although it’s market share has doubled since its launch in 2012.
4. Groovy
Released: 2007
Alternative to: JRuby and Jython
Sometimes thought of as Java’s answer to Ruby, Groovy is the first programming language to have its origins in the 1960s flower-power movement. As an object-oriented dynamic language that runs on the JVM, Groovy is the second most popular JVM alternative after Scala according to a RebelLabs survey. Compared to similar Java languages JRuby and Jython, Groovy is useful for projects that make frequent use of Java libraries.
5. IntelliJ IDEA
Released: 2001
Alternative to: Eclipse, SpringBeans
In contrast to the cacophony of plugins in Eclipse, the integrated development environment IntelliJ IDEA is exactly what an IDE should be: integrated. As it’s developed by one single company (JetBrains), there’s somewhat less community participation. But that also means that its built-in features are far more cohesive. Selected by Google as the basis for Android Studio (the development environment for Android), IntelliJ IDEA has carved out 33% of the market share for itself, slowly catching up on the classic Java IDE, Eclipse (44%).
6. Jenkins
Released: 2011
Alternative to: Bamboo, Hudson, TeamCity
Written in: Java
Part of a long and winding history with Oracle’s Hudson project, Jenkins has established itself as the most popular CI in the market. Why? An continuous integration tool that supports SCM tools like Git, Subversion and Mercurial. It’s easy to extend and modify, so devs can use it for just about any CI purpose they have. Best of all, it’s free and it’s open-source.
7. JIRA and Confluence
Released: 2002
Alternative to: GitHub, Redmine, Google Docs and Skype
Do you have issues? Tell them to JIRA. Do you have something you need to share? Share it with Confluence. These two Atlassian products are among the most popular tools for communicating and tracking issues in developer teams. Although JIRA and Confluence aren’t strictly for developers only, Atlassian’s coding background has given them just the right mixture of functions that an engineering team will need. What’s more the two services integrate nicely.
8. MongoDB
Released: 2007
Alternative to: Primary NoSQL technologies like Cassandra and Neo4J
Written in: C++
MongoDB (as in ‘humongous’) is a document database that lets users map data types straight to a database’s documents. But rather than using the oldschool table-based relational database, MongoDB goes for more dynamic JSON-like docs. A back-end favourite at eBay, the New York Times and Craigslist, MongoDB is by far the most popular NoSQL database system.
9. Scala
Released: 2003
Alternative to: Java
An object-functional JVM language, Scala has established itself as a major alternative to Java for complex lambda functions. With the introduction of Lambdas to Java 8, speculation has risen if ye olde Java might someday catch up with Scala. But for now, 47% of developers still list Scala as the next JVM langauge they want to learn, says a RebelLabs research.
10. Tomcat + TomEE
Released: 1999 and 2012
Alternative to: JBoss, Jetty
The oldest technology in ZeroTurnaround’s top 10 list, Tomcat is the Java community’s biggest free and open-source application server for JSP and Servlet support. JavaEE developers can turn to the more recent TomEE, also created by Apache.
Source :jaxenter.com
1. Confluence
Released: 2004
Written in: Java
Alternative to: SharePoint
Confluence is a proprietary team collaboration software designed for corporate developer teams. Supporting 10,000+ organisations worldwide, the product is mostly used as an intranet solution. It often proves handy for reducing the number of company emails.
Atlassian, the only company to make it into the top ten list twice, got the wiki community all riled up up when it decided to cease Confluence’s support of wiki markup language.
2. Git
Released: 2005
Written in: C, Bourne Shell, Tcl, Perl
Alternative to: Mercurial, Apache Subversion
Fathered by the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds himself, Git is an open-source source code management system. A favourite in the Android project, Git’s main advantage over its competitors is its distributed approach. “Once you really understand the things that a truly distributed model like Git brings to the table, you really are never going to go back to the centralized model,” sas Torvalds.
3. Gradle
Released: 2012
Written in: Java, Groovy (also a top 10 technology)
Alternative to: Apache Ant and Maven
Gradle is a build tools unlike others. Traditionally project configurations are declared with, ugh, XML. Not so with Gradle. Using the basic concepts of Apache Ant and Apache Maven, Gradle adds Groovy into the mix for a DSL, while also automating tasks like build test and deployment. Making up 11% of all build tools used, Gradle is still lagging behind Maven, (64%) and Ant + Ivy (16.5%), according to a Rebellabs survey, although it’s market share has doubled since its launch in 2012.
4. Groovy
Released: 2007
Alternative to: JRuby and Jython
Sometimes thought of as Java’s answer to Ruby, Groovy is the first programming language to have its origins in the 1960s flower-power movement. As an object-oriented dynamic language that runs on the JVM, Groovy is the second most popular JVM alternative after Scala according to a RebelLabs survey. Compared to similar Java languages JRuby and Jython, Groovy is useful for projects that make frequent use of Java libraries.
5. IntelliJ IDEA
Released: 2001
Alternative to: Eclipse, SpringBeans
In contrast to the cacophony of plugins in Eclipse, the integrated development environment IntelliJ IDEA is exactly what an IDE should be: integrated. As it’s developed by one single company (JetBrains), there’s somewhat less community participation. But that also means that its built-in features are far more cohesive. Selected by Google as the basis for Android Studio (the development environment for Android), IntelliJ IDEA has carved out 33% of the market share for itself, slowly catching up on the classic Java IDE, Eclipse (44%).
6. Jenkins
Released: 2011
Alternative to: Bamboo, Hudson, TeamCity
Written in: Java
Part of a long and winding history with Oracle’s Hudson project, Jenkins has established itself as the most popular CI in the market. Why? An continuous integration tool that supports SCM tools like Git, Subversion and Mercurial. It’s easy to extend and modify, so devs can use it for just about any CI purpose they have. Best of all, it’s free and it’s open-source.
7. JIRA and Confluence
Released: 2002
Alternative to: GitHub, Redmine, Google Docs and Skype
Do you have issues? Tell them to JIRA. Do you have something you need to share? Share it with Confluence. These two Atlassian products are among the most popular tools for communicating and tracking issues in developer teams. Although JIRA and Confluence aren’t strictly for developers only, Atlassian’s coding background has given them just the right mixture of functions that an engineering team will need. What’s more the two services integrate nicely.
8. MongoDB
Released: 2007
Alternative to: Primary NoSQL technologies like Cassandra and Neo4J
Written in: C++
MongoDB (as in ‘humongous’) is a document database that lets users map data types straight to a database’s documents. But rather than using the oldschool table-based relational database, MongoDB goes for more dynamic JSON-like docs. A back-end favourite at eBay, the New York Times and Craigslist, MongoDB is by far the most popular NoSQL database system.
9. Scala
Released: 2003
Alternative to: Java
An object-functional JVM language, Scala has established itself as a major alternative to Java for complex lambda functions. With the introduction of Lambdas to Java 8, speculation has risen if ye olde Java might someday catch up with Scala. But for now, 47% of developers still list Scala as the next JVM langauge they want to learn, says a RebelLabs research.
10. Tomcat + TomEE
Released: 1999 and 2012
Alternative to: JBoss, Jetty
The oldest technology in ZeroTurnaround’s top 10 list, Tomcat is the Java community’s biggest free and open-source application server for JSP and Servlet support. JavaEE developers can turn to the more recent TomEE, also created by Apache.
Source :jaxenter.com
