This might sound superficial but your outfit will be the first thing which other people see and whethere they know it or not they will judge you accordingly. You’re wearing a jumper and some bunny slippers? Not very serious and probably childish. You are wearing hotpants and fish net stockings? Probably easy and surely not professiona. You are wearing a suit and a tie? Then you’re probably not going to be a fun person.

Even if they change their opinion afterwards these – or something similiar – will be the first things which pop into their mind and influence how they will act on you.

Hence you have to be very picky on what fashion you want to follow and how you want to present yourself especially if you are at work where anything you do might have effects on your further income. Be it your next paycheck, your promotion or even a layoff because you offended one of the most important customer with your clothing.

Simple yet beautiful

This might sound simple and it really is. Don’t just follow the newest way of fashion just because you can. What models wear on the catwalks of London and Paris might fit there but probably not at your working place (this does not apply if you work in the fashion industry being up to date in fashion is more important there than anywhere). Stil you should be wearing something which is up to date.

Don’t buy the cheapest stuff you can get your fingers on. Always pay reasonable prices and hence get better quality because although you might not be noticing it there are lots of people who can see quality fabriques and will judge you accordingly you might as well have an advantage if you show that you care about quality.

If you can afford it you should consider to even buy real expencive clothes. It’s not just a phrase that you are what you dress for. Take this advantage and impres people around you. Show them what you try to achieve. But also always keep in mind that the most expencive clothes can never compensate a lack of enthusiasm.

Daily workout

Beside a healthy diet workout is the only thing which will keep your body full of strength and power. A daily workout will be your ultimate goal.

For getting started begin small. Start with only 5 to 10 minutes every morning. Do some jogging, swimming or even yoga. Find whatever meets your favours. Sport is not only about results. As mentioned above you will stick with your body for the rest of your life hence you will have to stick with sports for the rest of your life.

To yield the best results you are well advised to choose something which is fun to do. Of course you may change your type of exercise every once in a while but it should always be at least some sort of amusing.

Increase your exercise

Once you’ve managed to exercise once a day – every day – for at least one month try to increase the amount of time you exercise. Experts differ on the amount of time which is necessary to stay healthy and build your muscles in a reasonable way. Just choose anything which feels comfortable between one and two hours.

Music and audio books

Many people find it very difficult to workout any amount of time. Most sports can be combined with music which might lighten up your mood and even motivate you. If you’re of the productive sort of people you might want to buy some audio books and even study during your exercises.

Illness

Never workout during ill time. This can cause further damage to your body. If you illness is permanent speak with your doctor to come up with an appropriate plan.

Big and small clean ups

There are two ways to clean your TV the small method contains only a dry cotton towel. Just whipe your TV and you’re done with it. This procedure should be repeated about once a week. The big method is a little bit more work but can be done within 10 minutes. It should be repeated about every sedond or third month.

Safety first

If you’re proceeding the big method you should always unplug your TV before starting.

The screen

Older fasioned TV’s with glass screens can be cleaned with glass cleaner and a paper towel.

If you posess a newer TV especially flat screens are covered with special coatings, e.g. anti-glare coatings. Those TV’s should only be cleaned with any with liquids especially designed for this purpose or – even bettere – just use a damp cotton cloth. I you are not sure if your TV has any special coatings, be on the save side and just pretend it does.

The body

The body of a PC is mostly off some sort of plastic hence a damp cotton cloth will suffice to clean it properly. Never use any sharp liquids or acids on plastic it might damage the surface or leave unpretty staining.

Cords

Check the cords that they find their way straight into the outlet. They should not be a tangled mass. Arrange them so it is rather easy to see where which cord belongs. Watch out that the cords are not bend too much. 135 degree is OK more only if absolutely necessary to prevent cable break.

Outlets

Never ever bring any liquid close to an outlet. If you want to clean the outlet do it with a dry paper towel.

No goes

Never ever clean any electrical devise while it is plugged in.

Never use any sprays on your television. The fine dust might intrude into small chinks where it shouldn’t go and could cause electrical damage.

Yesterday I started to explain how to manage your PC. Today I will tell you what I meant by the necessary steps.

Delete

This one is obvious. Just delete anything which you do not need anymore or which is double content. Where double content in this case means, if you already store a copy of this in a different place. E-Mails are a good example for this. Maybe you have written a letter to your daughter about two months ago. You wrote it in Word saved a copy and afterwards sent it with your gmail account. Sending it with gmaili left a copy in your “sent messages” folder online hence you do not need the local copy on your hard drive.

Delete as much as possible. If you find stuff you haven’t touched in months it is probably a good idea to get rid of the dead weight. But be sure to keep stuff concerning government correspondence you might need in on further conversations.

Forward

There is lots of stuff – at least on my PC – which I only stored for somebody else like links, pictures or even data files. Go ahead sent them to the recipient and then dump them into trash or archive them.

Archive

Put everything in your archive which is old or does not need any further actions. Don’t through everything together – this is what you brought here in the first place – but rather think of it that way: If I would be looking for this data what would I be searching for? Would I look for a folder called “car insurance”? Or would I want to look for “bills”? Would I even want to find a folder called “Toyota”?

Then create a folder accordingly and move the files here.

To not keep any folders by default. Always question yourself. If the folder has a describing name and contains only related files then you may keep it but you have to check on every single file inside the folder so you can be sure that everything is where you will find it later on.

Double check

Now scan quickly through all your folders created in your archive. Are there some foulders which only consist of one or two files? If so is it possible to move these files to a different folder and still keep the chances to find it again? If so, move the files. If not keep the folder it will most likely be filled over time.

Empty Trash

When your stuff folder is empty go ahead and empty your trash can which will be pretty full by now.

Repeat

By now you will have a very well structured computer and in the beginning it will be easy and almost fun to put everything where it belongs. But after a while things will start to pile up again. Hence I never said “delete your stuff folder”. On the contrary keep this folder and if you’re not in mood or don’t have time to put your data in the right place, just put it there.

Then come back to this folder once a month and empty it again by deleting, forwarding and archiving.

Cluttered Desktop? Files spreaded all over the place? No system? No way to find anything but a lengthy search? Manage your PC!

Clean up

First go to your desktop click on “start” ant then on “programs” then scan through your programm and uninstall anything which you do not need necessarily. Then go to your system management and delete every programm from the list which you did not use during the last three month. In addition uninstall any programm which you installed but decided that it is not what you actually need or want to use.

Collect data

Before you can start to manage and sort you have to collect just about anything on your PC. Go to your hard drive and create a single folder which you may call “temporary”, “stuff” or “collected”. Then scan through every single folder on your PC the desktop, folders which you have created yourself, system folders, programm folders and move everything which is not where it belongs to into your collection folder.

What does “not belong” mean?

A file or folder belongs where it is if there does exist a programm which needs this file or folder to exist in this very exact place. If you don’t recall a file or folder and are pretty sure that it was not created by yourself you probably want to leave it where it is. There will be lots of files which have strange endings which you have never seen or touched before. If so leave them where they are.

But if you find a file which you evidently created yourself in one way or another cut and paste it into your stuff folder.

Hint: Strg+C will cut the object in focus and Strg+V will paste it into the active folder.

Create a system

The thing which got you into trouble was the lack of a proper archive system. Now you’re close to fixing this proble. First create a new folder. Just choose a location which you can easily access. Do not choose your desktop though. You may later create a shortcut on your desktop but saving the actual folder on your desktop will heavily slow down your PC and especially the startup sequence.

Once you settled on a convenient location name the new folder. You may use describing words like “archive” or even “my data” as well as your first name which is highly recommandable if you’re sharing your PC with other people like family members.

Important: Do NOT just through everything in this folder later on. You will create a single folder for every distinct task, programm or action.

I cannot provide a complete list of folders necessary since they are highly dependent on the kind of data you store on your computer. As a matter of fact you will come up with appropriate folders during the following process. But here is a small list of folders you might want to create up front:

• photos
• government
• correspondence
• bookmarks
• articles
• drafts
• bills
• amazon

Proceed the stuff

Once you have collected everything from anywhere on your computer its time to proceed your stuff. Look at every single file and take one of the following actions:

• delete
• forward
• archive

I will explain what this means in my next post. Come back here tomorrow.

Picasa is one more of Googles highly advanced applications to collect all your fotos, to organise and search them, to edit pictures, to create slide shows, collages and movies and even to share them online with either only your family, your friends or the whole world. All available features can be found in the Picasa help files online.

How to get started with Picasa

During the installation process all folders on your hard drive will be searched for images which will then be added to the photo library. The pictures are already sorted in folders and in addition you may now create user specific albums to further structure your images.

Folders in Picasa

The folders shown in Picasa are the very same folders you use on your PC. They are the place where your pictures are stored. Changes of yor folders inside Picasa will also change the actual folders on your PC. If you e.g. move one image from one folder to another inside Picasa the same change will be applied in your PC.

Albums in Picasa

The so called albums are a convenient method for organisation purposes and do only existent inside of Picasa. That is if you have an album creating all your children images or your arts collection and then delete one of the images from the album the image will still not cease to exist in its original folder on your PC.

Upload images

You can upload your photos to the web using the software’s “Web Album” button. Instead you can also use your web browser to add images to your online account.

Specifications

Each Picasa account consists of 1 GB of storage which is enough to upload, share and view about 4,000 standard resolution images.

To install it on your PC you need Windows XP, Windows Vista or Linux additionally at least 256MB RAM and 100MB free storage on your hard drive.

Hint

Picasa doesn’t store the photos on your PC. Once you open Picasa it just takes a look into the folders of your PC and shows the images it finds. Only those file types are displayed which you have specified and only if they were located in the folders in which you were searching.

In addition Picasa never actually alters any picture. If you edit an image using an editing tool of Picasa the original photo will always be preserved. The edits are only visible in Picasa up to the moment when you decide to save your alterations. In that very moment a new version of your image is created leaving the original file untouched.

Download

You can download Picasa for free on the official Googel webpage.

Further Reading

One article putting together some very useful links for getting started can be found at the New York Times.

I also find a page with ome very cool video tutorials for Picasa.

Sure, we see in the news and auto magazines that the cars of the future have arrived, they are electrical, they work with solar power, they work with hydrogen cells and whatever but where will we have access to those? Are they so expensive that the auto companies are saving it for a better economic time when we will be able to purchase them? In fact, it all comes down to the big oil lobby and I wonder when will it start opening space for renewable energies to become mainstream; in the meanwhile, let’s make some eco auto hunting and try to manage a more responsible transportation.

Electrical cars are available in a somewhat large scale as well as Natural Gas ones; although they have been proven a thousand times to be safe, most people still think they are dangerous and they have not grown in popularity has they should have. They are eco friendly and not that expensive so the obvious reason whey they are not popular is due to lack of appropriate information of the masses. Some oil-based cars can be adapted to work on a hybrid basis, switching from oil to electric or natural gas on occasion. If you are weary of working only with one energy, this can be a smart option to start managing your automobile’s fuel consumption in a more responsible way.

Biodiesel has been discussed endless times and it is such a great way to recycle food oils that would just go to waste otherwise, causing a great pollution level. If you have a diesel car, you will probably be able to switch to biodiesel with no effort so why not try it?

Managing your car, energy wise is not that hard and even if it means an investment on your part to make some changes it will pay off financially on the long haul and the planet says thanks!

Maybe you just use them for fun, to connect with old friends and make new ones, but many people use the internet and specially the social networks to make business connections; either way, you should learn how to manage your online social life.

The biggest hype at the moment is with both facebook and twitter.

While facebook is a fully interactive social network, that allows you to virtually share any piece of information on your wall, from pictures to video, to your latest scores in the endless number of games and quizzes available and any link you find interesting , while allowing your friends to “like”, comment or share your findings on their own walls. The concept is highly interactive and your own wall works like a highly functional blog. Facebook stetted a higher standard on social networking and brought web 2.0 to a new level. Its a great platform both for mundane activities and business ones alike

, many corporations have found that their facebook pages attracts a great number of traffic and they are indexed by the search engines.

Twitter is a completely different thing; all you can share with your friends are links and phrases of text. In your own page you can only have one photo and you want to share more, you need to “twit” the links; this is called micro blogging, because there’s limit of characters to what you can write; its great to keep your friends updated on what you’re doing and it’s a mix of facebook’s status updates with text messaging into the world wide web; it has also shown valuable to many companies businesswise, allowing for great professional contacts to be made.

Now that you know what are the best social networks, it might become easier to manage your online social life and don’t get lost in all the many options available. More on this topic will follow in future blog posts.

1-     Always be open about who you are. No use to create masks just because you think the other person will appreciate you better; it is better to be straight about who you really are from the very begging; if she/he loves you, it will not be difficult and she will appreciate you for what you are. So remember: honesty and openness from the beginning.

2-     Don’t be needy. Being needy is not sexy, in fact, it’s the opposite of sexy and most people don’t enjoy a needy partner. When you’re starting a relationship, you need to show your confidence, if you don’t have it, go work on it. Be rational and think about it, if this person is dating you is because she wants to, and she appreciates you and is willing to give you a chance. Don’t start with the wrong foot by smothering that person with cries for attention that might give them the idea you’re desperate and no one enjoys a desperate person.

3-     Set honest goals for your relationship. Talk with the person and find out what she’s looking for in a relationship. Maybe she is just looking for a fling or maybe she’s really into finding a lifelong partner. To avoid disappointments for both of you, it’s important to understand what which one is looking for at the moment, so you know if you’re in the same page.

Managing a relationship can be the most difficult piece of managing you’ll ever be required to make but also one of the most rewarding ones. Hope you can continue to manage your love life as well as you manage all other aspect and enjoy a fruitful and lasting relationship.

Dealing with its own garbage has been one of humanities’ biggest challenges along the eras and still is one that has not been properly solved.

We produce an unimaginable number of tons of garbage per day and although many of it it’s already taken care in a proper way thru recycling, we still  produce more than we can handle.

In Your Home, You Can Deal With Your Garbage and Help Solving the Problem.

Managing your own garbage is a great step towards a cleaner and healthier planet, and it’s really something you should learn how to do. Here are a few tips to help you manage your domestic garbage better.

1-  The Rules of the 3 Rs. Reduce your consume of unrecyclable items, reduce your consume of oil based goods and overall reduce the amount garbage you produce, by following the next R – reuse! Reuse your bags, your cans, your glass bottles; try to reuse has much as possible of all your garbage items and when not possible, move on to Recycling. The Final R, which leads us to the next big step.

2-Recyle wisely. Learn by heart what goes where in the recycling bins and always separate the garbage properly before putting it there. By separating the garbage, you’re already helping a lot. Another great recycling tip concerns your cooking oil.

Research where’s the nearest biodiesel factory, they’ll be glad to help you get rid of it.

In addition, you can learn the basics of some homemade recycling, it’s a very rewarding activity and  can be lots of fun.

3- Deal with your “toxic” stuff. By toxic, I mean chemical and potentially toxic to the environment and the others, like pharmaceuticals, alkaline batteries , X-rays and such.

As in everything, information is the key; I  always say it’s your big weapon and you should use it to help you help the planet. Learning how to manage your domestic garbage is not a difficult task and I’m sure you can master it in no time with some hours of studying. Hope you’ve enjoyed the tips.