Kyle's Ramblings

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Self-Improvement Articles Galore - Part One

The Best of the Articles

The first four articles I am going to recommend are by Jay Morrissey. He is a fantastic writer and has invaluable self-improvement tips. I highly recommend everyone read at least the first one. They are as follows:

My personal favorite link for the day: "10 Traits to Be Perceived As A Winner". I couldn't agree more with the tips offered in this article. I'm no psychological expert, but I would say they're completely accurate.

"How to Work the Room" describes 10 way to improve your social skills at networking and social events. It has some great tips.

Lastly, this article will tell you how to simplify your life. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The art of having less but enjoying our lives more, involves a few simple changes in perspective. First, we must understand where our true values lie and focus on them. Then, we must take time to enjoy the simple things, and slow down and see what’s right in front of us.

Link Mania - Small Business Resources

Small Business Media
The New York Times' small business section

BusinessWeek's small business section

Fortune Small Business from CNN Money

Entreprenur.com

Inc.com

Fast Company - Although it isn't small business focused, I still think it could be very helpful and inspiring for the people of small business. As quoted from their site:

Fast Company empowers innovators to challenge convention and create the future of business.

Small Business Related Organizations
United States Small Business Administration

American Independent Business Alliance

American Small Business League

"Small Business and Self-Employed One-Stop Resource" from the IRS

Four Web 2.0 Sites to Know for 2008

Pownce
Pownce recently came out of beta and is now officially public. This is one of my favorite Web 2.0 sites. Read more about Pownce over at Webware.

Ma.gnolia
Ma.gnolia is an online bookmarking service similar to Digg, Del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon. In comparison to those sites, I would say Ma.gnolia is of a higher quality. There is less spam, more relevant links, and a great community. For a little more about Ma.gnolia, here is an excerpt from their site:

With Ma.gnolia, that’s really all the work you have to do. Finding by tags makes organizing bookmarks a thing of the past. Since it’s a website, your Ma.gnolia bookmark collection can be reached by you and your friends from anywhere, any time. And don’t worry about web pages disappearing from your searches or even the web, as we make a saved copy of each page you bookmark where websites allow us to.

StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is the new Digg of online bookmarking. Now, instead of Digging sites, many people StumbleUpon them. At the moment, this is probably the most popular social bookmarking site on the web. They have more than 4 million members. Definitely a site worth checking out.

Jaiku
Although there has been a bit of discontent with Jaiku lately, I don't think people should totally forget about Jaiku. I completely understand, and agree, with people moving to other sites like Twitter, for now. But, if Jaiku really does make major improvements, as they've promised, I think they'll be back on track to compete with the best. Hopefully, Google will pull through on this project. There is so much potential for Jaiku, especially if it is integrated with Google's other world-class applications.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Discover New Music on the Web in 2008

Top 7 Sites
A List of Where to Listen to Music for Free

Pandora
PureVolume
Last.fm
MySpace Music
finetune
Ruckus
SeeqPod

Another noteworthy site I have come across is 3hive. Actually, my first experience with 3hive was, yesterday, when I was voting for the 2008 Weblog Awards. They were nominated for best weblog about music. It looks like an excellent site for alternative, lesser known music.

Nearly a year ago, TechCrunch posted an article titled "Social Music Overview". From this list, I thought iJigg seemed worthy of mention (in addition to the ones I already mentioned above). They give accurate descriptions of each site. Check it out.

Lastly, The Hype Machine published a Music Blog Zeitgeist for 2007, which includes the 50 best songs, the 50 best albums, and the 50 best bands.

Amazon.com's DRM Free Music Store Rocks!

If you didn't know, Amazon.com now has an MP3 store. All music sold in Amazon.com's MP3 store is DRM free and, as you might have guessed, in MP3 format. Thus, it can be played by any music program and on any MP3 player. The following is a more detailed overview as quoted from Amazon.com's website:

Amazon MP3 offers over 2 million songs — all in MP3 format, which means they can play on any digital media player, including the iPod.

Most songs are between $0.89 and $0.99, and most albums are between $5.99 and $9.99. Browse by price or genre; shop Top Downloads or New & Future Releases; and search for songs, albums or artists using the search box at the top of any Amazon MP3 storefront page.

Listen to 30-second samples of songs by clicking the `play´ button next to a song title, or hear all samples from a song list by clicking the `Preview All´ button.

I use their service and have been very impressed, thus far. The sole reason they have won my loyalty is due to their anti-DRM policy. So, if you want to purchase MP3s for your music collection, I highly reccomend Amazon.com's MP3 store.

Personal Finance Tips

The Consumerist lists six reasons for why you should keep more than one credit card.

Also, check out this article, if you want to know of "two money mistakes that could cost you $1,000,000".