But a few awesome websites are changing that, making business and finance actually interesting. Thanks to incredibly smart, patient people, there are a few great ways to learn about all things economics, all things business, and all things money.

Whether they’re teaching me how to save some money, or what on Earth a stock actually is, here are ten of my favorite business and finance blogs.

Get Rich Slowly

Get Rich Slowly chronicles JD Roth’s journeys with finance. Along the way, he shares stories about his own financial issues, how to deal with money, make budgets, and all that jazz. For anyone looking for a leg up on managing their own money, Get Rich Slowly is exactly that – no ways to get rich right now, but tons of tips on how to smartly ensure your financial stability and success.

Getting Finances Done

GFD is an awesome mix of finance and productivity (which is where the nod to Getting Things Done comes from), offering tips on how to save money, manage finances, and much more. The tips come from a couple, and many of them work best for couples, but articles like “The secret to saving money on holiday shopping: do it early!” are awesome for anyone.

Wise Bread

Wise Bread is all about squeezing the most bang out of your buck, and even putting a few more of them back into your wallet. As a college student, I appreciate that. Wise Bread talks about things that people might not understand, like the True Cost of Debt, and much, much more. Understanding what things cost, how to manage money, and where to spend and not to spend is what Wise Bread does best.

Investopedia

The first article up on Investopedia is called “Play the Market Like Tiger Woods Plays Golf”. Victory. Investopedia’s a way to learn about financial and economic terms (in the Dictionary section), read about investing news and tips, and immerse yourself in the financial world. For peop

le like me, with no experience, interest or knowledge of finance, start with Investopedia.

Million Dollar Journey

As one man tries to grow his net worth to $1 million by the time he’s 35, he’s sharing what he learns along the way – the Million Dollar Journey. There’s a lot of discussion of successful investing and saving, how to pick a credit card, and how to store food for a longer time so you don’t have to uy it as often. There’s a lot of small steps here, which is a neat way to look at finance.

My Two Dollars

My Two Dollars is my “best blog name in the niche” winner. Because, it’s like “my two cents,” only more. HA! Anyway, it’s also a pretty great blog, mostly devoted to ways to save you money. I love the article, “Be Frugal, But Don’t Be a Cheap Bastard.” That alone makes this site worth including on the list.

Millionaire Acts

Want to be a millionaire? Act like one, at least financially. That’s the prem

ise behind Millionaire Acts, where the author looks at tips and tricks for smart investing, creating financial plans for yourself, and how to save some money along the way. Because, if you make a million and spend a million, you got nothing.

20Something Finance

As a 20-something, I’m prone to not thinking about money. Because, well, I don’t have to yet. But 20Something Finance thinks a little differently, and shares ways that if you start to be smart and intentional with your money earlier, it makes all the rest of it easier. Tough lessons, but good ones (at least for someone like me).

BloggingStocks

BloggingStocks is one of the best-known finance blogs on the Web, and for good reason. It’s chock-full of information about the financial world – from announcements, to trends, to apparently tailgating policies. It’s a wide-reaching, easy-to-understand way to see what’s

happening in the finance world, and what it means.

Ticker Sense

The thing I really love about Ticker Sense is that, once a week, it polls some of the biggest and most important finance blogs and websites to see what they think about the current economic trends. In addition, there’s news about what’s happening in the stock market, how various industries are performing, and some of the factors that matter the most.

The Business Insider

This is the newsiest of all the finance and business blogs. The Business Insider covers a number of different beats and interests, in all realms business. It’s a lot like the Wall Street Journal, but in a way that everyone can understand. There’s news, analysis, forecasts, and opinion about how finance and business are faring, as well as a ton of hidden tips in that realm.

Economix

Economix is all about “explaining the science of everyday life.” The site spends its time looking at the most important trends and issues facing Americans today, and discussing them in simple ways. It’s a great source for helping you understand the impact and meaning of some of the most pressing current issues, and for seeing how current events affect us as normal people.

The Simple Dollar

The Simple Dollar, much like Get Rich Slowly, is devoted to explaining money and finance to the average Joe. How to save, the definitions and effects of various ideas and ideologies, and a framework for looking at spending in your own life are three of the things you’ll get from reading The Simple Dollar. An understanding of how the financial world works, and how you work in it, are incredibly helpful.

Once again, blogs aren’t just for techies, or webophiles, or for bloggers. They’re for anyone who wants to know what to do with their money, and how to put a little but more in their pocket at the end of every month. Whether bloggers are talking from expertise or experience, there’s a ton of good advice and information out there to teach you how to make your money work for you.

What’s your favorite finance/economics/business blog?

13 Actually Interesting Business and Finance Blogs

One of the things I get asked all the time is what I read: the blogs, websites, and random web-itude that helps me waste the phenomenally large amount of time I spend online.

So, this week, I’m going to spend a few posts highlighting the best blogs out there, for all kinds of people. Blogs are emphatically NOT just for tech-heads, or Web-lovers. They’re for everyone, because they’re by everyone.

To prove it to you, here are ten of the best blogs out there about the world’s greatest thing: food.

The Pioneer Woman

I’d certainly be remiss not to mention the most popular food blogger out there – The Pioneer Woman. The author, Ree, is a city-girl turned rancher, who’s learning how to cook all over again and sharing it with the world. She makes great food, and shares incredibly simple and detailed steps on how to do it. She’s a great writer, and a great cook, and her blog is as fun to read as it is useful.

Cake Wrecks

Think cake’s not funny? You are WRONG. The tagline of Cake Wrecks is “When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong,” and that’s the long and short of it. It’s something of a mix of the FAIL blog,  a cooking magazine, and a photography website, and is great whether you’re getting married or just turning 11. And want a funny, ridiculous cake.

David Lebovitz

David Lebovitz, a well-known pastry chef, has been all over the media and Web talking about food. He’s written books, been on TV, and his blog is full of great recipes and food ideas from his discoveries and experiments. He lives in Paris, so there’s a major French influence, but it’s food for the whole family – and usually easy to cook.

Lick My Spoon

Lick My Spoon is a blog from a foodie extraordinaire. The author, Steph, writes about her adventures in food, taking pictures and writing about some of the fun she has. She’s San Francisco- and New York-heavy in her writing and reviewing, but her food adventures are both fun to follow and incredibly jealousy-inducing.

This is Why You’re Fat

TIWYF is a site full of pictures of…exactly what you’d expect. Things like “Cheetos Coated in Strawberry Yogurt Glaze,” “Cupcake Kebabs” and “Upside Down Mac & Cheese Pizza” populate this site full of things that will definitely make you fat, and might just give you a heart attack on the way. They’re also all incredibly delicious-sounding.

Serious Eats

Serious Eats is one part blog, one part social network, all based around a crazy love for food. There’s information on where to eat out, lots of cooking tips, and thousands of recipes for any kind of meal you could possibly want to cook. One of my favorite parts of the site, though, is the “Talk” section, where people chat about things like which Thanksgiving sides to serve this year; it’s a great way to get ideas, tips, and help from other foodies.

Make Life Delicious

I’m really not a very good cook. I also happen to really like food. That’s why Make Life Delicious is awesome. It’s a blog full of recipes and discoveries of how to make great food without a lot of work or know-how, and includes everything from empanadas (which I made, and were delicious), to super-easy caramel dip. For the non-chef who wants to eat like one, this is an awesome site.

foodgawker

foodgawker is a roundup of the best recipes, from around the Web, full of gorgeous pictures of delicious food. It’s mostly dessert, but that’s the best kind anyway, right? foodgawker itself is mostly just links, but it links out to some of the best food and cooking websites out there.

Spork or Foon

This one definitely wins the award for most awesome food blog title. Spork or Foon is all about a girl cooking in a tiny kitchen in New York, figuring out how to love food and make some awesome food, all the while sharing her adventures with us. The good stuff is fun, the bad is funny. Win-win. She’s also a fan of Top Chef, and is prone to write about the show. So, basically, she’s good times.

FoodPornDaily

There’s this weird phenomenon out there that I call “Food Network Syndrome.” We love sitting there, eating Ramen, and watching people cook and eat food way better than we could ever create ourselves. FoodPornDaily’s for people like us: click on the picture, and you’ll get a brand-new, gorgeous and delicious picture of food that looks fitting for Top Chef. There’s also a recipes section, helping you cook all the food you’re going to want so badly.

Blog’s don’t just have to be for geeks. They’re for everybody! If you love food, the Internet’s got your back. More topics to come this week!

What’s your favorite food blog or website?

10 Great Blogs for Food Lovers

This is the second in a series of posts, about what we all use in our browsers. They’re now where we spend most of our time, and everyone’s got it tweaked a little differently. Here’s mine.

After recently converting to Mac, I had a chance to completely refresh my computing habits. I didn’t install anything up-front, and only installed what I needed as I went along. That’s made my browser faster, leaner, and without some of the extra nonsense I didn’t really need anyway. Here’s how it looks now:

Browser

I use Firefox, 99.9% of the time. Every once in a while, I’ll open up Safari (which I haven’t customized in the least) to check how a site looks, or if a change I made works, but I don’t use it for real browsing. Firefox, on the other hand, is open all day, every day.

I won’t go in to the 8 trillion awesome reasons to use Firefox (Google it – it’ll blow your mind hole), but instead tell you a bit about how I use it.

Extensions

Extensions are the lifeblood of Firefox, the feature that makes it so much better than other browsers. Just about anything you want your browser to do, Firefox has an extension for. Here are the ones I use:

Firebug – Firebug’s a Web developer’s best friend. I’m not one, but Firebug is teaching me. It shows you, with just one click, exactly what’s behind a webpage – the source, the style, and lots more. For me, designing a web site mostly by cobbling together bits from other sites that are better at it than me, Firebug’s a dream tool.

SkipScreen – I download a lot from the Web: videos, music, and the like. For anyone who’s done this before, it’s a huge hassle. There’s a bunch of screens you have to go through, pop-ups that open, and then a set period of time you have to wait. SkipScreen magically skips all that, and brings you straight to the download, making my life a lot easier, and my computer a lot less susceptible to the bad stuff from those sites.

FireFTP – Again, this one’s a little blogger-specific, but for anyone who needs a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) app – and if you don’t know what that is, FireFTP’s not for you – FireFTP’s perfect. No frills, no fuss, and it works right within Firefox.

Google Gears – Gears makes the Web available offline. Gmail, Google Calendar,  Remember the Milk, and many other sites can all be synced offline, so you can keep using them even without an Internet connection. It’s sheer awesomeness.

Better Gmail 2 – Speaking of Gmail, Better Gmail 2 makes a bunch of small improvements to the hugely popular email service.  It does things like show your message count in the tab favicon (the little icon next to the page title in your browser), show attachment icons, and more. Lots of little improvements makes for one way better Gmail.

Better GCal – Essentially the same as above, but with Google Calendar improvements. Better GCal lets you collapse the header and sidebar for a better view of the calendar, show the current time, and even make the calendar look a little different. The extension makes GCal look and feel like a desktop app, and it works much better for it.

XMarks – XMarks syncs all your bookmarks between browsers – Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. It’s great, not only as a backup tool if I accidentally uninstall my browser (sadly not out of character), but as a way to make my browsers all feel alike on the three computers I use on any given day.

Scripts

One of the coolest things about Firefox is the Greasemonkey extension, which lets you install little scripts into Firefox. The idea is odd, but you can actually change everything about a given website – from adding keyboard shortcuts, to changing how the page loads in your browser. To give you an idea of what Greasemonkey can do, here’s a few of my favorite scripts:

Helvetireader – This is for Google Reader, my favorite place to read RSS feeds. It doesn’t change how it works, only adds a gorgeous new skin on top of Reader to make it much more pleasant to use.

Helvetimail – Same as with Helvetireader, Helvetimail adds a gorgeous, minimalist theme to Gmail that gets rid of some unnecessary visual clutter, and makes Gmail just purdy.

Facebook Keyboard Shortcuts – Does just what it says: adds a few keyboard shortcuts to Facebook. With the script installed, typing B will take you right to a list of upcoming birthdays, C takes you to photos, and much more. It makes navigating and checking Facebook a whole lot faster, and means less mouse usage. Which I guess is good…

Facebook Fixer – This is about the most powerful Greasemonkey script you’ll ever see. Facebook Fixer does things like make profile pictures bigger, give you the ability to download videos, integrate with Google Calendar, and much more. It’s got a whole bunch of features Facebook should already have, seamlessly integrated into the interface.

There are literally thousands of other scripts, and I’m resolving now to go find some new and awesome ones, but those are the few that’ve worked their way into my everyday use.

Bookmarklets

Bookmarklets are little buttons that work across browsers, and that do a particular action with the webpage you’re on. They’re available for any browser, and have huge benefits. Like these (you can install any of these, by the way, by dragging the link to your bookmarks):

Stumble! – Opens the SU toolbar, and a random web page

Bit.ly – Automatically creates a short, bit.ly link for whatever page I’m on.

Stumble This! – Adds the current page to StumbleUpon

Diigolet – lets me bookmark, highlight, annotate, and save a webpage

Readability – Strips away a lot of the background stuff, and clutter, and leaves a more reading-friendly page.

Posterous – Shares the current page on my Posterous site.

Read Later – adds the current page to Instapaper, where I can read it later (or read it offline on my iPod Touch).

Clip to Evernote – Adds the current page to Evernote (where I store long-term bookmarks, and some other things), and works way better than the Firefox extension.

(Here’s 100 more awesome bookmarklets, if you’re interested)

That’s it and that’s all, folks! My browser does everything I need it to, finally, and not a whole lot more. It’s synced across multiple machines, and I barely even notice which computer I’m on anymore – and that’s huge for me.

Your turn: what’s in your browser?

What’s in My Browser: David Pierce

The Internet’s in the middle of an incredibly important shift: it’s moving away from a closed, geek-only space with tons of prerequisites and knowledge required, to a place where anyone can be involved, share themselves, and partake in all of the cool stuff the Internet has to offer.

A lot of this is due to social networks. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and others are making both the creation and the consumption of information – whether it’s about our friends, issues that interest us, or whatever – easier than ever. This ease of use is a crucial step of making the whole Web mainstream, and not just Google and email.

One of my favorite, and I think one of the most important, tools out there is Posterous. What is Posterous? It’s the simplest, easiest, and fastest way for anyone in the known universe to become a blogger, a journalist, a lifestreamer.

If you can send an email, you can create a Posterous blog. That’s because that’s the way you blog – you simply send an email to post [at] posterous.com. Your email gets posted, and you get a dedicated URL for all your thoughts – often yourname.posterous.com.

If you attach an image to your email, it gets put into your Posterous post. If you attach a song, people can play it from within the post. If you paste a YouTube link, the video will automatically get embedded into the post. There’s no formatting or coding necessary (though there’s plenty of opportunity for it if you so desire), no knowledge required. Just fire off an email, and you’re set.

Getting Social

Posterous can also be set to work with your social networking accounts. By default, Posterous will automatically update things like your Facebook status, your Twitter status, your other blogs, or even an iTunes podcast, every time you email Posterous. But by sending your post to different email addresses (like twitter at posterous.com or facebook at posterous.com), you can specify where in the social world your post goes.

Endless Uses

The ways you can use Posterous are absolutely infinite. You can password-protect your site, and make it a family blog, with pictures and notes. You can make it a photo-journal, with galleries that get automatically created by Posterous. It’s the perfect venue for thoughts and things that are too long for the one-sentence nature of things like Facebook and Twitter, and can be everything from a notebook to a full-fledged and popular blog.

There’s support for custom domains (you can buy imsupercool.com instead of imsupercool.posterous.com), analytics for tracking visitors, RSS support, and much, much more.

There are already a ton of interesting people on Posterous (check out a few of them here), including yours truly. I’ve got two – one is a personal site, for pictures, music, and the like; the other is The 2.0 Life+, where there’s lots of cool tips, links, and more for readers of this blog.

If you’re looking to start a blog, a presence online, or just a place to share your photos with your family and friends, fire off an email to Posterous.

There is no step 2.

What’s your favorite blogging tool? Do you use Posterous, or Tumblr, or anything else for super-fast blogging?

Posterous Turns Anyone Into a Blogging Powerhouse

Facebook’s not just a gigantic time-sink, making you less and less productive as the service gets more and more popular. There are lots of ways to make Facebook more useful, and apps are one of the best. Thanks to its huge universe of applications, Facebook actually offers a number of ways for students, and anyone who’s still game for a little learning, to figure out something new.

These apps can enhance online learning, give you more control over your schedule, and make it easier to interact with professors and classmates. They’re particularly good for students of all ages, but they can help anyone who’s looking to further their learning, or get a little more organized. Here are 15 Facebook apps worth exploring (and worth telling your parents about, so they’ll leave you alone about all the time you spend on the site):

Course Hero - The Course Hero Facebook app is a social learning network built for students, teachers, and self-learners to share and view online academic resources. The app also provides helpful links to other open educational resources.

Teach the People – Teach the People is an educational app for teachers and students who want to share and find knowledge on Facebook. The goal of this app is to provide a collaborative community where students and instructors can learn from one another.

Blackboard Learn – Blackboard and Facebook are now working together through this unique app that allows users to get updates on educational course information. With this app, students can receive assignments, grades, forum posts, and connect with classmates through Facebook.

Weekly Schedule – Weekly Schedule provides a way for Facebook users to display their weekly schedule to their friends. The app is perfect for study groups and for classmates who want to work together on assignments, notes, and other projects.

Courses 2.0 – Courses 2.0 is a class schedule-sharing app. This Facebook app allows students to share and coordinate schedules as well as add tests, events, and assignment due dates.

Podclass – Podclass provides a way for teachers, educators, and self-learners to access their course content. The app interfaces with Moodle, making it easy to manage classes, post messages, and interact with students all within Facebook

Check My Campus – This app allows college students to post videos and images of college life. Check My Campus makes it easy to stay in touch with events on your campus. It is also great for college bound students who want to get a real look inside the colleges they are considering

Language Exchange - Facebook members looking to learn a new language will love this unique language learning app. It can be used to find language partners around the world, teach a new language, and learn about interesting cultures.

Dictionary.com: Word of the Day – Lifelong learners will find this app, provided by Dictionary.com, an invaluable way to expand their vocabulary. It is based on the site’s popular Word of the Day feature and makes it simple to learn a new word with every daily trip to Facebook.

Quiz Creator – This quiz creation app from Facebook offers a way for teachers to post educational quizzes for students. Students can also use this app as a studying tool to quiz themselves or their classmates.

CampusBuddy – CampusBuddy is a Facebook app that connects classmates from schools around the globe. The apps also provides features to evaluate schools and professors.

We Read – WeRead, a large and popular book app on Facebook, provides a way for book lovers and learners to write reviews, rate books, and list titles they are reading. Learners can also use this app for find recommendations and others with similar book interests.

Veechi Classes – The Veechi Classes app features illustrative charts for college students to find the right professors and courses. The app also provides a way for students to find and connect with schools and classmates for greater college success

Typing Speed – Typing Speed is a Facebook app that provides a fun way to increase your speed and accuracy while comparing results with your friends and others. The keyboarding test also allows you to practice for faster skill mastery.

ArtShare - Art students will thoroughly enjoy this Facebook app that connects you to works of art from worldwide museums. Artists can also use this app to upload and share their own works of art.

Facebook, for students of all ages, can be a great way to make learning a little more productive, efficient, and fun. Plus, it’s an awesome excuse to spend, like, a LOT of time on Facebook.

What’s your favorite Facebook app?

15 Ways Facebook Can Get You an A+

Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

Facebook, with more than 300 million users, is now the third-largest country in the world. That’s nuts. It increasingly seems that Facebook is the first, and often last, stop for many people navigating their social spheres, doing everything from keeping in touch to planning events. It’s an excellent social network, and developers are turning into much, much more through applications, APIs, Facebook Connect, and more.

But  it’s still not a perfect tool. There are lots of little things about Facebook that could be improved, and luckily for us, many of the solutions have been found. These aren’t features built into Facebook (yet), but with the help of a few services and add-0ns, Facebook can be made even more fun and useful.

Here are six ways to make Facebook more usable, fun, and helpful:

Keyboard Shortcuts

For power-users of almost any application, knowing how to navigate using the keyboard is a huge time-saver, making the whole process more efficient. Facebook’s no exception. There’s a Greasemonkey script called Facebook Keyboard Navigation that, when installed, lets you move around Facebook with your keyboard.

Press B to go to a list of your friends’ birthdays, E to see all your events, and many more. You can edit the shortcuts to your liking, and it makes Facebook much easier to navigate. You’ll need Greasemonkey, but that’s as simple as installing the Firefox extension and then clicking “install” on the script.

Facebook Lite

One thing I hate about Facebook is how cluttered it can be – with apps, Farmville, and all other manner of annoyances, it’s hard to find what you’re actually looking for. That’s where Facebook Lite comes in. Facebook Lite boils Facebook down to just its basics – walls, messages, photos, video, and a few other things – and makes it into a faster-loading site that’s easier to navigate. If all you’re looking to do is keep in touch, look at pictures, and the like, Facebook Lite makes Facebook a whole lot easier to use.

Calendar Integration

With a simple tool called fbCal, you can subscribe to a calendar of all your events and friends’ birthdays, right in whatever calendar application you already use – Google Calendar, iCal, anything. You’ll be able to see all your events, plus your friends’ birthdays, without having to go to Facebook and remember to check. I forget literally anything that’s not on my calendar, so having all my Facebook information integrated directly is huge.

If you don’t want the whole list, there’s a great Greasemonkey script called Facebook to Google Calendar that lets you add an event to whatever calendar you’re logged into at the time. In one click, you’ve created an event on Google Calendar reminding you about your upcoming Facebook event. For GCal users, it’s a huge streamlining of the process.

All The Little Things

This is one of those “I never knew I needed this!” things that I love so much. Facebook Fixer is a Greasemonkey script that does a huge number of things to improve, bit by bit, the whole experience of using Facebook. It does things like making profile pictures and photos bigger, letting you download videos, integrating with your calendar, adding a few keyboard shortcuts, and automatically reloading pages when Facebook encounters an error.

There are a huge number of features with Facebook Fixer, and it’s a great script. It is a little buggy at times, but I’ve found that the benefits (particularly the homepage customization it offers) far outweigh the periodic reloading of Facebook I have to do.

Facebook Toolbar

Facebook, particularly the chat and messaging services, are beginning to replace both IM and email for a lot of people. But they still require actually logging into Facebook. With the Facebook Toolbar Firefox extension, Facebook becomes more widely available. You’ll get notifications right within the toolbar, as well as the ability to search Facebook from anywhere, share websites on Facebook, and to see what your friends are up to. For the always-on Facebook user, the Toolbar is a crucial thing to have.

All the Apps

Ever since Facebook opened itself up as a platform for applications, there have been approximately 51 million applications created for use when you’re logged in to Facebook. I can’t even begin to name the best ones, but here are three lists of some of the best apps available for Facebook.

With a little work, Facebook can actually be made to do almost anything you could possibly want to do on the Web. It’s a fantastic communication tool, a way to have a lot of fun, and even a way to get things done in a more efficient way. It’s also a huge time suck, but so it goes.

What’s your favorite thing about Facebook, or the one thing you wish existed most?

How to Make Facebook Even More Useful

Over the course of my life, I’ve probably started a journal about 850,000 times. Every time something monumental happens, or I go on a cool trip, I start a journal, and keep it for a little while. Then, life either gets boring, busy, or both, and I give up.

What I’ve realized recently, though, is that the reason I’ve never stuck to a journal is that it takes so long. In order to write legibly – and it’s debatable if that’s even possible – I have to write stupidly slow, and it takes me about 4 days to write a journal entry that says “had a bagel for lunch today.”

So I went looking for a way to keep a journal in a way that made more sense within what I already do, and I figured it out: I needed a journal online. I’m constantly at my computer, and frequently have a few mintues without anything of great consequence to do; that’s the perfect time to journal!

First of all, here are a few reasons I think a journal online is better than one on paper, or in a Word file:

• It’s permanent: if there’s a flood, or a fire, or a small child, they can’t destroy your journal, because it’s all backed up somewhere else.
• It’s searchable: You can search through your journal if it’s online, and if you want to find a particular event or date, it’s much easier to get to than it is to flip through all your journal pages.
• It’s shareable: I’m a firm believer in how important it is to share things with others – none of us are ever the only ones dealing with what we’re dealing with. But whether you want to share a journal entry with the world or turn it into a book, having a digital record of your journal is a great thing.

I’ve used, and even written about how good Penzu is before, particularly within the notion that all GTDers should keep a journal. But for a few reasons, I stopped using Penzu a year or so ago. Thanks to a few improvements and changes, though, Penzu is at the top of the heap of any kind of journal, and has made starting, updating, and keeping a journal incredibly easy.

Penzu’s keeping me a journaler, for a few reasons. The biggest one, by far, is its speed: in two seconds, you can start journaling. Log in later, but just start writing when you need to write. Your posts get auto-saved as you write, so there’s nothing distracting you from just getting your thoughts on paper.

The Penzu interface looks like a piece of paper, with no frills or extra features – it’s just like a journal, only you can read my handwriting. You can save entries, print them, even attach pictures. Every post has a link that you can make public, or share on Twitter or anywhere else. And that’s about it. If you’re looking for a minimalist way to write just about anything, including blog posts, Penzu’s a good one.

For a few dollars a year, you can get a Pro account, which lets you do everything from export your files to a number of formats (in the Free version, you just copy and paste the text), organize your entries in other ways, and more. I don’t use the Pro version yet, but I’m getting close.

Penzu works because it kills all the barriers to me journaling. Five seconds after deciding I want to write, I’m writing. I don’t have to remember my notebook, or find a pen – odds are, I’m already at my computer, so I just start writing.

Being able to search my journal (“Hmmm… what DID happen on Super Bowl Sunday?”) has been both useful and fun, looking back through my own life. I can’t recommend journaling enough, and for anyone who’d rather type than write, go check out Penzu.

Where, and why, do you keep a journal?

Penzu’s the Place for Journaling Online

If you haven’t noticed, there’s a brand-new look at The 2.0 Life. I’ve been redesigning and tweaking for a while now, trying to figure out how to get the best of the blogging-style designs, along with a more attractive and easier way to find better content. And I think I’ve found some good stuff. (If you’re reading in RSS, here’s the link to the new design)

Here’s what you need to know about the new site:

• Search – There’s a search bar at the top of the sidebar for every article, and also one in the footer on every single page. Search is easily the fastest and most efficient way to find some cool content, and I definitely recommend you starting there when you’re trying to find articles.
• Subscribe – You can subscribe to The 2.0 Life via RSS, Email, or even on Twitter, and there’s links for each both in the sidebar and in the footer. The footer also has links to Facebook and Friendfeed, both great ways to connect with me and The 2.0 Life.
• The Homepage – The biggest change you’ll notice on the site is the homepage. There’s the big slider, which will feature 3-5 posts that I think are worth reading. They’re not necessarily the most recent posts (though they frequently will be), but they’re posts I think are worth reading. If you click the arrows in the slider, you’ll see some of the best of the recent content here. Just below the big image and slider, you’ll see links to the most recent two posts written here at The 2.0 Life. If those posts aren’t enough, click the “More Posts” button at the bottom of the page – that’ll take you to the archives, with every post ever written here, all on one page.
• Beginner’s Guide - If you’re looking for something cool or new on the site, check out the Beginner’s Guide. It’ll show you not only how to use and interact with the site, but point you to some of the best and most popular content from The 2.0 Life.
• Related Posts – At the bottom of every post, you’ll notice a little widget with five posts related to the content of the one you’re reading. That’s a great place to find more of what you’re interested in, and is a great place to start finding fun and useful things around the site.
• The 2.0 Life+ – I’ve been keeping a companion site to The 2.0 Life for a while, and it now lives in the sidebar of this site. It’s called The 2.0 Life+, and is full of tips, tricks, links, and all the things worth noting, but not long enough for a whole post here. Definitely check it out.

Overall, I think it’ll be easier to both find the post you’re looking for, as well as to find come cool new stuff around the site. And it’s just prettier, which is really all that matters.

If you find issues with the new design, or hate it and now hate me, let me know! I’m learning this as I go, and desperately need your advice and feedback. Thanks!

A Few New Things at The 2.0 Life

In fairness, this has nothing to do with the topic of this site. But it’s been so helpful and meaningful in my life recently that I figured I’d share.

I’ve got way too much to do, and not nearly enough time in which to do it. Know the feeling?

I’ve spent the last couple of months taking on new thing after new thing. I’ve been interviewing for jobs, writing for my school newspaper, working with a  PR company, freelance writing, writing and editing my blog, and working on a pretty awesome new project for and by students, creating a space and community for my generation. Oh, and then there’s school, friends, homework, and that thing called “fun.”

Now here’s my real problem: I want to do ALL of it. I’ve taken on tons of projects and gotten myself way in over my head because I love the ideas, get excited about the process, and love being a part of all these things. I don’t want to drop any of them – but I don’t think I can pull it off.

What I’m learning how to do, slowly but surely, is to make intentional choices every day about what I’m doing, how I’m spending my time, and what I’m working toward. I want to do it all, but I just can’t.

If you can, teach me! But if you’re like me, and feeling a little overwhelmed by everything on your plate, all without wanting to give it up, here’s how I’m learning to deal with it. Maybe it’ll help.

Make a List of Everything I Do

This was one of the most eye-opening things I’ve ever done. I sat down one day, and made a list of literally everything in my life that takes time. The list includes things from “catching up with High School Friends” to “Getting a Job”, to ”Stumbling.”

Make that list. List every single thing you do (other than things you can’t stop, like eating or showering) that asks for your time, and make no inclusion too small.

Cut It In Half

My list was a full 110 things long. I don’t know if that’s a lot or not, but it was too long for me. So I went through, and decided to cut it in half, to 55. The number was arbitrary, but it was important. By cutting things I really don’t get much out of, like “re-watching the Office” or “Hunting for new desktop wallpapers,” I’ve actually saved a lot more time than I realized.

But agreeing to cut it to 55 did force me to make some tough decisions. I stopped writing for a couple of blogs, despite having some great gigs. I turned down a couple of outstanding things, knowing I can’t devote much to them.

Now I’m the last person to complain about having too many great things to do – I can’t imagine a better problem. But to do my best on a few things, I’m realizing, is better than sort-of doing a lot more. And I alienate a lot more people doing the latter.

Daily MRTs

(I’m pretty sure I’m stealing this from somewhere – anyone know where?) Every morning, I wake up and pick three things I really want to do that day, my Most Rewarding Tasks. They’re not necessarily the most productive or rewarding for my career or school (in fact, they rarely are). They’re usually things like “get coffee with Eric,” or “go for a run.”

Those three things have to get done today. Period. There’s no debate, unless there’s some catastrophe. If I’m not doing what I want to do, then what good is what I’m doing?

Daily MNTs

Right underneath the Most Rewarding Tasks comes the Most Necessary Tasks. This is a list of three things I really ought to do today. It’s usually work-related – I’ve got a paper to write, or a blog post to get up, or research I need to do for a consulting project.

Those three things, like the MRTS, get done today. Non-negotiable.  When I sit down during my self-imposed “work hours” (a habit I highly recommend), those get done first. I have to make sure they’re attainable, and none are going to take 800 years and I won’t finish them. Every day, I force myself to cross at least three things off my task list.

Review, Review, Review

The “everything I do” list changes constantly, so I’m learning to review it all the time. I try and sit down once a week, and go through my list: what am I doing for each of these? Is one getting neglected for another? What kind of progress is being made? Are there new additions to the list? Is there anything I can knock off?

Having the list of everything  I do helps me re-focus, and figure out what I need and want to be doing, and to schedule my priorities rather than prioritize my schedule.

Panic

Despite my foolproof system, and way of dealing with all the things going-on, I still get overwhelmed every once in a while. I think that’s okay. Periodically, there’s nothing better than a nice ol’ freak-out session. I yell, listen to angry music, and then realize that Yikes! I probably ought to go do something.

We’re all human, right? We can only do so much. But being intentional about figuring out where my time goes, and devoting it equally to things I need to do and things I want to do, as well as cutting out as much as possible places where those don’t match, I’m more sane, more productive, and having a lot more fun using my time wisely.

How do you keep from getting sucked under by everything you can or should be doing?

6 Tricks to a Highly Productive Me

I’ve got a few different tabs open in my Firefox window pretty much all the time. Gmail, Google Reader, Wordpress, a forum I’m on constantly, and even a couple of other sites all live in open tabs, because I access them constantly.

Since they’re in my Firefox window, however, they’re subject to a bunch of annoyances. Firefox will crash, and I’ll lose all my work; I’ll lose the Gmail tab in the midst of the 43 I have open (which might explain the crashing part, come to think of it…). For an application you keep open, rather than a website you visit, occupying a tab in a Web browser just isn’t the best way to manage it.

That’s why I’ve learned to make constant use of two fantastic programs: Prism (for Windows) and Fluid (for Mac).

They’re called SSBs – Site Specific Browsers – and they both do exactly the same thing, which is fantastically simple – they break a single website into its own browser and window, and make it appear and function just like a desktop app.

SSBs work like this: you install the program (again, Fluid for Mac and Prism for Windows) onto your desktop, and then pick a website. The SSB then creates a desktop application for you that simply launches that website in its own window, where it looks, feels and functions just like a desktop app.

You can repeat the process as many times as you want, with as many different websites as you want. Google Docs, Gmail, Google Reader, Twitter, Facebook, Basecamp and Remember the Milk are all popular choices, but the sky is truly the limit with what you can do.

Both Prism and Fluid let you install scripts, basic add-ons that you might have in your browser to make a web app even better, right into the app. You’ll lose little of what your browser offers, and gain a whole lot.

The reasons for having it are several: one, SSBs create an app-like feeling that better replicates what you’d get from a desktop application, rather than a Web app that you can accidentally close or lose to a crash (in my decidedly unscientific studies, Fluid and Prism were both far less prone to crash and data loss than Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer). Two, SSBs make it easier to find what you’re looking for – it’s a separate app that you can find via a taskbar, or a menubar, or whatever app-changing shortcut you use.

The real benefit, as I see it, is that it separates the constants from the browsing. Any page that’s not going to stay open forever goes into Firefox, but I need things like Gmail and Basecamp open all the time. Using SSBs means I don’t have to re-open and re-login every time Firefox runs slow or crashes, and I can switch between apps and work alongside the browser, rather than within it – which gets cumbersome in a hurry.

The benefits of a SSB are hard to understand until you actually try it, so go try it. Prism and Fluid are both free, both stupidly simple to set up, and both worth your while. For starters? Try your email. Using Gmail and Fluid has kept me from my endless switching (Mail.app, Postbox, Thunderbird, and Entourage got the boot), and has made getting to, monitoring, and managing my email a lot easier. And that’s just one example.

Go download Fluid or Prism, and set up an app. What do you think?

How to Make Any Website a Desktop Application