Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Music. It’s like the soundtrack to our lives or something. But, like any good soundtrack, different types of music fit different situations. I’m constantly surprised by how often I’m in need of a particular kind of music, and trying to put it together on the fly is tough.
Most people’s solution to “let’s listen to some music” is what I like to call Super Shuffle: you plug in your iPod or computer, and just let it play. Whatever comes on, comes on. That usually works great for about six songs, and then you either hit a track from an audiobook, a crappy version of “Time of My Life” you sang for your ex, or something equally mood- and party-ruining.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Once people figure out you’ve got some computer know-how, you’re sure to get bombarded over and over with questions like “my computer’s on fire. What happened?” and “should this be ticking like that?” Often, these are problems we could fix on our own computers, but with someone else’s, it’s a lot harder. If it’s someone else who’s far away, it’s even worse.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
We all use computers these days–for a growing number of us, computers are even a critical part of our work and play. Over time, this can create some serious strain on your body. As someone who spends an ungodly amount of time in front of a computer every day, I constantly find myself achy despite not moving for hours—that’s a low, low moment, folks.
Whether you work at a desk in an office, or in coffee shops and libraries, or any number of other places, there are a few simple steps you can take to make using your computer a lot more body-friendly, and keep your eyes, hands or back from giving up on you after a long work session.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
(This is a new weekly feature, the Weekend Project. Every week, I’ll point you to a bunch of great resources for doing a particular thing on the Web – in this case, starting and awesomeifying a Wordpress blog.)
To anyone who asks me about starting a blog, I recommend Wordpress over and over. It’s the Firefox of blogging – incredibly extensible, impossibly customizable, and since everyone uses it there’s a huge community of helpful people to get you going like a champion.
But all that can mean it’s incredibly daunting to get started. With 50 kajillion themes out there, which one do you pick? And what the heck is a plugin?
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This is a guest post from Corey Nagle. Like it? Check out his blog, a Lukewarm Mess, or follow him on Twitter.
If you’re anything like me, you start your day off by checking email, Twitter, then Facebook, [insert favorite social media site],maybe the weather, reading up on your RSS feeds (which are backlogged into the hundreds, if not thousands), looking for stuff to post to Twitter… Not to mention the fact all this is done while trying to get ready for work, or while at work.
Not that I would ever cruise social media sites or any other site not work-related while working.
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Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
It’s staggering how much information I now have online, in a place that I can’t control or own. Facebook has become my default photo album; Twitter’s where a lot of communication happens; Gmail’s where everything piece of important information in my life currently resides. And I don’t think I’m alone in that.
Most of the time, that’s not a problem. But what if Twitter suddenly shuts down? Or Facebook decides to take its ball and go home? Or, perhaps more likely, what if Google closes your account after it’s been hacked or misused (which has happened more than once)? Then, frankly, we’d be screwed. But not if you have Backupify. Backupify is a brand-new tool that is incredibly hard to type for some reason, but is also incredibly useful.
Read More CommentsPost by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Ever since The 2.0 Life became Digitizd, I’ve been thinking out the subtle tweaks of how to make this community even awesome-r than it has already become (completely thanks to you guys). A few subtle changes have been made, and there are some bigger ones coming down the road. To keep you up to date:
The logo
Isn’t the new logo awesome? I’m a huge, huge fan of it, and now have infinitely more appreciation for people with design skills, because I have, well, none. Luckily for me, Bronson Dunbar has those skills in spades. He’s a great designer, great to work with, and a really good guy. And, by the way, he’s for hire!
He’s also got this cool, new program called Project Assistant that makes tracking your time (critical for a freelancer, useful for anyone) immeasurably easier. He’s offering it for $5.99 (a great deal) until Jan. 31 – so get it before the price goes up! Definitely worth checking out – and if you need a designer, hit him up. Tell him I sent you.
Offshoots
It’s just occurring to me now that I started two small companion sites to Digitizd without telling any of you! Let’s remedy. First, there’s Digitizd+ – it’s full of tips, links, tricks, and tools I come across that are too small for a full post, but are still brimming with awesome.
Then, there’s Digitizd Required Reading, a running feed of articles, videos, and stories anyone who wants to live digitally ought to know about. Please feel free to send me tips or ideas for either one!
Sponsor Digitizd
Instead of running ads, as I’ve always done on my sites, I want to do something different. I hate ads that I don’t control, don’t care about, and can’t recommend personally. So here’s what I’m doing: I’m starting a sponsorship program! Instead of just letting someone sell ads for me, I’m going to be selling them personally, one week at a time.
Companies (vetted by me, and I won’t choose a single one I wouldn’t recommend to you all anyway) will be able to buy ad space, a “Thanks for sponsoring Digitizd” post, and the eyeballs of some smart, interested, curious readers. It’ll let me promote products I really like, and the money will let me start to devote more and more time to this site (and a few other projects in the pipeline…).
If you’re interested in sponsoring Digitizd, head on over to the Sponsorships page.
And, by the way, I’ll never be able to say this enough, but THANK YOU ALL for being part of this community, sticking around through the mess that was moving domain names, and making Digitizd such a fun and useful place! This site would’ve been long dead if it weren’t for you.
There’s more coming soon, and I’ll make sure you’re in the loop about it all! A lot of cool stuff is happening, I can’t wait to share it with you!
And now, we return to our regularly scheduled content.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
I don’t own an iPhone—I have an iPod Touch. Every list of “Best iPhone apps” includes a lot of apps that are totally useless to those of us without constant Internet connection. Do you see the problem here?
For an application to be great for the iPod Touch, it needs to meet a few criteria: it has to have excellent offline capabilities, as well as fully-functioning online usage when you’re connected to Wi-fi. It has to be simple to use, because many Touch owners aren’t super tech-savvy. And, last but not least, it has to make your Touch a lean, mean, awesomeness machine. Which is a totally objective measure, I promise.
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