Evernote for Life

     Evernote can be a great tool to help you organize your life but beyond being a simple note taking application you can use Evernote as a “Remember the Milk” type to-do list. You can also use Evernote as a daily journal type application, something to write in everyday which you can keep and look back at a later date easily. If you really like to keep up on your finances you can use Evernote to snap a quick picture of your receipts from your phone and then trash them and not worry about it. You could also use Evernote as a digital photo archive if you felt so inclined, but remember there are memory limitations on both the free and the paid versions of Evernote.

Evernote for School

     I use Evernote in all my classes because I am horrible with paper management and I tend to lose everything that I need to keep. So rather then take notes on paper and then lose them (rendering the entire process of taking them useless), so instead I take my notes on Evernote and keep them in the archives with all my others, safe and sound for review at a later date.

Evernote for Writing

     Evernote is a great tool to help bloggers everywhere. It allows you to quickly jot down your ideas and have them saved so that at any point you can go back and start writing about them. I personally use Evernote to write my offline blog posts when I don’t have internet access because I find it easier to keep all my posts synced to Evernote then keep them saved in different documents and have to hunt for them around my hard drive.

     In conclusion I think that if you haven’t ever used Evernote you should definitely go and download it and give it a spin. It’s a great application and best of all it’s free! If you have any more questions or comments please leave a comment below or contact me at ianmarmour@gmail.com

The 5 signs you need to stop trying….. no seriously stop trying.

1. The really long friend request wait. – You meet somebody on a fun night out and you remember their name so you add them on Facebook the next day and it seems like they just never accept. Instead of sending another request just drop it they obviously don’t want to be “Facebook Friends” and probably not “Friends”  either.

2. The awkward “Hey” with no response. – Seriously if you say what’s up 10x in a week and don’t get a single reply generally they don’t want to talk to you, so take the hint.

3. The dead conversation. – Maybe you don’t talk much but if your constantly keeping the conversation going your doing it wrong. The girl or boy should have something to say if they want to be talking to you so let them talk a bit.

4. Lack of social acceptable notifications. – Saying BRB if your going to go grab a drink or use the restroom means you actually care about the person your talking to. If they aren’t willing too they probably  don’t care that your talking to them.

5. You always start the conversation. – If your always the person that starts the conversation then chances are the other person probably doesn’t want to talk to you.

     If you have any feedback on this or are interested in anything technology related please leave a comment below or you can reach me at ianmarmour@gmail.com.

What is Sparrow?

Sparrow is one of the leading desktop E-Mail client for Mac OSX. It comes in two versions the light version which are trail (add supported) and regular ($9.99), and for any G-Mail user I believe Sparrow is an indispensable tool.

Positives

Sparrow has the tightest integration of G-Mail’s label/archiving system of any OSX E-Mail Client. Sparrow’s footprint is small column designed based upon your particular taste, I use Sparrow in the 2 column configuration. Sparrow also fully supports Mac OSX Lion unlike other competitors.however in my real world tests Sparrow and Apple’s mail client were comparable in CPU/RAM usage. Where I truly believe that sparrow shines is in it’s user interface. Sparrow’s UI resembles that of the Twitter application on Mac OSX. It’s a simple 1/2/3

Negatives

Setting up Dual Monitors

So the process isn’t really that hard it’s just pretty poorly documented. To set up dual monitors in Arch Linux your going to need a tool called xrandr, which you should already have installed!

Step 1. Run xrandr -q it will list your displays, in my case my displays are DVI-0 and DVI-1 yours my be different.

Step 2. Test your displays using this command xrandr --output DVI-0 --auto --output DVI-1 --auto --right-of DVI-0

Step 3. The command above can be modified to fit your situation you should get the idea it’s pretty self explanatory.

Step 4. If the command turned out successful all you need to do is open up your “XFCE Settings Manager” and go to “Session and Startup” then click on “Application Autostart” and add the command to your autostart so every-time you boot your displays will adjust.

Setting up HDMI Audio Output

Linux kernel version 3.0 disabled HDMI audio output by default so your going to have to edit your grub boot menu’s kernel line.

Step 1. Use your favorite text editor to open your menu.lst using one of the below commands sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

Step 2. Locate your boot line which should be the name of your Linux distribution in my case Arch Linux.

Step 3. Find the line that starts with kernel and go to the end it should say ro

Step 4. Add radeon.audio=1 to the end of the line.

Step 5. Reboot your Arch Linux or Linux install after saving.

Step 6. Find out what your audio device is by typing aplay -l

Step 7. Then use the command aplay -D plughw:1,3 /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav to test to see if your audio output works.

Step 8. If it works simply configure pulse audio to use it as your default output. On Arch Linux you will have to install paprefs and pavucontrol by using the command sudo pacman -S papprefs pavucontrol to be able to configure Pulse Audio.

     Spotify is a music streaming service that was coined in 2007 as the new iTunes killer. Since it’s release it has gained a huge user base because of it’s free to use marketing strategy. Spotify allows free users a certain amount of time per a month to listen to music that is add supported, and while that might now sound that attractive, when you take into account that Spotify has signed most of the large record labels in the world and has access to a larger library of MP3′s then iTunes you might start to see the draw.

     The founding premise of Spotify was to create a program that would be easier to use then pirating music. Spotify foresaw the death of purchasing MP3 files. However Spotify has to make profit somehow and thats where subscriptions come in. Spotify doesn’t sell you individual tracks, but you can pay for a subscription that allows unlimited streaming, unlimited downloads of tracks, and use of Spotify on your mobile devices such as iPod Touches and Android phones, or a number of different combinations of all of those features. There were similar services available in the early 2000′s that tried to do to what Spotify is doing now. Think of early Rhapsody and the Microsoft Zune Pass, they would allow you to download “unlimited” amounts of music to either your Stanza or Microsoft Zune respectively. Unlike these other services Spotify really has captured the eye of the public for its ability to be used cross platform unlike the Zune Pass or Rhapsody which were platform specific.

     Music used to be a product in the eyes of the consumer but now it’s thought of as more of a service. If you can listen to your favorite music on YouTube for free then why would you pay for it on iTunes or go out and buy CD’s? Exactly you probably wouldn’t and i’ll hazard at a guess and say that you probably don’t. I personally can’t remember the last time I went out and bought a CD or purchased an album from iTunes.I’m not going to lie and say I have never download MP3′s from the Internet illegally because I like most people have. Although what I can definitely tell you is now I would much rather go to Spotify and just listen to the music that i’m looking for rather then have to go out and hunt for it using google or some fishy P2P site.

Disclaimer: I’m going to take a moral step back in this article, anything written in this post is going to be un-ethical but thats part of becoming a good liar.

Lying 101: The Basics

Lying conceptually is pretty simple, you tell somebody something thats not true. However in practice lying can get very messy very quickly. Before you tell a lie you should gage the consequences, a lie no matter how small will have consequences and it’s your job to decide if lyings worth it. I’m going to assume you choose to lie, because everyone reading this is a liar anyways. Now that you choose to lie here are some important things you should remember when deciding and committing your lie,

1. Remember your lie – If you can’t even remember your own lie nobody is going to believe you.
2. Gage your opponent – If somebody has video footage of you stealing don’t expect to be able to lie your way out of it, always gage your opponents ability to spot your deceptions.
3. Base your lie’s on facts – If there is some part of truth in your lie your chances of being found it will be reduced dramatically.
4. If your questioned ask yourself why – If your questioned there had to have been something to arouse suspicion. Think about that before you decide to construct a falsehood.
5. Keep on lying – If somehow you manage to get caught stick to your story! Generally people will push for information they don’t actually have to make you give up factual evidence. Truth will out? Not if you obey this.
6. Calm down – I can’t stress this enough if you exhibit the qualities of somebody lying you only arouse more suspicion towards yourself, just stay relaxed and you will be fine.
7. Don’t lie – I know this sounds ironic but if the situation is bad enough to be life or death don’t lie. If you do lie be prepared to get caught. When things get serious so do the people involved.

Lying 202: Intermediate Lying Techniques

At this point i’m guessing you have mastered the basics. You might have even pulled off a few successful lies and are feeling confident in your abilities. Thats great however your not done learning yet. There’s always areas to be improved on and here are some of the things that can trip the intermediate liar up.

1. Parties involved – The more parties involved the more chance you have of getting caught period. Nobody cares about you as much as you do! I was tempted to throw this into basic lying but I think this is more of a prevalent problem with Intermediate Liars.
2. Circumstantial evidence – If you can bring back solid proof that proves your story to be ligament you will re-enforce faith in your lie.
3. The emotional plea – Play off other peoples emotions and experiences. Say you want people to believe you had a bad experience in a city, get other people who have had a bad experience in the city to back you up.
4. Watch out – This kind of goes under parties involved however I believe it to be a separate topic. Make sure to look out for non-involved third parties that may be used as testimonies against you. If 3 adults back up a story against you and your a kid chances are you will lose your credibility and be found out.
5. Don’t over provide – This is sort of a lifestyle change but don’t talk so much. The less you talk the less information people will expect from you , which will lower your chances of being discovered.

Lying 303: Lying Kung Fu

Okay you might have told some big fibs and some little lies now. You think your a pro and that you can lie your way through anything, sadly though your not quite there yet. There’s a  long way for you to go to before you become an expert liar. Here are some problems you might encounter on your quest to become the ultimate liar and some tips to evade them.

1. Eye Contact – The more eye contact you have with somebody the more likely they are to trust you. This has been scientifically proven, however if you look into someones eye’s to much it is a dead giveaway that somethings up. Try to be natural with the person your talking to.
2. Behavioral Changes – You need to start observing your behavior in a non stressful situation and be able to replicate that without question no matter the amount of stress your under mentally or physiologically.
3. Paranoia – A common side effect of lying is paranoia. Your brain feels like you miss something and that will be caught. To be honest you probably did miss something, however the trick is being able to use your paranoia to your advantage but be effected by it emotionally. If you take your paranoia to seriously people will start to think there is something wrong with you and then you will be found out.
4. Predisposition – If somebody hates you their going to think of you in a negative manor. They will probably expect the worst from you and that will cause them to assume your lying.
5. Don’t lie to much –  This is self evident but you need to be thought of as somebody respectable that wouldn’t lie. If you’re responsible and tell the truth 99% of the time nobody is going to suspect you of lying.

Last tip: If your going to lie don’t let your emotions or morals get involved. Try to think of what your doing in only a intellectual fashion and calculate all your moves before you make them. Remember this is real life not a game.

Our brains are capable of rationalizing far more ideas then they were say 2000 years ago. Some of you might argue that being able to rationalize more capably is not an evolution but just a constraint based on the idea that the language 2000 years ago wasn’t as precise as the language we use to describe ideas. However I would refute this point by saying evolution is only necessary if there is a push factor that forces the species to evolve. In humanities case there were a huge amount of pushes forcing us to develop a better system of rationalization and emotion then our previous generations had.

Now rationalization is not the only evolution that is occurring in the human brain, but it’s a far more simple construct to explain then some of the other evolutions. I would say another large evolution in the human brain is mathematical and computational thinking. The human brain is growing to become mathematical in a way that allows us to pick up and process information at blisteringly fast rate compared to other generations. With the propagation of instant information devices such as smart phones, laptops, tablets etc it makes it easier to get information and easier still to remember simple information without using our own brains. Now this doesn’t mean that the human brain is getting lazy by not being forced to keep information in your memory. It just allows for a different use of your brains processing power. Anyway this was just some food for thought on Psychological Evolution. If you have any opinions please leave me a comment below.

     Some might argue that creativity is not important in society and we should just teach children how to make money and support their own families. While that is an admirable task it’s also fueled by the same mentality that is destroying our nation. The great leaders in America and American industry have always been highly creative people. Think of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Martin Luther King, and even the founding fathers, they all had the ability to read between the lines and use their education for something useful. The average motive for students to go to college is to get a decent job and education but it wasn’t always like that.

     Fifty to a hundred years ago anyone involved in a collegiate system was purely there for educational purposes and nothing else. They still cared about getting good jobs but they understood that with intelligence and creativity jobs were in large supply. From the time where you are old enough to attend preschool you are taught that college is your goal and it’s the only way that you will not be a failure in life. High school graduates that don’t go to college are becoming a social stigma. For some reason the older generation known colloquially as the “Baby Boomers” have propagated this idea. I understand that the basis for going to college for the average person is to become better educated and learn to grasp high level intellectual concepts. However with the 21st century being the age of the Internet what is to say that a person could not teach themselves high level concepts using tools that are free and readily available?

     I always find it quizzical that we treat college graduates with such respect when the majority of them just followed directions and used memorization to pass a class. I think the misconception with common education is that memorization is intelligence. Intelligence being equivalent to memorization has been proven untrue by more scientific studies then I care to cite. Were moving into an age with more and more external memory, why are we be spending more and more time teaching children how to store information in their brains when there just going to offload the majority of that data onto removable media devices? I believe that the education system in the United States needs a nation wide overhaul that moves us away from learning through memorization to teaching the ideas of how to learn information. Rather then teach students one individual topic why not teach them how to learn about any topic? I believe there is a well known quote that backs this up “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.