Clipmarks | kankamuso's 'tricks' clips

5 tricks for taking professional digital photos

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:58:40 GMT

clipped by: kankamuso
clipper's remarks: Basic but effective.

Clip Source: samirbharadwaj.com

1. Use the vertical

2. Switch off that flash

3. Get close to your subject

4. Use the Rule of Thirds

5. Save face with telephoto

Tags: photography, digital, tricks, lists, howto

Ways to Soothe a Sore Throat

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:09:59 GMT

clipped by: kankamuso

Clip Source: www.datsplat.com

So you have a sore throat and you're looking for relief. Try these ideas and hopefully they'll provide some relief to your poor sore throat until it heals:

Periodically gargle with a saline solution made up of 1/2 tsp of salt added to a cup of warm water.
Consider using an analgesic throat spray, such as Chloraseptic for temporary relief.
Suck on zinc lozenges, hard candy, or other throat drops. I find Chloraseptic sore throat lozenges help me most.
Take a pain reliever such as acetaminophen (aka paracetamol) every four to six hours (according to the bottle's directions). (Might be found under the brand names of Panadol, Tylenol, Anacin-3, Tempra, and Datril, depending on where you live.)
Take plenty of fluids, such as cold water and tea (especially with honey or lemon).
Eat soups, ice cream, milkshakes, and other soft foods.
Antibiotics, such as amoxicillin, penicillin, and erythromycin, might help in cases where the cause is bacterial (not viral) such as with strep throat. See a doctor for proper diagnosis and prescription.

Most mild sore throats that accompany a cold or allergy go away on their own in 7 to 10 days. Seek professional medical guidance if concerned.

Tags: health, tricks, lists, throat

Public Speaking: Malaprops

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 10:14:36 GMT

clipped by: kankamuso

Clip Source: www.public-speaking.org

A malaprop is an absurd misuse of words. It can be from words that sound alike (sadistic and statistic) or from explanations that don't make any sense. You can use these on purpose as a humor technique during your public speaking engagements. Consider some of the classic examples below:

Casey Stengel

I want you all to line up in alphabetical order according to your size.

I guess I'll have to start from scraps.

If people don't want to come to the ballpark, nobody can stop them.

It's déjà vu all over again.

Goldwynisms

In the 1940s the movie mogul Sam Goldwyn misused language so much that malaprops became known as Goldwynisms.

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

I read part of it all the way through.

I never liked him and I probably always will.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry is named William.

For your information, I would like to ask a question.

Now, gentlemen, listen slowly.

In two words: im-possible!

Include me out.

The great comedian Norm Crosby, who is best known for appreciating standing ovulations when he performs, has made a living out of the ingenious misuse of words. In real life though, malaprops are usually uttered by people who don't even realize their fox paws.

A flexible public speaker who was truly in touch would have:

realized her mistake,

laughed at herself, and

used that unplanned comic relief to get everyone's attention so that she could regain control of the meeting.

All you have to do to acknowledge the blunder is to refer to a quotation from Mark Twain and turn it on yourself. Say a self-effacing humorous prepared ad-lib:

"f Mark Twain can spell a word in more than one way, I should be able to say a wrong word at the right time."

If you don't like that one, make an ad-lib up on your own. To make effective presentations, you must appear human to those you speak to. Humans make mistakes. That's part of life. As Archie Bunker says, 'Case closed, ipso fatso.'

Tags: malaprops, psychology, speaking, lists, tricks, funny, humor

Learn to worry

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:44:08 GMT

clipped by: kankamuso

Clip Source: www.lifehack.org

Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere

1 - Schedule time to worry. Often if your brain knows that you don’t want to worry right now, but you will allow it time to worry later, the worries will go away. Schedule 10 minutes in the morning, and 10 minutes in the evening to just worry. Many times, you won’t find anything to worry about, but it’s a way to get the mind to focus on things on your time-frame.

2 - Wipe them away. One trick is to imagine a windshield wiper smearing and wiping away the worry. When the image of the worry comes into your head, picture a wiper swishing back and forth, wiping it away. Usually after a couple of times, it will go away, at least for a short period.

3 - Write out a list of worries. Lots of personal development techniques revolve around writing things out. Just the act of putting things down on paper can help lessen anxieties.

4 - Do something about it. More often then not, the actual task or situation that we worry about turns out to be much less troubling than we imagined. If you jump in and try to do something about it, even just a small thing, the momentum and act of moving forward will lessen or alleviate the worry.

5 - Don’t lie awake. If you find that you tend to worry in the middle of the night, don’t just stay in bed and let the anxiety get the best of you. Get up and do something about it. Use one of the first 4 methods, or your own favorite technique, to get it out of your head. Worries tend to become intensified when we’re tired - and the dark and stillness of a room at night may not help much either. Demons, real and imagined, love that sort of thing.

Your worries are your own, and something you may have to live with, like a really annoying houseguest. Finding ways to deal with them may be your saving grace, because some houseguests can take a hint, while others just don’t know when to leave.

Tags: life, tricks, stress

Solve Problems While You Sleep: Have a Drink

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:21:37 GMT

clipped by: kankamuso

Clip Source: www.lifehack.org

A lot has been written about the benefits of a good night’s sleep. Evidence suggests that sleeping on a problem can help generate new insight into a solution. I discovered a trick about 12 years ago that has served me well - and I’ve recommended it many times, to clients, friends, and family. I can’t remember where I first learned about it, but it’s one of my favorite techniques for using the power of sleep to work out problems. And all you need are a pen, paper, and a glass of water.

First, just before going to sleep - state your problem and drink half of a glass of water (I prefer a small glass - I don’t want to have to get up for a bathroom break in the middle of the night).

Next, upon awakening, and before you do anything else, drink the other half of the water. Then lie back down and see what develops. You may get some snippets of dreams, some inner voice clues, a gut feeling, or nothing at all. Just see what happens. Anything that you feel is relevant to the issue you’re working on, write down.

Then get up and go about your day. You may get insights throughout the day, so be sure to have something to jot down any thoughts or ideas as they come up.

If nothing happens, do the same thing again the next night. Usually after 3 nights, I’ve got my solution. Granted, my brain may have worked it out by then anyway, but the trigger of the water before bed helps to keep it focused on coming up with a solution.

I have often wondered if this method works similarly to a placebo - I expect it to work, so it does. But any trick that delivers results is useful, in my book.

A footnote about dream recall - I’ve found that this technique works even if you can’t remember the specific dreams you’ve had. Jonathan Steele (and I’m sure others as well) wrote about a similar technique for dream recall. Honestly I never really cared about remembering the dreams themselves (though often I do). I’m more interested in the “eureka” moment that comes regarding the problem.

Tags: life, tricks, sleep, creativity

Best 50 hacks for your Life

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:50:33 GMT

clipped by: kankamuso

Clip Source: www.lifehack.org

Communication, Writing, Studying

My Best Presentation Tricks

The Business Card Game

Persuasive Writing for Students, Webmasters, Bloggers, and Everyone Else

7 tips of handling your Emails without feeling overwhelmed

Writing as a Form of Self Healing

Advice for students: Writing by hand

Yes, But Do People Like You?

Writing – Just do it!

A good place to study

Blog your way through Writer’s Block

14 Tips for Communicating Ideas

Productivity, Creativity, Motivation

9 Top Secrets of Naturally Born Organizers

Fight The Flab!

More Fight The Flab!

Limit Creativity, Get Innovation

Precious Moments

5 Ways to Improve Your Productivity in the Office

A Geek’s Best Lifehack

What Kind of Paranoid Are You?

Being A Creative

There’s No Time!

The Mysteries Behind Motivation and How To Manipulate Them

Time Management: Handling Disruptions in Daily Schedules

Productivity Hack: Write Mini Process Flows

Design an Online Workflow

Management, Self-Management, Entrepreneurship

Bare Bones Project Hacks

The 10 Beliefs of Great Managers

The Simplest Path to Success

Letting Things Go

Closet Entrepreneur

Time To Discard The Portmanteau

5 Important Keys to Bootstrap Your Entrepreneurship

The Most Underutilized Tool for Effective Communication

Everyday Performance Reviews

Meetings, @&!!$*@ Meetings!

What Are You Worried About?

How to Ruin Your Career In Five Easy Steps

Procrastination, Goal Settings, Life

9 Steps to Define your Goal Destination and Devise a Plan to Get There

Pro-Active Steps to Prevent Procrastination

Improve Your Life By Following A Schedule

The Causes of Procrastination And How To Conquer Them

How To Make Resolutions You’ll Keep

Literal Life Hack: Cut your window of time in half

New Year’s Resolutions and Deficit Thinking

6 Sleep Tips

Risks versus Rewards Worksheet

5 Tips for Getting Out of Debt (and Why)

Deep Breathing: A Great Health Trick

8 Expenses to Cut and How

Desk-side Fitness

Tags: hacks, lists, life

Advertisers exploit video game secrets

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 00:42:11 GMT

clipped by: kankamuso
clipper's remarks: Soon we'll get ads embedded into ads. Just wait and watch.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

SAN FRANCISCO - Crouched in military fatigues, you peer through night-vision goggles and brandish a semiautomatic gun as you hunt down terrorists who've overtaken Las Vegas.

Incongruously, while patrolling a neon-decorated side street in the video game "Rainbow Six Vegas," you spot a jar of body wash. You spray the container with bullets, and voila! A 60-second video of whimsical bloopers pops up, and billboard advertisements of scantily clad women hawk Unilever Corp.'s Axe shower gel: "Score with Axe."

Welcome to the new world of video gaming, where software companies are becoming more imaginative in wringing money from gamers.

In-game advertising has been going on for years as marketers try to reach people who've largely stopped watching television.

But beyond running crass advertisements on billboards written into the gaming landscape, many game developers now accept product placements for milk, DVDs and other wares, embedding them deep into the game's software codes. You'd need the type of secret tips and tricks long circulated for unlocking special powers and other bonuses.

Other companies are charging real-world dollars for the privilege of gaining magical powers and better equipment for virtual characters, leading to complaints the companies are exploiting gamers who already pay $60 or more for the most popular titles.

Veterans of the $7 billion U.S. video game market defend the corporate co-option of the techniques once solely the realm of techies: If Hollywood has been employing product placement and other unconventional marketing tricks for years, why not the game industry?

The standard advertisements aren't waning. But gaming executives say the newer, unusual pitches are more effective: They can be funny and tap into many gamers' desire to explore the darkest nooks and crannies of a game and discover tricks they can boast to friends.

Tags: advertising, video games