1. Life Management
Moving away to college usually means that you’re gonna have to make some changes in your life. Whether you move into a dorm or an apartment, time management is going to be more essential than ever. If you live on your own, you will be responsible for cooking all the meals throughout the day, studying, homework, cleaning, laundry, and paying the bills (most of the time).

All of a sudden, managing and taking care of things become a requirement that you’re probably not used to after living with Mom and Dad. Having a job while away to college also makes things more difficult to keep up with. I know some people who got it pretty easy with all this stuff, but a lot of them said it took some getting used to. Continue reading for the rest…

I’ve mentioned a number of times in the past that I love Mixed Martial Arts and now I am finally getting into it. I have to modify my school schedule in order to join to the MMA school that I’m planning to attend. When I was younger I used to take Shotokan Karate for around 3 years and even after that, I remained interested in martial arts and all forms of styles including grappling, boxing, kickboxing, etc.

I am currently scheduled to take 5 classes during this semester of college, totaling 15 credits. In order to stay fulltime, a minimum of 12 credits is required and I will be dropping one class to give myself more time. The class that I am dropping will free up A LOT of time and will allow me to do more things. I will have all morning and afternoon classes with Thursdays free.

So yes, this is big change in my life. In the past, I’ve always concentrated on school first, but now I realized how important it is to cater other things too, especially at my age. I also mentioned in the past that getting my Driver’s License was one of the items on my 2008 Resolution list. I’ll keep you guys updated with how all these things develop.

Question for you: Are you taking any sort of Martial Art now, or have done so in the past?

There are lots of advantages of going to college and getting your bachelor’s degree. With the amount of online success stories building up these days, some might think that it’s an easy path and skipping college is okay. Going to college has its advantages and the positive factors beat out the negatives any day.

1. More Money: There’s a reason why I put this first. In this world, it takes a decent salary to live comfortably. Anyone can get a job paying just enough to support yourself in a tiny mousehole apartment. Having a college degree opens more opportunities to higher paying jobs, even if your field has nothing to do with what you’re applying for.For example: If you have a degree in Philosophy and you’ve always had a thing for finance, who do you think will get the job when applying, person A or B? A) Somebody who doesn’t have a degree and loves finance but has nothing to prove his worthiness or, B) somebody with a college degree who has demonstrated that he/she has devoted time and effort to successfully achieve a goal.
2. Increased Knowledge & Skill set: College is a period of communication and interactivity with your professors and classmates. The skills you can learn such as a writing efficiently, speaking and presentation skills are vital for career success of any kind. Whether you choose to attend a 2 or 4 year program, you will learn how the real world works. Professors and students share experiences that will sometimes put an end to things you’ve always wondered about. Professors are there to help - it’s their job! Most professors find it self-fulfilling when they truly help a student understand and achieve something great. You don’t have to spend a fortune to get a quality education. Little things that are learned during the college experience is what helps people get through certain steps in life. Continue for more…

Predictions are over and the chatter is on. The long awaited iPhone 3G has been announced and will hit stores on July 11th. The addition of 3G and GPS technology in the iPhone now makes it the most competitive device on the market, especially at its $199 price tag! The usability factor has jumped by a huge margin after seeing all the games and productivity tools demoed during the keynote.

The App Store: Probably the greatest thing that has ever happened to mobile computing. Never has anyone been able to download apps of all sorts on the fly from a unified location. I think it’s cool having the ability to download apps over the air straight to the iPhone if they’re 10MB or less. Developers also get a big a treat from what Apple is providing them - a platform to easily develop software and then distribute with complete control of the pricing. Who knew that iTunes was going to turn into the single most important Apple product?

What we have seen so far: Medical apps, games, productivity tools, music creation, eBay, and even GPS enabled social networking! What more can you ask for from something that’s been in the works for such a short time? Speaking of GPS, I am very excited about using it in conjunction with Google Maps. I plan on traveling a lot and snapping pictures that get geotagged automatically will come in handy.

The TypePad application was pretty impressive even from the limited features we got to see. It has the ability to post entries with images that you can take on the fly, or choose from your library. It would be nice to see tools developed for other blogging engines like WordPress, which is the one I favor.

Mobile Me: Apple stated a long time ago that they would be revamping their online services. They weren’t kidding! Integration of email, calendar, address book and photo galleries on all of my machines is more seamless than ever before. Whenever I add a new contact, modify a calendar event or receive email, everything will stay in sync across the board.

Apple’s Guided Tour is definitely worth the watch to get a good idea of what Mobile Me is about. My .Mac account will be getting an upgrade as soon as Mobile Me is launched. The web applications that have been built feel completely natural and a pleasure to use. I will definitely be renewing my subscription in a couple of months.

I discovered Penzu from a Twitter post by one of my friends on Twitter and I definitely think it’s worth recommending. Penzu is a private journal & diary that can be used on a daily basis for anything you want to write down. One great thing about this service is that it’s completely private. Other people won’t have access to your entries unless you specifically permit them.

Isn’t this just another blogging thing?
What makes Penzu different from blogs is primarily its interface and functionality. It’s not complicated, nor is it messy. You have your writing space shaped after a ruled piece of looseleaf paper, and buttons to save, print, share, insert images into your entry. These are dated entries meant to be accessible by only yourself.

It’s online based, so what if can’t get online?
This is clearly a drawback of having anything online based, but most people have free access to the web almost all the time. I’ve been looking to start writing a private journal and I’ve considered both having it handwritten in a notebook and having it stored online. I chose the latter method simply because I have internet access all the time. I tested Penzu on my iPhone and it functions just like it should.

Yes, if you’re an owner of a PDA phone (or an iPhone/iPod Touch), you already know that you can use the built in application to store your thoughts, and so forth. I look at it this way; A single interface on both my computer and mobile device while having it all backed up online is more convenient than having to manually backup all the time. If you’ve been looking for a private online solution to spill your thoughts out onto, Penzu may be perfect for you.

For a couple of years now, I’ve been interested in Parkour, an athletic discipline dedicated to moving fluidly through your environment using only your body and the obstacles in front of you. Some people call it crazy, while others think it’s child’s play, but I look at it as both. Training yourself both physically and mentally to perform certain things takes a lot of dedication and confidence. Once one gets a hang of the basics, it’s all fun times from there.

I was first introduced to Parkour a few years ago after watching some videos online. I was always into this type of activity as it always got me excited and made me want to do it myself. It wasn’t until more recently times where I actually started going to the park and other open places to practice Parkour and feel the adrenaline rushing through my body. More after the jump…

I’ve owned quite a few mobile devices, and none have been able to do what the iPhone has done for me. The iPhone has helped me with school, work, blogging, social events, and personal development. Here’s how:

With School: Last semester I took a psychology course that was partially online based. Several days throughout the week, we were required to communicate on the message boards and take exams. Having the busy schedule that I did, I wasnt always in front of a computer. I’ve taken exams at the gym, posted replies while driving in a car, and communicated with the professor from the movie theatre. Some things just can’t be done so well on other devices.

With work: When I used to work retail, there were times where I had to swap schedules, let HR know about my delays, and receive special notes from the team members regarding updates. In terms of my design clients, I can’t exactly use Photoshop on the road, but helping me stay in touch with them has been a tremendous benefit. More after the jump…

I recently read an article over at The Artistic Outlaw that reminded me what designers go through when freelancing. For those of you that are graphic designers out there, or provide some kind of a service, these 5 ways would come in pretty handy if they were actually honored by your clients. James made a valid point when he said that plenty of people write about becoming better at your job, but nobody writes about how clients can become better clients.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the people that hired you actually let you do your job most of the time, and paid on time? Yes, it would.

Head on over and check out the article.

This year’s Worldwide Developers Conference hits from June 9th to the 13th. In the first week of March, Apple held the “iPhone Software Roadmap” event that made a huge buzz in the tech world with their future plans. The SDK was released to developers for just under a hundred bucks, and things have been kicking along pretty well since then.

Apple demoed a few applications ranging from games to native applications, as well as some great upgrades to their own applications including exchange server support with Mail. Without getting too much into what was discussed, the idea here is that the possibilities that have been unlocked on the iPhone are phenomenal.

I put together a small list of things that I’ve missed on my iPhone. They’re not exactly the most complicated apps out there, but most of them being the most obvious ones for general use. Check out my list after the jump…

Times is an RSS Reader application with a unique approach at how news/blog feeds are presented to you. Dustin MacDonald, known for creating the popular Wallet application is the man behind this cool application.

The first thing you will learn about Times is that it’s very well thought out. The animation and transition effects throughout the application look very pleasing, and makes it a fun application to use. From the perspective of a traditional RSS Reader, your subscribed websites would generally be grouped into one section, while the article feeds would be displayed in a window right next to it. Times takes the approach that aggregates your feeds into a newspaper-like design.

You have the ability to create categories for the different types of websites you subscribe to right next to the ones that already exist. Times comes with a big list of popular websites/blogs you may want to follow, but you can definitely add new feeds and remove existing ones at your command. If you’re an existing user of an RSS Reader, you can import your .opml feeds directly into Times so you don’t waste time creating new feeds for everything. Continue reading after the jump…