Mindful Ink     Life, Living and Productivity

As we studied our German, a friend and I discussed the vagaries of academia. People we knew to be quite… well, stupid, who did quite well, how this comes about and what kind of things we could learn from it. So, here’s one of those unorthodox but mostly true things about college.

Don’t try TOO hard.

Now let me elaborate. This is effectively about ‘knowing your audience.’ In some classes, with the right professors, it pays to “wow” them. However, in many classes “wowing” can really bite you in the ass. What do I mean?

It’s most obvious on something like a foreign language exam. In these situations you are often given specific prompts: “respond to this question in German…” for instance. Now, you can respond in a very simple form or you can respond in a complex form (this is all relative to your level, etc..) but what I’m getting at is you provide the minimum required information and expose yourself as little as possible. You correctly stating “Ich heiße Gideon” can be correct, you trying to say “My name is Gideon, but I also go by Mr. TreasurePants” may just expose you to lost points.

The problem is this goes beyond just language courses. You need to know what your professor expects, and then provide it. For some classes that will absolutely be repeating back what the professor told you, and changing nothing - and indeed, many do seem to desire this. Students who “try to hard” here and attempt a more meaningful synthesis and application of the knowledge can put themselves on a limb where the only thing they’ll accomplish is falling out of the tree. This is, thankfully, not always the case. But the trick here is “knowing what your professors want. And unfortunately, that often means playing to their egos, their specific interests, or even their biases.

Now, yes… I hate saying this. Personally, I believe it is far more valuable to challenge yourself to really doing something with the knowledge you gain than repeating it like a parrot back - but academia is filled with professors and instructors who have absolutely no interest in that, and putting yourself on a limb will just hurt your grades.

That being said, if you are fortunate enough to have an instructor good enough to let your expand your intellectual muscles - by all means do it! That is when you really learn.

We all have homepages. Some of you may use a simple search engine site. Others may use a specific site that gives them some info they like. And others still may use Netvibes, Pageflakes, MyYahoo, or iGoogle for something a bit more fancy. And for those of you that do - good for you! It’s a great way to centralize a lot of the info you want or need right when you get online.

My homepage (I use iGoogle) has my gmail account, a number of news feeds, google reader, a few links, and weather. And so when I stumble out of bed and plop in front of the computer, I get a quick aerial view of the world.

But why not apply that to other parts of your life? Almost all the major homepage providers allow multiple pages, which allows you to create completely different environments and sets of information all just a click away. So let me give you a suggestion: an academic homepage.

I’m going to use Google’s personalized homepage as an example, because that’s the most common, but this applies pretty much the exact same way to all the similar services.As you can see in the image above, I’ve got a lot of info in one place. You don’t need nearly this much, I just wanted to give you an example of just what is out there.In the first column you’ll notice some essentials: a todo list, my Google Calendar, and OU sports scores.In the second, I’ve news about my particular field. I’m a religious studies major, which is pretty interdisciplinary, and so I try to get a lot of viewpoints and sources.

The third column has general news and information. Being a good student (and human being) means being informed about the world - and this is one of the ways I do it. This is a mix of slightly better than average media sources (Slate and Salon), general news feeds (Headlines), and academic and very solid news sources (Arts and Letters Daily, New Scientist, Foreign Policy). My actual RSS^* feeds are quite a bit bigger, but for most people this is more than enough.

In the fourth column (you may only want one, two, or even three columns - I have a wide screen, so this works for me.) I’ve a few utilities and handy things. PDF converter, grammar guide, dictionary, and thesaurus.

And that’s it. It takes MINUTES to set this up, but just a click and spending a bit of time on this page daily will keep you up to date on the world and your field.

^*I do plan on discussing news and RSS feeds a bit later, but for now - you can find plenty just by searching around the “Add stuff” area.

I’ve made a few posts about music, and it is perhaps more a time waster than anything remotely involving productivity - but I know music is important to me, I listen to it constantly, and I like it even when I’m studying. It helps get me in the mood and saves me from the million distractions even in the library.

More importantly, it’s important to students in general. And as the technological progress in this field extends beyond the latest iPod, many students have no idea what kind of amazing options they have at their disposal. And yes, generally, for free.

I mentioned eMusic on my last post on the subject, since then they’ve become one of my advertisers - I wouldn’t take them on if I didn’t like them myself. I still think it’s just about the best deal you’re going to find.

A few months back I also made a post about some of your online music options, this is something like a revision of that post. The goal? Music on the go, free and without taking up valuable hard drive space. The reason? I don’t know about you, but my laptop doesn’t have all that much hard-drive space and every so often an iPod isn’t an option. Also, these music services offer something beyond your own music - new music. You can find new artists and songs to love, and to me that is worth some serious investigation.

On The Web

• lala.com - Unique in the world of online music, this site allows you to upload your own music and listen to it wherever you have a web browser. I never really meshed with this site well. For some reason, my full music collection never showed up on the site after days and days of downloading (and it saying it was finished.) Eventually, I gave up - but many people swear by it.
• Pandora - My favorite, by far. I’ve found so much great music this way. As I said - this alone is a high priority. On a Mac I love to use it with PandoraMan (a little program that just runs pandora in a window.) Windows users can make use of OpenPandora.
  
• Shoutcast - Oldie but a goodie, the old Shoutcast stations are still around and you can use them. I always found internet radio like this kind of a mixed bag, but there are so many good options. Windows users will need Winamp or iTunes, Linux users can use XMMS.
  
• Last.fm - This was my favorite for sometime, but I found Pandora was giving me better music overall. Still, a great site with some social networking thrown in.
  
• finetune - Much like Pandora but a bit more like last.fm in its social aspects, finetune generally gives me a bit more obscure music than the others. Very smooth interface as well.
  
• AOL Music - I’ve heard surprisingly good things about AOL Radio, but it does require you to install AOL Radio on your computer. And sorry, dear reader, but years of AOL has left me uncomfortable installing ANYTHING from them on my computer.
  
• Deezer - Like many of the others… I couldn’t tell you what makes Deezer so different. They have a good collection of classical music, however, which for me when I’m studying - it’s a plus.
  
• Slacker - I really like Slacker. I tried it a few months ago and was kind of so-so about it, but playing with it some today I think this could be a serious contender to overthrow Pandora. We’ll see, the only way to know with these things is long-time use.
  
• SpiralFrog This came out today. I was excited about this service - add supported, downloadable music. Unfortunately, it is a) not compatible with Mac or Linux users as it uses Windows Media Files (which also means it is not compatible with iPods) and b) the site was so slow, awkward and frustrating that by the time I finally got it working I was already angry. Once I finally installed their software and had everything supposably working, I downloaded a song that never actually showed up on my computer. So… My suggestion is to avoid it. It also didn’t have a lot of artists I looked for. Oddly enough, I have no problem with the “ad” part of the equation. It was the disastrously poor implementation.
• Ruckus - Last year my campus made a big deal out of offering this service free to students. However, it is much like SpiralFrog - usable only by Windows users. Now, I mainly use a Mac - and I accept that a lot will simply not work with my system, but when a college campus where such a large percentage of the students have Macs picks a Windows only music system - it’s pretty much a load of bull. And that is pretty much how I find Ruckus. It’s a pain to use, the selection is limited, the ads are obnoxious, and what it makes up for in offering “on demand” music, it loses in all of that.

On Your Computer Already

iTunes

iTunes, for both Mac and PC users, has two options for music without asking for your wallet or your hard drive.

The first, and most basic, is clicking on the “Radio” button under the Library list on the left hand side of the screen. From there you can choose internet radio stations from about 20 categories or so, each having MANY stations. Higher bit-rate means higher quality broadcast, so keep that in mind when picking stations.

The second option with iTunes is to make use of “Shared” playlists. Apple really neutered this feature a while back so that you can only have 5 unique people accessing your shared music each day, so on big networks (like universities) you’re not going to be able to use this feature very often. Also, it does also necessitate other computers with music are on the network with you and sharing their music. I actually share the music from my desktop and require a password so I can access it via my laptop when I’m in other parts of the house.

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player has radio, too. So you Windows users aren’t left out in the cold. For WMP, it’s a bit trickier, but not much.

MS sold out even more than normal, and now your Radio button is a link to Napster (at least, my install of XP Media Center Edition is like that.) You need to actually hit Guide and from there hit Radio then click on Internet Radio and then, finally, you can pick stuff out. Microsoft really never gives up the opportunity to try to sell you 10 things before helping you out. Luckily, you Windows users can still just use iTunes.

To Download

SongBird - I do so love Songbird. It’s like the Firefox of iTunes (and made by the same people.) It’s still in beta and not quite ready for primetime, but it has some excellent features and is a pleasure to use in general. It has radio as well as a number of innovative features for finding music online. Honestly, if it had a bit more functionality I’d be using i in a heartbeat. I truly believe SongBird is the face of things to come in terms of how we deal with music. And it works on Windows, Mac and Linux machines.

In Conclusion

You’ve a lot of options that don’t demand your dollars, and I think (as one starving student speaking to another) it is certainly worth your time to check these out. I’ve found some of my favorite music in these services, and I imagine you’ll find quite a lot to like, too.

This is the first in a five part series across the blog Student Help Forum and Scholastici.us: Student Productivity Week. See Part II tomorrow at Student Help Forum.

—————————————

You may not know this, but there are actually a number of great references available to you that aren’t Wikipedia. Now, don’t get me wrong - I love Wikipedia, too. Whenever I first begin a project I almost always go and overview it through Wikipedia. It’s a great introduction to a subject, also connecting you easily to other related ideas, people and places.

But it’s not all you have. Now, put aside the enormous amount of electronic resources your school gives you access to that you never use, this is mostly resources anyone can use (with a couple of notable exceptions). Some even make use of Wikipedia, though not in the usual way. We’ll start with general resources, and then get down to the resources available to a few specific disciplines.

Bartleby - This site has far more than quotes, you can find full texts here as well - poetry in particular.Citizendium - This is supposed to be the more “professional” Wikipedia. So far it’s not really taken off, but the information here is often a bit more “elite” but usually not as detailed.Answers.com - Answers.com is a sort of “commercial” Wikipedia. It makes use of the info on Wikipedia, combined with many other reference sties, to become a one stop shop. It also has a mobile site that I tend to use a great deal.ePodunk - If you’re looking for information regarding a city or place, it doesn’t get much better than ePodunk.

Encyclopedia Britannica - I know it seems awfully “old school” but this site is an excellent source of information and much more authoritative than Wikipedia.

Scholarpedia - A step up from both Wikipedia and Citizendium in terms of scholarly respectability, it doesn’t have nearly as much information, but the articles have all been written by experts with peer review. An academic paradise!

Okay, two sources that your college probably gives you access to. If you aren’t a student, sorry… but these are too good to ignore. You’ll need to see your local school librarian to see how to access these (or you may have a library website you can access it through.)

JSTOR - You know all those stuffy journals around your professors office? And those articles in your course packets? This is pretty much that. For research it enormously useful.

Oxford English Dictionary - The definitive resource when it comes to the English language. Not just for English majors, the OED (as it’s known) is useful for almost anyone in the social sciences.

Wikiseek - When you absolutely, positively, must have the real thing - WikiSeek is Wikipedia with a better search engine. I would also suggest WikiMindMap for when you’re trying to get a better holistic grasp of a subject.

References for Specific Disciplines

Online Education Database - This is a strange site, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it - but this link lists over 100 specific search and research tools, often relevant to specific subjects.

MathWorld - if you have the great misfortune of having to take math, then this site can be of great help. Everything mathematics from Geometry to Calculus is covered by this site in great detail.

GeoHive and Fedstats - These are both statistics sites, so if you need to know how many people. Fedstats allows public access to public agency statistics. Geohive is a bit cooler, primarily providing global statistics (gender populations, coal reserves, etc). I know, it’s so exciting I can’t stand it.

Theoi and Encyclopedia of Mythology - Both excellent resources on the subject of mythology and ancient religions. This is useful information all across the humanities.

Glossary of Poetic Forms - This will help you get through that English Literature class. You too can know the difference between a Canto and a Cento.

Now, if you’re in my fields - these next three are excellent resources.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Foldop - Both of these are excellent sources on just about anything philosophy related. I use the Stanford site all the time.

Religion Online - If you are a scholar of religion this is an excellent, excellent resource filled with many primary texts.

So there we have it. Twenty excellent reference sites that aren’t Wikipedia. And guess what? This is just the tip of the iceberg. You can find excellent resource sites for almost any field or subject imaginable.

Image courtesy of Steve Woods