Ian passed on a link last night to me for a new blog/site that he has been reading called LifeHacker. As I was reading this today, I discovered two very cool posts that I thought needed to be shared.
First, I am a horrible note taker (in class). I am one of these people that insist on writing down everything verbatim, and then scroll through these notes highlighting the key points prior to exams. LifeHacker has a post titled “Take Study-worthy Leture Notes” which outlines the Cornell method for note taking. The article also provides links that either generate preformatted note paper (you can even have it pre-printed with your name and class) in PDF format (so you just print what you need), and outlines how to create a template in Word, in case you are one of these people that taps notes out during class. There is also a link to common abbreviations used during note taking to help you get what you need on paper quicker.
Second, I am on MySpace (yeah, collective sigh). One of the things that annoys me is the lack of taste that is displayed by numerous people who also use MySpace. In some cases you can’t read a page because it is so messed up with bad combinations of styles, or it blares some horrific music out to you as you load the page. Well there is a set of code that you can install into your browser (Firefox, Mozilla) that strips all this away off every page you load. It is pretty bare, but there are no linger any hypnotic or seizure triggers waiting for you beyond the click.