Ideas! Ideas! Knowledge flow on the net

It is so hard to imagine how much information, there is on the WWW. I’ve been spending a lot of time for surfing and I cannot get enough. I must say that the world is growing not shrinking. I always was very curious but I’ve never experienced such an inflow of news. Changes are so rapid. I visit hundreds of web-sites and blogs each day. I read and read, and it’s so interesting. As a psychologist-to-be I find this area of IT exceptionally interesting, who knows maybe I will be dealing with it professionally. There are some new words which I have got to know recently:

• BLOG


• RSS


• POD-CASTING


• MAXTHON


• UPC – ULTRA PORTABLE COMPUTER


• SPOT Watch (Microsoft Smart Personal Object)


• Social Software


• e-productivity


• PORTABLE MEDIA CENTER

Reflections #1

Now I've got plenty of time to write about anything I want. It seems to me that my posts should be informative and valuable. That's why I write about software which may enhance someone's productivity or learning. I am 25 and I still study, I know that it could be worse but I don't feel I have any more time for a free choice of my career. I will most probably a psychologist using English and PDA :) I don't think a PDA is very important for a psychologist. That's not this kind of job. But being a psychologist doesn't mean I can't do other things. I must confess that all this current technology world sweeps me. The only problem is cost of this hobby, everything changes so fast. In the Polish net I encountered two articles: one about problems of rich people's children, and the second about loneliness of the "yuppies". They must really be bored in this portal. When I was young internet was just teething, now it spread its wings and flies to the promised land. I'm not shocked that little children spend so much time at the computer. I spend it as well. My computer runs all the time. Consequences? Bad health, low fitness, low mood and so on and so forth. But can we expect that the computers will become less important? I wouldn't count on that. It's influence will only increase. Our body is not adapted to it yet but it will evolve. It must, however, I don't know how. Media rule the world. Media are ruled by the information pundits. And in the vast electronic universe, it must be time for two people sitting opposite one another, sharing their thoughts, sharing their sights, problems and visions. That's the real communication. So what am I doing? I write. I always wanted to write. I dreamed about writing novels. I want to change my dailiy language into English. It's impossible yet when I live in Poland. But I can practise. I want to go the USA? Will I like it? I don't know. Scaried a bit.
it's funny this whole idea of blogging. I don't even know if this what I do is blogging. I would like to meet some bloggers, to share thoughts with them and to read their blogs. I must yet to get to know the world of blogs.
I'm on the point of starting my master's thesis in psychology. I will write something about therapy, something about "the here and now" concept. But it may still change and I feel quite unsure about it.

A big boost to creativity and information management - OneNote

It's the part of the Office 2003. It is a note-taking program. It uses ink - ideal for Tablet PC, Pocket PC users. Now you can store all your data and notes in one place. You can paste directly from IE just by clicking one button. You can organize your notes by grouping them in folders or sections. You can include whatever objects you need (recordings, photos).
You can quickly skim through hundreds of web clippings. Before OneNote I was simply saving interesting web pages on my hard drive. Now I put everything into OneNote. I can quickly edit, search, organize imported webpages. All relevant information in one place. It's pages are much more convenient than Word's documents pages. You can write whenever you want, you can flag a pieces of a note, you can apply stationary or template, you can very conveniently organize the text on the page. I dare say that now reading from the net really beame possible. It's so convenient in OneNote. You have all the sharing possibilities as well - mailing, publishing and co-editing notes. You also can make the program resident so you can write a note in a split second. I recommend it strongly

IT Conversations - a good piece of audio wisdom

Since I discovered BBC4 online I can't imagine living without audio programmes from the net. There are plenty of them. Recently I ran across another interesting audio resources. It deals with IT as well as more general subjects of creativity, society, etc. It's FREE!!! There are thousands of audio books on the Internet but they are not free. For people studying English, there is nothing better than that.

Supermemo 2004 - my main tool for learning and creativity

If you learn any foreign languages, you have to face remembering thousands of new words.
My vocabulary count remebered by Supermemo is 18,000.
I use the newest version SuperMemo 2004. It allows not only to learn vocabulary but also to read incrementally (it means reading scores of articles, mostly web-based, at a one time).
I've been using this program for 9 years, since it was a DOS-version 6. I've spent a lot time with this program, but I'm not sure if it's been right. It became a very strong habit.
I was preparing for my exams in psychology using this program which is not the best way at all. It only resulted in huge collection of psychology (in Polish) but not so good marks on the exams - preparation of this collection took most of the time needed for the exam study.
Recently, I've become beta-tester of this program. This distinction was a reward for my faithfullnes throughout all these years. I must confess that this program works best (for me) for word pair learning and that all other inventions are a little bit ineffective. For other uses I much prefer Microsoft OneNote which I will describe later.

I must try moblogging

Moblogging
One of the most interesting new ways to post to your weblog is through mobile blogging, or moblogging, where you use your digital camera, PDA, or mobile phone camera to send pictures or text to your weblog or photo album while you're away from your desktop computer.

done a lot of net-surfing recently

For time out of mind I've been sitting in front of the computer. I remember the times when I played computers games a lot. Now I have another addiction - web-surfing. I spend a lot of time reading news. Mostly about PDA's. I track all changes in this area. I download a lot of things that are of interest to me. I listen to the online radio BBC4. On the bus or tram I read news on my iPAQ. What makes me happy is that I read mainly in English. I prefer this language. Computer world became my home. I communicate with friends via Instant Messenger. When I want to find out something I google it. I wonder if this will be the futuer of the human-kind? So closely linked with machines. I must go, my girlfriend needs my attention.

Richard Bandler - NLP, DHE, Hypnosis and me

I am just listening to some Richard Bandler's workshop. He is very laid-back and funny. I heard about him a long time ago. Mainly under the influence of my friend Przemek - he is my main source of inspiration in this area. Recently, I played one of Bandler's recordings (should I say trances?) to my students in secondary school. I don't think they understood anything but they unconsciousness understood, and they had fun.
Bandler created NLP - Neuro Linguistic Programming which is now very in vogue.
It is for changing your life, your beliefs etc. It's said to be extremely effective and FAST (otherwise you have to got to the therapy for your whole life ;))
Bandler says the most important thing is to be happy. I cannot say I am happy all the time.

In fact I would like to stop thinking all this sick thoughts and to FEEL HAPPINESS.

:) I know it doesn't come without hard work, or does? NLP is very popular, it's an art of excellence. You can, for example model people who already achieved the same goal as you have.

So NLP uses really many tools to change things. I think you should listen to Richard Bandler to get a feel of it. I've never been a good seller of things. I am much better learner. And there are so many psychological schools - Freud, Jung, NLP, cognitive, behaviorism, group - so many therapies, you can add the whole New Age movement, all religions and modern mass media.

And you are confused ;)) My parents are religous, my mother especially. I didn't inherit it. I was always curious of new things. I tried a hell of lot therapies, religions, ways of life. None engaged me for a longer time. I think hatha yoga is good. It gives you healthy body, no question, and a lot of energy for activities of daily life. I have never done hypnosis, at least I don't remember it ;)

Have you been to Freud's museum in London? Nice place. Enough. You know? I am shy. It's hard for me to express my thought. I have them so many. I will try in this blog to sort out this.

About me and about my passion for PDA's

About me
My name is Greg. I come from Poland. I am a student of Psychology. I work as an English teacher in secondary and high school. I am interested in Psychology, English, PPC's, movies, literature (Kerouac). I listen to Jazz, Acid Jazz and electronical music. I live in the fourth largest Polish city. In the future, I would like to study in England or the USA - either psychology (PhD) or English. I regard my digital interest as purely utilitarian. It's just a means not an end. But as was with English I got completely crazy with PDA's. I think they are an important rung on the ladder of human evolution.

How it all began
When I was a kid I was fascinated with electronics as all kids did. Unfortunately, I didn't have my own computer. No Spectrum, Commodore, Atari, Amiga, even 386. When I was given my first computer I was already 15 years old. But that's the different story. I liked window shopping, particularly in shops with electronics. It usually meant staring at various sorts of calculators. Among these, I was attracted to calculators with data entry possibilities. There were a few of them back then. When I was given my first one I started to change it into a newer model almost each year. These calculators had different names: Memory Bank Personal Organizer Business Organizer Digital Diary My own was called Citizen MB-155 and I also had the succeeding ones, namely, MB-260 and MB-270. Citizen MB-270 was really cool as it had as many as 3 lines of display (one for name, two for phones) :))) The previous models had only 2 lines. I was sharing the interest for these gadgets with my father and we both had once similar digital organizers. However, with the coming of mobile phone's phonebooks, he no longer needed it.On my 18th birthday I was given a really powerful business manager, the kind I was glaring at many times in shops. It wasn't the best but it had a HUGE screen (about 8 lines?) and plenty of memory (128KB as I remember) I lost it :( Then my passion ebbed a little as I had a PC. But when two years ago I went to work in London, I saw a man in the street with a palmtop. It aroused my forgotten passion. So all the money I earned was spent for the brand new HP IPAQ 5550 It was stolen this year. I won't describe the circumstances of the robbery (nightclub). It only revealed my stupidity and wastefulness. I am ashamed of myself. But, on the other hand I was made to buy the newest one again ;)