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Category Archives: business / product review

Make Your Own Guitar Picks

I stumbled upon the Pick Punch a few weeks ago and thought it would be a good gift for my nephew, who has been learning the guitar for the past six months. It was on back order but still arrived in time for me to give it to him last weekend during a Florida visit.

It is really a cool device. It looks like a big stapler and feels very sturdy and heavy-weight. My nephew tried it on a hotel room key and a non-critical part of an iTunes gift card and the punch easily made a neat guitar pick.

The edges feel a little rough but a couple of strokes on some carpeting smooth those out in seconds.

So, if you or someone you know is a guitarist, give the Pick Punch a try.

Build a Writing Habit

screen shot from Focus WriterI’m a big fan of lifehacker.com and they had a top five list for some distraction-free writing applications. I opted to try out FocusWriter.

So far I’m digging it, but we’ll have to see if the habit sticks. FocusWriter automatically goes into full screen mode and allows you to customize the document theme. I’m writing with some light green text on a very dark gray “page” with a bamboo forest wallpaper showing around the edges. Unless you mouse to the very top of the screen or bottom there are no menus or status bars to distract you. You can Alt+Tab to another open application/desktop if necessary, but you won’t see those icons taunting you from the task bar.

The feature that impressed me the most was the goal setting. You set a daily writing goal in the preferences based on amount of time or words per day. I started off with 30 minutes per day but realized that having the document active and daydreaming counted. So, I’ve switched over to 750 words per day. So far I’m at about 900 words and 120% of my daily goal. Woo hoo!

Key Ring App Doesn’t Work

I had such high hopes for the Key Ring app for my iPod Touch. It allows you to add frequent customer cards with bar codes to your device so you can go without the actual card.

I tried mine out with my Safeway card and my library card. Neither was able to scan and I had to resort to my backups. The program is very easy to use and I’m confident there is nothing wrong with the app specifically. The problem is likely with the very reflective iPod screen and bar code scanners have trouble focusing. I’ll continue to test the app, but the library card and grocery store card are my most frequently used.

Looks like I won’t be lightening my wallet yet.