toggl.com - Time tracking without taking up time to track it

www.toggl.com

Have you ever looked back on your day, having so many items on your to-do list still not completed, and wondered where all your time went? Or do you feel that you might be giving more time to a project than it needs? Or do you have a job where you want to easily complete your timesheet and export it to your boss or client? Then Toggl might just be the tool you need!

Toggl helps you keep track of your time with a simple click of a button. You can access your account across platforms (e.g., on your computer desktop, on your mobile phone, on your tablet, on any browser with an internet connection). It's available for Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Windows.

You can export your tracked time in a spreadsheet format, or you can have it e-mailed. You can even e-mail it to yourself once a week!

How much does this cost? Nothing! You can even make your account via your Google account. There is an option to get more features for $5/month. You can even track your time as "billable" or "non-billable".

Finally, be sure to watch these two videos, which are about 1 minute long each, to get the hang of how to use it.
http://youtu.be/xc_Z19pWllQ
http://youtu.be/8hdCOnW6oH0

Then, download it on your devices, and get ready to open the black box containing the information about where all your time went! For instance, I just spent about 5 minutes researching and downloading Toggl, then about 10 minutes writing this blog post. Easy as pie!

Coffitivity - Just the right sounds to spark your creativity

http://www.coffitivity.com

This is an innovative - and scientifically supported - app/website that gives you just enough ambient sound to spark your creativity! It is a steady stream of just the right volume and type of sound to replicate a coffee shop atmosphere. The science behind it suggests that creative, abstract processing occurs most often in a moderate sound atmosphere (around 70 decibels) versus low (50 db) or high (85 db).

You can download the app for Mac, iPad, or iPhone, or just stream it right from their website. The iPhone/iPad app is $1.99, but the stream from their website is free.

Here's the link to the journal article that supports their product: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048

So if you can't make it to your favorite coffee shop, or you just want the right amount of sound to ease you into some productive working time, check it out!

Gradhacker.org - Writing your academic biographical sketch

http://www.gradhacker.org/2011/09/23/narrating-your-professional-life-writing-the-academic-bio/

Hello dear reader(s)! I have written a few biographical sketches for myself, but I decided to find out what Google had to offer for advice on how to write one. I found this lovely article at www.gradhacker.org. It offers advice on:

• The three most important points to consider when writing your bio.
• What to include for a short, medium, and long bio.
• Organizing your bio.

It's a great read for its helpful advice, and might give you some clarity on what should go into your biographical sketch.

Happy sketching!

Teachingwithdata.org - "Pathway to Quantitative Literacy in Social Sciences"

http://teachingwithdata.org/

I found this website via the Resources for Instructors section of the ICPSR website. It has many useful resources and features that a research instructor would find very practical in lesson planning! Some of the features include:

• Data In The News: useful for talking about ethical use of data, whether its represented correctly, etc.
• Charts & Tables: visual aids to enhance learning (e.g., use of census data).
• Lectures and Lessons: on a variety of topics.
• Activities & Assignments: for use in class or out of class.
• And lots more!

Even if you are not teaching a research methods course, this is a great way to integrate research into other class content, in order to help students better understand the link between research and practice.

Screen shot of their homepage.

So don't delay, check it out today!

Have your iPad read out loud to you

http://lifehacker.com/kindle-for-ios-can-make-siri-read-your-books-aloud-sor-486241369

Have you ever been traveling by car, and wished that you could get your iPad (or iPhone) to read books aloud to you? I was in that situation the other day, and came across this useful article on a "life hack" to do just that. But it's not the article that provided the key information, it was a comment below the article!

Here's the steps (in case you can't/don't want to click on the link):

It's this simple.

1. Go to "Settings", and in the "General" tab, scroll down to "Accessibility" and select it.
2. Scroll to the bottom of that page and find the section that says "Triple-click". Press it, and select "VoiceOver" from the list of options.
3. Now, all you have to do in order to have a page read aloud to you is to triple-click on your home button, and VoiceOver is turned on.
4. In order to have an entire page read aloud, you must simply swipe down with two fingers.
5. Ta-da! You can now hear your ebook read aloud! You can tweak the rate of speech, among other options, in that same settings menu that you were at when you did the Triple-click thing.

Next, go to Kindle or iBooks, open one of your ebooks, triple-click the home button, swipe down with two fingers, and you are good to go! To turn off VoiceOver, simply triple-click the home button again.

I am going to be listening to a textbook as I drive 3.5 hours each way to teach! Shameless plug, here's the blog for the class: http://LGBTQsocialwork.blogspot.com.

Cheers!

Evernote - organizing with Table of Contents

http://evernote.com/video/#D7oSS4i57MY|1|1

I know I already posted about the Evernote app, but here's some additional information for those of you who use the desktop version (PC or Mac). You can create a "table of contents" for a notebook, which will link directly to each note that you wish to include!

An example of what a table of contents in Evernote could look like.

This seems like a great idea for those of us who keep a compilation of ideas or documents for future use. I'm definitely going to start using it to keep track of notes, so I can organize them into ideas without having to create new notebooks just for one "subtheme" (e.g., LGBT Research is the notebook, but LGBT Youth could be the sub-theme, and I could list all the notes related to LGBT Youth in the Table of Contents).

A quick reference on how to create a table of contents.

You can watch the video (see link at top, or click here) for more details on how it works.

And if you haven't downloaded the desktop version of Evernote, do it now! Click here to download it from Evernote.

CloudOn - The best app for Microsoft Office on iPad

http://site.cloudon.com/

It seems that my technology time has been mostly spent fiddling with my new iPad mini. Of course, with that comes the need to open, edit, and save Microsoft Office documents. So, here's another app - and it is a cross-platform app, meaning that you can use it whether you have Android or iOS. As a newbie iPad user, I figured that the Apple developers would surely be able to make a decent Microsoft Office app with decent compatibility with the Windows Microsoft Office. So I opened and edited a document using the "Pages" app. Much to my chagrin, the compatibility was horrible, and it ruined the formatting on a table I was editing. This caused me to have to re-write the entire document, because of course it saved over my original, unscathed document.

Unsatisfied with all of the "top 10 apps for Microsoft Office on iPad" lists, I decided to go for the more direct approach. Through a lucky search, I found an app called CloudOn. It is WONDERFUL and I will tell you why. First, I was able to open, edit, and save that same document mentioned previously, but this time with NO compatibility issues. And it was effortless to save back to my DropBox account, unlike the Pages app which required a few un-intuitive, manual steps.

One of the best things about the CloudOn app is that it looks and feels just like Microsoft Word. Here's a screen shot to prove it:

As you can see, it has the familiar "ribbon" navigation at the top. Plus, it improves your keyboard selections to include alternate keys such as CTR, ALT, and all the F-keys!

Also, CloudOn automatically saves your file as you modify it, and you can see an ongoing list of when you made revisions. Plus, you can "track changes" and make in-document annotations, just like you would in Microsoft Office on Windows.

On the left, you see the ongoing list of revisions and annotations. On the right, you see where you can annotate and track changes using the "Review" ribbon.

Also, you can easily access any file in your cloud storage, including popular ones like DropBox and Google Drive.

A screen shot of what it would look like if you were browsing your DropBox through the CloudOn app. No need to hit "save", as CloudOn automatically saves and syncs back to your cloud!

Last, but certainly not least, a great thing about this app is that it is FREE! It does have additional features available if you buy the Pro version. I've only used the app once, so I can't say whether the Pro upgrade is necessary, but I had no problems opening and editing my document in the free version.

This post is just about the Microsoft Office option in the app because that's all that I've used so far. But it was so good that it inspired me to hop on here and write you a blog post about it! It also works with Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint, plus other document types like PDF's. If the rest of the document types are anything like Word, then I guarantee that you will not need any other app for your Microsoft Office document management needs!!