For those of you who have a BlackBerry Storm (1), you might notice that the screen clicks really well in some places, and somehow the corners don't click really well at all. You sometimes need to really press hard to get it to respond, etc.
I found a little trick out to make it click perfectly!
Remove your battery and tear up four small pieces of paper (a little smaller in size than your battery) put those pieces of paper underneath your battery. It should work perfectly! (If not, try adjusting how many pieces of paper you use.)
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
3 Great websites for Learning Chinese
Here are three websites that really helped me in my Chinese studies.
1. Mandarin Tools - This is the site I use whenever I want to look up Chinese characters or their pin yin and translate them into characters, pin yin, or English.
2. Chinese Pod - I used this site to listen to their free podcasts. Listening to all those podcasts really helped me out when I first started. If you are interested in investing money into it, you can pay this site some money to upgrade your account to something suitable for your level of chinese.
3. Skritter - i use this site to learn chinese characters. i haven't found a site like it to this day. they test you on your character knowledge by saying something in chinese at which point you need to write the character out with your mouse or trackpad, etc. it sounds a little difficult, but it's actually really easy to get the hang of it!
1. Mandarin Tools - This is the site I use whenever I want to look up Chinese characters or their pin yin and translate them into characters, pin yin, or English.
2. Chinese Pod - I used this site to listen to their free podcasts. Listening to all those podcasts really helped me out when I first started. If you are interested in investing money into it, you can pay this site some money to upgrade your account to something suitable for your level of chinese.
3. Skritter - i use this site to learn chinese characters. i haven't found a site like it to this day. they test you on your character knowledge by saying something in chinese at which point you need to write the character out with your mouse or trackpad, etc. it sounds a little difficult, but it's actually really easy to get the hang of it!
Sunday, January 3, 2010
6 Tips for Effectively Packing Your Luggage
Among all of our trips and our house relocations, I've found that:
1) We do this way too much!
2) We really have this packing thing down! (It's an art, really.)
We have packed up all of our possessions that we own and moved them to a completely new vacation via commercial flights over eight separate times!
I wanted to share the wisdom we have had with some hopefully very helpful tips for you travellers.
1. Give yourself a head start! - Around a week before the departure time, get yourself a week's worth of clothes out and start packing! Pack your clothes for your trip a week ahead of time. You'll wear your week's worth of clothes during this time. During this time you can also use those your "packing clothes" to wrap your valuables in so you can protect them during the process of flying! You want to save yourself all the stress you can, and you want to be an effective and efficient packer!
2. Roll your clothes. - I bet many of you would really be surprised when you find how much your luggage can really hold! Fold your clothes so they are longer than they are wide, and roll them up! Tightly pack them into your luggage as a bottom layer or more if necessary. (They also make a nice protective barrier!) If you tip your luggage up so it's standing, you want to start packing the bottom side of your luggage. That way when you start rolling your luggage along, gravity won't kill your secure packing job!
3. Larger and thinner clothes - Use your large flat/thin clothes and fabrics to put on top and tuck those rolled up clothes in! Pretend you are tucking your rolled up clothes in for bedtime, as you would a child. This prevents shifting which helps if, heaven forbid, you need to rethink your packing, etc. These would be blankets, dresses, thinner long-sleeved shirts, etc.
4. Cram socks and underwear into your shoes - Anything inside your luggage that can contain anything else should be crammed with clothes, etc!
5. Making weight - Buy a luggage scale. They are around $20 and they will save you a lot of time and stress! These luggage scales are handles with straps or hooks so you can lift your luggage and find out the exact weight. Standing on a scale with your luggage in hand and subtracting your weight is not really efficient and not really accurate. Sure, it works at times, but sometimes it doesn't and you'll get stuck with a fee that was double (or more) the price of a luggage scale.
6. Utilize your carry-on - Your carry-on is not for bringing convenient things with you on the plane so you are not bored. (Not in my mind!) Your carry-on is for the heaviest things you can think of! (But make sure you'll be able to lift it into the overhead compartment, or that it'll fit under your seat!) Use a personal item (purse or briefcase or laptop bag) to hold all the things that will keep your mind busy during the flight.
I hope these tips help you all out. Sometimes there is not much you can do - you have to bring extra suitcases and/or go overweight. If you have extra tips or questions, please comment on this post!
1) We do this way too much!
2) We really have this packing thing down! (It's an art, really.)
We have packed up all of our possessions that we own and moved them to a completely new vacation via commercial flights over eight separate times!
I wanted to share the wisdom we have had with some hopefully very helpful tips for you travellers.
1. Give yourself a head start! - Around a week before the departure time, get yourself a week's worth of clothes out and start packing! Pack your clothes for your trip a week ahead of time. You'll wear your week's worth of clothes during this time. During this time you can also use those your "packing clothes" to wrap your valuables in so you can protect them during the process of flying! You want to save yourself all the stress you can, and you want to be an effective and efficient packer!
2. Roll your clothes. - I bet many of you would really be surprised when you find how much your luggage can really hold! Fold your clothes so they are longer than they are wide, and roll them up! Tightly pack them into your luggage as a bottom layer or more if necessary. (They also make a nice protective barrier!) If you tip your luggage up so it's standing, you want to start packing the bottom side of your luggage. That way when you start rolling your luggage along, gravity won't kill your secure packing job!
3. Larger and thinner clothes - Use your large flat/thin clothes and fabrics to put on top and tuck those rolled up clothes in! Pretend you are tucking your rolled up clothes in for bedtime, as you would a child. This prevents shifting which helps if, heaven forbid, you need to rethink your packing, etc. These would be blankets, dresses, thinner long-sleeved shirts, etc.
4. Cram socks and underwear into your shoes - Anything inside your luggage that can contain anything else should be crammed with clothes, etc!
5. Making weight - Buy a luggage scale. They are around $20 and they will save you a lot of time and stress! These luggage scales are handles with straps or hooks so you can lift your luggage and find out the exact weight. Standing on a scale with your luggage in hand and subtracting your weight is not really efficient and not really accurate. Sure, it works at times, but sometimes it doesn't and you'll get stuck with a fee that was double (or more) the price of a luggage scale.
6. Utilize your carry-on - Your carry-on is not for bringing convenient things with you on the plane so you are not bored. (Not in my mind!) Your carry-on is for the heaviest things you can think of! (But make sure you'll be able to lift it into the overhead compartment, or that it'll fit under your seat!) Use a personal item (purse or briefcase or laptop bag) to hold all the things that will keep your mind busy during the flight.
I hope these tips help you all out. Sometimes there is not much you can do - you have to bring extra suitcases and/or go overweight. If you have extra tips or questions, please comment on this post!
Monday, December 28, 2009
3 Keys to Learning Chinese Characters
Learning Chinese characters is one difficult task. Not only do you have to remember which character goes with which sound and tone, you also have to remember stroke order. These are all very important elements to learning Chinese characters. Let's go through three steps to learning Chinese characters more effectively.
1. Practice, Practice, Practice: You simply need repetition. Your memory is much more effective if you repeat characters over and over and over. If you are tested on a character, or if you test yourself on a character, and you forgot it, write down the pin yin and tone of the word, the definition, and the correct character ten times per error. This gets to be a lot, so you may want to use interactive programs and/or websites that mix it up a bit for you. For the diligent, this might not be an issue, and your pen and paper are (practically) free.
2. Word/Character association: The Chinese have written characters out to have rhyme and reason. They are not random. For the character "hao" (3rd tone) 好, meaning "good", the character is made up of two other characters: "nu" (3rd tone) 女, meaning "woman", and "zi" (3rd tone) 子, meaning "child". A woman with her child is good. You can make up your own associations, even if they are not correct by Chinese standards as long as it helps you remember the character.
3. Use your resources: I HIGHLY recommend www.skritter.com for all your Chinese character learning needs. For a small monthly fee ($11 if you pay once/month) Skritter will remember the characters you've forgotten and test you on them repeatedly in random order until you get them. Writing characters with your mouse is not as hard as you'd think! (I personally use the trackpad on my laptop computer.) There are several other programs and online resources you can use as well!
What are some word associations that have helped you? What are some other great resources? Please share for all the brain-strained students of the Chinese language!
Keep going!
Jeremy
1. Practice, Practice, Practice: You simply need repetition. Your memory is much more effective if you repeat characters over and over and over. If you are tested on a character, or if you test yourself on a character, and you forgot it, write down the pin yin and tone of the word, the definition, and the correct character ten times per error. This gets to be a lot, so you may want to use interactive programs and/or websites that mix it up a bit for you. For the diligent, this might not be an issue, and your pen and paper are (practically) free.
2. Word/Character association: The Chinese have written characters out to have rhyme and reason. They are not random. For the character "hao" (3rd tone) 好, meaning "good", the character is made up of two other characters: "nu" (3rd tone) 女, meaning "woman", and "zi" (3rd tone) 子, meaning "child". A woman with her child is good. You can make up your own associations, even if they are not correct by Chinese standards as long as it helps you remember the character.
3. Use your resources: I HIGHLY recommend www.skritter.com for all your Chinese character learning needs. For a small monthly fee ($11 if you pay once/month) Skritter will remember the characters you've forgotten and test you on them repeatedly in random order until you get them. Writing characters with your mouse is not as hard as you'd think! (I personally use the trackpad on my laptop computer.) There are several other programs and online resources you can use as well!
What are some word associations that have helped you? What are some other great resources? Please share for all the brain-strained students of the Chinese language!
Keep going!
Jeremy
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