Life seems to have a funny knack for filling each day with different varieties of irritating situations. If you are a commuter, then quite possibly the only thing you know for sure when you wake up every morning is that something or someone is going to get on your nerves within the next twelve to sixteen hours.

Sometimes it’s the guy sitting next to you on the bus or the train who takes up almost two seats and is discussing rather personal issues loudly on his cell phone. Sometimes it’s the construction workers who callously close the same lane every morning and never show any particular consideration for your timetable. It can even be as soon as you get out of bed and immediately begin to shiver because your landlord just got the heating bill and is trying to cut back on his expenses.

These small irritations have a tendency to pile up and cause headaches, migraines, stress, anger, or depression.

So why am I reminding you of daily frustrations that you try so hard to avoid? Because there is a way to deal with them that relieves the symptoms of daily frustration. Eliminate frustration through acceptance.

Understand this concept, be ready and willing to apply it,and you are ready to embark on a peaceful life journey. Please allow me to explain.

Acceptance

Yes, acceptance. Applying acceptance means recognizing that everyone and everything around you is exactly how it is supposed to be at that exact moment.

Our frustration at the world around us usually stems out of our discontent with it. We often become dissatisfied with our surroundings because we can think of a million different ways that they could be better. We become obsessed with the phrase “if only”. If only the train would come on time, if only the homeless man wouldn’t sing, if only my wife wouldn’t snore, if only my boss would show more compassion, etc.,

Acceptance eliminates our dissatisfaction. For example, rather than ruminating on the thought of how disturbed you are by the loud obnoxious person next to you on the train, you could stop, and tell yourself that the person is exactly the way that they are supposed to be. That they are acting in the only way that they know how to act, because their life up to that point was a series of events, unknown to you, that shaped their personality in such a way that to you they appear to be loud and obnoxious. You can then breathe a sigh of relief because there is no longer any rational use to pondering about that person’s defects. No matter how much mental energy you employ at being irritated by them, they will remain themselves; simply because that is the way they are supposed to be at that exact moment.

How?

Here are the three simple steps to practicing acceptance in your daily living:

1. Acknowledge the situation or person that is making you irritated.
2. Accept that the person is doing exactly what he/she is supposed to be doing at that exact moment, and that no matter how much you may want the person to be different they are going to continue to be the way that they are.
3. Remove the negative thoughts from your mind, and rest assured that there is a reason beyond your knowledge for whatever is happening and that there is no need for you to further contemplate the situation.

Why?

Whether you are an agnostic, an atheist, or a steady and active church member you would most likely agree that the world we live in is governed by laws. No matter how hard I may try, I cannot transcend the thick walls of a bank vault and fill up my wallet, nor can I surpass the laws of gravity and fly to work when the trains are running late. These are of course laws that deal solely with the material world and have nothing to do with the people around us, but there is a social lesson to be learned from them.

The lesson is that people, very much like a thick bank vault or the laws of gravity, have limitations and parameters. What do I mean by that?

I mean that the people who you may find irritating are acting the way that they are because to them that is the only way they can act at the time. Seeing as how we are not omniscient, we don’t know everything that happens to everyone around us, so we cannot be aware of the situations in other people’s lives that cause them to act the way that they do. All we need to know is that we do not need to take it personally because the person would still act that way whether we were around them or not. We need to accept that that is just the way they are, and are acting the only way they know how to act.

Experiment with this new way of perceiving our surroundings and it may bring you the peace and serenity you seek.

del.icio.us solves these problems and offers much more. To take full advantage of it, you need to use it frequently, and to do this you need to make it convenient for yourself. The best way to do this is to use Firefox and install the del.icio.us Firefox plugin. This really is a must. It install two buttons in your toolbar allowing you to easily save pages whenever you see something you like. The other button allows your to find your bookmarks easily. If you want to read more about how del.icio.us works, read here or here.

That’s it to get going. Now on to WHY you should do this, beyond the basic reasons mentioned above.

1. Use a toread tag. Ever find articles you don’t have time to read? I do nearly every day. Some days though I do have time and desire to read many of the backlogged articles I didn’t have time to read. Sometimes I print them out and put them into a three ring binder with page protectors so I can read them on the subway, plane, train, or just waiting around. Tagging articles with a tag (toread) for this is great so you can easily grab those articles whenever you want. No more sending emails to yourself with links or bookmarking your articles at work, only to not be able to find them again on your home computer. Check out which pages people are using it to save.

2. Use todo, tovisit, totry, toeat tags. These tags are the same premise as the ‘toread’ tag. That makes this method a little redundant, but it offers another level of productivity and organization for sites and articles you find. You can of course use many other verbs in tags you want to save for future reference.

3. Follow the crowd. If you looking for a cool site to find gifts, what do you do? Most people don’t have a good answer for this, and will just try to search terms they think might bring up good sites. One might try gifts, best gift sites, or great gifts, which all yield terrible, boring, corporate results. There ARE great alternatives to these lousy results by using methods other than search engines. Namely social bookmarking. Since we’re talking about del.icio.us, and it’s a great solution, take a look at these results compared to Google’s. There is no comparison. The top three sites I get using del.icio.us are a gift guide by Lifehacker, Tastebook’s site, and Uncommongoods; all of which are great sites and fit what I want very well. They also are sensitive to time and recent finds. Google gives me gifts.com, findgift.com, and Amazon’s gift section. Not totally off, but essentially boring results.

This works for nearly any word, but since del.icio.us runs on tags it works particularly well when you are using one word as a query. It gives you the sites people are saving, which by default generally means they like the site and want to go back. Additionally, as I briefly mentioned above, the results are weighted on time as well as number of saves. Try comparing the results between del.icio.us and your favorite search engine using terms like: recipes, zen, lifehacks, productivity, opensource, space, or any other one of your favorite topics.

4. Follow A Leader. What if the crowd doesn’t seem to know a lot about what you are seeking, or you don’t like the results from the crowd or a search engine? OR what if you want to find sites only people you deem experts think are quality? You can do this in del.icio.us by looking at the saved pages of one particular user. All you need to do is add the username to the domain name like this http://del.icio.us/iem2509 (iem2509 is my username). Boom! You now can follow what other people are saving. Now you just need to find someone who reads the same type of content you do, and finds articles you like. This task isn’t as bad as it seems…

A. Find an article you like on del.icio.us that you feel fits into one of the topics you like to read about

B. Click on the link that tells you how many people saved that page. eg. saved by 1335 other people This will show you the people that saved it, tags they used, notes they use for it, and the first person to post it.

C. Now look through the users and see if they have a pattern of finding and saving sites or articles you like

Find a few good people and now you now a great source of page, articles, and sites. I like to follow the SEO guru and author of SEO Book, Aaron Wall ( http://del.icio.us/seobook ).

5. Share Your Favorites. Do you find yourself sending email to a bunch of people with just a link in the body? Worse yet, do you want to share what you read or saw but don’t feel like opening up your email client and sending to everyone you want? There’s a better solution. You guessed it, using del.icio.us. Once you befriend other users in del.icio.us you can tag pages not only with regular tags, but also with your friends usernames in the format “for:iem2509″ (the Firefox plugin does this for you and the recommended tags for that matter). Now you can easily send and receive your friends favorite sites without having to send emails, instant messages, or telephone calls. One drawback here is that you need to get your friends to use del.icio.us first.

6. Track Your Competition. Have your own website or have competitors with sites? Every time you come across a competitor of yours, save their site under “competitor” or “competition”. You now are a building list of your competitors you can check once in a while. Better yet, find their del.icio.us username and see what they’re saving!

7. Look for clients. First save all of your clients under “clients” and make sure to make it a private bookmark of yours. Same thing goes here as the competitors, if you can find their usernames, see what they read, and ADVERTISE THERE!

Feel free to comment with your favorite del.icio.us tips. I hope you learned something from and enjoyed this post.

Please subscribe to my blog for more great posts and save this post in del.icio.us!

Mobility, functionality, free, efficiency, and a ridiculous amount of disk space are all covered with Google’s Gmail. Is there any argument? It’s by far the best free (or paid) email client I’ve used, and probably will be for a while.

HOWEVER, there are a few major drawbacks…

• Can you get the address you want? Many names and words are already taken.
• Do you want to advertise Google’s services every time you send an email, or your own business?
• I know, very unlikely, but what if Google doing something to Gmail?

Security Tip: Gmail defaults to a non-secure login, but also provides a secure login. To access it, is type https://gmail.google.com instead of your standard way of getting there.

• With Gmail everyone who sees your address will know not only your username, but also know they can try guessing your password at Gmail login page.
• What if someone else comes along with a better solution than Gmail? Do you really want to be starting up a new email and forwarding over all of your old mail?

There are solutions to these problems. With the help of Gmail itself, the solution is easy! Gmail let’s you use their interface to handle a mail account from your own domain name. In other words, you can use the interface Gmail uses, and have the same user experience, but instead of being forced to have a gmail.com email address, you can use any email address you own (that allows you to connect through a POP or IMAP connection.)

Pros

• Choose your own email address (you must buy and use a domain name that’s available)
• Own your email address by owning your domain name. You have total control over your new address
• All the advantages of Gmail
• Addresses all of the concerns mentioned in the beginning of this post

Cons

• You must take the time you find a good domain name and use the setup process described below
• It’s not free. BUT all you have to do is pay for a domain name (<$10 per year) and have the email hosted somewhere. 1and1.com has a decent email hosting plan for $0.99 per month.

After going through the setup process below, you will be able to use your own email address, online from anywhere in the world, with all the features of Gmail with ownership, and the ability to move or change your email client if and when you want, all transparent to your email recipients.

Setting Your Domain Up With Gmail

1. In your Settings, go to the Accounts tab…

2. Click on the “Add another email account” link, and a popup window will appear.

3. Type in the email address you want to add and proceed to the next window.

4. Fill out this box with information about your mail server settings. These are the same as if you were setting up Outlook or any other standard POP mail client. I like to check the label incoming messages. This lets Gmail flag all of your messages coming in under this account name so they are easy to see, file, and find.

Efficiency Tip: Learn the Gmail keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard is much faster than a mouse.

Gmail will sent a confirmation email to the email address you use, and that’s it. Now, when you login to your Gmail account, you can use your regular gmail.com address and the email you added.

To explain and make sense of the tips in this article, it’s best we all know what exactly a hangover is in scientific terms. According to everyone’s favorite online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, “Hypoglycemia, dehydration, Acetaldehyde intoxication, and vitamin B12 deficiency are all theorized causes of hangover symptoms.”

Admittedly, I binge drink two or three times per month (the version where one drinks 5+ drinks in one evening). I know this isn’t especially good for my physical well-being, but being a 28 year old male in New York City it’s a common or even conservative amount. I am not proud of this fact, but know I do it and admit that it’s not healthy. I try to drink in a way where it affects me the least. I try to not ruining the following day, by avoiding a hangover. Below are a few ways to help you do this if you don’t already have your own method.

1. My Method. An old colleague once gave me his method of hangover prevention. It always worked for him, so I tried it, and I’m a fan. You must do this before you go to sleep, but it’s easy to do. After you finish drinking alcohol, drink a sports drink or a liquid with mostly water and electrolytes. Any drink with glucose will do. My colleague always liked Gatorade. I like Glacéau Vitamin Water. Drink as much as you can without feeling too water logged. With this drink, take a pair of ibuprofen pills.

2. Eating. Eating before you drink will help slow the absorption of the alcohol. Starchy foods like bread and pasta are best for this. Drinking also causes loss of essential minerals like vitamins B & C. Eat foods to get these back. Fruit is a great solution.

3. Water. Drink lots of water before, during, and after drinking. This will prevent dehydration.

4. Know what to drink. Don’t drink drinks that hide the taste of alcohol too much. You will drink fast and too much. The exception here is fruit drinks have the vitamins you lose through alcohol. If you must drink hard liquor, get cranberry with it once to get those vitamins back.

Avoid beverages that have given you hangovers before. Pay attention to which alocohol triggers a hangover, as results vary from person to person. Red wine has a exceeding negative effect for many people.

Some says additives make a hangover worse. I’m not sure about this, but I would be willing to bet artificial added chemicals and ingredients don’t help the situation.

Side tip: Have any chemistry ambitions inside you? Start to brew your own beer! In college, I joined a beer brewing club. It’s a great way to meet people, have fun, and learn to make and drink great beer! You can save money this way too. But I bring this up because of another great reason to brew, the lower hangover effect. Homemade beer has most of the vitamins you lose when drinking! Yeast is filtered out in most macrobrews, but usually not in homebrews. This yeast is rich in B vitamins. I never had a hangover from our homebrews.

5. Pills and Medicine. Though I prefer eating because you also get the sugars and water you need from food, you can directly ingest the vitamins you are losing by drinking with supplements. Some companies also have cocktail type pills with everything you need supposedly. I tried Chasers a few times. They worked, but am not really sure if it was the pills or the fact I also took the measures I always take.

Another point worth mentioning is the choice of pain killers before or after going to bed. Although acetaminophen is one of the most popular pain killers, alcohol metabolism increases the toxic effect acetaminophen has on the liver. Go with Asprin.

I know this may sound like a public safety announcement, but I also have to mention it because of so many people I know have been affected by it in one way or another, including myself. Don’t drink and drive!

But what happens if you find errors on your credit report? What if a bill you paid off three years ago is still listed as past due? What if there are reports of accounts you’ve never opened? Do you need to hire an attorney or credit repair service at a time like this? Not just yet.

Credit report disputing can be a do-it-yourself project, made legal by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The FCRA allows you to contact the credit bureau yourself to request changes be made to your credit report. When you make a dispute, the credit bureau is required to verify with your creditors (people you owe money to) that the information on your credit report is indeed accurate. If the creditor can’t prove you owe them money, you have the right to request that the credit bureau remove that information.

The Truly Free Credit Report

You have the right to receive a free copy of your credit report from each credit reporting bureau once every year at no cost. You can also obtain additional reports at no cost if you’re denied credit, a bank account, or a job based on your credit report. You also have the right to receive additional reports at no cost if you believe you’ve been the victim of identity theft. If you have recently disputed information or requested changes to your credit report with a credit reporting bureau, you have the right to receive a free copy of the report reflecting these deletions or changes.

If you already have credit problems, you’ll probably want to obtain a copy of your credit report from each of the three major credit reporting agencies at least once a year to verify that your credit report contains no errors.

Even if you don’t have credit problems, it’s a good idea to check your credit report each year. Identity theft is becoming a more prevalent problem all the time, and checking your credit report regularly for errors and false information is one of the best ways to catch identity theft early.

You can get a completely free copy of your credit report (no phony free trials or hidden fees) once each year from each of the three main credit reporting agencies at https://www.annualcreditreport.com.

The Do-It-Yourself Dispute

If you find an error on your credit report, you’ll want to make the dispute in writing to the credit bureau whose report contains the error. All three major credit bureaus don’t always have the same information, so you’ll want to make sure to check all three and write the same letter to each bureau if necessary.

Your letter should:

1. Include your full name and address.
2. Identify which items you are disputing and attach a copy of the credit report with disputed items circled.
3. Explain why you are disputing these items.
4. Specifically request whether you want these items deleted or corrected.
5. Include copies of any supporting documents. For example, if your report says you did not pay a bill, you may want to send a copy of the check you used to pay the bill.

Make a copy of your letter and all supporting documents for your own files before you send it. You can find the proper address to which you should mail your letter by visiting the appropriate credit reporting bureau’s website. See http://www.equifax.com, http://www.experian.com, and/or http://www.transunion.com.

The Last Straw: Hiring Legal Help

Sometimes, the credit bureaus don’t cooperate. They’re not always bright cheery folks who go out of their way to make sure your credit report reflects the true you, even though that’s their job. If they refuse to delete or correct an error, you might want to consider hiring legal help.

Credit repair services can be shady, and many of them will charge you a lot of money to do very little, with no guarantee of a positive end result. Your better bet is to hire an attorney who specializes in credit repair.

Still, hiring an attorney may only be worth your while if the inaccurate debt listed on your report is detrimental to your current financial situation. Find one who offers a free consultation so you can assess what you’ll be getting before you give him your hard-earned bucks.