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Jay Whitenoreply@blogger.com2008-07-16T12:34:41.641-05:00Grow Up, Green Up: How to Fight the Impulse Purchase</h3><content type="html"><div id="write"><h7 class="write">Written on 7/16/2008 by Sara Ost <a href="http://ecosalon.com/">ecosalon.com</a> with additional reporting by Mike Sowden.</h7></div> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pumpkinjuice/229764922/"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_dH0q9hvpVHg/SH4vUeTLNlI/AAAAAAAAB8w/tTFFHtNmRm4/s400/checks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223664646573733458" border="0" /></a>When people ask about “going green”, they’re often pleasantly surprised at how easy it is: just stop buying so much stuff. Sure, basic necessities can easily be “greened up”: think fair trade coffee and cloth napkins and efficient light bulbs. Clothes, cars and furniture all come in eco-versions these days. But the friendliest thing you can do for the planet (and your wallet) is to learn to fight the senseless impulse purchase once and for all. We’re talking about the singing fish on the wall. Buying less crap: a rational proposition. Unfortunately for economics professors, human beings are not rational. (Hence the disturbing number of shoes in my closet.) If all it took to save cash and help the planet were a little logical insight, we wouldn’t be in the embarrassing predicament of far too many bagel slicers. Which is why the typical advice for resisting junk you don’t need never really helps. When we were researching tips to bring you for fighting the urge to buy on impulse, we kept finding the same old advice over and over again and to be honest, none of it felt very inspiring. Consider: <ul><li>The old “define what you really need before you shop” trick. (Typically: avoid wants, consider what you need to avoid starvation/homelessness/death. Well, thanks, Sherlock.) </li> <li>The reminder to go the store with a specific goal. (This apparently assures you will never, ever get distracted.) </li> <li>The suggestion to go home and wait a day before returning to buy. (Now this is not even eco-friendly. Think of the gas!) </li> <li>Something about the moral perils of instant gratification. (I don’t remember because the post was really long.) </li> <li>A recommendation for self-manipulation (hiding the credit card) or self-punishment (if I use the card again I must run the Lyon Street stairs 10 times) and other frankly ridiculous ways to stop trusting yourself to be a capable adult. </li> <li>The trusty maxims: appreciate the simple things, treasure what you have, remember giving is better than receiving, and so on. </li> <li>Another recurrent pearl: do not shop when you are angry, worried, tired, sad, lonely, hungry…or otherwise displaying signs that you are in fact a human being. </li> <li>The “secret weapon”: comparison shop rather than buy the item when you first see it. (Because online discounts do not encourage rationalizing that you can actually afford the <strike>shoes</strike> item now.) </li> <li>We finished off our quest with a big dollop of pseudo-psychology(think <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs">Maslow</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza">affluenza</a> and spirituality quotes from Madonna). The problem, we learned, is that you’re just not loving yourself enough! </li></ul>Right. It’s called impulse purchase for a reason. Will we really change by reading a few clichéd tips? Perhaps winning the battle of the impulse purchase requires a big splash in the face to wake us up and teach us how we’ve been socially engineered. That’s right - engineered. Just when we were ready to call it quits, we stumbled onto a film that is the equivalent of a tidal wave to the noggin. Watch <a href="http://youtube.com/results?search_query=the+century+of+self&search_type=&aq=f">The Century of Self</a>. There is no possible way you can watch this film and remain unchanged. When it comes to reining in the impulse purchase, aren’t you sick of all the shallow tricks? We all have a brain; it’s just in need of a shake up. Maybe the reason the above tricks rarely effect lasting change is because they are working in the wrong direction. It’s not that tips aren’t useful (obviously Dumb Little Man is loaded with thousands of great tips). It’s that change has to happen on the inside first. If tips have ever worked for you, it’s because you had already changed internally and just needed some helpful tools to move in the right direction. But for most people, especially those drowning in credit card debt and slaves to the constant striving for the latest glossy widget, real change is going to take more than a few cute maxims and hidden credit cards. Tinkering is not going to cut it. We need to start with the shake up - we need the “aha” moment that rattles the core and makes us confront ourselves. (At that point, bring on the tips.) Otherwise…dude, you’re gettin’ a bagel slicer. P.S. We recommend that you bookmark this post. After you’ve watched the film, come back and check out this short film called <a href="http://www.storyofstuff.com/">The Story of Stuff</a>, just for the green of it. -Sara <img alt="" style="border: 0; height:1px; width:1px;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?i=61b217da5b05cb01da7ec75dd14448a2" height="1" width="1"/> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=61b217da5b05cb01da7ec75dd14448a2" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/DumbLittleMan?a=TTgdfg"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/DumbLittleMan?i=TTgdfg" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=95Q98j"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=95Q98j" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=aWNr0j"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=aWNr0j" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=bh1efj"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=bh1efj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=MjaFbj"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=MjaFbj" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?a=ICH1RJ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/DumbLittleMan?i=ICH1RJ" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DumbLittleMan/~4/337266718" height="1" width="1"/></content><author><name>Jay White</name><email>noreply@blogger.com</email></author></entry><entry><updated>2008-07-16T08:40:51.325-05:00</updated><title type="text">10 Awesome Tools That'll Make You An Expert Twitter User</h3><content type="html"><div id="write"><h7 class="write">Written on 7/16/2008 by Abhijeet Mukherjee, of <a href="http://www.jeetblog.com/">Jeet Blog</a>.</h7></div> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://twitter.com/home"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_dH0q9hvpVHg/SH36SysJ_3I/AAAAAAAAB8Y/RI4A4PQASr4/s400/twitter.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223606343571210098" border="0" /></a>There hasn't been a single day in the last few months when I haven't heard anything about <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>. Whether it's the simplicity of the product, various tools built on it's API, the famous and hyperactive twitter users, or the notorious downtimes, twitter hasn't failed to hog the limelight since its launch. In fact it wouldn't be an exaggeration if I said that there isn't a more popular or more simple tool. Twitter has had it's own share of criticism, primarily due to the downtimes it experienced (and still experiences quite often). This has many calling it an unproductive tool. However it has it's own benefits and hence has a huge fan following. It allows you to interact with many people simultaneously and in the simplest possible manner. So for all those twitter lovers, here are a set of tools which could further enhance your expertise as a twitter user and utilize it effectively. And those who despise twitter, there is no harm in taking a look. You might start loving it :) Before you read this, I would like to mention that this is not a comprehensive list of all twitter tools (there are hundreds of them) but these are the ones which I found very useful and thought would be good to share. And yes, these are some of the very few twitter apps which actually make sense! <ol><li>Desktop apps The best way to update twitter is through the various desktop apps like <a href="http://twhirl.org/">Twhirl</a> or <a href="http://alertthingy.com/">AlertThingy</a> for Windows and <a href="http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific/">Twitterific</a> for Mac. They have a nice interface and let you interact with other twitter users easily. However they might fail to update when they cross the limit or twitter has technical problems and you would then need to revert back to the web interface.</li> <li> Twitrefresh One of the main reasons twitter users prefer desktop apps and not it's web interface is because they have to manually refresh it to check the tweets. <a href="http://twitrefresh.com/">Twitrefresh</a> provides a solution to that and refreshes the twitter page after every 1 minute. Those who love twitter's web interface will find this tool very useful.</li> <li>Firefox extensions If you are one of those who don't like to leave their browser when they are online, then there are some cool firefox extensions like <a href="http://www.naan.net/trac/wiki/TwitterFox">Twitterfox</a> and <a href="http://twitbin.com/">Twitbin</a> which work like the desktop apps helping you to update and use twitter from right inside the browser. </li> <li> TwitterSnooze If you are getting a blast of tweets from a particular follower then you may want to snooze him/her using <a href="http://twittersnooze.com/">TwitterSnooze</a>. For example if you've got a follower who uses <a href="http://www.foxytunes.com/twittytunes/">Twittytunes</a> to update his twitter status then you could get frequent automated tweets from that person when he is listening to songs. If that gets irritating you can use this tool to snooze tweets from that person.</li> <li> Twitterfeed <a href="http://twitterfeed.com/">Twitterfeed</a> is a must use app if you're a blogger and use twitter. It retrieves the RSS feed of the blog and updates the twitter status when you publish a new post on the blog. This could be an additional source of traffic for your blog.</li> <li> Summize <a href="http://summize.com/">Summize</a> is the best way to search twitter real time for any information. It also has very good advanced search features which let you retrieve results quickly and easily. <a href="http://www.jeetblog.com/5-nice-tools-to-search-twitter-in-real-time/">Here is an article</a> which delves further into some nice tools to search twitter in real time. Note: This tool worked so well, <a href="http://blog.twitter.com/2008/07/finding-perfect-match.html">Twitter just bought it</a>.</li> <li> Twitterfone <a href="http://twitterfone.com/">Twitterfone</a> is a nifty tool which let's you post messages to your twitter account using your voice. It translates your voice into text and posts them. You can use it when you don't feel like using your cellphone's keypad to tweet.</li> <li> Twittercal Twittercal, as it says, connects your Twitter account to your Google Calendar account and let's you easily add events from twitter.</li> <li> Quotably <a href="http://www.quotably.com/">Quotably</a> let's you view the twitter conversations as a discussion thread and also allows you to reply to them and participate in the discussion. This can be very useful if you are looking to follow a particular discussion.</li> <li> Timer Last but not the least, <a href="http://twitter.com/timer">Timer</a> does a very simple but extremely useful thing. It uses twitter to remind you about a task at the time specified so that you don't forget to accomplish it.</li></ol>I hope you'll find all or some of these tools useful as a twitter user. You could also <a href="http://twitter.com/jeetblog">follow me on twitter</a> and discuss more twitter features and what you like or hate about twitter. -Abhijeet <a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=9548e3528d8e5ccacc4ede1cb546aceb"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=9548e3528d8e5ccacc4ede1cb546aceb"/></a> <img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=9548e3528d8e5ccacc4ede1cb546aceb" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/DumbLittleMan?a=nbSze2"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/DumbLittleMan?i=nbSze2" border="0"></img></a><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?x=66b2c05330304248a29f2f3cb0c4f3b6&u=%%UNIQUEID%%"><img src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?x=66b2c05330304248a29f2f3cb0c4f3b6&u=%%UNIQUEID%%" border="0"/></a> </td></tr> <td> <a href="/dmoz/"> Top</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Arts/"> Arts</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Business/"> Business</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Computers/"> Computers</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Games/"> Games</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Health/"> Health</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/Kids_and_Teens/"> Kids</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/News/"> News</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Recreation/"> Recreation</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Reference/"> Reference</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Regional/"> Regional</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Science/"> Science</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Shopping/"> Shopping</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Society/"> Society</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/Sports/"> Sports</a> | <a href="http://www.brujula.net/dmoz/World/"> World</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/dmoz/World/"> Languages</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/news/"> News</a> | <a href="http://www.ba.net/news/"> Blogs</a> <HR NOSHADE> <center> <!!--#exec cmd="/cgi-bin/banner"--> <table><td> <script type="text/javascript"> GA_googleFillSlot("news-banner-bottom"); </script> <td> <a href="http://www.ba.net/about/"> <img src="http://ba.net/gifs/adbrite-your-ad-here-banner.gif" style="background-color:#CCCCCC;border:none;padding:0;margin:0;" alt="Your Ad Here" width="11" height="60" border="0" align=right></a> </table> <form method="POST" action="http://www.brujula.net/cgi-bin/buscar"> <input name="text" size="45"> <input type="submit" value="Search"> <input type="hidden" name="buscador" value="categorias-en"> </form> BA.net Brujula.Net © 2008 <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/acerca/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">advertising</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">english</a> <A HREF="http://www.brujula.net/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">español</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/italia/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">italiano</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/germany/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">germany</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/japan/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">japan</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/france/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">france</a> <A HREF="http://www.ba.net/world/" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">more</a> <A HREF="javascript:window.external.AddFavorite(window.location.href,document.title)" STYLE="text-decoration:none;font-size:xx-small">bookmark</A> </center> </td> </TABLE> </TD> <TD valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="23" height="1"></TD> <TD bgcolor="#333366" valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="3" height="1"></TD> </TR> <TR bgcolor="#ffffff"> <TD colspan="2" bgcolor="#FFCC66" valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="1" height="24" border="0"></TD> <TD colspan="3" valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="1" height="24" border="0"></TD> <TD rowspan="2" colspan="2" bgcolor="#333366" valign="middle"> <CENTER> > </CENTER> </TD> </TR> <TR> <TD colspan="5" bgcolor="#333366" valign="top"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="1" height="3"></TD> </TR> <TR bgcolor="#666699"> <TD colspan="8"><IMG src="http://www.brujula.net/gifs/sep3horiz.gif" width="1" height="10"></TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY></HTML>