Blog @ Melilyn.com

Archive for the ‘Tiptorials’ Category

This is an archive and may contain old or out-of-date content. Check the date; things may have changed since the time of the original posting. Conversation is allowed on older posts, but be aware that they will not come to my attention as easily.

Gearing Up For NaNo

There’s less than a week until the beginning of November, and with it, NaNoWriMo. I’m really excited about participating this year, after two failed attempts, and I’m trying to do everything I can in the next week to get ready.

1. Cleaning up my room and my desk. I try to be an organized person, but I don’t always have the time to be. It’s hard to be creative in a messy space, so I’m going to do my best to get everything organized. Seriously… my desk is a mess.
2. Finishing the book I’m currently reading. I can read three books at once without really getting them mixed up, but throw my own novel into the mix and I start either getting confused or subconsciously copying things I’m reading.
3. Adding to my “Writing” playlist. I don’t know what it is, but the best music for noveling is soundtrack music. No, not the singing and dancing soundtrack, but the actual score from some of my favorite movies. The best for writing is Hans Zimmer (Pirates 3, to be exact) and Murray Gold (Doctor Who and Torchwood). Currently my playlist is five hours long; I need it to last a month.
4. Constantly thinking about the story I want to tell. I can’t work on the actual writing yet, so I just do a lot of planning and thinking. I  have to keep asking myself questions about the plot of my store… like, why did the whole thing start out this way, what causes this character to react a certain way, how can I bring it all together at the end? I put myself in the shoes of my characters and ask myself how I would get out of certain situations; this helps a lot when it comes time to sit down and write.
5. Downloading an app for my iPhone. Yes, don’t laugh. My iPhone comes with me even when a purse or a notepad may not, and so I find myself wanting to write a couple of paragraphs out when I find myself with a few extra minutes, or on break at work. “Notes” just wasn’t doing it for me, so I downloaded “Notebooks,” which not only has more features, but allows me to sync my .docx file to my phone so I can see exactly where I left off in the process of writing. Nerdy, but true!
6. Keep hyping myself up about it. I know myself, and I know that if I don’t get excited about something, I’ll forget about it. I’m planning on keeping you posted the whole way through; not necessarily for your benefit, but for mine.

Some of this stuff seems silly, but if it works, it works! I’ll keep you posted!

Another Youtube Discovery

Last time I discovered how to change the thumbnails on your Youtube videos. Today, I discovered how you can follow your favorite ‘tubers with RSS feeds… that you can see right in your Google Reader or Bloglines with the rest of your blogs.

All you have to do is type the following into your feed reader (or even directly into your address bar in Firefox if you’ve got it set up right):
http://www.youtube.com/rss/user/USERNAME/videos.rss

Just replace “USERNAME” with the name of the Youtube user, and voila! One beautiful RSS feed for your favorite videos, delivered hot and fresh with the rest of your daily bloggery.

Living with Windows

It’s no secret that I’m absolutely counting down the days until I’ll buy a brand-new iMac, complete with the newest version of OSX and souped up to never, ever let me down. It’s also no secret that the computer I do have is a five-year-old low-end Dell laptop… which is pretty well known in the Dell circle for its awesome ability to overheat and melt down the inside. How it’s lasted this long is beyond me.

I… don’t really like Windows. I don’t really like my computer. However, it’s what I have to live with for a while, so I might as well tweak it so it’s the way I want it, right?

Disclaimer: This is just an informational, nerdy post I’m making after spending all day messing with my computer to get it working right again.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Windows XP, which is what I’ve used most of the time I’ve been on computer, is complete eye-candy when compared to older versions. If you’re like me, though, this isn’t enough. WindowBlinds gives you almost full control of your desktop. You can download and switch between themes which can give you almost any look… from high-tech to a Mac look-a-like. It’s a paid program, but the free trial version does almost as much. (more…)

Relax.

Lately I’ve been finding myself really stressed out for no reason… to the point of snapping at people when they really didn’t deserve it. It’s not even like life is really all that awful right now. I just have a bad habit of getting myself into a tizzy.

I’ve been learning how to relax. Not just my body, but my brain and my emotions as well. This is what I do to relax.

1. Music. This is seriously the key to unwinding… for me, anyhow. Grab your iPod, CD Player, or heck, the closest radio, and put on music you love. It doesn’t even have to be relaxing music… I’ve been known to fall asleep to some hard rock before. Worship music, soundtrack music, screaming kids with dreadlocks, whatever it takes.
2. Find something to occupy your brain. If you put your mind on something else, you won’t have time to over-analyze everything else, now, will you? Pick something repetetive and methodical… like the Solitaire game that’s on every PC, or doodling on a sheet of paper, or crocheting, or painting your toenails. If that doesn’t relax you, find something to challenge your brain. Immerse yourself in a problem of mediocre importance. Me, personally, when I hit that point, I code a website or a layout. It’s not life or death, but it takes my mind off of life’s little annoyances.
3. Take a walk. Get out. Go look at something else. Take that music from step one with you. If you’re not into walking, get in your car and just drive. Pull your old bike out of the shed and cruise the neighborhood. Just get out and absorb the change in scenery.
4. Completely clear your head. Everyone does this differently. Some people will get into full-on meditation to clear their head… some people just need to lie in their back yard and look at the stars. Think about God. Think about nothing at all. Just clear your head.
5. Have a heart-to-heart with your best friend. Even if you just end up giggling about something that someone said to someone else, or drawing reeses pieces in a tree and saving it for later (okay, so we’re weird), sometimes a friend is all you need to relax you and get you out of your slump.
6. Do something artistic. You don’t even have to be artistic for this! Get a piece of paper and some crayons and just scribble! Write a book/story/poem/song. Doodle. Draw all over the entire road with sidewalk chalk.
7. Take a nap. Sounds lazy, but a lot of people get stressed out when they don’t get enough sleep. Take a little nap. It’ll probably unwind you pretty fast.
8. Just worship. I’m not even particularly good on this one (today’s confession), but it’s probably better than everything else put together. Just take your focus completely off yourself, put it on Him, and watch everything fall into place.

I guess that’s all I have for now. For some reason, I was thinking about this on the way home from the lake. We went to Sulphur today, which is where we’re planning on having Sukkot, just to scope it out and spend some time swimming. After we ate lunch, I was waiting for a while before I got back in (that’s just the way I was taught, thank you!), and ended up just sitting on the shore, just letting the waves wash over me… just letting everything drain out of my head. It’s the most relaxed I’ve been in quite a while… and it was absolutely lovely.

So what do you all do to relax? Anything? If you all don’t speak up pretty soon, I’m going to have to start up another de-lurking week. Also, what are your plans for Sukkot? We’re camping with some friends of ours, but I’m a little disappointed because the only other “youth” will be my sister, who is fifteen, along with a fourteen year old and an eleven year old. That’s the one thing I probably miss about Sukkots in the past… all of the youth. Oh, gosh, though… I’m not even really youth anymore!

This post is part of The Erulynsky Blogathon
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YouTube Discovery

Just a quick note for any and all of you who’ve ever posted videos on YouTube (I have). You can change the thumbnail that displays for each video on your user page and in search results, et cetera. Go to the page of the video you want to change, and click “edit video.” At the top of the next page, you’ll see the three thumbnails it takes from your video with the middle one highlighted. If the left or right one is better… choose that instead! It doesn’t give you much option, but it helps out if your middle frame was something fuzzy and indiscriminate.

Also note it took about 24 hours for my changes to show up last time… and you can only choose the thumbnail after your video is processed and live.

This post is part of The Erulynsky Blogathon
View The Erulynsky Blogathon Score so far!