• is still loving the iPhone #
• In the queue! http://bit.ly/1KVerV #
• Thinking about sleep #
• http://bit.ly/3gHkuC #
• http://bit.ly/3uqLll #
• W00t! 16gb!!! http://bit.ly/4gG625 #
• Getting very sleepy, too many late nights playing with mountain view juice :) #

Stand up. Sounds tough right?  In this article, I will explain to you how you can get from a seated position to a fully standing position with just a few simple steps.

You see, you and I were designed to be standers.  Somewhere along the way our culture has become infatuated with the seated position.  You do it everywhere:in your car, at your desk, at the movies. It’s no wonder you’ve forgotten how to stand up properly.

While in a seated position, your primary standing muscles at the hips are in a stretched and lengthened position.  After being in this position for any amount of time, they become ineffective at lifting you from that seated position.  What happens then is that you tend to make the movement into a more knee dominant action, which over time, can take a toll on your knees.

Steps for achieving a fully standing position.

1. Push your seat slightly away from your desk.

2. Sit up proud with the top of your head pointed toward the ceiling.

3. Firmly plant your feet flat on the ground with your toes pointing slightly outward.

4. Take a deep breath into your abdomen.

5. Drive through your heels and lift upwards like a rocket.  The top of your head being the tip of the rocket, try and keep it pointing to the sky. (This can take some balance.)

6. At the top really try and squeeze your butt cheeks.

If you’ve done this properly you should find yourself in a fully erect and standing position.  Warning: you may now be at eye level with other standers.  Try to avoid any eye contact with these aggressive individuals.

Some things NOT to do when attempting to stand.

Do NOT lean forward and over your desk.

Do NOT shift your weight to the balls of your feet or toes.

Do NOT use your hands when pushing yourself upward.

Do NOT tilt or shift your weight predominately to one side before standing.

Learning to get from point A to point B will take some time at first, but soon it will become second nature.  Do not be surprised if this new habit leads to decreased pain in the lower back and knees.  I’ll see you at the top.

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Jamie Nischan owns and runs a successful fitness coaching business in Stamford CT. Through the use of posture correction and exercise he treats pain often associated with excessive use of computers. More about Jamie can be found at www.thebuffgeek.com.

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Windows only: Music application TuneUp scans your iTunes library to fill in and clean up your music's metadata, including album art. After you install it, just point it at songs in your library you want to clean up; TuneUp fingerprints and analyzes them and then provides a diagnostic overview of your missing or incorrect metadata. You can then verify and clean up all your metadata with the stroke of a button. In theory it's very similar to previously mentioned MusicBrainz, but it's an altogether fresh take with a few more features.

For example, similar to the previously mentioned iConcertCal, TuneUp lists upcoming concerts for artists in your library; it also lets you explore your music through a web digest of YouTube videos, articles, and merchandise related to bands you like. I just finished testing TuneUp on around 40 entirely unlabeled or poorly labeled tracks, and the results have been impressive. Not only does the app update the metadata with accurate, consistent information, but it does it all live, updating your library on the fly. TuneUp is ad-supported and free to use, but you're limited to 500 cleans and 50 cover art look-ups per month. A premium version without any limitations is also available for a $12 annually or a lifetime price of $20. TuneUp is Windows only, with a Mac version planned for later this year.

Jotting a simple list is a great way to brainstorm, but when you want to visualize, organize, and untangle a deep set of ideas, you want a mind map. Web-based mind mapping tool MindMeister offers a simple interface to create mind maps collaboratively or on the go. We've mentioned a few mind mapping apps in the past, and showed you how to mind map meetings as an alternative to linear note-taking. But if you haven't tried mind mapping yet, MindMeister is a great place to start. Let's dive into MindMeister to give mind mapping a go without downloading a thing.

What's a Mind Map?

In short, a mind map is a diagram of related information around a central idea. Wikipedia says a mind map is:

An image-centered diagram that represents semantic or other connections between portions of information. By presenting these connections in a radial, non-linear graphical manner, it encourages a brainstorming approach to any given organizational task, eliminating the hurdle of initially establishing an intrinsically appropriate or relevant conceptual framework to work within.

You start with a central node on your diagram, which represents the main topic. Then, from that node, you create sub nodes, which can have sub nodes, and so on. A mind map is a visual outline that encourages free-form thinking and instant capture. Here's a simple mind map I put together in MindMeister while I was brainstorming the Better Lifehacker Firefox extension.

Here you can see that the topic is the Firefox extension, so that's the central node. From there, the main sections of the extension branch out—in this case, posts, and comments. Then each of those has lists associated with it.

This structure works for any topic or idea you want to riff on and jump back and forth amongst sub nodes and add lists and sub-lists too. When you're working in a group on a big idea with lots of facets to it, a mind map can get large and deep. However, because it's so easy to zoom in on a node, the visual structure helps you focus on small bits while still showing you relationships between items.

Benefits of a Web-based Mind Mapper

While loyal mind mappers will recommend desktop apps like Freemind to manage and edit your maps, MindMeister offers features only a web-based tool can.

Create and add to maps via email. MindMeister gives you two secret email addresses—one to create new maps, and one to add to an existing map. Send an indented list of items to that address via email, and MindMeister will add the node to your default map or create a new map, depending on what address you used. Here's what the email for the Better Lifehacker map looked like.

Using this feature on your desktop (as pictured) is a lot less useful than the most obvious advantage—sending that email from your cell phone on the go.

See other user's public maps. If you're a work style voyeur like we are, you'll love browsing through other MindMeister users' public maps. For example, here's a good public Getting Things Done mind map, one on the topic of what makes its author happy, and another on what is Web 2.0.

Share, publish, and collaborate. Likewise, you can make your own maps public, or grant other users read-only or edit rights to the map. Your MindMeister dashboard shows you what maps you've shared, published, or kept private.

Annotate, format, and augment your map. MindMeister lets you annotate, format, and add deep information to nodes in several ways. Insert links, file attachments, icons, due dates, priorities, and notes (pictured right) to any node. Customize each node's font size, color, and style to format your map to your heart's content. You can even look up related information on Wikipedia, del.icio.us or Google on each node. (Just select it, and expand the "Information" section on the sidebar, and click on an icon to search on one of the services.)

We've only scratched the surface of what MindMeister can do right inside your browser. While it's fun to see what you can do with tools like this, it's all about what you do do with it. Are you new to mind maps? Veterans, what's your favorite mind mapping tool? What types of brainstorming or information organizing do you use mind maps for? Do share, in the comments.

Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, may be late to the mind mapping party, but is still having a great time. Her weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Monday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

MINTER Ellison transferred 12 million emails into its new Microsoft Exchange system.