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Why Time Management Makes for a Better Employee Time management is a major issue in the workplace. When time is not utilized efficiently, it leads to sloppy work, missed deadlines, and way too much stress. Employers are constantly seeking ways to teach their employees to manage their time better for a simple reason – a team that manages its time well is a team that is productive and successful. Everyone has done it. You’ve know that there is a big deadline approaching for weeks on end, and you kept telling yourself that have plenty of time. Then, suddenly, it is the day before the project is due, and you haven’t even begun it. You know you will have to pull an all-nighter, and even then you will be lucky to get everything done in time. Your heart is racing, your head is pounding, and you’re cursing your procrastination yet again, thinking about how much time you wasted surfing the next when you could have been doing a little work on the project every day, so it wouldn’t be so overwhelming. The end result of a project like this is predictable. You may get it in on time, or at least close to the deadline, but your work is likely to be sloppy. The rush job you did will be evident to everyone, and if your project involved making a pitch to a potential customer, your time management failure may end up costing your company big money (and costing you a job). As if you were not stressed enough already! If you contrast that performance with one in which you had effectively managed your time, the difference is clear. If you have worked on the project over the entire time span you had to finish it, a little bit at a time, then you would have had time to make sure your work was up to par. You wouldn’t have been scrambling for last minute information to include, and you could have made sure your work was free from little errors like typos or pages that printed incorrectly. Most importantly, you wouldn’t feel like you needed a week long vacation when the project was over, because your stress level never would have hit the roof. So, how do you become a happier and more effective employee by managing your time better? The first thing you can do to become an effective time manage is simple – write yourself a to-do list everyday. Not only does a to-do list help you think through exactly what you need to accomplish so you don’t forget anything in the rush, but it also helps you feel accountable for everything that needs to get done. If you write “spend 30 minutes on the big project” on your to-do list, it is a lot harder to come up with excuses why you can put it off for another day. Your conscience will make you want to get through everything on that list. If it seems like you never have enough time in the day, keep a journal of all of your activities. If you spend 20 minutes chatting by the coffee pot, write it down. After a week, look back over your activities. You may be surprised how much time you actually spend doing nothing. Now that you know, you can reinvest that time more wisely. The last thing is the hardest thing – getting over procrastination. This one is sheer willpower. When those voices in your head start arguing over whether to work on something now or put it off until later, listen to the work now voice. Give yourself manageable goals, like working on something for 15 minutes or 30 minutes, to get started. Once you experience the freedom from stress that time management brings, that procrastination voice will be a thing of the past.

Music copyright infringement How Does Music Copyright Infringement Affect Me? Music copyright infringement happens all around us every day, by both well meaning people downloading music from their favorite social networking site to the guy who’s reselling MP3s. To be certain, most people who commit music copyright infringement don’t realize what’s going on, and are in turn doing something very illegal and prosecutable in the United States. Copyright Infringement, as defined by Wikipedia.org states: “Copyright infringement (or copyright violation) is the unauthorized use of material that is protected by intellectual property rights law particularly the copyright in a manner that violates one of the original copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it. The slang term bootleg (derived from the use of the shank of a boot for the purposes of smuggling) is often used to describe illicitly copied material.” We’ve all heard of ‘bootleg’ recordings – usually audio recordings taken from concerts and sold on home made cassettes or CDs and distributed (sometimes out of the trunk of a car) to anyone that will buy. Bootleg recordings have changed, however, as music copyright infringement has branched into video recordings. Music copyright infringement has exploded with the advent of the internet, and now people from all over the world are sharing every type of imaginable file – from eBooks to audio to music – and small label artists began feeling the pinch years ago. However, many new and older artists are beginning to see the beauty of the internet, and are offering their music for sale track-by-track on iTunes and other MP3 sales websites, as well as through their own band websites and MySpace pages. The internet has exploded in the possibilities it’s given up and coming musicians to become visible, while at the same time drastically increasing the number of music copyright infringement cases – some of which were against innocent people who just weren’t informed. Music copyright infringement cases have helped to create organizations that protect the fair use of an item, such as a song. Organizations such as CreativeCommons.com and the Electronic Frontier Foundation help individuals to know their rights under copyright acts. While there are organizations that help you understand your rights as a purchaser of copyright use, there are organizations that want to limit the ways in which you use the products you buy. It is rumored, for example, that record distribution and production companies want to limit the ways in which you use the music you buy – they don’t want you to put it on your computer or make a Mix Tape or CD from it – for fear of ‘sharing.’ It seems to me, however, when music publishers and distribution companies limit uses like this, they’re opening up a tidal wave of music copyright infringement cases. By limiting the use of purchased material, the companies are alienating their client base and pushing all their sales away from physical products and toward electronic ones – which are much harder to control. A way in which these companies tried to limit the uses was by creating a DRM program, which severely limited the where a CD could be played (on one computer, for instance). And, in one drastic measure, Sony placed a DRM program on all their CDs in the Winter of 2005, and severely crippled several networks when their ‘program’ was actually malware that seriously crippled network security. As you can see, music copyright infringement is something that is currently being fought between end users and music production and distribution companies. In this new century, we must find a way to retain copyright, and allow the customers to use the products they buy in a meaningful way, or otherwise the market will shift and the industry as we know it will be abandoned.

A Woman’s Appearance Do’s and Don’t for the Job Interview Proper dress and interview attire is one of the first and most important things that you have to work with when you are invited to an interview. Whether you are trying your luck on a position of CEO or as an entry-level worker, the person hiring you will make a great deal in out of the clothes you are wearing. Appropriate clothing is one of the first things that an interviewer will see of you and if you are off with it, you do not even have to talk much anymore. For a woman the dress to impress factor is way more complicated than for a man. A man can always choose to wear a business suit and tie, while there is not quite such an equivalent for the female clothing market. To give you a good idea about what women’s clothing articles you should wear when going for an job interview, here a short list: blazers, closed-toed shoes, dress pants, dress shirts, dress coats, women’s suits, skirts, hosiery and turtlenecks. All these clothing articles should be in solid colors and patterns. It is recommended to wear such colors as black, blue, navy, gray, brown and white/beige for shirts and tops. Colors and patterns need to be subtle and should not give the interviewer the wrong idea about you. Bright red attire might suggest that you are wilder or need to be the center of the room and this is not one of the traits that an employer wants to see in their employees. For women it is also very important that they do not wear to sexy cloths. No deep cut shirts that are exposing too much of the chest area, as this could suggest sexual tendencies to the future employer. Going along with this point is the skirt lengths. Should you decide to wear a skirt to your interview, keep your skirt lengths long enough to reach the knees or surpass them. Anything shorter is seen as naïve or even worse. Especially important when wearing a skirt to an interview is to wear tights and similar hosiery. Hosiery should be plain and without patterns. The colors should be complementing your business attire but not be too contrasting. When getting ready for your interview, besides the apparel you are wearing, the way you look is just as important. How about your hair? Make sure your hair is neat and do not style for a party. When putting on make-up, tread lightly. Do not use provocative colors such as way to red lips, especially in pale skin types. Make-up needs to be subtle and needs to emphasize your business attire. Most women do like their fingernails adorned with nail polish. When getting ready for an interview, it is important that your fingernails are neat and clean and when using nail polish, the color needs to complement your attire. Bright red is one of the colors that is not recommended to be used. Rather a clear, golden or darker subtle red color is more appropriate. It is also important to remember that anything that distracts from you as a person while being in an interview can take away the chance to land the job. Whenever you are going for an important interview it is recommended to have friends, family or maybe even colleagues check out your attire. Often times you might be wearing something that is not appropriate or does not fit right and in the excitement and rush of getting ready you might have not even realized it. Also, keep in mind that you need to feel comfortable in what you wear to be confident and secure when talking to the interviewer.