Your All-In-One Guide To Building The Perfect Resume

Whether you just graduated, are returning to school or are looking for a new job, within or outside your career, you need a resume. But not just a resume. You need a great resume. One which will stand out among the rest and help you land that job which you're hoping will make some positive impact on your life.
My first tip of advice before you even start is to not get lost in the resume, but remember what you're trying to accomplish. Not only does your resume reflect you, but it also attracts or repels certain kinds of employers. Obviously you want the good ones, and your resume can be that filter. That said, however, you always need to stand behind what is on your resume because ultimately you are what makes the difference in the interview and job.
Lastly, you might be thinking "Writing a resume has nothing to do with technology." Au contraire. It has everything to do with technology... unless you write yours with a feather pen on animal hide.

The Most Important Part Of The Resume

What would you consider the most important part of a resume? Your education? Skillset? Experience? Vast knowledge in a specific area? In my opinion, all of those are great, but none of them are the most important aspect of your resume. The most important part of your resume is your contact information. Think about it.
If you were an employer looking through vast amounts, or even just a few resumes and you stumbled upon one that "wowed" you, but included no contact information, what would you think? What would you do? First off, a thought might occur that they aren't attentive to details enough to even remember to include it. Second, you might not have the time or even care to try to find their contact information. Perhaps it was even in an email signature or something and you have it somewhere, but you are likely to not put much effort if they can't even do that much.
Next, it's important where it goes. As tempting as it may be, don't place your contact information (or anything really) in the header or footer. The primary reason being that if you submit your resume online to a transposing database, the header and footer are likely to be missed in the scanning for key words and phases. This is because most just scan through the body of the resume.

A One Page Resume? Really?

There is a common thought out there that your resume shouldn't extend one page, unless you are something special. And sadly, students in high school and universities are learning this still. I cannot count the times I was told this in school, even college. In fact, my last semester before I graduated I was applying for a job and asked an instructor for her input on my already stellar resume (I thought so, anyways). This was one of the things she told me to do - only make it one page. But when looking at my resume, that was clearly unrealistic. I had far too many valuable experiences to just cut them out, even if they all weren't completely "relevant" to the job I was applying for - which I'll cover later.
The answer to your question is "No. You don't have to make it one page." However, there are some guidelines to follow here:

• Don't add filler information, larger font or extra spaces just to make it two pages.
• Don't make the font too small and hard to read to make it fit to one or two pages.
• It should be equal. If it's two pages, make it a full two pages.
• If it spills just over one page, tweak your resume until it fits.
• Focus on content, not length. Once you have quality content, then make the size adjustments.

As you might see, they somewhat contradict each other in a way, but I think you should understand it. These are the tips that helped me. I can't remember how or when I learned them. It was likely a combination or the Internet, school (very minimal) and personal experience through self-teaching.

Create A Clean, Easy-To-Follow Layout

In some ways, this goes right along with how many pages you have. You definitely want to customize the layout to the number of pages that you have. There are a couple aspects in having an easy-to-follow resume. First, you must have a nice template. You don't want something busy or obnoxious. Something that makes it easy to find the information the interviewer is looking for. Another side, however, is less about the actual template and more about how you position your content.
Be consistent. I can't emphasize this enough. If you do something one way in an area of your resume, do it that same way throughout the rest of it. If you change how something is positioned. If necessary, make that same change in all other areas of your resume. You want your resume to flow, not have your interviewer feel like they're in a chaotic abyss of words when reading your resume.
As far as choosing a template goes, there are tons of them. If you're using Word, Microsoft has several. The internet is full of ideas and there are even ways to use LinkedIn to create your resume for you. Although, I wouldn't necessarily condone only using that as your main resume, but it's a nice option. What I did was get an idea from a resume I saw and created one for myself, making custom tweaks here and there to my liking, while keeping the basic layout the same. It doesn't matter what template you choose, as long as it meets the requirements of being easily read.
There are also a lot of ways to make your resume. From infographics to clever designs to videos. However, though these are very cool, I don't personally feel they're very practical... especially not for all careers across the board. Some careers strive for creative individuals that stand out from the rest - these are the kind of resumes that fit. All other careers simply should have pretty basic resumes. That doesn't mean it has to be boring to read. Just like a story, you want the interview to feel engaged when reading it, to be impressed when they set it down... or better yet, not be able to set it down, but to continue to look through it.

Be Concise, But Thorough.

Content plays a huge role in whether your layout looks lean or not. You can have a great looking template, but not an easy to read resume. This is likely due to your content not being as clear and concise as it should be. Keeping things as short as possible is important. Let me put an asterisk by that though. You don't want a vague resume. Meaning, you want to be thorough and avoid short, one to two word lines. It's ok to have sentences  and explain yourself in your resume. This was something I learned by myself as well.
In high school, I felt as if they pushed your resume to summarize your professional life. And to an extent you want it to, but not too much to the point that you have dwindled down every skill and experience. In fact, many of the cliched phrases and sayings for resumes are derived from this very principle of "minimalism." Again, you want to be concise, and certainly not redundant, but you need to make sure that you are also explaining who you are, what you've done,and maybe even why you have done it.

Impress, But Be Honest

Obviously you want your resume to stand out from the rest. You've gone to great measures choosing a killer template, creating excellent content... oh, content. About that. Reread everything you've got on your resume. How much of that have you literally accomplished? Have you specified your extent of knowledge in that skill or experience? Let's say you have "Managed a team to create... blah blah blah." Did you really manage the team? Or did you just observe them? Perhaps you did help manage the team, but in that phrase, it sounds like you were the sole manager. Were there others of equal stature whom you worked with to manage the team? These are important things to include. I have found myself being a little overzealous when writing/editing my resume and often need to step back and look at things a little bit more realistically.
In the image blow you can see I chose the word "assisted." There are a lot more powerful words that sound better, but essentially that is all I did and it wouldn't be right to set a bar higher than what my skill level depicts. Also, the majority of the time, being honest will impress.

Forget References

Ok, so don't literally forget them. But don't add them, not mention anything referring to them on your resume. For a long time I added "references available" in the footer. Then I read how that is not really necessary since employers assume that you will have references, especially if you're "sharp" - which your resume will often indicate. Employers typically will ask for references later.
However, depending on the situation, they do sometimes ask for references at the same time of the resume (or sometimes, you just know they're going to want them right away). In these situations, I do include three references which are the most relevant to the job I'm applying for. I have a separate resume created with my references already in it so all I need to do is swap out any references, if I so desire, change their contact information and send it away.
That is an exception though. For the general resume that you might hand out and certainly for any public resume of yours which you post to the internet, leave out the references. If the employers like what they see, they'll contact you for more. It also gives them a reason to contact you for more, and indirectly tells you they're interested. The more contact you have with them the better so you don't want to give them everything they want right away, unless of course they directly ask for it.

Grammar, Grammar, Grammar

Grammar. I can't emphasize it enough. I've said it four times and I still don't feel that you quite understand what I'm getting at. Alright, so I'll assume that you do. Honestly though, this is one of the most important aspects of your resume. I'd almost say it's right below remembering to add and having proper placement of contact information. If you don't have an outstanding skillset expressed on your resume, but have flawless grammar, you're already above average. It doesn't just show that you know how to make a resume, but that you pay attention to detail. Detail that also will be expected on the job, no matter what you do. If you have trouble with this, don't just do it on your resume, practice it in every day life so that when you do get a job, you don't disappoint.
As you can see, even I mess up grammar occasionally. Although it doesn't happen often.

One Resume Doesn't Fit All

I've already mentioned this briefly when referring to having multiple resumes, one with and one without references. However, it doesn't stop there. I highly recommend you tweak your resume per job. Slightly adjust your objective to match what you are expecting from that job and what they are looking for. Add any skills that you have that may be more relevant to the job. Just adjust the overall focus of your resume to that company. It should also relate to the cover letter you write to them and include many of the same things.
Since graduating, I've applied at several places which are very different. Not all of the places were paying, some volunteer, like zoos, but many still requested a resume. From an avian sanctuary to two zoos to several vet clinics, my resume had a lot of tweaks. Had I not created multiple versions, I would have been in a mess and would have been constantly changing and editing what I wanted that particular organization to see.
Instead of having to make the whole thing again, I recommend saving it as another version, opening that version and making the changes, then saving it again. That way you don't overwrite your other versions of resumes. I also recommend having PDF and DOC versions of your resume. Personally, I prefer sending a PDF version versus a DOC version. Most of the time that is what employers want anyways.

Manage Your Resumes

After creating resume after resume, you will soon realize that they need to be managed some how. If you're somewhat unfamiliar with file management in general, I encourage you to read my article about that. In that article I talk about naming your files according to what is included in them and also dating them. This is especially important with resumes. It's nice to know what resume is for what job. For instance, I have a resume for a vet assistant position, a zoo keeper position and for working at an avian sanctuary. Plus, I have my general resume. It would be impossible to keep all of these straight it they didn't have a proper description.
Along with describing, dating the file name is also important. Not just when you initially created it, but as you update it, change the name to when you last updated it. For me, I just go by month and don't really need to get more specific than that. This has proven very helpful because I might have forgotten about adding something recent to my resume, but will be reminded when I see it hasn't been updated for two months.
Lastly, put all your resumes in one folder. If you want to access these from other places, online cloud backup and sync applications like SugarSync and Dropbox are excellent solutions. It also is in your benefit to use such programs since they have file versioning and live updating to automatically detect and save any changes you make.

Tell A Story

Remember that your resume is basically a timeline of your professional life. At first it may seem bleak, especially if you don't have much professional experience. But be creative. Share about what life experiences you've gone through. Have you done Eagle Scouts? What about volunteer work, specifically in your area of interest? What extra curricular activities did you do in school? What skills have you taught yourself through your interests in a particular career? These are all things that you can include and should include on your resume. There are so many more things as well, but hopefully those questions will trigger some ideas for you to compound on and work with.

Conclusion - It's Only The Beginning

So you've finished your resume. Congrats! Now I'm going to tell you that your resume is an ever growing, ever changing, live document. It will never be finished. For now, you are content with it. But soon you will think of something else to add or do something else that should be put on there. This is fine and you shouldn't get discouraged about the never ending resume work. In fact, be proud that yours doesn't sit around outdated.
Your resume is just the first part of your presentation. Like I said in the beginning, you are what makes a difference. Be sure that you can back up everything on your resume, and if in doubt, allow a little leeway to go beyond what you wrote in your resume. If you don't agree with something here, I am more than willing to hear your argument and embrace different viewpoints.
Have you developed a resume based off these guidelines already? How has this article helped you in creating your newly refined resume? If you haven't created a resume yet, are there any additional questions I can help with?

Buying A New Computer? Our Definitive Guide On How To Pick The Best Parts

Purchasing a new computer is a big deal. If you're a MakeUseOf reader there's a decent chance that your computer is your most important electronics device. It can be used for work and play and even people who aren't particularly technical often find themselves using a PC for several hours every day.
Buying the right PC with the right parts can mean the difference between years of pleasurable PC use and years of feeling like you were ripped off. But how do you know what to buy? How do you make sense of the components? Let's go through the typical PC piece-by-piece.

The Heart Of Your PC - The Processor

The processor seems like a nice place to start. It has a significant impact on performance and will also dictate the motherboard you buy.
Performance tends to fall into two categories, per-core and multi-core performance. Per-core performance is the amount of grunt a single core can muster. It's important because many applications still are not will optimized for more than one or two threads. Dual-cores are still adequate for basic entertainment PCs, low-end gaming rigs and office computers.
With that said, multi-core performance does become important in applications that can use multiple threads well. An application that's well coded for multiple cores may run nearly twice as quick as it would on a dual-core. Quad-cores are also affordable and becoming more affordable every year, so it's a good idea to buy one if you consider yourself a demanding user.
There are three resources that have charts that judge the latest processors - PassMark, Tom's Hardware and Anandtech. Each site maintains a benchmark database that is constantly updated, making it easy to compare the latest products.

The Bones Of Your PC - The Motherboard

If you buy a computer from a major manufacturer you will not be able to choose your motherboard. Boutiques like Falcon Northwest and Velocity Micro may give you a choice, however. And you can pick whatever you'd like if you build your own.
Motherboards have almost no impact on performance. They are best judged by their features. Different motherboards may have different BIOS, different fan speed controls and different ports selection. High-end motherboards will include features that make them easier to overclock or allow the use of multiple video cards.
Some recent motherboards are starting to use a replacement for BIOS known as the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. It serves the same function as BIOS but it can handle mouse input and be designed with a more user friendly graphical interface. UFEI is a nice feature to have, but some implementations of it could use some work. Performance and interface issues plague the worst examples of the breed.
If you want the easy route, go to your favorite computer hardware retailer and pick the motherboard with the best customer reviews. If more research doesn't bother you, go to The Tech Report, Anandtech and PC Perspective to read the latest motherboard reviews.

Remembering The Groceries - RAM

RAM, your computer's short-term memory, used to be a big deal. These days it's a basic commodity. Yes, there is a difference between RAM speeds, but not outside some very niche scenarios. And yes, more is better, but the benefit of exceeding what you need is slim. Most people can buy 4GB (for a typical home PC) or 8-16GB (for a gaming rig or workstation) and be done with it.
If you are building your own system be careful to buy the correct RAM. Today's most common standard is DDR3-1333, but that could change in the future. Your motherboard determines RAM compatibility so just read its specification sheet to find out what you need. You can usually find this listed at online retailers or the manufacturer website.
You should also buy two RAM sticks of the same capacity and speed unless your motherboard relies on tri-channel memory (as is the case with a few Intel chipsets) in which case you'll want to buy three identical modules. Again, reference the motherboard's specifications find out what is recommend for your build. Using multiple RAM modules of different size won't crash your computer but it will reduce memory performance.

Remembering Your 12^th Birthday - The Hard Drive

You have some decisions to make when buying long-term memory. Solid state drives are extremely quick, but also expensive. Most people can't afford to use them as their only form of storage. Mechanical drives are the best bet for storing a lot of data.
But why choose? If you have some money to spend, buy both. A 120GB solid state drive isn't outrageously expensive and is large enough to fit your operating system and a few critical programs. You can then add in a 1TB mechanical drive for mass storage.
If your budget is tight, go with the fastest mechanical drive you can reasonably afford. This will usually be a 7,200RPM drive. It can't match the access times of a solid state drive but transfer speeds are adequate.

Gaming Delight - The Discrete Video Card

Intel likes to claim its integrated graphics solution is great for gamers. AMD likes to say the same. Frankly, it's all baloney, and probably will always be baloney. Integrated graphics can be used to play games in the same way a butter knife can be used to cut steak. It can be done, but you won't enjoy doing it.
Discrete video cards are as complex as processors and even more important to gaming performance. There's no particular rule of thumb that applies. Just check the performance benchmarks at Passmark, Tom's Hardware and Anandtech.
You should also pay attention to video card reviews. It's common for a video card manufacturer to use a custom design which changes the cooling solution and overclocks the card. You'll need to read reviews of the card you're considering to see how these changes impact performance.
For further information check out my articles on buying the right video card, new video card features and the impact of multiple video cards (SLI/CrossFireX) on gaming performance.

Keeping It Cool

All processors (besides OEM parts) and computer cases come with fans for cooling. They are usually a bit cheap, however. You can improve cooling and reduce noise by going with a custom solution.
Systems without an overclocked processor can easily have the processor handled by an inexpensive air cooler or low-end water cooler. You will have to read reviews to gain insight into the current best option, or you can just follow the crowd and go with what's most popular online. Expensive options (those over $50) are only necessary if you want to overclock.
Water cooling is now mainstream thanks to products like the Corsair H-Series and Antec Kuhler. But there's no free lunch. Affordable, self-contained water cooling systems aren't necessarily quieter or cooler than the best air coolers. They are smaller than air coolers, however, so they can be a good choice for small systems. Traditional water cooling via an external radiator is still an option but only necessary if you want to overclock your computer to the max.
Case fans are harder to pin down. Reviews can help, but there aren't many fan speed reviews. You'll have to read up on hardware forums to gain user impressions. Also pay attention to manufacturer claims about airflow and decibel rating.

Keeping It Powered

The power supply is another component you'll probably never get to pick if you buy pre-built. If you're going the DIY route, however, it's important to consider.
Power supplies differ in build quality, reliability and power output. Your goal should be to buy an affordable but reliable unit that meets your power needs. Figuring your power needs can be difficult, so I wrote an entire article about choosing a power supply. You'll find a lot of helpful information there.
I recommend power supplies from Corsair, Seasonic, Antec, PC Power And Cooling, OCZ Technology and Cooler Master. Look for reviews on a specific option before buying. That will tell you if the quality of the product is up to expectations.

The 1/3/5 Rule

Now that we've addressed each component let's talk about an important rule that applies to all computer hardware. It's called the 1/3/5 rule.
Whatever you buy today will be beaten by a new product one year from now. It will be entirely mundane three years from now. And it will be obsolete five years from now. This applies to everything, even a fancy $1,000 graphics card or processor.
The implication of this rule is that future proofing is not possible, which in turn implies you should only buy what is adequate for you right now. If you have a 1080p display there's no need to buy a graphics card that is powerful enough to handle 2560×1440. If you don't use up eight gigabytes of RAM there's no need to buy sixteen.
You'll save a lot of money if you keep this in mind while researching the components above. You will need to upgrade more frequently, but you'll be spending a lot less each time you make a leap to your next build. It ultimately works out to a better value.

Conclusion

You should now have the basic information that you need to start looking for components. There's almost no end to the depths you can explore - PC hardware is a complex topic. But going in-detail may not help you find a better deal on the hardware you need. Indeed, you may end up like me. I sometimes break my own rules and buy hardware that's faster than I need because it excites me.
Then again, there's nothing wrong with enjoying your PC. Just keep my advice in mind and don't let excitement take over when you click the "Add to Cart" button.

Abarth 500 Roadster

Abarth 500 Roadster has been designed based on the iconic 500 Fiat. It aims for young generations; that’s why the design boasts sporty and modern style.
The Abarth 500 roadster is a stile exercise of the iconic vehicle 500 Fiat, created by Madeindreams Studio with their team of automotive designers along with some students of the Transportation and Automobile Design Master Course of Politecnico di Milano directed by prof. Fausto Brevi.
Madeindreams Studio created the Alias Automotive Training Centre to fill the gap between University and Design Center of major automotive brands. It is addressed to youth and recent graduates for the professional training in the automotive field.
The goal of the Abarth 500 roadster project was to give a complete experience of the design process to the students making the internship at Madeindreams Studio, in which they learn how to build a virtual model of a car in team with senior designers and under the supervision of our Training Center director, Ginevra Gatto.




To achieve this, we took an iconic and complex Italian vehicle and inspired as well from the summer we decided to make a roadster version of it. The 500 roadster is a two seater sports version, which is suitable for markets with a warm weather and seaside. Keeping the main design cues, to be recognizable but with some of the special features, at the front, two air intakes to cooling the brakes. The front and rear carbon fiber air diffuser provides a high performance aerodynamic. This 500 is projected to mount the 1.4 T-Jet Abarth engine.
Fun to drive is the most important feature of Abarth 500 roadster, it was designed to be a roofless car, the general volume of the car was studied to create a well balance car with rounded shapes, but aggressive and sport key lines.

The Future Is Here – Your Guide To Having A Paperless Life Today

Paperless - a term that is used quite often now days. But what does it mean? And to what extent does it apply? Certainly we all still use paper to some degree despite the advancements in technology, so how can we go completely paperless?
Well, the truth is, there will likely always be some form of paper, but the problem doesn't lie in using paper itself, but instead having awareness for the amount used and methods of which it is being used for.
All in all, despite the methods that are presented to you in this article, ultimately it is up to you to make it happen. So as you read, think to yourself how you might be able to carry this out in your life. If there is something which you feel is likely not for you, instead of shutting the door completely, try pondering what it might take to make it happen. Often, the initial thought is that it won't work, but usually after some serious thought and deeper research, you might discover some neat ways to make it happen.

Alternatives To Printing & Paper Notes

  Printing can be beneficial, there's no doubt about that. Sometimes it's nice just to have the document in hand and sometimes it's necessary to as well. When that's the case, it's important to know how to keep the printing costs as low as possible. However, often we just click print without thinking twice. What are we really going to do with that receipt from the online shopping store that we just printed out? It's nice to have it for the records, but does it really need to be printed? Probably not.

Print To PDF

"Printing" to PDF can be done with a variety of tools - some of which are browser plugins and others are programs. We've shared a couple of ways on MakeUseOf to do it with PDF995 and Print To Pages in Firefox. Personally, I use Nitro PDF and highly recommend it as a PDF reader. It also includes a "print to PDF" application.
    However, you may not even need a program that does this. Google Chrome can save what you are printing right to a PDF.
Other options are to use Google Cloud Print within Google Chrome to save to Google Drive. I might also note that Microsoft OneNote also has a feature which your computer recognizes as a printer and can send the document there.

Save As WWF, Save A Tree

You might be familiar with the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF). In their "Think before you print" movement, they have addressed a major issue - unneeded printing. Sure you might be go paperless, but how can you ensure others start as well?
They have created a file format called a WWF - a PDF that can't be printed. Once you've installed the software, you'll be able to save files in this format. The format can be opened with any PDF file, but obviously not printed.

Electronically Sign Documents

If signing documents is a big reason why you print out documents, you might want to consider signing them on your computer. There are devices which you can purchase to do this and programs to help you easily do it. Many PDF readers, such as Nitro PDF or Adobe (eSignatures), have the features embedded in them. But there are many other tools which can do this too.
Including, but not limited to: Hellofax, PDFPen, MyLiveSignatures, DocShaker, MiddlePost, Hyplet, DocuSign and SignNow. The choice is up to you what you use, but I encourage you to look into it if it is something you do often. If it's more of "once in a blue moon" sort of thing, the tradeoff may not be as big, but if you are truly wanting to go completely paperless and it would make organizing your documents easier, then I recommend it.

Use Your Smartphone For Notes

Perhaps you don't have a smartphone (I don't either) and if you don't I will say from firsthand experience that going completely paperless is often difficult. However, if you do have a smartphone you can really take advantage of its "paperless features". The first advantage to having a smartphone is simply that you always have it. This means that you don't need to make sticky notes and plaster them all over your work area. Simply create a note in your phone (there are lots of apps that do this) and you don't have to worry about forgetting that piece of paper you left on your desk with your shopping list, so and so's phone number, etc.
Also, there's often the ability to set a reminder for notes in your smartphone - sticky notes can't do that, especially if you lose or forget to bring them with you.
Of course the same can be applied to tablets as well, however despite their portable advantages, they aren't nearly as mobile as a smartphone.

Clip Webpages Instead Of Printing Them

Lastly, the Evernote Web Clipper is a very handy tool for saving information. I will expand on Evernote a little more later on, but this tool is excellent. It's available as a browser extension and bookmarklet, but of course you need an Evernote account to use it - which you should get! Web Clipper can detect and save articles or selected text. This means you can save just what you want to read and nothing else.

Cutting Down On Mail

There are so many things that clutter your mailbox, which lead to cluttering your desk or kitchen table - bank statements, bills, magazines, newspapers, not to mention newsletters and plain junk mail. How do you get rid of it all? Well, there are several ways you can cut down on mail, incoming and outgoing.

Get Your Bank Statements Via Email

The first thing you can do is notify your bank that you would like to receive statements by email. I don't know about yours, but my bank is constantly promoting this - even to people like me who already have enabled it. You likely won't even need to talk to your bank, but you should be able to access the setting within your online banking account.

Fill Out Forms Online

Instead of printing out forms, filling in the information and spending postage to mail it, many services, even government organizations, offer the ability to fill out forms and send them online. Many times they prefer this actually, so before you go into those crowded government buildings, try to see if you can complete the task from the comfort of your home.

Email Invoices (For Businesses)

If you own a business, you likely have a lot more paper to deal with than the average homeowner. One way to cut this down dramatically is to reduce the amount of outgoing mail, e.g. invoices. Of course there are lots of other documents as well, but invoices seem to be one of the major ones. Your customers will likely appreciate your paperless efforts too.

Get Your News & Information Online

Instead of getting the daily newspaper, try getting just the weekly addition. Or better yet, cut it out completely. The beauty of the Web is that we have an endless amount of information at our fingertips. You can check all the big news sites on your own and get the information for free, so why pay for it?
However, if you do still want the newspaper (because it does have it's advantages), a lot of the major publishers allows you to subscribe to an electrical version. This goes for magazines as well.
As a bonus, if you have an eReader, you can likely get them sent right to it! I've actually written an article on MakeUseOf on sending web articles (which might even replace the need for your magazines completely) to your Kindle.

Unsubscribe From Mailing Lists

Believe it or not, you can get rid of a lot of that mail. Sadly, it might take some time, but there is an excellent resource on WikiHow that explains different ways to do it - numbers to call, organizations to write, and techniques to remember to do.

Pay Your Bills Online

Last, but certainly not least is paying your bills. It is probably one of the biggest ways to reduce paper and save time in the process. Often you can get email reminders from companies instead of mailings and you can even automate the process so you don't even have to think about making the payments - just make sure you have the money in your account.

Scan Existing & New Documents

The best way to convert your existing documents to a digital file is to scan them in. I recommend using the PNG format, as the JPEG format is lesser quality. If you have a large scanner, great, however if all you have is a smartphone, don't worry - in fact, you might begin to prefer it over traditional scanners.
There are many apps available to scan documents. Why can't you just snap a photo with your phone's camera? Well you can, however, you might find that many of the apps specifically created for scanning have more features that will result in a better scanned document.

Use A File Organizer, Preferably With OCR

Now that you are scanning both your existing and new documents, you need to manage them. There are definitely some techniques and methods you need to use to do this and I have written an article about this on MakeUseOf as well. It's crucial to your move to being paperless to make sure you start it right from the beginning - even if so far you haven't been very good about organizing.
After you have the fundamentals of organizing down, the software will be much more beneficial. There are a couple of different programs that I recommend. One being the all-famous, Evernote. In my opinion, it's great. It's not just a program for going paperless, it's a program for whatever you want it to be - that's what I love about it - it's universal and it conforms to how you work.
One of the big features of Evernote is its ability to detect text within images - otherwise known as OCR or Optical Character Recognition. This means that if you scan a document in and save it as an image, then later on search for something within the document, Evernote will scan and find the text within the image.
We've recently published an entire guide on using Evernote, so I recommend you check that out as well as become familiar with the other articles about it on MakeUseOf.
The other tool, also covered on MakeUseOf, is Doxo. It is focused on helping you go paperless and is an excellent tool to do so.

Sync Your Documents Across All Devices

You likely have more than one device and one of the benefits of going paperless is not having to take that paper note or document with you. However, having to copy and paste the document from device to device is almost more of a nuisance. Thankfully, there are plenty of cloud services to pick from to help with this issue. From SugarSync to Box to the "big three" - Google Drive, SkyDrive and Dropbox, you have a lot to choose from.

Conclusion: Helpful Methods To Adopt

In addition to these different things you can do, in reality it is all up to you to go paperless. Just like managing your files, if you don't make the effort and have the right things in place, it won't work very well. I would like to refer you to this article on LifeHack which addresses that even more. I feel it's quite important to get that established before any techniques or other methods are tried.
Other things you can do to go paperless are to simply go to the library and borrow a book instead of buying it. Recycling is very important and can be done more than just the traditional way, but also by using both sides of the paper instead of using a new sheet. Reusing it as scratch paper or other purposes is great to do too.
Make sure not to overprint. Remember - "think before you print". Also, before you print a document, see if adjusting the font size and type as well as the page margins reduces the number of pages. Of course, some documents, whether for school or professional purposes, require a certain format and layout. These things can't be avoided, but do remember to refer back to Tina's article, which I referenced to earlier, on how to cut printing costs.
Other ways to cut costs when printing from the Web are to use websites like PrintWhatYouLike and PrintFriendly to remove everything from the page such as ads, additional images or links, etc. so that you only get what you want on the page.
 

How To Make Windows 8 Bootable USB Flash Drive

Now need to install the Window 8 on ur Laptop
Just make a Live USB of Window 8

This post is part of a series of guides we’re doing today related to the recently released Windows 8 Developer Preview. In this guide, you will learn how to install Windows 8 DP from a USB flash drive

For the uninitiated, a Developer Preview version of Windows 8 was released recently for anyone and everyone to try out. It isn’t the complete version of Windows 8, but provides a nice glimpse at the future of Microsoft’s desktop operating system. Windows 8 Developer Preview is meant for developers to try out, in order to come to grips with how things work in Windows 8, but if you’ve got a spare computer lying around (or have a virtualization-ready processor), you can give it a try without risking much.
The process is quite easy to follow and anyone who has medium level of skill with handling computers will breeze through it.

Step 1: Download and install Microsoft’s Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool  from this link

http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe

Step 2: Download Windows 8 Developer Preview from Windows Dev Center. If you don’t know if your processor is 32-bit or 64-bit ready, download the 32-bit .iso file. from this link

64 Bit

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=251532 

32 Bit

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=251533

Step 3: Insert a USB flash drive having 8GB or greater storage capacity in a USB port on your computer.
Step 4: Launch Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool you installed in Step 1.
Step 5: Choose the ISO file you downloaded in Step 2 by clicking on “Browse”.

Step 6: Click on “USB device” when prompted to choose media type. In the next step, choose your inserted USB flash drive.


Step 7: The tool will now create a bootable USB flash drive using the Windows 8 DP .iso. This will take some time, so be patient.

Step 8: Once the tool has done its thing, restart your PC with the USB plugged in. On start up, you will need to enter the BIOS utility of your computer and boot from the USB. Since the procedure for entering BIOS utility is different for different computers, we leave it up to the readers to find out how to do this for their specific computer. (Google might come in handy for this)
Step 9: Once booted from the USB drive; follow on-screen instructions to install Windows 8 DP.
If you followed all the steps correctly, you should be well on your way to installing Windows 8 Developer Preview from USB flash drive. Good luck and have fun using Windows 8!