How to Manage Your Phone's Data Use

    Smart phones give you access to a wealth of information and media, but most networks put a limit on the amount of data you can use each month. A typical phone contract includes a data allowance of between 500MB and 10GB per month. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} You see, your usage can mount up surprisingly quickly – watching a film on the phone is about 700MB in SD, an hour of streaming TV is around 500MB or 60-140MB for the same of radio, chatting on Skype for an hour is around 40MB. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    If possible, wait until you can connect to free Wi-Fi before using your phone's data features.

    When you are on the road, use your car's GPS, not your phone, to find the way. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} But maps are preloaded in a GPS, making this free to use.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Many of these are funded by ads that pop up on your screen. Every ad has to download through your network, using up your data allowance.

    If you regularly need to use a lot of data on your phone, consider a data-compressing(压缩) app, such as Onavo(www.onavo.com). {#blank#}5{#/blank#} So you use less of your monthly allowance. You may have to subscribe to such compression services, so you'll need to weigh up whether it's worth the cost.

    A new generation addiction(上瘾) is quickly spreading all over the world. Weboholism（网瘾）, a twentieth century disease, affects people from different ages. They surf the net, use e-mail and speak in chat rooms. They spend many hours on the computer, and it becomes a compulsive habit. They cannot stop, and it affects their lives.

    Ten years ago, no one thought that using computers could become compulsive behavior that could affect the social and physical life of computer users. Such behavior has seriously affected teenagers and college students. They are likely to log(写日志) on computers and spend long hours at different websites.

    They become hooked(着迷) on computers and gradually their social and school life is affected by this situation. They spend all free time surfing and don't concentrate on homework, so this addiction influences their grades and success at school. Because they can find everything on the websites, they hang out there. Moreover, this addiction to websites influences their social life.

    They spend more time in front of computers than with their friends. The relation with their friends changes. The virtual life becomes more important than their real life. They have a new language that they speak in the chat rooms and it causes cultural changes in society.

    Because of the change in their behavior, they begin to isolate themselves from society and live with their virtual(虚拟的) friends. They share their emotions and feelings with friends who they have never met in their life. Although they feel confident on the computer, they are not confident with real life friends they have known all their life. It is a problem for the future. This addictive behavior is beginning to affect all the world.

Dear John,

    My name is Amber and I want to share my story with you because what you've shared about life and positive energy has changed my life. This past year has been one of the hardest for me. I felt I was stuck in a position that had nothing to do with what I wanted to do with my life. In January, after two years of being together, my boyfriend left me.

    I read your blog every morning as I drink my coffee at work, but it wasn't until this March that I told myself "no more negativity" as you taught readers in your blog.

    Since then I've got into new habits at work to keep my energy positive. When people walk in the front door, I'm the first face they see, so I smile big when I say "good morning" to them, especially on Mondays. Instead of waiting for someone to ask me for help, I offer it with an open mind. The CEO noticed my change and offered me the executive assistant position that I wanted.

    One of the biggest things I've taken to heart from your blog is changing my opinions on my job. Yes, it was not an important position, but when I was passionate （热情的） about it, I could make my life fulfilling.

    All in all, I have to thank you somehow for having the passion to help others because it truly is inspiring to me. So thank you so much, John. My life has changed because your words pointed me in the right direction, Take care!

                                                 Sincerely ,

                                                     Amber

    Mothers and daughters go through so much—yet when was the last time a mother and daughter sat down to write a book together about it all? Perri Klass and her mother, Sheila Solomon Klass, both gifted professional writers, prove to be ideal co-writers as they examine their decades of motherhood, daughterhood, and the wonderful ways their lives have overlapped (重叠).

    Perri notes with amazement how closely her own life has mirrored her mother's: both have full-time careers； both have published books, articles, and stories； each has three children； they both love to read. They also love to travel—in fact, they often take trips together. But in truth, the harder they look at their lives, the more they acknowledge their big differences in circumstance and basic nature.

    A child of the Depression (大萧条), Sheila was raised in Brooklyn by parents who considered education a luxury for girls. Starting with her college education, she has fought for everything she's ever accomplished. Perri, on the other hand, grew up privileged in the New Jersey suburbs of the 1960s and 1970s. For Sheila, wasting time or money is a crime, and luxury is unthinkable while Perri enjoys the occasional small luxury, but has not been successful at trying to persuade her mother into enjoying even the tiniest thing she likes.

    Each writing in her own unmistakable voice, Perri and Sheila take turns exploring the joys and pains, the love and bitterness, the minor troubles and lasting respect that have always bonded them together. Sheila describes the adventure of giving birth to Perri in a tiny town in Trinidad where her husband was doing research fieldwork. Perri admits that she can't sort out all the mess in the households, even though she knows it drives her mother crazy. Together they compare thoughts on bringing up children and working, admit long-hidden sorrows, and enjoy precious memories.

    Looking deep into the lives they have lived separately and together, Perri and Sheila tell their mother-daughter story with honesty, humor, enthusiasm, and admiration for each other. A written account in two voices, Every Mother Is a Daughter is a duet (二重奏) that produces a deep, strong sound with the experiences that all mothers and daughters will recognize.

    Eating out is such a pleasure ― the food, the wine, the joy of having it all brought to you by someone else—that it's a pity to ruin the experience by sharing it with other people.

    Well, I do like visiting restaurants with friends. But dining out alone has its own very special attractions. For a start you can give all your attention to the food. There's nothing worse than having to invent and deliver an opinion on school league tables or Sanchez's move to Manchester United, plus listen to everyone else's opinions, when all you really want to do is enjoy each mouthful along the way.

    A second great thing about eating out alone is the chance to combine food with one of life's other true pleasures: reading. You have to plan this carefully: Indian or Chinese restaurants are best ― you need food you can eat with just one hand, leaving the other free to hold your reading material.

    But perhaps the biggest attraction of a table for one is the chance it gives to people-watching. Restaurants and the different reasons for visiting them ― first date, business meeting, night out with friends ― produce human behaviour of surprising richness and variety. Will the man selling his business idea get any joy out of his possible investor (投资者)? Will the married couple think of anything to say to each other before their main courses arrive?

    This "human zoo" part of eating out alone is one of the reasons I'd hate to be famous: everyone would be watching you, so you wouldn't be able to watch them. The snooker player Steve Davis says this was one of the strangest consequences (后果) of becoming well-known: he got very worried about his eating in public, almost to the level of doubting whether he was "doing it right."

    So next time you're considering your eating out choices, remember the advice of the businessman Nubar Gulbenkian: "The best number for a dinner party is two ― myself and a super head waiter."

    My sister Alice and I have been trying to get people to stop dropping cigarette (香烟)butts(烟头)for seven years. One day, we were walking in our hometown and saw hundreds of cigarette butts on the ground. They made the town look so ugly that we decided to start a group to make people dropping butts. We called it "No Butts About It".

    At first, we drew pictures with "The Earth is not your ashtray(烟灰缸)"written on them. We put the pictures around our hometown—in parks, by beaches, and along roads. We wanted to make people understand that dropping butts hurts the environment. Most smokers don't think that dropping butts hurts the Earth. But it does, and all rubbish does!

    Later, we wrote to companies and asked them for money to help us. We used the money to buy ashtrays to give to smokers. We wanted smokers to carry the ashtrays with them so they didn't have to drop butts.

    At the moment, we are trying to get cigarette companies to put an ashtray in each pack of cigarettes. Some companies want to do it. Many people have started to join our group since it began. Today there are 45 other "No Butts About It" groups in America.

    Now there even groups in England, Australia, and India! Many newspapers have written about my sister and me over the last seven years. And we have won many prizes for what we do. But we are not interested in prizes. We just want to make the Earth a better and cleaner place for animals, plants and people.

    One day, it will be.