the wonderful world of pzizz

pzizz loves students - does it show?

OK, this is to all the students out there! We love you! :-)

Three simple facts:

1) It's crucial that you get enough rest, not only to be able to cope with all the parties studying that you have to deal with, but also to maximize your study time party time! (Yes, life can be confusing sometimes!)

2) If you agree with 1) above, and you're interested in looking after yourself, pzizz will almost certainly become your NBF (New Best Friend).

Let's face it, the alternatives include: popping Pro+, chugging coffee, chewing on candy or any of the other regular "pick me ups" - ouch!

3) Whatever your thoughts on 1) and 2) above, one thing's for sure - at $39.95, pzizz is not priced for students...

In the past we've given 50% discounts to students who requested it, but this doesn't seem pro-active enough.

So... I was thinking of making the price much more affordable and offering a 75% discount...

How does $9.95 sound?

Basically, everyone logging on to pzizz.com from a domain ending in ".edu" or ".ac.uk" will automatically have the discount applied to their purchase - easy, right?

In addition, anyone filling out a form on the new student page on our website and supplying us with an email address that ends in ".edu" or ".ac.uk" will be emailed a promotional code that has the same effect - so you don't have to be logged in on your school / university server to get it...

But the big question is : Does a 75% discount give you enough love?

I didn't think so - so I thought that I'd set up a student affiliate scheme so that if you refer other friends who come and purchase using the student discount and your affiliate ID, you can get a $5 commission on every one of their purchases... Can you feel the love now? ;-)

Just two referrals would result in you getting pzizz for free ($0.05 profit, actually!) - and each and every one after that would earn you an extra $5!

This is how I see it:

1) It's a fun way for you to help yourself to some extra cash...

2) By introducing them to a great bit of software you can really help your friends to get the most out of their time at school / college / university...

3) (And, obviously, you'll really help me to spread the word about pzizz!!!)

But that's just what I think...

More importantly, what do YOU think?

napping boosts memory!

More good news for students - using pzizz can help you to score higher grades!

"If you are trying to commit something to memory, take a nap. Even a short daytime snooze could help you learn.

A good night's sleep is known to improve people's ability to learn actions such as mirror writing. REM sleep, when most dreaming occurs, is thought to be particularly important.

The role of sleep in factual learning has been less clear. Now Matthew Tucker at The City University of New York and his colleagues have shown that even a nap with no REM sleep can help.

Volunteers were told to memorise pairs of words (a test of factual learning) and to practise tracing images in a mirror (action learning). When they were tested straight afterwards and 6 hours later, those who had been allowed a nap of up to 1 hour before the re-test scored 15 per cent better in the factual test than the non-nappers, but no better in the action test (Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, vol 86, p 241).

"Traditionally, time devoted to daytime napping has been considered counterproductive," the researchers say. It now seems sleep is "an important mechanism for memory formation"."

This article is produced in the New Scientist

Merlin Mann rates pzizz (highly!)

When I suddenly started seeing a whole raft of people downloading the software last night, I knew that someone influential had started talking about pzizz!

Sure enough, when I checked, I found that Merlin Mann of 43folders.com fame, had been giving pzizz a great plug on the latest MacBreak NetCast / PodCast!

If you're interested in listening to what he has to say about pzizz, you can download the file here.

The conversation turns to pzizz at 57 mins and 18 seconds if you want to skip forward, but I'm sure you'll enjoy the rest of it just as much as me if you have time to listen all the way through!

Merlin comes in for some ribbing from the others on the show, host Leo Laporte, Alex Lindsay and Scott Bourne, clearly demonstrating the initial skepticism experienced by most people upon hearing about pzizz, but he does a great job of explaining why he enjoys using pzizz so much!

So - a huge THANK YOU, Merlin - and continued happy pzizzing! :-)

MyDreamApp madness! (update)

WOW!

That was amazing! We ended up giving away 7,378 license - with a total value of $294,510.10!!!

Thanks to everyone who took part - I hope your happy with the first round of voting at MDA and I hope you're also enjoying using pzizz? Remember, it's important to use it at about the same time each day for the first 4 or 5 days so your body and mind can get used to napping - this will make it more effective in the future.

HAPPY PZIZZING, EVERYONE! :-)

MyDreamApp madness!

This is exciting stuff!

Last week I was chatting with Phill Ryu about MyDreamApp - and I agreed to give away a free license of the current version of the pzizz software and energizer plugin to everyone who votes in the first round!

MyDreamApp is an amazing competition that's being hosted where people have submitted ideas for software applications that they'd love to see turned into reality - and that's what will happen for 3 lucky winners - plus they'll get 15% of all future sales as royalties!

Anyway, if you haven't already got a license and you want a free one, make sure you get to MyDreamApp this week (starting today, 20th September) and vote for your favourite application idea!

If you already have a license, why not tell your friends? You don't get much better than free!

The license you or they receive will be for a full working version of pzizz (1.7) - and it will be good to use on up to three personal computers (Work / Home / Laptop) - plus you can use it on any combination of Mac or Windows machines!

The license will also be upgradable to version 2.0 when we launch in October for a nominal fee - and that, in turn, will qualify you for free upgrades for life!

I absolutely love the concept of MDA - it's superb - and I'm delighted to be involved...

A 20 minute pzizz nap is all it takes to get my creative juices going, so the synergy between pzizz and MDA is perfect!

Happy voting and happy pzizzing!

thank goodness for pzizz!

At 4am this morning I suddenly realised that I'd spent 36 of the previous 48 hours in front of my computer (obviously with a little pzizz goodness and food thrown in for good measure! In fact, quick meals are the only time I see my wife at the moment - sorry, Nattinee! ;-) )

How? Well, there's so much going on with the new version of pzizz that time literally flies by...

We're working on new software, a new website and new promotions - which would have given me quite enough to get on with, but then pzizz got mentioned by both Merlin Mann at 43Folders and the inimitable Chris Messina at FactoryCity - about the promotion on MacUpdate!

All in all, it's been pretty hectic - and I've been really grateful for those 20 minute breaks! ;-)

first. post. ever. (on this blog)

Well, here's day one of the new blog... :-)

I took down the old one because it didn't allow us to get any feedback from you all - and the purpose of the blog was to be able to interact with everyone...

I spoke to Matthew (the inventor of pzizz) this afternoon - and I know he's also really looking forward to posting information and letting you know what's happening from his point of view...

Anyway, we're rather new to all this, so bear with us while we learn the ins and outs of blogging on TypePad - although I have to say it's been pretty painless so far - let's hope it continues!