STAR: Sabrina Taing Approved Resources

In this page, I'll share some of the resources I have found or use ranging from mental health resources, writing apps and tools, language learning resources, and more. I'll be separating the resources and links into different categories so feel free to scroll to whichever category you want to look at.

I will be including most of the stuff I like and use or used in the past including apps, websites, and more. I will even include stuff I tried before or stuff I haven't used and I will include those too because although I might not have found everything useful or helpful, it might be of use to someone else.

Under most resources, I will include my status regarding whether it's something I haven't tried, used in the past, or something I currently use.

Questions and Answers

Why would I ever want a STAR?

Answer: Why wouldn’t you ever want a STAR? Everyone wants one. In all seriousness, there’s no obligation to look at my approved resources. I am compiling these for my friends and peers who might find these resources and links helpful.

What are the resources you will be recommending? Products? Services? Software?

Answer: Yes, yes, and yes to all of the above. I will be sharing links and sharing the information I know. Whether that be information on student loans and scholarships or links to pirating websites, I have a lot to share.

Who are you to even recommend these links and resources?

Answer: I am a consumer. That is not really a joke but for specificity, I will share my values in the resources I use. If you find you have different values than mine, that is fine. I will try to be as comprehensive as I can when giving my review of what I liked and disliked about each thing.

Some prominent values I have in all of my general resources include the following:

• Affordability: It better be free, not consumed by greed. If it ain’t free, it need be cheap or I won’t consider it. Exceptions made if there’s no other good options or products.
• Usability: If I can’t find any use for it, then I won’t share it. I will still share some resources even if I don’t use them often and that is because I know some people have different values and preferences who may find better use for the resources I found. However, if I can’t find a product or something useful for any purpose, I won’t share it. But if I can’t use it often due to other factors like cost or lack of other values, I will probably still share it.
• Customizability: This mainly applies to stuff like note taking apps and software. This may not be as important to people but for me, I love when there’s high customization for an app. Some examples of apps I like that feature high customization include Notion and Craft which are used for similar purposes of note taking and storing knowledge.
• Functionality: I typically approve of apps and resources that have a wide range of functionalities that are useful. Even if it doesn’t have a lot of features of function, if the existing functions work well for what I intend to use it for, I’ll likely recommend it.
• Visual presentation and UI: If it’s hard to read the text, the spacing, or the UI bothers me, I likely won’t bother to use it. I need my apps to have visually appealing and functional UI.