Category: Resources

The coverage on Wikipedia of the London bombings this morning is remarkable. Who can look at such a thing (the coverage, not the event) and not be impressed with the power of collaboraive citizen journalism?

I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody did a full-blown personal planner designed around Getting Things Done and the HipsterPDA concept. Douglas Johnston, who’s designed a series of downloadable D*I*Y Planner kits, has just released the “hipsterPDA” edition with dozens of templates for planning pages (Calendar, Action Lists, Contacts, Someday_Maybe, etc) in a 3″ x 5″ format that can be printed onto card stock for use in your Hipster.

[Via 43 Folders]

After reading David Allen’s personal management book Getting Things Done, I’ve monkeyed around with a number of the software tools and hacks that incorporate his organizational ideas. Nothing has stuck with me. I had a system set up in TextWrangler, BareBones Software’s free text editor, but it was…well…barebones; not pretty to look at. Last night, I discovered the GTD TiddlyWiki and it’s rockin’ my world. Within an hour, I had my whole org setup transfered to a TiddlyWiki page under a Firefox tab.

To use TiddlyWiki, you have to know Wiki formatting, but that is easily learned (instructions included). The entire “app” is bundled as a single HTML page that you save to your desktop and then set up/customize as you please. You can store the HTML locally or remotely, as your needs dictate. The interface is handsome, the functionality is very smooth, and there are nifty features, such as auto Time/Date stamping of entries, RegExp searching, auto backup capability, and printing of each item (called a “Tiddler”) to 3×5 cards to use with your HipsterPDA. I freakin’ love this thing!

You may remember “Gas Buddy” as your friend in college who used to ignite his undershorts after too many tacos and beer, but here in the fuelish 21st century, GasBuddy is a website where you can find the cheapest prices for gasoline in your area. With prices as high as they are these days, and small margins making a difference, it’s worth knowing which stations in your area offer the best prices.

Has anyone here tried Box.net? After my old iMac committed Hari-Kari and I lost a bunch of data I was too lazy to back up (like my entire iTunes library), I subscribed to .Mac with my new machine and now do regular remote backups. But .Mac is costly if you want to back up everything. Box.net might be a nice, cheap addition. Their service is entirely Web-based, so there’s no software to download. It works on any computer. Of course, no software means no auto-backup feature, but it does support drag and drop. In these digital media days, 1GB ain’t much, but it beats the paltry 250MB you get from .Mac for $10/month.

The getting things done gurus over at 43 Folder have just put up a Wiki for collecting “life hacks,” cool little tips and tricks for making life easier and more manageable. Right now, the hacks are uncategorized — it’s just a dump list — but they plan on fixing that at some point. So far, a bunch of the tips are about shaving. Shaving? What self-respecting geek bothers to shave — and shares detailed tips on the practice? Holy Gopod, the next thing you know, they’ll be hacks on “manscaping” and matching your geek ultility belt to your sneakers.

It’s amazing how the “life hacks” meme has taken off. I actually coined the term “lifestyle plug-ins” years ago when I was whoring myself out doing Digital Living Today. It was supposed to be one of those goofy commercial taglines, but I kinda liked it. Still do. Although “life hacks” obviously has more geekly resonance.

43 Folders has a nice set of tips for improved email productivity. I’ve been applying a similar approach to my own inbox recently, and I’ve gone from dozens of unresponded to, unread, unfiled messages to an almost always-empty inbox. Definitely makes you feel more on top of things.

The true power of Google remains hidden to most users. It’s amazing to me, when I see family and friends doing Google searches, to realize how few of the search tools they actually know about. This Google Cheat Sheet is a handy reminder for all of us on some of the lesser-known search features.

[via Lifehacker]

Don’t know if folks here have seen this already, but a bunch of tax software vendors are offering free online-based tax prep if you take a link to their wares from the IRS’s Free File Alliance web page.

I4U is offering a free one year subscription to the print gadget magazine Sync. All you have to do is to sign up for I4U’s email newsletter (and they promise not to sell your virtual soul, at least not your email addy).