Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Money
What’s Your Sweet Spot Between Money Saving And Time Wasting?
9:00PM Kevin Purdy | The Dumb Little Man blog takes a step back from recession-centric thinking and asks where the line is between saving money< and over-spending time. We're wondering the same thing. Don't get us wrong—we still love a good how-to on making homemade remixes of often expensive purchases, and deal-finding is a pretty great thing in almost any case. But, as Jay writes: Do you spend four hours making a batch of homemade laundry detergent in order to save money? Do you hunt through web sites like Money Saving Expert for tips on grocery offers? It’s easy to spend a lot of time online seeking out the best bargains, only to find that there’s a difference of perhaps a couple of dollars in it. Is the hour you spend searching worth more than a couple of bucks? So how about it, thrift-conscious readers? How do you mentally (or, if you’re really down, mathematically) determine whether you’ll spend the time to make or stretch something, hunt down a bargain, or otherwise scrimp and save? Do you treat your free time like salaried work hours? Tell us where your breaking point is in the comments. Is Drastic Cost Cutting Costing You in Time? [Dumb Little Man] More »
Organise
5:00PM Angus Kidman | If the notion of flagging your emails for better organisation grabs you and you’re also a fan of Getting Things Done (as much of Team Lifehacker is), you might want to take a look at Pay It Forward Email Management, a system designed by three Microsoft techies for hyper-efficient email and task management. There’s a training document for OneNote users included in the linked post, but the basics are pretty simple, as co-creator Ian Palangio explains:
PIFEM uses the out of the box Outlook 2007 features of flagging and categories to manage emails that you don’t want to action/complete immediately. Once you date/time flag an item it is no longer clogging up your brain with secondary thoughts. If you manage it well… you can eliminate a lot of distractions from email, and focus on your highest priority items with laser focus.
The “Pay It Forward” reference links to the idea that if the approach works for you, then you should teach others to use it. If you’ve tried this (or a similar) approach, let us know how it goes for you in the comments.
Thanks Ian!
Email, Task and Time Management with PIFEM
More »
Pay It Forward Email Management Brings GTD To Outlook
5:00PM Angus Kidman | If the notion of flagging your emails for better organisation grabs you and you’re also a fan of Getting Things Done (as much of Team Lifehacker is), you might want to take a look at Pay It Forward Email Management, a system designed by three Microsoft techies for hyper-efficient email and task management. There’s a training document for OneNote users included in the linked post, but the basics are pretty simple, as co-creator Ian Palangio explains:
PIFEM uses the out of the box Outlook 2007 features of flagging and categories to manage emails that you don’t want to action/complete immediately. Once you date/time flag an item it is no longer clogging up your brain with secondary thoughts. If you manage it well… you can eliminate a lot of distractions from email, and focus on your highest priority items with laser focus.
The “Pay It Forward” reference links to the idea that if the approach works for you, then you should teach others to use it. If you’ve tried this (or a similar) approach, let us know how it goes for you in the comments.
Thanks Ian!
Email, Task and Time Management with PIFEM
More »
Fix
3:51PM Angus Kidman | With proper (that is, hideous) summer temperatures swamping most of the country, it seems timely to remind the Lifehacker community of some of the useful techniques you can use to make sure your beloved PC isn’t a victim of heatstroke. Beyond keeping your working environment cool and ensuring decent airflow, there are more specific steps you can take. For laptop users,
Worried About Your Computer Overheating?
3:51PM Angus Kidman | With proper (that is, hideous) summer temperatures swamping most of the country, it seems timely to remind the Lifehacker community of some of the useful techniques you can use to make sure your beloved PC isn’t a victim of heatstroke. Beyond keeping your working environment cool and ensuring decent airflow, there are more specific steps you can take. For laptop users,
Work
1:30PM Angus Kidman | If you ask Microsoft Word to open two identically-named files (stored in different directories), it happily obliges. However, if you try the same trick with its sibling Office application Excel, you get this error message (click for the full version):
While the message explains both possible workarounds (close or rename one of the files), it doesn’t offer any insight why the restriction exists in the first place. However, the official Microsoft Excel Blog offers up an explanation: Excel formulas can make reference to cells in other open files via their simple filename, so with two identically-named files open there’d be no way to tell which ones was needed:
If you had a cell =’[Book1.xlsx]Sheet1′!$G$33 and you had two books named “Book1″ open, there’s no way to tell which one you mean.
More »
Why Excel Won’t Open Two Files With The Same Name
1:30PM Angus Kidman | If you ask Microsoft Word to open two identically-named files (stored in different directories), it happily obliges. However, if you try the same trick with its sibling Office application Excel, you get this error message (click for the full version):
While the message explains both possible workarounds (close or rename one of the files), it doesn’t offer any insight why the restriction exists in the first place. However, the official Microsoft Excel Blog offers up an explanation: Excel formulas can make reference to cells in other open files via their simple filename, so with two identically-named files open there’d be no way to tell which ones was needed:
If you had a cell =’[Book1.xlsx]Sheet1′!$G$33 and you had two books named “Book1″ open, there’s no way to tell which one you mean.
More »
Travel
12:28PM Angus Kidman | Anyone who has ever flown into Los Angeles Airport and then had to change onto a flight back to Australia is familiar with the nuisance of having to go back through uber-strict US airport security to enter Tom Bradley, the terminal which handles international flights. However, while I’ve done that transition dozens of times, it was only on a recent flight that I realise that there’s an alternative for Qantas passengers. If you’re flying American Airlines (which comes in to Terminal 4), then there’s a free shuttle bus from Gate 44 which connects direct to Bradley without requiring a second security experience. (If you’re flying to Brisbane or Melbourne, you may be leaving from Terminal 4 anyway; check the Qantas site for full details.) Flight options are likely to change in the near future as the range of airlines flying to the US expands, but this is still a useful fact to tuck away if you travel to the US for work or pleasure. More »
Dodge LAX Security With Free Qantas Bus
12:28PM Angus Kidman | Anyone who has ever flown into Los Angeles Airport and then had to change onto a flight back to Australia is familiar with the nuisance of having to go back through uber-strict US airport security to enter Tom Bradley, the terminal which handles international flights. However, while I’ve done that transition dozens of times, it was only on a recent flight that I realise that there’s an alternative for Qantas passengers. If you’re flying American Airlines (which comes in to Terminal 4), then there’s a free shuttle bus from Gate 44 which connects direct to Bradley without requiring a second security experience. (If you’re flying to Brisbane or Melbourne, you may be leaving from Terminal 4 anyway; check the Qantas site for full details.) Flight options are likely to change in the near future as the range of airlines flying to the US expands, but this is still a useful fact to tuck away if you travel to the US for work or pleasure. More »
Organise
11:51AM Angus Kidman | If you’re shifting house (or even just moving your home office), then it can be a nuisance having to unpack magazines from magazine holders just to ensure their safe transit. Last time I went through that process I just shoved the magazine holders inside file storage boxes complete with contents, but Kyle at IKEA Hacker offers a slightly different solution: buy cheap cardboard magazine holders like Flyt ($3.95 for 5 from IKEA) and use them to hold the magazines in place. That’s a neat idea if you use large, more durable holders in the first place (admittedly less so if you’re a cheapskate like me who was using Flyt in the first place), and also keeps the dust off.
Magazine file hacks [IKEA Hacker]
More »
Double Up Magazine Files For Easy Moving
11:51AM Angus Kidman | If you’re shifting house (or even just moving your home office), then it can be a nuisance having to unpack magazines from magazine holders just to ensure their safe transit. Last time I went through that process I just shoved the magazine holders inside file storage boxes complete with contents, but Kyle at IKEA Hacker offers a slightly different solution: buy cheap cardboard magazine holders like Flyt ($3.95 for 5 from IKEA) and use them to hold the magazines in place. That’s a neat idea if you use large, more durable holders in the first place (admittedly less so if you’re a cheapskate like me who was using Flyt in the first place), and also keeps the dust off.
Magazine file hacks [IKEA Hacker]
More »
Work
11:34AM Angus Kidman |
Microsoft blogger and engineer Alan Brown offers up a nicely detailed guide to how Outlook’s flags feature can be used to track current and future tasks. If email is central to your daily workflow, then flags are a well-designed way of making sure you keep on track, especially since they can have associated deadlines.
Living in Outlook: Effectively Tracking Conversations with Flags
More »
Use Flags To Track Projects In Outlook
11:34AM Angus Kidman |
Microsoft blogger and engineer Alan Brown offers up a nicely detailed guide to how Outlook’s flags feature can be used to track current and future tasks. If email is central to your daily workflow, then flags are a well-designed way of making sure you keep on track, especially since they can have associated deadlines.
Living in Outlook: Effectively Tracking Conversations with Flags
More »
Design
Wallpaper-Blended Desktop HUD
9:00AM Adam Pash | Reader rprathap’s impressive desktop integrates a seamless HUD with his desktop wallpaper, creating the illusion that the system information on his desktop actually belongs on the wallpaper. The desktop sports an industrial feel that blends temperature, iTunes status, IP addresses, and the date with the wallpaper in such a way that you can hardly tell it wasn’t a part of the background in the first place. The effect was accomplished using previously mentioned GeekTool, a Mac application that embeds information on your desktop. Although GeekTool is Mac only, with a little elbow grease the same look could surely be pulled off with one of the popular Windows counterparts (that is, Samurize or Rainmeter). wallppr [Flickr] More »
Organise
Archive Instead Of Delete Gmail Messages On Your iPhone Or iPod Touch
8:30AM Adam Pash | If you stick with Mail’s default settings, every email you delete from your iPhone or iPod touch goes to your trash. It makes sense, but if you’re used to the Gmail life, you’re probably thinking “Archive.” The Official Gmail Blog has published a nice video walkthrough for how to set up Mail to archive instead of delete email from your iPhonewhich offers a nice hold-your-hand approach to making your iPhone email behave more in line with what you’d expect from Gmail. Tip: Archive mail on your iPhone [The Official Gmail Blog] More »
Work
