If you're trying to learn about computer algorithms, or explain them to someone else, three computer scientists have built some helpful visual aids in the style of IKEA instructions.

There are plenty of ways to make yourself actually smarter, but if you're just looking to project intelligence, The Wall Street Journal has a handy venn diagram that shows what we do that actually works.

Google+ Hangouts are great for straight-up talking, and they have some productive features, too. Now the gates are open to third-party apps to enhance the platform. The first batch is mostly games and goofiness, but two tools stand out.

By following just a few simple rules, anyone can create diagrams and illustrate information more clearly in slide presentations. Enrique Garcia Cota shared some essential guidelines for things like choosing font size, shapes, colour and more.

AutoRecovery is one of the most useful features in the Office suite, helping you recover documents if your system crashes unexpectedly. However, if you use any version of the Visio diagramming suite (which got updated this week along with the main Office 2010 range), it doesn't actually have AutoRecovery switched on by default.

Windows: If you're looking for a quick and simple way to generate a flowchart, Diagram Designer is a free and lightweight tool for easy flowchart generation.

Flowcharts are a helpful tool for entrepreneurs and organisations alike, and there are a lot of web-based tools for making them. Two of them, LucidChart and Creately, have helpfully integrated into the Google Apps Marketplace, where they fit in nicely.

If you need to make diagrams, wire frames, network charts and more but you don't have much experience with graphic design, Cacoo makes chart creation as simple as drag and drop.

Advertisers would have us believe that we need a lot of things that we really only want, and that brand names are always better. This simple purchasing flowchart walks you through your purchasing decision-making process to help you make the smart choice.

David McCandless, crafter of the buzz vs. bulge caffeine/calories axis we dug, examined his work days and found a kind of protocol for what was likely to pull him away from actual work. It's both smile inducing and thought provoking.

If you're looking to plan out a project, share code design or craft a funny flowchart for friends or coworkers, Creately is a free webapp that offers a no-software tool with a nice and easy learning curve.

It's been said that there's no formula for happiness when it comes to our professional and personal lives. Maybe so. But according to weblog What Consumes Me, there is a Venn diagram.

Lovely Charts is a free web-based tool for creating flow charts, site maps, network diagrams, and other visualisations with a drag-and-drop interface and a look somewhat upscale from black-line boxes and polygonal boxes. You'll be zipping through charts after a few minutes familiarising yourself with the layout of the tools—I made the basic network diagram above within the first minute I was on the site. You can customise nearly everything: icon size, labels, the size and shape of the connections between the icons, and so on. One feature that's missing, but in the works, is the ability to upload your own icons and artwork. Good thing, too, since my network map won't be complete until I can add a little Xbox icon. You can export your charts as JPEG or PNG files at the size you specify. Lovely Charts has free and professional accounts, the primary difference between the two being that free accounts are restricted to saving a single chart. You can create and export as many charts as you want, but are restricted to saving one chart for future editing. If you need the ability to edit and save multiple charts but would like to avoid paying for a service, take a look at previously reviewed open-source application Dia.

Lovely Charts