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Monday, June 20, 2011

Get the Best of Lifehacker in Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better

By Adam Pash

Get the Best of Lifehacker in Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better

Get the Best of Lifehacker in Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and BetterLifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better is a compilation of the best 121 hacks, tricks, and downloads from Lifehacker's archives. This dead tree version of the web site transforms scores of one-off blog posts into comprehensive, edited tutorials, some of which will be familiar to longtime readers, others of which are completely new.

Herein you'll find a preview of what's inside the cover, including links to past posts that informed each chapter.

Get the Best of Lifehacker in Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better

Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better

Availability: Lifehacker is available in paperback from Amazon, on Kindle, as an epub, and in bookstores everywhere.
Price: Varies. Currently the best price is for the epub from my publisher, Wiley; buy the epub here and use the promo code LHB3E for 40% off through June 30th. The final price will be $11.99 + tax.
What's It All About? For a better understanding of what Lifehacker is about, read the book's introduction.

Read a little about what's new below, or jump down to the Table of Contents for the mega-roundup. Huge thanks to my co-author and Lifehacker founder Gina Trapani and to all of you for helping us hone the craft of life hacks. (My apologies: I had to break the post into a few separate pages because it exceeds the maximum size for our publishing system.)

What's the Difference Between the Book and the Site?

The most important difference between Lifehacker the book and Lifehacker the site is that the book culls together what Gina and I consider to be the most valuable, time-saving, and important things we've highlighted in Lifehacker's six years on the internet, and it does so in a more organized, more thorough way. Just by the nature of the book versus the web site, the former is extremely tightly curated, while the latter is moving and changing every day. The book contains plenty of new hacks you won't find on the site, but the two are very much a part of one another.

What's New in the Third Edition?

A lot. If you need a reminder of how quickly technology transforms the way we live, look back no further than the three years between this and the previous edition of this book, released in March of 2008.

Microsoft launched Windows 7 in the fall of 2009, a considerable and welcome step forward not only for the Windows operating system, but for Windows users. (If you recall, three years ago many Windows users still used Windows XP, having decided that an operating system first released in 2001 was superior to the maligned Windows Vista.) In the summer of 2008, Apple launched their App Store and substantially evolved the iOS operating system, creating new expectations for all smart phones and mobile devices along the way. Google evolved beyond search and productivity webapps, releasing their own web browser, Google Chrome (late summer, 2008) and mobile operating system, Android (fall, 2008). Tablet computers have finally reached mass appeal, starting with the consumer-friendly iPad and expanding to devices powered by Android, BlackBerry, and other mobile operating systems.

This edition reflects these considerable changes. Most significantly, Chapter 9 focuses exclusively on getting more from your smart phone — a now ubiquitous piece of personal technology that was in its nascence when the previous edition was released. You'll also find new and updated hacks in every chapter, employing tools and operating system features that weren't available three years ago. Every OS-specific hack in this book has been updated to work with the most recent versions of Windows and Mac OS X.

Lifehacker Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Control Your Email

Hack 1
Empty Your Inbox (and Keep It Empty)

Level: Easy
Platform: All

When you can empty your inbox on a regular basis, you've reached the ultimate level of email control.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 2
Decrease Your Email Response Time

Level: Easy
Platform: All

Responding to your email in a timely, professional manner is one of the best things you can do for your career. But no one emerges from the womb with a natural talent for parrying a constant stream of new messages popping up in front of your face all day long. Email responsiveness is an acquired skill-the one that just may differentiate you from everyone else in the world overwhelmed by an overloaded inbox.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 3
Craft Effective Messages

Level: Easy
Platform: All

The clearer your email messages are, the more likely you are to get the result you want in a more timely fashion-whether it's a response, a completed task, or an informed recipient.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 4
Highlight Messages Sent Directly to You

Level: Easy
Platform: All

When faced with an inbox full of new, unread email, it's nearly impossible to determine which messages need to be dealt with right away, and which can be put off until later.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 5
Use Disposable Email Addresses

Level: Easy
Platform: Web

If you hate the idea of giving your email address to any web site that asks for it, and you want to protect your email address from junk mail and spam, use a disposable email address instead.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 6
Master Message Search

Level: Easy
Platform: All

In the physical world, you can't throw years' worth of letters, cards, and memos into a drawer and then pick out the one Tom sent you about that fabulous rental he got in Key West back in 2007 in seconds. However, that is absolutely possible (and simple with a little know-how) in an email folder containing thousands of messages.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 7
Future-Proof Your Email Address

Level: Easy
Platform: All

You've probably got as many email addresses as you do pairs of socks, but you don't want to change them as often. In fact, switching your primary email address can be a big inconvenience that leads to missed messages and lost relationships.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 8
Consolidate Multiple Email Addresses with Gmail

Level: Medium
Platform: Web

Gmail is not only an email host, it's an email client that can fetch mail from any number of external services and consolidate it all right there in your Gmail inbox.

Hack 9
Script and Automate Repetitive Responses

Level: Medium
Platform: All with Mozilla Thunderbird

To knock down repetitive email quickly, build up a set of scripted email responses that you can drop into emails quickly, personalize if necessary, and send off without spending the time composing the same information every time.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 10
Filter Low-Priority Messages ('Bacn')

Level: Easy
Platform: All

Millions of email messages course over the Internet per second, and a bunch of them land in your inbox. Your spam filter helps shuttle junk mail out of sight, but what about messages from cc-happy co-workers, Aunt Eunice's forwarded emails, Facebook friend notifications, Google Alerts, and mailing list messages that clutter your inbox with low-priority noise?

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Chapter 2: Organize Your Data

Hack 11
Organize Your Documents Folder

Level: Easy
Platform: All

If you've had a computer for any length of time you know that your documents folder gets disorganized really fast. If your current file organization system works for you, congratulations. But if you frequently find yourself letting files clutter your computer's desktop, or if you spend time arranging files in a deep, complicated hierarchy of folders, it's time for a revamp.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 12
Instantly Retrieve Files Stored on Your Hard Drive

Level: Medium
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X

Every minute you spend on your computer, you're collecting more and more data, documents, and information to do your job and get on with your life. Instant retrieval of the bit or byte that you need right this very second is an essential requirement in the digital age.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 13
Overhaul Your Filing Cabinet

Level: Easy
Platform: All

One of the main clutter culprits in most offices is the To File pile. Often this heap spontaneously appears right on top of or next to the filing cabinet, which is pretty silly. Instead of adding stuff to the pile, why wouldn't you just file it? The reason is generally an unworkable, messy, overflowing file cabinet.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 14
Instantly Recall Any Number of Different Passwords

Level: Easy
Platform: All

Remembering a unique password for the dozens of logins you have may sound impossible, but it's not. You don't need to remember 100 passwords if you have one rule set for generating them.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 15
Securely Track Your Passwords

Level: Advanced
Platform: All

Sometimes you just have to write down a password to remember it. Don't do it where others can read it, like on a Post-It note or in an easy-to-read text file or Word document. You can keep a secure and searchable database of those hard-to-remember passwords using free password management tool LastPass.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 16
Tag Your Bookmarks

Level: Medium
Platform: Web

The web gets bigger every day, and so does your bookmark list. Stores your bookmarks online and associate keywords (called tags) to each for easy retrieval.

Hack 17
Organize Your Digital Photos

Level: Easy
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X

After even just a few months of taking photos, it's easy to wind up with a hard drive cluttered with a bunch of folders filled with images named things like IMG_8394.jpg. Pictures don't mean anything unless someone sees them, and no one will see the photos buried on your computer if you can't find the best ones.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 18
Corral Media Across Folders and Drives (New in 3rd Edition!)

Level: Easy
Platform: Windows 7

It's not always practical to store all your files in your Documents folder, which is why Microsoft introduced a new Libraries feature in Windows 7 that enables you to corral folders in different locations (and on different hard drives). Here's how it works.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 19
Create Saved Search Folders

Level: Easy
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X

As you begin to file your documents less and depend on searches more, it only makes sense to combine the folder paradigm and search capabilities with saved search folders.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 20
Create a Password-Protected Disk on Your PC

Level: Advanced
Platform: Windows, Linux

Everyone has some files the person would like to protect from intruders or others who have access to one's computer.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 21
Create a Password-Protected Disk on Your Mac

Level: Medium
Platform: Mac OS X

If you have files and folders you'd like to keep private and secure on your Mac, you can use Mac OS X's built-in Disk Utility to encrypt a disk image.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 22
Encrypt Your Entire Windows Operating System (New in 3rd Edition!)

Level: Advanced
Platform: Windows

Encrypting groups of sensitive files is a good start, but if you have a lot of sensitive material on your PC and don't want to hassle with picking and choosing which belong in your encrypted volume and which don't, you can use TrueCrypt to encrypt your entire system drive so that every file on your computer is encrypted by default.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 23
Set Up 2-Step Verification for Your Google Account (New in 3rd Edition!)

Level: Medium
Platform: All (Web)

The only thing standing between a hacker and your Google account - and more important, your sensitive information - is your password. Even if you have the strongest password you can possibly randomly generate, if people were to discover that password, they'd have access to all the information in your account.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 24
Design Your Own Planner

Level: Easy
Platform: All

There are lots of good reasons to ditch your expensive, electronic PDA for a paper-based planner system: cost, portability, and maintenance, to name a few. Paper-based planners never run out of battery juice or memory; they never crash or refuse to work the way you expect.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Chapter 3: Trick Yourself into Getting Done

Hack 25
Make Your To-Do List Doable

Level: Easy
Platform: All

Your to-do list can be a tool that guides you through your work, or it can be a big fat pillar of undone time bombs taunting you and your unproductive inadequacy. It all depends on how you write it.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 26
Set Up a Morning Dash

Level: Easy
Platform: All

There is one way to ensure that you'll knock at least one thing off your list: Dedicate the first hour of your day to your most important task-before you check your email, paper inbox, or go to any meetings.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 27
Map Your Time

Level: All
Platform: All (with a spreadsheet or calendaring program)

The busy person's perennial question is, "Where did the day go?" It's easy to get tossed from one thing to the next like a piece of driftwood caught in the tide of your crazy life.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 28
Quick-Log Your Work Day

Level: Easy
Platform: All

When you start keeping a daily work log, you might be surprised to find out what your workday really consists of.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 29
Dash Through Tasks with a Timer

Level: Easy
Platform: All

Trick yourself into getting going by making a commitment to work on the task for just a handful of minutes-minutes that will end at the beep of a timer in a small, quantifiable amount of time.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 30
Form New Habits with Jerry Seinfeld's Chain

Level: Easy
Platform: Web

Once upon a time, Jerry Seinfeld gave a young comic advice...

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 31
Control Your Workday

Level: Easy
Platform: All

Getting out of the office on time is tough when there's always another task, project, or drive-by boss request to knock out before you leave. It's easy to lose a day checking email, going to meetings, and putting out fires only to find that at 5 or 6 or 7 p.m., you haven't gotten started on something critical.

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

Hack 32
Turn Tasks into Gameplay

Level: Easy
Platform: All

Ever wish you could knock down the items on your to-do list with the same gusto you fit blocks together in Tetris or collect gold coins in Super Mario Bros?

Related posts at Lifehacker.com:

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BREAKING NEWS: Plane Crash Reportedly Kills Dozens in Russia

At least 38 are dead in Russian plane crash, Russia's state news agency reports

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Don't Quit Your Day Job, Ryan Reynolds

By Richard Lawson

Don't Quit Your Day Job, Ryan Reynolds

Don't Quit Your Day Job, Ryan ReynoldsCanada's answer to a question nobody asked has rolled out his big superhero picture and it's not quite a hit. Meanwhile, another Canadian, name of Jim Carrey, isn't faring so well either.

1) The Green Lantern — $52.7M
Uh oh. While fifty-two million dollars might seem like a lot of money (because it is, it is an absurd amount of money, more than the combined income of many generations of many families), for a summah soopahero feetchah that cost $200 million (more than I make in a year) to make, it is not a great sum. Foreign box office could still prove lucrative, but domestically this could be the summer's first sorta flop. (As, smugly, I predicted it would be.) Why did this happen? Have people finally tired of Ryan Reynolds' cold Canadian celery stalk-ism? (Think about it. If you could turn Ryan Reynolds into an animal, vegetable, or mineral, you would turn him into celery, wouldn't you? He's total celery.) I don't know. It might be Ryan Reynolds' fault. He might not be ready for primetime, now or ever. It might also be the "Whatthefuck?" factor. Meaning, whatthefuck is the Green who? Nobody knows. "He makes magic light things with his magic light ring? I don't... No." What do lanterns have to do with anything? (Also: What's a lantern? This is 2011. I don't want to churn butter.) I just think that this was DC being all sad and desperate because their brother Marvel is sooo much cooler and has so many more characters. Next summer DC will throw up its hands and say "Um, we have the Fart Hammer. They've never done a Fart Hammer movie. Oh, and what about the Blue Tea Cozy? Everyone loves the Blue Tea Cozy. 'Brightest Earl Grey, darkest Oolong.' Big stuff." Poor DC. So yeah, maybe this isn't Ryan Reynolds' cock-up. Maybe it's just that nobody likes the Green what are you asking me to watch? The Green why? I don't even know what you're talking about. Stop talking to me, movie.

2) Super 8 — $21M
This movie — about DC Comics' famed Super 8, a group featuring such notable superheroes as the Steel Grifter, Fashion-Man, and the Red Weep — held on nicely in its second week of release, perhaps indicating that the thing is getting positive word-of-mouth and could survive this movie-choked summertime season with its dignity intact. Which is good! It's good for everyone. It's good for J.J. Abrams. It's good for Kyle Chandler. And it's good for the Super 8. It's good for Clobber-Woman. And for the Amazing Fondler. And for the Purple Discharge.

3) Mr. Popper's Penguins — $18.2M
This movie, about a gay explorer in your butt Antarctica, did just OK. A million years ago, Jim Carrey used to be a box office guarantee, on the level of few others. I mean, remember Liar Liar? Do you remember how you saw that in the theater and laughed and laughed and laughed, because he couldn't lie anymore? (A conceit that movie pulled off far better than The Invention of Lying, which was just about a world where everyone was horribly rude to one another for no reason.) Jim Carrey used to be huge! Like, crawling out of a hippopotamus' butt huge! But now, a million years later, he's just the weird dude running around with the penguins. Doing his sad dance with the penguins, hoping we'll throw fish (and money) at him. And some of us did. But a lot more of us didn't. Ah well. Time keeps drifting by, I suppose. Tides change and whatnot. The sun burns on.

8) Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides — $6.2M
This movie has done decently in the US ($220 million), but has done gonzo good biz overseas. (On other tides, if not stranger ones.) In fact, it's become Disney's highest-grossing movie on the international market ever. It's made like almost a billion dollars. Increasingly, foreign box office is accounting for the majority of Hollywood receipts. So maybe they should start only releasing these movies overseas and leaving us real Earthlings, the only ones that really matter, alone. Pirates of the Caribbean: Don't Tell the Americans. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Fucker Lives in France Anyway. Things like that. They'd do really well, Disney would be happy, and all of us regular people here would be none the wiser, eating our steaks while driving our Chevys and shooting our guns and winning prom queen in peace.

14) The Art of Getting By — $700K
With an anemic $1,100 per screen, this indie about a Different teen boy in the city who meets a Different girl and they have a Different kind of romance did worse than other indies about Different teen boys in the city who meet Different girls and they have Different kinds of romances. I mean, Igby Goes Down was what, like a million years ago? Jim Carrey was still a huge movie star? And that did better. Or at least I imagine it did better. That movie sort of invented this modern genre. (I mean obviously Catcher in the Rye, but whatever. Live in the now, man.) And it was good. But now, a million years later? I hate these movies. I hate them so much for all their bizarre classicist, sexist bullshit. So I'm glad this movie did badly. I'm honestly glad. May it and its ilk drown in the seas of time forever. Honestly.

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The Onion Daily Dispatch - June 20, 2011

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Report: Massive Wildfires, Geopolitical Crises, AIDS, Human Rights Violations, Deadly Shootings, Africa, Trapped Travelers, Ethical And Moral Issues, Child Labor, Drug Wars 06.19.11

THE WORLD—Calling it devastating, tragic, complex, heartrending, heartwarming, catastrophic, courageous, and shameful, sources confirmed Sunday that massive wildfires, geopolitical crises, AIDS, human rights violations, deadly shootings, Africa, tourists taken hostage, ethical and moral issues, child labor, and drug wars.

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I Shall Now Exact My Final Revenge Upon That Jack-Ass Joseph Pulitzer

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I was roused from an unusually restful sleep yesterday for reasons utterly alien to a news-paper publisher: a meeting with the normally biddable and pliant Onion Board of Directors and, more unusual even than that, with the burgeoning horde of misc...

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