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Hack Your Life in One Day: A Beginner's Guide to Enhanced Productivity

December 18th, 2012Top Story

Hack Your Life in One Day: A Beginner's Guide to Enhanced Productivity

By Whitson Gordon

Hack Your Life in One Day: A Beginner's Guide to Enhanced ProductivitySo you're sold on the idea of "life hacks," but every time you go to change your passwords, budget your money, or make a to-do list, you become overwhelmed. If you want to avoid dooming yourself to a non-productive life forever, this simple guide will get you started with the most essential life hacking tools in just one day.

If you've been reading Lifehacker for a long time, you already know LastPass, Dropbox, CrashPlan, and other tools backwards and forwards. This guide is for absolute beginners—the people who are ready to take the dive into better productivity, but don't know where to start. Check it out for yourself (you never know what you might have missed) and pass it on to your friends and family during your next annual tech support session!

Back Up Your Computer Automatically with CrashPlan

Time Required: 30 Minutes
Tools You'll Need: CrashPlan

How It Works: You've probably heard people say it a million times before, but you should really back up your computer—and not just to an external hard drive, either. A good, cloud-based backup ensures that you never, ever lose any of your important files—a pain that many of you already know—no matter what happens. The process only takes a little bit of time, and is dead simple to set up. Here's how:

  1. Download and install CrashPlan, and set up a CrashPlan+ account if you want to back up to CrashPlan's service (which we highly, highly recommend).
  2. Start up CrashPlan. It will scan your system and suggest the folders that you should back up. Its suggestions should be fine for almost everyone.
  3. Choose a backup destination at the top of the window. If you're backing up to an external drive, pick "Folders" and choose that drive from the list, and if you're backing up to the internet, pick CrashPlan Central.
  4. Click the Start button to begin your first backup. It'll take awhile, so don't turn your computer off while it runs—it can even take up to a few days if you're backing up to CrashPlan Central. Once it's done, though, CrashPlan will back up only the files you've changed, every 15 minutes or so.

You can change a lot of other options in CrashPlan, as well as back up to different locations like another computer. This simple setup yields great results for most people. Once you've set it up, you'll rarely—if ever—need to open CrashPlan again.

Further Reading: Our Beginner's Guide to CrashPlan and How to Move Your CrashPlan Backup to a New Computer
Alternative Tools: Backblaze, Mozy, and others for Windows and OS X

Create Better Passwords and Store Them in a Password Manager

Time Required: 2 Hours
Tools You'll Need: LastPass

How It Works: Do you use the same password for nearly every site? Is it something easy to remember, like b00klover1? If so, then it's time to audit your passwords and change them to something more secure. Not only are your accounts notoriously easy to hack (something that's become a real issue lately), but if you use the same password on every site, you make it easier for one hacker to access all your online accounts. A password manager like LastPass will fix both of these problems.

First we'll install LastPass, and then we'll use its password generator to change all of your insecure passwords to something better. Here's how to set it up:

  1. Download the LastPass extension for your browser and install it. Restart your browser if necessary.
  2. Set up a LastPass account and give it a strong password that you'll remember. This generator can help you create one.
  3. Go to a site you use (say, Facebook), and head to the change password prompt, usually buried somewhere in the settings.
  4. Type your current password in the first box, then click on the box for your new password. Instead of making something up, click on the LastPass button in your browser toolbar and go to Tools > Generate Secure Password. It should generate a random string of characters for you—a truly secure password.
  5. Click Accept and LastPass will copy your new password into the "New" box on your account page. Confirm your password change. LastPass will save your new password so the next time you log in, it'll autofill the password box before you and log you in.
  6. Repeat this process for the other sites you visit on a regular basis. You should use a different generated password for every site—that way, if one gets hacked, the hackers don't have access to all your other web accounts too. You can change all your passwords now, or do it over time as you visit these other sites (email, Twitter, your online banking page, and so on).

It seems difficult, and you won't be able to remember these passwords off the top of your head, but you'll be much more secure (after all, the most secure password is one you can't remember). When you need to type in passwords on your smartphone, you can either view your passwords in your LastPass vault on your computer (by clicking the LastPass button), from the LastPass mobile site, or by using the LastPass mobile app that requires a cheap subscription to use.

Further Reading: Our Beginner's Guide to LastPass, Our Intermediate Guide to Mastering Passwords with LastPass, Why Strong Passwords Aren't Enough, and Why You Should Turn On Two-Factor Authentication Right Now
Alternative Tools: 1Password, KeePass, and others

Keep All Your Notes in One Place with a Cross-Platform Note Taker

Time Required: 30 Minutes (more if you're importing notes)
Tools You'll Need: Evernote

How It Works: If you're the kind of person that has Post-It notes all over your monitor, crumpled up pieces of paper in all your pockets, and endless reminders in a hundred different apps, it's time to consolidate everything into one, cross-platform note-taker. Evernote is the most popular, and with pretty good reason: it can store anything you imagine in one central place, digitize your physical notes, manage to-do lists, and you can search for nearly anything with just a few taps. Nearly every person we interview about productivity names it as the number one app they couldn't live without. And luckily, it's very easy to get started with it.

  1. Download Evernote and install it on your computer and smartphone. If you don't have an account, create one now.
  2. Start up Evernote, and start copying any notes you have in other programs into Evernote. You can create a new note by pressing the big "New Note" button at the top.
  3. Create a few notebooks—like Personal and Work—and add your notes to them from the "Notebooks" dropdown at the top. You can also create a few tags—like Projects, Articles, Lists, or whatever else—and assign them at the top of your note.
  4. To scan in any physical notes you have (like Post-It notes sitting around), just go to File > New Camera Note and take a picture of your paper note. Once you sync, Evernote will translate any text in the image so you can search for it as if it was a text note. Alternatively, you can just manually type in the note yourself.
  5. Install the Evernote Web Clipper extension for your browser, which will help you grab nearly anything from the web and send it on over to Evernote—articles you want to read, information you want to add to one of your notes, or even favorite tweets.

This is just a very basic setup. Unlike some of the other tools in this article, Evernote is more about using it than setting it up and forgetting it. Once you've got a few notes in there, though, you can use it to house just about anything. Jot down text notes, save pictures and diagrams, or even save audio notes straight from your phone. The more you use it to store and organize your stuff, the more it'll help in your daily productivity. Learning how to use the search feature will be a big boon, too, especially if your notebooks and tags are well organized. Check out some of the other clever Evernote uses in our Further Reading below for more ideas.

Further Reading: What's All the Fuss About Evernote?, Expand Your Brain with Evernote, Clever Uses for Evernote, and The Complete Guide to Going Paperless
Alternative Tools: Simplenote, Springpad, and others

Access Your Important Files Everywhere with Cloud Storage

Time Required: 30 Minutes
Tools You'll Need: Dropbox

How It Works: If you're tired of emailing yourself files, you need to start using a cloud storage service. Cloud storage fixes the problem of multiple computers, which most of us deal with these days. Maybe you have a desktop and a laptop, or a computer at home and at at work. If you're tired of emailing yourself files, it's time to start using a cloud storage service like Dropbox. Once you set it up, you'll forget it's even there and all your important files will appear on all of your computers. You'll even be able to grab them from the web if you're on a computer that isn't yours! Here's how to set it up.

  1. Download Dropbox for your computers and install it on each one. When you first start it up, it'll ask you to create an account, so do that now. By default, you'll start with 2GB of space, but you can buy more (or get some for free—we'll talk about that later).
  2. When you start Dropbox for the first time, it'll ask you where you want to store your Dropbox folder. The default location is fine. Go through the wizard to finish up installation.
  3. Drag any important documents, folders, or other files into your Dropbox folder. You'll see a blue sync badge appear on the icons while those files sync to the internet, and a green checkmark when they're finished. Within minutes your files will appear in the Dropbox folder on all your other computers and everything will stay in sync.

It's really that simple to use. Just start using your Dropbox folder as your main documents archive and everything will be synced to your other machines. You can do a ton more with it, too, like see old versions of your documents and share files with your friends. Just right-click on a file in your Dropbox and go to the Dropbox menu for those options. If you start running out of space in your Dropbox, check out our guide to getting more free space on Dropbox to add more.

Further Reading: Our Top 10 Clever Uses for Dropbox, The Cheapskate's Guide to Getting Free Dropbox Space, Get 8GB+ of Extra Dropbox Space for Free with Google AdWords, and Supercharge Your Dropbox with Wappwolf
Alternative Tools: Box, SkyDrive, and more

Automate Your Budget With Mint

Time Required: 1.5 Hours
Tools You'll Need: Mint

How It Works: We all have our financial vices, but no matter how committed you are to budgeting your money, it's just so darn hard to keep track of. Mint is a free tool that makes it easy: it automatically tracks what you spend, categorizes it, and keeps you constantly up-to-date on how well you're sticking to your budget for those categories. Once you've set it up, you won't have to do anything; Mint tracks it all for you. Here's what you need to do:

  1. Head to Mint.com and create an account. It'll take you through a short wizard where you'll be asked to provide information about your bank accounts, so it can see your recent transactions.
  2. Once all your bank accounts have been imported, head to the Spending History page. You should see a list of transactions much like the one you'd see on your bank's web site, except that each transaction will have a category like Groceries, Music, Food, and others. Mint does this automatically, but if it gets something wrong, you can always change the category yourself by clicking on the item and clicking the arrow next to the category name.
  3. Once you've cleaned up your categories a little bit (if necessary), you go to the Budgets tab. Mint will start you off with a few common ones, but you can edit them to reflect how much money you'd like to budget for food, gas, clothing, and other items every month.
  4. Once you've imported your accounts and set up your budgets, the only thing you'll need to do is check in regularly and make sure everything's properly sorted. Change any categories that don't seem right, add any cash transactions you've made with the "Add a Transaction" button, or go to Edit Details > Split to split a transaction (like an ATM withdrawal) into multiple ones.

With just a bit of regular upkeep, you'll be able to get an accurate picture of your budget at any time from Mint's web site or their mobile app for iPhone or Android. It still requires you take an active role in managing your budgets, but it's much much easier than doing it all by hand, since Mint already tracks and categorizes everything you spend.

Further Reading: How to Create (and Stick to) a Realistic Budget with Mint, Why I Stopped Being Paranoid and Started Using Mint, and Mint's New Bill Reminders Help You Stay on Top of Upcoming Expenses
Alternative Tools: You Need a Budget, Quicken, and others

Save Yourself Hours of Typing with Text Expansion

Time Required: 30 Minutes
Tools You'll Need: PhraseExpress (Windows) or TypeIt4Me (Mac)

How It Works: We all have a few things that we type over and over again every day. Maybe it's your address, a reply you send to a common email, a template for a document, or even a complicated character that doesn't have a shortcut on your keyboard. Text expansion saves you time by letting you type these large blocks of text with just three or four keystrokes.

For example, say I have to type out my address a few times a day. Instead of trudging through it every time, I could set up a "snippet" that types my entire address when I type ,home. Immediately after I type those four characters, my entire address shows up preformatted, so I can move on to more important things. Add in all the other repetitive typing you do, and you can save yourself quite a bit of time and frustration over the day. Here's how to set it up:

  1. Download and install a text expander like PhraseExpress (for Windows) or TypeIt4Me (for OS X). Start it up to see your current list of snippets—it'll usually come with a few to start you off, but you can delete them if you like (in fact, if you're using PhraseExpres, you should delete them-they'll cause more problems than they solve, and the "Websites" folder is particularly annoying).
  2. To create one, click the New button and type the full snippet—that is, the text you want to finish with (like your full address)—in the big content box. Give the snippet a label (like "Address") and an abbreviation (the short text you'll type to insert your snippet, like ,home. Save your snippet to finish.
  3. Open up a text editor and try your snippet out. If it works, you've done it correctly, and you can repeat this process with other snippets you want to add. You may only be able to think of a few now, but as you go about your work, you'll find tons of other text blocks that you type throughout the day that you can then go put into your text expander.

It sounds a little silly at first, but it really will save you time once you start using it. You can add your address, email signature, phone number, email address, or other salutations to your text expander and use them all day long. You can even tell your snippet to put your cursor in a certain location after you expand it, or tell it to paste the contents of the clipboard at a certain spot in your snippet (like someone's name for salutations in a letter). It's only limited to what you can think up. Check out the further reading section for ideas on how to use this genius tool.

Further Reading: How to Use Text Expansion to Save Yourself Hours of Typing Every Week, Set Up These Text Expansion Shortcuts Now, and Use Text Expansion to Make Quick Work of Assholes
Alternative Tools: Breevy, TextExpander, and more for Windows and Mac

Access Your Home Computer From Just About Anywhere

Time Required: 30 Minutes
Tools You'll Need: TeamViewer

How It Works: Dropbox can help keep your files in sync between computers, but what if you need to check on something on your home computer while you're out and about with your laptop or phone? This is where remote access comes in. With a program like TeamViewer, you can immediately log into your home computer and use it as if it were sitting right in front of you, which can be a lifesaver. Setting it up is very easy:

  1. Download and install TeamViewer on all your computers. Start it up and create an account by going to Connection > Set Up Unattended Access. This will make all your computers accessible with just a quick username and password combo.
  2. Log Into your account on your home computer. You should see that computer's name in TeamViewer's list of computers on the right-hand side. Leave TeamViewer and this computer running when you leave the house.
  3. When you want to use that computer from afar, start up TeamViewer on your second computer and log into your account. You should immediately see your first computer in the list. Double-click on it to log into it and use it remotely. You can perform tasks, grab files you've forgotten, or do just about anything else as if you were using it directly.

Simple, huh? You can even download their mobile app and use your computer from your smartphone or tablet, which is really amazing.

Further Reading: A Comprehensive Guide to Remote Controlling Your PC
Alternative Tools: Windows' Built-In Remote Desktop, OS X's Built-In Screen Sharing, and more as described here


Photo remixed from Spectral-Design (Shutterstock).

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The Case Of The Made-Up BioWare Interview

December 18th, 2012Top Story

The Case Of The Made-Up BioWare Interview

By Jason Schreier

The Case Of The Made-Up BioWare InterviewSometimes people tell lies on the Internet. That's no news if you've spent any time on a computer, where finding the truth is no simple task. Pranksters on the web make things up all the time.

But last week, we saw something rather uncommon even for the Internet's standards: an interview with BioWare that was made up entirely. And we've talked to the person behind it, who tells us that he expected to be caught.

***

On December 5, a website called GamerSyndrome published an interview that they said was with BioWare. Although there was no name attributed to the BioWare representative, none of the answers seemed strange or out of the ordinary. In other words, it seemed legit.

A week later, as sometimes happens with these things, the interview started to make its way around the gaming press. One particularly newsworthy piece of information—that the new Mass Effect wouldn't be out until 2014 or 2015—spread to a bunch of major websites: IGN, Eurogamer, GameSpot, and yes, even Kotaku.

Then, something rather unusual happened. BioWare's Mike Gamble tweeted that the whole thing was a lie. When I followed up with BioWare, they echoed Gamble's tweet:

"We were working with that outlet on an interview, but at no time did anyone from EA or BioWare provide any answers to questions from GamerSyndrome," a BioWare rep told me in an e-mail.

Strange and stranger. I reached out to GamerSyndrome's managing editor for comment, but he wouldn't say much more than what he had written on his website:

This interview has been removed and the author responsible for this post has been terminated from the gamersyndrome.com team. The information provided previously by the author of this post was deemed to be obtained from an inaccurate source and NOT an official Bioware or EA interview response. We apologize for the inconvenience and the matter is being dealt with severely.

Over the past few days, I've been in touch with the writer of the interview, a 25-year-old college student who agreed to speak with me under condition of anonymity. Although you can find his name on the byline of his interview, the writer would only speak to me if I agreed not to use it.

At first he said that he had been conned by someone claiming to have been from BioWare. He said that the conman had made up answers to all of his questions. He said there were e-mails on his GamerSyndrome account that could prove this, but he couldn't get to them, because he was no longer with GamerSyndrome.

For the past few days I've been trying to piece together and verify that story. Until today, when he sent me another e-mail.

"Look, it's not fair that I do this to you or to anyone," he said. "What I've told you isn't correct. Here's the actual truth.

"The entire article was fake, I didn't talk to anyone for it. No one had ever hired me to write for a gaming website before, so I was trying so hard to impress them. I wanted them to see the interview and be impressed by what I wrote. When BioWare didn't respond with the answers to my questions I decided to finish the post myself. I took quotes from past BioWare interviews and inserted them into my post, as well as quotes from The Art of Mass Effect and The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3. I didn't expect the article to go anywhere so I thought nothing of it. However, I'm sorry for the article. There's nothing right with what I did and I apologize to anyone who was misled by this article."

So why? What drives someone to make up an entire interview like that? What's the logic behind it?

"I had been talking the interview up among the writers on GamerSyndrome and they all seemed so impressed with the fact that I could get an interview with [BioWare]," the writer told me. "Plus the administrator of GamerSyndrome seemed super impressed by it [so] I felt I needed to get the article up. I had been promising the article for a few months and BioWare had yet to respond to the email containing our questions. I felt that I had to get the article up, otherwise no one would think it was something."

I asked him if he thought he'd be found out. "Truthfully, yes I did think I would get caught," he said. "I didn't do it with the intent of deceiving people or spreading around lies. I only did it because I wanted to get the article finished and move on from it."

He wanted to be a games reporter. He just wanted to get the big scoop, impress his friends and peers at GamerSyndrome and elsewhere. But now he thinks he's sabotaged his dream.

"I don't plan on ever writing for a website again because of this situation," he said. "It was not fair for me to do this and all I can do now is say I'm sorry."

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Ladies: Exercise Is More Important Than Your Hair

December 18th, 2012Top Story

Ladies: Exercise Is More Important Than Your Hair

By Hamilton Nolan

Ladies: Exercise Is More Important Than Your HairHere now, a new study chronicled in the scientific journal The Daily Mail, which lays bare womankind's deepest, darkest, shiniest, most volumizing secret: some women are far more concerned about their hair than about their physique. Ladies. Ladies. You have it backwards.

The shocking findings of the new real survey, out of Wake Forest University: "40 per cent admitted to avoiding exercise because they didn't want to ruin their hair-dos." That's almost half! Most of the women got only half the recommended amount of weekly exercise, and a quarter didn't exercise at all. I for one am shocked, not to mention appalled. Before I totally blow this thing women do out of the water with knowledge bombs, let's note the ways in which this is a tricky area for fitness and sex analysts:

1. The survey involved only women. High sexism/ misogyny potential.
2. Only black women were surveyed. High racism potential.
3. Devastatingly high potential for one or the other side in this argument to quote stand up comedians including but not limited to Mo'Nique, Wanda Sykes, Chris Rock, Steve Harvey, and even, in extreme cases, Dane Cook.

Nevertheless, this issue is too important too ignore. It calls, indeed, for some real talk. So where more intellectually timid and/ or wiser (white, male) pundits would bow out of this discussion, citing "a thing" that they "forgot" they have to do, I shall forge ahead. Now. Here is the problem with the common attitude among ladies that they must not mess up their hair by exercising: your hair is less important than your body, when it comes to "looking good." If you object that "looking good" is a purely subjective measure that cannot be quantified at all across cultures or even across individuals, I will say yes, you are correct. But everyone is, deep down, secretly, interested in whether someone else thinks they look good, and I am someone else, so let's proceed. If you object that you may care if someone thinks you look good but not if I think you look good, I will say, "Do you see anyone else here? No, it's just us for now, sorry." If you object that this issue is "not just about looking good," I will say that you are lying. If it is not about looking good then hey, fuck your hair, start exercising—at least exercise is good for your health.

In order to determine whether great hair or a great body is more important to looking good, simply try the following thought experiment: Imagine one woman who is bald, with a great body, and another woman who has great hair, and no body. Who is more likely to get a date, or be able to accomplish simple physical tasks requiring at least a basic sort of locomotion? The answer is clear. (The same answer applies for men, by the way.) The good news is that, here in "the real world," the choice need not always be so drastic. Ladies, you can exercise, have a great body, and men (I do not propose to speak for lesbians, unless the lesbian community would like for me to speak for them, in which case I have many interesting theories) probably won't even notice your hair, even if it is busted, because they are focused on your body. Or you can neglect exercise, spend a lot of time and money and effort on your hair to make it look great, and men still will not pay attention to your hair, because I just don't think we really care that much about it, one way or the other.

The choice is clear.

Yes, I understand that hair care for black women is often an expensive and time-consuming proposition, and that its inherent cost and effort make the protection of a hair do a very seductive priority. I am simply proposing here that, if you are the type of person given to seeing hair care and exercise as an either/ or proposition in which one or the other must be chosen, exercise is clearly the proper choice. Of course, a woman might very well say, "Who the hell are you and why the fuck should I care about your opinion, since you appear to be just some random asshole spouting your opinions on the internet, and I'm not sleeping with you or trying to sleep with you or trying to 'attract' you in any way whatsoever?" Well, that last part's not what I heard, but otherwise, that is a justified response. Sure. Fine. That makes sense. You can convince your friends of that. You may even be able to convince yourself. But you will never be able to convince me that hair care should be prioritized over exercise, because I have too much love for womankind in my soul to allow such a myth to flourish. Yes, perhaps I love too much, as did Jesus (and look what happened to him). But I must assert that there is a very strong chance that some of you, ladies, are using your hair as an excuse not to exercise. And in the hardcore heart, there is no room for excuses. (All the room is taken up by love.)

So jump up, run out, and sweat until your hair looks like a god damn mess. It is the right thing you do. If you need me, I will be on the couch. My hair is really short. I'm a man, so it really doesn't matter.

[Photo: AP]

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