Yak Shaving -- [MIT AI Lab, after 2000: orig. probably from a Ren & Stimpy episode.] Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you're working on.

Excel Tip -- If you track a lot of information in any one spreadsheet, it can be very useful to hide columns in the sheet, so that you can see just the columns you want at any given time. To hide a column, select a cell in the column and hit Ctrl+0 (that's zero, as in hide, not the letter O). To unhide it, select the cells at left or right of the column and hit Ctrl+Shift+0. (HT: Web Worker Daily)

PowerPoint Tip -- To extract pictures from the PPT slideshow, all you have to do is export the Powerpoint Presentation as an HTML web page (File -> Save As -> Select .html from the File Format drop down). PowerPoint will automatically extract every picture embedded in the PPT file and save it to the local folder. The same technique is also used to extract sound from presentations. (HT: Digital Inspiration)

HowTo -- Remove vocals from Mp3s

Google School -- Want to search specific websites (i.e., your entire blogroll) all at once? With Google Custom Search Engine, you can harness the power of Google to create a search engine tailored to your needs.

Download of the Week -- Do you need to take Word or other Microsoft Office documents and save them as PDF files? Microsoft offers a free download that makes this easy, and you get options for e-mailing PDFs with it too. (HT: Web Worker Daily)

See also: The Yak Shaving Razor Archives

Have a useful recommendation for making life more pleasant? Send them to me at jpcarter[at]evangelicaloutpost.com.