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)
Online Tool -- beinsync is an online tool, similar to GoToMyPC, that helps you manage your digital content. With the free version you can sync two PCs, share up to five folders, and backup up to 1GB of data.
HowTo -- Digitize records and tapes with Audacity
Google School -- Schedule and access your upcoming appointments in Google Calendar with the ease of a phone call with web application Jott to Google Calendar. Once Jott2Gcal is set up, you can dial your Jott number and say something like, "Dinner with Gina tomorrow at 8:30pm" and it should automatically be added to your calendar. Likewise, if you were to call and say, "Get events from 10/5/2007 through 10/10/2007," you should get an email (and SMS message, depending on your settings) listing your events. (HT: Lifehacker)
Download of the Week -- Create, save and play back YouTube playlists in your Firefox sidebar with Windows-only extension YouPlayer. After you install the extension, just open your YouPlayer sidebar to get started. From YouTube, you can drag and drop any video URL from YouTube (like the search results page) and it's instantly added to your playlist. (HT: Lifehacker)
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.
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