Keeping things in the cloud is a godsend, pure and simple.

Yeah, there are sometimes a few hiccups here and there, but think about this: ten years ago, when your computer crashed, you might have been out of your email for a week or more, depending on your resources/finances. Today, when your computer crashes, you can still grab your email on your phone, or you can hop on another computer and access it through a web browser.

The opposition to cloud-based services is what if the server crashes? In other words, if I keep all of my information on Google’s computers, what happens when their computer goes down?

Well, Google spends a sizable amount of money on their computers, and they keep backups of everything. I’d much rather rely on Google’s state-of-the-art computers, which cost thousands of dollars, rather than on my four-and-a-half year old Toshiba Satellite laptop that I bought for $500 or so when it came out.

The cloud is changing everything that we do, and we don’t even realize it. My favorite? Publishing. This blog is completely run by the cloud. I have backups emailed to me every week, but that’s about it. It is 100% run in the cloud. I’m even writing this in a web browser. Thanks to the cloud, I am publishing the 7th issue of my own digital magazine, an ongoing project that I’ve always wanted to do. My books are stored in the cloud.

We use the cloud for communication. I use Google Voice for my business communication, Facebook to communicate with most of my friends, and Twitter to network with and meet new people in various industries.

The cloud houses most of my entertainment. Whereas I spent my younger years meticulously recording TV shows onto video tapes (remember those?), so that I would never be short of entertainment, I now use Netflix for much of my entertainment, along with Hulu, and I read a number of hilariously entertaining and thoughtful blogs.

I house my thoughts in the cloud with Evernote, I keep my day-to-day life in Google Calendar, and I even used the cloud to complete a correspondence course on direct response copywriting to expand my business. We manage our finances in the cloud with ClearCheckbook, and I can travel to new destinations and enjoy classic moments from movies and television with YouTube. You can even expand your knowledge about almost any subject with Wikipedia and a Google search.

The cloud houses your information, teaches you new stuff, keeps you entertained, and organizes your life. Heck, the cloud even makes me money every month. That is so cool.

If you are trying to reach a goal of yours, but feel like you don’t have the time, then it’s time to get more productive. But there are endless blog posts written on productivity – from systems like Getting Things Done, perhaps. But those all generally fall under the category of “work productivity”: trying to get things done that will move you closer to your goals. There’s nothing wrong with them at all, and you definitely need to be productive when you are working.

But there is also the little matter of wasting your personal time. Today’s average web surfer is trying to do a lot of things with a lot of different services. For example, some services that I use most often are:

• Twitter
• Google Reader
• Google Photos (Picasa)
• Evernote
• Facebook
• Gmail

With so many services to manage, I need to work with them as efficiently as possible to keep my time from spiraling out of control. Enter If This Then That.

If This Then That (or IFTTT) is a web service that links these different services together however you want them to, simply and quickly. I first discovered this tool from a post on Lifehacker called, “How to Supercharge All Your Favorite Webapps with ifttt”. There are loads of different uses for this tool, with services like the ones listed above, as well as Foursquare, Dropbox, RSS Feeds, Instagram, Last.fm, and others.

Once you link up the different services you use, you can create “tasks” that tell the services to do something when you take an action. For example, when somebody tags a photo of me on Facebook, that photo is automatically grabbed and uploaded to Google Photos for additional backup. When I click “Share” in Google Reader on a post I like, it will automatically be tweeted. There are seemingly endless possibilities, and the interface is very easy to use.

If you are unsure of where to get started, they have a “recipes” page, with tasks that others have created. Just browsing through those items can get you going. Here are the ones I currently have set up:

• If I am tagged in a Facebook photo, it is uploaded to Google Photos immediately
• If I star an item in Google Reader to read later, it is sent to Evernote as a new note in a notebook called “Links to Review”
• If I mark a tweet as a “favorite” for later viewing, it also is sent to Evernote as a new note in the same notebook (this means that links I save are now stored in one central location from both Google Reader and Twitter)
• If I share an item in Google Reader, a tweet is automatically sent with the link to share with my followers
• If I upload photos or a photo album to Facebook, then the photo(s) are automatically uploaded to Google Picasa

This is just the beginning of how you can use this tool. Other ways include:

• Receiving a text when it’s going to rain
• Sending automatic direct messages to new followers on Twitter (DON’T do this one though – it’s really annoying!)
• Save all Instagram photos to Dropbox
• Put Foursquare check-ins on your Google Calendar
• Sync Instagram photos to a Facebook album
• Receive a text alert when something specific pops up on Craigslist

…and so on. It’s a free tool, and it has eliminated many steps that I used to have to take on a daily basis. Do you use IFTTT? If not, try it out and play around for a bit. If so, what’s your favorite “recipe”? Share in the comments!

When I was in grade school (in a bustling class of five kids), I had a friend named Jason. He was a cool kid, very popular in the school, and he was one of my best friends. We’d hang out, laugh, goof around, and just enjoyed being kids. Jason left our school when his parents moved after our 5th grade year. We tried to hang out, but for some reason, we stopped. For all intents and purposes, I haven’t seen Jason in about 13 or 14 years (over half of my life at this point).

Jason and I recently got in touch again, and we’re planning to get together for a couple of beers in the next couple weeks, provided we can work something out. It’s a strange feeling – I was a kid who didn’t have very many friends at all, so Jason was a great friend to have, but it’s been so long. It might be weird, it might work out to be really cool for both of us. I have no idea.

And while I’m not sure what’s going to happen, I realized that so many of us get caught up in the “Whatever happened to…?” conversations that we don’t realize the internet has equipped us to actually find out. And I don’t mean in the creepy way, either – we have the ability to find people from our past and get together with them once again.

But why would we want to do that? They are obviously not a part of our lives anymore for a good reason:

• They could be a new friend to have. Some people never grow up – they’re still the same idiots that you knew them to be in high school or grade school. That’s fine. But many people do, and it can be nice to add a new friend to your social life.
• It gives you the chance to catch up. Often, these people were big parts of your young lives. What’s the harm in finding out what happened to them? If nothing else comes out of it, it is an interesting exercise to get together with somebody from your past and swap stories.
• You can bury some hatchets. Hanging on to old negativity is never a good thing. Stop being bitter to somebody and take the opportunity to make peace with them.
• You get to expand your world a little bit. There’s nothing wrong with having a few close friends and leaving it at that. But it can be very healthy and educational to get out of your comfort zone and make some new friends. Why not look to some old ones for those new friendships? (You know, provided they are not drug dealers or anything…)

So how do we track these people down and approach them?

• Facebook. I don’t really care for Facebook much anymore, but nothing can deny the fact that nearly everyone in the free world is on it. Do a Facebook search and see if you can’t find that person you are looking for right off the bat.
• Mutual friends. Ask your social circles if anyone’s heard from that person. See if you can get some contact information, if they are not on Facebook. I found Jason first by seeing his picture in his wife’s profile picture. So I just dropped her a non-threatening message, and the conversation evolved from there. When he got on Facebook, it was only a matter of time until we became “friends”.
• Give them a call (or shoot them an email). Jason sent me a Facebook message last week with his number, saying we should get together. I initially got together with my wife by sending her a Facebook message asking to get some drinks. It’s the age we live in, people. Getting a hold of somebody is easier than ever.
• Keep it low-key. For my wife, I asked her out for a couple drinks. For Jason, we plan on grabbing a few beers. Other than people suspecting that I am a raging alcoholic, asking somebody out for drinks is the perfect “get to know you” activity, because: A) it’s something that you can do while having a conversation, as opposed to going to a movie, and B) if it’s not going well, it’s not hard to get out of it early. If you grab dinner, you have to sit through the whole meal. If you grab drinks, you can easily stop after one and get out before it gets too awkward. It’s flexible and low-pressure.
• Let it evolve naturally. Jason and I could spark up a renewed friendship that could last for years. We could also have a couple awkward beers and never see each other again. Keep the pressure off of everything and just let whatever happens happen. There’s no sense in pushing it.

“Because we have access to so much right in front of us, we can help spread a message to thousands of people at once with only a click.” - Chris Brogan & Julien Smith, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust

The year is 1970. You are trying to fight for an environmental cause. You want to spread the message as far as possible. What do you do?

The Old-Fashioned Way

At the time, your resources are only as good as the people you know and the places you can go. You might pick a big-time college campus to recruit students – possibly pick up some news coverage. You could even recruit a bunch to go door-to-door and get signatures and donations from housewives.

Dedicating yourself to this cause is a noble effort. It requires sacrifice and a significant time commitment. In exchange for that, however, you get results – you raise awareness of your cause, and potentially funds to help further it. You also get deeply involved in the cause, learning more about the problems facing it and how certain groups are fighting them.

Today’s Way: The Game of Telephone

Have you ever played Telephone? There are several variations of it, but the main idea behind it is that a group of people line up, and one whispers a message in the ear of the person next to them. It passes from person to person down the line, until it reaches the other end, where the end person announces the message they received. What makes it so fun is that the end message is usually radically different from the one that was started.

Today, when we raise awareness for a cause, everybody seems to jump onto social media, particularly Facebook. Going door-to-door is out the door. In its place is an encouragement to copy-and-paste a status update or change your profile picture. Heck, at one point, it was secretly posting your bra color. The intention is to create “awareness”, but is that enough? Don’t we already know about breast cancer? Besides, the message gets so garbled up within hours that everybody is doing it, thinking they’re doing it for fun and laughs, and everyone comments on it, but nobody knows why it’s being done in the first place. It got lost in the game of Telephone everybody was playing.

This method of supporting a cause has been dubbed, “slacktivism”, and I think it’s an entirely appropriate term. Supporting a cause takes remarkably little commitment nowadays. So instead of seeing the internet as a tool that can extend our reach beyond going door-to-door, we are seeing it as a tool to support a cause by doing as little work as possible. The result? We’re not really doing anything.

The “Cartoon Character” Profile Picture

Never was this more evident than in the slacktivist cause that took over Facebook a few months ago. Gradually, you noticed more and more of your friends changing their profile pictures to cartoon characters from their childhood. Because you thought it was fun, you did the same. Everybody commented on each other’s profile pictures, but not in the way it was intended at the beginning of the game of Telephone: “I LOVED Strawberry Shortcake!”, “Animaniacs was the BEST!”, “OMG I used to watch Ninja Turtles every day!”

The reason for the trend: raising awareness of child abuse. Yeah, really effective, wasn’t it?

The Two-Fold Problem with Slacktivism

First is that game of Telephone we discussed earlier: the message gets lost quickly in favor of the fun part of it. Everybody does it and nobody knows why.

The second problem is that, even if the message does get across, what does it accomplish? Are there less child abusers in the world now? What good is awareness if it doesn’t prompt the person to do anything? Raising awareness is just like any other form of marketing: you need a clear way to respond to this awareness. Otherwise, we’re just talking about a cause and then moving on. No money is raised. No problem is solved. It just ends there – useless.

What does this have to do with goals/dreams/changes?

Some of you may be reading this and wondering how this is related to busting through personal barriers. Look, we can set all the goals we want, and we can read about it, follow websites devoted to the topic, and get involved in the cause. But unless we are actively pushing ourselves to accomplish it, it’s not going to happen.

If you are reading blogs and commenting on stuff that entertains you or makes you think, that’s great, but if that’s all you are doing, you’re wasting your time.

The internet is full of talk. That’s the core of slacktivism: it’s all talk. We all need to make sure that we are backing up that talk with action, or we are just spinning our wheels in the mud. Ditch the fear that comes from the idea that you might fail in your cause and push yourself to wholeheartedly pursue it.

When we are done posting our bra colors or we finally change our Facebook picture back to a normal one, nothing has changed. When you are done reading that blog post, connecting with that person on Twitter, or reading that book, make sure you have found a path to action, and make some real changes in response to it.

Want to support some real causes?

If you are looking to support a cause, Google their websites and find their donations page. Even $5 can make a difference. For a place to start, try Kiva or the new Love Drop.

What’s your least favorite slacktivism project that hit the Web recently?

It’s not just the computer anymore, either. Your basic smartphone can vibrate, ring, and light up any time somebody says something on Facebook or sends you an email. You can view your tweets and other messages and respond in a matter of seconds. It’s great, isn’t it? How cool is today’s world?

The answer: well, not so cool. We live in an age of instant notification, but I would argue that it’s starting to do more harm than good. It was a big step, but recently, I decided to turn off all my notifications, both on my phone and on my computer. I’ve never been happier, because shutting off all these notifications brings some awesome benefits:

1. Increased focus and productivity. This was the main reason I decided to give it a shot. Especially in my freelance writing, I need to be focused on the task at hand. Think about it: you are in the middle of something important, and the corner of your screen displays a little mail icon saying that you have a new message. Your eyes immediately drift to the corner, and the only thing on your mind is checking out the new message and clearing it out. What if it’s somebody important? What if it’s a new client? What if it’s that job offer? Instead, you pull yourself away from what you were doing to see that somebody commented on a photo that you liked on Facebook. Yee-ha. Now, you need to re-focus your brain on your task. You lose lots of time by switching gears so much. Ease some stress on your brain by allowing yourself to finish that task at hand before pulling away to your email. The best way to do that is to switch off the notifications so that you can get some work done.
2. Better manners. Imagine you are hanging out with a friend of yours, and some guy keeps following you around, getting in your ear while you guys talk, saying, “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!” Sounds annoying, doesn’t it? So why is it less annoying when it’s coming from a phone? It drives me crazy when I see friends walking through a store, not even talking to each other because they are punching buttons on their phones. Or a guy on a date with his cell phone on the table at the restaurant. News flash: we’re not that important. Unless somebody’s in the hospital or something, we don’t need to wait on our phones. And I don’t care how many articles are posted on the Web about the “new manners” and how teens are rewriting what it means to hang out – put the crap away and enjoy the company you are with.
3. Setting realistic expectations. If I get an email from a client, I may sit on it for a few hours before answering. Why? Because I don’t want the client to think that I am available 24/7 to answer their questions. The same goes for Facebook stuff; we’ve all got friends who have nothing better to do than sit on Facebook and comment on your stuff. If you instantly reply to what they are saying, they will expect that all the time, and start annoying you when you take more than 20 minutes to respond. Temper people’s expectations now and you can answer them on your own time without offending them.
4. A life. You might have a different viewpoint than me, but I want my life to be about more than what I tweet or what I do on Facebook. I want communication to go deeper than emails sometimes. In short, I want a real life and I want to enjoy it on my terms. That’s not always possible, but notifications are something I can control.

So where are the biggest problems? Here are the big three that suck up all your time:

Email

Desktop: Unless you are at work (and even there sometimes), turn off the desktop notifications. That’s the first step. This was particularly hard for me, because there is an awesome notification app for Linux called CheckGMail, which I used to get all my pop-ups. I could mark emails as “read” and hit a “reply” button to respond right away, all within a slick interface. Then I realized that I had a hard time concentrating on anything when that little Gmail icon was red. I always felt the need to empty it out. Instead: Designate regular times throughout the day for you to pop in to your email and go through messages. You will plow through them much quicker and you won’t feel like a slave to your inbox.

Mobile: One of the most desirable advantages to having a smartphone is having access to your email at all times. It’s a great benefit. But there are times throughout the day when email is unnecessary, particularly when you are with your friends. Turn it off. Instead: If you find yourself waiting in line for something or whatever, feel free to pull out the phone and check your email manually. But again, do it on your time. Don’t respond to the little ringing.

Facebook

Desktop: Desktop notifications for Facebook are available, but not as widely used. If you do have one, you are also likely to have several hundred “friends”. That means every other minute, you are getting 47 notifications for stuff that they are doing. Again, turn it off. In addition, turn off all email notifications. This was one of the best things I’ve ever done. The only notification I left on was the one for receiving Facebook messages, since they are essentially emails. The rest of it – off. Facebook’s web page has a little notification icon for activity related to you, and that’s all you really need. There’s no point in getting emails for everything. Instead: Use Facebook’s web interface and check it – again – at regular times throughout the day, if needed. Better yet: regulate Facebook down to a spare time activity. Facebook is a social place, and you do not need to be available there all the time. Your social life is not your entire life. And if you want to update your status quickly, just set up your phone to allow you to text it in. Nice and quick (but don’t turn on the text notifications!).

Mobile: Just turn it off altogether. Please. Instead: Facebook has a fine mobile site that gets the job done.

Twitter

Desktop: I hunted high and low for the best Twitter desktop app. I found several I really liked, but man, it just kept getting more and more difficult. Plus, again, when the Twitter icon lit up, I felt the urge to check the messages. Delete your Twitter desktop apps altogether. Instead: You got it – use the web interface. Twitter’s web interface is actually quite good and clean. It doesn’t have all the notifications you need, but just click around a little bit. It won’t hurt you. Now, when I want to crack off a quick tweet, I just grab my phone and text it in. Infinitely quicker and easier.

Mobile: Again, off. Instead: Twitter’s mobile web site is very nice and slick. Use it.

So that’s how I do it. Does anybody out there have any tips? Have you tried it before? Share your experiences in the comments!

Teenagers are stupid. It’s a fact of life. I was stupid when I was a teenager. When I have kids and they grow up, they’ll be stupid when they are teenagers too. Teenagers are stupid because they’re at a point in their lives where they are transforming into adults – they’re not kids anymore. So they are relying on life experience to make decisions (and they don’t have a whole lot of experience, if any). They want to be treated as adults, but they fall into a bunch of traps that every teenager falls into.

But when did adults start becoming as stupid as teenagers? I can give a teen a pass on being stupid sometimes because they don’t know any better, but big portions of our adult lives are being wasted because we’re being stupid. Also, keep in mind that I’m just as guilty of some of these things - I’m not pointing fingers. But we need to shape up, because adults don’t need to be in these traps:

Stupid Media Fad Obsessions (Twilight, American Idol, etc.)

Notice I said “obsessions”, not “interests”. I am not one to judge – if you like Twilight, great. I don’t really get it, but that’s fine. I like Phineas and Ferb. It’s cool. But what scares me is the number of grown women in my office that talk about how they are going to marry Robert Pattinson and how they spend all their free time reading/watching Twilight. When I go to a Christmas concert at my former high school, I shouldn’t have to see a 40+ year old women wearing a sweatshirt with Edward’s face on it.

People, you look ridiculous. Enjoy a movie, that’s fine. If you like a little mindless entertainment, no big deal. But let it stop there. Focus more on reality. Let the teenagers swoon. Take down the posters and stop buying the “Team Jacob” t-shirts. You’re being stupid.

The same goes for shows like American Idol. Stop texting in votes and living and dying by the results. Enjoy the contest and leave it at that. In the past, there have been plenty of obsessions, but the teenagers were the ones that stuck with those. As adults, we know better. It costs too much time and money to work your life around this crap.

Facebook

When I signed up for Facebook six (!) years ago, it was only open to college students. You needed a college email address, and the whole point was to network with other college students. It was great to keep in contact with friends you went to high school with who were going to school farther away. Then they opened it up to high schoolers. Then they opened it up to the general public.

Then the parents joined in.

All of a sudden, Facebook became a place for people of any age to waste massive amounts of time. Instead of getting together to play games, people sit on Facebook for hours playing games with people that live less than 20 minutes away.

Hey, Facebook is not real life. It’s a place to share some photos and crack a few jokes with friends. If you are wondering whether or not you spend too much time on Facebook, just count how many things you’ve commented on or “liked” in the past week. If you can’t count how many, you’re on it too much. Facebook has become a giant, cluttered mess. We would all do ourselves a service by taking a break from it for a day or two at a time.

Phones

Ever been talking with someone and they pull out their phone to check their email or send a text? It’s annoying, isn’t it? (Guilty.) Remember when you hung out with somebody and you actually paid attention to them? The same goes for apps. People sit next to each other at bars and sit on their freaking phones, playing around with their little doodads and whatnots. I do it sometimes – I have a Blackberry Curve with plenty of stuff on to play around with. But the “constant contact” that we have with each other is causing in-person relationships to suffer. Stop giving up your life to these things.

These are only three, but there certainly are more. If you want some good ideas on how to live life like an adult, read 25 Men Who Cultivated Both Mind and Body. You don’t have to be a man to be inspired by these guys that spent their time keeping themselves in shape and furthering their minds. Let’s give more workouts to our brains and the rest of our bodies. You’ll be healthier and happier as a result. Leave the stupidity to the teenagers – act your age.

The above is in honor of the Milwaukee Brewers, who just set a franchise record as I type this for the biggest margin of victory in a shutout win over the Pirates, 20-0. Way to go, fellas! We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s just get started:

Family Life

Ironically, even though I don’t have kids, I’m fascinated by articles written by parents about how they raise their kids. Here are a couple I saw (plus a marriage one, too):

• Why You Want a Debt-Free Marriage [Simple Marriage] – This is a nice article that tries to help you avoid the problems that come from money issues in your marriage. Amanda and I won’t be debt-free, but we’ll be working our tails off to get there as quickly as possible.
• What Children Can Teach Their Parents [Stepcase Lifehack] – On the flip side of the usual take on parenting, here’s what the older folks can learn from their rugrats.
• Parenting: 6 Myths You Should Know About [Stepcase Lifehack] – My favorite: “#6. Letting your child struggle or get upset is bad parenting.” Too many people think this is truth.

Put a smiiiiile on your faaaaace…

Happiness seems elusive for so many. Check out these great tips:

• Stuff won’t make you happy, experiences will [Unclutterer] – It shocks me how many people don’t realize this. Even if you consciously understand this, do you subconsciously believe it?
• why i won’t be buying an ipad [mnmlist] – This isn’t an anti-Apple article. It’s a common-sense article.
• The Boy and the Sundae [Becoming Minimalist] – This is a really sweet story that teaches a good lesson about giving back to others.

Nerdy Stuff

Time for something a little more technical – but no less practical!

• Ditch Desktop Apps for Webapps, Free Up RAM, and Enjoy the Best of Both Worlds [Lifehacker] – Most of us have a constant internet connection now, and you can do most computing within a web browser without noticing a difference, except your computer will run better. That’s why I use Google Docs, Gmail, Picasa, Google Reader, and Pandora, among other apps.
• Windows Media Player 12 Streams Your Media Library Over The Internet [Lifehacker] – Say what you want about Microsoft, but they continue to just swing for the fences trying to improve their software for our benefits. I won’t say they’re doing fantastic or anything (I still haven’t tried Windows 7, and it is expensive), but WMP12 lets you connect your music and videos to any computer using the same software that everybody has on their Windows computer. That’s pretty cool.
• Why I’m Returning My Apple iPad [Social Times] – Writer Nick O’Neill puts forth the idea that the iPad is not revolutionary and that Apple has missed the boat here. Besides that, he reiterates like everybody else the same thing: we don’t need it.

Make some changes!

Whether it’s in yourself or in the world, we can all agree that a little change would be nice once in a while:

• From the Greats: 6 Tactics to Increase Your Class and Charm [Dumb Little Man] – The old days weren’t perfect, and I wouldn’t want to bring all of it back (sexism, racism, etc.), but people – especially men – carried themselves differently back then. They had respect for themselves, and that’s something we can agree needs to come back.
• Why Rejection Letters are Great [Write to Done] – Yeah, this is about business and writing, but it could easily be called “Why Rejection Is Great”. In other words, rejection puts you one step closer to success.
• the only thing you can change [mnmlist] – Putting big life changes in perspective. If you feel like you’re in over your head, read this one.
• 6 Proven Ways to Make New Habits Stick [Stepcase Lifehack] – Want to go to the gym? Get up earlier? Eat healthier? Start here.
• How to Lose Weight: 6 of My Own Favorite Tips [The Positivity Blog] – Hint: it’s really not that complicated.
• 9 Great Ways to Be Exceptionally Boring [Stepcase Lifehack, again] – This blog really showed me this last week why I kept it in my Google Reader feeds. This is a quick article showing you the habits that make you a bore (and somebody nobody wants to really be around).
• 34 Little Ways to Share With the World [Zen Habits] – The beauty of today’s internet is that anyone can make big changes with small actions. Here are 34 of them.
• Give Up [Rock Your Day] – Stop expecting things to go well all the time. Life doesn’t owe you jack. Then you’ll see some awesome things happen.
• 42 Practical Ways To Improve Yourself [Stepcase Lifehack] – I’m a sucker for any post with the word “practical” in the title, but this one is a great summation of different ways you can make yourself a better person. Pick one that intrigues you and give it a shot!

Money, money, money, money, moneeyyyyyyy…

No list is complete without some money tips. Here are my favorites from the last two weeks:

• Is It Possible to Manage Credit Cards Well? [Christian Personal Finance] – No. No it isn’t. I got ripped to shreds on Facebook the other day for posting a similar anti-credit card article. Makes me sad.
• 10 Ways To Simplify Your Life [Christian Personal Finance] – Here are some great ways to cut out the clutter in your life and make yourself a little money in the process.
• Why Do You Buy? [The Simple Dollar] – This is a remarkable trick: the next time you go to buy something, ask yourself “Why?” five times, just like a little kid. I bet you will wind up saving a little more money.
• 5 Tips For Going Out to Eat on a Budget [Christian Personal Finance] – I am a big proponent of cooking for yourself, but it’s nice to go out to eat once in a while. But don’t blow the bank account when you do by following these tips.
• How To Buy a $5,000 Car [MoneyTalksNews] – We are a nation full of people that pay too much for their cars. Talk about reliability all you want, but you buy the newer car for the flash. Otherwise, we’d all be driving Toyota Corollas or something. If you want to avoid the car payment trap, you need to buy a good used car. This is a great guide.
• Seven Reasons To Care About The Tiny Things (And Seven Tiny Things To Care About) [The Simple Dollar] – Chances are, the tiny things are more controllable than the large things. And they add up.

The world is abuzz about the pending iPad and it’s pre-orders. Everyone is talking about the Microsoft Courier. You love your iPhone/Droid/Blackberry. You constantly search around for bigger, better devices that will do almost everything in the world. In this “buy-buy-buy” haze, have you forgotten the love for your laptop?

A laptop is a versatile tool. When people talk about user experience on new gadgets, they distract people from an important point – you already know how to use a laptop. A laptop can fit in a small bag and go anywhere you want it to. It’s never as flashy or as impressive as one of these new gadgets, but are you just paying for the flashiness? The status? Aren’t we over that in this country?

Over the past few years of developing into the Nerd that you see before you today, I learned how to push a laptop to do almost anything. It boasts an impressive array of features that we’ve all forgotten about. Today, I want to remind you of all the things your laptop can do, and hopefully inspire some of you to hang on to that relic instead of swiping that credit card for another gadget purchase, or dipping into your hard-earned savings. But first, here are the specs on my laptop, so that you know I’m not talking about some super-laptop that you can’t afford:

This is a dual-core, 1.60GHz Toshiba Satellite laptop with 1.5GB of RAM. It has an 80GB hard drive. I bought it with Vista and downgraded to XP about a year and a half later. This setup cost me about $700 when I bought it in 2007, and a quick search on Newegg.com pops up a computer with twice as much memory and a hard drive FOUR times as large as mine for under $400. Honestly, this computer blows mine out of the water, and it cost almost half as much as I paid for mine.

So here’s the list, in absolutely no particular order. I sat down and jotted down all the things I can use my laptop for, so this is a “stream of consciousness”-type list. A quick editor’s note: I’m not dumb. This list assumes moderate maintenance (i.e., running CCleaner about once a week, having a free antivirus application running at all times), Windows XP (though you don’t need XP for most of this stuff), and a decent internet connection.

1. An e-reader

It’s the flashiest feature of them all right now – read books on a screen! The iPad will have books! Well, you don’t need to buy a new gadget for this necessarily. Barnes And Noble and Amazon both offer free software for reading books on your computer, so if you want to buy ebooks, go right ahead! Better yet, visit Project Guternberg and download over 100,000 free ebooks from the public domain if you want.

This is probably the feature I use the least, since you can’t compare the ease on the eyes of a book compared to an LCD screen. This is one place I think the iPad will fail, and why, if you’re a heavy reader, I actually would recommend getting a dedicated e-reader. The e-ink technology is much, much easier on the eyes.

2. A portable television

I’ve written at length about how you can use your computer as your television, and even hook it up to your TV. But also, for quick show-watching on the go, just visit a site like Hulu. I subscribe to a lot of shows within Hulu and they post to my queue the morning after they air. So, all I need to do is log in, go to my queue, and click “Play”. Boom.

If you’re looking to watch live sports, start getting to know TVAnts and StreamTorrent. Plus, this method ensures that you get out-of-market games, too.

3. A pretty good gaming machine

You hardcore gamers looking to play graphics-intensive games will probably want a powerful desktop, but laptops can handle quite a bit too. Plus, if you’re a casual gamer (like myself), you are just looking for simple games to pass the time, in which case, there are plenty of great gaming sites out there like this one.

4. Your new teacher

Miss college? Want to learn a new skill? There are lots of great places online to see and hear lectures and lessons taught by fine professors from all over the country. Looking for something a little more fun? Learn guitar (see link above) or build something cool at Instructables. There are endless possibilities for what you can learn through your laptop.

5. Your complete photo album

When I go to my grandmother’s house, looking through pictures involves emptying a cabinet full of old albums and sitting at the kitchen table while everyone crowds around them and tries to see what’s going on. Nowadays, all those pictures (and more!) can be stored on your laptop. Back them up to a site like Picasa (my favorite) and tag, organize, and share them with everyone forever.

Bonus tip: set your screensaver to pull pictures from the folder on your computer where you keep all your photos, and your monitor becomes an instant digital photo frame when not in use.

6. Your radio

Talk radio, comedy stations, music of all types and genres – internet radio is fantastic. Set up a Pandora station for customized listening goodness, or listen to hundreds of live radio stations on iheartradio.com. Take it with you.

7. Your complete music library

The local version of the previous tip. Imagine: no CD towers to buy, no cases to spend half an hour opening. Download music from iTunes or Zune Marketplace or Amazon. Store them on your computer (and back them up, of course). Rip your current CD collection and then pack away those discs in a bin somewhere. You can listen to any music at any time, anywhere. It’s a beautiful thing.

8. Your map command center

It doesn’t matter if you are biking, running, or driving a car – sometimes you just need directions. Now, you can type in any location or address into sites like Google Maps or MapQuest and you know exactly how to get anywhere. You no longer have a need for a big paper map that takes up half the front of the car. Just search, print, and move on.

9. Note-taker and organizer

If you want a laugh, look at my notes from high school and college: they’re messy and smudged (I’m a lefty), completely disorganized, and a total failure. Today, with services like Evernote, you can organize and tag your notes, and they won’t be smudged or unreadable. Heck, you can even just use a word processor to get the job done if you want. Just pull your laptop out of its bag and get to typing.

10. Complete database of knowledge, regardless of usefulness

Remember how embarrassing it was to go to a bookstore or a library and pick up one of those stupid “For Dummies” books? Now, you don’t need them. I’m amazed they’re still on the shelves at all. There is no longer an excuse for not knowing something. You can Google it, you can Bing it, you can even Ask Jeeves if you want. Get your plumbing/cooking/health questions answered just by typing your question into a search engine. For facts (mostly accurate), hit up Wikipedia.

11. Your calendar of events

I use Google Calendar, but you can use whatever you want. All the things going on in your life can be chronicled, and you can have reminders sent to you straight from your calendar. Stop missing those anniversaries/birthdays/whatever.

12. An address book

My mom kept an address book for years. When I needed a phone number, I needed to go to the closet, pull it out, flip to the section with the first letter of their last name, navigate through old, crossed-out addresses and skim through until I found what I was looking for. Now? I just sit at my laptop, open up Google Contacts, and use the search box to find the entry with the person I’m looking for. You can use Outlook or something else if you want. But have a backup of all your contacts, and you can search them easily at any time.

13. Your weather station

Hop on Weather.com and enter in your zip code at the top of the page – severe weather warnings, detailed forecasts of the next couple of days, and extended 10-day forecasts all come up. You can watch the live radar if you want. Do this stuff for monitoring the weather of your next vacation destination. Turn off the Weather Channel and put down the newspaper.

14. Your professional presentation tool

Ever notice how you don’t see presentations done with big poster boards anymore? That’s because you just need to load that PowerPoint presentation and plug your laptop into a projector. It looks slicker, makes you look good, and was easy to do with your laptop.

15. Your new checkbook

Wave “bye-bye” to adding and subtracting errors. A complete money management system can be had on any laptop. Need to share it with your husband/wife? Use a free online service like ClearCheckbook or share a Google Doc. The math and tracking is done for you – all you need to do is enter in those transactions.

16. Call anybody, anytime – even by video

VoIP technology continues to advance. I run a Skype phone line with a little headset for business. Want to video chat with somebody like you see in the movies? Get a cheap little webcam and you can all you want. I used to video chat weekly with my then-girlfriend while she was in Taiwan. You can now talk to somebody and see them, regardless of where they are. Powerful stuff.

17. Keep in touch with all of your friends, all the time

High school reunions are becoming obsolete with sites like Facebook. We all know what we are doing, all the time. That’s lame sometimes, but it comes in handy. For example, I have friends all over the country, and I can stay a part of their lives through my communications on Facebook. When done correctly, Facebook can enhance your personal relationships, and you can share joys, sorrows, and laughs with people every day.

18. A retro gaming system

Here’s where the fun starts! Do you miss the Super Nintendo? How about classic Nintendo? Sega Genesis? Hop over to your favorite search engine and type in “SNES emulators” to find a program that will play old Super Nintendo games. Download it, then search for “SNES roms” to find and download the games. Plug in a USB controller and you’ll feel like you’re 8 years old all over again!

19. Sports/News Central

Whether you do it in an RSS feed reader or you just visit a site like CNN or MSN, the headlines are always updating and keep you in the loop at all times. Hit up ESPN for live scores of all of your games. Then, cancel your newspaper subscription. I mean, like, NOW.

20. Your recipe database

When I cook, I just put the laptop on the kitchen counter. I don’t need a shelf of cookbooks (although I do still have a few). You can store recipes in Evernote or use a service like Supercook to manage your inventory of recipes. It makes your cooking life a lot easier, and you never have to remember which recipe book that breaded chicken recipe was in.

21. Track your workouts

DailyMile lets you map and save your runs. DailyBurn allows you the ability to track any type of workout, and even track your nutrition levels. You don’t need to keep a paper notebook or print out a spreadsheet. Type it in, submit it, and move on with your life. Slick, slick, slick.

22. Business-builder

Build a website, run a blog, connect on Facebook/Twitter, design brochures, write copy… the list goes on. Take notes during your meetings with clients. A laptop computer offers the flexibility to work anywhere you choose, provided your business can pay those bills. A laptop, in my opinion, is an absolutely essential tool for business-building today.

23. Create CDs and DVDs

I remember back in 2000 when I first learned how to burn a CD. It took forever. Now, I use CDBurnerXP, but you can use just about anything. Put those home movies on a DVD. Make that mix CD for your friend (or that girl you like). It only takes a couple of minutes, and you can do it right from your laptop.

24. Stream home media anywhere in the house

XBox Media Center, now on the original XBox, PCs, Macs, and Linux machines. All your movies and music on any TV in your house, from your computer.

25. Portable CD/DVD player

Again, another invention that I am shocked is still on shelves: the portable DVD player. Instead, play this stuff on your laptop when sitting on the plane or when you’re supposed to be paying attention in class. Chances are, your laptop can handle any kind of DVD, too.

26. Your to-do list

Google Tasks or Remember The Milk, or about a dozen others. Ditch the paper to-do list and type it up in your laptop. Want to keep it simpler? Open up a little Notepad document and bang out your list.

27. The answers to your minor medical questions

I’ve always been a big fan of WebMD, but there are other ways to get medical questions answered, too. This is not a substitute for a doctor’s visit, of course, but it can help you diagnose minor situations instead of paying that co-pay to be told those lumps on your throat are just leftover food scraps. [Note: this is not a good tip for hypochondriacs.]

28. Your shopping mall, all the time

Want to buy anything? Put your shoes down. Stay in your pajamas. Open up your laptop and get to Amazon. Search for whatever you want, and they’ll have it. Oh, and it’ll be cheaper, too.

Okay, so some of these are obvious, but it helps to have them here. Your laptop is a remarkably strong piece of technology. I would think twice before you ditch it to use some fancy-looking thing that only does two or three things on this list.

What do you use your laptop for?

Google Chrome is one of those programs that has been around for a while, but when you first tried it, you weren’t that crazy about it. It was somewhat buggy, it didn’t have any type of customization available, and you couldn’t block ads. As much as I wanted to make the switch (being the Google nutjob that I am), I couldn’t do it without a few features that just weren’t available:

1. I needed ads blocked. Period. Even most of them would be sufficient.

2. Add-ons. I want to be able to customize it.

3. A way to integrate my Google Bookmarks so that I can use them like regular bookmarks.

Then one day a couple months ago, I heard that extensions were finally hitting the mainstream. Google Chrome Extensions were a great idea, but you needed to download Chromium, which was the “guinea pig” version of Chrome (which means it doesn’t always work properly), and you had to do a lot of nerdy command-line work to get it up and running. It wasn’t pretty. Once one-click extension support came around, it was time to dive back in.

Now, a few months later, I couldn’t be happier.

Why Switch From Firefox?

Hey, Firefox is a great product. Go ahead and download it if you’d like. It’s stable and it’s popular. But Firefox is very prone to bloatedness. After a while, it takes forever to load Firefox. Chrome just pops right up. It just feels light. Check out the screencast I took below of a comparison between a Firefox start and a Chrome start and you will see what I mean. The little box that pops up in the middle is Launchy, which is my application launcher. In layman’s terms, the box pops up and I start typing the name of the program. When the box disappears, that means I hit “enter” and the application is starting. First I try opening Firefox, then Chrome. Check it out:

If you time it, Firefox takes a full 7 seconds to load up for use, and Chrome takes about 1/2 a second – that means Chrome, in this situation, is 14 times faster loading!

Interested yet? Here are my full reasons why you should give Chrome a chance:

1. Speed. See the above video.
2. Full script support without any extra extensions. One of the best plugins for Firefox is Greasemonkey, which allows you to install “scripts” that will modify a particular website for you. For example, I have a script installed that makes my Google Calendar go full-screen without any sidebars by hitting the “F12” button. But working through Greasemonkey is a little abstract for the average user. In Chrome, you can just go to a site like UserScripts.org, find one you like and click “Install”. Chrome does the rest – and if you like wasting time on Facebook with Mafia Wars and FarmVille, they have tons of scripts to make it a more awesome experience for you (if you’re into that sort of thing).
3. No restart necessary. Want to install an extension? Go for it. It’ll just show up. You don’t have to interrupt your entire browsing session to install one script or extension. They’ll just be there for you.
4. Speaking of no restarts, the whole application won’t crash on you. Say you are in Firefox and you have a problem with a website that causes your browser to close. That sucks. Now you have to restart and possibly “restore” your session. In Chrome, only that tab closes out on you. So if you have a bunch of open tabs, they don’t depend on each other – minimizing the interruption.
5. More screen real estate – look at sites, not toolbars. I had to install plugins and customize Firefox to get as much screen as possible for browsing. Chrome’s got it all set up already. In fact, it doesn’t have a bottom toolbar, giving you even more room for surfing.
6. Turn web pages into applications. Sometimes I just want to open up straight to Gmail. I browse to my Gmail, then click the little page icon in the upper-right corner and click “Create application shortcuts…”. I can put a shortcut on my desktop, in my Quick Launch, and/or in my Start Menu. It will go straight to that site in a full window, just like an application (i.e., no address bar, etc.). I have that set up with Hootsuite as well.

Okay, okay – enough gushing. Time to get into the nuts-and-bolts: how do you set this thing up? Remember – it needs to do all the stuff that my awesome Firefox setup could do.

After installing Chrome, you need to block some ads

This is easily the most complicated part of the process, but it’s not that hard, really. Without a true contender to the ad-blocking throne, the best way to do it, in my experience, has been through a program called Privoxy. There’s a 7-step process to it that is awesomely-simplified in this post by Lifehacker and Geekzone. Just follow it, step-by-step, and you’re done. Bada bing.

Throw on your bookmarklets

Remember from my Firefox setup, I make full use of bookmarklets – little bookmarks that can do some awesome things in your Bookmarks Toolbar. I’ve found the easiest way to do this is to open up a Firefox window next to your Chrome window and literally drag your bookmarklets from Firefox and drop them into the Chrome toolbar. If you don’t have that, here are links to my bookmarklets and what they do. Instead of clicking on the link, just drag it up to your Bookmarks Toolbar:

• StumbleUpon Toolbar – All the fun of StumbleUpon with none of the bloated toolbar taking up space.
• GmailThis! – Like a page/article and want to quickly email it to your buddy? Click this icon and a new “Compose Email” window will pop up with the site title in the subject line and a link to the page in the body. Very handy!
• Subscribe in Google Reader – If I find a new blog, I can just click this button and it will automatically open up Google Reader and subscribe to it for me.
• The Hootlet – If you use Hootsuite to share stuff on Facebook and Twitter, clicking this will automatically open a new “hoot” with the title and shortened link to the site. GREAT for link sharing on Twitter!
• Lifehacker Random – The latest addition to my bookmarklets: Lifehacker just put out this button to go to any random article from their vast archives. What a great site.
• Readability – After setting this one up, you can just click it and it will clear your webpage of anything except the article text and pictures. Very useful with Evernote (I’ll be doing an article on that one soon).

Get some sweet extensions

Like Firefox plugins, these add-ons help you further customize your browsing experience. There are plenty out there, so feel free to browse around. Here are mine:

• GBX – Google Bookmarks For Chrome – This is a third-party extension that inserts my Google Bookmarks into the bookmarks toolbar to work like any bookmarks on a browser. Probably my favorite extension, just because I never think about it.
• Evernote Web Clipper – Like a page/article and want to save it for later? Just click this button and it will save it and set up a new note in your Evernote for you.
• Google Docs – One-click access to your most recent Google Docs, which is great if you just want to open up one quick document (or create a new one right away).

• Handy Google Shortcuts – If you like Google like I do, you use a lot of their products. This is a nice drop-down box of Google products (customizable, too) so that you can go straight to your Gmail, Reader, YouTube, or any of your favorite Google stuff.

Take it to the next level with scripts

No complicated Greasemonkey stuff. Just click “Install” on these bad boys:

• Facebook Fixer – There’s not enough room to fit all its features in here, which is why I wrote a full post on it a while back.
• Facebook Purity – Don’t care what quizzes people took? Annoyed by FarmVille announcements? God bless you. Hide them all with this script.
• Remove Facebook Ads – Privoxy doesn’t catch these. It does as promised.
• GooglePreview – Adds a little screenshot of each web site in the Google search results. Helps you figure out where you’re headed before you click on it.
• Google Images Enlarger – When doing an image search, this allows you to mouse-over the thumbnail and see a full-size picture without having to click through to the site. Very handy and a big time saver!

Your turn

Am I preaching to the choir? Do you already use Chrome? What are your favorite extensions/scripts? Why should we encourage more Chrome usage? If you’re a diehard Firefox user and you’re not convinced, tell us why. If you’re an Internet Explorer advocate, seek help immediately – we cannot help you here.

When one thinks of Facebook, a lot can come to mind: college kids, embarrassing pictures, giant wastes of time, or – God help us all – FarmVille. But Facebook has become so much more than that, if used properly. Facebook is a platform for a lot of good things, but unfortunately, a lot of potential is wasted. For example:

Waste of Time #1: Games where you play by yourself.

Remember those stupid little Tamagotchi things? The video pets that people carried around a few years ago? Would you walk around with one of those things? Pressing buttons to feed it and clean up when it poops and all that? No? So why are we doing this on Facebook?

I love a good game, I really do. But it’s one thing to play a game on Facebook, and it’s another to be obsessed with one. Hop on, play for a few minutes, and then get on with your life.

Waste of Time #2: Pokes.

“Hey, somebody poked you.” “Now what?” “Let’s poke him back.” Yay.

Waste of Time #3: Pointless Groups/Fan Pages

I’ve actually seen a Facebook page for fans of “Not Being on Fire”.

However, after all of this, I think Facebook is a very powerful platform, and can be one of the most useful tools for communication on the internet today. In fact, after I check my email, I do hop on Facebook for a few minutes. Here are some ways you can be involved in Facebook without being a “Facebook Stalker” or a flat-out geek:

Do play games with friends.

Facebook is a great platform for games where you interact with people. It’s fun to play card games, bowling, and board games with people without having to lug around the actual game wherever you go and accidentally offending Ukranians.

Pictured: Why Facebook was invented.

Games are a great way to interact and have a good time. Plus, many of them involve using a little brain power, like Scrabble, which is good for you.

Be friends with your actual friends.

Nobody cares about your number. No one. You’ve got 782 Facebook Friends? Yippee. I’ve got real friends.

Be friends with people you at least kind of know. Nothing is lamer than people who are friends with everybody that Facebook suggests just because they want to look cool. Be friends with people you want to communicate with.

Use it to connect with friends far away.

There was a time when you had to write a letter and hand it to a guy on a horse with a flask and hope that it made it to your friend. Now? All you have to do is click their name and start typing. I’ve got friends in Arizona, Green Bay (but she’s coming HOME!!), Chicago, Florida, Taiwan, California, and New Mexico. You get the idea.

If this were a past time period, I’d lose touch with these people. I’d run into them at high school reunions and we’d talk about old times and marvel at how old we look and how many kids we have. Now, I can still share my life with these people, even if they’re far, far away. It’s awesome, and it gives me chills when I think about it.

Share important photos and snapshots of your life.

These are people you care about, right? So you want them to see photos from your latest trip! When I went on my first trip to Taiwan, I took a boatload of pictures, and then I had to take them to three different households and present them, retelling the same stories over and over again.

On my second trip, I stayed overnight in a hotel in Los Angeles, and I loaded up all the pictures into photo albums and captioned them that night. Now, they can look at them at their own leisure, and I don’t have to repeat myself over and over again. Moments that you want to remember forever are great to share with the people you love.

Don’t go overboard with the status updates – make them count.

If you have an interesting story, anecdote, or joke, post it on your status. If you’re just hopping on to talk about how much your life sucks, why don’t you wait a minute? Nobody wants to hear about it. Save it for a conversation. And on that note…

Remember that some things are best in-person or on the phone, not on Facebook.

The night my fiancé and I got engaged, we spent over two hours driving around while on the phone, notifying our closest friends and family that we were getting married. Why? We wanted to beat Facebook to the punch. We knew that, had we gone to bed that night without doing so, somebody important was going to find out via Facebook, and we didn’t want that.

That also goes for things like relationship problems and discussions, big job announcements, and pregnancies. Pick up the phone and call somebody first. Let that human touch shine through a little.

Use it as your “Throbbing Brain”.

I stole the term “throbbing brain” from morning radio show guys Bob and Brian, here in Milwaukee on 102.9 FM. When they need an answer, they go to the “Throbbing Brain”, which basically means they ask the listeners to provide the answer.

Looking for a car? A killer Blackberry app? Opinions on wedding halls? Post the question to your status and watch the responses pour in. The beauty of it: these are people whose opinions actually matter to you.

Replace the world’s most annoying invention: Forwards.

Found something you like? Instead of emailing it to everyone you know and clogging up their inbox, just use the Share on Facebook button. Now, anybody you care about can see it, and the people who don’t want to read it won’t resent you so much.

It’s easy to get caught up in the time-suck qualities of Facebook. But use it to your advantage, and it can be one of the most important communication tools you will ever use.