Archive for life

Life Hacking Manifesto

November 23, 2011 e One comment

Every self-respecting Life Hacker needs to have a post touting their own Best Practices for tackling life’s inefficiencies. Well, here are mine. I use all of these on a regular basis.

Use PayTrust as your permanent billing address and universal bill payer

  • Reduces the volume of junkmail
  • Increases your privacy
  • Multiple funding accounts

Use Evernote for everything

  • I have no more physical files; I’ve scanned every document going back to ’97
  • Access insurance binders, medical records, eBooks, etc from one application
  • Use as primary bookmarking log; keeps original snapshot of the page that you can search (like your own Google)
  • To share screenshots with people over IM
  • Save serial numbers & digital copies of software
  • Print to Evernote to save all electronic confirmations

Use 1Password for keeping your passwords secure

  • Keeps your “Key Chain” in sync with all other devices
  • Autocompletes Credit Cards, Forms, Addresses, etc
  • Works on iOS, OSX, Windows and in all standard browsers

Use CardMunch for importing all business cards

  • Uses Mechanical Turk for crowd sourced data-entry; beats OCR any day
  • Integrates with LinkedIn

Use LinkedIn for managing all professional contacts

  • Living Resume complete with recommendations
  • Professional forum for interaction
  • Use Resume Builder to export your resume in a professional format

Use Mint.com to get an overview of all finances

  • Supports every financial institution I use
  • If your financial institution is not supported, you should consider moving your money else where

Use ConnectedHQ.com as your personal CRM

  • Set reminders for when to follow up with people
  • Overview of what your contacts are doing on all connected social networks

Use an IronKey to protect your utmost sensitive data

  • Tamper-proof, hardware encrypted USB stick
  • Self-destructs if too many unlock failures

Use Amazon Prime

  • Buy anything that’s out of your way from Amazon; e.g. Trader Joe’s doesn’t carry shaving cream, salon products, etc.

Use the Jing Screen Recorder

  • To communicate bugs to tech support; spend less time describing the problem by just illustrating it

Use iCloud (Formerly MobileMe) for device synchronization and discovery

  • If your an Apple fan-boy as myself, then just sticking with *Mac makes everything so much smoother
  • Google Sync + iCloud sync does NOT work; constant contact duplication and problems with UTF8 names
  • Find lost iPhones and Macs
  • Remote wipe stolen or lost devices
  • Over-the-air backups of iOS devices (including Photos!)

Use Automator on the Mac with shortcuts to scan to Evernote

  • I use Command+E to automatically scan whatever is in my HP-e710 directly into Evernote
  • Eliminates the frequent run-around going to the MFP

Use One Medical for doctors visits

  • Same day appointments
  • Direct access to your doctor via email

Use Google Voice

  • One permanent number that rings any device when and how you want it to
  • Spam caller detection + Call blocking (“Sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service”)
  • Voice mail transcription means you receive voicemails as emails
  • Free SMS

Use Sipgate.com for your own SIP phone

  • This allows me to bring my phone with me when I travel (works overseas!)
  • Allows me to have my landline both at my house via a cordless handset and on my laptop
  • Cheap calling rates and no monthly usage fees

Use Facebook Messenger on the iPhone

  • Easy way to get ahold of my friends for free.
  • No more of that “What Apps”, BlackBerry Messenger BS.

Use Google Apps for all your private domains

  • Hosting your own SMTP/IMAP server is so passe
  • I’ve had 100% uptime for the past 5-6 years
  • No service has better spam detection

Use DropBox

  • To keep your Desktop in sync with all your devices
  • To remotely start torrents
  • To sync and backup your encrypted 1Password Agile KeyChain

Use Airport Extreme

  • To wirelessly backup all your devices without you having to remember to do anything
  • Act as your home router

Use GPG Tools for the Mac

  • To cryptographically sign all your outgoing mail
  • To encrypt/decrypt mail
  • To keep a manage your GPG Key Chain

Use FreshBooks for invoicing

  • Simpler to use than QuickBooks if you can get away with it
  • Automatically send invoices on a schedule via snail mail or email

Use an Accountant to handle all your taxes

  • I can’t keep up with the tax codes and special deductions available
  • Just hand them the keys to Mint.com
  • Especially handy when receiving numerous 1099s
  • A resource you can ask questions as they come up

Use Ubercab for getting around San Francisco

  • All you need is your phone; no cash or credit cards; tip included in fare
  • Arrives FAST
  • Courteous, professional drivers

Use 3-Bureau Credit Monitoring

  • Because if your life is now hosted in SaaS, you’re vulnerable to identify theft; it’s just a matter of time
  • For the piece of mind

Use TripIt.com to keep track of all your travel itineraries

  • Most useful for complex travel plans involving multiple legs
  • Handy iPhone app so you can view all flights from a single application

Use PagerDuty.com for on call alert notifications

  • Calls you when your stuff is down; SMS is so 90s
  • Supports on-call calendars so you don’t have to manage it yourself
  • Import on-call calendars straight into iCal
Use Google Reader to aggregate all your favorite blogs
  • Use Gruml to connect with Google Reader on OSX for the native app experience
  • Use MobileRSS to connect to Google Reader from iOS
  • Keeps your reading activity in sync with all your devices
  • Makes searching fast
Use Interfax.net to for an email to fax bridge
  • Email a PDF to their service and they fax it for you
  • No monthly usage fees
  • Pay per page
Use PostalMethods for an email to snail mail bridge
  • Email a Word Doc and they stamp and send it for you
  • No monthly usage fees
  • Pay per page

Please share the tips and tricks you use! I’d love to hear them.

journal, life

Full circle

July 6, 2006 e No comments

All those years in college gave me good preparation for what laid ahead. Little did I imagine that all those nights spent at Starbucks studying would be a foreshadowing of my life to cometelecommuting. It’s a skill that requires obsessive concentration and the ability to filter out ambient distractions.

 

life

Illegal Workers’ Rights

June 21, 2006 e No comments

Living in California has imbred a kind of presumption in me and probably most people that illegal workers are the “Mexicans” . As with all blanket statements, they’re usually wrong and the same is true for this assumption. One group of these illegal workers are international students who come here and are expected to pay a tuition 2-3x a US Citizen would pay, probably even more once exchange rates (relatively speaking) are figured into the equation. On top of that, they are only allowed to work on campus and part-time, which is probably only at minimum wage. With such limited legal options, many work under the table performing jobs paid by the hour.

My girlfriend is in this situation, unable to work legally and not fortunate enough to have parents that can support her. She’s managed to keep a steady job, but not without incident. Her last job was at one of the hundred mobile phone shops in K-Town. Her employer, a first generation Korean guy had generally always respected his employees, but was uniformly late in paying them. It got to a point when she couldn’t pay her bills on time and risked hurting her credit. She made the decision to leave and hope to get paid the $1,800 owed to her later when her employer had the money. But when her boss found out, he lost it. He said “If you ever come around  here again, I’ll call the INS! You can forget about your pay check.” He seemed to think it was his right to pay her and not his obligation. I am sure the threat is an idle one, but it drives home the point. What rights does she have?

Turns out, there are many organizations representing illegal workers. For that, I am grateful. One in particular, respresents Korean laborers and has been very helpful to my girlfriend. By advising her of her rights, informing her how little legal power he has over her, she was able to get paid in the end… albiet 3 weeks later. She had kept insisting that he give her some money. He wrote her a bad check, that when she cashed, bounced twice. But that was his fatal mistake. It gave her all the bargaining power she needed to take him to small claims court. He conceeded he was a jerk and gave her cash! The funny thing is, he wanted the bounced check back. As if that would protect her? Bank records are immutable and photocopies hold up well enough in court.

 

 

journal, life

Something to live by…

September 9, 2002 e No comments

My good friend Sandy sent me this link. It’s really something I believe we should all live by.

http://love.msn.com/loveover40/articles/article6.asp

Want a long-term, satisfying relationship? If so, you need to do more than meet interesting people. To save yourself from the confusion and frustration that accompany dating, you need to apply some relationship truths to your search
for a mate.

Here are the top 10 truths I’ve gathered from clients:

1. Until you resolve past relationships, you are not free to have future relationships. Can’t seem to meet the right person? You likely have unresolved past relationships holding you back from attracting people.

2. If you feel empty, trying to date and find a mate will most likely make you feel even emptier. Desperately looking for a relationship, with some part of your life on hold? People sense neediness and stay away.

3. True sexual intimacy has very little to do with how the body looks. Rather, it has everything to do with emotional intimacy and trust. No matter what size or shape your body, you can still be loved. People feel attracted to a wide range of body types and sizes.

4. It’s much easier to be yourself than to be what you think others want you to be. If you are not being yourself, you are doing yourself a disservice. Our pretenses never really fool anyone. People somehow see right through us anyway.

5. A relationship with a foundation of dishonesty, deception or the withholding of information is like a house of cards. As such, it will fall at the slightest provocation. One of the main reasons relationships fail is that the two people can’t be honest with each other. It is not that most people lie, but that most people do not know how to tell the truth about their feelings and needs.

6. Being a people-pleaser is not an effective way to create good relationships. Acting for others is actually just an effective way to be taken advantage of. Many singles give their potential partners too much in order to entice them into the relationship. People rarely stay in relationships because of what they can get from you. Giving over the top only buys love and affection on a temporary basis.

7. Until you realize that a great relationship is created by who you are, you won’t have one. It is your most natural, authentic self that will attract the relationship you want. It is again who you are in that same authentic way that will give you the power to shape a relationship to be infinitely fulfilling.

8. Until you love yourself enough to take care of your needs, no one else will. People who look for a relationship to fulfill needs and hopes are looking for heartache. Dating and relationships are not about fulfilling needs — that is
what friends, family and you are for.

9. What people do to you is rarely about you and is almost always about them. Don’t take the actions of others personally. This is a profound truth because once you grasp it, your relationships will be transformed. Think about it.

10. This is not a dress rehearsal — this is your life and your relationships in progress. Start today to create your life the way you want it to be.

2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

life