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Less Wrong Product & Service Recommendations
I have often benefited from recommendations for Things I Didn't Know I Wanted.
Given that Less Wrong is a community of unusually intelligent, critical, and self-improvement-focused people, I suspect we can generate a pretty helpful thread of product recommendations — perhaps even a monthly thread of product recommendations.
Rules:
- Post one product your recommend per comment, so they can be discussed and voted on independently.
- Provide a link for purchasing the product.
- No books, movies, TV, games, or music. (These should go in other threads, like this one or this one.)
I'll post my own recommendations to the comments section, too.
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Comments (365)
Anki : A program that makes remembering things easy. It syncs between mobile devices and your computer, too, and there are a number of LessWrong-related Anki decks already available for download.
A recommendation with no link or description?
Anki: A program that makes remembering things easy. It syncs between mobile devices and your computer, too, and there are a number of LessWrong-related Anki decks already available for download.
And it's been discussed quite a bit before. :)
JVC HAFX1X Headphone, Xtreme-Xplosivs ($25, Amazon 4.5 stars, 364 reviews)
When I bought my $150 Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Professional Studio Monitor Headphones, I heard parts of my favorite music that I had never heard before. I spent the next several weeks re-listening to all my old favorites and discovering new nuances in the music. For audio quality, nothing beats a good pair of headphones. But headphones are bulky.
I had assumed that earbuds had terrible audio quality like the default ones that come with e.g. an ipod. Wrong. For someone like me without the sensitive ears of an audiophile, the $25 JVC HAFX1X earbuds sound almost as good as my $150 headphones, but they can be stuffed in my pocket.
They fit great in my ears and have decent (physical) noise-reduction. I also like the red color of the cords, which makes it stand out and not (e.g.) accidentally stolen by one of my friends when we all bring our earbuds to the office.
head-fi.org indicates that Audio-Technica's ATH-M50, while excellent, are probably not quite as good sound-quality-wise as Ultrasone's HFI-580, which are also twenty bucks or so cheaper.
Microsoft Security Essentials (free antivirus)
Windows antivirus straight from Microsoft. Back in the day, Norton was the best, but it became slower and slower, and is now one of the primary causes of computer instability and slowness. I then used free services like AVG until they started being far more pushy and annoying. I stopped using AV altogether until Microsoft came out with MSE. It's extremely lightweight, as I've never noticed it slowing my system down, and it provides as good or better virus protection than the competition as shown in independent reviews.
All virus protection is about the same. All the researchers talk to each other. The difference is in the engines and the irritation factor of using the thing.
Apparently, Norton is no longer slow and MSE no longer offers effective protection: http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/marapr-2012/
You can also check out av-comparatives.org for further antivirus tests but it doesn't test Norton nor MSE.
I am not going to make any recommendations. Just regularly read the latest reports from av-test.org and av-comparatives.org and use the product that consistently produces good protection.
Someone has downvoted each of the comments in this page - this strikes me as bizarre. Simple product recommendations saves heaps of research time.
Haters gonna hate.
I for one am glad that we now have Rational Product Recommendations.
I'll put it next to my rational romance, gift buying, book selection, wart removal and toothpaste.
For anyone who is not aware, the parent comment is definitely sarcasm.
Aluminum foil. Use a gluestick to put it over your bedroom windows. Now there is darkness, and you can sleep. This made a huge quality-of-life difference to me, and I felt very silly for not doing it 10 years earlier. (A sleep mask, which I previously used, was not nearly as good a solution.)
I've found tinfoil often lets through entirely too much sunlight (the thin cheap stuff, evidently). But I did do something similar with black card in one house. Now we use blackout curtains, so we can get light through the windows when we actually want it.
If the foil is visible from outside it signals behaviors that are widely disapproved of. To that end, it would be wise to put something between the foil and the glass, perhaps colored paper or arbitrary fragments of unwanted posters.
Light may also come in around doors. In this case, a folded flap of duct tape with foil inside may be attached to the edge of the door on the swingward side and on the frame on the contra-swingward side. That may eliminate all light.
Particularly thin (cheap) foil may get have small tears that let through points of light. A piece of duct tape will patch those.
Blacking out windows is less beneficial than adapting to a conventional day/night cycle when possible. Natural light improves quality of life.
This probably occurs to most people, but to be explicit about the downsides:
Isn't this what curtains and shutters are for?
Yes, it's what they are for - but they are typically inferior alternatives for the specific goal of preventing light entry.
My parents visited Israel when I was a kid. My grandparents' apartment had Israeli air-raid-quality shutters which ACTUALLY blocked out all the light; they were wooden slats that rolled down and stacked themselves solidly over the outside of the window. You pulled on the cord and the light went out completely - that simple. I expect it helped on noise reduction too, though I wasn't checking then. Ever since, I've taken the lack of this simple, extremely useful feature on any other windows I've ever seen, as proof that the housing industry is dysfunctional.
In Italy, roller shutters that block all of the light (like this) are pretty much ubiquitous. (This is one of the few things where I think Italy is less retarded than the rest of the developed world. Now I've bought a sleeping mask and I'm going to use it the next time I go abroad.)
Mold-free coffee+grass-fed butter+MCT oil. (You have to buy the ingredients separately.)
Gives me a feeling similar to when I take adderall.
I have an entire travel set dedicated to BP coffee. Make sure you blend, and don't forget the MCT oil.
1) Hario MSS-1B Mini Mill Slim Coffee Grinder
2) MSR MugMate Coffee/Tea Filter
3) Cuisinart Smart Stick Blender
4) Lock and Lock 10.8 oz butter container
5) Blender Bottle
6) GoobTube - to hold MCT oil in
The official "bulletproof coffee" beans I received had no aroma and little taste. So although the idea is sound, I wouldn't recommend the beans themselves (perhaps I got an old batch, and I did feel fine after consuming). The guy selling/promoting is recommends traditionally wet-processed coffee beans in general. I found Peets "Ethiopian Fancy(Whole Bean)" mail order to be superior in taste and freshness. Their in-store beans are refreshed weekly.
I wonder why not high quality cream or whole milk instead of butter. That said, I am tolerating the taste/feel of unsalted butter (+MCT) in my espresso, and the energy+satiety is nice.
I'm rather fond of wearing hiking boots. Although I originally bought them for actual hiking (I was in the Boy Scouts), I eventually got into the habit of wearing them as ordinary shoes. They're insulated, waterproof, and add to my height more than regular shoes do.
Downside: Hiking boots tend to be more expensive than ordinary shoes.
(Sorry for the lack of link.)
Netflix ($8/m streaming, $8/m DVD-to-door)
Internet streaming movies and TV, including many back-seasons of popular shows, and absolutely no advertising. It also has one of the most advanced recommendation engines for finding new media. Can ship DVDs to your door with free return shipping if they don't have an item available for streaming (starting at $8 extra a month). Serves me much better than a cable subscription.
Happy Hacking Professional 2
For something with "hacking" in the name, lacking a numpad, arrow keys, and home/end/etc. is conspicuous. I use those very often in my nerdly pursuits.
I'm quite fond of my Das Keyboard.
Is there any advantage to a keyboard with no labels on the keys besides showing off?
It levels the playing field for those who use non-standard layouts.
Mine made me learn where all the wacky symbols used in programming languages are, like {. If there's a key on your keyboard that you didn't learn when you first learned to touch type, but you now use, a blank keyboard will force you to learn to type it without looking at your keyboard.
The showing off is probably more important though.
Uber.com (hassle-free taxi service)
I'm in a big city, and I need a taxi. So first I have to find the number of a taxi company. Then I have to call and talk to somebody who barely speaks English and repeat the pickup address to them 5 times. When they arrive, they call me back, and then I cram into a cab without enough room for my long legs. When we arrive at my destination, I have to calculate the tip and then dig out some cash or wait for a credit card to process.
Uber.com skips all that hassle. If I were to forget how taxi companies do work and just imagined how they should work, I'd basically imagine Uber.com:
It is more expensive than a regular cab service; you'll have to decide if the convenience is worth it.
Pricing information for San Fransisco.
Uber is running a "refer a friend" promotion. If you're interested in using Uber, make sure they know Luke referred you. According to the website, he'll get $10 per referral.
Uber just announced hybrid cars rather than town cars, with pricing basically identical to normal SF taxis. Should be great once it gets into wide release, right now it's not actually available.
In most places I think it's unnecessarily costly for the small added value. But in SF, I'm really not sure how else you're supposed to get a cab without budgeting a half-hour on top of your travel time to flag one down.
Airport Express ($99) + Airfoil ($25)
I listen to music and podcasts almost 24/7 while working from home. I even listen to ambient music while I'm sleeping, which is why Chuck Wild (Liquid Mind) tops my last.fm charts.
I've got some good speakers for that, because laptop speakers aren't great and I move around too much to use headphones or earbuds all the time. But I don't want my laptop chained to my speakers via audio cable!
Solution: Airport Express + Airfoil.
Airport Express is a tiny wifi hub. Just plug it in, connect it to your wifi network, and connect your speakers' input cable. Now you can use Apple's Airplay technology to stream audio to your speakers wirelessly. Unfortunately, Airplay is only for Mac, and it only streams iTunes music.
That's where Airfoil comes in. Airfoil works on Mac or Windows, and can stream audio from any source (including your entire system audio output). If you want, you can even set it up to stream audio from (say) Spotify, but have the rest of your audio play through your laptop speakers, physically connected speakers, earbuds, or whatever.
The one catch is that there's (necessarily) a bit of lag. That's not a problem for music or podcasts, but if you're watching video then the video and audio will be out of sync. The Airfoil video player solves this for many types of video files, so you can generally watch DVDs and stuff that way, but if you're watching occasional YouTube videos then it's inconvenient to keep switching stuff to the Airfoil video player. When I'm watching videos online I just click the Airfoil menubar item and switch my "Transmit To:" option from "Airport Express" to "Computer," then I switch it back when I'm back to listening to music.
Since I use these two pieces of technology almost all hours I'm in my house, it's a damn good investment for me, and it might be for you, too.
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 ($35, Amazon 4 stars, 1,289 reviews)
Split keyboard with enlarged keys, the whole setup built for the proper hand and wrist position. I'm still getting used to it, as it's a big change from a more 'normal' keyboard, but I'm really liking it, and it feels like it's improved my typing speed above my normal 117 WPM, though I haven't tested yet.
I have this keyboard as well, and I love it. I've used a natural keyboard for many years now, but I still remember my first time. It took me about an hour to get used to it, and after that I was addicted. I hate using a flat keyboard now! One thing though: I've read that if you don't type with ten fingers, these keyboards don't do anything for you and may even be worse than a flat one.
Against Malaria Foundation
According to GiveWell, the most effective charity on the planet. Save lives and increase your subjective well-being in one fell swoop. Charity is probably one of the more efficient means of converting money into utils and hedons at the same time.
If you live in a city: Zipcar (Disclosure: Promotional link - if you sign up through this, we both get a $25 credit)
Saves a lot of money and stress. I don't worry about registration or car insurance or gas prices or parking. When I need a car, I pay a pre-determined rate, and then stop worrying about it. Warm fuzzy bonus: Positive externalities in (less land allocated to parking)+(less traffic)+(fewer CO2 emissions).
I find it adorable that locations in which Zipcars are stored are labeled with the phrase "Zipcars live here".
This trigger point tutorial and the Trigger Point Therapy Workbook for chronic muscle pain, including RSI. Looks to me like a genuine case where mainstream medicine has not caught up with what alternative-ish therapies can explain and heal. This guy's site looks like an incredibly well-documented resource for all kinds of chronic pain.
Textcelerator, a browser plugin that hacks your vision to make you read significantly faster. I made it because I really value being knowledgeable, and pre-existing speed reading software wasn't practical. I recently added Textcelerator for Sites, a version that can be embedded into blogs or other pages to enable speed-reading those pages without installing anything.
(Disclaimer: Payware with a free trial; I'm the author.)
What's your take on this article?
http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/articles/2000/02/the_1000word_dash.html
Personally, I suspect I mostly read at the rate I can comprehend stuff. In other words, I suspect thinking is the limiting factor in my reading, not the rate at which I can shove words through my eyes.
Sure, in some cases you get popular nonfiction books that are so full of fluff that you're best off skimming them (comprehending only a hastily organized slice of the book), but I'd rather just find a denser resource like a summary of the book.
Did you actually try it? You might be surprised. I read the article you linked to at 950wpm (but my unassisted reading speed is only about 350wpm).
So did you have anything to say about the article?
I just tried the demo. I guess it is plausible that word shoving speed is rate limiting, since I had a hard time shoving all the words through my eyes at 700 words per minute, which might improve through training. But I'm wary of using a tool that might hurt comprehension, which seems harder to measure. I remember reading that subvocalizing improves recall for instance, but I doubt you could learn that just by observing yourself.
If you want to optimize your reading, making spaced repetition cards seems like the obvious thing. Why are you reading it if you don't want to remember it? Are you really confident that you remember any significant portion of the stuff you read on the Internet? Shouldn't we be optimizing for facts/habits/models acquired instead of words consumed?
It seemed wrong. It took the observation that most people read at about the same speed, stretched it way too far, and treated it as a given rather than as something to improve on. Then juxtaposed a probably-real example (JFK reading at 1200wpm) with an obviously-fake one (a person who claimed to read 17k wpm), in order to discredit the real example. Then it pulled a definition trick, redefining "reading quickly" as "skimming", and failing to notice that the distinction between reading and skimming is whether or not you skip things.
The more subtle mistake was that it only acknowledged speed-reading software as a training method, rather than as a tool to use for ordinary reading. I don't blame the author for that, since at the time it was written the only tools available were too impractical to use all the time. But fixing that is the whole point of Textcelerator.
Yes, one hour of studying a topic won't give as deep an understanding as two hours of studying that topic, no matter what reading techniques you use; and what we really care about is understanding gained. The thing is, time is usually a limiting factor, and if you're reading faster, then you can use the extra time to read something twice, or read it and reflect, or read it and make flashcards, or read it and also read some related material. Increasing speed by 2x (and that is the sort of speedup we're talking about) is not as good as spending twice as much time reading, but it's worth a hell of a lot.
My own experience - and yes, this is hard to measure and therefore somewhat subjective - is that Textcelerator doesn't significantly reduce my comprehension until I get over 900wpm, but that when reading unaided, if I try to read that fast it degenerates into skimming and I retain very little.
Texcelerator is nicely done!
I use Spreed! http://www.spreeder.com/app.php for speed reading. It's free. The big hassle with using it, is the cut and paste.
Thanks -- I just tried it. I'm intrigued, and in general always interested in these kind of experiments. Did you base it on some existing research? I use auto-scroll when reading PDFs sometimes, to force-feed me. One of the advantages seems to be that the mind is put under some stress, and less likely to wander off.
BTW, I found that some words go together naturally when reading (say, a book title), and it's a bit confusing when textcelerator splits them.
Not exactly a product, but...put your directly mattress on the floor.
Does your bed every squeak or rattle when you move around? Does not happen if it's on the floor! Ever fall out of bed? Can't if it's on the floor. Want your bed to be bigger? Throw some pillows and blankets on the floor next to you and sprawl out to your heart's content. This is especially useful if your nocturnal co-pilot has a deeply rooted subconscious obsession with rolling on to your side of the bed.
In the morning, you can literally roll out of bed, and it feels kind of awesome.
Oh, you also now have an arbitrarily large nightstand.
Need to temporarily have more floorspace in your bedroom for something? It's really easy to stand your bed up against a wall.
But the boxspring! Your boxspring doesn't really do anything - it sits 6+ inches beneath you and acts as a solid, flat surface for your mattress. You already have one of those, it's the floor. I've been doing this for years, there is no difference in the sleeping experience except for the above listed benefits, and your view will seem weird for a while but you'l get used to it.
(If other people try this, I'd like to get your feedback so I can figure out whether I should promote this constantly or resign myself to being weird).
YMMV. Whenever I have had my mattress on the floor, (a) the dust at floor level drives my asthma batshit (b) it's harder to get out of bed in the morning (because I need to lift my centre of gravity higher), and I have enough trouble convincing myself to get up.
My experience is that it works very well, but I sometimes value the raw elevation (as David commented, it makes it easier to get out of bed in the morning). I also find that clutter on my floor is more annoying, so I clean more often, which has it's positives and negatives - in a small space it can be annoying since the clutter has no place to go. And, of course, dust/mold/spiders/cats are more annoying.
Depending on where you live, mold can become a problem.
I do this. It reclaims the space above the bed as everyday living space, the bed never wobbles, and it's generally just perfectly satisfactory.
The one disadvantage is that it's harder to stand up off a mattress (or in my case a futon) that's directly on the floor than one that's higher up.
Aside from the lost storage space beneath the bed... there's the issue of company.
It's more fun when you don't have to worry about falling off the bed - it's more more amenable to extremely kinetic activities. This includes at least one double-blindfolded study.
FreeMind
Free mind mapping software.
ComfortTech Thinsulate micromink blanket ($84 king, $70 queen, $70 twin)
I will probably never buy a bulky comforter/duvet for myself ever again. This is lighter, easier to clean, just as warm, and so much softer. Girls love it.
There are probably lots of options in this space; this is just one that I personally own and love. I've also heard good things about the cutely (or grossly) named Vagisoft blanket.
ComfortTech: my gf actually dislikes it, but I think it's quite good. Thanks.
In the vein of "Things I Didn't Know I Wanted": an iPhone. I didn't know I needed a smartphone until I got one. It has improved my life, in many small ways that I had trouble predicting. Example: I no longer have to plan anything when I'm leaving my apartment, because I know I can look up whatever I need using my phone.
The iPhone in particular is very well-thought out. For example, they aren't including support for 4G LTE until they invent a new battery that will still last all day while connecting to 4G LTE. My friend just got a leading Android phone that has 4G LTE, but it runs out of battery after 6 hours.
I would recommend checking whether it is well-thought in the area you do care about.
I was surprised to find out that you cannot easily save PDF from a webpage to reliably keep it on the phone forever; it will be subject to cache retention policy. There are more obvious limitations, of course. Nobody is free of mistakes, so check what is obviously important for you in the specific device you are going to use.
Honestly, that's because PDF is not well-thought-out.
Choosing to use PDF to distribute text (or text-and-images) on the Web today does seem like a pretty silly idea. PDF favors exact reproduction of a paper-based layout over readability on the user's device; and that's the opposite of what's useful if you're trying to get a message across to many users.
But, given that PDF is out there, it's pretty useful for a mobile device to be able to deal with it competently.
Sorry? The problem equally applies to HTML and to everything you can read online. Also, PDF is well thought-out as a format with specific purpose. If you want to know exactly an for sure what the reader will see, you could use PDF and succeed or use HTML and make the existing problems of Web worse.
I really wish I could agree with you, but I've read parts of the specification of the pdf file format. Perhaps the goal was well-thought-out, but certainly the format itself is not.
Really? If you were referring to the iPhone, my experience is this. PDF links open by default in the browser, which copy only exists as a temporary cache. However, the window includes an "Open in iBooks" button, and using it saves a permanent copy to iBooks. iBooks is an Apple app that comes with the phone. There's also an "Open in..." button letting you save it to any app that has indicated it is able to handle a PDF -- I also have GoodReader.
It costs several hundred dollars more than other smartphones, though. Except for battery life and status signalling, why is it better?
The iPhone brings the user substantially more joy when using the product, compared to other smartphones.
When I say "joy" I also mean to indicate lack of frustration. The iPhone just works, and it works beautifully, in a way that other smartphones do not.
Now, why do I recommend paying for joy? Because you will be using your smartphone for probably multiple hours a day, for several years, and if you're slightly happier every time you use it, that adds up.
Downvoted for wildly subjective assertions about comparative merits of smartphones.
I personally have a Galaxy Nexus, and I much prefer the extra customisation and control I have over an Android system. It "just works beautifully", too. Feeling like I am in full control of a tiny, powerful computer in my pocket brings me a lot more joy than every time I've tried using an Iphone; where the lack of control made me feel like I was renting one of Apple's devices on a probationary period, rather than owning one myself.
So this is really a matter of preference; let's not pretend that the Iphone is simply an unequivocally "more joyful" or "better working" user experience.
<cynicism level="extreme">Well, joy is highly subjective, which kind-of pattern-matches the post facto rationalizations people use to defeat the buyer's remorse.</cynicism>
Totally agreed, you want a smartphone. Doesn't have to be the latest and greatest, either; my two year old HTC Desire continues to make me very happy.
Charmin Wet Wipes ($0.05 per wipe, Amazon 4.5 stars, 6 reviews)
For wiping in the bathroom. Much more pleasant than regular toilet paper as far as comfort and cleanliness. Note that some reviews of wet wipes result in pain or rashes due to allergic reactions. The Cottonelle dispenser works better and the wipes are a bit sturdier.
I've thought of getting the Toto toilet with integrated spray wash and dry. If I do, I will report back.
Wet wipes, or good quality toilet paper. Cheap toilet paper is offensive.
I think I must be the only person who prefers cheap, terrible toilet paper. (It feels drier, which I care about more than most other axes along which toilet paper varies.)
Argh, I really wish I'd remembered that you said this! On this recommendation I bought these wipes a few months ago and have been really enjoying them, and also I've been suffering from precisely such rashes and not knowing why until today when I finally found the right combination of search terms to describe the problem I was having (I was using "chafe" before). The insidious part is that the wipes were one of the two things that consistently relieved the pain, the other one being showering.
Switching to the Dvorak keyboard cured my RSI.
On that note, Colemak is similarly optimised, but significantly easier to learn than Dvorak. (The website claims Colemak is more optimised with regards to things like bigrams and trigrams and pinky-to-index rolling, but it's not clear how much this is an actual improvement. The ease of learning is clearly much higher though)
How long did it take to unlearn qwerty?
Can't speak for Eliezer, but for me, I was able to use my computer for normal tasks (but slowly, and with lots of errors) after probably 5-7 hours of intensive practice, but the frustration did not subside until after the 2nd or 3rd week. This was in high school, though, so I'm not sure how long it would take an adult.
That said, I haven't "unlearned" qwerty. I use Dvorak on my ergonomic work keyboard, and qwerty on every other keyboard. The different feel of the keyboards successfully triggers my brain to use the right layout, and I don't have any trouble switching between them (I don't even notice anymore that they're different layouts).
Boomerang for Gmail
Have emails return to your inbox at a specified day and time. Stop thinking about things until your past self decides you need to be thinking about them again. Keep a clean inbox. Want to reply to a letter but don't have time until after work? Boomerang it to tonight, and you'll get a reminder when it lands in your inbox and you have time to take care of it.
Free for the first 10/emails a month, $5/month for unlimited emails. I pay the $5 and it's very worth it.
I have been using this and love it. One of the things I use it for is to remind myself in the future to do a specific thing at a specific time (I have Gmail on my iPhone, so it pings me when I get the email), but in a way that's phrased as a request from a past self (e.g. "Hi future me, Do this thing! It'll be awesome! Cheers, past me") so it'll feel like I'm breaking a social commitment instead of just ignoring a reminder.
Sugru - rapid, easy, cheap repair of small, broken things. Suguru is basically a hardening putty - it's malleable when opene, and dries to be hard and durable in about 24 hours. I've used it to repair broken axles on a cart, reassemble broken headphones, re-attach a handle to a hairbrush - minor, easy fixes which save me marginal time/money/anxiety/frustration on a day-to-day basis. There may be other, similar, cheaper products (some appear on the amazon search I just did), but I have not tested them.
Amazon link
Might I recommend StikK or Beeminder for goal commitment?
Readability (free web service)
Turn any web article into archived text for later reading on any system you have Readability installed (clients for all major OSes and mobiles, including send-to-Kindle). It also reformats pages into plaintext for easier reading. Competitors: Instapaper, Pocket, and Safari's Reading List.
Spotify Premium ($9.99/mo)
There is one annoying hitch, but I have a solution. For whatever reason, Spotify doesn't let you clear your play queue. (The world is mad, and all that.) The solution is simple: (1) Create a new playlist called 'Clear play queue', (2) add only this track (one second of silence) to that playlist, and (3) double-click the 'Clear play queue' playlist whenever you want to clear your play queue.
Spotify has no radio functionality on Android devices for some ungodly reason. It's a shame, because they have the best radio of any streaming music service I've yet to try (it gives me better recommendations than even Pandora). I think Spotify Premium is worth it despite that, but some may not.
Edit August 9 2012: Spotify for Android now has the same radio as its mobile and PC varieties.
It's also worth noting that spotify lets you easily import your own mp3s, so you don't have to worry about only having access to stuff on their servers, you can listen to a mixture of your own stuff and their stuff on both your computer and mobile device.
ActiveInbox (free, or $25/year for Plus)
GTD for Gmail. The best Gmail productivity tool I've ever found.
To grok ActiveInbox, watch the video. Here are my favorite features:
Those two features alone are worth the setup for me, but ActiveInbox does a lot more than this, too.
Hat tip to Louie for finding this one.
If you use outlook, Outlook 2010 lets you (at least) duplicate these features.
Note also that I only Facebook-gloat over screenshots of my Inbox Zero when all my ActiveInbox task folders are also empty. :)
Dropbox (2gb for free, 50gb for $99/yr, 100gb for $199/yr)
Maybe this is too obvious to mention, but Dropbox rules.
Sync files between your computers and smartphone. Share photo albums and specific files with the public. Very easy to use. Way better for project management than emailing different versions of files back and forth a million times. Recover files you deleted weeks ago. Also see: 62 things you can do with Dropbox.
Recent competitor from Google: https://drive.google.com/start
Google drive terms of use are horrid for now.
From what I understand, this isn't actually the case. When Google Drive was first release there was a lot of buzz about it's terms, but this comparison with the terms of other similar services shows that there isn't much difference between any of the major online backup/sync service providers.
Dropbox is currently more reliable. I've had Google Drive lose a file, fail to move a file from one folder to another, and crash multiple times on my Windows machine.
Google is cheaper per gigabyte, but in my opinion is not as convenient to use (yet).
Why wouldn't you use actual version control software, like svn or git?
Probably because Luke isn't a programmer and many of the people he works with would get confused by actual version control. Too much version control just gets in the way for some purposes.
Mind you the primary dropbox folder that he has shared with me (for LaTeX publishing stuff) actually contains a git repository which I use to share with the other publishing guys. I find that the extra complexity involved with git over dropbox is definitely worthwhile for things like working on templates but perhaps less useful for the routine stuff. Then for some use cases dropbox's (lack of) access control options just can't work for us.
This is Luke, he should teach them version control. Perhaps a simple system like svn would be better than git (but it requires a dedicated server...)
The simple functionality alone - diff/merge tools, merge tracking, logs, tagging/branching, retrieving old revisions - is very empowering for any text-based collaboration. Programmers invented it, but that's no reason nonprogrammers shouldn't use it.
I haven't used dropbox beyond a brief trial a year ago, but I seem to remember it has a primitive version tracking system built in. If it does, it's sure to be much worse than e.g. svn with a good gui like Tortoise. (Those who do not understand, are condemned to reinvent a poor copy...) People who use that, especially, should switch to a real VCS.
Git GUIs are considered harmful, but... they really make sense to non-programmers. This is probably the best way to introduce non-programmers; they can understand an app that does version control, but asking them to understand the terminal environment AND command line git might be too much.
You can get some 5.2GB free with dropbox - first they have a few small"quests" giving 0.2 extra. But then they also gave you up to 3GB more if you synced photos from mobile to dropbox (did this then removed the photos to get extra non-picture storage space).
For those concerned about the security of storing your information online Spider Oak is a service worth considering. Their zero-knowledge policy ensure that—by design—they cannot access the data you store on their servers. Your data is encrypted on your computer and then sent to their servers (they don't have access to your private key).
Benefits:
Downsides:
Given the downsides, I use Spider Oak for backup and sync exclusively while also using a free 2 GB Dropbox account to take advantage of all it's awesomeness.
With Dropbox's announcement of new plans and pricing, two of the benefits I listed above for SpiderOak are no longer true. Pricing is now equal (not considering SpiderOak's student rates) and Dropbox has introduced 200 GB and 500 GB plans.
Additionally using symlinks one can add any folder to their Dropbox (note I've done this on OS X, I can't speak to whether this is possible on Windows).
That leaves SpiderOak with it's security benefits. However as this thread from the Dropbox forum details, there are many solution to this problem, one possibly coming from Dropbox itself!
As such, I've made the switch back to Dropbox.
An alternate security solution is to encrypt sensitive files - I use a combination of Dropbox, Truecrypt, and KeePass for most things. There's still a few things that I keep local and encrypt, simply because they're especially sensitive.
I'm a hacker/computer security expert. I use DropBox for low sensitivity files (it sync's far faster, and has better integration) and SpiderOak for more sensitive data.
This is the best roundup I found on cloud storage so far: http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/24/2954960/google-drive-dropbox-skydrive-sugarsync-cloud-storage-competition
My opinion after experimenting with many of the aforementioned services? You can get potentially infinite storage using InSync and simultaneously managing as many Google Drive accounts as you like on the same computer.
InSync's biggest problem is that once it finishes the beta stage, you will have to pay a one-time fee to continue using it. I think it is worth it given the infinite amount of space it offers.
An alternative would be Dropbox. You start with only 2GB, which is too little, but there are many ways for you to get free space. You can invite friends, play Dropquests, upload camera pictures and participate in public beta testing. I now have 26 GB, all for free.
Ironically, for me, paying for Dropbox is a really bad idea. One of my main uses for Dropbox is sharing files - copyrighted files, usually, especially with the Research page's various requests that I have fulfilled. Knocking out one Dropbox account knocks out all its files, so I want to spread files over as many Dropbox accounts as possible. Paying for extra space just increases the temptation to put a great many eggs in the one basket.
(Of course, no actual problems have popped up over the past years I've shared files on Dropbox, so there's no point in having too many accounts; right now, I just shift Dropbox accounts every year or two. It is a real problem, though. My favorite Vocaloid music site, mikudb.com, recently saw its main uploaders' account on MediaFire disabled, which broke the availability of ~1300 albums.)
EDIT: these days I don't use Dropbox as heavily as I used to, as I am more comfortable with hosting files on my own website: the bandwidth bills are not as bad as I feared, and experience has shown thus far that I don't need to worry about legal reprisals as long as I'm not dumb about it. I still split my uploads over 10 accounts, though, and rotate.
Google Reader (free web service)
RSS feed reader with numerous features, including sharing to other services, starring of interesting articles, and folders for feed sorting. I use this far more than any other web application, as I'm constantly reading things from across the web, and Google Reader is the best way of aggregating all the new content from many websites into one place and presenting it in an easy-to-read list, along with knowing how many new articles are there today and not missing a thing. I even subscribe to individual feeds from LW, such as particular users I don't want to miss comments from.
Empty tissue boxes. Use them to prop up the back layer of paperback books on your double-stacked bookshelves. Now you can see most of the titles of the books in the back row. If you want to upgrade in style, get some 2-by-4s cut to the right length at your local hardware store.
My God...HPMOR is the world's most elaborate product placement ever.
I suspect that this recommendation will be redundant for many or most of LessWrong, but let it be repeated: buy a good basic multitool and keep it where you can easily find it. Better, buy a couple of them and keep them (say) in your car, in your desk at work, and at home.
Sometimes you need exactly the right tool for the job. However, for many simple tasks, and for any emergency, the simple tool immediately at hand is much more useful than the ideal tool which would take time and effort to retrieve.
What would you recommend?
I have a Leatherman Squirt E4, which is never the right tool for the job, but always available, and complies with UK knife laws. I also have very good experiences with the Leatherman Wave, but don't carry it around as a matter of course for aforementioned knife-law reasons.
I understand some enthusiasts get very emphatic about this issue, but I can only speak to my own very limited experience. The tool immediately to my hand now is a Leatherman PST, easily about ten years old or more and still not showing many signs of age. As I understand it, it's the very basic original Leatherman model. It's paid for itself many times over in simple ready convenience and utility. I see there are some very fancy and complicated multitools around. I have no comment about those, as I've never used them. I would say that my comment was based only on my experience of often needing quick access to a variety of screwdrivers, or pliers, or a bottlecap opener, or wire cutters, or the knife. (I personally haven't used the file very much if at all.)
I don't have any knowledge of UK knife laws, but the thought of them saddens me, because a knife as a basic tool is useful in so many, many ways. The number of times in which I've been imminently inclined to use my knife as a stabbing weapon in real life has been exactly nil (it wouldn't have been practical in any case -- the Leatherman is hardly a switchblade. For legal defensive purposes, you might be just as well off carrying a sharpened wooden pencil) but I've been happy to have the power to cut inanimate objects uncountable times.
I personally don't think UK knife laws are all that bad. You can carry a <= 3" blade, provided it folds. If it's non-folding, or if it's lockable, you count the full length. Most full-sized Leatherman blades are longer than this limit when unfolded and locked.
(You can carry bigger blades than this, provided they're legitimate to your work/activities and/or they're stored sensibly. If you're a tradesman with a multitool on his belt you're exceedingly unlikely to have any trouble. If you're at a football match, possession of a knife would be treated a lot more seriously)
Wikipedia (free)
Wikipedia is a compendium of human knowledge, edited by anyone who cares to contribute. It has articles covering everything people might want to know about, including references to source material for further reading. Its goal is to become an authoritative encyclopedia.
Amazon Prime ($79/year)
How is Amazon making money on this??? I save way more than $79/year getting free two-day shipping (or $4 one-day shipping) with my Amazon Prime service. (You also get lots of free streaming for movies and TVs from Amazon, but I never use this.)
Free two-day shipping means I buy most things via Amazon — which is great, because most things I buy are cheapest on Amazon, anyway, and I hate entering my payment information into 40 different sites to get different products.
You get a free one-month trial. If you're a student, you get a free six-month trial.
TagTime.
"To determine how you spend your time, TagTime literally randomly samples you. At random times it pops up and asks what you're doing *right at that moment." From the folks that created Beeminder (also recommended on this thread).
I am sad that this thread fell by the wayside and that people are no longer actively throwing recommendations at it.
There was another like that some time in 2011, though I can't seem to find it. Anyway, the standard solution is to make it a monthly or bimonthly thread.
An electric toothbrush. Your teeth will feel cleaner, and apparently these toothbrushes have been "proven" to do a better job. I now dislike using the normal toothbrushes, eg when travelling.
I am currently using this one, bought for $49 not $199 on Groupon, cleans great and wireless recharging is great, but seems to have a design fault - I only managed to replace the head by wrecking the old one, will replace with a different brand.
Wirecutter for product recommendations.
The site makes a single recommendation, then explains how they came to that conclusion, so you can decide if the same attributes are important to you. Mostly computers, but they're branching out into home goods too.
Their method seems to be largely reading many other product reviews, and synthesizing them so you don't have to.
Workflowy! I heard you like bullet lists. So, we made workflowy so you can have bullet lists in your bullet lists.
The ultimate bullet list software. It allows you to bring a sub-bullet to the top of a page. I find it's really nice when you're working on sub-bullet to just click on it and then the screen reorganizes so you can only see that particular sub-bullet and its sub-bullets. Has hashtags, mobile integration, collaboration, and 90% of your daily serving of Vitamin awesome!
I've used workflowy and liked it, but the lack of an android app made it not very useful. Now I see there is a couple of android apps, and will try it again.
Udacity.com for learning. Sebastian is an awesome teacher, and makes good use of the (very well designed) platform. This Chronicle of Higher Education review gives a pretty good overview.
WaterPik water flosser. Flossing does more to improve oral health than brushing, but I had significant trouble keeping it up as a habit because it was awkward and required regularly replenishing a supply of floss. Water flossing appears to be about as beneficial as flossing with nylon but is far more convenient, and a tech you will use is better than one that you won't.
I have reactive hypoglycemia. I take cinnamon in capsules every morning. I have perceived improvement in my condition during the periods when I take cinnamon.
Monitor arms. I've got http://www.ergotron.com/Products/tabid/65/PRDID/355/language/sv-SE/Default.aspx
Also, a good chair, desk, etc. Vital if you spend as much time in front of the computer as many here probably do.
Monitor arms are awesome. After using them for a while I abandoned the desk entirely and just bolted them to the wall, allowing me to add a couch to my room instead. Warning, this advice probably not viable if you actually use your desk for stuff other than putting monitors on.
UnderArmour ColdGear Frosty: I hate being cold--these made it tolerable to go out biking in cold weather, and I also found myself wearing them as leggings under regular skirts when I was tired of a winter full of pants.
This is not a product recommendation, but a request - it looks to me like trampolines should be large amounts of fun. However, when I tried to look up risk statistics, I found lots of dire warnings and, of course, no numerical annual risk statistics at all, or any attempt to adjust for safer trampolines with surrounding safety netting. My one attempt to calculate risk statistics on my own output a 0.1% chance of an injury requiring hospitalization per year of trampoline use. That's probably more risk than somebody in my position should take on, even for the sake of exercise. Does anyone know of more accurate statistics than this, or a safer trampoline with recorded risk statistics, or have a strong opinion on whether trampolines are safe enough to use?
I think the fun would wear off if I started using one every day -- I think most of the fun of trampolines is in doing something I don't usually do. YMMV.
I haven't used a trampoline since I was a teenager. My neighbors had round one that I would guess was 12-15' in diameter. There were numerous injuries that I can recall, the worst being a broken leg. All of the injuries that I recall were due to what I would consider (now) to be inappropriate use. We would play dodge ball where one or more people would be on the trampoline and people off of the trampoline would throw a ball at them. I chipped a tooth doing that. Sometimes we would put a lawn sprinkler underneath the trampoline if it was really hot. I believe that is how the broken leg occurred. We did many other less stupid but still somewhat risky things, too, like doing front and back flips and seeing how high we could jump.
My point, though, is that if you do find any safety statistics take into account how they compare to how you would actually use it. Do the stats take into account the stupid things teenagers do on them?
If I can't do any flips on the trampoline, I'm not sure it's worth it.
Another question is whether there's any simple neck-brace I can wear to avoid spinal injuries, which are the main thing I'm worried about. I'm okay with a 0.1% chance of pain, it's life-altering injuries (or more to the point, work-altering injuries) that I want to avoid.
I once took a course, 30 hours, we jumped on a professional rectangular trampoline without vertical safety nets, supervised. I too was worried about spinal injuries. According to my teachers, most injuries do happen by jumping out of the bounds or impromper landing technique (taking the landing shock the spine by not angling hip/body correctly). With that said: Even without flips it was major Fun. Very fast learning curve (and I am a very slow learner with regards to complex coordinations), the freefalling... Also, flips are an advanced technique, we only attempted them by the end of the course; I felt quite safe by then from breaking my neck, I had learned to control the fall and the spinning. Please note that this risk assessment is based on me weighing 65kgs.
I don't have any statistics handy, but once you learn flips from an instructor and practice about 1000 times carefully and under supervision over several sessions, it is a safe activity, because of the muscle memory taking over. Unless you make it unsafe by pushing your limits or jumping while impaired. Of course, there are always freak accidents like this, but the odds are at the noise level, such as being rear-ended hard when driving.
J/FIT stability balls, for sitting-on - I tried a TKO, but it had a persistent smell that made me nauseous. I can't say yet that I use mine for hours at a time, but it's fun to bounce on now and then, and costs $25 at Amazon. I'm 5'11" and need a 75cm ball to balance properly.
FancyHands Per task virtual assistant service - because outsourcing makes life easier ;)
Brookstone Napform sleep mask Best sleep mask I've found, soft, you can fully open your eyes while wearing this.
Etymotic ER-20 earplugs Use these so you can listen to music, go to clubs, ect, and still preserve your hearing. I've probably bought 15+ by now, and keep one in every bag/jacket I own.
Hearos Ultimate Softness foam earplugs Great protection (32NRR), super comfortable. Use these for sleeping.
The human ear has not previously been under selection pressure to accommodate extended periods of stoppage. Plugging up or cover ears for significant fractions of the day on a regular basis is out-of-spec use of the human body and may have consequences including infections and skin irritation.
Just be careful and talk to a pediatrician before applying this solution to children.
The human ear has also not previously been under selection pressure to accommodate constant noise pollution. Not plugging up or covering the ears (or abandoning civilisation) is also out-of-spec use of the human body and has consequences including stress and damaged hearing.
(Apply evolutionary reasoning consistently!)
On the contrary, whichever wildernesses most shaped our hearing were not silent places. The places people lived, that we know of, in the ice ages were quite wet. Rivers and even streams are constant sources of noise.
There are issues of levels and likely specific frequencies, but complete silence puts the stoppered ear further from the conditions in which it formed as well.
To disclose, I have worked in call centers for a cumulative decade and found that ear infections were more likely if I did not switch which ear was covered at least every week, when ear-covering headsets were the only option. I expect that stopping up ears overnight will have a similar consequence for at least a portion of the population. And so I advise caution.
I do not find fault in that action.
Kindle 3G Keyboard E-book reader, but get this one for traveling - this provides backup internet access, practically worldwide. You MUST buy the older "keyboard" version for this. Also fantastic to read books on ;)
Newegg (web store)
Newegg is a store for computer hardware and electronics, and is expanding into other areas. Extremely fast shipping, excellent customer service, good prices, extensive pictures and tech specs on every item, and a wonderful user rating system provide more info about a product than most sites. I look here first when looking for any product computer-related, except cables and adapters, which is what Monoprice is for.
Google Chrome (free web browser)
A web browser to replace Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, or Mozilla Firefox. Provides bookmark, password, extension and tab syncing across systems, is very fast and standards compliant, has built-in Flash and PDF readers, silent auto-updates, has lots of new technology and is pushing forward the boundaries of web browsing while staying more secure than the competition. I use this application more than anything else installed on my systems. Based on the open source Chromium.
Web Cache: When you meet 404 not found, you may find web cache with this extension.
Hover Zoom: Enlarge thumbnails on mouse over. Works on many sites (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Reddit, Amazon, Tumblr, etc).
Adblock Plus: By preventing the display of ads, Adblock Plus makes browsing the web less taxing on both your computer and your sanity.
Catblock is even better!
While the subject of browsers is being floated, does anyone have any good recommendations on how to sensibly achieve two or more concurrent sets of browser data on the same machine?
I have multiple accounts on a few different sites (for generally benign reasons), and I manage this by having one set of logins/cookies/history on Chrome and one set on Firefox. It's a bit of an elaborate assignment problem, especially if I need to maintain three concurrent active accounts in one place.
It would be extraordinarily helpful to have multiple instances of Chrome on one machine (like a Red Chrome, a Blue Chrome and a Green Chrome), which would allow me to keep them separate, but over a consistent environment.
Firefox has a concept of "profiles" too. (I don't know how effective they are, or if you can have multiple running at once.)
Open the Google Chrome settings page, look for the heading 'Users' and click 'Add New User'.
You can also use Google Chrome Canary, which will be an entirely separate installation of Chrome with its own independent directory.
Thank you.
Correspondingly, Mozilla Firefox.
Similar to Google Chrome/Chromium, and has many of the same features. Each of those two browsers will suit some people better than it suits others, e.g. I always have many many tabs open, and I find that having more than 10 tabs open in Chromium is hard to use (tabs get unreadably small) and eats all my memory, while Firefox is nicer on both of these aspects. (I'm sure other use-cases suit Chrome better.)
(On that note, Firefox has had a bit of a reputation as a slow memory hog compared to Chrome, but that's no longer true.)
Thank you for posting this. I'm a long time Firefox user but lately I've been curious about Chrome. Your recommendation gives me the impetus to try it.
Sparrow
For those who like using native email applications (like Apple Mail etc.) but are frustrated that they don't integrate well with Gmail, Sparrow for Mac and iPhone (an iPad version is currently in development) is something you should definitely check out (they have a Lite version on both platforms). Sparrow provides the best Gmail experience in a native app I have found. The UI is very clean and well thought out. Another nice touch is it's Facebook and Gravatar integration (for contact pictures) and Dropbox integration.
All in all, it's a pleasure to use.
$30 Doorjam pullup bar - a few repetitions per week makes a big difference and take little time or energy. Better design than the old in-doorway bars. Should be prophylactic against hunched-forward computer posture, and helps me feel better in a way that volleyball and soccer don't. I used to gym-weightlift regularly but found it too demoralizing (to approach personal limits and then injure yourself is silly).
I've been thinking about one of those pullup bars, but I'm terrified at the idea of tearing the door frame off and having it and the steel frame come crashing down on top of me. Is this a valid concern?
Mine came with a thin metal shim that slid easily between the wall and doorjam that prevents the unloaded bar-anchor from shifting away from the wall+doorjam. Once the bar is weighted, there's no way that can happen anyway (the shim is really optional and you could improvise similarly with finishing nails).
Worst case realistic scenario: (if you keep the area in a possible crash zone free of spikes and furniture corners) is that you bang up your knee a little. I'm assuming you're just doing pullups, of course.
Now that I've been using 1Password for over a year (probably closer to two), it's become indispensable.
Although it's on the expensive side, I would say its worth every penny. 1Password can store all your passwords, as well as notes and other information like passport, bank account, credit card etcetera. It also has a password generator which I use every time I sign up to a new site/service. With 1Password on my phone, tablet, computer, and in my Dropbox, I have access to all my passwords and other important documents anywhere. They also make plugins for all major browsers that make using 1Password on your computer remarkably easy.
It has simplified a previously annoying part of my digital life, while also making it more secure.
I haven't tried 1Password, but can recommend LastPass unreservedly.
I also consider a password manager essential. I use KeePass, which isn't quite as full featured, but is free/open source (FOSS) and has clients for everything except iOS.
Second the recommendation for KeePass - I've been using it for about a year now.
Echoing the speedreading recommendations here I have some for consuming content at high speed in general.
Specifically educational Audio and Video content (this does not make much sense for enjoyment listening/watching *)
After some training I can easily listen to books at 3x (noting that professionally read books tend to be read on the slow side to start with). Watching video technical lectures at 2x.
There are several tools for this that I use. Audible app for iPhone (and probably Android) allows 3x in the most recent version.
For video I use AVideoHD on the iPad (for any downloaded videos) and on Mac/PC I use MySpeed from http://www.enounce.com/ for YouTube and other streaming video sources. Works great up to 3x, except that some sites can't keep up with that speed.
The nice thing about this optimization is that it requires very little willpower: the brain seems to adjust to higher speeds quite naturally (of course I recommend making the jump slowly, I remember distinctly 3x sounding like gibberish).
I'm planning to try this way of making a standing desk. Only $22, plus a bar stool or something, because I don't think I can stand all day, especially in the beginning.
It works great. I mentioned wanting a standing desk to my boss when I started a month ago, a couple of other people expressed interest, and he bought four of them, including one to use himself. It sits on the desk that's built into my cubicle, my laptop sits on the shelf, and the monitor sits on top. The boss had to send someone to IKEA to get another four.
We might need to get higher cubicle walls, though.
E-book readers such as the Kindle
I use mine way more often than I originally expected. The low weight means I can have it in my bag by default. A lot of content is available in e-book format and it's easy to get onto the device. Reading lengthy articles on it makes me less likely to get distracted by links, email, etc.
The unexpected killer feature for me was that you can use it one-handedly. I've been carrying my sleeping daughter and reading at the same time for hours - that would have been impossible or at least prohibitively uncomfortable with a book.
Tasker (Android app)
Lets you automate many activities on an Android phone. You define a context based on various conditions (e.g. connected to a Wifi network, using certain cell towers, phone spatially oriented a certain way) and various actions to perform upon entering and exiting that context. You can set variables and condition upon them, there is flow control for actions, customisable home screen widgets and shortcuts, and many other neat functions.
Some examples of tasks I use / am pondering:
There's a wiki with lots of downloadable setups you can experiment with for neat results.
I've got tasker, but haven't successfully set it up to do anything. I find all of the layers of menus and terminology confusing and wonder why there isn't a configuration file I can edit by hand.
Yeah, the interface is usually the biggest complaint and I agree it's quite suboptimal. I guess the good bit is once you get something working you don't have to interact with it again until you want to change it.
I haven't tried it myself, but I believe there is a way to write the contexts and tasks in XML files or something similar... you could look that up.
I haven't tried Tasker, but I used Llama for this same purpose, with excellent results. Here's a comparison of the two apps. As of July, 2012 both apps have the same rating on Google Play (4.7 stars).
NeoFinder ($40, but the trial version will probably do what you want, for free)
I spent months trying to find a program that would keep an updated index of the files on my two (very large) NAS drives so I could search them as quickly as I search with Google. I tried almost a dozen programs and Mac hacks, and none of them worked even though several of them should have worked in theory. And then I found NeoFinder, and it worked perfectly. Now I can finally search my NAS drives without waiting 30 minutes for each search to finish.
Hopefully I have now saved at least one person several months of searching. :)
For windows, I use X1 Desktop search.
Suction cup phone windshield holder
If you use your iPhone for music in the car this thing is indispensable. I've used 4 different car mounts and this has been the most convenient to attach and change positions of, as well as the one to go the longest without breaking. The bendy arm makes customizing where it is super easy. The gripper isn't precisely engineered to fit the shape of my phone like some others are but this means that it works a lot better with cases and should theoretically work better with various kinds of phones, and still grips in a perfectly satisfactory way. I've never had my phone fall out.
On a related note I strongly recommend getting bluetooth interface for your phone if you get or make calls in the car often.
Nozbe is, succinctly, a Getting Things Done (GTD) implementation. The service synchronizes with Evernote, Dropbox and Google Calendar. It has all the core functionality you really need and restrains itself from being too complicated. You can synchronize between a PC or Mac application, an in-browser app, and iPhone and iPad and Android apps.
It's not free but it's very reasonable for what you get. I've been using it for a while, after a long series or attempting other solutions, and I strongly advocate it for anybody looking for an integrated "getting organized" solution.
I tried Nozbe and I liked it. I also tried ToodleDo, and I liked it even more. These are probably the top two to-do list apps our there.
People interested in Nozbe may want to also investigate Conqu, a similar app but with different design trade-offs. Various things that I find annoying or broken in Nozbe are not that way in Conqu, and vice versa, and the two have slightly different feature sets and UIs. (Notably: Conqu's app works almost exactly the same on all platforms (given a large enough screen), vs. Nozbe's many slightly different apps.)
Conqu is also cheaper on an individual basis, and can be used for free in an unlimited fashion on any single device: you pay only if you want to be able to sync between devices and email yourself tasks.
CrashPlan for unattended sync or backup. Unlimited cloud storage for $50/year. I switched to CrashPlan from Mozy when the latter changed ownership and became unreliable and useless.
I also use crashplan - to back up my Windows Home Server.
AutoHotkey
I have been using AutoHotkey to do keyboard remapping for more than a year now. It has given me a very significant improvement in typing speed, but more importantly less strain in my fingers.
I do the following remappings:
I don't necessarily expect that everyone will find these remappings useful, but I expect that everyone could benefit from some remappings.
I love PhraseExpress. It basically works like Word's autocorrect, but in all programs. I use it a lot to expand short abbreviations into long text, and to autocorrect typos (e.g. 'kr,.' is converted automatically into "Kind regards, <return><return>My Name", and 'teh' to 'the'). I can use it to quickly enter symbols, too: typing 'kruis,.' for example, pops up a menu with different cross-like symbols: ☓, †, ✚, etc. (kruis is Dutch for cross). It can do more - like remapping keys - but these are the functions I use. You can use it to type diacritics too; I normally use the US International keyboard for that, but there is one annoying program I sometimes need to use where that doesn't always work. PE is free for non-commercial use.
Seconded. When I was on Windows I used AutoHotKey like a boss.
I made the entire numpad the boss key (show desktop). :-D
Wow. You must REALLY like surfing for your unauthorized entertainment!
I don't care much about typing speed, but I find hitting wrong keys very annoying, so I simply pull off the keys I never use, like CapsLock and Insert. Works equally well on Mac, Windows and Linux, no special software required :)
I usually pull off the insert and "Windows" keys and most of the keys from the numpad, leaving enough for a second set of arrow keys and not much more.
TaskRabbit. I kept expecting there to be something wrong with it. There just isn't. You set up a suitably-customizable task (I've used it to get groceries delivered and IKEA furniture assembled) and people bid on it trying to hit under your hidden maximum. You pay through the site after they do the job. Lovely bit of economy-flattening.
My experience was meh at best. Taskrabbit wasn't available in DC until pretty recently, so I only used it for research tasks. One of them gave me what I needed in a convenient way but was sloppy about it (looked up things in DC but not equally close ones in Maryland, and didn't account for time zones when sending me calendar invitations, which I found out by showing up an hour late for an appointment).
Others seemed like they didn't read the task description very closely, and looked for things satisfying their preferences, not my stated preferences (for example, I said I cared more about saving time than money, and they recommended a service done by students where the main draw is that it's cheap and supervised by experienced professionals).
And one used Yelp to look stuff up and made phone calls that weren't answered, and gave up instead of sending emails or trying again or trying a different search method.
So I spent some money, but didn't save much time or effort. Probably it's better for tasks like "Bring object X from point A to point B."
Yeah, I've mostly used it for "bring groceries to my house" and "assemble my furniture".
Those seem like they'd be harder to misunderstand, and less tempting to cut corners on.
UPDATE: "bring groceries to my house" is now a specialty of Instacart. "Assemble my furniture" turned out okay, though "put privacy film on my windows" didn't, nor did "mail a bunch of books for me." Oddly, "make me a Superintelligence costume" turned out well.