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Beep-boop-boop, beep-boop-boop-beep. Ring. Ring. "Welcome to Jott. Who do you want to Jott?" "Google Calendar." "Beep." "Meet Dave for lunch at Panera tomorrow at 12:30." In much the same way you can add Google Calendar entries via SMS, now you can do the same thing with your voice...
A few months ago—after I decided that assembling a treadmill desk was beyond the scope of what I was willing to do to get exercise in the office—I decided to switch out my office chair for an exercise ball. I had heard good reports from people who had tried it, so I went on Amazon and p...
Designed for Palm Centro and Treo users, PhoneSwitch will redirect your smartphone to any installed program -- including the last app you were using -- after you hang up a call. That means if an incoming call interrupted whatever you were doing (checking e-mail, playing a game, etc.), PhoneSwitch wi...
Oh, happy day. Gmail just added a fantastic new feature: colored labels. It might not sound like a big deal, but for anyone who relies on labels for organizing their mail, it's a major improvement. To assign a color, just mouse over any label, click the little arrow that appears, and then choos...
Are you easily distracted? HEY, I'M TALKING TO YOU, PAY ATTENTION! It's okay, I understand: It's all too easy for your brain to get pulled off task, what with e-mail and instant messages to answer, incredibly interesting blogs to read, and other daily diversions. ProductivityPortfolio suggests using...
A typical office worker gets 126 non-spam messages per day and spends over a quarter of a day managing his inbox, according to a recent (free!) Wall Street Journal article. If you (out of necessity or compulsion) have to check your email box on demand, there are a few new products coming out t...
You meet with clients to talk business. You meet with your boss to discuss performance. You meet with co-workers to manage projects. But do you ever meet with yourself? Lifehack.org thinks you should consider scheduling a "personal appointment," a block of time when you do nothing but address five ...
Remember Yapta, the site that helps you get a refund on airfare if the rate drops after you buy your tickets? There's a new Firefox-compatible version of the service's browser plug-in (previously Internet Explorer-only), which lets you "tag" flights you want to monitor. Here's how it works: Yapta's...
Do you maintain a different hard-drive folder for each client? If so, each one probably contains the same sub-folders: billing, projects, notes, and so on. Instead of creating this batch of sub-folders from scratch every time you add a new client, Productivity501 recommends creating a template fol...
Google just took the wraps off a new version of Google Maps for mobile phones. The big news? It's now location-aware, meaning you can use it to pinpoint your current location. Previously, you had to enter your location manually, which wasn't always possible if, um, you didn't know it. (Consequently,...
Out of the box, the iPhone can't double as a wireless modem for your notebook. (Heck, even my $99 Palm Centro can do that!) Would you even want it to, though, given its reliance on AT&T's pokey EDGE network? Well, when there's no Wi-Fi hotspot to be found, pokey Internet access is better than no...
As we've noted before here on Business Hacks, a quick recall is often an important asset in business. Not only does memorizing a bunch of names of people you just met make them feel happy, they might also think it's an indicator that you have other sorts of smarts, as well. If the picture-their-na...
If you run a home-based business or small office, security is undoubtedly a concern. Instead of spending a medium-sized fortune on a fancy alarm system, you could try Mobiscope. It allows you to stream live video from your Webcam to your mobile phone. Even better, it can record any motion it detects...
A few years back, I conducted Palm training sessions for various business groups. I always opened with a joke -- a corny one, admittedly, but it always got a laugh and helped set the tone for the entire presentation. One time, at a particularly early session, I was tired and didn't feel like telling...
As you may have read in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Google may start offering free Web-based storage in the near future. Of course, savvy users have long been leveraging Gmail for exactly that purpose. Wait a sec -- how can you use an e-mail service for data storage?! Webware's got th...
