Life, Defragged

Micro-rental, a new neighborly concept!

efficienthuman — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:58:51 +0000

It’s about time something like this came out. I think this idea is brilliant although I have yet to use it. This site was sent to me by @johnyi today, so thanks for the heads-up. Snapgoods provides a service that allows you to rent out electronics, tools and other household items that you own but don’t need every day. Alternatively, you can rent those same items that you don’t have yet don’t need or want to buy.

Scheduling group activities made easy!

efficienthuman — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:35:01 +0000

If you have not already noticed, I am a fan of efficiency and all of the online tools and apps that promote that. Doodle is definitely one of those tools. This application allows you to easily get a group of people to schedule a meeting, event or gathering without the hassle of the manual phone calls or back and forth emails. With Doodle, everyone can go in and select all of the possible dates that they are available and the organizer can then choose a date that suits everyone the best. Hello efficiency, I love you.

Hi-Tech Cafe Food!

efficienthuman — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:29:40 +0000

For a techie geek like me, the Specialty’s online ordering system has to be the next best thing since sliced bread… oh and you can find sliced bread there too. Specialty’s is a solid cafe where you can find amazing soups, salads, sandwiches an to-die-for cookies. You can not only place your order online but you can edit your sandwich and customize the caloric value for each item by adding or removing ingredients. Once you have placed your order, paid and determined when you will pick it up, you just head on over and your food is waiting for you in a bag in a bin that is tagged with a letter that is associated with your last name. Awesome. Also, in the store, you can place your order via computer kiosks in the same manner and even assign yourself a pager that lets you know when your food is ready. This saves time and grief of having to interact with another human…. kidding, I actually love humans.

Managing your finances online – easy as cake!

efficienthuman — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:20:53 +0000

Mint.com is an online and mobile application built for those of us that don’t want to buy or learn how to use Quickbooks. This has to be one of my favorite new finds. Mint.com links up to your bank accounts, credit card account, investment accounts and any loans you might have. At the end of each month you can use Mint.com to provide detailed reports on your spending habits using easy to read graphs and charts. You can use this financial tool to help manage your spending, save money, pay of debt and get on a realistic budget. The first month can be a little scary once you realize you spent half your money on food or clothes so be prepared.

Want an app that can help you avoid traffic?

efficienthuman — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:07:23 +0000

I know it must seem as though I have a Google obsession and well, you’re right. I feel like Sergey and Larry have put a lot of thought into making life easier and I would like to pass on this wonderful gem to you. Most people are aware that they now get Google maps with almost every mobile device on the market today. What most people don’t realize is that you can check real-time traffic conditions from your phone. Your mobile device can use its GPS to find your location and then show you via color codes just how bad or good the traffic is on the route you are taking or the route you intend to take. I can’t tell you how many times I have taken the detour, side streets or an altogether different route due to this feature. The green lines on the route mean everything is A-OK and traffic is moving 55 MPH and over. Yellow means traffic is moving 25 – 55MPH and the red lines can mean anywhere from 0 – 15 MPH. When you see long lines of red above it might be a good idea to find an alternate route.

Real time Muni & BART locations

efficienthuman — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:00:14 +0000

Routesy is another little trick I use to save me grief at the train station wondering if I missed my train and when I can expect the next one. Routesy uses GPS to find your exact location and allows you to search for the specific line of Muni or BART, letting you know when the next train should arrive to your location. You can easily plan your trip and time-line with this app and save time standing at the station.

Buying music on a budget

efficienthuman — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 05:50:24 +0000

Want to buy quality Mp3s without having to break your bank? 99 cents per song can add up fast. Legalsounds is a site that has the legal right under the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society to distribute music via the internet for your personal use. Now, I am not really clear as to what this means if I use this and I am based in the US but from what I can tell, it’s totally legal. The great thing about legalsounds is that the songs are .09 cents a song instead of almost a dollar. Now you can get 10 songs for the price you pay for one on iTunes. This is one of my gems that keeps my iTunes full of new music.

Splitting a dinner check is no longer painful

efficienthuman — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:44:01 +0000

Have you ever been out to dinner with a large group and everyone has a card and the waiter says, “Sorry, we have a three card maximum?” Well PayPal has come up with a solution to not only splitting the check fairly but also getting paid. With their new app called split the check, users can enter the total bill amount, the amount of tip, number of people to split and then the person paying can either collect the money instantly by bumping the phone of another customer of paypal with their app open or they can request the money then and there through the app. This can save friendships.

Look at me when I’m talking to you, online!

efficienthuman — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:32:55 +0000

Tokbox is like Skypes younger cousin. A little bit faster, cooler and has more functionality. Tokbox is a video chat client that allows you either chat with one friend or many friends. it looks like they recently changed their business model from a consumer marketing plan to a business marketing plan and they charge you once you want to chat with more than one person. The thing I like about tokbox is that you can video conference and also send video mail. Skype does not allow video conferencing, only audio conference which is basically just a conference call over VOIP <–a phone via the computer. If you want to keep in touch, this is the answer.

RSS me please!

efficienthuman — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:24:24 +0000

How much time do you spend in the morning when you get to work visiting each of your favorite websites to read the hot new story, see the brand new game or get the latest celebrity gossip. If your answer is anything more than zero than RSS and more importantly RSS feeds posted to your iGoogle home page will save you time and most importantly your job. RSS feeds are a way in which you can subscribe to your favorite websites and instead of you going to them to see if they have posted something new, they come to you and let you know. You can subscribe to as many sites as you want. You can also sign up for an iGoogle home page and have your RSS feeds posted as small boxes on one page so that you can easily scan through and see if any of your favorite sites not only have new post but also if the posts are worth opening up to read the whole story. You can thank me for this later when you get a raise for increased productivity due to less web browsing.