Better Living Through Minimalism

Windows Visual Effects Kill Your Computer's Performance

2009-07-23T14:49:00.000-04:00

Windows XP struck a good balance between performance and visuals. Vista remains unpopular both in sales and in public opinion two an a half years after release because the overdone visual effects pose little practical purpose yet weigh down a computer's resources. The same holds true for XP. You might be surprised how much better your PC runs with limited visual effects. I didn't notice anything visually different yet my computer now feels lightning fast. 'Fade' effects only delay window movements for aesthetic value.

Head over to:
Start-> Control Panel-> System-> Advanced-> Performance
and click Settings. You can also hit Windows Key+Pause/Break

You will be selecting your own set of customized visual effects.

You can, box by box, deselect the visual flairs that XP comes packaged with. Keep in mind that the less effects you select the more power will be left for actual computing. My computer only has those five boxes checked in the screenshot above and it looks and runs much better because of it. I recommend deselecting one at a time and making sure you are alright without each individual effect. 'Animate windows when minimizing/maximizing' is an effect you will not miss.

Facebook Lists: Streamline Your Page

2009-06-27T08:52:00.007-04:00

If you've been wasting a lot of time searching through your News Feed on Facebook, you are going to love this feature. My "Homepage" on Facebook is usually strewn with people I don't know well enough to have an interest in their updates. Often times, I scroll to the bottom of the page and don't see a single update of a close friend. Cue lists:

In the upper corner, notice the "+Create" button:

It'll bring you to this page (I've removed names):

The criteria you choose for this list can be anything--the only list I currently have is the 35 people I know the best. Now, my homepage displays the status updates of everyone I care most about.

Once your list is created, it'll show up with your "feeds".

You can hit that little pencil any time you'd like to add or remove someone from your list. Make sure to click and drag it to the top of the list if you want this to always load as your homepage:

To edit your lists differently, head to the Friends page. You can also delete lists from the Friends page.

This is a very quick way to effectively decrease wasted time on the site. You can also use lists in Facebook Chat to limit who you speak with.

Part 2: Lists Make Privacy Easier to Control

Head over to Settings in the upper-right corner of your page and click Privacy Settings.

Click Profile.

In this example, you can create a list of people who you'd like to restrict from seeing your tagged photos. You can also restrict people from seeing your videos, status updates, and even your basic information.

It's safe to put your mobile number on Facebook because you can navigate to the Contact tab and select your list of Friends/Family to be the only people who can see it. The same holds true for your address.

Ten Essential Windows and Firefox Shortcuts

2009-06-25T16:50:00.006-04:00

Once you've taken steps to physically speed up your computer, there are still small steps you can take to speed up your computing experience. Practicing touch-typing, memorizing shortcut keys, and organizing your files for easier access are all great ways to enjoy your computer more. You will accomplish more yet spend less time at the computer.

I'd like to share my favorite Windows and Firefox shortcuts. The idea is to keep your hands on the keyboard and spend less time fiddling with your mouse.

Useful Windows Shortcuts:

Windows Key + D will minimize all windows and bring up the desktop. Very useful.
Alt+F4 will close whatever program/window currently has focus. When you've minimized to the desktop, hit Alt+F4+S to put your computer into Standby. Alt+F4+U will shut down your computer.
Windows Key by itself will bring up the Start Menu. This one is simple and will make you feel much more efficient.
Alt + TAB is great if you tend to have many programs running at once. It displays the open programs and allows you to switch between them instantly.
Ctrl + A will select all the text in an open window, or all the files in an open folder. This is great for moving all the files from a folder efficiently, or deleting all the files within a folder or text within a document fast and easily. If you want to select a group of files except for a few, hit Ctrl + A and continue to hold Ctrl as you click the few files you don't want highlighted.

Here is the complete list from Microsoft.

Favorite Firefox Shortcuts:

Ctrl + F is one of the best shortcut keys to have memorized. After hitting this you can immediately search within a body of text. This is essential to being an efficient web-surfer. Once you've entered a search, tapping Enter will cycle through your results. Alt + A will highlight all the results. Hitting Esc will end the search.
Ctrl + T will open a new Tab--memorize this one for sure. Ctrl + Shift + T will open the last tab you closed, great for backtracking if you accidentally closed the window. This shortcut key alone really validates Tab-based browsing. Ctrl + W closes a tab.
Ctrl + K will bring the focus to the search in the upper-right corner. I have mine set to search Wikipedia. Ctrl + E does the same thing.
Alt + D or F6 brings the focus to the address bar of your current tab. Another great time-saver. You can immediately enter a new address that you'd like to surf to.
Middle Mouse Button (or Wheel) + Hyperlink should open a link in a new tab. This can be an incredibly useful tool.

For fun... F11 will make Firefox full screen. Good for large websites, if you'd like to look at something without the distraction of the address bar/toolbars at the top of the screen.

Here is Mozilla's complete list of Firefox shortcuts.

These ten shortcuts alone will make your computer feel much faster--without tweaking your computer at all. When your hands can quickly and automatically communicate through the keyboard what you'd like to do, you seriously enjoy navigating around the web.

Touch Typing: Increasing Your Typing Speed

2009-06-25T16:00:00.009-04:00

The faster one can communicate ideas onto a computer screen, the more enjoyable web-browsing and writing becomes. If you'd like to spend a little time practicing touch typing, Keybr has an interesting way to improve your brain's connection to your digits. The interface is refreshing and sleek compared to other touch typing programs I've seen. Dvorak, Colemak, and UK keyboard configurations are available, as well as language support for German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, and Russian.

Keybr is a challange because it strings syllables together so you are forced to type words that look like your language, but aren't. Your brain has to work harder to type. The onscreen keyboard also highlights your most mistake-prone letters, allowing you to consciously improve your skills.

Make sure to try the custom text option--copy and paste any text to practice with. While doing this, I was struck with the idea that I could both read an article and practice typing at the same time. I had copied and pasted text from a Wikipedia article. This free site really performs a dual purpose.

Getting a Free College Education Online

2009-06-24T04:14:00.014-04:00

There's always time to learn more and improve oneself. There are a growing number of free opportunities to continue one's education online through both college (.edu) sites and through a few surprising third-party sources.

~ MIT, yes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a free program called OpenCourseWare. They provide a direct look into their materials, lectures, and layouts of entire majors. For as long as this site exists, I will be exploring the classes they provide. The concept of a free college education warms my heart.

~ Tufts University offers a similar Open Course Ware program. Not as large as MIT's program, but, it's still free!

~ UC Berkeley offers both video and audio links to lectures on various courses. Again, a limited selection is offered.

~ Utah State University has the Open Course Ware format. Hopefully they will add more courses in the future.

~ Academic Earth has the same format as Hulu but is entirely composed of video lectures from reputable colleges. For once, watching videos online is not a waste of time.

~ YouTube.com/Edu came out of nowhere. Not as scholarly as Academic Earth, but it is still a great source of college-level material. Search 'Lecture' + the course of interest if you'd like to see mostly college course videos.

Sitting in on these lectures without the stresses of note-taking, assignments, or tests, I feel like I retain more information. It's genuinely fun to "take" courses that are far outside of my college major.

It is my sincere hope that more people consider learning to be a form of entertainment. The most influential and brilliant people in the world spent great amounts of time in libraries; I hope that having universal free access to collegiate libraries helps us become a more intelligent and compassionate people.

Navigating Wikipedia

2009-06-21T01:57:00.010-04:00

When you aren't looking for a specific article, navigating through Wikipedia can become a serious time-waster and form of entertainment. Here are a few small suggestions if you've yet to try out the site as a form of entertainment.

Portals serve as introductory pages into larger topics. They make a good first step when you are learning about a subject for recreation. The directory of portals is the complete list of all the portals on Wikipedia.

Current Events is a bare-bones source for news. It links to WikiNews, which seeks to meld mainstream news sources into unbiased reports of current events.

If you'd really like to squeeze Wikipedia for all it has to offer, make sure probe every nook and cranny of the site. Pressing the "Random Article" button on the top left part of the site (or alt+shift+x when you're on a Wiki page) always produces strange and interesting results. This command will direct you to any article among the 3 million existing English articles.

Stumble Upon: Channel Surfing the Internet

2009-06-21T00:09:00.008-04:00

Stumble Upon is a Firefox and Internet Explorer add-on that can effectively turn you into an Internet junkie. Press the Stumble button and you are whisked to a website that is tailored to your interests.

Be careful. You can become addicted to pressing this button. Websites can be given a thumbs-up, thumbs-down, and can be reviewed. Your reviews are kept together on your personal page as both a history and your own websurfing blog. Millions of people tag, review, and investigate the internet each day--therein lies the addictive quality of the button. New content is added by the second, and through browsing you become part of the Stumblemachine. The site is constantly working to connect you and your interests to other people and their interests. This creates what feels like a collective Stumble-consciousness that always delivers great content; tag, review, and connect to websites that you love. This helps others to find what they love.

As you set up your free profile, you select from over 100 topics and subtopics that interest you. My Stumble button directs me to websites about green energy, astronomy, architecture, technology, philosophy, psychology, photography, film/filmmaking, and about forty other topics. You can also enter interests that are not included on their list.

The Stumble toolbar comes with the option to 'StumbleThru' a set of websites. This is particularly useful if you are in a mood to watch videos, or read news.

You can also have your Stumble button show you websites relating to a very specific topic that you enter manually:

A search for "George W. Bush" directed me to:

http://www.goodnightbush.com/librarium/

and a satirical news snippet from The Onion.

Stumbling has brought me laughs, gorgeous photographs, and a sense that the Internet is infinite and endlessly interesting. It has become an integral part in how I use the Web in my free time.

Reorganizing Your Start Menu

2009-06-18T19:07:00.018-04:00

When I realized that I was wasting time staring at my unorganized programs menu, I set out to make my menu as simple as possible. This process can be frustrating and might take time to complete, but the results are wonderful. Here is my Start and All Programs menus after I finished organizing:

The first thing you must realize is that these are simply shortcut files. Deleting them or moving them has no effect on the programs that they point to. Open your start menu and right click the blue area and click properties to begin.

Click customize.

You can choose to have large or small icons. The first picture of this post shows what the small icons look like. Decreasing "Number of programs on start menu" to zero will prevent your Start Menu from displaying programs that you don't choose. Now, you are in complete control of the programs displayed on your Start Menu.

At this point you can drag and drop the shortcut files that you want to your start menu from your "All Programs" list.

If you'd like to take a risk with your All Programs menu, continue reading. This can be very, very frustrating if you are not careful.

Your "All Programs" list can be perfected. Access to programs on your computer will feel more natural and streamlined. For each program folder on the All Programs list, drag the link of the bare program out of the folder.

It might look like this before:

And after:

If all that remains in the folder is an Uninstall link or links you will never use, feel free to delete the folder. Now the link for QuickTime is sitting on your All Programs list and is not buried in a folder. If the remaining folder does contain links you might use, head to:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs

If there are other users on your computer:

C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Start Menu\Programs

From this Start Menu\Programs folder you can refine your menu further, creating new folders or burying less-used items within one folder. Mine is called "Unused". Once the menu is set up the way you like, simply right click any part of the All Programs menu and select Sort by Name. Viola, alphabetized!

I highly recommend taking control of your Start Menu and All Programs menu. Having a straightforward and easily navigable list of your programs is both aesthetically pleasing and time-efficient.

If a link stops working, right click it and hit properties. Redirect the link to the correct executable (.exe) file.

I hope you are able to enjoy your computer more because of this technique!

CCleaner: Essential Freeware for a Fast Computer

2009-06-18T18:32:00.004-04:00

Your computer collects quite a lot of digital dust as you search around the internet. The freeware program CCleaner is a fantastic way to keep both your browser and your computer running well. It takes about 5 to 10 seconds to run and the latest version of the program is only 3.1 MB.

Download it from: Download.com or FileHippo.

Before you run the program for the first time, head over to 'Options' on the left column. Click 'cookies'. Add your favorite websites to the list of 'Cookies to Keep'. This way, your favorite websites and potentially your saved passwords won't get erased each time you run CCleaner. Mine include Amazon.com, YouTube.com, Imdb.com, Flickr.com, Mail.Google.com (Gmail), and Maps.Google.com (Google Maps).

How to Defragment Your Hard Drive

2009-06-16T13:13:00.017-04:00

Imagine that your hard drive is similar to your local library. Each file on your computer corresponds to a book. As people check out books, they are not returned to their correct shelves. In fact, people just leave them laying around the library. Over time, it becomes harder and harder for new library-goers to find the books they need.

Similarly, files on your hard drive are not always returned to the same spot when you are finished using them because they are returned to spots where deleted files might have been before.

The image above shows how pieces of information can become separated. This is called file system fragmentation or file system aging. Your computer must work harder to access files or groups of files that are strewn across your hard drive. The disk defragmenter can 'reorganize' your hard drive.

Go to:
Start-> All Programs ->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Defragmenter

You will not need to use this tool very often. I run the disk defragmenter once a month or less. Hit 'analyze' when you have your main drive selected (here it's the C drive). A message will indicate whether or not you need to defragment.

I strongly suggest that you leave this running before you go to bed. It takes much longer to run if you are using other programs. Depending on how fragmented your drive is, the process can take 2 to 8 hours with Windows XP. Defraggler is a freeware program that has more functionality and works a bit faster than the default Windows tool, feel free to use it as an alternative.

An occasional defrag will keep your hard drive in good shape.

iTunes Smart Playlists: Rediscovering Your Library

2009-06-16T12:27:00.017-04:00

A large music library is a headache. iTunes Smart Playlists are the perfect tool to navigate through your music and rediscover old favorites.

Open iTunes, click File -> New Smart Playlist.
Or, simply hit Ctrl+Alt+N.

A near-infinite number of options are possible. Smart Playlists search within existing tag information in your library. In the example below, iTunes will show me 25 folk songs in my library that came out in the 90's.

Smart Playlists also allow you to be selective about how long songs are. You can keep your playlists free of pesky short tracks and extra-long songs, too. You could, in theory, make a Smart Playlist of incredibly long songs or incredibly short songs.

Perhaps you are trying to make a mix for an audio CD and you are also an audiophile like me:

Lastly, if you've been looking for music in your library that you've neglected, use the 'play count' qualifier. A song's Play Count is increased each time a song is finished. So by simply selecting "Play Count is zero" you are telling iTunes to select from all the songs in your library that you haven't listened to.

There is much fun to be had with iTunes Smart Playlists. You might find that setting up criteria for auto-playlists is just as fun as making your own mixes.

Barack Obama and Technology: A 21st Century President

2009-06-01T18:22:00.000-04:00

History will remember President Obama as the first African-American president. He mobilized the largest movement of young voters the United States has seen, surprisingly, by connecting with them online. He joined every major social network, allowing 18 to 25-year-olds (and their younger teenage siblings) to identify with him personally. At a subconscious level, this indicated that Obama understood the youngest voting block and that his presidency would reflect our technological culture and economy.

Exhibit A

facebook.com/barackobama

(Click for full image)

Facebook is MySpace's successor, the web locale where high school and college students complain about school and make new friends. The messaging system acts as a second e-mail, while statuses inform friends of recent happenings in their lives. Links, videos, and pictures are swapped with ease. By joining Facebook, news of Obama's potential historic presidency quickly spread through college campuses and high schools.

Exhibit B

myspace.com/barackobama

Myspace's frustrating HTML layouts and comment spam (often linking to viruses) were its ultimate downfall. Facebook is more uniform, professional, and family-oriented. Obama still joined Myspace, however, reaching the demographic of younger people who have shied away from making Facebook profiles. Again, there's something fascinating about "friending" a politician who wants your vote--a digital handshake. It felt good to be one of his 5 million "fans" on Facebook and one of his 1 million friends on Myspace.

Exhibit C
twitter.com/barackobama

Twitter is the new kid on the block, filling the I-Want-Information-Now niche in the networking universe. Individuals from every metropolitan area in the country exchange links and succinct wit. With a strict 140-character limit on posts ("tweets"), the site provides the same status-update feature that is available on Myspace and Facebook. The speed that information, news, and irrelevant whining spreads is maxed out.

Obama currently has 1.8 million followers on Twitter.

Exhibit D

Free iTunes Podcasts (Link will open iTunes)

Again, this is fulfills an important niche. The iTunes store is a quick way to download music and videos legally. Podcasts are the next frontier of radio and are an underappreciated resource. Wikipedia's current definition:

"A podcast is a series of digital computer files, usually either digital audio or video, that is released periodically and made available for download by means of web syndication."

During the election, those looking to become familiar with Obama could watch and listen to town hall meetings and speeches he'd made. Ultimately, this brought the world a step closer to him and communicated his interest in being the candidate of an intelligent, well-informed electorate.

Exhibit E

BlackPlanet.com/Barack_Obama | MiGente.com/Barack_Obama | AsianAve.com/Barack_Obama

BlackPlanet, MiGente ("My People"), and AsianAve are for the black, hispanic, and asian communities, respectfully. Obama's presence on these sites brought him community-specific familiarity, representing him as a candidate that is empathetic to American minorities. This is where his campaign truly shined: he showed great concern for individual communities, not just the public as a whole. People who hadn't voted in decades stood in line for hours to vote.

What Next?
Flickr.com/Whitehouse

Seeing the Whitehouse "Photostream" on Flickr is a joy. Flickr is a community for aspiring and professional photographers to share ideas and display their work. In the coming month(s) the profile will reach its 1000th photo. The warmth that the photography brings to the Obamas is both vivid and surreal.

Looking Forward

January 20th, 2009, the Obama team made the decision that solidified Obama as the first true technologically-aware President of the Internet age.

YouTube.com/Whitehouse

YouTube is very popular around the world; a whitehouse "channel" can only bring us closer to the executive branch. Why not present politics as entertainment? Why not learn to like the political process? Why not enjoy the process? I see a generation of children identifying with their president as a person because of his presence online--the realization that politics are central to being human. Engaging young people in political discussion instills the values necessary for a sound, honest government in the future.

Check out BarackObama.com, too.