All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

Lifehack

[VZW] Migrate your contacts to a new cellphone with Backup Assistant

In Cell Phone, Lifehack, Tip on 5 August 2007 with no comments

If you use Verizon Wireless and their online service, My Account, you can use Backup Assistant for free!

As a My Account member, Back-Up Protection will let you automatically retain a copy of your saved phone numbers to a secure web site, so they’re always available if you lose or upgrade your phone.

I love that it updates everyday at my specified time. When it was time to upgrade my phone, it was painless.

Get it. Use it.

Note: If you have more than one phone number for a contact, it doesn’t retain the default number you use for your contacts. Extremely minor, though.

How to empty your brain on the road

In GTD, Lifehack, Productivity on 16 March 2007 with no comments

I love my iRiver iFP-899. I love how I can record lectures, take ‘em home, speed ‘em up in Audacity, then listen to them at a later date to review.

I can take this further by using it whenever I can’t write! You don’t even know the freedom you’ll feel when you’re allowed to ramble aimlessly. (To an extent, of course.) My mind wanders while I’m driving, and I love that I can just press “Record” and voice my thoughts. When I can write, I’ll listen to my recordings and get them down on paper.

If you don’t have a digital or analog (cassette tape) recorder, try Braincast. (via LifeHack.org) The only problem I see with this is that you’re using cell phone minutes — in my opinion, that’s a mental block.

Need ideas for your mind dump? Print out the trigger list taken from “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity“.

If you don’t want to look weird while you’re talking to yourself, use a Bluetooth ear piece or one of your two earbuds. Personally, I don’t mind. Well, maybe a little.

How I keep track of photos to upload

In Lifehack, Photography on 14 March 2007 with no comments

Background: I sort my photos on my hard drive by date. Pictures\yyyy\yyyy-mm-dd\*.jpg. I don’t tag them or label them. If I ever look at my photos, I do that at Flickr.

Disclaimer: This is a incredibly small “hack”. It probably won’t blow your mind, but it’s one less thing to think about.

If I’m a few days behind in uploading photos to my Flickr account, and I finally get a chance to look through my photos, it’s tough to remember what day I need to start on. My solution — add a plus (+) at the end of the folder name. If you put it at the beginning of the folder name, it’ll sort that folder to the top of the list. This way, it’s inline with the regular ordering, except for the plus sign making it stand out ever so slightly.

Hack your cell phone to save minutes

In Cell Phone, Lifehack, Money on 7 August 2006 with 5 comments

I went a few minutes over on my cell phone plan this month. Fortunately, my billing cycle starts over tomorrow. I went wrong because I had long conversations with people who I knew didn’t have Verizon Wireless IN calling, and I had access to a landline phone or Skype.

Optional step, but highly recommended

I suggest going through your contacts list and writing “VZW IN” or “Not VZW” in another column. (I have Palm Desktop, so I was adding this manually.) If you have any doubt that a contact might not have Verizon Wireless, I found a gem: the “Are your friends and family IN?” phone number lookup!

I made up the name.

Main step

For the people who you know do not use Verizon Wireless, add a plus (+) after their name. You can use any symbol you want, but on my LG VX8100, the plus sign is on my first page of the symbols list.

That’s it.

When these friends/relatives/coworkers call, and you see a plus after their name, you can selectively call them back right away on a landline/Skype, or answer and make sure the conversation remains short.

I have no idea if there’s a phone lookup service for other cell phone providers to see if they’re on the same network. I’m pretty stoked Verizon Wireless has this.

Can you digg it!?! (No really, I’d love to say I got dugg once!)

Update: Welcome Lifehackers! Thanks for granting my wish and posting this, Adam.

Store water in your trunk

In Lifehack on 20 July 2006 with no comments

I saw Taking Back Sunday, Angels and Airwaves, and Head Automatica with Dave and Darren last night. (By the way, they were all amazing.) The night before, we had our show at The Whisky.

What did I finally figure out after going to all these concerts? Bring water!

Buy a case of water on your next trip to the grocery store and leave ‘em in your trunk. They’re only $4-5 for 24 bottles. That’s $0.17-0.21/bottle!

Of course, this isn’t only for concert goers, but rather for anyone that goes anywhere under the sun. Take that further by bringing a small cooler and reusable cold packs to chill a couple bottles, too. Save money, and you won’t feel the need to stop at a convenience store afterwards.

I’m going to see another live band this Friday, and we have another show next Monday - I’m positive I’ll thank myself later.

Using a Post-it with ATM cards

In Lifehack on 23 March 2006 with 7 comments

On Sunday, I had a brilliant idea. I was going to CPK on Sunday with Pete and some other friends, and knowing I’d use my ATM card, I decided that I didn’t want to worry the waiter about how much money goes with what card. So, I stuck a Post-it on the card, folded it over, and stuck it in my wallet. When it came time to pay, I just wrote the amount on the Post-it and handed it over.

This’ll definitely come in handy when you’re with a big group of people and you’re not the only one using a card.

Travel Packing Advice

In Asides, Lifehack, Travel on 9 August 2005 with no comments

Mel posted a bunch of links pertaining to travel and packing stuff. I’m going to look through a few of these because I’ll be taking a short-distance 3-day trip on Labor Day weekend, and I hate it when I have too much stuff to carry into our hotel/motel.

Quick T-Shirt folding

In Asides, Lifehack, Tip on 5 August 2005 with 2 comments

I don’t know if I saw this before, but this amazingly-fast method of folding a T-shirt finally clicked. Just note where the hands are, and where they grab on the shirt. In the video, the right hand is by the collar and the left is in a straight line where you want the bottom of the fold to be. This is wicked! See the short flash video (Source: Tricks of the Trade)

In Case of Emergency

In Life, Lifehack on 20 July 2005 with 1 comment

If you’ve got a mobile phone, please implement ICE. (Golf clap: Steve Bass)

Handwriting tips

In Asides, Lifehack, Tip on 23 May 2005 with no comments

These handwriting tips caught my eye, because I don’t think my handwriting is any good. I hate writing, and love typing. I’d like to be able to write legibly quickly and effortlessly - a quality I can’t say I have at the moment. I’ll give it a go. (Golf clap: The Indiana Jones School of Management)