el·e·ga·tion: being highly effective, yet simple
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Google Chrome Video [Google]
Using google chrome is an enjoyable experience. Its simple, clean, quick, and it works. This video captures some of these feelings.
via Lifehacker
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Madison Yard Sales [Mashup of Google Maps and Craigslist]
Its yard-sale season. The website yardsaletreasuremap.com works for mapping out all the yard sales posted on craiglist overtop google maps mashup .
It is very useful in helping which neighborhoods have the sales going on, some areas of town have better garage sales than others.
Its also useful in that you can plan and organize your day with step by step google map directions . Overall, the visualization of the craigslist data on google maps portrays much more information, much quicker than craigslist , or a newspaper alone! I highly recommend the Yard Sale Treasure Map .
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Google Sync for iPhone Calendar, vs NuevaSync
... NOTE: BEFORE THE SYNC, MAKE SURE TO BACK UP YOUR CONTACTS ...
It may be a bit late, but I'm jumping on the bandwagon. Bottom line -- I cut out the middle man and went directly to Google Sync for the iPhone Calendar .
I'm making the transition from the fast -- pocket paper calendar to Google Calendar. The problem is that I have the old iPhone , with the edge network, and the Web Application is just not fast enough for me.
Google Sync for the iPhone works well and only took about 5 minutes to set up.
I have seen NuevaSync work well with my coworkers, and it has some functionality that Google Sync does not. NuevaSync connects your iPhone native calendar to gcal through a 3rd party, and it allows for >5 Calendar support. Yeraze blogs about it here:
Breakdown
Feature NuevaSync GoogleSync Bidirectional sync Y Y Calendar Support Y Y Contact Support Y Y Average download time 10-15min <5min Average upload time <1min <1min Support for “other” phone #’s Y N Push Mail N N
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GTD: Google Tasks for iPhone
Google Tasks for iGoogle and Gmail for the past 2 weeks has worked pretty well. It is easily accessible from both hospitals where I spend most of my time at work. The easy to use and quick list-maker has passed the usability test --so far.
The next step is to try it out on the iPhone . I found the following links helpful:
Gmail Blog explains that the most important competitor for Google Tasks is paper (I remember a similar statement regarding Google Calendar). "Among the world's leading productivity tools is an advanced technology known as paper. Many of the world's top corporations and most active internet users have adopted paper as a method of organizing their daily lives. (...) When we set out to build Tasks (now in Gmail Labs), one of our goals was to improve upon paper. With the version of Tasks in Gmail, we focused on making editing very fast and simple -- as close to paper as we could."
Google has just announced a new way to manage your Gmail Tasks from your mobile device or your iGoogle homepage.
First, you'll want to have enabled the new Tasks feature in Gmail Labs. Then, from your iPhone or other mobile device, just navigate to
http://gmail.com/tasksto view, add, edit, or complete your tasks.If you want to add the Tasks gadget to iGoogle, just point your browserhere. It's nice to see Gmail Labs' simple new Tasks tool ramping up functionality, but it'd be even more exciting to see Google turn this thing into a proper product.
After playing with the new web app for a little while, I can say that it’s an impressive offering from the folks at Google. The interface is visually appealing, and not too flashy. It works so well you almost forget you’re using a web app at all, with smooth transitions back and forth between screens, and easy to hit checkboxes for marking tasks complete or incomplete. You can create multiple lists to keep track of your tasks, and add Notes to any individual item on your lists. And it comes complete with a nice icon, should you decide to add a bookmark to your home screen.
Weaknesses:
- Web-based on the iPhone rather than an App
- I have "fat fingered" many of the buttons so far -- hitting the wrong button ie, "new task" when I mean "all lists"
- Having to log-in to google multiple times -- if it were an app the login should be saved
Strengths:
- Speed: it is light-weight
- Ease-of-use: overall intuitive user-interface
- Features: adding links to the tasks, as well as more detailed notes and due dates is very useful, something not easily done on paper lists.
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Madison, Medicine, and Efficiency: One Blog on Multiple Topics, or Multiple Blogs on Single Topics?
I was inspired to make some updates on the blog after watching Michael Hyatt's presentation about blogging.
He is the CEO of one of the major publishing companies , and has effectively been blogging since the late 90s.
What I did - updated some of the old posts , including embedding videos directly , clarifying the titles & adding tags to the older posts . Posterous did not allow tags early on. I also added google analytics , we'll see if that helps any of the blog's googlejuice (as explained in the book What Would Google Do?) .
I have been thinking about splitting off into 3 separate blogs, for the 3 main topics that I blog about: Madison , Medicine , and Efficiency . Michael Hyatt & Jay Parkinson keep all of their posts together, even if there is not exactly one common theme, but many themes. Other successful bloggers such as Joshua Schwimmer (from KidneyNotes , EfficientMD , TechMedicine ) successfully run multiple blogs.
The advantage of having a single blog is the ease in continuing to post, and the simplicity in posting. The advantage of multiple blogs would be more focused posts, with a unified theme and more relevance to the individual reader. Google could find my posts easier, and deem me relevant if I ran multiple focused blogs.
Thoughts?
Filed under //
blog
efficiency
google
gtd
jay parkinson
Joshua Schwimmer
Madison
Medicine
Michael Hyatt
wwgd
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2008: Top Songs, Top Searches.
2008: Last.fm top 10 (top 10 songs played via itunes, not necessarily purchased):
1. MGMT2. The Ting Tings3. Sara Bareilles4. Fleet Foxes5. Katy Perry6. The Last Shadow Puppets7. Foals8. Bon Iver9. Does it Offend You, Yeah?
10. SantogoldSeems like a lot of Brooklyn and Britain covering the top 10. I had not heard much of #4,6,7,8,9 prior to this top 10. Bon Iver, Does it Offend You, Yeah? and Fleet Foxes are groups I'll probably download and like to hear more from. I already have been regularly listening to Santogold & MGMT pretty regularly.
Not quite sure what the deal is with #4, 7, 8, or 9.Hat top to Flickr photo, Alphafish
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Google's iPhone: Android
To me, the android seems a step in the right direction from windows mobile, toward the iPhone. However not enough time appears to have been spent on the user experience, rather more time seems to have been spent on having more "specs" than the iPhone.
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