This week on the podcast we're finding ways to keep you motivated, learning that buying two computers can be cheaper than one, and the least horrible ways to get poop and other disgusting crap off your body. Also, we're answering your questions about archiving digital photos, accessing streaming media from remote countries, and more.
How to Listen to This Week's Episode
Here's how you can listen to our episode:
News and Top Stories
Google Street View Updates with 250,000 New Miles of Road Across the World
If you thought Google Street View had it all covered, you were wrong. Google just added 250,000 miles of new road around the world. On top of that, Google has also expanded their coverage inside popular locations like museums and stores so you can find your way around indoors as well.
How To Motivate Yourself Into an Exercise Routine You'll Actually Stick To
Alan wanted to motivate himself to exercise more often and with greater regularity, so he consulted a bunch of experts on how to make that happen. His favorite tip was setting the bar low and working your way up to the best exercise routine you can stick to, but you can find plenty of great strategies in his post.
When Buying Two Computers Is Cheaper Than Buying One
Everyone at Lifehacker owns more than one computer, primarily because we're big geeks, but also because two computers can be cheaper than one. Whitson realized his setup?a MacBook Air and a self-built Windows desktop?cost him less than the MacBook Pro he used to own. With Ultrabooks packing in so much power these days, it's not really necessary to get a high powered laptop that limits your portability. It'll never equal the power of a desktop, plus big laptops are rarely a pleasure to carry around.
How Do I Get This Disgusting Crap Off of Me?
My roommate has stepped in poop and been pooped on by various animals and flying creatures over the course of her life. Fed up, she asked me to find out the best ways to get all of the poop off of her as quickly and efficiently as possible. While all methods take a little bit of time, you can seriously reduce your effort and contact with the disgusting crap. For details, read the post.
Questions and Answers
Each week we answer five questions from readers and listeners. Here's what we tackled this week.
Should I wait until Black Friday to buy my electronics? In particular, gaming systems and video games?
Yes. Gaming systems and video games are always a lot cheaper during the pre-holiday sale season. They're even cheaper after Christmas. Check out our best times to buy guide for details.
What's the best way to archive my digital photo collection?
Everywhere. I use Dropbox to sync my photos in folders to multiple computers, giving me one copy in the cloud (dropbox.com) and several copies on data drives (my computers). On top of that, I also archive everything on Flickr because it works well and costs only $25 a year for unlimited storage. If you'd prefer not to pay, however, Picasa is free. The downside of putting your photos all over the place is manual uploading, but you can avoid that, too. Check out Thorin's post on creating digital duplicates and use services like If This Then That (IFTTT) and Wappwolf to link webapps together for automatic uploading to all your various services.
How can I motivate myself to do all the things I want to do when reminders don't work?
If exercise is among the things you want to do but won't, be sure to check out Alan's post mentioned above. For everything else, I have a couple of suggestions that worked really well for me. I used Seinfeld's productivity secret (a.k.a. "don't break the chain") to fix my productivity problem. All it requires is a calendar and a marker. You set weekly goals and give yourself a big X on the calendar for each day you complete them. If you miss a day, you don't get an X and break the chain. Once you get started you will not want to break the chain and it'll cause you to develop great habits that involve doing a little bit of work every day.
For everything else, I used a webcam to record myself speaking my goals out loud and why I wanted to complete them. I did this every day and played the video back when finished. It's like coaching yourself. Because you don't want to disappoint yourself or your coach, you actually remember to do what you want to do. If you don't, you'll have to record a video of yourself later that night knowing you didn't do the things that matter to you.
For the little things in life, like remembering to eat, Whitson created a simple reminders calendar. While the listener who asked the question doesn't like reminders, for those of you who respond to them and need to remember to do little tasks you can create a calendar especially for those things.
How can I stream media from the US that's blocked in my country (Canada)?
With a VPN! Just get a good one in the US and you'll have an IP address that'll make it look like you're in the United States. Alternatively, you can just use Tunnelbear for free. Of course, some services will required you to use a US billing address to sign up. In some cases you can get away with just putting in the address of a McDonald's or some other business in the United States, then change it later when you need to actually pay. If that doesn't work, you can generate temporary debit cards pre-loaded with money using services like EntroPay (or just by buying a pre-loaded debit card from the US).
There are other strategies, too. For more, check out our Top 10 Ways to Access Blocked Content.
Can you guys do an updated version of The Best PCs You Can Build for $600 and $1200?
Yes. Visit Lifehacker at 8:00 AM Pacific Time and we'll have an update for you.
Update: Recovering Lost iTunes Music
Last week we answered a question from a woman whose son lost all his iTunes music. We offered a variety of solutions and one of them worked! It turned out her son had multiple Apple IDs and forgot about the older ones. A quick call to iTunes support resolved the problem and got the music back on his computer in no time.
Tips of the Week
Each week we talk about our favorite downloads. Here are our picks for this week.
Seven Creative Uses for Google Street View
Google Street View is good for more than just getting a good view of the place your headed. Alan found that several creative people used it for inspiration in architecture or getting to know a city when writing a story. You can even use it to scout a neighborhood when house hunting and lots more.
How to Stop a Soda Can From Fizzing Over
How do you avoid a soda can from exploding in your face after shaking it up? Tap the sides! Sort of. Whitson and I tested that theory this morning and found it helped, but that letting the can sit for a few minutes solved the problem entirely. Check out the video to see the experiment (and watch Whitson spill beer on himself).
Make a Coughing Ringtone to Go Unnoticed When You Forget to Silence Your Phone
Do you annoy people (like me) when you forget to turn off your cellphone's ringer? Just change the ringtone to the sound of a cough and nobody will know but you.
Downloads of the Week
Each week we talk about our favorite downloads. Here are our picks for this week.
Noozy (Android)
When we asked what your favorite non-iPod music players were, the Zune was second only to your smartphones-specifically your Android phones. If you want to get the best of both worlds, Noozy is a music player that brings the Zune's metro UI and design to your Android phone and adds some great additional features to sweeten the pot.
Download Noozy
Fences 2.0 (Windows)
Fences is one of the best apps for creating a clean, organized desktop, and it just got better with version 2.0. Now you can create fences for specific folders anywhere on your computer, as well as swipe between different "pages" of fences.
Download Fences 2.0
Last Time (iOS)
When was the last time you called your parents, went to the grocery store, exercised, or reinvented your music career? Last Time is a different sort of task manager that remembers when you last completed an important task. It doesn't bug you to do things, but simply reminds you how much time has passed since the previous occurrence so you can nag yourself.
Download Last Time
How Do I Submit a Question?
There are three ways to send in your question:
Please keep your questions as brief as possible. This means about 3-5 sentences for emails and 30-60 seconds for calls and videos. Your questions can be specific, but broader questions are generally better because they'll apply to more people. For example, "how can I breathe new life into my old PDA?" is much better than "what can I do with an old HP iPAQ 210?" Either way, we look forward to hearing from you!
Newspaper, Computer, and Clock (by Brandon Hopkins) provided by the Noun Project.
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