The Cranking Widgets Blog

For the Bloggers: How to Add Flickr Thumbnail Images to Your Posts

This will be a quick one – if you want to add those nifty little images to your blog posts (and they don’t have to be from flickr), follow these simple steps:

Get the code to link to the image (like the stuff under Option 1 at the bottom of this page).
In your blog post, before [...]

The Magnetic Index Card Dispenser : A Homemade Solution (and How to Make Your Own)

In a fairly recent post, I described some situations where I find ubiquitous capture to be somewhat difficult to implement. Keeping the necessary tools close at hand (as well as being in a free enough position to actually use them) was a common thread among all of my “problem areas”. I’m happy to [...]

Hacking GMail: Make it Your Digital Junk Drawer

In my eternal pursuit of total organization, I’m often faced with the task of filing/saving truly miscellaneous information that I may not need later, but had a hell of a time coming across to begin with. You discover some oddball fact that you’ve wondered about for years (and are happy to finally know), but [...]

Using Post-It Notes for GTD Collection (Among Other Things)

Legal Andrew has an interesting post regarding the use of Post-It Notes as a collection tool for GTD. He cites their size and portability as obvious benefits, as well as how nice they are for quick reminders when “switching contexts”, so to speak.
While I definitely understand his affinity for everybody’s favorite sticky yellow thing, [...]

Starting Out: Choosing a GTD Implementation (and I Give Stuff Away)

We’ve all been there at least once – we’ve just finished reading GTD and are now sitting in the presence of a myriad of choices as to how to implement the GTD system. What tools shall I use? Digital or Analog (or a hybrid of the two)? It can be quite daunting, [...]

Workplace Tip: Keep Your Field of Vision Clear

This is one of those ‘duh’ things, but being a bit on the dim side, I’m a bit late in discovering this.
From the time I started doing GTD up until a couple of days ago, my in-basket on my desk at work was immediately to the left of my computer. So, if there was [...]

Digital GTD: Remember the Milk

While still in beta (which, as you know, is the new black), list management/reminder site Remember the Milk has become quite a player in the Web 2.0 productivity game. It offers plenty of very slick features, including a mobile version, SMS capabilities and (of course) tagging.
The Republic of Geektronica has a very informative post [...]

Free Alternative to the Two Minute Timer from DavidCo

A few months back, I was perusing David Allen’s website and came across the Two Minute Timer in the online shop. The idea is simple: a small program that counts down 2 minutes, then does something when the time expires. I thought it sounded useful, but I didn’t really think the application justified [...]

How to Create an Organized Read/Review List with Del.icio.us and RSS

My Read/Review list is split almost down the middle between printed articles, papers, etc. and content found on the web (I’m actually surprised by this, given how much time I spend at the computer – I would’ve guessed the vast majority of my list was stuff on the Internet – anyway…). And while it’s [...]

Hacking Your Morning: How to Never Drink Crappy Coffee Again

In addition to being a professional computer geek, I’m also something of an armchair coffee connoisseur. I roast my own coffee at home and have a pretty respectable collection of preparation/brewing tools that get some pretty heavy use. I also managed a coffeehouse for a spell when I was younger, so I’ve got [...]