The Cranking Widgets Blog

14 Numbers Your Cell Phone Can’t Live Without

Not so long ago, cell phones were reserved for society’s wealthy and privileged. Yes, carrying around that small suitcase only for the pleasure of spending $.50/minute to call your stock broker or nail salon – that’s what separated the haves from the have-nots.
Thankfully, those days have ended. Everybody and their freakin’ mother has [...]

Announcing the LifeRemix Blog Network

Written by Brett Kelly

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It gives me great pleasure to announce the launch of a new venture (along with my good friend Glen of LifeDev.net), the LifeRemix blog network.
Glen and I have hand-selected what we feel are the best and most well-written blogs around. They all deal with the notion of making life a little better (in one [...]

Merlin Mann Drops some Knowledge at The Google

Written by Brett Kelly

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Everybody’s favorite productivity guru/wordsmith gave a Tech Talk at the Googleplex on getting your inbox to zero. If you’re a 43f reader, this will likely be a rehashing of some older material, but still worth the time. If you’ve never heard of this man(n), you’re in for a treat.
Have a great weekend, everybody!

Positively Gigantic GMail Resource Collection

Written by Brett Kelly

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Let’s face it – GMail is pretty much the coolest webmail application in existence. It’s simple design and slick interface (not to mention it’s unparalleled search capabilities) make it a pure joy with which to work.
Having said that, there’s something to be said for standing on the shoulders of giants, so to speak. [...]

How to Easily Track How Much Your Gift Cards are Worth

Written by Brett Kelly

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A few months before my son was born (about 2 years ago), my wife had her first baby shower. She received a plethora of gifts from family and friends – baby clothes, diapers, you name it. I went and picked her up and brought all of the crap home so we could sift [...]

Don’t Take a Break Unless You Need One

Written by Brett Kelly

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One area where I find myself disagreeing with many of the community gurus is the area of breaks and the taking of breaks. Many will say that one should work n minutes per hour and take a 60-n minute break, like clockwork. I disagree. Attempting to shoehorn humans into a robotic schedule [...]

Invites Available for Pownce, the Twitter Killer

Written by Brett Kelly

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Just a quick one, kids. I was recently invited to test drive the new Twitter-ish web app, Pownce (from Digg-founder Kevin Rose and others). It uses the new AIR interface stuff from Adobe, and it’s pretty slick.
My only complaint thus far is the inability to send messages from my cell phone. Otherwise, [...]

The Productivity Trifecta, Part 1: The Word ‘No’

Written by Brett Kelly

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…your �Delete� key. It is in a three way tie with for the best productivity tool ever with the Trash Can and the word �No�. – Org-Fu �berpost – Productivity Whitepaper by Patrick Rhone. This statement is the inspiration for this series of posts called The Productivity Trifecta.
Of all the things you can [...]

Why Most People Don’t Care about GTD

Written by Brett Kelly

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One of the first things I notice about many new GTD converts (says the guy who has been doing it for all of 8 months now) is how ready they are to try to recruit their friends and family (myself included). I would venture to say that Getting Things Done is lent out more [...]

Friday Fun: Law and Order Drinking Game

Written by Brett Kelly

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As some of you may already know, I’m a big fan of Law & Order. It’s by far the most Tivo’d show at my house, hands down. I’ve been known to plow through 4-6 episodes on a lazy Saturday night – I’m not joking about this, I’m a fan.
So, as any [...]