I know that the whole “Mac vs. PC” debate can get almost as heated as the Obama vs. Clinton race, but nonetheless I will share my story…
I have had PCs since the early 90s and really didn’t ever consider a Mac as an option. I had heard that they were good for video and graphic work, but other than that all I knew was that the vast majority of computers purchased were PCs.
I figured that is was safe to be on the side of the majority, I mean if (almost) everyone else uses PCs they must be fine. I defaulted to following the crowd. Without getting into all of the reasons why you need to tread cautiously when following the crowd, I will just say that some of the greatest things that have happened to me have been a result of NOT following the crowd. I have to admit that I think my decision to switch to a Mac can be added to the list.
My frustration with PCs
There have been 2 main sources for my frustrations with my PCs:
- Lack of stability - crashing at random and often inconvenient times
- Lack of simplicity - I often had to take 5 steps to accomplish something that should be able to be done in one or two steps
Lack of Stability
As the Apple commercial eloquently puts it, “it’s not PC’s fault.” I actually feel bad for the PC guys, because with the thousands of new pieces of software being created each day - how can they possibly keep up with it all to make sure that it “plays nice” with the rest of the computer? Apple on the other hand has worked hard to keep tabs on the software designed for it’s system. This has resulted in a fewer options, but a better assurance that it will function properly.
Lack of Simplicity
I wrote about my interest in minimalist living and my longing for a simplified life. I don’t know how to describe this other than by comparing the two against each other. In less than one week of Mac ownership I looked at three tasks that I do on a regular basis that require only a push of a button on my Mac. On my PC, these three tasks require many more steps and ultimately a lot more time to complete the task. Things like setting up a wireless network took me hours of frustration with my XP and Vista machines, but was done with no effort on my part when I got my Mac. There are so many processes that I had just adapted to on my PC that I didn’t realize how difficult they were until I saw how simple they could be on a Mac.
The Mac Mini purchase
I ended up purchasing a Mac Mini mostly because it was the cheapest option and I was still a little skeptical of whether it was worth the extra money. But the other reason was that I could still use my PC monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Once it arrived, it was just like you would expect from Apple - simple. It came with the Mini itself, a remote control, a power cord, and a monitor adapter. I plugged my old monitor and keyboard in and powered her up. It walked me through a quick and easy set up process that lasted maybe 2 minutes and that was it.
If you have more questions about switching check out this page - it will likely have some answers for you.
The Cons of Macs
Just to be fair and give both sides of the coin, here are some of the downsides of switching to a Mac…
- Macs are more expensive for the same level of performace as a PC. Apple products are generally more expensive than their counterparts. The thing I noticed as I compared the specs of my Mac to comparable PCs is that Apple seems to include more bells and whistles than low end PC makers do. For instance I mentioned the remote control that came with the Mac I got and it also came with a built in wireless card and Bluetooth. All things that don’t come with many PCs in that price range and no you probably don’t have to have it, but it is just a nice touch.
- It is still going down in value: fast. If you think cars depreciate fast , computers can become near worthless (in resale value) in just a couple of years. Again just like cars the more it costs, the more expensive ones go down in value quicker. That said, I would liken Apple to Honda. They still depreciate but not quite as fast as a PC (Chevy) and there seems to be a decent enough demand for them in the secondary market (craigslist.org).
- You will not have as many software options as with a PC. This seems to be gradually changing as Apple gains market share, but still needs to be considered. Although, I should mention that you can now run Windows on your Mac.
Ok, let me have it - Tell me why I am wrong and why I just wasted my money on a half-eaten apple 
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I am a subscriber to the Gmail blog - because I am a moderate Google nut and like to stay in the loop with what they are doing. Well, I saw this tip on their blog and actually on another productivity blog, and it is just too good not to share.
I guess I will remind you what my favorite Gmail tip is before I get into the second one: Gmail is an email management system. I wrote about this before, but it bears repeating for those who have multiple email accounts and are in desperate need of organization or simplification.
What this means is that you can have all of your email from all of your accounts going directly into your single Gmail account.
You say, “great. I already knew that.”
Okay, but the good part here is that you can also SEND email from your other accounts WITHIN your Gmail account. So, if your email address is Billy@hotmail.com you can now send emails from that address within the comfort of your Gmail home (as well as any other accounts you have.)
So, what is your 2nd favorite Gmail tip?
Ok, so on to the 2nd favorite Gmail tip.
Say my Gmail address is Ihatespam@gmail.com. I can send emails to Ihatespam+bob@gmail.com or Ihatespam+anything@gmail.com and they will all go to my inbox.
You can add a “+” sign to the end of your Gmail id (Ihatespam in this case) and add anything you want after it.
If you think about this just a little bit, you will be able to see that this opens up a lot of possibilities for organizing your inbox.
- You can have work or school emails come to separate address and then filter them to go into different folders in your inbox
- You can have newsletters etc. filtered in to different folders as well
- You can easily weed out spam by using this technique. If, whenever you offer up your email address on a website you add the “+somewebsite” you will always know how spammers got your email address. Then you can quickly filter all of these emails into your spam folder. Problem solved.
My experience with this Gmail tip
I have tried this and really like using this tip along with the filters in Gmail. It really can help organize your inbox.
However, I will say that not all websites allow you to enter an email address that includes a “+”. I was a little bit bummed about that, but hey it is better than none, isn’t it?
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This is the fourth and final entry of a series I am doing about How to save time on your PC. These are a few of the ways that I try to shave off minutes or even hours of wasted time on my computer each month.
8. Google toolbar
The main reason I use Google Toolbar is for the bookmarks. It has a few other features that make it useful, but I think the best part is that my bookmarks are right at my fingertips at all times. The Google toolbar also allows you to TAG your bookmarks, rather than putting them in folders like most browsers. Tags are more versatile, because you can add multiple tags to any bookmark. Del.icio.us is another great bookmarking tool as well.
9. Firefox Quick Search
If you are a Firefox user you will have a quick search box in the top right corner. You can add all kinds of searchable websites to the list. You can search within Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, Various dictionaries, Flickr, Wikipedia and many others. Rather than going to the individual sites themselves, you can search many sites from your browser.
You can download Firefox with Google Toolbar, if you aren’t using Firefox yet. If you are still using Internet Explorer, I recommend using Firefox. There are a bunch of reasons why Firefox is better, but the safety factor with Firefox was a big one for me.
10. Google Homepage
My Google homepage is where I tie a lot of these tools together. Google homepage is basically a dashboard of whatever you would like. They have thousands of different widgets to choose from so you can create a custom homepage that can have just about anything you could want or need all on one page for you.
This is a quick snapshot of my Google homepage…
I have my email, calendar, stock quotes, weather, to-do list, feedreader, Jotts, bookmarks and a few other things all accessible on the same page. I love the ease of being able to get updated information from various different pages all in one place. And who knows how much time you save by having it all together rather than going to one site to check weather, another to see if you have any new emails, another to check your stocks, etc…
You can find out more about Google homepage here.
Check out the previous posts in the series…
How to save time on your PC - Part One
How to save time on your PC - Part Two
How to save time on your PC - Part Three
Related posts
This is the third entry of a series I am doing about How to save time on your PC. These are a few of the ways that I try to shave off minutes or even hours of wasted time on my computer each month.
6. Manage Multiple Email addresses
Lucky for you, I am going to save you the countless hours I spent trying to find a way to manage my multiple email addresses. Lets say you have a Yahoo email account and a Gmail account that you use both for different reasons.
How much time could you save if you could view your email from both accounts in one place?Maybe a little, maybe a lot. But, if you have about 5 active email addresses like me you know that it is a huge time waster to have to go to 5 different accounts to view my email.
Well, I tried Outlook, I tried Entourage, and I also tried Thunderbird to manage my email. Each has their own pros and cons, but what I was looking for was a way to view my email from any computer and have it all stored in one centralized location.
Enter GMAIL. This may sound like a Google commercial, but it’s not. I just am very excited that they provide the solution to my problem.
Gmail allows you to manage all of your email addresses from your Gmail inbox. You can receive your Hotmail or Yahoo email into your Gmail inbox and you can also send email from these addresses all in the comfort of your Gmail inbox. It can easily be set up by clicking on SETTINGS when at your Gmail inbox, and then clicking on the ACCOUNTS tab. From here you can add your various email addresses. Get detailed instructions from Google on setting this up.
7. Save time with a Feedreader
Basically this is a way to get updated content from various websites sent to you - rather than you having to go to each website individually.
Look for this Icon
or 
and when you see it you can add add that site’s updated content to your feedreader. I use Google’s feedreader, but Bloglines is really nice and there are other good ones out there as well. Check out this video for a little more detail about Google’s Feed Reader.
Check out Part Four for the last few tips…
How to save time on your PC - Part One
How to save time on your PC - Part Two
How to save time on your PC - Part Four
Related posts
This is the second entry of a series I am doing about How to save time on your PC. These are a few of the ways that I try to shave off minutes or even hours of wasted time on my computer each month.
The purpose of the following is to make sure the most frequently used items take the least amount of time to open, and the least frequently used items take the most. It is a simple concept, but I have seen very few people take advantage of the tools that will help accomplish this.
3. Save time with The Quick Launch Bar
Being on my computer as much as I am, I try to speed up as many processes as I can. The quick launch bar is normally directly to the right of the START button. I use the quick launch for all of my most frequently used bookmarks and programs. The thing I love about the quick launch bar is that it requires no additional mouse clicks to reach what I am looking for. The programs listed in it are never more than one click away.
I only put very frequently used programs in there and my most frequently used web pages. Since a lot of these programs and sites may be opened multiple times a day, it is a lot quicker just clicking in the quick launch bar, rather than opening Firefox, clicking favorites, and scrolling through to find the page.
The quick launch bar is located right next to the start button on your PC. You can drag and drop programs as well as bookmarks. When you add a bookmark to the quick launch, you will notice they all have the same icon attached to them. Fear not, you can change the icon to whatever your heart desires (Right click on the current icon, click PROPERTIES, and look around and you will find the CHANGE ICON button). This will allow you to clearly differentiate between your bookmarked pages.
Obviously you can’t add hundreds of programs or bookmarks if you are trying to actually save time. Narrowing it down to the top 10 most used programs and bookmarks would be ideal. As I write this I have about 15 in my quick launch bar (so it looks like I need to practice what I am preaching) 
4. The Start Menu
Next in line is the Start Menu. I use it for my programs that I use frequently, but not enough to warrant being listed in my Quick Launch bar. These are the programs I may use a couple times a week, but not on a daily basis. Just like above, you can drag and drop programs or bookmarks into the Start Menu.
5. The StartUp folder
If you add a program or application to the STARTUP folder it will start up automatically each time you boot up your computer. This can be a blessing or a curse. I don’t have any programs on my home PC that I want loaded every time I start it up, but this works great for my work PC.
To do this drag the icon of the program or application to the START button, then hover it over ALL PROGRAMS, and then look for the STARTUP folder and drop it in there.
Next we will get into some applications that simplify my life and of course save me lots of time.
How to save time on your PC - Part One
How to save time on your PC - Part Three
How to save time on your PC - Part Four
Related posts
This is the first entry of a new series I am doing about How to save time on your PC. These are a few of the ways that I try to shave off minutes or even hours of wasted time on my computer each month.
Everyone loves to say, “Time is money,” but time is NOT money. Everyone has the same amount of time, but (if you haven’t noticed) not the same amount of money.
It is what you do with your time that determines the amount of money that you have. With any given hour we have the choice of watching TV, exercising, learning about something new, developing a skill, or anything else we can think of. I enjoy finding ways to minimize wasted time, so I can have more time for the things I love.
1. Quick Keyboard Shortcuts to save time
- You can use the Windows key +D to minimize all the open windows and quickly return to the Windows desktop. Pressing Windows +D again will restore all windows to their previous location.
- For many PC products (I use this for Excel, Word, Outlook, Internet explorer and Firefox) if you press the CTRL button and scroll your scroll wheel on your mouse, it will increase and decrease the size of what you are viewing.
- This is an oldie and a lot of people already know about it, but if you don’t you should. Anytime you have multiple windows open you can hold down ALT and press the TAB button and it will pull up a little window which will display the various windows that you have open. From here you can TAB between the various windows.
- You can quickly save a file by pressing CTRL+S.
- By pressing CTRL+C you can copy the highlighted area and place it in the clipboard, CTRL+V will then paste whatever is in the clipboard at the current location of the
- You can use CTRL+A to highlights all of the text and/or objects in a document. This is handy when you want to move or copy everything in the current document.
- Anytime you are in a document you can use CTRL+P to print it.
- CTRL+F is one of my favorites. Anytime you have a document open or are looking at a web page you can use this and it will pop up a find window, which will allow you to search the page or document for a word or phrase
2. Google Web Accelerator
There are a few factors that determine the speed with which a web page loads on your screen. The ones that I am aware of are your Internet connection speed, your processor speed on your computer, and the web page itself. I am not exactly sure what Google Web Accelerator does to speed up the process, but it does cause some web pages to load faster. 
They even have this nifty little icon that displays how many minutes or hours of your life Google has saved you buy using it. Who knows if it is accurate, but it is kind of fun to watch.
These are a few of the quick PC Productivity Tips that I frequently use. Click below for the rest of the series.
How to save time on your PC - Part Two
How to save time on your PC - Part Three
How to save time on your PC - Part Four
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Organize your Bank accounts
If there is one thing that I have learned about personal finances, it is that nothing is one-size-fits-all. There are different tools, methods, products, and investments that work for different people at different phases of their lives. My system that I am currently using to manage my accounts and cashflow did not work for me 5 years ago. But now I couldn’t think of anything easier or more efficient.
Below is a diagram showing how cash flows through my accounts.
This is a simplified version, but it gets the point across.
Variable Expenses
Every two weeks, our paychecks are direct deposited as noted above in the diagram into our accounts at our credit union. Our checking account for GAS & GROCERY gets a fixed amount deposited into it every two weeks. From this account we get our spending cash (or blow money), pay for fuel for our cars, and groceries. None of the three are really fixed expenses, so when gas prices rise we are forced to cut back on our spending money or grocery bill.
I sure hope that gas doesn’t go up to $4 a gallon - I won’t be able to eat!! Keeping a leash on variable expenses is extremely important when trying to save money. Most people do not realize that expenses rise to meet income, and they pay the price because of it.
Look at any well established business and you will find that each department has a set budget for the quarter or year. They have to stay within those limits that have been created for them.
Why do they do this? Because it works. Businesses are in business to make money, so if it minimizes expenses they are happy.I am not suggesting to manage your finances like a CFO, but we can learn a lot about how to get things done from the business world.
Fixed Expenses
Roughly 75% of our paychecks go into our BILLS account. When we set this account up, I calculated how much all of our monthly bills cost, divided it by two and set up a schedule for when each would be paid. So, in all honesty I don’t check the balance in this account very often. Since we know how much needs to be paid out each month, we have exactly that amount deposited in. I use bill pay to pay my bills out of this account every two weeks based on my bill payment schedule.
Budgeting
Part of this fixed amount that gets direct deposited into our BILLS account is our ING savings. ING is a great budgeting tool and if you don’t have an account with them, I recommend that you take a look at what they have to offer.
From our BILLS account (every two weeks) I transfer a fixed amount into each one of our ING savings accounts. As the accounts grow I am earning a nice interest rate on my budgeted money.
I would love to hear how you manage your money or any other thoughts or suggestions…
del.icio.us Tags: Organize , bank accounts , finances
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Google is taking over the world. We all know it, some don’t like it, but I am trying to make the most of it. Admittedly, I am a Google junkie, but they just have so many great products.
One of the newest ones to their lineup is a 411 service. They use a voice recognition program similar to Jott.com to direct the calls. So you don’t actually talk to a person when you call, but if you get connected to the business that you need - who cares?
I think most cell phone companies charge at least a buck or two for this service. For the price, I think Google’s 411 is worth a try.
This is what Google has to say about it…
Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.
Using this service, you can:
- search for a local business by name or category.
You can say “Giovanni’s Pizzeria” or just “pizza”.- get connected to the business, free of charge.
- get the details by SMS if you?re using a mobile phone.
Just say “text message”.Dial from any phone
1-800-GOOG-411
(1-800-466-4411)And it’s free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.
Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It?s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings.
Technorati Tags: Free 411, Google
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I am always looking for new ways to keep my thoughts, my life and just about everything else organized. I stumbled upon Jott.com, which is an interesting way of getting your thoughts down on paper quickly.
Here is how it works:
- You go sign up at Jott.com
- You call a specific number that they provide you when you sign up
- You leave a voicemail type message for yourself or anyone else signed up with [tag]Jott[/tag]
- Jott transcribes your message to text and emails it to your address of choice
I like it because I often get ideas while I am driving and have no SAFE means of getting them down on paper (believe me, writing while driving is far more dangerous than talking on your cell phone). This process is very simple if you put the number in your one-touch speed dial on your phone.
I just signed up today, my first message I intentionally spoke very quickly and used big words to put them to the test and it took about 15 minutes to hit my inbox. However, I sent another shorter message and it was received in my inbox within about 2 minutes.
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I have been making purchases online for the last few years and have never had a problem. Therefore, I have been a big proponent of [tag]online shopping[/tag] because of the convenience and the fact that the prices after shipping costs are frequently better than the brick and mortar stores.
But, recently a couple transactions are causing me to doubt the online shopping world. One was an [tag]ebay[/tag] purchase to buy a set of speakers, which was from a seller with hundreds of transactions and a 100% positive feedback score. The other was a memory stick for my PC from [tag]newegg.com[/tag].
The short story with the speakers was that the seller listed the item and didn’t have it in stock. I did not receive them until about a month and a half after I paid for them. I saved maybe $15 by purchasing them on ebay. About a month into it I would have much rather paid the extra $15 to have them right away and not have to deal with the hassle of the phone calls, emails, etc.
My memory stick arrived and didn’t work. So I paid the shipping fees to ship it back and ultimately received the working product that I ordered about 2 and a half weeks later. Not bad, but after the shipping fees I could have gotten it cheaper at Best Buy. Which, in this case, would have been more convenient as well.
I know, from experience, that these are rare occurrences, but I must say it will cause me to think twice when I am trying to save five bucks by purchasing online.
Anyone have any thoughts?
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