Gmail is already far and away the best web-mail client out there, but there are still ways to make it even better.  Here are 5 free ways to tweak Gmail to suit your needs, and to save you time.

1. How to set extra flexible filters in Gmail

Gmail already comes with a good set of filter options by default.  Syphir (Free) however is a free plugin which takes it to the next level.  The level of flexibility on display is quite remarkable.  For example

• You can selectively auto-delay personal email so you can focus on your work. 
• You can have older email automatically archive themselves to keep your inbox clean.
• It can understand the level of importance of each incoming email, and labels it accordingly.

Syphir comes into its own when coupled with it’s SmartPush iPhone app which selectively pushes you email notifications for only your most important email.  Simply indispensible.

2. How to understand and remember more about your email contacts

Rapportive is a free plugin which helps to retrieve information about your contacts when you’re dealing with them on Gmail.  It will go and pull contextual data about the person from other services for instance Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and Twitter, and unobtrusively display them on the sidebar. 

You can also make private notes about any contact within Rapportive so you can remember little important details about the person in the future. 

3. How to be on the cutting edge of Google’s latest email innovations

We’ve covered some amazingly cool features found in Gmail Labs before, and true to their word, they’ve continued to roll out experimental tweaks.  Here are some of my favorite new ones aside from those I covered previously. 

4. How to fully customize your Gmail in Firefox

Better Gmail 2 is a plugin which was revolutionary when it launched.  Many people (including myself) give this plug-in credit for giving Google direction on how to improve Gmail.  Many of the features originally found in the original Firefox extension has since made their way to the Gmail product or labs. 

This Firefox extension still has some excellent features like the hierarchical labels, and highlighting active rows.  Worth a download if you’re on Firefox.

5. The Best Google Mail Extension for Chrome

Ever since Chrome introduced extensions, it’s certainly given Firefox a run for it’s money.  Gmail already features some pretty neat ‘Chrome-Only’ features such as the ability to drag and drop attachments from your desktop to your browser.  Google Mail Checker Plus is a Chrome extension which acts as an email-notifier within your browser, saving you the trouble of keeping a tab open for your mail. 

What’s also great is that you’ll be able interact with the message (star/delete/archive/mark as spam) directly from the extension without even having to open the mailbox.

How do you tweak your Gmail?  Let us know in the comments :)

If you’re researching a topic or trying to collaborate with another person, you may be using more than one website as reference.  Here are the best free web services that will help you share multiple URLs at once and save you time.

1. How to share multiple URLs and have them display as tabs

Sharetabs is a multiple URL shortener which allows you to combine multiple links- and have them display the results in neat tabs and shortcut icons.  This makes for perfect previews for quick viewing.

2. How to share and password protect multiple URLs

1link.in is an elegant way of sharing mutiple links but still be able to password protect them.  When you open the short-URL, it also shows you a list of all your links you’ve combined.

3. How to share multiple web pages and track stats

Fur.ly not only allows you to shorten multiple links but also track stats, so you know how many people visited your links and when exactly they did it.  

4. How to share multiple web pages and have them display side by side

NiceSharing lets you combine multiple URLs and have them display together as well.  Useful for comparisons between two pages, and it also supports an interesting feature whereby your second link can be a music file.  With this, rather than having two websites display side by side, you’ll be able to listen to the music file as background music while you browse another website.

5. How to share all your Firefox tabs at once

Send Tab URLs is a Firefox extension which creates a list of URLs from all browser tabs in the current Firefox window. This list can be emailed using your favorite email application, or copied to the clipboard for pasting into another application.  It works with most email applications, and supports up to 30 tabs at once.

There can be many reasons why you’d want to send a Facebook, Twitter or Email message later.  Maybe you’re in another part of the world and you want your Facebook to be updated at a different time.  Maybe you want to send a tweet to all your friends so you want to space it out across the day.  Maybe you just want to say something – but not right now.  Here’s a useful guide on how to do just that.

1. How to Schedule Your Facebook Status to Be Automatically Updated Later

LaterBro is a free service which helps you update your Facebook status on any chosen time and date.  It even lets you schedule Facebook updates to be recurring so you can share the same thing daily, weekly, or however often you so desire.  Perfect for updating Facebook when you’re not at your computer.

2. How to Schedule Your Twitter Status to Be Automatically Updated Later

Future Tweets allows you to also schedule your twitter to be updated later.  It’s got an extremely slick user interface which also allows you to set recurrences and buffer up your tweets along the way.  Perfect for wishing someone on Twitter ‘Happy Birthday’ in advance so you never forget.

3. How to Schedule Your Email to Be Automatically Sent Later

DeferredSender has got to be the most elegant email scheduler I’ve ever used.  Once you sign up, you just need to send your email to deferred@deferredsender.com, and then inside the email body, just state your recipients email address and time, and it will deliver it accordingly.  The really cool part is that it will understand what you mean in regards to timing. 

For example you COULD say 4pm, or you could say in 3 hours, or you could just say tomorrow or next month, and it will understand and process the timing of your email delivery.  Also, the email will look like it’s coming from your actual email address, so everything’s pretty seamless.  Perfect for sending important email reminders.

When do you schedule messages for later?  Tell us in the comments :)

A good decision making service understands and celebrates the fact that everyone is different.  Whether it’s to deciding what to eat, what gadget to buy, or even what to wear, the individual’s tastes usually matter much more than what any critic or reviewer thinks.  Here are 3 really intelligent free web services which cut through the clutter of choices and help you make decisions based on who you are, and what you’re looking for.

1. How to make a decision about what’s important to you

‘Let Simon Decide’ is a web service which allows you to quickly compute decisions based on

• alternatives (for example, a list of schools to join)
• decision making factors (for example, students per class)
• and how important and how well you rate those factors to be

This is by far the most open ended of the services described here as everything is decided by you.  ‘Let Simon Decide’ is just helping you do the calculations and tell you what the best decision is.  While this would result in probably the most tailored solution for you, it also relies on you to know your facts before making a decision. 

‘Let Simon Decide’ will also recommend you factors picked by other people so you can consider them, but when you’re going to score factors on how good they are, you may need to have some base knowledge on the topic first.  For example how good the flash on a camera is.  In the end though, once you do your homework, this is the perfect way to tabulate and affirm any complex decision you make.

2. How to make a decision based on who you are

‘Hunch’ takes a completely different spin from ‘Let Simon Decide’.  Rather than rely mainly on your own input, Hunch takes into consideration who you are, and recommends a solution based on what worked for members in the Hunch community who are ‘like you’.  To make the most of Hunch, you start by answering a whole slew of seemingly random questions, but don’t let that put you off as you don’t NEED to answer the questions, it just helps Hunch know more about you, and these questions are well known to be quirky and fun.

When it comes to solving specific problems, Hunch will ask you a guided set of question based on your topic, and then compute the best decision for you based on your input and what it knows about you.  Hunch is less flexible when it comes to topics compared to ‘Let Simon Decide’, but it is growing everyday, and because it guides you through a customized set of questions based on the decision you’re trying to make, AND it takes into account what other people like you have chosen, it is one of the most powerful and accurate tools out there for decision making.

3. How to decide on a product based on the attributes you’re looking for

‘Measy’ is by far the most elegant and powerful tool I’ve ever seen for deciding on gadget purchases (arguably one of the most complex of all purchases).  While it’s currently limited to helping you choose a Digital Camera, HDTV, E-Reader, Netbook and Smartphone (with new segments added gradually), the way it steps you through the decision making process is brilliant.

You take very specialized and customized quizzes, and they take great pains in explaining all the fuzzy gadget jargon into plain English, and reassures you about the mini-decisions you make during the quiz so that once your final decision is tabulated, it’s incredibly transparent and you can feel very assured with your purchase. 

Measy also takes into account reviews online, and matches your input to what each product is good at, so it does all the product homework for you as well when it shows you it’s recommendations.  This should definitely be your first stop before making any gadget purchase.

So there you have it, 3 excellent web services which help you make intelligent decisions quickly.  Do you use any other tools to make decisions?  Tell us in the comments :)

If you’re stuck on a public machine and you can’t install a file zipping utility, ezyZip is the free and easy way to make the most of the situation – so bookmark this page, because you will need it one day :)

ezyZip allows you to zip files, add zipped files to an existing archive, and unzip files all from within the browser, and it even comes with a nifty drag and drop interface.

Here is the most important thing you should know about ezyZip.  Unlike most online file zipping utilities, ezyZip does NOT require you to upload the file to process it.  This is very important because it is simply not feasible to upload large files, process them on a remote server and download them again.  This can take ages and in many cases, the length of time involved, defeated the purpose of zipping it up to be smaller.  With ezyZip, everything runs locally via java on the browser, and it works as if it was an installed app.

Highly recommended.

If you’re worried about email security, here is a step by step guide to help you check and determine if your Gmail account has been hacked or compromised in any way.

Step 1: Find the ‘Last Account Activity’ Section Your Inbox

At the bottom of your Gmail inbox there is a ‘Last Account Activity’ section.  Click on ‘details’ to launch the full blown monitor.

Step 2: See who has accessed your Gmail account recently

Next, what you’ll see is a table of the most recent activity from your Gmail account.  It shows you

• How it was accessed (Browser/mobile etc)
• Where exactly the IP address is (So you can do some further digging)
• When it was accessed

Step 3: Understand the IP addresses – Has your Gmail really been hacked?

If you see IP addresses from different countries, don’t be too quick to panic.  If you use any 3rd party services which hook-up to your Gmail account, they will almost certainly show up in your activity log.  To do you own investigation, you can use DomainTools to identify the IP address. This will help you differentiate normal activity and your Gmail account being hacked.

Step 4: Understand the alerts – Google’s way of highlighting suspicious activity

Google will also do it’s fair share of monitoring, and will also alert you if it sees suspicious activity both in your inbox, as well as your recent activity log.  When this happens, and the IP addresses look suspicious, it is advisable to play it safe, assume your Gmail account has been hacked, and change your passwords immediately. 

Step 5: Sign Out All Other Sessions – If you forgot to sign out on a public computer

If you are worried you did not not sign out of a public computer, you can ‘sign out all other sessions’.  This won’t fix any hacked Gmail accounts, but it will resolve any careless mistakes. This is also useful if you happen to lose your mobile phone and you want to ensure your email is not read by others.

Step 6: What to do if your Gmail account has really been hacked

The first thing you do is change both your password and security question right away.  Then make sure your new choices are very secure.  Google themselves have some really good tips .  For example in the case of security questions:

• Choose a question only you know the answer to – make sure the question isn’t associated with your password.
• Pick a question that can’t be answered through research (for example, avoid your mother’s maiden name, your birth date, your first or last name, your social security number, your phone number, your pet’s name, etc.).
• Make sure your answer is memorable, but not easy to guess. Use an answer that is a complete sentence for even more security.

So there you have it.  A step-by-step guide on fully understanding Gmail’s account activity log, and how to check if your Gmail account has been hacked :)

It’s not easy being a student.  With rising costs of education, it’s understandable that textbooks can be a real financial burden.  If you know where to look however, you can get much of what you need online.  With that, here are the best places to download free textbooks.

1. Where to download exclusive free textbooks

BookBoon is a website where PDF textbooks are written exclusively for Bookboon by academics from different European universities.  Covering every topic conceivable, from Marketing to Statistics to Biology, everything you see on this site is 100% legal, and they even have a facebook app which allows you to also download these books directly.  

2. Where to download free computer science and programming textbooks

FreeTechBooks is a resource which lists out computer science and programming books which are made freely & legally available on the Internet.  No pirated links, or books here,just a regularly updated list of downloadable books about topics ranging from operating systems to computing mathematics. 

3. Where to download free medical textbooks

With more than 300 medical texts already on hand, Freebooks4Doctors makes available PDF ebooks, journals and links to other free medical books.  It’s mission is to promote the free availability of medical books on the Internet.

4. Where to download free university textbooks

University for Free is a student driven setup which encourages sharing of free University texts.  Their focus is specifically on mandatory texts required by many courses.  They also have a forum which allows students to discuss and share where to get more resources.

5. Where to read free textbooks online

Flat world is an educational initiative that empowers students and let them decide how they want to learn.  All books in the program are placed online for free, and print-on-demand softcovers (for a low fee), and audio books are available as well.  These books are also open for instructors to modify and make their own.  The flexibility offered here is the key selling point, and students are even allowed to purchase single chapters rather than the whole book (or read the whole thing online for free).

6. Where to get editable free textbooks

Wikibooks is a Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational books that anyone can edit.  Rather than be subject to expensive static books, Wikibooks readily encourages copying, modifying, reusing, and free distribution of it’s books. 

It also houses WikiJunior, an educational project for non-fiction books aimed at children under 12.

7. Where to download free highschool textbooks

FHSST or Free High School Science Texts is a website which provides free science and mathematics textbooks for Grades 10 to 12 science learners.  Primarily meant for students in South Africa, the syllabus and content can really be used internationally as well.

Do you read or download online textbooks?  Do you know more sources to download more free books?  Tell us in the comments :)

Gmail, Yahoo, Msn and other email providers do not allow users to send large files by email. The maximum limit in all of these email services is 20 MB – which isn’t a lot if you want to send movies, videos, or large files.  The following is a list of free ways to send large files online. 

1. How to Send Multiple Large Files at Once

File Factory lets you upload files of 300 MB size. The convenient thing about File Factory is that you can upload multiple files (up to 25) at once. You can upload files from your Computer or from a remote server. The premium account lets you upload files from FTP or using a torrent file.

2. How to Send Large Files Without Even Registering an Account

YouSendIt is another file sharing service that has become popular in recent times. It lets you upload and share files of sizes 100 MB each. The site contains an email form and you can send an email containing your file from the home page itself where your uploaded file is available for download for only 7 days

3. How to Send Large Files via Firefox Extension

Another file sharing service is Drop.io which lets you upload files of sizes 100 MB each. The files uploaded can be downloaded any number of times and you can also password protect your files to retain privacy. If you are a Firefox fan you can use the Drop.io Firefox add-on.

4. How to Send and Password Protect Large Files for Security

TransferBigFiles lets you send large files of size 1 GB each by email. The files can be password protected and you can add a personal note to the email you send to the recipients. When your friends download the file, you will receive email notifications which is a feature. You can send the uploaded file to multiple email recipients with a single click.

5. How to Send up to 5GB Files for Free

The service which allows the biggest file to be sent in the list is File Dropper. This site lets you send files as large as 5 GB in size. You can upload movies, videos, executables, photos and possibly any type of file with File Dropper. The only downside with File Dropper is that you cannot upload multiple files at once.

After the upload is complete, you are given a personal link of the uploaded file. Just copy that link and you can email the link to your friends so that they can download it. There are no sign ups or registrations involved with File dropper. However, signing up has its own benefits as you will be able to keep track of your files, add password protection, mark files as private and delete files later on.

6. How to Email Large Files Without Having to Upload Them Anywhere

Tonsho is an interesting twist to the service.  Rather than uploading files yourself, you can use a normal email client such as Microsoft outlook and Thunderbird, and send your email normally.  Your email will then pass through Tonsho servers and if the attachments are too large, it will automatically upload it to a server, and provide the recipient a link. 

While this takes a lot of hassle away from the whole process, you have to be wary of email security.  I’m not sure I’m comfortable passing my email through anyone else’s server.

7. How to Send Large Files Using a Desktop Client

Dropsend is a free service which allows you to send files up to 2GB large.  While most of these web-upload interfaces work well, for me, nothing beats a desktop client.  It just feels more robust, and its certainly more comforting to use when you’re spending a few hours sending a very large file.

8. How to Send Large Files and Tweet them from your Phone or Desktop

FileSocial is one of the easiest ways to share files on twitter.  Just attach your file and a link will be posted to your file.  Sharesend is another alternative for this, but I’m wary about their non-usage of OAuth for twitter, so I’d recommend Filesocial if you want to send and tweet securely.

This post was written by Abhishek Palit who also writes other useful tips at his blog Softtricks, and James Yeang.  Do you want to write for Friedbeef’s Tech?

Which services do you prefer to send large files? Do let us know your views and suggestions through a comment.

Aspiring writers, freelancers, bloggers and students take note! There’s a new war against plagiarism heightened by the recent rash of content theft, more notably amongst bloggers and freelance journalists.  Here are 5 simple detect plagiarism of your content.

1. How to Look for Copies of your Work Online

Undoubtedly the most well known in the field for fast, accurate searches, Copyscape is every plagiarist’s nightmare! It functions by finding sites that have copied content without permission simply by typing in your URL.  Copyscape is free, but has a premium edition that allows more powerful tools like batch Search, which you can use to check your entire site for copies in a single click, up to 10,000 pages.

2. How to Detect Plagiarism in the Work of Others

Article Checker has been around for a long time, as its classic look belies. However, the adage “old is gold” certainly holds true, as this site has been time-tested to be reliable in what it claims to do. Simply copy and paste the text of the article you want to search for, and Article Checker will scour either Google, Yahoo, or both for signs of plagiarism online. This can be useful if you’re an editor trying to root out the “real” writers from the “copy & paste”-rs.

Alternatively you may also want to check out The Plagiarism Checker developed by the University of Maryland which processes documents and intelligently decides which phrases to searches on.

3. How to Remove the Possibility of being Falsely Accused of Plagiarism: College Students Alert!

Created with college students in mind, PlagiarismDetect is a relatively new site which requires registration for a free account. It promises detection for text and phrases to ensure assignments are 100% original, which means that students can now think ahead to prevent being wrongly accused of plagiarism. However, that’s not to say that others can’t benefit from its services as well.

It even supports document uploads so you can just send it your entire assignment for it to be processed.  The site has proven to be accurate and encourages users to use it on a regular basis as newer and more advanced features are being added to it by the day.

4. How to check for Plagiarism using Yahoo! Search

This site has received numerous recommendations all over the web, so it’s worth a shot. Plagium is a reliable site which has makes use of Yahoo’s Search API to search the Internet for plagiarism. As far as efficiency is concerned, ratings have shown that it does nearly as well as CopyScape Premium, so you can rest assured that it will deliver results.

It has a clean and simple interface which doesn’t support ads, so for all those ad-haters out there, this site is especially for you. Just make sure to donate a little to support their cause.

5. How to Root Out Plagiarism Offenders…and Get Your Fair Share of Money!

Fair Share is a free service site that helps detect plagiarism via RSS feeds. In a matter of seconds, you’ll get results in a personalized RSS feed encompassing billions of websites. Targeted at bloggers and Webmasters who want to keep track of how their content is being used, by whom and where, Fair Share works with Creative Commons licenses to sniff out where content reappears, how often it is used and whether the content is linked or not.

An excellent choice for bloggers and others who can’t afford or don’t have the time to use a more advanced system. Plus, as the above picture suggests, you can even demand payment from the ad networks who run the plagiarized content!

Bonus Links for Reference

• 13 Simple Tactics to Prevent, Detect Content Plagiarism – A great preventive guide on how to deal with content plagiarism
• WordPress Plugin: Digital Fingerprint — detecting content theft – An awesome wordpress plugin which helps you track down content stolen from you
• Reduce Content Theft with WP-CopyRight Pro WordPress Plugin – A wordpress plugin which disables copying from your site (I’ll leave it to you to decide if it’s too extreme and whether it hurts you more in the long run)
• How to Report Abuse to WordPress.com – A guide to reporting spam and abuse to WordPress.com
• How to Deal with Online Plagiarism: When People Copy your Blog Articles Without Permission – An excellent step by step manual on how to deal with plagiarism when it happens to you.
• Plagiarism Today – An up to date resource on the topic

This article was written by Aaron Pek & James Yeang.  Contact me if you wish to become a writer for this blog.

Smart people never stop learning new things. They’re naturally curious, and self-improvement is simply a part of their make up.  There’s plenty of free apps and web sites where you can learn anything you want – from a new language to cooking techniques.

Here are five of my favorite learning tools available for the asking. (Just log on and learn!)

1. How to read faster

Spreeder will have you gobbling up information faster than you ever thought possible using the site’s unique speed reading tutorial. You can set the speed text appears and gradually improve your speed reading skills – eye scan drills, key points, etc.

Another use? Let’s say you have a paper due for school tomorrow. It’s late and you don’t have time to read that 50-page white paper on the eating habits of the dreaded El Wanco wombat. No problem. Cut and paste that intriguing article into Spreeder’s text box and Spreeder extracts key points so you don’t have to read all those pages to get to the “meat” of the article, report, white paper or other academic research. Spreeder is a time-saver and a learning tool – one you’ll keep on your desktop. I do. It cuts research chores down to size.

2. How to quickly research a subject

Designed as a starting point for research, Schoolr is a research specialized search engine which points you to Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, Google, dictionary sites and other helpful web spaces looking for the latest information on the topic of your search.

3. How to type faster

Rapid Typing is all about keyboards and entering data faster and more reliably.

There’s a typing tutor download (free), an on-line typing “school,” a stat sheet to record your progress, a typing lessons editor for teachers and a “play” area for kids that turns learning to type into a game that’ll have you and the whole family touch typing in just a couple of hours.

If you’re a “hunt-and-peck” typist, learning to type without staring at the keyboard will increase your productivity and fast. It’s fun and easy, and you can work on- or off-line, whichever makes you most comfortable.

4. How to sit in on university lectures

Lecturefox is a free web service that allows you to sit in on lectures on all kinds of topics given by professors and other scholars from major learning institutions like MIT, Yale University and other schools – all from the comfort of your laptop.

For example, today there are recorded lectures from Yale on “France since 1871,” “Introduction to Literature Theory,” the “Psychology, Biology and Politics of Food” and other things that’ll get you thinking and make you sound smart at your next lodge meeting. Just log in, scroll through the lectures and learn something new everyday. Free.

New topics are uploaded daily so bookmark the site. In just a few visits, you’ll discover your favorite professors and lecturers who provide the latest information in the most detail.

You don’t have to be an egghead to learn about Roman architecture. Just bookmark Lecturefox and learn for the fun of it. You don’t even have to “know this for the quiz” because there are no quizzes.

5. How to learn languages at your own pace

Livemocha is a combination of social media and language learning. You learn by communicating with others interested in learning your native language. You’ll make friends who share your interest in learning and, “si, hablo español” as you get to know more about interesting, educated people from around the world.

Simply type in your native language into the form field. Then, type in the language you want to learn. With a click, you’ll be sent to a chat room where people are bi- and even tri-lingual. And, instead of learning a foreign language from a book or boring audio disks, at Livemocha, you learn by carrying on discussions that interest you with people who want to learn your native tongue.

Think of it as a language swap meet. “I’ll teach you English if you teach me Swahili.” It’s that simple.

So, if you’re curious. If you’re into self-improvement. If you want better grades at school, there are lots of applications and web sites that’ll set you on the path to a bigger brain.

This was a guest post by Edward Khoo who writes about blogging tips, internet marketing, and web 2.0.  Want to guest post on this blog?  Just drop me a line.

What other learning apps and websites do you use?  Tell us in the comments!

Even if you’re not a boy scout, learning a few basic knots can be very helpful in everyday life.  Whether it may be securing a load, or tying a tie, here are 4 very valuable resources to help you tie knots better.

1. How to tie a tie

2tie a tie is a comprehensive guide to all things tie tying.  From traditional bow ties to office friendly Windsor knots, it provides you a step by step guide to wearing them properly.  It also comes with related guides like preventing wrinkles in ties, and cleaning them as well.

2. How to tie shoelaces in different stylish ways

Ian’s shoelace site helps you learn 33 different ways of tying your shoelaces so you can break out of the traditional methods of stringing up your shoes.  It also has an interesting tutorial on what it bills as the ‘fastest way to tie your shoelaces’.  It also has interesting tips on how to prevent shoelaces from slipping, preventing crooked shoe lace bows, and much more.

3. How to learn how to tie all kinds of useful knots

Aptly named ‘I Will Knot’ is one of the best resources online on knot tying.  It gives you animated images which show you how exactly to tie the knot, and makes for much easier reference than typical diagrams.  For further reference, you can also check out Mother Earth News’s guide on how to tie the 10 most useful knots.

4. How to carry about a guide about useful knots in your pocket

Infocard is an interesting project which sets out to collecting a few useful knots and putting them on wallet card for easy reference.  If you want to keep them handy, you can visit the page and print your own.

There’s much more to file compression than simply zipping and extracting files using WinZip.  Here are 7 extra useful tools to make you even more productive when dealing with zipped files.

1. How to preview zip files before downloading them

ArchView is a Firefox extension which can open zip files online without downloading the whole archive. 

Not only can you see what’s in the zip file before you download it, you can even choose which individual files to grab.  This is extremely useful when you only want a few files not the whole zip archive.

This extension is also very fast since it merely fetches a small portion of the archive file from server. 

2. How to zip your files online

Just need  to zip up a few files without installing anything?  Simply upload your files to FileStomp, and it will create a zip file for you on the fly which you can download.

3. How to unzip your files online

While Filestomp creates zip files, WobZip is a way to unzip files online without the need of external software.  You can either upload the file, or point WobZip to the URL online, and it will be uncompressed and ready for download. 

Wobzip has a zipped filesize limit of 100MB, will also scan your zipped file for viruses, and even supports password protected zip files. 

4. How to create a full installer with a Zip file

ZipInstaller is a free tool which installs and uninstalls applications and utilities that do not provide an internal installation program.

It automatically extracts all files from the Zip file, copies them to the destination folder you select, creates shortcuts in the start menu and in your desktop, and adds an uninstall module to allow you to automatically remove the software in the future.

5. Where to get a free WinZip alternative

 7-Zip is perhaps one of the best known free alternatives to WinZip.  Capable of handling most popular file compression formats like Zip and RAR, you can either install it on your system, or carry it around with you on a thumbdrive with the portable version.

6. How to repair corrupted zip files

Zipped files are pretty sensitive where even a minor corruption of the file will cause it to fail an integrity check.  What DiskInternals Zip Repair will do is extract and move all the intact files to a new archive so you gain access to it.

7. How to hide zip files inside a JPG image

This is a really cool hack which allows you to hide zip files within a JPG image.  If you click on the file, the picture will display normally, but you can unzip the picture itself to reveal hidden contents!  Check out the video for more details.

What do you use to zip files?  Tell us in the comments!

Let’s be honest, when we come home with a new shiny toy, we just want to unbox it and have a go at it.  Manuals, receipts and warranties get shoved in a drawer somewhere and are long forgotten…that is until you need them… and you can never seem to find them. 

Here are 3 practical ways to deal with these documents in an efficient manner.

1. How to organize your warranty information

Warranty Elephant allows you to organize your warranty information quickly.  After entering a few key details, you can upload a copy of your warranty itself and your invoice, so you have a softcopy of it.

The best part is that it will send you reminder emails at 6 months, 1 month and 1 week before your warranty expires. This will remind you to check your item and ensure it is in good working order. If it is not, you will have all the information needed, right in front you, to arrange for warranty service

2. How to find manuals for anything

Seriously, who reads manuals?  While you can get most devices up and running right out of the box, reading the manual actually allows you to discover the finer points of your device and gives you the chance to push it to the limits.  Of course when you feel like doing that, you can’t find the manual any more :) 

SafeManuals/Diplodocs is a huge resource of authorized manuals with more than 1.2 million manuals uploaded for almost everything you can think of with a manual – from domestic appliances, TV & Audio equipment, phones, to computers, cars, watches and digital cameras.  

3. How to dig up old receipts quickly

Evernote allows you to capture information, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time.  Some people think of it as an extension to your brain. 

One of the key features is it’s ability to recognize and index TEXT within pictures.  What this means is that you can snap a picture of your receipt from your phone, and Evernote will index it and make it searchable so you can find old receipts in a hearbeat!

Bonus tip: Flatten your boxes: If you plan on selling your electronics on eBay, you’ll find that having the original box is a big plus to potential buyers, and you can typically demand a higher price.  Of course, storing the box can be another space headache as well.  To get around this, flatten a box by simply cut along the taped join at the bottom and fold flat. Your box will be kept in good condition until it is ready for reuse.

Would you use any of the above services?  Tell us in the comments!

Formatting is contextual.  One style may look great in one place, but look horrible in the next.  Here are a few quick tips on how to remove unwanted formatting from your documents.

1. How to remove unwanted formatting from your email

If you’ve received an email which has been forwarded multiple times, you’d notice that it can be hard to read if every line is prefixed with on more more ‘>’ characters.  Stripmail is a great piece of freeware which will help you strip any unwanted characters from your email and formats it into proper paragraphs and indentation so it’s much easier to read.  Stripmail is a free standalone utility which does not require installation so it’s incredibly light and portable.

2. How to remove unwanted formatting from any text in Google Docs AND MS Word and Powerpoint

Want a quick way to remove formatting in your document? Select the text you want to remove formatting from, and click Alt + Spacebar.  This built-in function will instantly do the job, and will work both in Google Docs and Microsoft Office.

3. How to remove unwanted formatting from Excel

The Alt + Spacebar trick doesn’t work in Excel, so what you can do is select an already unformatted cell, then click on the format painter button, and then select the area which you want unformatted.   

4. How to remove unwanted formatting when pasting web pages into MS Word

Things you copy from the web tend to end up looking really bad when you paste it into an MS Word file.  The way to get around this, once you copy the text, go to MS-Word and click Edit-Paste Special – Unformatted Text.  If you tend to do this very often, check out this excellent video tutorial on how to set up this up as a macro.

5. How to remove unwanted formatting when copying from your web browser

Have you ever copied something from your web browser to Outlook or Office and been annoyed that the text formatting (bold, font size, etc) came with it? Don’t you wish you could just copy the text itself, without having to copy it, paste it into notepad, then copy it again? This firefox extension gives you an option to copy text without the formatting. You can even set it to trim extra space in and around the copied text!

How do you deal with unwanted formatting?  Tell us in the comments!

Yes – it’s hard to get a lot of work done when there are just so many interesting things to do online.  People to reconnect with, games to play, discussions to join.  How do you keep yourself focused and get the job done?  Here are 12 geeky techniques which should help you get back on track and be much more productive.

The direct intervention methods:

1. How to limit your time on time-wasting sites

LeechBlock is a simple Firefox extension designed to block those time-wasting sites that can suck the life out of your working day.  You can block sites within fixed time periods (e.g., between 9am and 5pm), after a time limit (e.g., 10 minutes in every hour), or with a combination of time periods and time limit (e.g., 10 minutes in every hour between 9am and 5pm).

You can also set a password for access, just to slow you down in moments of weakness!

2. How to make time-wasting sites turn blank before a certain time

If you want something more potent, you can try Lifehacker’s "Invisibility Cloak" Greasemonkey user script that turns time-wasting web sites blank before a specific time so you would not be able to use them until after a certain time.

3. How to avoid playing addictive Flash games

Flashblock is a Firefox extension that blocks ALL Flash content from loading. It then leaves placeholders on the webpage that allow you to click to download and then view the Flash content. 

Originally meant as a way to simply load up pages faster, this also acts as a final barrier so you can think again before you play that addictive Flash game which you know will suck out another few hours of your life.

4. How to completely block time-wasting sites

Don’t want to even get tempted?  You can block websites using the HOSTS files in Windows with this tutorial.  While this is probably the most effective way of blocking sites, it is juts as painful to unblock those sites when you DO want to visit them after hours.

The guilt trip methods:

5. How to track how much time you spend online

Don’t know how much time you spend online?  You can learn the truth when you install the TimeTracker extension for Firefox.  Not only does it track browsing time across sessions so you can get running totals even when you close your browser, it pauses automatically when you stop browsing or switch focus to another app. 

You can also ask it to ignore certain ‘work’ sites that should not count to your tracked online time if you wish.

6. How to track how you’re spending your time on your computer

If you’re searching for a more detailed breakdown of how you spend your time, look no further than Rescuetime Solo.  This freesoftware sits in your background and tracks all the sites you visit and applications you use so you can see how much of your time was actually in MS-Excel vs Youtube :)

7. How to track how much time you’ve spent on Twitter

If you’re a Twitter addict, you’d be surprised how fast those seemingly harmless 140 character messages add up.  Tweetstats will help you track your tweeting patterns and more importantly – show you when you tweet so you can check how much time you’ve spent on the additive this micro-blogging service. 

The laser focused methods:

8. How to cut out background noise from other apps

Jedi Concentrate is a free windows app which mimics the OSX feature called Exposé.  When "concentrate" mode is activated, all windows except for the current active window are smoothly faded out.

Its purpose is focus only on the app in use and to dim everything else in the background when you need to get to work.

9. How to write without any distractions

Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, Dark Room is just about you and your text.  No distractions, no fancy fonts, no colors, nothing.  For a Mac version try WriteRoom.

The nagging reminder methods:

10. How to use a buzzer to control your activities

Just like a school bell telling you to switch classes, working with buzzer counting down also helps give you a sense of urgency and helps you limit your personal time at work if you stick to it.  For this, you can try e.ggtimer.com for an online buzzer which is incredibly simple to use. 

For example, if you tell yourself you’re going to take a 10 minute break, just load up e.ggtimer and tell it to run for 10 minutes before it beeps.  For more information, do check out this excellent related article on combating procrastination with this method.

The GTD methods:

11. How to avoid getting distracted by constant pinging

Turn off all IM and email notifications, and hide that Twitter sidebar.  These tools are perhaps the ultimate distraction for information addicts like myself, who want to be plugged in all the time.  Seriously though, you don’t really need to be notified in real-time that Martha has come online, or Bob has a new wall post on Facebook. 

12. How to do exactly the same amount  in faster time

After you’ve turned off your notifications, put aside that urge to constantly check your messages, and instead set aside 3 times in a day to check your personal email and address that Facebook fix.  By processing your downtime in batches, you’ll make your personal time much more effective as well.

What other techniques do you have to stop yourself slacking off?  Tell us in the comments!