Digital Life | Living Radically

8 Helpful (and Quirky) Free Websites to Save You TIME

On October 4, 2010, In Business Ideas, Digital Life, Living More for Less, Living Radically Principles, Unique Entrepreneurship, By Vanessa

We need more time. We always need a little help. The Internet can help! Here are some of my favorite technologies to save time.

1) Notakeout and Supercook

When you are scrambling to get dinner together and did not have time to go to the market, this is a life saver. Notakeout.com takes ingredients you already have in the kitchen and gives you recipes that are quick and easy. Supercook is another recipe search engine that lets you search by ingredients you have at home.

2) Stickk

Goals are hard to keep, especially when we are super busy. Stickk.com is a site that helps you stick to your goals by emailing friends and setting requirements that if you miss your goal…you have to donate money to charity. Great, non-intrusive reminders.

3) Whenisgood

Have you ever been stuck in one of those email chains where no one can figure out which time and date works for everyone on the chain? Whenisgood solves that. Whether you are a working and need to coordinate a meeting or wanting to organize a birthday brunch this saves time and headache.

4) Mint

Mint is an amazing free website that helps you budget, keep track of bills and so much more. For anyone trying to deal with finances this is a lifesaver.

5) Google Docs

Google docs are a great way to share documents online. This can be good if you need to check over a report so you do not have to print it out or have multiple versions. You can share bills or ideas with spouses or at work. I have found that it cuts down on my faxes, emails and back and forth when editing home papers and documents.

6) Seatguru

If you are a traveler, this is for you. So often you get on a flight and realize you have the seats with an inch less leg room than everyone else—an inch is a lot on a plane! This free site lets you check out seating charts and tells you which are the best seats on each plane so you get the most bang and space for your buck.

7) Daily burn

If you are trying to lose weight, you should definitely check out daily burn with workout ideas, mixes and help. You are not on your own!

8) Let Simon Decide

If you are at that place where you just can’t decide what to do…Let Simon Decide. This is a decision making site that gives advice to help you decide what option you should choose. For indecisive people, it can save a lot of time.

I hope you will explore some of these awesome, time-saving sites. I think that they can definitely make your life a little bit easier!

Top 3 Time Saving Web Tools

On August 4, 2010, In Digital Life, By Scott

Living Radically is all about effiency and living life to it’s fullest potential. We also loved the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss and are always looking for ways to save time working so we have more time to play. Here are some great online tools to save you time:

1. Taking Notes While Driving/Talking/Working

Jott is an amazing service that does voice-to-text services and lets you capture thoughts and reminders to send emails and text messages. For someone who has a lot of things on their lists, this is invaluable.

2. Avoiding The Five Thousand Emails to Set-up a Call or Meeting

Whenisgood is a way to plan the time to have your meeting or event by coordinating availability with all the participants using this easy online tool.

3. Sharing Desktops and Having Virtual Meetings

Dimdim is a great website for web conferencing to collaborate and share voice, video, slides, whiteboard, even your desktop. It saves time because there is no downloads required to host the calls and you do not have to meet in person with this service.

We also chose these tools because they are very easy to use–even for non-techies.

5 Tools for Entrepreneurs Who Have No Home Office

On July 27, 2010, In Digital Life, Travel, By Scott

We are always working from faraway locations because we have no home office. The lower overhead, mobility and flexibility that comes with this is great, but it makes you very reliant on online tools. Entrepreneurs especially can use some of these services to play with the big boys without paying like a big boy. Here are a few of our favorites:

1. RosterBot

We like RosterBot because it lets you organize your teams easily. It does this by polling each person to see if they’re coming to your next event or meeting and then shows you the results, along with some other bells and whistles, on a nicely-organized web page.When you are traveling and need to know who can come to a conference call or the meeting you need to have when you are in town, this is great!

2. BlankSpaces

If you need to have a professional meeting room, or just need to get out of the house to work. Blankspaces is a great option. It is a shared office space for rental for entrepreneurs, freelancers, writers and producers, etc.

3. Legalzoom

This is an online legal document preparation service for pretty much everything you could need–estate planning, trademarks, corporations. For entrepreneurs who do not want to hire a full time lawyer this is a great way to save money and protect yourself.

4. Mikons

If you need to make a logo or icon for yourself, this is a cheaper service that still produces great product. It is an online community and social website where people communicate through visual symbols, logos, icons, or avatars.

5. DimDim

If you need to be out of the office, you can still do your web conferencing with Dimdim. I like them because I think they are the easiest and do not require a lot of downloading.

What are your favorite tools for being an entrepreneur without an office?

10 of the Weirdest Things You Can Do With Technology

On July 26, 2010, In Digital Life, By Scott

I love technology. Over the past few years I have kept a log of all the websites and kinds of technology that have surprised be. Here are a few of the most interesting ones from my list:

1. Bug Spray iPhone App

Whoever thought you could have a sprayless bugspray? I didn’t. But this app supposedly sends out a vibration/sounds that bugs hate.

2.Texting Helps Liver Transplants

This one is a lot more positive and I love it! For teenagers who’ve had a liver transplant, text message reminders to take their medications reduce the risk of organ rejection.

3. GPS to Track Your Child On Their Gap Year

Isn’t the whole point of a gap year to get away from your parents and be off on your own? A mom in England ordered her son Harry, 19, to carry a credit-card sized tracker while he travels across Australia, Thailand and South Africa in his gap year.

4. Fake Flushing Sounds to Get Off the Phone

I have been tempted to use this, but never have. This website: Sorrygottogo has a variety of sounds that help you get off the phone. Everything from a doorbell to a barking dog.

5. Letting Others Decide with Websites

Being indecisive is no longer a great hinderance. There are a few websites that are helping people make choices. Letsimondecide is one such website that has you put in your question or issue and ‘Simon’ tells you what to do. You can also use Ask500 where you ask 500 people a question and they respond!

6. Dog translator

’nuff said.

7. Track Your Happiness on an iPhone

This iPhone app lets you track when you are happy and when you aren’t and then helps you figure out your best and worst times of day!

8. Storysomething

Have you ever wished you could create or be in your own bed time stories? Now you can with Story Somethin. It puts your children at the center of their own interactive story worlds.

9. Sonar Ruler

If you are a student and do not want ot carry around a rule. This iPhone app will help you use a sonar ruler instead!

10. Wecamlocator

This is a directory of all worldwide webcams. Everything from ship webcams to videos of animals–live. Sounds creepy, but it is a pretty cool way to see the weather in Antarctica.

I love these tools, which are your favorite?

How to Buy a Mobile Phone in China

On June 24, 2010, In Digital Life, Living Abroad, Travel, By Scott

Image by Gabyu

In China there are two ways to get a cellphone – the easy way and the bureaucratic way. The bureaucratic way involves taking yourself and your passport down to a China Mobile shop, filling out a ton of paperwork with someone who doesn’t speak English, and then finally getting your SIM card and/or new phone.

The easy way, the way I recommend? Instead of buying a cell phone in country, just buy a cheap unlocked GSM phone at home before you arrive. Even though every phone in the world is made here, it’s still probably just as cheap to buy a basic unlocked model at home – and there is WAY less paperwork.

Now for your SIM card. Instead of walking into China Mobile, were going to your friendly local grey market vendor. Now don’t worry – the SIM card and credit you’re going to buy are totally legit. The benefit for us is that there is no paperwork involved, there’s no “take a number and wait” system, and the whole process takes less than 5 minutes.

You’ll find these stalls at many different locations – bus stops, subway stops, outside official China mobile locations, restaurants, etc. etc. Even if you speak no Chinese, you can still get through this process. Here’s how it works.

1. Walk up to your vendor and present your cell phone. Show them it’s missing a SIM card. They’ll get what you need.

2. The vendor will next likely present you with a fan of envelopes. He’s asking you to pick a number for your phone. If you care to decipher the Chinese you can go through the available numbers. If you don’t care, just point at one.

3. I always present a 100 yuan note when buying a SIM. The SIM card itself costs 25-35 yuan, and the balance will be placed as credit on your card.

4. Pass your phone over to the vendor. Let him put the SIM card in, activate t

he card, and put the balance of your payment as credit on the phone.

5. After that, you’re done. You have a fully operational Chinese cell phone!

Please note that the above procedure is probably not encouraged by the government. They always want you to present your passport in an official establishment when you take a breath in China. I’ve never had a problem though, and vendors are willing to go out of their way to help you if you don’t speak the language.

Tagged with: china • mobile phone • shanghai

How to Get Your Grandma A Computer

On June 1, 2010, In Digital Life, Fun, By Scott

My Grandmother recycles her dental floss. She makes “Surprise Casseroles” with every item in the fridge that is going to expire last week. Grandma Dee grew up during the Depression…on a meager farm…with my Great Grandmother, which according to my dad that was the real tough part. This has made her a tough, spendthrift and eccentric old lady.

I use the word ‘old’ grudgingly because I sometimes forget that my Grandmother does in fact fall into that category. She is a 25 year-old spirit in a 70 year-old women’s body. When my Grandfather passed away this year from cancer he left my Grandmother with an empty condo and a whole lot of time.

Dee is a voracious reader and we all save National Geographic’s, Time’s and Newsweek’s for her when we come to visit. Yet, after each check-in call I had with her, I couldn’t help but think how much more she could read if she had the Internet, if she could email us and video chat instead of just calling. I am a professional blogger, the Internet is my life and my Grandma didn’t even have a computer!

With the generous donation of my boyfriend’s old Mac Laptop, we set out one Sunday morning to get Grandma Dee online. First, if you are going to get your Grandma a computer I highly recommend doing some prep work before even lugging it up her steps. We spent the days before Dee-Day, virus proofing the hard-drive, removing confusing icons from the dock and thinking of every widget she might like to have in her dashboard. We also set-up her Gmail account with a reader and a catchy grandma-y email address and password she would remember.

That morning (this has been on her schedule for 6 weeks), we struggled up her front steps with extra cords, a bag, a mouse and a lot of hope. After 20 minutes of pounding on the windows—she only has 30% hearing in one ear, making a trip to Best Buy for a Router (and a VCR remote because hers was broken and she needed to fix that too), going through her other ‘Grand Kid House Repair List’, and having a 45 minute phone call with Time Warner, we were online. Second tip for wannabe grandkid computer buyers—plan for triple the time you think you will need.

The hardest part of the whole morning was not what I had expected. I had assumed I would be fielding questions about predators, spammers and viruses. Yet, this did not seem to concern my Grandma at all, in fact her first question was, “Can I change the picture on my desktop.” She also demanded that we put a larger calculator on her Dashboard and wanted to know how she could play free games like Solitaire and Scrabble.

Besides these easy requests, the majority of our time was spent trying to explain concepts that I did not realize were even concepts. For example, how would you respond to these?

“Where do I type?”

“I understand that an email is like a mail in the air, but how many days will it take to get there?”

“What is a widget?”

Or my exasperated responses:

“Yes, I swear, a laptop will still work even if it is not plugged in.”

“A mouse is like…a hand for the computer?”

“The articles on NationalGeographic.com and in the magazine are different and the same, but there are more, and sometimes less, and…”

These things come second nature to me and I had a very hard time explaining them. It took a few hours and a bunch of follow up calls, but she seems to be working well. She sent me an email before we even got back home and exclaimed, “OH! You already got it!” When I called the next day.

I left her with a list of every family member’s email. I decided to get back at my sister for the years I had to change her diaper and starred her new college email for my Grandma. In addition I made sure to tell her that my sister had tons of extra time now that she was away from home and would love a daily email. I am sure the rest of the family is now grumbling that my Grandmother has now figured out the ‘forward’ button and the power of puppy picture chain emails.

I felt really good while I gathered up my things and laughed while she watched Youtube videos and decided which subscriptions to add to her Google Reader. For me, I felt like I had bonded with her, gotten a new perspective on how lucky I am to have my computer and was reminded how funny she is. I know for Grandma she can better keep in touch with family and friends, plus she gets to read and play games to her heart’s content.

I patted myself on the back for bringing technology to another household in need and hugged Grandma goodbye. She waved and asked as I was walking out the door,

“Oh, I wanted to ask you. If I want to type something up, do you think Office Depot still has typewriters?”

It might be another few lessons…

10 Ways to Digitize Your Household Chores

On May 18, 2010, In Digital Life, By Vanessa

One of my favorite topics to write about is how technology is changing life. Today I want to write about a number of websites that help make household tasks infinitely easier–and more cost effective!

How to Save Money on Groceries and Food at Home

On Living Radically we are all about living well for less. Here are a few ways to cut corners and save money while spending money on groceries and home cooked food without feeling like you are skimping.

1. Cooking by Numbers

This is an awesome website where you can put in what you have in your fridge and it will tell you what recipes you can make. I realized I was losing a ton of money on wasted leftover food. I didn’t know what to do with the leftover sprouts or about to expire basil leaves. This website will save you money and you can discover new recipes.

2. Ask Alice

If you spend a ton of money on toilet paper, detergent and other household goods or you live in a building with no elevators and hate lugging everything up the stairs. Ask Alice is a great alternative. This site lets you plug in your favorite white products, your usage and will send you reminders when you are about out. Then it delivers the items to you at a much higher discounted rate. That extra 2 dollars on paper towels really adds up after a while.

3. Mozilla Sunbird

This is an amazing way to keep track of all scheduled maintenance things in your house. It is a really easy (and free) way to manage Weekly, daily and yearly chores and tasks

4. Remember the Milk

This is an online task management service. It is amazing how much time you can waste and extra money you spend going back to the grocery store to pick up something you forgot or getting milk at a more expensive place nearby because you forgot it at Costco.

5. Leftover Chef.com

This is a great website that helps you use leftovers in yummy recipes. So nothing goes to waste!

6. Weekly Menu Planner

This is a great way to save money and have less leftovers (although you now have some great sites to cook with those too!). This website will help you plan meals for your household.

7. Garden-Helper

If you want fresh veggies or herbs and are not sure how to have your own garden. This is hte website for you. They have all kinds of free help and advice.

If you have kids:

8. Chorewars.com

Yes, someone has turned chores into a video game. If you have kids that really cannot keep focus, this will help.

9. ChoreBuster

Another easy and free website to manage the chores online—and as they stress a very fair way to delegate household jobs.

10. Payjr

PAYjr is a part of Visa Buxx which offers an innovative chore and allowance system for kids and teens, in conjunction with prepaid, Visa Buxx, reloadable debit cards.

Bonus if you are living in a divorced family situation:

Our Family Wizard

This is for divorced families, they say: “Co-parenting and child custody can be easy, create parenting time schedules/plans in minutes, share activities, trade days, track child support, send messages, make journal entries and keep accurate records in one convenient place!”

We hope these help. Would love your digital household tips in the comments!

My Experiment With Virtual Mail

On April 22, 2010, In Digital Life, By Scott

If you’ve been following us recently you know Vanessa and I are about to embark on our long term urban nomad adventure to various parts of the world. When we tell our friends and family about our plans, a common question we hear back is how we plan on staying connected to our lives and businesses domestically. Most of our lives are online, so that isn’t really a problem. There are times however when people just can’t send you an email, and there are still those pesky bills that won’t let you go paperless.

Image by dcjohn

For all those items you still need a physical street address where people can reach you. Fortunately technology is on the case. Most people are familiar with the concept of a P.O. Box or even having a regular street address at a UPS Store.

There are a few companies now that take it one step further- they give you a regular street address where people can send you letters, but then scan all the envelopes that come in to that address so you can see them online. If I see an envelope I think I need to see the inside of, I can have the entire contents of the envelope scanned for me to read online.

That process should take care of about 90% of my mail needs as I can call a company or solve whatever they need me to do online. For that last 10% of mail though, I can have the actual physical piece of mail forwarded to me at my current location anywhere in the world.

Sounds complicated? I’ll tell you what’s more complicated – filling out endless change of address forms at the post office and having mail delivered to old or wrong addresses. That’s how you end up missing bills and being penalized for it. Instead I want to change my address once and have a central place where it can go from here to perpetuity!

Now this all sounds good in theory, but the title of the post is called my experiment. Over the next several weeks I’ll let you know how my experience with the service I chose goes, the ups and downs of this system, and if it’s tenable over the long run. When I first found out about this virtual mail option I was pretty excited. I pretty much hate handling documents and forms in the physical world – it’s just so damn inefficient. I hope this lives up to my expectations!

Tipping Around the World: There’s an App for That

On March 26, 2010, In Digital Life, Travel, By Scott

There’s always something you forget to look up before you start your latest trip overseas. For me it’s the tipping customs in the country I’m about to visit. I inevitably am forced to used some of my precious international roaming bandwidth on my iPhone so I don’t offend the first taxi driver I meet on my visit. Thankfully I now no longer have to worry, as a new iPhone app takes care of it all for me!

Tipping Tips for the iPhone, now available in the App Store, has a database of local tipping customs for countries all around the world. The tagline for the app really says it all:

Tip like a local, all around the globe. How much should tip a waiter in Wales? A porter in Portual? Hotel staff in Hong Kong?

What’s so great about this app is that it doesn’t just tell you generic tipping customs for each country around the world, but breaks it down by profession in the country you’re actually in. There are also calculators so you can easily enter the total sum for your dinner and figure out what you should tip on top.

For $0.99 I have to say it’s worth it to have this information in your pocket. I’ll be testing it out on our next trip abroad and will let you all know how it performs in the field in a real world situation.

The Pro’s and Con’s of Being an Entrepreneur

On February 18, 2010, In Business Ideas, Digital Life, Unique Entrepreneurship, By Vanessa

Should you start your own business? Be your own boss? Set-up shop in your garage? I love being an entrepreneur and encourage many business minded people in our Venture Capital fund, but it is not for everyone. Here are some Pros and Cons:

Pro: I am wearing my PJ’s right now.

Con: When I have to go out to a meeting, it takes a lot of effort and usually a lot of driving.

Pro: You don’t have to ask anyone for permission
I can take a break when I want to, eat when I want to and never have to make excuses to leave the office when I just want to talk to my friends on a cell phone.

Con: You have to ask everyone for favors
No bosses, means no one to pay you, which means no money. Therefore, all the time I save not having to suck up to a boss, I have to spend sucking up to strangers asking them to help me make money.

Pro: No Bosses

Con: Lots of Vocal Clients

Pro: You can do things even if they are during work hours.

Con: Don’t have an excuse when friends ask for a ride to the airport/pick them up/come to their house to help them paint…

Pro: Don’t have to worry about staying late, plugging in extra hours to get a big bonus!

Con: There. Is. no. bonus.
And lately, there hasn’t been much salary either. Oh ya! See the next one for further explanation.

Pro: Freedom to plan ahead and make my own mission statement and life goals…and actually act on them.

Con: Total uncertainty about job security, money, career, media, assets etc. There is always a big risk with business, and there is not a minute that goes by that I do not wonder if I made the wrong choice not to go corporate.

My Pro’s outweighed my cons, because otherwise I would not be writing this post to you right now.

Tagged with: Business • Entrepreneur