Archive for the ‘Timesavers’ Category

Recognise this man?

It’s Martin Lewis… the ‘Money Saving Expert’ of course! We love Martin, and his ‘consumer revenge’ campaign. We think he keeps a lot of the big (and sometimes complacent) companies on their toes, which can only be a good thing.

We’re going to see Martin tonight, at a ‘one off’ show in London called ‘Money Saving Expert Live’. So in the spirit of saving everyone a few pennies, we thought we would develop a ‘money saving shopping list’ based on the advice Martin gives on his website.

It’s a very easy to use ‘tick box’ affair.. simply tick the items you need in advance, and then cross ithem out as you shop (as if we needed to explain how to use a shopping list to anyone).  Anyway, the list is printer friendly, and is designed to fit nicely on A4 paper.

You can download the list by clicking on the link below. It’s completely free of course… please feel free to copy it and distribute it to your friends, colleagues, and family.

Shopping List

Oh, and don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments section!

Picture the scene… you’re about to set off for a meeting… you’re doing your preparation and you realise that you need a replacement notepad for your shiny corporate portfolio. You head off to the stationery cupboard, only to discover that those cheeky devils in {delete as appropriate} Accounts/Sales/Marketing/Operations took the last one, and didn’t bother re-ordering any!

You could of course quickly swipe some plain copier paper from the nearest printer… or you could instead head over to Printable Paper where you can choose from a selection of printable templates. Take your pick from lined paper, graph paper, dot paper, music paper, and oh so much more (in fact we didn’t know that there were so many different types of paper!). Bear in mind the site has a global audience, so if you’re in the UK, you will most likely want to head straight to the A4 section. The templates can be downloaded as a PDF or in Microsoft Word format. They are completely free (but then we would hope so given that you have to use your own paper and printer!).

As well as offering printable paper templates, you can also download 2009 calendars and cash receipts forms. Ok, so some of the designs leave ‘a little to be desired’, but if you’re simply looking for something functional then they will certainly do the job… at the very least helping you out until the replacement stationery order arrives!

We’re big fans of keyboard shortcuts here. OK, so it can take a little while to learn some commands, but used often enough, they tend to become second nature (many Windows users will be only too familiar with ‘Ctrl-Alt-Delete’ for example). Keyboard shortcuts  (also known as ‘hot keys’) are especially useful when typing (alleviating the need to move your hand from the keyboard to the mouse).

‘Smashing Magazine’ has a nice summary of over 200 ‘hot keys’. Although aimed at web developers, they include commands for commonly used applications such as Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Outlook.

For example, if you use internet explorer, try pressing the F11 key, and the display should switch to full screen. Press F11 again, and the display will revert to normal… much quicker than using a mouse!

Smashing Magazine

Image by visualdensity

Although we’re based in Surrey, we often need to travel to London to meet clients etc. Whilst we prefer to take the train, there are some instances when we simply have to jump in a car. Off peak, the journey normally takes around an hour but (as anyone local will know) it only takes a minor incident (such as a broken down vehicle) to significantly delay the journey.

There are several major routes we can take into the city (A316, A3, M4 etc) so it’s handy to know if there is a problem in advance (so we can add journey time or choose an alternative route). Before we set off, we like to check out the route using live traffic webcams. This may sound like a time consuming process, but in fact, it takes nothing more than a couple of mouse clicks.

In addition, we can also check road conditions for colleagues or clients on the road. If they call to advise us that they’re “stuck in a jam”, we can look at other routes, and suggest those that are less congested.

The two main webcam sites for London are Transport For London (which is navigated using a user friendly map) and BBC London Jam Cams (where camera locations are listed alphabetically). Both sites use the same cameras, and display a still image taken usually within the last 5-15 minutes. In our experience, the TFL site is the easiest to use, and seems to be updated more frequently.

Whilst we’ve focussed on London in the above example, there are also many other other areas with live traffic cameras. KeepMoving.co.uk shows a map of England, split by region, and shows both city and motorway cameras. The BBC also has good coverage, and covers most major cities (including Scotland and Wales):-

BBC England webcams

BBC Scotland webcams

BBC Wales webcams

If there isn’t a camera listed for your route, then a quick Google search for “live traffic camera” (followed by the place name) should reveal what you’re looking for.

Also, as an added bonus, if you are familiar with Yahoo widgets or the Mac dashboard, you can download widgets and configure these to show cameras of your choice using a single keyboard button press. For example, the London cameras can be found at:-

London Traffic Cameras (Yahoo widget)

London Jam Cams (Mac dashboard widget)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you ever visited a website and been greeted with the following message “404 error – file not found”?

Congratulations! You’ve encountered what’s known as a ‘dead link‘… or a page on a site that is no longer available. Think of this as an undelivered parcel… the postman attempted to deliver your package to the address on the label, but when he got there, the building had been demolished!

So how does this relate to your ‘favorites‘ folder?

If (like us) you’ve accumulated hundreds of favorites (a.k.a. ‘bookmarks’) over the last few years, it would be nice to know which of these are still ‘alive’ and which are ‘dead’. Obviously, it would be too time consuming to trawl through the list and visit each of these sites manually (just to see if they were in fact still working). Wouldn’t it be nice then, if there were a piece of software that did this for you automatically?

Well the good news is… there is! AM Deadlink is like a spring clean for your favorites folder. It looks at all of the addresses you have saved, and highlights any ‘dead’ or ‘duplicate links’.

Not only is this a great little program, but it is also free to download and use!

AM Deadlink via PC World

Image by Canon Snapper

Here’s a handy way to read text more quicky:-

1. Open a document, and copy the text you would like to read.
2. Visit Spreeder.com and paste the text in the box provided.
3. Click on ‘use’, and then ‘play’.
4. The text appears in a movie clip, one word at a time.

According to the authors, regular use of this technique should help you improve your overall reading speed.

Admittedly, seeing words whizz on and off screen really quickly takes a little getting used to, but after a little practise it actually becomes second nature. To make things easier (or harder!) you can change the playback speed (and size of words etc) by clicking on ’settings’.

via Lifehacker

Image by talkingplant

Here at blue sky, we use a range of software to create, design, and edit images. When it comes to manipulating photography, we use Adobe Photoshop. It’s a fantastic tool, but it takes several months of use to become proficient (it’s also very expensive to purchase).

If you want to quickly and easily perform some basic image editing (e.g. removing ‘red eye‘ from some party snaps) then head on over to the new Adobe Photoshop Express site. You don’t need to install any expensive or complicated software, and you can get some pretty impressive results in a matter of minutes. You can even upload your photos and save them (there’s a gernerous 2gb limit). Oh, and did we mention, it’s free to use!

Naturally, we’ve given this a try, and we’re very impressed with the layout and user friendliness etc. It’s worth bearing in mind that this is a very limited tool however, and only performs a fraction of the tasks of the professional version… so if you need help with something a little more complex, then (thankfully) you will still need to give us a call!

We’re assuming that most of you currently reading this, will currently have your right arm outstretched, clutching an oval(ish) shaped piece of plastic, which is attached by a cable to your PC. Naturally there will be some of you who are ‘left handed’, and the ‘flashier’ amongst you may even have a wireless mouse… but you get the general idea.

When we first started using computers, there was no such thing as a ‘mouse’. If you wanted to ‘get something done’ in an application, you would need to learn to use a series of keyboard shortcuts (does anyone remember Word Perfect for example?). We often considered this to be a bit of a pain (you had to remember the key combinations after all).

In the last couple of years few years however, we’ve ‘gone back’ to keyboard shortcuts. Yes, they do take a little time to learn, but they can really boost your productivity. Rather like driving a car, once you learn them, they simply become second nature.

With practice you will find it much faster (and easier) to use shortcuts (e.g. ‘CTRL + C’ and ‘CTRL + V’) than remove your hands from the keyboard and mess around with the mouse (e.g. ‘Edit, copy, edit paste’).

Our recommendation is that you a learn a few shortcuts at a time, and build up your knowledge as time goes on. You can find a nice list of (over 200) shortcuts, covering a range of applications at Smashing Magazine:-

Smashing Magazine

Image by Digital Shotgun

Image by Kate A

Here’s a great little site that ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’. Simply copy and paste a list into the ‘Alphabetizer’ and it will arrange this alphabetically. You can arrange lists in ascending or descending order, change cases, and even remove duplicates entries.

The Alphabetizer

For large longer lists or databases, you may want to use Microsoft Excel. If you don’t know how to do this, then here’s a quick video tutorial.

If (like us) you ever need to meet people outside of your office environment, you may have found yourself in the following situation.

The scenario

• You need to meet a client, colleague, or friend… and you happen to live 100 miles apart.
• You spend 10 minutes over the phone, studying your AA road atlas, trying to work out (and agree) a ‘half way’ point to meet.
• Several hours later, you find yourself at a grotty ‘lay-by’ wondering why on earth you agreed to meet at junction 15.
• You spend the next 20 minutes trying to find a venue that serves a decent cup of coffee.
• You find yourself wishing there had been an easier way to determine somewhere suitable to meet (sigh).

What you should have done

• Visited meethalfway.com
• Easily located a suitable venue.
• Downloaded directions and sent these to the person you are meeting by e-mail.

Photo by yummytofu