Tag Archives: hacks

Email Productivity Hack: Message in Subject Line

Have you ever been guilty of sending someone a multi-paragraph email just to ask them to do one simple thing? Wouldn’t it be easier for all parties if you just sent them the request without all the fluff?

Chris Brogan and Julien Smith state the obvious in their book The Impact Equation (buy it here).

“If SMS text messaging is on the rise, why would you still send 1,400-word e-mails?”

One of the most practical tips I learned in the Managing Workflow for Business Leaders GTD workshop I attended back in September was to limit the entire email message to the subject line when it makes sense to do so.

This is a great time-saver for both the sender and the recipient. Be sure to use the acronym EOM (End Of Message) to act as a trigger to the recipient that everything they need to act upon is contained in the message subject.

Writing lengthy epistles was OK for Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians, but it is ~~almost~~ never acceptable for email communication. Brevity is essential If you want someone to read and respond to your email.

Have any quick email tips to share? Sound off in the comments below.

All images are from my flickr, unless otherwise noted.

10 Tips for Writing Better Email (grasshopper.com)
Email Subject Lines That Work: The Secret Sauce (amsterdamprinting.com)
Optimising Email Subject Lines (firstdigital.co.nz)
4 Tips to Get Really Busy People to Read Your E-mails (inc.com)

Find Anything With Index of Searches

Recently, I taught a couple of friends some awesome Google Fu—the ever useful Index Of search trick. This little baby turns Google into a veritable smörgåsbord of file searching goodness. It trawls the Internet for just about anything your heart could desire.

Here’s an example of how to put this hack in use (courtesy of Lifehacker). Type the code below into Google.

Code:

-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "Nirvana"

The above snippet searches Google for shared folders with music files with by Nirvana. It’s as simple as that. You can modify the text to search for movies, TV shows, E-books, comic books, etc.

TextExpander by Smile Software is one of the most essential apps in my workflow. It “saves your fingers and your keyboard, expanding custom keyboard shortcuts into frequently-used text and pictures”. It’s also a super convenient way of storing bits of code that are too cryptic and/or lengthy for you to even think about memorizing.

So, for those of you already using it, I’ve created a TextExpander Snippet for your benefit. You can download it here.

Do you have any gnarly Googley tricks up your sleeve? Sound off in the comments below.

All images are from my flickr, unless otherwise noted.

Microsoft Word on the iPhone for Free!

I recently read that Microsoft has been mulling over bringing Office to the Mac App Store. This would be a great boon to Mac users, however, what I think most people really want is for the Redmond software giant to bring Office to the iPhone/iPad (iOS) platform.

So, I’m pleased to announce that this week I was successfully able to get Microsoft Word running on my iPod Touch. Best of all, I did it all for free!

Photo via my flickr

Because they’re really not all that evil, the fine folks at Microsoft released a special, Y2K compliant edition of Microsoft Word for free. However, because they really are kinda evil, the version they released only runs on DOS. You can still download Microsoft Word 5.5 free of charge.

Photo via my flickr

Did you download it? So, now that you’ve got yourself a totally gratis copy of neither the latest, nor the greatest word processing software of all time, what’s the logical next step? Installing it on your iPhone, iPad, and/or iPod Touch, of course!

This hack is only possible if you have the iDOS app installed on your iOS device. If you’re running the 1.0 version of the app, you can add the files directly via iTunes otherwise you’ll have to add them directly to your device using iPhone Explorer, or something similar.

For more detailed instructions of installing DOS apps on your iOS gadget see TouchArcade’s excellent writeup.

Photo via my flickr

If you want a way to create and edit (extremely) simple Word docs on your iOS device AND you were fortunate enough to grab a copy of iDOS before it was yanked (again) from the AppStore this hack is right up your alley.

I’m not saying you should run DOS apps on your iPhone. I just like knowing that I can. What old school games and apps are you running on your iPhone? Which retro apps and games do you wish you could install? Sound off in the comments below.