At the end of each year, we like to round up some of the most popular articles from each section of the site over the last twelve months. So that’s what I’ve compiled here: the number one tech article for each month of the year, with popularity judged by comment count.
1. How to Get Things Done with Jott
“I first tried out Jott last year, and was really impressed with what it could do. You call their number, say something into the phone, and it sends it as a text message back to you. And it works — aside from a few odd names and strange words, its transcriptions are pretty much spot on. Apparently they run your voice message through a speech-to-text engine and then run it by a human operator for double-checking.” – Link
2. Increase Productivity and Relieve Pain with the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
“If you have been looking for a way to increase your productivity without having to train your mind to think or behave in a completely new way, then many will point you to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. Well, they’re wrong, as I discovered; the time and effort to re-train your mind is quite extensive, but the time spent is worthwhile! If you’re prepared to make some sacrifices – or rather, put up with some inconvenience – Dvorak can certainly save you some medical bills and some time.” – Link
3. How to Tell When Your Hard Drive is Going to Fail
“Hard drives form the basis of our computing. The use of computers comes down to manipulating data, and the hard drive is, of course, where we store all our data; family albums, music, work documents, email, the list goes on. Most of the components in your computer are electronic devices. They don’t fail with time like a mechanical device such as a car. But your hard drive is one of the few mechanical devices used in modern computing, and as such, it’s destined to die eventually.” – Link
4. Hard Drive Zen with the Humble Folder
“The hard drive; you bring one home and pop it in your computer, and it’s a totally clean slate. You take a look inside the root directory and see the beauty of nothing. But like all hard drives, over time the files clutter up, filling every nook and cranny. Eventually, space runs out, but because you figured you’d process your files “another day,” it takes hours to figure out what’s what, where’s where and what to delete.” – Link
5. 7 Ways to Use Evernote
“Last week, Lifehack founder Leon Ho introduced me to the beta note taking application Evernote. Evernote boasts a variety of features that make it an excellent application, including automatic synchronization between the web and your other devices, tagging and sorting features, an online client that makes it accessible from anywhere, and a search feature that can even search text stored within images.” – Link
6. Drive-by Tips for Centralizing Your Content on the Internet
“There are so many ways to manage information online, and many ways to centralize various types of information. The main decision is in deciding which data you want to centralize and aggregate so that you can choose the most appropriate method of pulling it all together. I’ve called this drive-by tips because I’m not going to beat around the bush – I’m going to get straight to the point and direct you to the services you need to start getting your information together, so get ready for a fast ride!” – Link
7. Dropbox: A Simple Syncing Solution
“Over the years, I’ve tried syncing my computers any number of ways, from trusting my entire life to a flash drive to uploading everything to Google Docs. Very few options have been idiot-proof enough to make up for my abilities to misplace things, forget to update file versions and generally fail to double check that my computers are all in sync. I need a forgiving synchronization method — something that doesn’t require me to initiate back ups or juggle versions. Dropbox seems to be that method. I’ve actually been using it for over a month now and have encountered an impressive lack of problems.” – Link
8. 10 Free Tools for Collaboration
“With so many people working from home, it’s no surprise that the last few years have seen significant increases in the range of collaboration tools available online. They didn’t just capitalize on a growing trend; they helped to propel it. Here are ten great, free tools for collaboration, including some of those we use here at Lifehack.” – Link
9. 11 Free Mind Mapping Applications & Web Services
“Mind mapping is a way of taking notes, capturing ideas, exploring concepts and breaking down information into a more readily understood format. It’s a place where visual representations and written representations of things merge to create something that is more natural to the mind; it works with and represents the way we think, where as paragraph-based text is not representative of the thought process at all. There are a million and one uses for mind mapping. You can use it to study for a big exam. You can use it brainstorm new article ideas, or flesh out what needs to be covered in the business plan for a new venture. You can organize a big move of house; heck, I’ve seen people use the mind map format for their daily to-do lists (each to their own, eh?).” – Link
10. Back Up Without Breaking The Bank
“A couple of months ago, I ran into one of my friends sobbing her eyes out. Her computer hard drive had died and she’d lost three years of graphic design work. Of course, it wasn’t backed up — she’d thought about it but hadn’t gotten around to picking up an external hard drive. I’ve heard this type of story hundreds of times. Every time I hear a new one, I think about how I’m going to do better at backing up my own work. I still don’t do a great job, but I do have all of my files backed up in one way or another. If I had a major data loss, I could replace most of my work pretty quickly.” – Link
11. 10 Tips for More Effective PowerPoint Presentations
“‘Oh no! Not another boring PowerPoint presentation! My eyes, my eyes…!!!’ How much does it suck to be in the audience for yet another drawn-out, boring, lifeless slideshow? Worse yet, how much does it such to be the one giving it? The truth is, bad PowerPoint happens to good people, and quite often the person giving the presentation is just as much a victim as the poor sods listening to her or him. Here are ten tips to help you add a little zing! to your next presentation. They are, of course, far from comprehensive, but they’re a start.” – Link
12. Aggregate Your Social Networks with Eventbox
“Dealing with social media and networking is a chore. There’s so much going on in too many different places, and keeping track of all that information is hard enough; managing your own is another story. EventBox, a beta application for Mac OS X Leopard, is designed with this problem in mind. The purpose of EventBox is to aggregate the various social networks you utilize in one handy desktop application, much like feed readers did for all the sites you frequent.” – Link Happy holidays, and a productive new year!
