Business Hacks

Software that promises to do your bidding is usually more annoying than helpful — just ask Clippy — but technology seems to be advancing to the point that such apps might start to be actually useful. Indeed, there’s a new app for the iPhone that’s truly a game changer. It responds to voice recognition, interprets your plain English commands, and leverages a slew of Web sites and services to actually do useful work for you.

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I frequently find that I need to rearrange paragraphs in a document that I have written. Often it’s as simple as wanting to move a paragraph (or a “graf,” in writer lingo) up or down a little, swapping positions with the neighboring paragraph.

Sure, it’s easy to do by selecting the text  with the mouse and dragging it where it needs to go, but what if you don’t like taking your hands off the keyboard? I’ve got a cool, so-little-known-that-it’s-almost-secret keyboard shortcut that lets you rearrange paragraphs instantly.

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Reader Rob wrote to us with this question:

Can you comment on the top two password manager programs that are currently available and that you would recommend? I had Norton Password Manager 2004 on my old machine; I just got a new desktop and want to get an up-to-date, easy-to-use, reliable program to use to create/store passwords and fill out forms.

Excellent question, Rob. A password manager is an essential tool these days, particularly one that can generate and organize secure passwords. I use mine almost daily.

When it comes to freebie password managers (our preferred variety), you really have two main choices:

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Have you discovered that Windows 7 doesn’t remember the size and location of folders on the desktop? If you like a particular folder to open small and squat in the lower right corner, while a different folder opens tall along the left side, you have to manually resize and move them each time in Windows 7. If you have multiple monitors and want certain folders to open on each display, your problems are even worse. Well, now there’s a fix.

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Here’s a quick tip to shave as much as 30 seconds off your Windows 7 startup. This won’t help everyone, but if you find yourself staring at the Welcome screen for 30 seconds or more at each startup, then you might be afflicted by this easy-to-fix bug.

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Outlook 2007 brought us vastly better real-time searches of e-mail, but only for the currently selected folder. Only a fool puts all his or her e-mail in a single folder, though. And therein lies the quandary; Outlook seems designed to encourage you to store and search for your e-mail inefficiently.

Fret not: I’ve got a couple of frequently overlooked options that make your Outlook e-mail far easier to organize and find.

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Every once in a while I run across a technology that even I think has crossed some sort of line. BeenVerified has released Background Check [iTunes link], an app for the iPhone that lets you get all sorts of creepy information about anyone in seconds.

I tested Background Check by searching for a few co-workers, and sure enough, I was able to find their current address, relatives, and purchase price of their home in minutes. There’s even a tab with data on criminal records. You can also search for their Web existence, like Web sites and online photos. (Background Check gives you three free checks per week, or you can get unlimited checks for a subscription fee of $8/month.)

Sure, there are some great reasons to want to run background checks like this. But it’s so… immediate. And thorough.  I find this kind of instant, easy access to everyone’s most intimate details somewhat worrisome. What about you? [via PC World]

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That monthly mobile-phone bill is high enough without having to worrying about overage charges — you know, the ones you incur by exceeding your allotted minutes.

OverMyMinutes.com can alert you via e-mail and/or text message when you’re approaching your limit, thus preventing any unwelcome surprises when your bill arrives.

Obviously you can check your own account to find out how much gabtime you have left for the month — assuming you remember to do that. OverMyMinutes is a set-it-and-forget-it solution, a kind of gal-Friday for minute monitoring. Take a look:

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Since the beginning of time, the process of deleting e-mail in Outlook has gone like this: Click the message you want to delete, then press the Delete key (or click the Delete button). Wayyyy too much work.

Here’s a simpler solution: Delete an e-mail (from list view) just by clicking it with the middle mouse button (which on some mice is the scroll wheel).

Outlook doesn’t offer this option, but there’s an AutoHotkey script that makes it possible. Basically, the script intercepts any middle-clicks (only in Outlook) and converts them into a left-click followed by Ctrl-D (Outlook’s Delete shortcut). It’s simple, it’s clever, and it works.

In case you’re not familiar with it, AutoHotkey is a free utility that can automate various tasks, remap keyboard keys, and so on. There’s a bit of a learning curve (Lifehacker has a good primer for beginners), but, ultimately, all you have to do is install the program, create a new script, then copy/paste the code. Run that new script and you’re off to the middle-click-delete races.

More on BNET:

• Outlook Tip: Turn an E-mail Into an Appointment
• Outlook Tip: Instantly Turn Clipboard Contents Into E-Mail
• Outlook Tip: Change the Subject Line of an E-Mail You Want to Save
• How to Quickly Turn an E-Mail Contact Into an Outlook Contact

You know the best thing about owning a smartphone like the BlackBerry? Information at your fingertips. These three new tools are all about information: searching it, syncing it, and tracking it. Take a look:

Google Mobile The latest version of Google’s eponymous app brings one killer new feature to the table: e-mail and contact search. Just enter (or say!) your query — say, a person’s name or some text from an e-mail — and the app will search through the e-mails and contacts on your device.

Twitterlerts Want to see how your brand or product is faring in the Twitterverse? This BlackBerry app lets you search tweets, save your searches for future use, and monitor designated keywords — alerting you when there’s a match (that’s the “lert” part). Twitterlerts requires BlackBerry OS 4.3 or later and costs $4.99.

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