Business Hacks

E-mail is both a blessing and a curse. If you’re looking for ways to reduce the drain e-mail has on your productivity without throwing out the metaphorical baby, I’ve got three handy reply strategies you can use to quickly respond to (and often resolve) e-mail threads.

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Whether for finding the nearest Starbucks or just figuring out where the hell you are, location-based services are awesome.

Usually you need an app for that, but Google just added location awareness to mobile search. Specifically, owners of Android phones and iPhones can point their browsers to Google.com, click Near me now, and instantly find nearby ATMs, restaurants, gas stations, and the like.

As you can see in the above video, this new capability is also intended to help you find out more about where you are — like if the restaurant you’re about to try is any good.

On my iPhone, I had to dip into the Google.com settings (within Safari) to enable device location (guess it’s off by default), then refresh the location. After that, “Near me now” worked like a charm. Not a bad alternative to the likes of AroundMe, Urbanspoon, and other apps I routinely use to get the local scoop. [via Google Mobile Blog]

Perhaps you’ve heard about the recently unearthed Windows hack called “God Mode.” It sounds awesome, but let’s be clear: All it really does it open a folder that displays all 250 or so Control Panel options in a single, integrated view.

Admittedly, that’s a far cry from some potential “god mode,” but it’s pretty useful nonetheless. If you have trouble finding the right place to change settings in Control Panel, this simple hack is for you.

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Web searches are such an important part of our work day that I’m always looking for ways to make them faster, belter, and more efficient — like a digital Lindsay Wagner.

In the past, I’ve told you about cool reasons to use Bing, a Bing/Google comparison site, and some alternative, specialized search services. This week? How about a way to run four independent Google searches in the same window?

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How efficiently do you manage your day? You might be surprised at how a few simple tweaks can help you work more effectively and recoup valuable time. Here are three tips I think are important to actually taking charge of your day — rather than letting it own you.

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One of the most interesting file management tools in Windows 7 is the Library — a virtual folder that aggregates files from any number of locations on your computer into a single view. Out of the box, though, your Library customization options are limited, and there’s no central place to modify all your Libraries, so it takes a lot of clicks to do anything. I’ve got a free little utility that solves both of those problems.

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New year, another 150 PowerPoint presentations to create and deliver. If you need some help making your next deck, you might want to borrow some content that already exists. After all, there are millions of PowerPoint presentations in the world, and no doubt many people have already cobbled together the images, bullet points, statistics, and backgrounds you need for your own purposes. What you need is a search tool that helps you find existing PowerPoint decks.

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The 2009 calendar has almost run out of days, and that’s making me feel a tad nostalgic. After all, I started writing here with my long-time buddy Rick at the beginning of January, so this is not just the end of the year, it’s the end of my first year at Business Hacks. I spent a little time browsing the year’s posts, and here are my favorite ones — chock full of timeless tips, tricks, and hacks:

• What You Need to Know about Emoticons in E-mail Almost all of my business communication happens through e-mail, so I have a nearly fanatical interest in e-mail tips, tricks, apps, and best practices. It’s not unexpected, then, that I’d rank a post about the pros and cons of using the ol’ smiley face in e-mail one of my faves. The post also polarized some readers.
• Hacked Global Warming E-mails Highlight Importance of Security Speaking of polarizing people, take a dash of global warming pseudo-science, throw in a heaping of conspiracy theory, and stir it together to learn some lessons you can apply to your own business.
• Force Word to Auto Correct Common Typos Less controversial, perhaps, is a short video tutorial on how to train Word to fix your personal cadre of typos automatically.
• Don’t Bring Down Your Mail Server with Reply All Is it possible to crash an exchange server through stupidity? You bet’cha. Don’t be the dude that does it at your office.
• Four Tips for a Killer PowerPoint Presentation I love public speaking; it’s an opportunity to tell jokes to a captive audience. PowerPoint is my wingman, and here are some of my favorite tips to get you through your next presentation.
• Take Control of Your Inbox with Categories and Flags This was our most popular video tutorial of 2009.

Did you read a post this year that you found particularly helpful, interesting, or entertaining? Let us know! Also, be sure to check out our favorite Business Hacks debates of 2009.

We’re suckers for any sort of desktop enhancement which puts us closer to that computer Tom Cruise used in Minority Report — stuff like BumpTop and 360Desktop, for example, expand Windows in clever and unexpected ways.

Programs like those can dramatically improve your productivity. Take T3Desk, for example, which lets you minimize your programs so they shrink to a distant 3D element on the desktop itself.

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I have packages coming and going from all sorts of shipping services — FedEx, USP, DHL, USPS, and more, all the time. When I need to know the status of a particular package, I generally go to the shipper’s Web site and enter the tracking number.

That’s so last-Millennium, though. A better solution: Track all your packages from a single service, and get status in your browser or on your mobile phone.

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