Great discussions are par for the course here on Lifehacker. Each day, we highlight a discussion that is particularly helpful or insightful, along with other great discussions and reader questions you may have missed. Check out these discussions and add your own thoughts to make them even more wonderful!For great discussions any time, be sure check out our user-run blog, Hackerspace. If you've got a cool project, inspiration, or just something fun to share, send us a message at tips@lifehacker.com.Happy Lifehacking, everybody!Do CFL bulbs really last as long as they claim?
What to do if your keyboard on the screen. And if there are dozens of screens: At CES, the Russian design Art Lebedev, the company shows upcoming Optimus Aux Optimus popularis keyboard with a mini and a series of six unique keyboard for data input devices on the key to the home screen.
Showing posts with label Should. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Should. Show all posts
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Should I water my lawn during the night?
Great discussions are par for the course here on Lifehacker. Each day, we highlight a discussion that is particularly helpful or insightful, along with other great discussions and reader questions you may have missed. Check out these discussions and add your own thoughts to make them even more wonderful!For great discussions any time, be sure check out our user-run blog, Hackerspace. If you've got a cool project, inspiration, or just something fun to share, send us a message at tips@lifehacker.com.Happy Lifehacking, everybody!Do CFL bulbs really last as long as they claim?
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
The Science of Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone (and Why You Should)
You've seen inspirational quotes that encourage you to get out and do something strange—something you wouldn't normally do—but getting out of your routine just takes so much work. There's actually a lot of science that explains why it's so hard to break out of your comfort zone, and why it's good for you when you do it. With a little understanding and a few adjustments, you can break away from your routine and do great things.It's important to push the boundaries of your comfort zone, and when you do, it's kind of a big deal. But what is the "comfort zone" exactly? Why is it that we tend to get comfortable with the familiar and our routines, but when we're introduced to new and interesting things, the glimmer fades so quickly? Finally, what benefit do we derive from breaking out of our comfort zone, and how do we do it? Answering those questions is a tall order, but it's not too hard to do. Let's get started.Simply, your comfort zone is a behvioral space where your activities and behaviors fit a routine and pattern that minimizes stress and risk. It provides a state of mental security. You benefit in obvious ways: regular happiness, low anxiety, and reduced stress.The idea of the comfort zone goes back to a classic experiment in psychology. Back in 1908, psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson explained that a state of relative comfort created a steady level of performance In order to maximize performance, however, we need a state of relative anxiety—a space where our stress levels are slightly higher than normal. This space is called "Optimal Anxiety," and it's just outside our comfort zone. Too much anxiety and we're too stressed to be productive, and our performance drops off sharply.The idea of optimal anxiety isn't anything new. Anyone who's ever pushed themselves to get to the next level or accomplish something knows that when you really challenge yourself, you can turn up amazing results. More than a few studies support the point. However, pushing too hard can actually cause a negative result, and reinforce the idea that challenging yourself is a bad idea. It's our natural tendency to return to an anxiety neutral, comfortable state. You can understand why it's so hard to kick your brain out of your comfort zone.Even so, your comfort zone is neither a good or bad thing. It's a natural state that most people trend towards. Leaving it means increased risk and anxiety, which can have positive and negative results (which we'll get to in a moment), but don't demonize your comfort zone as something holding you back. We all need that head-space where we're least anxious and stressed so we can process the benefits we get when we leave it.Optimal anxiety is that place where your mental productivity and performance reach their peak. Still, "increased performance" and "enhanced productivity" just sound like "do more stuff." What do you really get when you're willing to step outside of your comfort zone?You'll be more productive. Comfort kills productivity because without the sense of unease that comes from having deadlines and expectations, we tend to phone it in and do the minimum required to get by. We lose the drive and ambition to do more and learn new things. We also fall into the "work trap," where we feign "busy" as a way to stay in our comfort zones and avoid doing new things. Pushing your personal boundaries can help you hit your stride sooner, get more done, and find smarter ways to work.You'll have an easier time dealing with new and unexpected changes. In this article at The New York Times, Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, explains that one of the worst things we can do is pretend fear and uncertainty don't exist. By taking risks in a controlled fashion and challenging yourself to things you normally wouldn't do, you can experience some of that uncertainty in a controlled, manageable environment. Learning to live outside your comfort zone when you choose to can prep you for life changes that force you out of it.You'll find it easier to push your boundaries in the future. Once you start stepping out of your comfort zone, it gets easier over time. This same NYT article explains that as you step out of your comfort zone, you'll become accustomed to that state of optimal anxiety. "Productive discomfort," as they call it, becomes more normal to you, and you're willing to push farther before your performance falls off. This idea is well illustrated in this infographic at Future Science Leaders. At the bottom, you'll see that as you challenge yourself, your comfort zone adjusts so what was difficult and anxiety-inducing becomes easier as you repeat it.You'll find it easier to brainstorm and harness your creativity. This is a soft benefit, but it's fairly common knowledge (and it's easily reproducible) that seeking new experiences, learning new skills, and opening the door to new ideas inspire us and educate us in a way that little else does. Trying new things can make us reflect on our old ideas and where they clash with our new knowledge, and inspire us to learn more and challenge comfirmation bias, our tendency to only seek out information we already agree with. Even in the short term, a positively uncomfortable experience can help us brainstorm, see old problems in a new light, and tackle the challenges we face with new energy.The benefits you get after stepping outside of your comfort zone can linger. There's the overall self-improvement you get through the skills you're learning, the new foods you're trying, the new country you're visiting, and the new job you're interviewing for. There's also the soft mental benefits you get from broadening your horizons.Outside your comfort zone can be a good place to be, as long as you don't tip the scales too far. It's important to remember there's a difference between the kind of controlled anxiety we're talking about and the very real anxiety that many people struggle with every day. Everyone's comfort zone is different, and what may expand your horizons may paralyze someone else. Remember, optimal anxiety can bring out your best, but too much is a bad thing.Here are some ways to break out (and by proxy, expand) your comfort zone without going too far:Do everyday things differently. Take a different route to work. Try a new restaurant without checking Yelp first. Go vegetarian for a week, or a month. Try a new operating system. Recalibrate your reality. Whether the change you make is large or small, make a change in the way you do things on a day-to-day basis. Look for the perspective that comes from any change, even if it's negative. Don't be put off if things don't work out the way you planned.Take your time making decisions. Sometimes slowing down is all it takes to make you uncomfortable—especially if speed and quick thinking are prized in your work or personal life. Slow down, observe what's going on, take your time to interpret what you see, and then intervene. Sometimes just defending your right to make an educated decision can push you out of your comfort zone. Think, don't just react.Trust yourself and make snap decisions. We're contradicting ourselves, but there's a good reason. Just as there are people who thrive on snap decisions, others are more comfortable weighing all of the possible options several times, over and over again. Sometimes making a snap call is in order, just to get things moving. Doing so can help you kickstart your personal projects and teach you to trust your judgement. It'll also show you there's fallout to quick decisions as well as slow ones.Do it in small steps. It takes a lot of courage to break out of your comfort zone. You get the same benefits whether you go in with both feet as you do if you start slow, so don't be afraid to start slow. If you're socially anxious, don't assume you have to muster the courage to ask your crush on a date right away, just say hello to them and see where you can go from there. Identify your fears, and then face them step by step.There are lots of other ways to stretch your personal boundaries. You could learn a new language or skill. Learning a new language has multiple benefits, many of which extend to learning any new skill. Connect with people that inspire you, or volunteer with an organization that does great work. Travel, whether you go around the block or across the globe. If you've lived your whole life seeing the world from your front door, you're missing out. Visiting new and different places is perhaps one of the best ways to really broaden your perspectives, and it doesn't have to be expensive or difficult to do. The experiences you have may be mind-blowing or regrettable, but that doesn't matter. The point is that you're doing it, and you're pushing yourself past the mental blocks that tell you to do nothing.Trying new things is difficult. If it weren't, breaking out of your comfort zone would be easy and we'd do it all the time. It's just as important to understand how habits form and how we can break them as it is to press yourself out of your comfort zone by doing specific things.You can't live outside of your comfort zone all the time. You need to come back from time to time to process your experiences. The last thing you want is for the new and interesting to quickly become commonplace and boring. This phenomenon, called hedonistic adaptation, is the natural tendency to be impressed by new things only to have the incredible become ordinary after a short time. It's why we can have access to the greatest repository of human knowledge ever created (the internet) at our fingertips (on our smartphones) and still get so bored that all we think of is how quickly we can get newer, faster access. In one way it drives us forward, but in another it keeps us from appreciating the subtle and the everyday.You can fight this by trying new, smaller things. Ordering something new at a restaurant where you get the same thing every visit can be eye-opening the same way visiting a new country can be, and both push you out of your comfortable spaces. Diversify the challenges you embrace so you don't just push your boundaries in the same direction. If you've been learning Latin-based languages and you find yourself bored, switch gears to a language with a completely different set of characters. If you've taken up running, instead of just trying to run longer and farther, try challenging yourself to run on different terrain. You still get the challenge, but you broaden your horizons in a different way.The point of stepping out of your comfort zone is to embrace new experiences and to get to that state of optimal anxiety in a controlled, managed way, not to stress yourself out. Take time to reflect on your experiences so you can reap the benefits and apply them to your day to day activities. Then do something else interesting and new. Make it a habit if you can. Try something new every week, or every month. Our own Adam Dachis has committed himself to doing something weird and new every week, just to test his boundaries.Similarly, don't limit yourself to big, huge experiences. Maybe meditation pushes you out of your comfort zone just as much as bungee jumping. Try the former if you've already done the latter. The goal isn't to become an adrenaline junkie—you just want to learn to learn what you're really capable of. That's another reason why it's important to return to a comfortable state sometimes and just relax. Just don't forget to bring back as much as you can carry from those inspired, creative, productive, and slightly uncomfortable moments when you do.Photos by Alan Levine, Jason Priem, audi_insperation, and jeffr_travel.
Simply, your comfort zone is a behvioral space where your activities and behaviors fit a routine and pattern that minimizes stress and risk. It provides a state of mental security. You benefit in obvious ways: regular happiness, low anxiety, and reduced stress.The idea of the comfort zone goes back to a classic experiment in psychology. Back in 1908, psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson explained that a state of relative comfort created a steady level of performance In order to maximize performance, however, we need a state of relative anxiety—a space where our stress levels are slightly higher than normal. This space is called "Optimal Anxiety," and it's just outside our comfort zone. Too much anxiety and we're too stressed to be productive, and our performance drops off sharply.The idea of optimal anxiety isn't anything new. Anyone who's ever pushed themselves to get to the next level or accomplish something knows that when you really challenge yourself, you can turn up amazing results. More than a few studies support the point. However, pushing too hard can actually cause a negative result, and reinforce the idea that challenging yourself is a bad idea. It's our natural tendency to return to an anxiety neutral, comfortable state. You can understand why it's so hard to kick your brain out of your comfort zone.Even so, your comfort zone is neither a good or bad thing. It's a natural state that most people trend towards. Leaving it means increased risk and anxiety, which can have positive and negative results (which we'll get to in a moment), but don't demonize your comfort zone as something holding you back. We all need that head-space where we're least anxious and stressed so we can process the benefits we get when we leave it.Optimal anxiety is that place where your mental productivity and performance reach their peak. Still, "increased performance" and "enhanced productivity" just sound like "do more stuff." What do you really get when you're willing to step outside of your comfort zone?You'll be more productive. Comfort kills productivity because without the sense of unease that comes from having deadlines and expectations, we tend to phone it in and do the minimum required to get by. We lose the drive and ambition to do more and learn new things. We also fall into the "work trap," where we feign "busy" as a way to stay in our comfort zones and avoid doing new things. Pushing your personal boundaries can help you hit your stride sooner, get more done, and find smarter ways to work.You'll have an easier time dealing with new and unexpected changes. In this article at The New York Times, Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, explains that one of the worst things we can do is pretend fear and uncertainty don't exist. By taking risks in a controlled fashion and challenging yourself to things you normally wouldn't do, you can experience some of that uncertainty in a controlled, manageable environment. Learning to live outside your comfort zone when you choose to can prep you for life changes that force you out of it.You'll find it easier to push your boundaries in the future. Once you start stepping out of your comfort zone, it gets easier over time. This same NYT article explains that as you step out of your comfort zone, you'll become accustomed to that state of optimal anxiety. "Productive discomfort," as they call it, becomes more normal to you, and you're willing to push farther before your performance falls off. This idea is well illustrated in this infographic at Future Science Leaders. At the bottom, you'll see that as you challenge yourself, your comfort zone adjusts so what was difficult and anxiety-inducing becomes easier as you repeat it.You'll find it easier to brainstorm and harness your creativity. This is a soft benefit, but it's fairly common knowledge (and it's easily reproducible) that seeking new experiences, learning new skills, and opening the door to new ideas inspire us and educate us in a way that little else does. Trying new things can make us reflect on our old ideas and where they clash with our new knowledge, and inspire us to learn more and challenge comfirmation bias, our tendency to only seek out information we already agree with. Even in the short term, a positively uncomfortable experience can help us brainstorm, see old problems in a new light, and tackle the challenges we face with new energy.The benefits you get after stepping outside of your comfort zone can linger. There's the overall self-improvement you get through the skills you're learning, the new foods you're trying, the new country you're visiting, and the new job you're interviewing for. There's also the soft mental benefits you get from broadening your horizons.Outside your comfort zone can be a good place to be, as long as you don't tip the scales too far. It's important to remember there's a difference between the kind of controlled anxiety we're talking about and the very real anxiety that many people struggle with every day. Everyone's comfort zone is different, and what may expand your horizons may paralyze someone else. Remember, optimal anxiety can bring out your best, but too much is a bad thing.Here are some ways to break out (and by proxy, expand) your comfort zone without going too far:Do everyday things differently. Take a different route to work. Try a new restaurant without checking Yelp first. Go vegetarian for a week, or a month. Try a new operating system. Recalibrate your reality. Whether the change you make is large or small, make a change in the way you do things on a day-to-day basis. Look for the perspective that comes from any change, even if it's negative. Don't be put off if things don't work out the way you planned.Take your time making decisions. Sometimes slowing down is all it takes to make you uncomfortable—especially if speed and quick thinking are prized in your work or personal life. Slow down, observe what's going on, take your time to interpret what you see, and then intervene. Sometimes just defending your right to make an educated decision can push you out of your comfort zone. Think, don't just react.Trust yourself and make snap decisions. We're contradicting ourselves, but there's a good reason. Just as there are people who thrive on snap decisions, others are more comfortable weighing all of the possible options several times, over and over again. Sometimes making a snap call is in order, just to get things moving. Doing so can help you kickstart your personal projects and teach you to trust your judgement. It'll also show you there's fallout to quick decisions as well as slow ones.Do it in small steps. It takes a lot of courage to break out of your comfort zone. You get the same benefits whether you go in with both feet as you do if you start slow, so don't be afraid to start slow. If you're socially anxious, don't assume you have to muster the courage to ask your crush on a date right away, just say hello to them and see where you can go from there. Identify your fears, and then face them step by step.There are lots of other ways to stretch your personal boundaries. You could learn a new language or skill. Learning a new language has multiple benefits, many of which extend to learning any new skill. Connect with people that inspire you, or volunteer with an organization that does great work. Travel, whether you go around the block or across the globe. If you've lived your whole life seeing the world from your front door, you're missing out. Visiting new and different places is perhaps one of the best ways to really broaden your perspectives, and it doesn't have to be expensive or difficult to do. The experiences you have may be mind-blowing or regrettable, but that doesn't matter. The point is that you're doing it, and you're pushing yourself past the mental blocks that tell you to do nothing.Trying new things is difficult. If it weren't, breaking out of your comfort zone would be easy and we'd do it all the time. It's just as important to understand how habits form and how we can break them as it is to press yourself out of your comfort zone by doing specific things.You can't live outside of your comfort zone all the time. You need to come back from time to time to process your experiences. The last thing you want is for the new and interesting to quickly become commonplace and boring. This phenomenon, called hedonistic adaptation, is the natural tendency to be impressed by new things only to have the incredible become ordinary after a short time. It's why we can have access to the greatest repository of human knowledge ever created (the internet) at our fingertips (on our smartphones) and still get so bored that all we think of is how quickly we can get newer, faster access. In one way it drives us forward, but in another it keeps us from appreciating the subtle and the everyday.You can fight this by trying new, smaller things. Ordering something new at a restaurant where you get the same thing every visit can be eye-opening the same way visiting a new country can be, and both push you out of your comfortable spaces. Diversify the challenges you embrace so you don't just push your boundaries in the same direction. If you've been learning Latin-based languages and you find yourself bored, switch gears to a language with a completely different set of characters. If you've taken up running, instead of just trying to run longer and farther, try challenging yourself to run on different terrain. You still get the challenge, but you broaden your horizons in a different way.The point of stepping out of your comfort zone is to embrace new experiences and to get to that state of optimal anxiety in a controlled, managed way, not to stress yourself out. Take time to reflect on your experiences so you can reap the benefits and apply them to your day to day activities. Then do something else interesting and new. Make it a habit if you can. Try something new every week, or every month. Our own Adam Dachis has committed himself to doing something weird and new every week, just to test his boundaries.Similarly, don't limit yourself to big, huge experiences. Maybe meditation pushes you out of your comfort zone just as much as bungee jumping. Try the former if you've already done the latter. The goal isn't to become an adrenaline junkie—you just want to learn to learn what you're really capable of. That's another reason why it's important to return to a comfortable state sometimes and just relax. Just don't forget to bring back as much as you can carry from those inspired, creative, productive, and slightly uncomfortable moments when you do.Photos by Alan Levine, Jason Priem, audi_insperation, and jeffr_travel.Sunday, December 15, 2013
Should I Buy My Next Phone Off-Contract?
Dear Lifehacker,
Like most people, I wait until my contract expires to get a new phone so I can take advantage of my carrier's contract subsidies. So far I haven't run into any problems, but I'm wondering if there are any advantages to paying full price for my next phone and going contract-free?Sincerely,
Phone FreedomDear P.F.,
Depending on your situation, cellphone contracts can add a bit of complication to your life or they can make no difference at all. Paying full price for your phone, however, puts you in a better situation to negotiate with your carrier—or any carrier, for that matter.
Obviously, when you don't "sign" a contract with a cellular provider you can leave whenever you choose. You have freedom to do whatever you want, essentially, without incurring any fees in the process. On top of that, you get a few other benefits because you will end up purchasing an unlocked phone (or a phone your carrier will unlock for you upon request). This means when you travel you can just swap in another SIM card without your phone having a hissy fit. When you have a locked phone, you're required to roam while abroad (if you even get reception) and pay the associated high costs. If you leave your country of origin with any regularity, you want to have an unlocked phone in your pocket.While the upfront cost of an off-contract, unlocked phone can feel a little daunting, know you'll make a good portion of that money back when you sell the phone and buy a new one. While paying full price will always cost you more, even with the money you make back when selling, if you replace your phone on a regular basis (i.e. approximately ever year) you can keep your losses low. For advice on selling your phone (or any other gadget, for that matter), consult our guide.You can always negotiate with your cellular provider. When they don't have you tied down by a contract with an early termination fee looming over your head, you have nothing to lose by leaving at any time. If you want a discount, you can call up your carrier and just ask for one. Let them know your plan costs too much, you found something cheaper elsewhere, and feel like you have to leave but you'll stay if they can offer you some sort of discount. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't, so you may need to call back and talk to a few different representatives.Some service providers also have a special department of "retention specialists" (the name varies by company) that you can speak to if you want to cancel. These workers can provide you with a deal. When you call to ask about canceling your service, the company may transfer you to that department after a quick discussion with a standard customer representative.Contracts don't screw you over at every turn, and a $325 early termination fee (ETF) seems worse than the reality. ETFs shrink throughout the term of your contract until they don't exist at all. If you stay on contract for a year, decide you want to leave, and just pay the minimized fee, you can have most of the off-contract benefits described above without the need to pay full price for your phone. If you don't travel abroad much or at all, you might prefer to stay on contract because you can always escape when you need to. Let's take a look at the math.A 16GB iPhone costs $200 subsidized and $649 unlocked. AT&T charges a $325 ETF and Verizon charges $350. Both carriers allow you to cancel without penalty in the first month and subtract $10 for each full month of service you complete. So, in reality, AT&T charges $315 and Verizon $340. Let's use Verizon as the example because they charge more. If you cancelled service after the first month, you'd pay a maximum of $540 for your 16GB iPhone. That's $109 less than if you purchased it unlocked and that gap grows by $10 every month you stick with your contract. That means you ought to stick to your contract for as long as possible and pay the ETF if you want your freedom before the two-year period ends. While carriers don't necessarily have to unlock your phone after you've cancelled your contract early, off-contract and unlocked phones tend to go for about the same amount of money when resold so it really doesn't matter unless you need to unlock for traveling abroad.Not all phones cost $649 minimum nor have quite the resale value of an iPhone. Before you sign a contract, ensure that paying the ETF won't actually cost you more than buying an unlocked phone at the start. If not, sticking to your contract can be more cost-effective and you should consider it if you don't plan to travel out of the country or switch carriers and/or phones anytime soon.Love,
LifehackerHave a question or suggestion for a future Ask Lifehacker? Send it to tips+asklh@lifehacker.com.Title image remixed from an original by Kae Deezign (Shutterstock). Photos by Victor1558 and Jack Dorsey.
Like most people, I wait until my contract expires to get a new phone so I can take advantage of my carrier's contract subsidies. So far I haven't run into any problems, but I'm wondering if there are any advantages to paying full price for my next phone and going contract-free?Sincerely,
Phone FreedomDear P.F.,
Depending on your situation, cellphone contracts can add a bit of complication to your life or they can make no difference at all. Paying full price for your phone, however, puts you in a better situation to negotiate with your carrier—or any carrier, for that matter.
Obviously, when you don't "sign" a contract with a cellular provider you can leave whenever you choose. You have freedom to do whatever you want, essentially, without incurring any fees in the process. On top of that, you get a few other benefits because you will end up purchasing an unlocked phone (or a phone your carrier will unlock for you upon request). This means when you travel you can just swap in another SIM card without your phone having a hissy fit. When you have a locked phone, you're required to roam while abroad (if you even get reception) and pay the associated high costs. If you leave your country of origin with any regularity, you want to have an unlocked phone in your pocket.While the upfront cost of an off-contract, unlocked phone can feel a little daunting, know you'll make a good portion of that money back when you sell the phone and buy a new one. While paying full price will always cost you more, even with the money you make back when selling, if you replace your phone on a regular basis (i.e. approximately ever year) you can keep your losses low. For advice on selling your phone (or any other gadget, for that matter), consult our guide.You can always negotiate with your cellular provider. When they don't have you tied down by a contract with an early termination fee looming over your head, you have nothing to lose by leaving at any time. If you want a discount, you can call up your carrier and just ask for one. Let them know your plan costs too much, you found something cheaper elsewhere, and feel like you have to leave but you'll stay if they can offer you some sort of discount. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't, so you may need to call back and talk to a few different representatives.Some service providers also have a special department of "retention specialists" (the name varies by company) that you can speak to if you want to cancel. These workers can provide you with a deal. When you call to ask about canceling your service, the company may transfer you to that department after a quick discussion with a standard customer representative.Contracts don't screw you over at every turn, and a $325 early termination fee (ETF) seems worse than the reality. ETFs shrink throughout the term of your contract until they don't exist at all. If you stay on contract for a year, decide you want to leave, and just pay the minimized fee, you can have most of the off-contract benefits described above without the need to pay full price for your phone. If you don't travel abroad much or at all, you might prefer to stay on contract because you can always escape when you need to. Let's take a look at the math.A 16GB iPhone costs $200 subsidized and $649 unlocked. AT&T charges a $325 ETF and Verizon charges $350. Both carriers allow you to cancel without penalty in the first month and subtract $10 for each full month of service you complete. So, in reality, AT&T charges $315 and Verizon $340. Let's use Verizon as the example because they charge more. If you cancelled service after the first month, you'd pay a maximum of $540 for your 16GB iPhone. That's $109 less than if you purchased it unlocked and that gap grows by $10 every month you stick with your contract. That means you ought to stick to your contract for as long as possible and pay the ETF if you want your freedom before the two-year period ends. While carriers don't necessarily have to unlock your phone after you've cancelled your contract early, off-contract and unlocked phones tend to go for about the same amount of money when resold so it really doesn't matter unless you need to unlock for traveling abroad.Not all phones cost $649 minimum nor have quite the resale value of an iPhone. Before you sign a contract, ensure that paying the ETF won't actually cost you more than buying an unlocked phone at the start. If not, sticking to your contract can be more cost-effective and you should consider it if you don't plan to travel out of the country or switch carriers and/or phones anytime soon.Love,LifehackerHave a question or suggestion for a future Ask Lifehacker? Send it to tips+asklh@lifehacker.com.Title image remixed from an original by Kae Deezign (Shutterstock). Photos by Victor1558 and Jack Dorsey.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Top 10 Tips, Features, and Projects Every Windows User Should Try
Windows hasn't changed a ton in the past few years (at least, the desktop hasn't) but there's always a dark corner to explore, tweak, and improve. Here are 10 things every Windows users should do with their system.SOkay, let's get the most controversial stuff out of the way first. Sure, Windows 8 puts a big focus on touch screen devices, and if you have a Windows 8 PC you can always downgrade it—but Windows 8 really doesn't deserve all the hate its gotten. Sure, the Start menu is gone, but even the most tech unsavvy user can bring it back with a bunch of different apps. Furthermore, contrary to what you've heard, it does have useful new features for desktop users: better performance, enhanced security, a new Windows Explorer (which, even if you don't love the ribbon, is more useful than the old one), a much improved task manager, the ability to Reset & Refresh your PC, the well-designed File History backup tool, and more. Even if you have a few annoyances, they're easy to fix. Plus, it even has a few secret features of its own, which leads us to...Both Windows 7 and 8 have a number of features that go largely unsung, but they can be really handy if you know where they are. From the smallest geeky tricks to the big features you've forgotten are there, a little exploration can go a long way into making Windows more productive. Most of those secret features should work just as well on Windows 8 too—plus, Windows 8 users have their own secret features to try out.Windows often gets criticized for getting slow and bloated over time, but you don't actually need to reinstall Windows regularly—as long as you're careful about what you install, you shouldn't run into that problem. Of course, if you've already reached that point, you can easily clean up and speed up your PC with a little maintenance. Make sure you don't fall for the big maintenance myths out there, or you'll have problems. While you're at it, you might try speeding up that boot time a bit too.Speaking of speeding up your boot time, have you upgraded to a solid state drive yet? If not, you should consider it—it's probably the best upgrade you can possibly make to your computer. Upgrading is easy, too—you just need to move a bit of your data around, since you'll likely be using two drives (one for your OS and programs, and another for all your files). Check out our guide to migrating to an SSD for more information.SChances are, with everything you do in a day, there are ways to do those things faster. The easiest way to speed up your tasks in Windows? Keyboard shortcuts. I'm still discovering shortcuts I never knew about and even the simplest shortcut can make a daily task so much easier. Check out our master list of Windows 7 shortcuts, which should work in Windows 8 as well. And, if you're a Windows 8 user, we have a cheat sheet with all the newly added shortcuts for you too.Okay, so this list is all about Windows, but even Windows users might need another OS once in awhile. If you occasionally need to boot into Linux, for example, you can dual boot Windows and Ubuntu in perfect harmony. If you want to try Windows 8 but don't want to upgrade just yet, you can dual boot it too. Heck, you can even dual boot and virtualize the same partition, which is really handy. If you need OS X, you'll need Hackintosh-compatible hardware to dual boot—or you could just install OS X in VirtualBox on Windows. There is some crappy Windows software out there, and a lot of it is extremely popular—like Adobe Reader, Internet Explorer, and almost any commercial CD burning software. Don't you deserve something better? Check out our Lifehacker Pack for the essential apps every Windows user should have, our App Directory for the best apps in every category, and the 50 free apps we're thankful for for everything else you could possibly imagine.Budding power users have no doubt encountered some of Windows' most confusing and cryptic tools, like the registry, DLL files, User Account Control, and other features. If you still aren't exactly sure what those tools do (or what you can do with them), we've got a guide that teaches you all the basics. With the right knowledge of Windows' advanced tools, you can do some really cool stuff, and customize Windows more than ever before.Okay, so you've discovered some of Windows' best features, but what about all those features you don't want? Or, what about the extra apps and tweaks you want on every version of Windows you install? You may not have known this, but you can actually create a custom Windows installation with all your favorite tweaks, updates, features, and apps in tow, so you don't have to redo them all every time. Of course, that's most useful if you reinstall Windows often—if you're just doing it once, you can also do a clean install without losing all your apps and tweaks using just a few simple tricks instead. Photo remixed from Fer Gregory (Shutterstock).Windows is a great operating system, but it isn't perfect. With the right apps and tweaks, though, you can add all the features you want and make its built-in offerings much better. For example: out of the box, Windows Search doesn't work incredibly well. But, with a few settings tweaks, it can be a million times more useful. Similarly, jump lists are cool, but it'd be nice if they were customizable—enter Jumplist Extender. Check out our top 10 downloads that enhance Windows' built-in features for more.Similarly, if you're tired of Windows updates ignoring the features you want the most, maybe you should spend that money on a few good apps instead—like Fences, for organizing your desktop, or Xplorer2 for a much better file manager. And, while we don't want to start a flam war, let's be realistic and admit that OS X has some pretty good features too—with the right apps, you can bring OS X's best tools to Windows as well. With the right apps and tweaks, anything's possible.
SOkay, let's get the most controversial stuff out of the way first. Sure, Windows 8 puts a big focus on touch screen devices, and if you have a Windows 8 PC you can always downgrade it—but Windows 8 really doesn't deserve all the hate its gotten. Sure, the Start menu is gone, but even the most tech unsavvy user can bring it back with a bunch of different apps. Furthermore, contrary to what you've heard, it does have useful new features for desktop users: better performance, enhanced security, a new Windows Explorer (which, even if you don't love the ribbon, is more useful than the old one), a much improved task manager, the ability to Reset & Refresh your PC, the well-designed File History backup tool, and more. Even if you have a few annoyances, they're easy to fix. Plus, it even has a few secret features of its own, which leads us to...Both Windows 7 and 8 have a number of features that go largely unsung, but they can be really handy if you know where they are. From the smallest geeky tricks to the big features you've forgotten are there, a little exploration can go a long way into making Windows more productive. Most of those secret features should work just as well on Windows 8 too—plus, Windows 8 users have their own secret features to try out.Windows often gets criticized for getting slow and bloated over time, but you don't actually need to reinstall Windows regularly—as long as you're careful about what you install, you shouldn't run into that problem. Of course, if you've already reached that point, you can easily clean up and speed up your PC with a little maintenance. Make sure you don't fall for the big maintenance myths out there, or you'll have problems. While you're at it, you might try speeding up that boot time a bit too.Speaking of speeding up your boot time, have you upgraded to a solid state drive yet? If not, you should consider it—it's probably the best upgrade you can possibly make to your computer. Upgrading is easy, too—you just need to move a bit of your data around, since you'll likely be using two drives (one for your OS and programs, and another for all your files). Check out our guide to migrating to an SSD for more information.SChances are, with everything you do in a day, there are ways to do those things faster. The easiest way to speed up your tasks in Windows? Keyboard shortcuts. I'm still discovering shortcuts I never knew about and even the simplest shortcut can make a daily task so much easier. Check out our master list of Windows 7 shortcuts, which should work in Windows 8 as well. And, if you're a Windows 8 user, we have a cheat sheet with all the newly added shortcuts for you too.Okay, so this list is all about Windows, but even Windows users might need another OS once in awhile. If you occasionally need to boot into Linux, for example, you can dual boot Windows and Ubuntu in perfect harmony. If you want to try Windows 8 but don't want to upgrade just yet, you can dual boot it too. Heck, you can even dual boot and virtualize the same partition, which is really handy. If you need OS X, you'll need Hackintosh-compatible hardware to dual boot—or you could just install OS X in VirtualBox on Windows. There is some crappy Windows software out there, and a lot of it is extremely popular—like Adobe Reader, Internet Explorer, and almost any commercial CD burning software. Don't you deserve something better? Check out our Lifehacker Pack for the essential apps every Windows user should have, our App Directory for the best apps in every category, and the 50 free apps we're thankful for for everything else you could possibly imagine.Budding power users have no doubt encountered some of Windows' most confusing and cryptic tools, like the registry, DLL files, User Account Control, and other features. If you still aren't exactly sure what those tools do (or what you can do with them), we've got a guide that teaches you all the basics. With the right knowledge of Windows' advanced tools, you can do some really cool stuff, and customize Windows more than ever before.Okay, so you've discovered some of Windows' best features, but what about all those features you don't want? Or, what about the extra apps and tweaks you want on every version of Windows you install? You may not have known this, but you can actually create a custom Windows installation with all your favorite tweaks, updates, features, and apps in tow, so you don't have to redo them all every time. Of course, that's most useful if you reinstall Windows often—if you're just doing it once, you can also do a clean install without losing all your apps and tweaks using just a few simple tricks instead. Photo remixed from Fer Gregory (Shutterstock).Windows is a great operating system, but it isn't perfect. With the right apps and tweaks, though, you can add all the features you want and make its built-in offerings much better. For example: out of the box, Windows Search doesn't work incredibly well. But, with a few settings tweaks, it can be a million times more useful. Similarly, jump lists are cool, but it'd be nice if they were customizable—enter Jumplist Extender. Check out our top 10 downloads that enhance Windows' built-in features for more.Similarly, if you're tired of Windows updates ignoring the features you want the most, maybe you should spend that money on a few good apps instead—like Fences, for organizing your desktop, or Xplorer2 for a much better file manager. And, while we don't want to start a flam war, let's be realistic and admit that OS X has some pretty good features too—with the right apps, you can bring OS X's best tools to Windows as well. With the right apps and tweaks, anything's possible.
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