The title of this post is based on Lifehacks, a nifty website with a catchy name, dealing with all sorts of productivity tips. I figured I’d jot down some things which have improved my own life and, in some cases, the lives of those around me, with some explanations included.

del.icio.us: This website has certainly become popular enough with the technology-savvy crowd, but most of the people I deal with on a daily basis don’t belong to that bunch. That’s unfortunate, though I suspect popularity will increase and begin to catch on with the general public, provided it doesn’t get contaminated with a whole lot of garbage. One friend of mine described it as Google on steroids, which isn’t far from the truth. I’ve been using it to store my bookmarks in a shared area online. My wife tends to check it now and then, so I lean towards posting things that might interest her. It’s also a powerful search engine, which searches through sites that have been recommended by the community, hence the Google analogy. Rather than relying on Google’s algorithms, real people choose real sites that get added to the repository. So, after searching high and low for a perch for our parrot, I finally gave del.icio.us a shot. In a couple of clicks, I found Perch Factory, which was exactly the type of place I’d been looking for. Our bird is much happier now that she can hang out with all of us wherever we might be on her Companion Perch Portable Tee Stand, rather than be confined to her cage in my home office all the time.

Zillow.com: If you have any interest in the subject of real estate, check this website out. You can get a Comparative Market Analysis of your home in seconds, and it’s even fairly accurate in my opinion. (I am, incidentally, a NYS Licensed Real Estate Agent.)

VBA Developer’s Handbook: I’m not affiliated in any way with the writers of this book, and I’m not even necessarily trying to push the book itself. Rather, it’s VBA itself which has dramatically improved my life over the years. Considering how many people use Microsoft Office all day long, it pains me how few even know what VBA is. Whenever I encounter a task which I’m liable to repeat, I look for ways of automating it with VBA. Having done this for many years now, I can say with some degree of confidence that I’m doing the work of ten people at any given time while at work (probably a conservative estimate)- at least, ten people who don’t know what VBA is yet depend on Microsoft Office to do their jobs.

Sirius Satellite Radio: Since moving into our house out in the boondocks, my one-way work commute has increased from 12 miles to over 40 miles. Shortly after said move, Howard Stern made his historic move to Sirius. He was to be replaced with David Lee Roth, whom I admire tremendously, having been a die-hard Van Halen fan from the pre-Van Hagar days (I’m sorry, but Van Hagar was NOT Van Halen, no matter what you say). This combination of events spelled one thing for me: Sirius. In all fairness, I gave ol’ Dave a shot that first morning, driving my sorry ass to work, listening to him grill his old gravelly-voiced uncle whoever about who knows or cares, and that sealed the deal. I was at Best Buy right after work. By that night, I was hooked up with a full one year subscription. My commute turned from a stressfull daily ordeal to a relaxing, humor-filled experience that I look forward to. There’s even the huge added bonuses of Scott Ferrall and Bubba the Love Sponge, not to mention Raw Dog. As of this past Monday, they began streaming all these shows over the Internet. Between all that and Howard Stern On Demand, my life has become richer. My commute is now an ongoing First Amendment political statement. I can spend more quality time with my family, since I’ve been laughing the whole way home, rather than dealing with 40 miles of road rage. The subscription has paid for itself many times over.

Ta-da List: They say “Necessity is the mother of invention,” but really I think laziness is the proud parent. It occurred to me one evening as my wife was dictating yet another shopping list to me over the phone that there must be a better way. Sure enough, there’s this free online list sharing service. No more paper (except for when I print the list out prior to actually shopping). She can add items as they occur to her, I can add things I need, and life is good. I also recently discovered Wridea, which is a similar concept, with some cool features which set it apart from Ta-da List, such as categories and a “Print View” option, but I haven’t gotten too deeply into it. Ta-da has been working just fine.

Fairway: We like to cook, and we really enjoy gourmet, preferably organic foods. They opened one of these markets a mile from my job. Try their freshly sliced, organic smoked salmon. With all the bagels and lox I consumed growing up, nothing could have prepared me for this stuff. Now I could never go back to prepackaged lox. They also have the best meat, seafood and deli departments I’ve ever seen (which include plenty of organic items to choose from, of course), and I’ve seen more than a few. Try their organic Peruvian coffee. Surprisingly, they’re not great with the fresh mozzarella- though they do carry mozzarella curds, which I hear is the way to go if you’re up for the added steps of making your own mozzarella. Supposedly, it’s pretty easy, but I haven’t tried, yet. There’s also bulk olives, sundried tomatoes, organic spring mix… I could go on and on. The place is overwhelming, and we’ve struck gold.

Bonterra: Speaking of organic, we’ve tried a bunch of different organic wines, and maybe it’s the lack of sulfites in most of them that we’re just not used to, but frankly, the vast majority really suck. These people, on the other hand, aren’t quite as sulfite-phobic as the average hippie. They’re probably not even hippies. Their wine has sulfites, it’s organic- and, in my humble, non-connoisseur’s opinion, it’s great. Thank my wife for turning me on to it.

This list is by no means exhaustive. I’ll probably be posting a lot more in more specialized areas. There is, for instance, the Bumbo Seat, which deserves mentioning here as well as under the Parenting category. From their website: “The Bumbo is a soft, safe and comfortable environment for your baby. This innovative infant chair is designed to fit the contour of your baby’s body while supporting their spine and encouraging good posture. It lets babies sit upright all by themselves as soon as they have head control. The Bumbo Seat provides the trunk control. This helps your child learn the skills they need to sit up on their own.” There’s also Wikipedia, an endless source of information, The Internet Move Database (IMDb)…