Series
Ticked Tuesday: Google
Yes, it’s on Saturday, it’s a special edition
I’m mad. Like Really mad here, enough to actually put down Google itself and write a Ticked Tuesday on a Saturday, so here’s the story.
I use Google Apps with my domains, it manages all of my emails and makes calendars and docs a little be easier to share when needed. Normally, this is awesome. I also access my personal email through my phone (though apps, so still gives a general gMail interface when access on my computer). Up until yesterday, this worked great I just used pop to get everything. Then they added in a little damn button of fucking-retarded.
Now, under Settings->Forwarding and POP/IMAP You have to select to enable POP. Well would have been nice if they let us know. When my email just stops working on my phone, I assume by default it’s my service provider. So they say they’re fine, Google should always be fine. An hour later I find the button.
Short form: Let us know when you decide to be asshats or at least leave the stuff that we previously had enabled as they are when you decide to give us the option to turn it off, thanks.
Ticked Tuesday: Dear Questioning Customers
Why do you even bother talking to me? I mean seriously. I’m in activations, we want yours service, we want your money and will do everything next to ‘putting out’ to do that. So why on earth would I bother lying to you? I mean seriously, do I look like customer care?
If you call up telling me you talked to somebody earlier and want to pay us now and get it going, I’m totally for that. But when you don’t give me ANY of the right information for the number I can’t very well do that for you. But then to question my integrity and tell me I’m not seeing what I am is quite annoying. I mean I’ve looked for you through the phone number you gave me, your name, your SSN, your friend’s name whose account it’s supposed to be on and you’re still not there: You’re not telling me something.
Long story short, I have to create the new account with a new number for you or you’re not getting anything, sorry Babe.
Have a T-riffic day,
Jeff
Ticked Tuesday: Dear Sick People
You’re not very nice. No, I’m not talking about you sick people with cancer, I’m talking about those people who get sick with the flu or a cold and go around giving it to other people. Not only giving it to them, but coughing all over the place, sitting closer than lovers and did I mention coughing all over the place?
I’m honestly quite upset right now at you, because now I’m sick. I never get sick. And tomorrow is Halloween at that and I have no voice. Were it not for my natural nice personality I would kill you and your entire family for this. Twice.
Next time you’re sick do us all a favor and go sit in a corner wearing a bio-hazard suit. Or better yet, just stay home. Asshole.
Boogers and snot,
Jeff
Habithack: Sandy
I recently stumbled upon a great service called Sandy. Sandy is your own personal assistant, without the need to actually pay her. The system is fairly simple, send an email to Sandy (you’ll get the address to send it to when you sign up) and say something like “Remember Mags can’t eat tomatoes” or “Remember that Del is a newb” and she’ll remember it for you. At the end of the week, she’ll send you a list of things you told her to remember. You can also use the remind feature (I love this) where you say something like “Remind me tomorrow at 8:00 to watch reaper” or “Remind me a week from now to tell Cheryl I lost” and she’ll tell you 15 minutes before the time of the reminder through email or sms.
The service is pretty neat, though not sure how useful it truly is. It’s fun to think you’re telling somebody to remember stuff, but for the most part it’s just as easy to set up a reminder to yourself about stuff like this. It’s still totally fun none the less and makes you feel important though, I’m just waiting for the ‘bring me coffee’ function.
Ticked Tuesday: Dear American Phone Companies
You suck. Why the hell do you have better mobile plans at better prices than we (as Canadians) do? Right now I pay about $40/month for 150 anywhere-anytime (local/long distance). T-Mobile (which is unavailable here) had 600 minutes for the same price. I’m not one to say it often but HOLY SHIT! That’s a big difference. And that plan at t-mobile also includes unlimited nights and weekends, which mine doesn’t. I’m getting royally fucked here.
I know you’re thinking “Don’t be mad at me, be mad at the company who is ripping you off” but I’m totally not. You guys are setting really high standards. I mean giving people a good deal for their money, being nice on the phone, and actually giving a shit about your customers is just too high of a standard to set. Not everybody can be human you know!
That said: raise your prices, give them really bad customer service and start treating the customers like the pointless numbers they are! Don’t make me call your mother (collect and long distance)!
I got your number, gonna make you mine,
Jeff
HabitHack: Remember, Remember…
My memory is pretty bad when it comes to remembering anything of real values. Sure I might be able to recite pi to the 20th place (ok, that’s a lie) but remembering my family’s birthdays is out of the question. That’s why we have to give ourselves reminders. Today (even though I’m not sure what day it actually is) we’re going to talk about ways to create effective reminders.
The say ‘If you build it, they will come’. Well I think that ‘If you write it, it will get done’. You can think about something as much as you want, but if you can actually touch the task you’re less likely to forget it.
Post-it Notes: I love these little things, I have over 2000 over them in my apartment right now, I buy them in bulk. Whenever I have a task that I know I can’t do right now and have to leave the house to do, I write it on a post-it note. This method works great with prepants, because chances are high that you’re going to put your hand in your pocket at least once tomorrow.
Whiteboards: These are pretty great too. I have one right now with a calendar, corking board and just open whiteboard space on it that I picked up at Wal-Mart and it’s fantastic. Write down numbers I have to call, things I have to do when I get up, or just jot down random ideas for blog posts on it. This also helps if it’s close to the door so you can look on the way out to see if there is anything you had to bring but forgot. It’s just another way to stay organized (and is fun to draw on when you’re bored).
For those of us that are techs, we can use email reminders to send ourselves emails before the date. There a lot of services that do this, but it’s also done by Google Calendar, which I recommend. You just have to select the ’send email X time before event’ option when adding it to the calendar.
If you just want to make a ToDo list, I recommend Remember The Milk. It’s very simple, just sign up and add in what you have to do for each day, what type of list (home/work/school) it is and check it off as it gets done. This is a good site because it can be synced with your cellphone, which is pretty cool.
Messages in Time: This one is a little bit harder to do, but I’ve seen it done and it worked for her. She left a phrase ‘bad wolf’ throughout time in order to remind her of something that she had to do in the future. She did this by naming companies, having people tell the story of ‘the big bad wolf’ and even having it spray painted on the TARDIS, Though it absolutely worked and ended up saving the world, I’d recommend only using this if the post-it notes don’t work.
Those are my recommendations for remembering things, what do you do to remember to do stuff?
Habithack: Prepants
Do you ever find yourself rushing in the morning to get everything ready on the way out the door? Maybe this has become part of your daily routine? Well stop it! The phrase “always be ready in advance” is pretty worn out and often really hard to do, but a good pair of pants only gets better with wear. This is why you have to learn to ‘prepants’.
Prepants (even though I don’t think it’s a real word) is a real simple concept: Get your pants ready in advance. If you followed my advice of ditching the wallet, you should only have a few things to take with you, so pick out a pair of pants and put all the stuff in it for the next morning. If needed, even put the pants on and do a mock-morning. This is a great method and will shave time off your morning (which means you don’t have to get up as early!). Your mom used to pick out your clothes the night before and wasn’t life easier as a kid? Maybe she was on to something there. 
Tomorrow: Super-awesome-amazing ways to remember stuff!
Habithack: Lose your wallet
Just as the title says, you have to lose your wallet. This doesn’t mean throw it off a bridge (just yet) but you have to stop carrying it around. Do you realize how much useless items are in your wallet? I’m sure you don’t. Most people have a card for everything, pictures of everybody they’ve ever met, random ticket stubs and god knows what else. Do you really need to be carrying around a card telling people you’re FBI (Female Body Inspector)? I’ll let you know the answer is no.
Before you go out think about what you know you need, not what you ‘might need’. That will be the big time saver here. I find that the main needs are: Photo ID, Secondary ID/medicare, Debit card, Credit card, cash. For such a small list you surely don’t need to carry around a huge wallet that makes your ass look big.
If you find yourself unable to get rid of all your photos, just get rid of most of them. Wallets usually have that plastic booklet that people put pictures and cards in, start taking just that with you if you must. But in retrospect you don’t need to carry around a lot of pictures, the chances of you ending up on an island by yourself with only your memories is slim.
Once you have yourself cut down, now you can throw your wallet off a bridge. Remember to try and hit the guy in the sailboat for me! 
Tomorrow’s post: Prepants!
Ticked Tuesday: Dear Insulting Halloween Items
Get the F out of my holiday! (GTFOMH) No, I’m not talking about vulgarity, or blood, or pictures of people’s faces that squirt blood out of the eye sockets; I’m talking to you god-damn-mother-fucking ‘cute’ items. All of those ghosts holding candy baskets smiling, all of those purple and orange skeletons with the hats on and ESPECIALLY those little teddy bears with pumpkin heads. Teddy bears have no place in Halloween!
If you’re going to decorate for Halloween, make it scary or creepy or eerie. Halloween is supposed to scare you and put you on edge of your nerves. It’s not supposed to be bright, friendly and fun for the whole family. I mean I’m all for taking kids trick-or-treating, but if your kid is a little pussy it’s not going to be wise to take them up to the door of the house with tombstones on the front lawn. If you don’t want to get spooked, just stay inside like you do every other night.
Boo-bye,
Jeff
P.S. The “Cute Ban” (as it will now be called) does not apply to costumes, but solely decorations. If you want to dress your kids up as care bears, all the power to you.
Habithack: Email Filters
Everyday people gets tons and tons of emails (at least I do) and for the most part they were all going into my inbox, which would pile up pretty fast. With filters though, you can easily organize your email as it comes in and decide when you want to read what email when, if at all.
First, have a look at this easy to read chart I drew up and find out Do you need to use Email Filters?
Filters are fairly easy to set up if you’re using Mozilla Thunderbird (it’s not rocket science in other clients either, but we’re going to be focusing on Thunderbird today). The first thing you want to decide is how you want to separate your email. I have my personal email separated like this:
- Family (pretty self explanatory)
- NewLet (Newsletters)
- Confirm (Confirmation, private message notifications, ect)
- Junk (spam)
Though these are very simplistic, it keeps my inbox fairly clean and allows me to see if something new is in, or just old stuff coming up again.
Now, the How To:
- Firstly, create the folders you want to have them put into (File->New->Folder. Put in in ‘Inbox on email@address.com’).
- Once you have all your folders created, it’s time to create the filters. Go to Tools->Message Filters.
- Make sure the email address you want to use the filters is selected (if you have more than one email in the client) then click the ‘New’ button. At the top, enter a name for this filter, we’re going to use ‘Family’ for this example.
- The next step is to decide how it’s going to filter them there by selecting the variables from the drop down menus, we’re going to select ‘From’ and ‘is’ since we’re adding family. Now enter their email address in the text box on that line and click the ‘+’ button.
- On the bottom half of the screen select ‘Move message to’, then click the 2nd drop down box and find your folder named ‘Family’, select and click the ‘+’ button. Click OK. Now all email from that address you entered will go directly into the desired folder.
You’ve added one and it wasn’t too hard right? Well you can continue doing that. It may seem like a lot of work right now, but it will save you time and hassle down the road when your inbox has over 3000 emails in it when you come back from vacation. I find it useful too if you use the ‘body’ and ‘contains’ as well most of the time, more than email addresses. This is simply because I get a lot of ‘buy Viagra’ and ‘replica watches cheap!’, so adding the words and making them go to spam is easier than adding all of the dummy emails they use.
Not all Habithacks are tech-based (we’re not machines after all), tomorrow we’ll be covering Wallets and why you’re better off without them.