Little Tricks for Big Help!

Once and a while I find a cool, small detail about a tool or website that makes a huge difference to me – so much so, I feel the need to share. I especially appreciate them when they save me steps and time! Here are eight to get you started...

1. Merge Contacts in Gmail.
Gmail made me happy in early February when they announced several changes to Gmail contacts. This little tip will help you if you use Gmail for professional or personal reasons. When I discovered this new feature, I was relieved! I can recall too many experiences trying to update contacts who appear more than once in my Contacts list. I wanted to combine them and had a frustrating time with copy/paste because it would say a contact already existed with that information. Now, you can just select as many contacts as you want and click Merge these [ ] contacts in the far right pane. Sweet!

2. Multiple Attachment Selection in Gmail.
The other small feature from Gmail making me happy now is the ability to select multiple items for upload to an email in Gmail. Instead of painfully adding an attachment one at a time to the email form, you can now select multiple and watch them upload with progress bars.

3. TripIt Application for LinkedIn.
A professional colleague sent me a request for TripIt. Not only did I discover a fun site for tracking travel but I also discovered it integrated well as an application on LinkedIn. I love how it can update your network updates so people know when you are traveling for business. Could be an especially helpful tool for meeting up with colleagues you are “linked” to but hardly ever see!

4. Subscribe to Facebook Status Updates in a Feed Aggregator.
I don’t ever feel like I can keep up with my Facebook friends status updates. They just happen too quickly in real time. Then, one day I discovered you can actually subscribe to a feed of your friends’ status updates. On the top menu bar, click Friends. In the far left column, under Subscribe, click Friends’ Status Feed. This will give you the feed address to plug into your favorite blog aggregator or you can add to Google Reader like I do. Now, when I have time I can scroll through updates quickly and respond to the ones I feel worthy. This is especially helpful to fast readers who’d rather scroll quickly and spend more time writing goofy messages on friends’ walls or getting back to my “real” work.

**Additional suggestion** Subscribe to your LinkedIn Network Updates in your feed aggregator as well.

5. Blackberry CallsBlocker Application.
A great app for you crackberry addicts. You can now block unwanted calls on your phone using CallsBlocker. I haven’t tried this one out yet but it came highly recommended from Geek Speak Steve. Seems like I might have some R&D (research & development) in my near future.

6. Use Picnik to Edit Photos Online.
Picnik is a great site I recommend in my sidebar sites section. It's an online picture editing application. I love it because it gives me enough editing options for free without having to buy an expensive application with too many options. Now, the site is even more improved. You can open and save your photos from Flickr, Facebook, Myspace, Photobucket, Picasa, Webs, and Webshots, all within Picnik.

7. Check Your @Replies on Twitter.
Some people you aren’t following reply to your tweets. You might not be ready to follow them just yet but it’s important to regularly check your replies to make sure you don’t forget to respond. It’s a newer feature on Twitter but one that’s been on my Blackberry Twitter app for some time now.

8. Googlify Your Smart Phone!
Have a new smart phone? Or just have a smart phone that you never added all the awesome Google applications? (Because we all know Google makes some amazing free tools to make our lives easier!)  Best place to start for adding Google applications is a website by Google (Google Mobile) that helps you find and download all the available applications for your phone. For example, my super awesome pink blackberry can download the Google Mobile App, Search, Maps, Gmail, Sync, Reader, Calendar, and more!

Hope you have fun with these tips and find that can help at least a little!