Mike Elgan

A camera phone is more than just a camera and a phone, much more than the sum of its parts. Camera phones are the “Swiss Army Knife” of gadgets, performing the role of other tools — if you know how to use them. Here are ten useful tools you can find inside your camera phone […]

Some guy in a generic suit with a fake smile and a clicker stands uneasily in front of a room full of people who would rather be somewhere else. The clicker controls PowerPoint on a laptop, which sits on a nearby podium or conference table, and is connected to a projector. He slogs laboriously through […]

The first step in dealing with addiction is to admit you have a problem. In the spirit of that cliché, allow me to fess up: “Hi, My name is Mike, and I’m a newsaholic.” “Hi, Mike!!” With that out of the way, let me tell you how I get my fix. When I’ve been away […]

Are you too busy to spend more time with family, read books, cook, take classes, exercise, or do other things you’d really like to do? I’m going to tell you how to think like a software developer or IT admin — to recode your habits and gain five hours of extra time, every day. That’s […]

If you had an unrecoverable hard disk failure — right now — what would you lose? E-mail? Family photos? The report you’ve been working on? Your job? I’m not here to lecture you about the need for backups — you know you should do regular backups, but you probably don’t. And I know why. Backups […]

If you travel on commercial airlines, and are still alive, thank a pilot. It’s a myth that airplanes are safer than cars — in fact, airplanes are much more dangerous. So why is flying safer than driving? The reason is that pilots are better — far better — at flying airplanes than we are at […]

I love search bots. They cater to both my info-lust and laziness. A search bot is a service that does the kind of Internet-based search you might do on Google or Yahoo, but constantly. When a running bot search finds a new “hit,” it e-mails it to you. Search bots have a kind of “set […]

If you’re like most educated technical types, you’ve heard of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” (GTD) productivity concepts, but don’t use them. And I think I know why: 1) you’re too busy to study a whole book on productivity; 2) it might not work for you anyway; and 3) deep down you really don’t want […]

Pop quiz, hotshot: You’re driving down the highway. Suddenly, you remember that you made a commitment to your boss. If you don’t make a note to yourself right now, you may forget, and fail to keep your commitment. What do you do? A) Keep driving, hope you remember later and risk failure. B) Find the […]

We spend a lot of time and energy learning how to find information — how to improve our Google searches; data-mine our own PCs and company networks; and discover the most valuable sites, blogs and feeds. But is finding information really our biggest problem? With information overload bloating our inboxes and boggling our minds, I […]