A little girl dressed as famed comic book artist Stan Lee at the Motor City Comic Con has captured the hearts of of the people of the internet. Here's a photo of her (right) with the great man himself (left).
Link -via Fashionably Geek
(Photo: Vincent James Cracchiolo)
The corner cabinets are awkward, tricky places to store your kitchen stuff efficiently. It turns out, though, that this is a great spot for tucking away your pots and pans.
The Childfree Chic blog posted this clever corner-cabinet-turned-pot-rack idea. With a few hooks, you can make better use of a corner cabinet and store all of your pots and pans (which tend to be space hogs) neatly within it.
Full Reveal of Kitchen | Childfree Chic via BuzzFeed
Photo: Francisco Mignorance
Francisco Mingorance snapped this photo of a fennec fox walking against the wind in the Sahara Desert in Morocco, and submitted it to the 2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. Link - via In Focus
Quick -how many nuclear accidents can you name? Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima …any more? There have been quite a few nuclear accidents of varying danger that you probably never heard of, including some fatal incidents. For example, in 1957, nuclear waste exploded at a reactor near the Soviet town of Ozyorsk.
One of the storage tanks contained around 70 to 80 tons of radioactive liquid waste, and its cooling mechanism stopped working and wasn’t fixed. The tank’s contents, made up mostly of ammonium nitrate and acetates, began to dry out as the liquid heated up and evaporated. Moreover, the temperature increase caused an explosion whose force was equivalent to 70 to 100 tons of TNT, and this sent huge amounts of radioactivity – roughly 20 MCi (800 PBq) – into the environment. The fallout cloud from the explosion contaminated an area of up to 7,722 square miles (20,000 square kilometers).
Over a period of nearly two years, about 10,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding area. In terms of fatalities, the exact cost of the incident is not known, but immediately around the site of the explosion there were 66 diagnosed cases of chronic radiation syndrome.
Read more about the Ozyorsk incident and nine others in a list at Tech Graffiti. Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Ecodefense, Heinrich Boell Stiftung Russia, Alla Slapovskaya, Alisa Nikulina)
Redditor Fidget08 snapped this photo of a tree with its bark blown off after it was hit by a lightning. Now who's gonna carve a baseball bat out of it? Via Laughing Squid
News of Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr is already official, so today's NYC event will likely shed some light on that $1.1 billion deal. CEO Marissa Mayer will be on hand to address the crowd -- and we'll be there to give you the play-by-play. Will we hear exactly what Yahoo means when it says won't "screw it up?" Will Tumblr CEO be there to contribute his take on the merger? Park your browsers here to find out; the liveblog goes down at 5PM EST.
Filed under: Internet
Few routers utilize their full potential out of the box because their firmware limits their functionality. Thanks to an open-source project called DD-WRT, you can unlock your router’s potential to broadcast a stronger signal, manage network traffic, remotely access all your home computers, and a whole lot more. Here’s how to install it, set it up, and supercharge your network.
You don’t need much to get started with DD-WRT. All it takes is a little time to find the right version for your (hopefully) supported router:
A supported router: Many popular routers released at least six months ago have DD-WRT support, but DD-WRT does not support all routers. Search the database to find out if yours is supported. Many have functional beta firmware, if not a final release, but read any notes on your router’s page to find out if you need to do anything special in order to successfully install DD-WRT.
DD-WRT: When you look up your router using DD-WRT’s router database search (mentioned in the previous step), you’ll have a few downloads. Most routers will have a few downloads and you just want to choose the latest stable build. In some cases, like with the popular Asus RT-N66U, you may need to first flash temporary firmware to install DD-WRT. Most routers don’t require much work, but some need a little extra effort. Read your router’s page carefully so you don’t accidentally install the wrong thing and brick it.
About a half an hour of your time to handle the above steps, install the DD-WRT firmware, and configure your newly supercharged router.
That’s it. Once you have your router and its corresponding DD-WRT firmware you can start setting it up.
Installing DD-WRT varies depending on your router, but the general instructions tend to stay the same. Here’s how it usually works:
Log into your router’s admin page. This page lives at varying locations, but it’ll either resemble 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x. For example, most Linksys routers host their admin pages at http://192.168.1.1. Consult your router’s manual for its admin address if you don’t know it.
Go to the Admin(istration) section and choose Firmware Upgrade.
Choose “Select File” and find your DD-WRT firmware.
Upload it and wait for your router to update. Do not unplug or do anything to the router until it finishes updating.
Again, these instructions will differ depending on the router you choose. DD-WRT will include specific instructions for your router if you need to do anything special, so make sure you read them.
With DD-WRT successfully installed, reconnect to your network over ethernet or Wi-Fi (with a new network SSID of dd-wrt) and visit your admin page. In most cases it will still live at the same address of its predecessor (e.g. if you went to http://192.168.1.1 to upload the DD-WRT firmware, go there now). DD-WRT may request a username and password, which by default is root/admin (which you should change to your own if this happens). Newer versions will ask you to choose your own. After logging in, you’ll see the DD-WRT admin page. Now you’re ready to get started!
With DD-WRT installed, you’ll have access to tons of awesome features. Let’s take a look at some of the best.
Note: You might notice that some of these features are available in existing routers that don’t run DD-WRT. Some routers offer more features than others, but DD-WRT always expands on those features even if they’re already present in the default firmware. So, don’t discount DD-WRT just because you already have certain features. DD-WRT can make them better.
Boost Your Wireless Signal
DD-WRT offers a few ways to improve your wireless signal. First, you need to pick the best wireless channel with the least interference. To do that, use the Meraki Wi-Fi Stumbler to see which channels are occupied by the fewest nearby routers. For more exact results, DD-WRT offers a bunch of tools to locate the best channel. If you’d like to take a deep dive into this process, read these instructions.
Once you know the channel you want, you have to tell DD-WRT. To do so, follow these steps:
Choose the Wireless tab from the admin page.
DD-WRT should select the Basic Settings sub-tab by default, but if not you should click on it.
Find the Wireless Channel drop-down menu and select the channel you want.
Click Save, then click Apply Settings.
Wait for the router to reboot with its new wireless channel, connect to your network, and you’ll be good to go.
DD-WRT can do more to improve your wireless signal by actually making your router transmit more powerfully. While it may seem like you’ll want to transmit as powerfully as your router allows, you might end up frying its motherboard that way. Instead, setting its transmit (Tx) power to 71 mW will give it a slight kick without any burnout. You can change by clicking the Wireless tab and then the Advanced Wireless Settings subtab. You’ll find a Tx Power setting. You may see it at 71 mW already as more recent versions change this for you, but if not you can make the change in that section.
If all of that doesn’t do it for you, there are always signal-boosting DIY projects that can help as well.
Use QoS to Prevent Bandwidth Hogging and Network Overloads
QoS (Quality of Service) is a set of rules that prevents bandwidth hogs, whether that’s a person (your roommate) or application (BitTorrent). QoS provides a lot of power and control and setting it up can get pretty detailed if you want. We’ll take a look at the basics here, but check out our full QoS guide for more information.
To get started, navigated to the NAT / QoS tab and then click the QoS sub-tab. Before you can do much, you’ll have to enable QoS (by selecting the Enable radio button) and fill in a few settings:
WAN, LAN, or Both: Generally you’ll use QoS to handle traffic from outside your local network, so you’ll defaults to WAN (Wide Area Network). Unless you have a reason to change it, just leave this setting as-is.
Packet Scheduler: This can be set to HTB or HFSC. HTB is the default method that uses a "token" system to manage bandwidth. Don't change this to HFSC unless you know what you're doing.
Uplink and Downlink: Here you can set a limit for the total network bandwidth can be used on your network. If you don't want to max out your connection, you can set these speeds to less than their theoretical maximums. DD-WRT recommends 80-95% for uplink and 80-100% for downlink.
Once you've got those global settings taken care of, you can start specifying rules. DD-WRT splits these rules up into three categories: Services, Netmask, and MAC priorities. Here’s what they mean:
Services Priority lets you set bandwidth priorities for different applications. These applications are pre-set and include everything from SMTP to BitTorrent to Xbox Live. If a particular service isn't listed, you can add it yourself.
Netmask Priority can give bandwidth priority to a range of IP addresses. For example, if you have three computers that use the IP addresses 192.168.1.10, 192.168.1.11, 192.168.1.12, you can specify that range to receive priority. This can be useful if you want to ensure that your machines will always take priority over any guest computers that show up on your network.
MAC Priority is a way to set which specific devices receive priority over others. Here you enter your device's MAC address (a MAC address is a unique identifying address for your computer's network adapter) and set a relevant priority.
Once you've chosen a service, IP range, or MAC address, and added it to your priorities list, you have to actually define the priority. By default the priority will be set to Standard, but you can promote it to Express or Premium to give it a higher bandwidth priority over other items on the list. These categories are good for applications that will sometimes require additional bandwidth, such as video chat and VOIP. You can also set any item to Exempt to let the app or computer use as much bandwidth as it wants and Bulk if you want it to only use bandwidth that is left over from other applications.
After you've finished adding all your devices and setting their priorities, you can save your settings and let your router reboot (if necessary). That's really all you have to do to get QoS working, but if you want to take a deeper dive you should check out our full QoS guide.
Set Up Port Forwarding to Access Your Computer from Afar
In most cases, your local network is local and cut off from the rest of the internet and you have just one IP address that's shown to the world (even though your router distributes several to your individual computers and devices locally)—your WAN IP. Port forwarding does takes a port on your WAN IP address—the one available to the rest of the web—and forwards it to a port on one of your local machines—a LAN IP address—so you or others can access a specific service on your local network when they’re connected to another one.
To give you a real-world example, web servers run on port 80 by default. If you wanted to run a web server from a machine at home, you’d open up port 80 on your WAN IP address and tell it to forward to port 80 on the LAN IP address of your local machine. Let’s say your WAN IP is 75.43.111.3 and the LAN IP of your desktop computer—the one you want to use as a web server—is 192.168.1.104. When someone goes to http://75.43.111.3 in a web browser (HTTP assumes you want to use port 80) they’ll get forwarded to the web server on your local machine and see whatever site you set up.
Setting up port forwarding is pretty straightforward, but before you get started you need to know what ports you want to open up. Most of the time, you'll set up port forwarding on an as-needed basis—say after you've set up a new service on your computer, like a web server. Sites like PortForward.com can help, as they provide a handy list of common ports for specific services. You can use this list to check which ports you need to open for whatever services you want to make available from outside your home network.
Once you know which port you want to open, click on the NAT / QoS tab in DD-WRT and then the Port Forwarding sub-tab. Once there, click the Add button to create a new port forwarding rule and fill out the following:
Application - The name of the application you're forwarding this port for. You can use any descriptive text you want—this field is here to help you remember why you set this up; like the name suggests, you normally want to use the name of the application you're setting up port forwarding for. I also include my computer's name along with the service, since I forward ports for the same applications on different computers. This helps me quickly find the rules should I need to change them later on.
Port to - "Port to" is the port on your local IP address. If you were setting up VNC for a local computer, you'd fill this in with 5900 as that's the port number VNC uses.
Port from - "Port from" is the port on your external IP address. Generally you'll also enter the same port as you would in the "Port to" field. This works just fine when you're configuring only one machine for one type of service. But say you wanted to be able to remotely access two or more computers using VNC. If you used 5900 on a single, external IP address they would be in conflict. The router would see a request for port 5900 and not know which local IP address should handle that request since the port forwarding table has two. To solve this problem, you can use the standard port for one and not for the other—kind of like an apartment building has a single address but multiple apartments. As you can see in the sample routing table above, Grey's "Port from" is set to 5900 while Hunter's "Port from" is set to 5901. If you try to use VNC normally on my external IP address, you'll be asked to log in to Grey because it uses the standard port. If you want to access Hunter, however, you can easily do so by just using port 5901 instead of the default. This way you can set up identical services with a single external IP address without conflicts.
Protocol - This is where you specify whether or not your service uses the TCP protocol, UDP protocol, or both. When you look up your ports you'll also want to make note of the protocols used. In most cases it will just be TCP.
IP Address - This is where you specify the LAN (local area network) IP address of the computer you want to use for this port forwarding rule. You can easily find this information in your computer's network settings. The IP address will generally be in the 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x format. Because these IP address are generally dynamic (meaning they can change), you'll want to either set up static IP addresses or DHCP reservations. More information on that is available below.
Enable - You need to check this box to enable the port forwarding rule. If you don't check it, you'll still be able to save the rule but it won't be active or function in any way.
When you’re done adding a port forwarding rule, click Save. When you’re done adding all of your rules, click Apply Settings. These are just the basics of port forwarding, and you can do quite a bit more with DD-WRT. For more information, read our port forwarding guide.
These features just scratch the surface of what you can do with DD-WRT. If you want to learn more, you’ll find tons of tutorials over at the DD-WRT Wiki. It’s not only a great resource for DD-WRT router setup and administration, but networking info as well. Whether you stop here or learn more, enjoy your new super router that cost you nothing to upgrade.
Most standalone GPS units have a night mode that draws the map with dark colors so the glare doesn't distract you while driving, but a lot of smartphone GPS apps lack this critical feature. However, you can give any GPS app a reasonable stand-in for a real night mode by inverting your phone's screen.
We've already suggested inverting your screen for easier reading at night, but it occurred to me while driving recently that the same trick works great for nighttime navigation. On an iPhone, go to Settings > General > Accessibility, then set your Triple-Click option to invert colors (not while you're driving, please). Then, you can triple click your home button at any time to invert the screen. Hopefully Google and Apple will update their iOS mapping apps with real night modes, but until then, this is a decent hack to keep the glare out of your eyes.
Google was kind enough to include a night mode in Google Maps for Android, but if you're using a third party app, inverting your screen isn't quite so simple. Stock Android doesn't offer a system-wide inverted mode, but a lot of custom ROM's do. No matter your platform though, having a bright white screen in the corner of your vision isn't safe when you're driving at night, so anything you can do to dim it is worth the effort.
If the 850 hand-drawn emoji included in Hangouts aren't enough for you, we've got some good news -- there's a small collection of Easter Eggs that add even more whimsy to your discussions. The commands are mostly initiated with an IRC-like "/" followed by certain words. For example "/ponies" sends a colorful little filly prancing across your window. There's also "/ponystream" which overruns your chat with young horses. Of course, you can also punch in the Konami code (if you don't know what that is by now, there's no hope for you) which will change your background to pleasant drawing of a mountain and a tree. Sadly, that one is only visible to the person doing the typing. So far we're having mixed results with the web interface for Hangouts and the commands don't work on the mobile version. But in the Chrome app, everything is golden.
Via: Droid Life
Source: Moritz Tolxdorff (Google+)
Dear Lifehacker,
I'm considering getting my DNA tested through a service like 23andMe or DNA Traits, but I'm not really sure I want to learn that much about myself. What can I expect from these genetic tests, and are they worth it?
Sincerely,
Mr. DNA
Dear DNA,
It's no secret that genetic testing is growing in popularity, and with recent events like Angelina Jolie's preventative double mastectomy, the idea of seeing what types of health risks you might have for certain diseases is increasing. We've talked about decoding your DNA with 23andMe before, but over the years the system has changed a bit. It's a complicated subject with a lot of variables, but let's take a look at the data you'll get from a mail-in service, their reliability, the benefits, and the problems.
In most cases, ordering a DNA test from a service like 23andMe will get you two main sets of data: an overview of your health, and an overview of your ancestry. All you need to do is send in a DNA sample (usually spit) and in 6-8 weeks you get an overview of your genetic disorders, genetic propensities, and information about ancestry.
The ancestry information is pretty straightforward. It gives you information about your countries of ancestry, possible cousins, distant relatives, and other surnames you might be related to.
The health information is a bit more complicated, and typically you'll get a few different pieces of information: health risks, inherited conditions, and traits.
Like the name suggests, health risks show your possible risk percentage for various diseases. This includes everything from Chronic Kidney Disease to Alzheimer's Disease. With 23andMe, each of the results is linked to an article stating what it means, what types of lifestyle changes you should make, and scientific articles on the subject.
You'll also get a list of Inherited Conditions. This included things like genetic variants that can cause Cystic Fibrosis, Gaucher disease, or other various deficiencies. Combined with the health risks, the traits are useful to see if you're a carrier for any type of disease or deficiency, even if you don't have the problems yourself.
Finally, you get a list of traits. These are things you likely already know about yourself, including lactose intolerance, male pattern baldness, and hair color. You'll also get somewhat interesting information about weirder details like your likelihood of caffeine consumption, pain sensitivity, and memory. For the most part, these are interesting, but mostly useless tidbits of data.
The clearest benefit of getting your DNA tested is the opportunity to see certain health risks that you might face in the future that you can actually do something about. This is especially handy if you don't know a lot about your family history.
Like a lot of the quantified self movement, a DNA test is all about providing data about your body. Armed with the results of your DNA test you'll have a much clearer idea of what health risks you face and what types of genetic disorders you may be prone to.
The idea is that the more you know about potential problems, the more proactive you can be in avoiding them. In a lot of cases, this is just making sure you're eating healthy and exercising, but it can also give you bigger warnings about things like alcohol consumption, diet restrictions, and plenty more. It gives you a chance to educate yourself a little on your history, and when you have the info in your hand, you can walk into the doctors office and talk about very specific issues.
If you're willing to potentially find some bad news, it's an interesting look into how your body works and why. If nothing else, the ancestry information is interesting, and if you've ever been curious about your family history it's worth doing.
All of this information comes with its own set of problems. First and foremost, it may include a lot of information you don't want to see. In some cases, like Alzheimer's, you can elect to not view the results, but once they're in front of you it's pretty hard to avoid.
Either way, you're likely going to see some information that you might not want to know. For example, I have an increased risk for everything from Chronic Kidney Disease to Restless Leg Syndrome.
Clicking on the results for Chronic Kidney Disease, I learn that the increase isn't that large. On average, 3.4 out of 100 people in my ethnicity get Chronic Kidney Disease, and my risk is somewhere around 4.2 out of 100 people. Which is to say, it's not that much higher. On that same results page I also learn that the best thing I can do to prevent Chronic Kidney Disease is to eat healthy, exercise, keep my blood pressure down, and not smoke. So, basically the same advice any doctor would give me for what statistically speaking is a bit of a false alarm.
And that's the thing, as Gizmodo points out, seeing the possible effects and risks of irremovable DNA doesn't exactly make you feel better. If you're high risk, you can't walk away from it, and in some cases your behavior won't change the results. You'll need to think about whether that's information you care to know.
The problems don't just stop with the mental hurdles you need to go through if your results show a lot of health risks. For one, none of this is regulated by the FDA, and you're essentially handing your DNA over to a private company. For privacy concerns alone, this should raise some red flags.
There's also a problem with the basic results you get. 23andMe alone has been criticized for inaccuracy and overestimating the signifigance of results. Most of the consumer DNA tests also only look at a small amount of DNA, and they can't consider the wide variety of environmental factors that also play a role in your health. The service is also a bit European-centric, and as science writer Ed Yong points out, the results for other ethnicities aren't exactly stellar.
For the bulk of us, the results you get don't really impact your behavior. For example, you might find that you have an elevated risk of heart disease, but the only thing you can really do about that is maintain a healthy diet and exercise. That's something you should be doing anyway.
Of course, Jolie's example above is a good one as well. Some traits, like certain types of cancer, do have preventative measures you can take outside of just eating a healthy diet and exercising. It boils down to one question to ask yourself: how useful do you think this information will be? If you're willing to make necessary changes—even if they're drastic—a DNA test is worth considering. If not, don't waste your money.
It's also worth pointing out that a DNA test is not a replacement to a doctor visit. If anything, it's something you can consider arming yourself with on your next doctor appointment. Your doctor is going to know how to handle your particular situation better than anyone else. They'll also be able to read your results better than you, and can create preventative plans for you moving forward.
Of course, the ancestry information is interesting on its own, and if you don't know a lot about your family history or background both sets of results might help you pin down your roots a little bit.
Sincerely,
Lifehacker
Title photo remixed from Zentilla (Shutterstock) and 4@tassell78 .
The lava fields by the Svartsengi geothermal plant were accidentally transformed into a spa in the 1970s.
Discharged water from the plant, which is rich in salt, blue green algae, sulphur, and white silica, was found to help with skin problems by locals who ventured into the run-off.
All of Iceland’s electricity comes from hydroelectric or geothermal sources, like that at the Blue Lagoon. By utilizing the water left by the many glaciers and the heat coming from below the volcanic island, the country uses fossil fuels only for its transportation. The Icelandic power plants are not generating energy, so much as harnessing the renewable sources that are constantly coming up from the ground.
The Blue Lagoon is now one of Iceland’s most popular attractions, while the geothermal plant continues to work at its edge, pulling seawater up from 2,000 meters underground, bringing earth minerals with it. Once moved through the turbines in the plant, the seawater comes into the lagoon via a pipeline, free of bacteria and with a temperature of around 39°C (102°F). Hundreds of thousands of visitors come each year to swim in the sapphire waters, shrouded with an ethereal steam mist.
Dear Lifehacker,
I have been tasked to make a slideshow for an event at work. I don’t want to make a generic PowerPoint with just boring text or pictures. What are some ways I can enhance the slideshow so it looks impressive and knocks the socks off my audience?
Sincerely,
Panicking About PPT
Dear Panicking,
Giving a presentation is a huge and (sometimes) noble responsibility. After all, only you can prevent death by PowerPoint for your audience. Thankfully, several tips, tools, and other resources can help you take your slides up a notch and make them more professional and captivating. We're focusing on PowerPoint for most of the add-ins and templates below, simply because that's the most widely used business presentation software, but many of the other principles and tricks here apply to other presentation apps. Let's get you started.
First, before we take a look at jazzing up your slides, it's a good time to review how to avoid the reasons presentations suck so often.
Lack of preparation or passion. Often presentations don't work because the presenter didn't practice enough or he/she fails to convey the meaning of the presentation. When you passionately communicate the significance of your subject (maybe even with a storytelling structure for drama), audiences pay attention. To do that well, you have to practice giving your presentation; otherwise, even the most beautiful slides won't help you.
Slides are too complex, overloaded with bullets, lacking in focus, and/or filled with poor quality images. It's easy to hate on PowerPoint for presentations that suck, but the real problem is how we're using it. Slides shouldn't be used as a prompter to read to your audience nor a place to dump as much data as possible. Instead, they're a visual communication aid to support the most important part of the presentation: you and your message. Just about every presentation advice we've highlighted before (including 5 design mistakes you need to avoid and how to deliver polished presentations Steve Jobs style) emphasizes three things for all your slides: simplicity, a clear and meaningful message, and quality visuals. The opposite of this:
Seth Godin's five rules for avoiding really bad PowerPoints are a good guide:
No more than six words on a slide. EVER. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken. [Also recommended in another post: No bullets. Use a separate slide for each sentence or idea.]
No cheesy images. Use professional stock photo images.
No dissolves, spins or other transitions.
Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never use the sound effects that are built into the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have. If people start bouncing up and down to the Grateful Dead, you’ve kept them from falling asleep, and you’ve reminded them that this isn’t a typical meeting you’re running.
Don’t hand out print-outs of your slides. They don’t work without you there.
Similarly, for our guide on how to create presentations that don't suck, communications expert Nancy Duarte offered this helpful mnemonic to keep in mind as you're making your slides:
Simplify
Lose the cliches
Information needs emphasis
Designate elements
Empathy for the audience
Less is more when it comes to presentations (except for font size): The 10/20/30 Rule recommends limiting the number of your slides to 10 and your presentation time to 20 minutes, but using at least a 30-point font size.
Those are the basic slideshow creation principles. Once you've got them down, take a look at how you can improve the design of your slides and the elements on them.
PowerPoints and other presentation tools are visual aids. You want to connect how your slide looks to what you're saying. As Godin writes:
The home run is easy to describe: You put up a slide. It triggers an emotional reaction in the audience. They sit up and want to know what you’re going to say that fits in with that image. Then, if you do it right, every time they think of what you said, they’ll see the image (and vice versa).
To make your presentation stand out visually, use and choose these carefully:
Fonts: Use your own font instead of the default fonts on your computer. Smashing Magazine has a list of sources for free, quality fonts or you could buy a font at many other typography resources. Godin likens this to "dressing better or having a nicer business card. It's subtle, but it works."
Images: Professional quality images, rather than cheesy clipart, will make your presentation stand out. You can buy photos at sites like Getty Images or find a free stock photo using the Everystockphoto.com search engine.
Diagrams and shapes: Simple graphics and diagrams can illustrate or highlight your information better than text can, but using them effectively can be tricky. This non-designer's guide to creating diagrams for slides will help you make sure the visuals you use for emphasis are consistent, appropriately sized, and otherwise communicate well. Similarly, choose the best chart for your data so you're presenting your information as clearly as possible.
Templates: Even if you don't want to use a cookie-cutter approach to your presentation, a template could be a good starting point for later customization. Microsoft offers a collection of PowerPoint templates, many of them professionally designed. Even better, Microsoft's picture and text effects templates (over 150 of them) include bold and captivating slides that combine graphics with simple or animated text—and the instructions for how to create them. VisualBee not only offers free PowerPoint templates, it can automatically design your presentations for you. One last resource: Slidevana provides over 150 truly beautiful slide templates. It costs $79, but if you often make PowerPoint presentations, it might be worth the investment.
Add-ins: Boost PowerPoint's capabilities with third-party add-ins. PPTools offers several, including this starter set, with tools to help you zoom in and out easier, import pictures faster, and more (it's an old add-in, but still available). Previously mentioned pptPlex, now part of Microsoft Office Labs, gives you the ability to jump directly to specific slides and zoom in and out of slide sections. TechRepublic offers a list of a few other potentially useful add-ins.
Other presentation helpers/tricks: Work your presentation like a pro with a few shortcuts. PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts help you create and advance slides with just a few keystrokes. To redirect the focus from the slide to yourself, you could temporarily black out the screen. Check out the other tools that can make your presentation more memorable, including apps that can focus on just part of your screen.
Finally, there are a wealth of other resources on the web that can help boost your presentation, including alternative presentation software.
Alternatives to PowerPoint: PowerPoint is still the most widely used presentation tool, but if you find it to be overkill or its linear format too limiting, many alternatives can fill in for your presentation creation needs. These include Prezi, with its unique zooming interface, and Haiku Deck, which is the easiest way to create gorgeous presentations with an iPad. Even if you stick with PowerPoint or are required to use it, just looking at Haiku Deck's sample presentations might inspire you.
Learn from masters of presentation design. For further reading, check out these great sites, which focus on making presentations beautiful and effective: Presentations Zen, Beyond Bullets, and Duarte.
Good luck with your presentation!
Love,
Lifehacker
Have a question or suggestion for Ask Lifehacker? Send it to tips+asklh@lifehacker.com.
Photos by Tobias Toft, @tmiket/InFocus, Brandon George/Haiku Deck .
Your inevitable demise is hopefully not on your mind too often, but it's still something you should think about long enough to get everything in order. Doing so ensures that everything in your life is organized so others can see what you want to happen after you're gone, what you own, and how to handle a variety of situations.
If this sounds daunting, don't worry too much: being unmarried, without children, and without a useful asset to speak of, I was able to get everything in order in about two hours (I still had a lawyer friend double-check everything to ensure I wasn't accidentally giving my dog medical power of attorney). The more you own the longer it'll take, but it's not nearly as time-consuming as it looks because most of this stuff you probably already have ready to go.
Note: You can do a lot of this stuff on your own, but it's a good idea to speak with a lawyer about your will, assets, and general estate planning. This guide is meant more to get you acquainted with terms, provide DIY options when applicable, and help you collect together what you need.
Planning for your death is actually two things: what happens after you die, and what happens if you're ill and unable to handle decisions yourself. Let's start with taking care of what happens after you die, starting with your last will and testament.
It's possible to draft up a simple will on your own, but it comes with its own set of pros and cons. These include problems with outdated information, specific state related tax issues, and how they handle specific trusts. As USNews notes, online wills are a one-size fits all solution, that can't always account for the complicated situations of real life. However, if you only need a very basic will SmartLegalForms, LegalZoom, or RocketLawyer all provide a simple template for doing so for between $15 and $80. These laws and requirements change often, and if you don't do it right you might unintentionally give someone more power over your estate then you want. Most simple wills have just a few sections where you can say what happens to your assets, and designate who gets any property you own.
When you're drafting up your will, you'll also name your executor. After you die, this is the person who handles your estate (all of your property), finances, debts, and everything else. It should go without saying this is a person you would trust to handle your estate when you're alive. Once you die, a probate court will officially give power to your executor to handle your affairs. They do not have control over your estate until after you die.
Finally, to make the will legally binding, you'll usually need to get signatures from at least two witnesses (who aren't beneficiaries listed somewhere on the will), and it's advisable to get it notarized by a notary public. You can usually find a notary public at your bank, and they act something like an official witness for legal forms.
If you have a lot of assets that you want to designate to multiple people, or to make sure your will is legally sound, you should speak with a lawyer about getting a more advanced will written up. Things start getting really tricky when finances are involved, and if you have a lot of assets it's worth at least consulting with a lawyer (if you need help finding a reputable lawyer here's our guide). I spoke with lawyer Elizabeth D Mitchell of Ambler & Keenan, LLC about the basics of what you can expect from an estate planning firm:
I usually start people out with a form and have them think about who they would name as their power of attorney. From there, we'd look at their assets and arrange for special circumstances. It's important to remember that estate planning isn't just what happens after death, it's also about what happens if you're incapacitated... What I always tell people is that it costs more to clean up a financial mess afterwards then it does to plan ahead.
Mitchell also adds that although it takes a little time to get everything in order, most estate planning lawyers offer some type of free consultation before they into your plan. This is because once they set up a plan with you, you'll be dealing with them for the rest of your life so it's important to know exactly what you're getting into. Mitchell also recommends people at least speak with a lawyer about writing up their will even if they don't own a lot of property because it's possible a single mistake could mess everything up. As the New York Times points out, the law is different in every state, and something as minor as not declaring the document a will out loud will make it invalid in certain states. A lawyer is also handy to set up trusts so your family gets paid out. According to the Wall Street Journal, trusts are increasingly important:
Rick Law, founder of estate-planning firm Law ElderLaw LLP in Aurora, Ill., says estate planners increasingly recommend revocable trusts in addition to wills, since they are more private and harder to dispute. "Every will is like a compass that points toward the closest courthouse," he says.
A revocable living trust can be changed anytime during your lifetime. After you transfer ownership of various assets to the trust, you can serve as the trustee on behalf of beneficiaries you designate. Provided you do so, there aren't any ongoing fees.
That said, if you don't own that much, or you don't mind leaving it all to one person, the whole process of writing out your own will takes about 20-30 minutes. Photo by Ken Mayer .
At this time, you can also decide if you want anything specific in a memorial service, how you want the wake handled, and everything else. It's also common to add these details to the will if you want to make sure your wishes are followed. Obviously this is a very personal event, and what you want depends a lot on your religious and social background. It's a good idea to make your wishes known to family members to take the pressure off them when the time comes.
Just as important as what happens after you die is what happens if you're ill, incompetent, or incapacitated. For this you need a living will, a power of attorney, and a medical power of attorney. If it sounds a little scary, don't worry, it doesn't take a lot of time and by the end you'll know that you'll only get the medical support you want.
You have a lot of choices for different types of power of attorney, but experts typically recommend is a durable power of attorney. This type of power of attorney goes into effect immediately after you sign the documents and lasts until you die. Essentially, when you sign it your power of attorney will have immediate access to your finances and legal matters the second you're declared incompetent or incapacitated.
The form to designate a power of attorney varies by state, but if you want to do it yourself you can get a document from the same services where you did your will (SmartLegalForms, LegalZoom, or RocketLawyer). If you're giving one person complete control over everything you can likely manage to fill this out yourself, but if you want to limit what they can do it's likely best to consult with a lawyer. Photo by Andy on Flickr .
Every state has different paperwork for your living will, and different guidelines (you can grab paperwork specific to your state here). Essentially, each form allows you to designate what type of medical care you want to receive if you can't speak for yourself, as well as designate if you want to donate any of your organs to science. Again, you'll usually need two witnesses when you sign, and it's wise to get it stamped by a notary. When you're finished, keep a copy for yourself, and give copies to your physician, a family member, and your healthcare agent (your lawyer will also keep one if you use one). Additionally, if you do not want CPR or ACLS, you want to fill out a Do Not Resuscitate order with your doctor.
Not every medical procedure known to man is covered in the living will, and for those unexpected occurrences you may also want to designate a medical power of attorney (also known as an agent, attorney-in-fact, health care proxy, or health care surrogate depending on where you live). This person can make medical choices for you if they're not included on your living will, or if you give them the power to override your previous choices if the circumstance warrants it. Additionally, they can also get the right to see your medical records (which is helpful if you choose anyone other than direct family), apply for Medicare on your behalf, and make choices about any medical procedures when you can't. Again, this differs by state, but you'll often name a medical power of attorney on your living will. Of course, before you give someone the power of attorney you'll want to go over what type of medical treatments you want and don't want, and make sure they agree to follow your wishes.
The living will and health care power of attorney forms are important for everyone to fill out. I did mine in about 10 minutes. With these completed, you'll have the peace of mind that you'll get the medical care you want (or don't want) in just about every circumstance. Again, a lawyer is helpful here if you're unclear about anything. If you're not sure what type of treatments you'd like when you're incapacitated you should speak with your doctor. Photo by Social Innovation Camp .
Two of the most important documents are your life insurance policy (especially policies from former employers) and retirement plans (as well as pensions and annuities), because both are easy to overlook. If your heirs don't know these accounts and policies exist, they can't claim them and the funds usually go to the state. So, gather up your various policies and keep them together.
If you don't have a life insurance policy, you might want to get one, and we've walked you through what you need before. A life insurance policy isn't just about covering your salary after you die, it's about helping your family pay for funeral costs, car loans, credit cards, mortgages, and everything else.
To make the process easier on your family when you pass away, it's also a good idea to gather together all your debts (especially big ones like your mortgage, car loans, or credit cards) in one place so your heirs can pay your bills for you while they figure everything else out. You likely already do this, but it's good to keep everything together so they don't have to search for it. To make the process even easier (and skip over any conflicts with power of attorney), you can add a family member to at least one of your bank accounts so they always have access to some of your funds.
If you have a lot of sources of income, it's a good idea to meet with a financial advisor to get everything organized. You can find one through The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. With your financial advisor you can set up beneficiaries for retirement plans, make your accounts accessible, and create spending plans for your surviving family.
The reason this is an important step is not just to give your heirs access to your bank accounts, it's also so they can shut down services you don't want around. For example, Facebook can memorialize your page if you want, but if you don't want that digital record sticking around, you might make a request to your heirs to delete it outright. Likewise, if an heir wants access to your Google account and you don't give them the password, they'll need to provide a name, address, photo ID, email, and death certificate. Which is to say, it's a lot easier for your family if you just give them your passwords.
So, when you're putting together your list of usernames and passwords, include instructions for how you want those accounts handled, including if you want them to do anything specific with your home computer. It might seem a little weird, but if you want a little control over how your digital life is handled after you die, this is the only option. If you're using a password manager like Lastpass then you can just look in your password vault for a full list of all your accounts and passwords. It only takes a couple of minutes to copy the ones that really matter.
While some of these records need to be physical copies (like your birth certificate), others, like contact info, a copy of your will, and property information can be digital, so use whatever system you're more comfortable with. Whatever you decide, keep everything organized in a folder together, and let a family member know where everything is.
If you need a little help getting everything organized, webapps Everplans, Get Your Shit Together, and CNN's guide to estate planning are great resources that guide you through more of the specifics. As always, if things get too complicated, don't hesitate to contact an estate planner for help—most will offer you a free consultation.
Thanks to Elizabeth D Mitchell of Ambler & Keenan, LLC for taking the time to talk with me about what to expect from an estate planning law firm.
Title photo remixed from O.V.D (Shutterstock), crackerjack_777, and Nemo .
The never-ending pileup of emails stresses out many of us. Here's a strategy from Zappos CEO TOny Hsieh, which might help you ditch the guilt and stress of dealing with email.
The basic premise of the Yesterbox technique is to process yesterday's inbox instead of today's:
Your "to do" list each day is simply yesterday's email inbox (hence, "Yesterbox"). The great thing about this is when you get up in the morning, you know exactly how many emails you have to get through, there's a sense of progress as you process each email from yesterday and remove it from your inbox, and there's actually a point when you have zero emails left to process from yesterday.
There is actually a sense of completion when you're done, which is amazing. I would say that on half the days, I'm actually completely with all my email obligations by NOON, which has been an incredibly freeing feeling. Even though my responses to most emails are not the same day, I actually end up being MORE responsive than I have been in the past, because most people will get a response the day after (as opposed to a week after, a month after, or several months after which used to happen all the time because I would always procrastinate on the hard emails).
The other rules of this strategy include not replying to any emails that come in today if they can wait 48 hours without causing harm and before you can read any of today's emails, you have to process 10 from yesterday.
Of course, if you have any urgent emails that need acting on right away, you should read those. However, not many emails really fall into that category.
Check out Hsieh's write up of his technique for more advice if you'd like to try it.
Photo by Ekkehard Streit .
Did you know that just about any command (e.g., clear formatting or insert a copyright symbol) in Word can be assigned your own custom keyboard shortcut? If you didn't know, here's how to use this great time-saving trick.
How-To Geek points out the steps for Word 2013, but this is a feature that also works in earlier versions of Word, as I tested it out in Word 2010 and also found the feature in Word for Mac 2011.
In Windows:
If you're using Word for Mac, you'll find the Keyboard shortcuts option under Tools > Customize keyboard... The most difficult part is navigating the commands list to find the one you want, but once you do you can be a keyboard shortcut ninja in Word, beyond the many ones that come built into the program.
How to Add a Keyboard Shortcut to a Command in Word 2013 | How-To Geek
In his new book Who Owns the Future?
“Here’s a current example of the challenge we face,” he writes in the book’s prelude: “At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 14,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?” [...]
So Kodak has 140,000 really good middle-class employees, and Instagram has 13 employees, period. You have this intense concentration of the formal benefits, and that winner-take-all feeling is not just for the people who are on the computers but also from the people who are using them. So there’s this tiny token number of people who will get by from using YouTube or Kickstarter, and everybody else lives on hope. There’s not a middle-class hump. It’s an all-or-nothing society.
Read more in this interview with Scott Timberg of Salon: Link (Image: My Dream is to cut all ties with civilization but still be on the Internet)
Bluetooth audio in your car makes it easy to push music from your phone to your car's stereo system, but you lose out on those benefits when you still have to plug in to charge. Reader and DIYer Ryan Wold solved this problem by installing an inductive charger inside his vehicle.
Ryan didn't have Bluetooth in his car already, so he needed to purchase an adapter. The problem with most adapters, however, is that they require you to press a button to connect each time. When you want to mount your adapter under a dashboard, you can't exactly push that button. Thanks to the HomeSpot NFC-enabled Bluetooth Receiver, Ryan was able to hide it under his dash and just tap his phone on the surface to connect. On top of that, he wired an NFC charger into his car to allow wireless charging as well. The entire setup doesn't see too difficult to pull off, costs very little, and appears completely integrated with his car. If you want to try this yourself, check out his video above for instructions.
Wireless Phone Charger + Bluetooth Music in Car | YouTube
