With all of the recent online services and companies falling under attack to hackers in the past few months, it seems only fitting to talk about password creation and management. There are a lot of resources out there discussing this, but it never hurts to revisit this topic time and again because of its importance.

Password management isn’t necessarily a difficult thing to do, yet it does seem like a bit of an annoyance to most people. When it comes to password management, you will hear the famous line, “I don’t really care about changing my passwords regularly. I have nothing important online anyways.” Let’s see if you have nothing important online when your PayPal account gets taken over because you thought the password “password” was good enough.

In my opinion, it is an “internet user’s” responsibility to make sure that they keep secure passwords and update them on a regular basis. In this article we will discuss how to make your online presence more secure and keep it secure.

The easy fundamentals

First thing is first; creating a strong password.

A strong password is a mixture of alpha-numeric characters and symbols, has a good length (hopefully 15 characters or longer), and doesn’t necessarily represent some word or phrase. If the service you are signing up for doesn’t allow passwords over a certain length, like 8 characters, always use the maximum length.

Here are some examples of strong passwords:
* i1?,2,2\1′(:-%Y
* ZQ5t0466VC44PmJ
* mp]K{ dCFKVplGe]PBm1mKdinLSOoa (30 characters)

And not so good examples
* sammy1234
* password123
* christopher

You can check out PC Tools Password Generator here. This is a great way to make up some very strong passwords. Of course the more random passwords are harder to remember, but that is where password management comes into play.

Managing your passwords

I know some people that keep their passwords in an unencrypted text file. That’s not a good idea. I suppose that if you aren’t doing much online and are decent at avoiding viruses and such, it could be OK, but I would never recommend it.

So, where do you keep your strong passwords for all the services that you visit on a daily basis?

1Password can be locked down with a master password to protect all of your sensitive data.

There are a ton of password safes out there including KeePass, RoboForm, Passpack, Password Safe, LastPass, and 1Password. If and when I recommend any of these I always count on LastPass and 1Password.

Both LastPass and 1Password offer different entry types for online services logins (PayPal, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, etc.), credit cards and bank accounts, online identities, and other types of sensitive information. Both have excellent reviews and only differ in a few subtle ways. One of the ways that is more notable is that LastPass keeps your encrypted password Vault online where 1Password allows you to keep it locally or shared through Dropbox. Either way, you are the holder of the encryption keys and both ways are very secure.

LastPass and 1Password both offer cross-platform support as well as support for Android and iOS (LastPass even has BlackBerry support). 1Password is a little pricey ($39.99 for either Windows or Mac) where LastPass has free options as well as premium upgrades that allow for mobile syncing.

Upkeep

You should probably change your passwords for your “important” accounts at least every 6 weeks. When I say “important” accounts I am referring to ones that you just couldn’t imagine losing access to. For me that would be Gmail, PayPal, eBay, Amazon, all my FTP accounts and hosting accounts, Namecheap, etc. Basically these include any account where financial information could be lost or accessed as well as accounts that could be totally screwed up (like my webserver).

There is no hard and fast rule to how often you should change your passwords, but 6 to 8 weeks should be pretty good.

Alternatives

You may think that all of this is just too much to manage on a daily basis. I will admit it is kind of annoying to have to change your passwords and use a password manager on a daily basis. For those people out there that don’t want to go through all of the hub-bub of super-secure, encrypted, password management, here are a few tips to keep you safe:

1. Create a unique and hard to guess “base password” and then a pattern to use for each site you logon onto. For instance a base password could be “Ih2BaSwAa” (this stands for “I have two brothers and sisters who are annoying”). Then you would add something “site specific” to the end of it. For Twitter Ih2BaSwAaTWTTR, Facebook Ih2BaSwAaFCBK, etc. This is sort of unsecure, but probably more secure than 99% of the passwords out there.
2. Don’t write your passwords down in public places. If you want to keep track of passwords on something written, keep it on you at least. The problem is that if you get your wallet stolen you are still out of luck.
3. Don’t use the same passwords for every service. I’m not even going to explain this; just don’t do it.

These are just a few things that can be done rather than keeping your passwords in a management system. Personally, with over 100 entries in my password management system, I couldn’t even dream of doing any other way. But those out there with only a few passwords, having a simpler system may be beneficial.

So, if you want to be a “responsible internet citizen” or you just don’t want to lose your precious account data, then creating and maintaining strong passwords for your online accounts is a must.

Disclaimer: I am a Getting Things Done geek which is a productivity system creating by David Allen. This article assumes that you have a clue of what Getting Things Done is. If you don’t, check out David Allen’s site for more information.

Over the past half a year I have reluctantly adopted using OmniFocus for my personal productivity system and core Getting Things Done implementation. I use the word reluctant because I don’t solely live in an OS X environment. I actually develop on a Windows machine so not having the OmniFocus client on my main machine has made me quite apprehensive in adopting this awesome tool. I figured that since I had my MacBook and iPad though that I could use these to make OmniFocus work in my life.

One of the main reasons that I have decided to use OmniFocus as my personal productivity tool is that it does a great job of automating my projects and next actions for me. To get this type of automation OmniFocus is a little difficult to setup and because of that it is hard to explain just how to do it. This is where the new e-book “Creating Flow With OmniFocus” by Kourosh Dini comes in.

At first blush

I first heard ramblings of “Creating Flow With OmniFocus” on the Mac Power Users podcasts as well as a few others and was intrigued to find out what it was about. The cost of the book is a hefty $30 but after reading some of Mr. Dini’s articles about implementing OmniFocus, I had a good idea that it was well worth the money.

The book is huge. Coming in at 551 pages in the PDF version. It is stuffed full of tutorials and screenshots to show you just how to implement some of Dini’s techniques. The book is typeset beautifully and is extremely well written.

When I bought the book I was thinking that it was going to be all about implementation because of what Mr. Dini explains on his sales page. But after getting into it I found that this book was about the practical and even spiritual side of the Getting Things Done method. This was something that was welcomed and a bit of a surprise to me.

What’s inside

Like I said before this book is full of useful examples and information and Mr. Dini delivers a “full spectrum” solution to implement your productivity system in OmniFocus. Here are just some of the things that you would find inside:

• Understanding basic principles like project and task handling, certain view modes, hiding tasks, filters and the Inspector, contexts, and the inbox.
• More advanced project stuff like focusing, outlining projects, quick entry, creating templates, and using repeats and time information.
• Setting up a “routine maintenance” plan and strategy, creating basic and advance perspectives, and using multiple clients (iPhone and iPad).
• Advanced principles like implementing a “Core Design”, handling tasks done today, calendar review, dealing with calls and agendas, and even email workflow.
• More advanced stuff like prioritization, GTD’s “Horizons of Focus”, attention and time.
• 20 awesome pages that tie up all the loose ends of the system that is implemented throughout the book.

Yep. There is a ton of stuff in this book and it took me about a week to get through it all. There was a lot of the basic stuff about OmniFocus that I already knew, but going back and looking at it even for the useful keyboard shortcuts was worth the time.

A few qualms

If you are looking for a simplified approach to using OminFocus this book may not be the best choice. There is a lot to setting up the system that Mr. Dini entails and if you are happy with using simple projects and context of OmniFocus, the manual that ships with OmniFocus coupled with Don McCallister’s excellent tutorial videos from ScreenCasts Online will do the trick.

Is it worth it?

In one word?

Absolutely.

This is by far the greatest tutorial on a piece of productivity software that I have ever laid eyes on. It’s concise and straightforward and it shows you just how to make OmniFocus become the most powerful GTD client on any operating system.

After applying just 10% of what this book offers you will gain a much better understanding of how OmniFocus can support a variety of productivity system implementations and can help you automate your next actions on projects more effectively.

Not only do you get practical advice in this book about setting up OmniFocus, Mr. Dini offers some excellent advice about productivity and creativity as well. In fact, some of his writings on the understanding of what David Allen means by a “trusted system” and making time for creative actions is the best that I have read.

So, if you are an OmniFocus user and you have a portion of uber-geek in you, I highly suggest picking up “Creating Flow With OmniFocus” by Kourosh Dini.

Accidental Exposures

Back in the ‘old days’ cameras used to have accidents that caused multiple exposures creating photos which we could now consider to be artistic. Nowadays, it’s difficult to reproduce this type of photo without using photo editing software. Digital cameras do not expose the same piece of film twice, it saves a new file each time making it hard to create deliberate or accidental exposures.

Fusioncam

Now, more and more people have a phone with a camera with apps that opens the door to a whole variety of tricks and tips. This is where an iPhone app like Fusioncam comes in, because it saves you time in creating multiple exposed photos.

Look and Feel

It’s designed to look like an old Toy Camera from the past, including the plasticky look and feel.With 3 switches that allow you to choose different effects, each effect producing a different feel from sepia-like to a 1930′s style black and white photo.

Taking a photo is as easy as pressing the big blue button. Where the app makes multi exposure easy is with the switch on the right. It overlays the last photo taken and displays it in the viewfinder. This makes it easy to measure up photos to create interesting, exciting photos. Press the blue button again and it creates a new photo. The second switch is for the flash

Once the double exposed photo is created, you can expose it again and again to make a multilayered artistic (or scary) photo. Pressing the Gallery switch at the bottom is like opening up the back of an old camera to reveal the film roll, from here you can scroll through saved photos, delete , save and share the photos.

Special Promotion

Currently, it is 50% off its regular price and is selling at $0.99 for a day before going up to its regular price of $1.99.

Check out some of the photos created using this app.

You can download it from the Appstore. Hope you like it.

Remember the Milk has been a staple to-do list web app for many years now and has been known to be one of the best and even most reliable. It’s known for a clean simple interface and sometimes forgotten about power under the hood. Remember The Milk (RTM from here on out) can also be used for GTD (you know, if you are into that sort of thing), yet flexible enough for any other productivity system you can throw at it.

But, even with such a excellent and stable track record, RTM has made some significant improvements in the past year with the most notable being their brand new iPad app.

Look and feel

At first glance RTM is a simple and very clean interface. If you are a white background, dark text kind of person, then RTM is the type of interface you will enjoy. Users are given an Inbox and Sent items list at first blush and adding todos to your inbox is extremely easy. Once tasks are created you can check the task and change the due date, the repeat of the task, a time estimate, tags, location of the task, or a URL. Completing the task is as simple as checking it and pushing the complete button.

You can also assign the task to a different list but it is somewhat counterintuitive. You first must create a new list by going to Settings and the Lists tab. This is a good place to create your contexts if you are a GTD type. Once you have some lists you can go back to your tasks by choosing the Tasks option. Adding a task to a list is done by checking the task and clicking on the More Actions dropdown and choosing the list to switch it to. Even after many years of using this workflow, I still feel that it is unintuitive and could be changed to allow for a drag and drop to tab type of interface.

The task settings “float” to the side of your lists and with the settings bar you can change an individual task’s settings or even check multiple tasks and group the settings together. Also, the note field is on the right where you can add multiple notes per task. You can also select tasks by choosing all of them, the ones that are due today, due tomorrow, overdue, or none at all. This is a nice way to mass edit settings or even complete or postpone a set of tasks.

Features

Remember The Milk is truly a full-featured web and mobile application with versions for the web, iOS, Android, and even sync with Outlook. Let’s take a quick look at some of the many awesome features:

• Full web, iOS, Android, and Outlook for Windows synchronization ($25 a year premium account needed for some pro features)
• iPad version with a truly unique interface and user experience
• iOS and Android version take advantage of location based tasks and alert you based on your user settings
• “Unlimited” list and task creation (I haven’t fully tested this, but I have never had an issue with too many tasks or lists)
• “Smart Lists” allow you to save searches based on any criteria that a task may have allowing you to create customized views of your lists
• Awesome “smart add” feature which allows you to add a task straight to a list, add a due date, tag, or even location while you are typing it in
• Offline support with the deprecated Google Gears
• Add tasks by Twitter or email
• iCal service, RSS feeds for your lists, and the ability to create public lists for others to share
• Active user community and developers that aren’t too shabby

Gripes

Like I said, RTM is a full-featured and completely a mature web and mobile application. There are only a few gripes that I still have to this day, including no subtasks or linking of tasks into projects, no start dates to help hide repeating tasks, annoying logo that can’t be hidden at work without an add-in for your browser, and out of control tabs for your lists.

Besides those four things, I have to say that RTM is still one of the best web apps out there for helping you stay productive. The one thing that RTM has over many other task management apps on the web is its maturity and speed. The app is really darn fast while using Firefox or Chrome and hardly (if ever) crashes on me. Another thing is that sync is incredibly fast between multiple devices.

Also, with the new iPad app and its gorgeous new interface, RTM is definitely worth another look if you haven’t checked it out in a while. So, head on over to the RTM homepage and sign up for a free account or login to your old one if you haven’t been around for a while.

Ever wish you could open up any file on your computer with just one key press? Well, if you have, you can store every file you have on your desktop. Instant access!

That was a joke, or course. If you’re an OS X user wanting a more elegant solution for getting to your stuff, LaunchBar proves to be the productivity-booster you’re looking for. LaunchBar is a ridiculously useful program program launcher for OS X that’s operated entirely with the keyboard. I’ve been using it on my Macbook Pro for several months now, and I honestly miss it whenever I switch to my Windows machine.

Now, you might think that LaunchBar is useless because you’ve already got Spotlight. In truth, Spotlight works pretty well as a program launcher, and it’s free. However, LaunchBar is so much more robust and useful than Spotlight. Plus, the program gives you a 30-day period to evaluate it before buying – and you can still use it free after that period if you’re willing to deal with a purchase reminder.

LaunchBar takes keyboard shortcuts to the next level. With Spotlight, you search for the program you want and then hit enter. LaunchBar actually lets you launch a program by holding down the last letter you type. As a result, you can launch certain programs in one keystroke after opening the program (which you can do however you like; I’ve got mine bound to command+L). For example, you can launch Safari just by opening LaunchBar and holding “s” for a second, or launch Firefox by holding “f”. When I’m working on a lot of projects and am constantly switching to new spaces with other keyboard shortcuts, it’s really nice to be able to just launch the programs I need in this lightening-fast manner.

Launching Safari

Launching a different application from the list simply requires typing a few more characters to drill down to it, or using the arrow key to scroll down to it.

“Hi, Billy Mays Here for LaunchBar…”

Finding and launching applications is really just the tip of the iceberg, however. LaunchBar’s real usefulness comes from its many other built-in functions. The amount of things the program can do is pretty staggering, actually. Here are just a few:

• Find songs and play them in iTunes
• Create events in iCal
• Perform mathematical calculations
• View contacts from your Address Book
• Search through your internet browsing history, and open specific web pages
• Browse through your file structure just like Finder
• Search Google
• Perform file operations such as moving or renaming

An additional (awesome) feature is the ability to show a preview of your selection when you hit the space bar. I really like using this for pictures. In fact, if you have a folder with many pictures, using this feature turns LaunchBar into a pretty nice photo viewer. Just use the arrow keys to scroll through pictures.

Launching a song in iTunes from LaunchBar

Though I’m pretty objective when I review programs, the only real fault I could find with LaunchBar is the fact that it costs money. People who just want a quick way to launch applications and browse for files will be absolutely fine using Spotlight. However, for the power users out there, LaunchBar is a productivity-boosting powerhouse of an app.

Why should you care about appearing smart on Twitter? Because the people who hire, promote, fire, date, marry, and divorce you will all read your tweets (updates) at some point. It’s always a good idea to put your best foot forward. Why not do the same on Twitter? Why not make an effort to appear as smart as you can?

A “visible IQ” is a short way of describing the sum total of everything I can point to and say “see, this person [you] is really smart.” As a reader scans your latest tweets, they get an impression of you. You might seem smart, funny, thoughtful, or perhaps even boring, hateful, and sloppy. Twitter makes it easy to seem less intelligent than you truly are for 3 reasons:

• No context – You don’t get to explain yourself.
• Real-time pressure – Everybody is updating NOW!
• Sloppy status quo – Nobody else cares. Why should you?

If you’d like to take some practical steps to make sure you’re doing everything you can to seem smart, try these tips to boost your visible IQ on Twitter:

1. Abandon Predictive Text (T9)

Don’t let your cellphone complete any texts being sent out as a tweet. It might seem like a good idea to let a bit of software choose how you complete your words. But only if you’re willing to be seen on Twitter as apathetic and sloppy. When you’ve only got 140 characters to make your point, every letter of every word needs to be in the right spot if you want your point to hit home.

2. Write Just For Twitter

Posting tweets from Facebook and myriad other social platforms initially looks like a good idea. It actually makes you look like you’re lazy and don’t care much for your audience. Instead of blurting blurbs to the nearest platform and letting RSS spread your thoughts, give Twitter some dedicated attention. After all, didn’t you want to add a few words of extra context to your Facebook status? Take advantage of that extra space! Take Twitter’s space restrictions as a challenge to write particularly brilliant 140-character pieces. Genius!

3. Sidestep Stoner Syndrome

Every complex thought reduced to 140 characters will end up sounding like it was pulled from a hookah. That brilliant thought you had earlier today about how the world could learn a lot just by watching ducks swim? You didn’t seem smarter when you tweeted it. You sounded like you were really, really high. All those inspirational quotes about failure being nothing more than success wrapped in bacon? They make you sound high. This isn’t your fault. Not at all! You can blame it on Twitter’s 140-character limits and our common human tendency to say as many profound things each day as possible. If you focus on sharing your perspective on simpler ideas, you’ll seem insightful and perhaps even witty.

4. Mark Quotes Clearly

If you must quote others, clearly mark the quotes as such. Otherwise, you’re in a prime spot to look like you’re trying pass off other’s words as your own. What’s worse, you might tweet an unmarked quote that seems funny or ironic to you at the time but it may come off as stupid or immature to readers. Look smarter by giving credit and using quotation marks “quote.” for tweets you didn’t come up with yourself. Hopefully others will do the same and you’ll get additional attention for the brilliant tweets you’ve been crafting!

5. Share Only The Best Content

You may have been told that you must share everything your friends are sharing if you want to be a good community member. The quantity of sharing is up to your personal beliefs. The quality of the things you share, however, isn’t up for discussion. If you share low-quality content, you look like an idiot. It doesn’t matter if your best friend published an article. If the article is terrible, you’ll not only damage your own reputation but that of your friend by sharing the article. If you want to be seen as an intelligent and savvy Twitter user, focus on sharing quality.

What tip would you add for Twitter users looking to look their very best for possible employers? (or life partners!) It’d be great to know what you think a smart tweet looks like. Link to your favorite in a comment!

You should follow Lifehack on Twitter here.

I'm an editor here at Stepcase Lifehack. I know the value of long walks, good books, joyful repartee, and a well-made martini. Say hello in the comments here, find me on my blog or hit me up for a follow on Twitter.

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Ever since I started at Lifehack in mid-2007, we’ve compiled year-end lists of the best web 2.0 applications to come out in the previous year (here’s my list for for 2007 and Joel Falconer’s for 2008). The development of ever-more-complex software accessed online via a web browser is a huge boon for personal productivity, since it offers an increasingly nomadic workforce “always-on” access to the data, documents, and software they need. At the same time, low-cost and free online services offer an affordable alternative to costly office suites, collaboration tools, and graphics programs, especially for the vast majority of us who don’t need 90% of the functionality of an MS Word or an Adobe Photoshop.

This year I searched in vain for 10 great new apps to fill my list. Don’t get me wrong, there are some fantastic contenders. I’m particularly enjoying TeuxDeux, a new to-do list app that lets you schedule tasks on particular days and view your whole week at once. And of course Google’s Wave has everyone enthralled, even if nobody’s quite sure what it’s for.  We also saw evolutionary improvements of webware classics: apps like Remember the Milk came out of beta, Google Docs and Acrobat.com added presentations, and some services, like Nozbe, released 2.0 or higher versions that revamped functionality and/or interfaces.

But by and large 2009 saw few new web applications that really stood out. So rather than try to compile a list of new web applications, I thought I’d take a look at the changes across the field of web programming that are transforming web applications from “gee, neat” proofs of concept into genuinely useful  tools. These are the trends that are changing the Internet into a platform for getting work done, often in surprising new ways, and if it’s still too soon to move everything online (I’m writing this on MS Word 2010, for example), these trends are at least moving us towards that future.

1. Export

2009 was the year that web programmers realized that holding their customer’s data hostage wasn’t the best way to build brand equity. Instead, a growing number of services are offering easy ways to get all your documents, images, videos, or other data out of their applications. Just as important, they’re doing this using standard formats that you can use elsewhere, making it much easier to switch to another application, share with others who use different tools, or make a meaningful evaluation of a service. Google’s Data Liberation Front is helping to make this a priority at Google, for example with the addition of Google Docs’ new “Export All” function which allows you to download your entire work history in the format of your choice, and setting the standard that Google’s competitors will have to reach to remain competitive.

2. Synchronization and Sharing

In addition to exporting data all together, the ability to share data from one application to another is finally starting to take off. Developers are realizing, finally, that users often have multiple streams of data that they need to be able to access in one single place (such as calendar data from several sites), and vice versa – that we often need to access the same data in several different places (like sending a status update to several social networking sites). In 2009, the promise of RSS and other data feed standards (e.g. Atom, iCal) finally started to be realized, with services like Twitvite offering one-click methods of inserting events into various online calendars. Likewise, numerous services have released plugins or widgets to access their data from other online apps, like Remember the Milk’s integration with Google Calendar. The centralization of authorization for various services using Facebook Connect or Sign in with Twitter, and the increasing adoption of the authentication standard OAuth, are finally starting to fulfill the function that OpenID was supposed to perform, allowing easy and secure transfer of data and login credentials between sites.

In addition to swapping data between online apps, a growing number of apps are bridging the divide between online services and the desktop by allowing access though and synchronization with desktop programs. Google’s Sync Services synchronizes calendar data and (on some platforms) contacts with desktop applications like Outlook and Apple’s iCal, although until contact synchronization is universal and they add task synchronization, it’s utility is limited for most users. At the forefront of the web/desktop integration movement is Twitter and the dozens, if not hundreds, of applications for every platform that have added layers of functionality to the service using its API. Twitter’s API has raised expectations for every other online service, and it won’t be long now before applications that don’t offer APIs simply cannot compete with those that do.

3. Maturity

The lack of new applications to get excited over is counterbalanced by the stability, security, and usability of apps that have been under development for 2, 3, or more years now. As a few applications in each area have come to dominate, it’s become harder for new applications to break in, but the existing applications have become better. Just as importantly, the business practices of the companies behind these services have improved (somewhat). New Twitter users experience nothing like the almost daily downtime that plagues the service just a year ago. Acquisitions are handled much more smoothly, with Google’s graceful transition from Grand Central to Google Voice setting the tone (and their graceless handling of the recent acquisition of collaboration tool and Wave rival EtherPad quickly set right). Although privacy concerns are still unsettled, with companies like Facebook repeatedly having a hard time fighting the temptation to exploit their users’ data for all it’s worth), new standards for privacy and security are emerging, and companies that violate their users’ expectations that their data will be backed up and kept private are being called out and avoided.

4. Hidden technology

One sign of the maturity of online applications is that the technology used to create them is increasingly invisible. Applications no longer feel like Ruby on Rails applications, or advertise their “AJAX-y” interfaces as a feature. In large part, this is a triumph of design over engineering; frills like text boxes fading slowly out of view are being replaced by more immediately usable, and useful, design. This means the engineers can focus on what they do best: getting stuff to work better.

5. Social

It’s almost impossible to conceive of an online application these days that doesn’t forefront sharing, collaboration, or integration with social tools like Twitter and Facebook for publishing and commenting. The pinnacle of this trend is, of course, Google’s Wave, which as thousands of early adopters have discovered, doesn’t do much of anything until you start adding your social network. New applications like Aardvark (which allows you to pose questions to targeted members of your social network) are focusing on refining this process, allowing for greater control and selectivity over which parts of your social network are most relevant to particular tasks.

6. Mobile integration

There’s an app for that! With mobile phones edging ever closer to the dream of the portable supercomputer, the promise of “access anywhere” has come more and more to mean “access from my smartphone”.  While web-enabled phones are generally up to the task of accessing online applications directly via their browsers, the small-screen experience of websites designed for widescreen desktop monitors usually isn’t very satisfying. Increasingly, every online application worth its salt is offering mobile apps for iPhones, Blackberries, Palms, and Android phones, the best of them – like Evernote – making good use of smartphone tools like voice recorders, GPS, and photo and video capabilities.

7. Location, location, location

GPS is following the path digital cameras took a few years ago – practically everything has one. Mobile phones, cameras, cars – can it be much longer before media players and pens come with GPS built in? The ubiquity of GPS – and GPS-alike services using cell tower triangulation – has made location-sensitive search and other applications possible. So you can find the nearest coffee shop, search for the lowest gas prices in the area, or have your shopping list served up to you when you walk in the grocery store’s front door. While services like FourSquare seem to have little function besides cluttering my Twitter stream with notices that some people go to the donut shop waaaaaay to often (I’m sorry, I meant to say that people have obtained really, really important titles of distinction based on their frequent patronage of places of business), it’s easy to see the potential of services like this. (Although as noted above, we’re still working out the privacy implications.)

8. Online storage and anywhere access

As services open up their APIs, online storage becomes more useful. Where your Box.net or SkyDrive accounts have been, up to recently, closed silos that allowed you to upload and download files and that’s about it, today they act as repositories of files you can access through other services. Box.net files can be opened with, worked on with, and saved from Zoho applications, meaning that working on a single document from several locations is not just possible, it’s practical. Also, online services are drastically increasing the amount of storage they offer; services that just a year ago offered storage measured in megabytes not offer 10, 25, 50, or more gigabytes, meaning that you can back up, share, or use your entire Documents folder.

9. Automation

Two of my favorite online applications are Live Mesh and Dropbox, neither of which I actively “use”. They’re just there, doing their thing. For example, I have a Dropbox folder I share with the Stepcase home office in Hong Kong; if I need a file, it’s just there, and if I make changes, they automatically get them. Same thing with Mesh – everything in my laptop’s Documents folder is “meshed” to my desktop, so anything I create on the go is just automatically waiting for me when I sit down at my desktop. Google Sync works the same way on my Blackberry – I add an event on Google Calendar, or a Contact in Gmail, and a little while later it’s just on my Blackberry. This is the revival of “Push” technology, and we’ll see more and more of it as online apps become mainstream – or they won’t become mainstream.

10. Ubiquitous Internet

This isn’t a quality of online apps as much as a quality of the real world in which we use them, but it’s an important factor nonetheless. Wifi is nearly everywhere, and high speed cellular Internet is just about everywhere wifi isn’t. This has already changed the way people use the Internet – such as the location-sensitive apps I mentioned above – and will continue to do so.

That’s how 2009 looks to me, anyway. What emerging trends have you noticed that have made online applications better or more useful? And what do you think is on the horizon – what will I be writing about at the end of 2010? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

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Christmas is just over a week away, and no matter how organized you are, I bet there are a few people on your list that you just can’t figure out a gift for. In the spirit of giving, then, I offer these suggestion – each of which is, as of 12/16, available to ship in time for Christmas. (All prices are in US dollars.)

Kindle It’s no secret that we’re fond of the Kindle ‘round the Lifehack halls. A single device that can carry a library of books, magazines, newspapers, and blog content? What’s not to love – and what could be more Lifehack-y? This year, the Kindle got improved battery life, PC and iPhone companion apps (with a Mac app on its way), native PDF support, and a big brother in the form of the Kindle DX. If you really love someone, you’ll get them a Kindle! (You reading this, dad?) ($259; $489 for the DX)

Flip MinoHD Shoot incredible-looking high-def video with this camera that’s so tiny you’ll never have a reason not to carry it along with you. With 8GB of built-in memory, you can shoot up to 2 hours of video; downloading to your PC is as easy as plugging in the flip-out USB jack. ($229 list; on sale for $199 at Amazon right now)

Lilliput Mini USB Monitor This 7” monitor is so cool I can’t even stand it. Powered entirely by USB, the monitor sits next to your main monitor to hold… well, whatever you want. Photoshop tools, Windows gadgets (or widgets, or whatever they’re called these days), your todo list, notes, your media player controls – I’m sure your loved ones can think of something to do with the extra real estate. Works with Windows PCs or Intel Macs. ($79.99)

D-Link DIR-685 Xtreme N Storage Router You know what’s ugly? A wireless router, that’s what. Who wants that thing sitting on their bookshelf or entertainment center? Well, this router solves that problem with a built-in 3.2” digital picture frame, showing off your favorite photos as it serves up your web pages and print jobs. Oh, by the way – you can also add a 2.5” hard drive, making it into a network-attached storage drive that can backup files from all the computers on your network, or act as a media server sending music and video to any PC, Xbox, PS3, or other plug-n-play device on your network. You’re forgiven if by now you’ve forgotten that it’s still a router. ($249.99 list; $214.17 at Amazon)

Logitech V550 Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks I’ve been using one of these for about 6 months now, and I’m absolutely in love with it. It’s on the large side for a notebook mouse (which is good, since I’m on the large side for a person) but still quite a bit smaller than a typical desktop mouse. The USB dongle is literally a USB plug and about 1/4” of electronics, so it doesn’t stick out of the side of my notebook and get in my way. The scroll wheel is a hefty metal job which you can press down on (hard) to release a clutch that lets it roll freely – so you can shoot up and down long documents with the flick of a finger. The scroll wheel also tilts left and right (which I have set to go “back” and “forward”, which is AWESOME for web surfing) and a little button behind the scroll wheel can be set to your choice of about a dozen different functions. Some kind of secret Santa’s elves technology allows it to go for a year on a single change of batteries, which ain’t half bad! ($39.95)

OGIO Hip Hop Messenger Bag I’ve been lusting over this bag at my local Best Buy for a while (‘cause I’m fly like that!) but can’t convince myself I need yet another shoulder bag. (Yet. I’m weak, I’ll cave eventually). Made to hold a 15” laptop (and I just happen to have a 15” laptop…) this messenger-style bag has about a million pockets and sleeves to hold just abut everything – pens and pencils, airplane tickets, your media player, a water bottle, a kazoo (what, you don’t carry one?), a Yeti, tractor tires – everything! (OK, maybe not quite all of that; still, it’s impressive.) Available in a bunch of colors (there are several listings, you might have to click around to find the one that has the perfect color for your geek sweetie). ($45.99)

Powermat The dream is here – wireless charging! Just set an iPhone, Blackberry, or other device on the Powermat and it charges wirelessly, using the power of children’s dreams (I assume – I’m a little fuzzy on the science). Of course, you also need receivers for each device, so here’s the deal: get this for your spouse with a receiver for their phone, and you know, just happen to order an extra one that fits your phone, and it’s like a double-Christmas just for you! ($99.99, plus $30/receiver)

Swiss+Tech Utili-Key The perfect stocking stuffer, this key-shaped (and key-sized) multi-tool opens to expose a Phillips-head and flat-head screwdriver, a super-tiny glasses screwdriver, a bottle opener, and plain and serrated cutting surfaces. Naturally, it slides onto your key-ring so you have everything you need, any time you need it. I bought a stack of them for all my family members who scoff at the idea of carrying a Swiss army knife. ($7.95)

Crush It, by Gary Vaynerchuk Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV shares the secrets of his success in this slim, accessible volume. In two words: CRUSH IT! Find your passion and just go for it, all out, no excuses. Of course there’s a little more to it than that, or it would just be an inspirational poster. Perfect for anyone in your life facing the consequences of the economic downturn, or just looking for a little more meaning in their lives than pushing papers for the next 30 years. ($19.99 list; $11.69 at Amazon)

Men’s Underwear Repair Kit What could be more productive than getting every last bit of use out of your underwear? The Men’s Underwear Repair Kit contains iron-on patches, replacement elastic, safety pins, white-out, and 32 pages of instructions – everything you need to get years and years of wear out of your tighty-whities. ($10.95)

Got any special gift ideas of your own? Share them with us last-minute shoppers in the comments!

Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

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Outlook is a well-established presence on the business desktop, providing millions with their email, calendar, contacts, and tasks. It’s such an institution, in fact, that when Microsoft radically revamped the Office suite’s interface in 2007, it left Outlook largely unchanged.

Although it’s big and sluggish, there’s no denying that Outlook does what it’s supposed to do. Not quickly or with style, but consistently and effectively nonetheless. The thing is, though, that we have moved beyond just email as our major form of business communication. In the increasingly real-time and social world, a big ol’ email client seems a little… old-fashioned.

Xobni is an attempt to bring Outlook into sync with the socially-networked world. Available in a free and paid “Plus” versions (the paid version offers advanced search capabilities and calendar functions), Xobni adds a new pane to your Outlook window packed with information about the sender of whatever email you’re currently viewing or the contact you’ve selected.

Working with Xobni

The image to the right is what Xobni looks like on my system. I’ve selected one of my own emails from the “Sent Mail” folder and obscured some of my personal information, of course.

At the top is a “business card” view with my phone numbers and email addresses, as well as my title and the company I work for. Below that is a graph of how many emails I’ve sent and received to and from this contact (which is me, which may be why the numbers are odd), but that’s just the default – the five buttons above that chart allow me to select different functions. If I click the orange button, I get actions I can perform relating to the contact – make an appointment or send an email, in this case. The other three buttons open the contact’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter profile. (You can pick and choose several social network functions – other options that I did not choose are buttons for Skype and Hoovers company search.)

• LinkedIn gives you their location, current company and title, and number of connections, plus a link to their full profile.
• Facebook gives you your contact’s “Wall” and a link to their profile.
• Twitter gives you your contact’s status updates, plus buttons to view their profile and follow them – you an also post updates through Xobni, though it’s far from a replacement for a full-featured Twitter client.

Basically, the top of the Xobni window is devoted to information about your contact. The next part is about your relationship with that contact.  The “Network” part is the most mysterious to me; according to their website, Xobni analyzes the “From:”, “To:”, and “CC:” fields of incoming emails to determine who among your contacts the sender also has some connection to. For instance, if I have the CEO and the CFO of a company in my address book, and I get an email from the CFO that’s CC’ed to the CEO, Xobni knows that the two are connected.

“Conversations” condenses all my previous exchanges with that contact into threaded discussions. Click on a discussion and you can read the messages in the thread, see who was involved in the conversation, and pull out any files exchanged. (You can also hover the pointer over a discussion and a pop-up will preview the first few messages in the thread.) A slider at the top allows you to move from the first line or two of each message to full messages. Click a message in the thread and the message itself opens in the Xobni bar, with buttons to reply or forward, or to open in an Outlook window.

Finally, “Files Exchanged” is what it sounds like – a list of every attachment the contact has ever sent you or that you’ve sent to them.

At the very top of the Xobni window is the search bar, allowing you to search both contacts and email messages. The results are broken into 5 categories: People (contacts with your search term in their name, company name, email address, etc.), Messages (any email with your search term in it), Files Exchanged (any attachment with your search term in the filename), Appointments (any appointment that includes your search term; this is technically a “Plus” feature – clicking an appointment returned in search in the free version will open an upgrade pitch), and Tasks (again, any task with your search term in it).

Verdict: Is Xobni useful?

Xobni helps uncover a great deal of information, most but not all of which is particularly useful. I can’t imagine what use it would be to know that a particular contact tends to email me in the afternoon more than the morning, but it’s kind of interesting to look at. The social networking features are the most useful part, I think – already I’ve discovered profiles for and added on LinkedIn and Twitter a client that I’ve just started working with.

Much of the usefulness of Xobni is hampered by the fact that, like Outlook itself, it’s fairly slow and resource-intensive. For example, it took nearly a minute hovering my mouse over a discussion with 24 messages in it for the pop-up to populate with message previews! Searching takes significantly longer than Google Desktop’s Outlook plugin – and even longer than searching the whole desktop from the Google Desktop sidebar.

Now, that could have just been my PC – it’s a few years old, with a 2.4 GHz Athlon x64, a gigabyte of memory, and Windows XP with Office 2007. Hardly a speed demon! But a search for “Xobni” on Twitter reveals that I’m hardly alone in finding Xobni too slow. Here’s a sample of messages just from the last couple of hours:

• “all xobni did for me was sloooooow down outlook. didn’t keep it long.”
• “installed xobni… again… we will see if my laptop can handle it this time”
• “I had xobni. it’s heavy, and not really effective or accurate. had many issues with that.”
• “Xobni is a Really good product but occasionally it stalls outlook for a while.”
• “my biggest problem comes when I try to read the conversation between some of my contacts with xobni.”

To be fair, there are positive mentions, too, like this one from an obviously pleased user:

• “I’ve been using Xobni since around Feb. 2009. Kind of hooked on it. “

(Incidentally, the Xobni team is quite active on Twitter; comments about Xobni are often replied to by @xobni within minutes!)

Xobni creates its own index of your email, so it definitely needs a lot of resources. It is possible that it’s not Xobni’s fault that it tends to be slow – perhaps Outlook, as big and ponderous as it is, just isn’t a good platform for third-party applications – but it is Xobni’s problem. While it provides some useful information and functionality, especially related to social networking, none of the information it provides is worth waiting for, especially if I can get the same information quicker just by Googling it.

People with older machines — or lower-end new machines — just aren’t going to get much out of Xobni. If you have a more powerful computer, though, Xobni might well be worthwhile. Fast searching, threaded discussions, and social networking interface all make Xobni a useful product, provided you don’t spend time waiting for it to respond.

Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.

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