Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#1

Post by ajonit » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 2:41 AM UTC

Everyone has those own little workarounds that make life easier.

Here are a couple of mine -

1. Using AutoHotKey to write my signatures, frequently used expressions (ex: plm becomes "Please let me know if you need some more information." , answers to frequently asked queries by customers, open specific files with a keyboard shortcut)

2. Using IFTTT : This tool helps a lot. One of the ways I use it is to save my monthly utility bills (arriving in Gmail) automatically every month direct in my chartered accountant's shared dropbox folder. That email in turn is auto archived, so such bills are completely out of my way.

What are your time saving hacks that you use frequently?

Re: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#2

Post by Mizza » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 2:55 AM UTC

ag. I use this tool between 50 and 100 times a day.

https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher

Re: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#3

Post by ivansavz » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 3:02 AM UTC

The Mac OS text-to-speech tool is awesome for proofreading.

Another use for it is to be read blog posts to while doing the dishes and making coffee.

Re: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#4

Post by philip1209 » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 3:23 AM UTC

Create a public link to your availability from google calendar and share it with people to decrease the time it takes to schedule meetings.

Re: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#5

Post by notduncansmith » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 3:27 AM UTC

A Mac app called Alfred has saved me countless hours. It comes with a clipboard manager (extremely useful), and the ability to create custom workflows/hotkeys, which I use to switch back and forth between Skype, Chrome, and Sublime. iTerm2 already has a hotkey feature built in, but if it didn't I'd have made one (takes Following Gary Bernhardt's advice, mapping Caps Lock to a modifier key (he recommends Control I think, I mapped it to Alt) has been awesome.

Aliasing common Git commands to 2-3 letter commands has been nice. gc -> git commit, gaa -> git add --all, gpom -> git push origin master, etc.

Vimium for Chrome is nice if you're used to Vim keybindings for navigating.

hop is a command-line tool for jumping to directories (or SSH'ing into servers). Immensely valuable.

Re: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#6

Post by philip1209 » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 3:28 AM UTC

notduncansmith wrote: post #5

A Mac app called Alfred has saved me countless hours. It comes with a clipboard manager (extremely useful), and the ability to create custom workflows/hotkeys, which I use to switch back and forth between Skype, Chrome, and Sublime. iTerm2 already has a hotkey feature built in, but if it didn't I'd have made one (takes Following Gary Bernhardt's advice, mapping Caps Lock to a modifier key (he recommends Control I thi…

We have an internal wiki page with custom alfred formulas for our company.

"customer "

"domain "

"logs ""

It makes life for engineers, support, and sales much more efficient.

Re: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#7

Post by alialkhatib » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 3:30 AM UTC

notduncansmith wrote: post #5

A Mac app called Alfred has saved me countless hours. It comes with a clipboard manager (extremely useful), and the ability to create custom workflows/hotkeys, which I use to switch back and forth between Skype, Chrome, and Sublime. iTerm2 already has a hotkey feature built in, but if it didn't I'd have made one (takes Following Gary Bernhardt's advice, mapping Caps Lock to a modifier key (he recommends Control I thi…

I actually feel like Vimium is nice even if you're not familiar with Vim. Or that was my experience. And when I later made a conscious effort to learn Vim's commands and use it more frequently, the navigation controls I had learned in Vimium made the learning curve less steep than I think it typically is for people first starting out.

Re: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#8

Post by notduncansmith » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 3:32 AM UTC

philip1209 wrote: post #6

notduncansmith wrote: post #5

A Mac app called Alfred has saved me countless hours. It comes with a clipboard manager (extremely useful), and the ability to create custom workflows/hotkeys, which I use to switch back and forth between Skype, Chrome, and Sublime. iTerm2 already has a hotkey feature built in, but if it didn't I'd have made one (takes Following Gary Bernhardt's advice, mapping Caps Lock to a modifier key (he recommends Control I thi…

We have an internal wiki page with custom alfred formulas for our company. "customer " "domain " "logs "" It makes life for engineers, support, and sales much more efficient.

I wish there were enough Mac users at our company to make this worthwhile. Is your whole team on OS X?

Re: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#9

Post by thatswrong0 » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 3:34 AM UTC

When I'm paying with a card I hold my wallet until I get my card back. I wrote myself a script and have my dot files on github to make setting up a new machine quicker. Tons of gmail filters. Ian's knot to tie my shoes (I know, doesn't really save time, I think there's an XKCD that shows the break even point on time investments like that). Aliases like 'helpme' that remind me of some Git commands I always forget. Brush my teeth while peeing.

Yeah, mostly stupid little things.

Re: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

#10

Post by myhf » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 3:39 AM UTC

    echo 127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com >> /etc/hosts