Streamline your life today! (lifehacker.com)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	lifehacker.com
Date:	02/01/07 (172 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of fantastic tips and software recommendations

Disadvantages: Navigation isn't great, taking part can be a bit of an ordeal.

Computers are there to make your life simpler and more productive. At least, that's the theory and when I was moving from primary school to grammar school, that's exactly how I persuaded my parents to buy me a Commodore 64.

Of course, it was all complete tosh and I was upstairs playing Manic Miner before you could say "Hey, where's the word processor?"

Today, it's a different story. With the power of personal computers and the advent of the internet, why can't computers make our lives easier? That's the aim of lifehacker.com and, in its own words, "Lifehacker recommends the software downloads and web sites that actually save time. Don't live to geek; geek to live."

But what does that actually mean? Well, to start with, lifehacker is nothing more than a glorified blog, albeit one that's quite pretty looking. The focus of the site is to bring you hints and tips that will make your life easier and the whole mantra for the site is "getting things done" and you'll probably see the GTD acronym pop up all over the place.

For the most part, that translates into recommendations regarding handy web sites, computer programs, templates and other useful items but the site also offers links to other sites where you can find non-computer tips for use in the real world to make your life easier.

Even though I only discovered the web site recently, I've already made use of some of the software recommendations and there are at least another half dozen that I know I'll be using before too long. The software recommendations are mainly Mac and PC-Windows orientated with PC-Linux users only really being catered for if a program is released across multiple formats. I've yet to discover a Linux-only software recommendation, but that's not to say that they don't exist on lifehacker and there are plenty of articles that cover Mac, Windows and Linux.

Some of the articles and referrals are probably not what you'd instantly consider with a geek-type site such as this, though. Some articles I've seen recently on lifehacker describe such actions as building a camera tripod from a lemonade bottle, keeping kids entertained during car trips, resurrecting a soaked mobile phone, how to survive at the airport with kids and lots of other non-computer, but still extremely handy tips. Some of the tips are really only for those living in the States, but these are in the minority and the quality and usefulness of a lot of the tips is extremely high.

Initially, I had problems with trying to hunt through the site for specific articles. Trying to find articles recommending, for example, Windows software can be achieved by using the search tool, which is decent enough, but it would be nice to be able to surf through specific categories of posts. In fact, the only real way I had found of surfing the site initially was either by using the search or by physically surfing every single page (and the articles are ordered by date, so you can imagine how many pages there are). Each post has "Read more" tags for you to follow, but these are essentially search engine results, so you'll get the same options from clicking on a "downloads" tag as you would from typing downloads into the search engine.

However, a few weeks after discovering the site, I did eventually find the "archive" link at the bottom of the navigation bar which gave me access to the past articles by month or by category which has helped me find the stuff I want and access it quickly. I do still tend to surf through the site semi-randomly as I find that's the best way of using the site. Often the bits of information and downloads I find most useful are those I stumble upon rather than search for specifically.

Site speed isn't the quickest (even on broadband), probably due to the amount of images and adverts used on each page and I have noticed a few layout quirks in both Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1 and Internet Explorer 7, but nothing that really impedes access to any areas of the site. Ordinarily, the relatively poor navigation coupled with less than good site speed would be a huge negative aspect for a website, but I think the excellent quality of the content more than makes up for these minor site quirks.

Finally, lifehacker does have an element of feedback and it can be possible to register and comment on various stories as well as offer feedback and make suggestions. However, I found their method of attracting users to be quite off-putting. While it's possible to directly email the site with ideas (the email address is listed prominently), if you want to join the community, then you might run into trouble. You can post a comment if you choose, but comments are vetted before being displayed and not just for the usual 'sins' of racism, flaming etc. (which is admittedly sensible) but also of 'interest'. If your comment is not interesting enough to the site administrators, then it won't get displayed. I'm not a huge fan of this as I think it goes against the site's ideals about getting stuff done. Why should I waste my time posting a comment that might not be displayed? In fact, I've already done this and while the comment was eventually posted on the site, there was no confirmation email that this had happened.

If you're looking for ways to streamline your life and be more productive (not just in how quickly you can do things, but what you can do), then I really do think that you'll find a lot of the articles on this site useful, with more being added every day. Lifehacker.com has enough quality content to warrant being a five star site, however the minor site foibles in terms of navigation, speed and layout coupled with the ludicrous commenting criteria mean that I'm having trouble giving out a full five stars. I will still recommend the site with the caveat that there might be a steeper than required learning curve to get the best out of it, but perseverance will bring reward.

Summary: Lots of hints and tips on how to be more productive and how to achieve more.