Michael Graziano rather persuasively argues that the body’s mechanisms for managing hunger work just fine. Eating high-carbohydrate food products, calorie-counting, snacking, etc. mess up the body’s default mechanisms and lead to obesity. Graziano makes the case that hunger, for many people, is a psychological state. The hunger mood can make a small plate of food …
Category Archives: Tools/Tips/Tricks
My Overcast Settings & Smart Playlists
How I set up my Overcast podcast player.
Inbox by Google
I switched from Yahoo Mail to Gmail back in 2006 or 2007; it took awhile to come to grips with it, but I loved some of its conveniences and never switched back. I kept the old Yahoo Mail account as a backup just-in-case account, but I only check it every week or so. I’m always …
Review: Elf, a reminder service to avoid overdue library fees
The Durham Country Library — which is a great organization I support with patronage and donations of both books and money — does not notify me when books are either coming due or are overdue. This can be inconvenient when life gets hectic or I forget that the checkout period for DVDs is different from that for books. …
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Software: Audiobook Builder
Back in the days of iron men and wooden computers, I listened to audiobooks on cassette. In 2001, I joined Audible.com and listened to digitized audiobooks using my trusty yet problematic Digisette Duo-Aria; for years, my secondhand cars only had cassette players so the Digisette served me well. I preferred listening to audiobooks over music whilst …
How I rate songs in iTunes
I never fiddled with iTunes before I bought my iPod 5G in 2010 as my birthday present to myself. I found — and still find — iTunes to be both useful and maddening. Kirk McElhearn’s Take Control of iTunes ebook is a great resource for the music fan who just wants to get things done …
How to unwrap a CD
When I first saw an Asheville CD store saleskid flip open the hinges of a CD case to remove that annoying sticker from across the top of the lid, I was gobsmacked. Once I saw it, it seemed so simple — why had no one ever shown me this before? Why had I not been …
Draining my MacBook battery
My 2007-era black MacBook uses a battery that needs to be regularly calibrated; that is, once a month, it needs to run down to zero and then charged back up. One of the Genius Bar guys told me that the worst thing to do to a battery is to leave it plugged in all of …
The Splurge List
I don’t remember where I got this idea, but it’s one I’ve been using more lately. The idea uses wishlists and a form of timeboxing to help me reduce my impulse spending, especially online. It’s so, so easy to buy a Kindle ebook or an MP3 album on Amazon, especially when the items are priced in the cheap …
Using Keyboard Maestro to fix Safari 5.1 keyboard dumbnesses
The MikeBook has been receiving tons of app upgrades due to Lion (haven’t upgraded yet; waiting a few months for the bugs to shake out). In general, the app upgrades have caused no problem except for Safari, which disabled the Page Up, Page Down, Home and End keys. I mean…what?? Sorry, Apple, but I don’t …
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