I enjoy the internet. A lot. Too much, in fact.

It was getting to the point where I would spend hours obsessively checking Fark, Digg, reddit, Metafilter, Facebook, and Google Reader. And then, by the time I had finished the cycle, the first site would have something new, and so I’d repeat the cycle again.

There’s a lot of interesting content on all of these sites, but it was becoming a firehose of unnecessary information. Have you ever tried to drink from a firehose?

So I decided to quit reading Fark, Digg, and reddit, the places I tended to waste the most time. And to prevent myself from accessing those sites accidentally, I blocked these sites using my HOSTS file.

Basically, adding a site to the HOSTS file tricks the browser into thinking that that web site is located on your computer rather than on the internet. It won’t be able to find it, and so it is effectively blocked.

It’s easy to undo, but it’s just enough of a roadblock to prevent me from getting to those sites on muscle memory. I have to deliberately unblock them if I really, really want to see them.

Here’s how you do it:

First, you have to find where your HOSTS file is for your system. A quick Google search turned up this reference page with locations of the HOSTS file on OSX, Ubuntu, and Windows. Vista users should check this guide if you’re still using the UAC.

Once you’ve located your HOSTS file, open it in Notepad and add lines like these at the end of the file:

127.0.0.1       www.digg.com
127.0.0.1       www.fark.com
127.0.0.1       reddit.com

The number of spaces between the 127.0.0.1 and the site being blocked doesn’t really matter

Save the HOSTS file, then close and reopen your browser. If you try to open that website now, you should get an “Unable to connect” error instead of the site.

Oddly enough, since blocking these sites, I’ve found myself taking the time to enjoy the content from Google Reader and Metafilter a lot more. It’s made browsing a much more pleasant experience, while freeing up time for other pursuits as well.

It’s a lot more pleasant to drink from a water fountain than from a firehose.

I just keep finding more and more to love about my new text editor, e. For example, I just discovered that you can run selections of text through any given Linux command (using Cygwin). Here’s an example, using one of the most powerful and basic commands from Linux, grep.

The grep command in linux works like this: You give grep a text file and a search term, and it outputs all of the lines of that text file which contain that term. So if you had list that looked like:

    !!!Dessert List:

    * Apple Pie
    * Cherry Pie
    * Chocolate Cake
    * Chocolate Ice Cream
    * Pecan Pie
    * Pumpkin Pie
    * Vanilla Ice Cream

and you ran grep "Pie" on that list, it would return with:

    * Apple Pie
    * Cherry Pie
    * Pecan Pie
    * Pumpkin Pie

This command can be really, really useful when dealing with large text files. And you can run it in e without having to go to the Cygwin command prompt. Here’s how easy it is:

1. Make a selection of text
2. Go to the Text menu and select “Filter Through Command”
   
3. Type the command grep "[search term]" into the Command field and click Execute.
   
4. Enjoy the newly filtered results.
   

And it works for a lot of linux commands. I just tried it with ls which lists all of the files in a directory, and it spat out a list of all everything in the Start menu. I’m very impressed.

Since almost everything in linux is a text file, Linux users have developed a lot of simple but powerful tools that let you manipulate text in all kinds of useful ways. And now, with e, there’s an easy way to use those tools in the Windows (without resorting to the command line).

I have a terrible long-term memory. With the exception of major events, I can rarely remember much beyond two weeks ago without some sort of trigger reminding me of what I was doing.

I’ve tried journaling, writing down what I’ve done at the end of the day, but this usually doesn’t work for me for more than a week at a time. I find that I tend to write long passages at time, and that after a week or so I abandon the journal in favor of getting more sleep.

What I really wanted was a log file for my life.

If you’re familiar with Linux, you’re probably aware of log files. One example is a web server: If the server can’t find a file that a user is looking for, it gives the user a 404 page, and then it records the missing page in the server log file. This log file is a text file that is appended with new lines whenever something important happens.

What I needed was a way of recording the events of my day from anywhere at any time. It also had to be quick and easy if I was going to keep up with it.

It turns out that there’s already a web service that does this, called Twitter. It’s intended for use as a communication tool to let your friends know what you’re doing. I’ve never understood why I would want this; I can’t believe that anyone but me actually cares about the minutae of my life.

Besides, if I did use Twitter as a life-log, I’d quickly fill up my follower’s Twitter timelines with posts about myself. And what if I want to log something private? Twitter would tell everyone who wanted to know. So Twitter looked like a bad option at first.

A couple of days ago, however, I found the “Protect My Updates” option in Twitter (located under Settings at the bottom of the Account page). Essentially, this is Twitter’s private mode: only people who I approve can read my updates. So I removed both of my followers (neither of whom I knew personally) and set Twitter to private. Now I’m using it as my personal life-log.

It’s really quick and easy to update: I can use the Twitter web site, text messages, IM, or one of the dozens of other methods that Twitter fans have rigged up. I typically use the Google Talk client on my Blackberry, since it’s really fast and it’s with me all the time.

And so far, this seems to help. I can now look back over the past couple of days and see the basic outline of what I did throughout the day. And the life log turned out to be useful for other things as well. I’ve written myself several notes like “Check out that URL from page 63 of The Zen of CSS.” It might also be used for tracking calorie intake and spending habits.

Overall, I recommend it. It’s a great way of capturing information that might otherwise elude your memory.

Related: Lifehacker’s article Quick Log Your Work Day by Gina Trapani.

There’s a feature in Windows Vista that isn’t getting nearly the attention it deserves. I think it could be a tremendous time saver for a lot of people. That feature is the Vista Preview Pane.

To activate the Preview Pane, open an Explorer window, click the Organize button, select Layout, and click on the Preview Pane. Now click on a file, and you should see a preview of that file in the right sidebar.

In the past the preview feature was limited to very small thumbnails of photos in the XP sidebar. Now the preview pane lets you preview office documents, text files, HTML, and media files like MP3′s. In addition, there’s a plug-in structure that lets you add more file types to the preview pane, such as PDF files and Photoshop Documents (PSD’s). (Since Photoshop takes a long time to open, the PSD plug-in is especially helpful.)

I’ve created a quick YouTube video that demonstrates how the Preview Pane works. (For some reason, when I uploaded it, it compressed the time from just under a minute to just under 30 seconds, so you’re seeing this in double time.)

Another cool thing is that you can actually select and copy information out of the preview pane, without opening the file at all.

Outlook 2007 uses this same preview technology to let people preview attachments in their email. Just single click on the file instead of double clicking it, and you should be able to see a preview without opening the full program.

I’m just amazed that so few people seem to know about this. It took me nearly three months of working with my new Vista laptop to discover this, mostly because the button to turn on the preview pane is in such a bad location. (Why isn’t under the Views button, Microsoft?) But now that I’ve found it, I believe that its going to save me all kinds of time.

I recently discovered a blog called “Five Cent Nickel,” which specializes in personal finance tips. They’re having a two-year anniversary contest where you (or, preferably, I) can win an iPod Nano or some personal finance books.

In looking around the site’s welcome page, I found an article that I could use to get enough money to pay for an iPod without winning the contest. It turns out that credit card companies will give you money just for signing up with their card.

Of course, most of this money is in the form of rewards points or gift certificates, but it’s still spendable money that you can get for filling out paperwork. My only concern would be your credit rating. Since I have no idea how that’s calculated, I have to wonder if would it negatively affect your credit rating to sign up for four or five credit cards all at the same time.

In any case, I’ve subscribed to Five Cent Nickel, and I’m looking forward to finding out more personal finance tips.