The 30 skills every IT person should have

An IT manager's guide on how to be better at what you do, no matter how experienced you are.
The 30 skills every IT person should have

The Panacea for Putting Things Off

Can you recall a time when you wanted to do something important, yet you’ve managed to make enough excuses to leave it for a later date? Putting something off once makes it easier to put it off again, and before you know it, several weeks have past and you still haven’t done it?
The Panacea for Putting Things Off

Navigating Food Labels

Did you know the label "100 Percent Natural" has different meanings for chicken fingers, cookies and various other foods? Or that those "cage-free" chickens might not ever have seen the outdoors? Here's a guide to help sort out what's meaningful, what's dubious — and what's total fluff.
Navigating Food Labels

Five Secret Japanese Tricks to Make Life Better

In Japan, there's an organic, non-commercial cure for almost anything. It's a tradition that blossomed in the post-WW2 era when people had to save money and space for economic reasons. Today, this habit of utilitarian thriftiness paired with a quirky national sensibility has spawned a phenomenon called urawaza--a collection of offbeat life hacks and unmapped shortcuts.
Five Secret Japanese Tricks to Make Life Better

Pringles can designer dies; remains buried in Pringles can

Dr. Fredric J. Baur was so proud of having designed the container for Pringles potato crisps that he asked his family to bury him in one.
Pringles can designer dies; remains buried in Pringles can

Digital Forensics: 5 Ways to Spot a Fake Photo

This story is a supplement to the feature "Digital Forensics: How Experts Uncover Doctored Images" which was printed in the June 2008 issue of Scientific American.
Digital Forensics: 5 Ways to Spot a Fake Photo

Digital Forensics: Photo Tampering Throughout History

Photography lost its innocence not long after it was born. As early as the 1860s photos were already being manipulated—only a few decades after Joseph Nicéphore Niépce created the first photograph in 1826. With the advent of high-resolution digital cameras, powerful personal computers and sophisticated photo-editing software, the manipulation of digital images has proliferated. Here, I have collected some examples of tampering throughout photography's over 180-year history.
Digital Forensics: Photo Tampering Throughout History

How To Entertain Yourself in an Airport

Flight delayed? Have a long layover? Think you’re going to go crazy? Fear not. There are ways to keep sane and entertained.
How To Entertain Yourself in an Airport

50 Weight Loss Secrets: Small Changes, Big Weight Loss

This is not a diet -- or a rigorous exercise program. (Nobody can stick to those for long.) Instead, it's a simple way to make weight loss a natural part of the life you already live. And guess what? It's fun! You don't have to give up the foods you love or join a gym. It's about balancing calories in tiny ways that add up to big benefits. You just adopt some tricks naturally lean people do. Pick the ones you like, stick with them, and you'll slim down and tone up -- for good!
50 Weight Loss Secrets: Small Changes, Big Weight Loss

10 Items You Think Make You Cool, But Don’t

Being cool is normally subjective. But there are some things that unequivocally make you uncool. We’re not saying we’re cool, we’re just saying if you own any of these items, you’re not.
10 Items You Think Make You Cool, But Don’t

Scientific American: Swedish Spruce Is World's Oldest Tree

What's sixteen feet tall and 9,550 years old? It’s the world's oldest tree. The worn and weathered spruce grows in Sweden's windswept tundra. But, until recently, well, recent to the tree at least, it barely resembled a tree at all. Before this last warm century, the spruce grew more like a shrub to survive the harsh conditions of its cold landscape. But rising temperatures convinced the tree to give up its shabby lifestyle, shed the majority of its needles and go with the single-trunk look.
Scientific American: Swedish Spruce Is World's Oldest Tree

Google Earth: Now in your browser!

Google just released a new browser plugin that lets users experience Google Earth from directly inside a webpage. The new plugin is accompanied by an API that web developers can use to easily incorporate Google Earth into their applications, just like what they did with Google Maps a long time ago.
Google Earth: Now in your browser!

20 Funniest Newspaper Headlines ever

20 Funniest Newspaper Headlines ever

Word Clock (Mac)

Word Clock is a typographic screensaver for Mac OS X. It displays a fixed list of all numbers and words sufficient to express any possible date and time as a sentence. Word Clock displays time by highlighting appropriate words as each second passes.
Word Clock

Protect Your Stolen Mobile Phone

You've synced your email, address book, and calendar to your fancy smartphone, which has internet access, photos, and videos on it, too—but how do you keep a thief from ringing up your bill, or worse, stealing your identity using your phone?
Protect Your Stolen Mobile Phone

RestyleMe Answers the Question: “How Do I Look?”

How do I look? It’s the classic question friends ask before they walk out the door. Most of us would say “fine,” but what if you had the chance to really point out the flaws in someone without feeling bad about it? RestyleMe is a social network for girls (and boys) who seek constructive criticism on how to fix their appearances. In other words, they want to be told how to look better. RestyleMe describes itself as “the ultimate style advice community website that features a novel way to get style advice.”
RestyleMe Answers the Question: “How Do I Look?”

Old filmstrip: "Bicycle Safety"

Once again, Derrick Bostrom of Bostworld provided an invaluable service to the world by scanning a vintage educational filmstrip and uploading it to YouTube.
Old filmstrip: "Bicycle Safety"

A Runner's Primer

Everything your ever wanted to know about running but were too lazy to google yourself.
A Runner's Primer

10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot

When your computer hardware appears to power up okay, but the Windows XP operating system won’t boot properly, you have to begin a troubleshooting expedition that includes getting into the operating system, determining the problem, and then fixing it. To help you get started on this expedition, here are 10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot.
10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot

The Essential Bookshelf: The Only Eight Books I’ve Kept

Over the last two years, I’ve reviewed in detail more than a hundred (actually approaching two hundred) personal finance and personal productivity books on The Simple Dollar - for more than a year, I reviewed two a week.

The Essential Bookshelf: The Only Eight Books I’ve Kept