lifehacker

Continuing on with our Geeks We Love interview series, I'd like to introduce you to Adam Pash, the editor of one of my all-time favorite blogs, Lifehacker. This past January, Adam took over the helm at Lifehacker when Gina Trapani stepped down from her position, and he's been doing an amazing job ever since. Aside from running a site that's filled with more productivity tips, organizational tools, and useful downloads than you can imagine, Adam has also co-authored the book How to Do Everything with Your iPhone and can be found whipping up helpful web applications of his very own.

GS: Lifehacker is one of the most popular blogs on the Internet today. How do you explain the appeal of your "Lifehacks"?

AP: It's no huge secret: Everyone likes doing things better. We cover a lot of stuff every day — often with a tech-heavy slant (everyone also has computers) — aimed at helping our readers streamline their lives. Lifehacker gets really good when we find a great trick for doing something completely banal a thousand times better or more efficiently. Them's the goods.

GS: You just created a useful, printer-friendly website called Printable Checklist. How often do you build online tools like this one that help make your life a little easier? Which ones do you regularly use that you would call favorites?

AP: It's actually a side-hobby I've just started. Over the past year I've been working in my spare time on a much more ambitious music site that I'm hoping to launch in the next few weeks, and in doing so I've significantly improved my HTML, CSS, and JavaScripting skills. So when I had the idea for Printable Checklist (or, rather, when I wished something like it existed), I realized that making it myself wouldn't take all that long. So. . . chances are I'll make more similar one-use web applications in the future. But MixTape.me (the music site) is my real baby.

To learn more about Adam, including some of his favorite gadgets and hobbies, read more

I might like to feature male tech titans and their ladies, but I know you're more interested in tech girls! Gina Trapani, whose book, Upgrade Your Life which I mentioned a couple of months ago, is a geek girl role model for us all — as a web developer and programmer and editor of Lifehacker.

In an interview with the New York Times, she does a Q&A with advice on what her book and blog is about, and all of it is refreshingly simple. The most basic of her tech advice is to learn keyboard shortcuts to reclaim wasted time going from peripheral to peripheral:

"Moving your hand from keyboard to mouse, double clicking, moving the pointer, putting your hand back — that’s a lot of movement and it’s inefficient versus just hitting the keyboard combinations while your hands are on the keys."

To hear the old-fashioned device Trapani calls "the ultimate tool" just read more

Geeky girl, Lifehacker founder and editor Gina Trapani has released a new book full of the kind of tips that has made Lifehacker a phenomenal one-stop Internet shop and me a devotee, called Upgrade Your Life.

I've always appreciated the way Lifehacker has not only made an impact on the geek community by writing awesome extensions (they're perennially in Download of the Day), but the site also gives you ways to hack your real life, away from your computer, with DIYs and simple tips, like the awesome iPod cord detangler trick.

On that note, take some time away from your computer screen, order Upgrade Your Life, and sit down for a great read. In 3-D.

You've probably been here before: you're cleaning out the fridge and you get to that open jar of mayonnaise. You wonder how long it's been there, and when you opened it. Then you realize that even if you could remember when you opened it, you wouldn't know if it was still any good. The labels, if they're even there, are often confusing. So what do you do? Well luckily I've got the tip and the answer to help you out. To find out read more

• I obviously need to go to Japan, or have someone in Japan send me a package (hint hint!), because where else am I going to get Red Bean Kit Kat? - Candyblog
• Sorry that the rest of you are suffering through winter, but here in San Francisco we've got weather so warm that Shuna's Lemon Sherbet is going to hit the spot. - Bay Area Bites via Eggbeater
• Sam over at becks & posh, tackles one of Heidi Swanson's granola recipes. This one looks amazing and simple, give it a go you guys. - Becks & Posh
• Table Manners ponders whether or not vegetarians have the right to demand meat-free environments. Sorry veggies, in my opinion, if you demand meat-free environments, your friends are going to stop calling you. - Chow
• There's a motion to get more women involved in judging and testing, and since women do most of the buying shouldn't the industry know which wines women want? - Cheap Fun Wines
• Since commercial nut butters (like peanut butter) contain extra sugar, salt and shelf-sustainable chemicals, why not make your own homemade nut butter? - The Daily Tiffin
• Want better tasting coffee? Clean your coffee maker with vinegar every so often. - lifehacker