I use AppleTV but don’t convert my movies to H.264. I keep them encoded with XviD/DivX. iTunes, and AppleTV, can decode movies encoded with this codec but the movie must use an mp4 container. Note that the movie can’t have a resolution larger than 720×400 in order to be playable on AppleTV (otherwise the movie is simply not visible even though iTunes can play it).

I like to organize my movies in folders by genre. If you specify the gere in the metadata, AppleTV will sort them out that way (very helpful if you have lots of movies!).

What I found prett useful was to tilt the side view mirrors in my car as far out as possible. I was able to minimize the blind spot that way- as soon as I can no longer see the car in the lane next to me (without turning my head!), it would appear in the side view mirror; as soon as it disappeared from there, I’d see it in the rear view mirror. Depending on the size of the mirror you can even afford some overlap.

You should also learn to remember the layout of the cars around you to minimize having to look at the side view mirrors. In other words, you should know at all times how much space there is between you and the nearest cars in adjacent lanes. I found this knowledge indispensable when I had to quickly swerve to the side because the car in front of me stopped suddenly.

If you have a Mac Book Air that you carry with you, put the Remote Disk application on it, from the Installation DVD (for both Windows and the Mac) so you don’t have to worry about finding it when in crunch. And if you have your USB drive with you, you don’t have to worry how you’ll transfer the files over.

Put it on the left of your screen. It’s a better use of te widescreen; and also, in my view, looks better in Leopard.

I found it pretty unbearable to not listen to anything during workouts. I have a pretty good system that I use for different workouts.

When biking outside, I use on-ear headsets (I like the Sennheiser ones; they fold up) because due to air friction it’s hard to hear the in-ear ones. Careful, though, in some states it’s illegal to wear headsets while biking, and you should overall exercise caution and common sense (I, for example, only listen to audiobooks or NPR when I bike; I can still hear the traffic very well).

If I’m running outside, I usually take in-ear headphones.

If I’m working out indoors (either running or doing weights) I like to use the wireless headset, that has Bluetooth support (I use a Motorola S-9). The behind-the ears headsets are good but you have to be careful when you run so the don’t fall out- I usually wear a headband to stabilize the headset.

Regardless of what I’m doing, I like to listen to audiobooks or NPR. iTunes has a great selection of NPR/PRI podcasts (I also like Stuff You Should Know and some Stanford iTunes U stuff). Librivox is my destination for audiobooks but pretty soon I will want to switch to a paid service that has more modern books (I found the 19th Century repertoire to be somewhat boring, especially when I have to run in place for a long time).
If I’m wearing a backpack (which I tend to avoid if I don’t have to use it) or if I have big pockets, I take my iPhone; otherwise I put a small mp3 player like the lovely Samsung T10 in an inner pocket of my pants (all running pants have it). The nice thing about both players is that they support Stereo Bluetooth.

Don’t check luggage in. Unless the trip is a long one, it’s a much better idea to pack light, have a well-packed hand luggage, and not wory about lost luggage, carrying it everywhere, storing it, and so on. I’ve managed to fly without checking in my bag for about seven years now (with the exception of a two-week hiking trip).
People don’t make the right trade-offs. Do they really need all the cosmetics? Can’t they buy them at the destination? What about do laundry instead of packing all these clothes?

I also routinely pack too many books than I have time to read, and often take my laptop with me when clearly my phone can suffice (email, web, notes, music, even apps… What do I really need my laptop for then?).

We were born to multitask (our brain is definitely capable of handling many threads at once), but I see people multitask poorly all the time. The concerning thing is that they dont know tha they arent being efficient (because overmultitasking usually manifests itself as lack if retention).

Don’t perform more than one task that requires the same mental resource. For example, working out and listening to a podcast is a good parallel use of resources; so is reading a newspaper and solving a rubik’s cube. But writing email and listening to a recording of a meeting is not, since you have to process very similar information for both tasks.

I found myself worry a lot about the various problems in life, small and big, short term and long term. I think a little bit it’s what I do, but I’m sure eveyone has these nagging thoughts sometimes. For me, it was frustrating- I’d sit in a movie theater watching a movie and suddenly think about the problem set I haven’t finished (when I was back in college) or not having updated my blog in a while.

I decided to write down my problems. All of them; from very small ones (I’ve had a lot of food and feel bloated) to very big ones (I don’t know what I want to do in life). From ones with short-term solutions to ones with long-term solutions. From ones I really want to solve to those I really don’t care about.

After I’ve written them down, I realized that I’ve been thinking about them much less. There they are, on paper, I can refer to them anytime, they won’t go anywhere (problems are a little like bugs in software; and for the latter, i’ll paraphrase Paul Graham: “I love bugs. I know, and they know, that it’s just a matter of time before I defeat them. So I just sit and relax and drink my coffee; I’ll get them bugs”).

In fact, I’ve found the same to be very helpful for the rest of my life: the more I write down, the less my mind wanders about these things. This gets rid of the background noise and lets me think about the meaningful things. I just need to remember to manage these lists and go back to them periodically; otherwise my brain won’t trust my new system and the worrying will begin anew.

Just like 97% of population, I find long trips full of annoying downtime. This is particularly true if the trip involves a flight. I end up having to watch some stupid movie again or try to sleep (what ends up happening is me beingin this half-awake-half-asleep state that doesn’t give me any rest but that makes 15 minutes seem like eternity). What I started doing is taking notes on my iPhone (you can of course use any note-taking device but ideally it should be electronic and allow you to transfer the notes to a computer–do you really want to transcribe all this stuff later?–not too bulky, and also something you take on trips anyway. That way, I can, for example, catch up on writing posts for the blog (for this I’ve found using something like Air Sharing excellent: since I store most of my half-baked ideas on my computer, I just copy the relevant notes onto my iPhone before the trip and use it as a scratch pad).

If you’re going on a trip with no outlets (like a camp), consider getting one of those emergency radios that allow you to charge USB devices by cranking. It’s annoying to use but it gives you extra juice for your gadget and gives you a work out.

Finally, sometimes for some strange and archaic reason you can’t use an electronic device (like a plane take-off). I take a book for such occasions (this is also why the paper books will never die!).

There are many ways to do this. I have a system that works pretty well for me. First of all, I organize my music myself; I like the additional flexibility of having a folder structure at my disposal in addiion to the artist, album and song titles.

I organize music in folders by the time I add a batch of sogs to my library. I essentially add music files to an “unsorted” folder until I’m satisfied with the batch (say, every few months) and then add all the files together.
I rename the files to be “Artist – Title”. I like this more than what iTunes does by default (name songs by title) for two reasons: for one, including artist’s name gives me uniqueness guarantee (and iTunes has problems copying files off the library if the filenames are the same); also, I like to copy the files to players other than an iPod/iPhone and so having the artist in the filename is more informative.

When I add the files from a batch, I set a grouping to be the name of the batch.

I find that I like to listen to songs in a batch for a while and then move on to another batch, rather than to listen to an ever-growing library (since I get tired of songs pretty easily). The batch mode (and grouping by batch name) lets me do this.