PayPal might not be the most loved online payment processor, but it’s still the biggest. And that means that if you buy a lot of stuff online, it’s kind of hard to avoid.

One of the many pain points of PayPal is its transaction log. PayPal’s transaction reporting system is better than my bank’s, but that’s not saying much. Its sluggishness coupled with the lack of meaningful filters makes it a major annoyance for frequent PayPal users. This is where a new web service called SlowPal comes in.

SlowPal pitches itself as a tool to free your PayPal account from reporting hell. It indexes your PayPal transaction logs and presents them in a clean and smart interface. It supports filtering based on transaction types (Authorization, Currency Conversion, Donation, Payment, Refund etc.), transaction status, and currency, in addition to date. Perhaps most crucially, SlowPal makes your transaction log completely searchable.

SlowPal might not be useful to all customers, since anyone but heavy PayPal users are unlikely to feel the need to analyze their PayPal spending in detail. However, it’s going to be a boon for merchants who typically process hundreds and thousands of transactions every day and have a pressing need to keep an eye on their transaction logs.

Right now SlowPal’s biggest shortcoming is that it doesn’t feature any graphical analysis. Since, its focus is on reporting, graphs and trend reports are two features that should be no brainers. Nevertheless, SlowPal is still a large improvement over PayPal’s transaction log. PayPal users will no longer have to take the trouble of manually exporting logs into Excel to perform the simplest of analysis.

[ Visit SlowPal ]

Social photo-sharing and bookmarking website Pinterest has become quite a rage. Just last month, it overtook Google Plus to become the third most popular social network (behind Facebook and Twitter). Much of the success of Pinterest can be attributed to it’s simple but intuitive user interface (UI). Now, by using a simple userscript, you can skin your Google Plus stream to look like Pinterest.

Pinterest UI for Google+ is currently only available as a Greasemonkey script for Firefox; however, Chrome support is on its way. The script reformats Google+ into a multi-column grid layout ala Pinterest. It is designed for screen resolutions larger than 1024×768. On smaller screens, the script will automatically disable itself. The layout is completely fluid and adjusts to the resolution and browser window size. The new Google+ layout received a lot of flak for wasting enormous amounts of screen real-estate. This script solves that issue by making use of the entire screen width. It ensures that there is always at least three columns. When your screen is not wide enough, the posts are “compressed” into a smaller size to fit the screen width. Here’s how my stream looks with the Pinterest UI installed.

One of Google Plus’ strong points it is media integration. Large thumbnails, tight coupling with YouTube, and support for GIF animations lends it an edge over Facebook. As a result, pictures and videos often constitute a sizable portion of the Google+ activity stream. Pinterest interface for Google+ is ideally suited for circles in which a lot of media is being shared. It’s a bit messy for sure, but it also has its own advantages.

[ Download Pinterest UI for Google+ Greasemonkey Script ]

Beginning this week, Google is forcing Gmail users to switch to the new interface. While the new interface looks slick and modern, it suffers from numerous poor design choices that have users up in arms. Some of the issues are fixable with a few settings tweaks. For example, you can use the compact, high-contrast theme to reduce the wastage of space and enhance readability. But for others, there is seemingly no cure.

Thankfully, few users are taking up the challenge themselves, and are trying to make the new Gmail more intuitive through extensions and userstyles. Among the better attempts is Gmelius, which is a free, cross-browser compatible extension that tweaks and refines the new Gmail interface.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the stuff that Gmelius does:

• It reclaims space by collapsing the Search and Share bar, stripping away the footer, and removing the People widget. Gmelius can also be configured to block all advertisements.
• It enhances the appearance of Gmail by adding subtle row highlights, and disabling fancy fonts and colors in incoming mails.
• It makes navigation more intuitive by colorizing the navigation icons and supplementing them with text.
• It adds an auto-scroll to the top action that can be triggered by clicking on the black Google bar.

Gmelius is dead simple to configure, and the tweaks it offers go a long way towards enhancing the new Gmail interface. The new navigations icons drove me nuts for weeks, and even after using the new interface for a several months, I still get confused occasionally. I only wish that I had discovered Gmelius sooner. There’s undoubtedly a lot more stuff that Gmelius could do. For example, it could bring back the reply links beneath every message or re-enable color coding of conversations. However, Gmelius already does enough for me to encourage you to go ahead and install it. It’s currently available for Chrome, Firefox & Opera.

[ Download Gmelius ]

I recently got caught in the iPhone vs. Android vs. Blackberry war and it’s safe to assume that I’m part of the casualty list. A lot of tech savvy and geeky people will tell you a million pros and cons for each platform without discussing the fact that once you switch you’ll find yourself completely lost. Noobs, or normal people as I like to call them, should never switch from one platform to the other based on things other people tell them. This article is meant to help you walk through the change without experiencing any “discomfort”.

Read. A lot.
Don’t just jump headfirst into an android because your techie friend said it was an amazing platform. A lot of people have been in a hurry to get powerful android phones only to realize they can barely do half the thing the phone’s meant to do. Don’t buy a smart phone because it has a high rating, make sure you get one that makes sense for you. Go through a lot of reviews and make good use of tutorials.

Spend some quality time with your platform
We all know someone who owns an android/iPhone/blackberry. I refuse to believe that people exist who don’t know anyone who has any of these. Get a hold of these people and request to play around with their phone, in their company. Try and get a feel for an android, or see if an iPhone makes more sense to you. Just because someone at work has a flashy iPhone doesn’t mean it’ll make sense to you.

Backup your data
A switch in platforms could mean that there will be compatibility issues. Make sure you have all your data safe somewhere. Cell phone monitoring apps help you save each piece of data as you create it, in addition to which they also extract all your existing data and save it to your online account. Don’t sit and cry about how your iPhone hates your old Android AFTER you’ve switch.

Moral of the story is that you should do your homework and stay prepared, don’t lament once the deed is done.

Author Bio: Stella Rabecca has been in the business of providing quality information on Cell Phone Monitoring. Her main experties lies within the spectrum of Cell Phone Tracking which are making waves in the techology world today..

Yesterday, I mentioned that Google is in the process of replacing the black navigation bar with a more intuitive and smart Google bar. This new Google bar is being rolled out in a phased manner. Google promised to roll it out to most users by this weekend. However, if you can not wait, there is a very simple hack that can help you in getting your hands on the new Google interface.

The hack works in all browsers that support cookie editing. As far as I know, Opera is the only one to provide this feature out of the box. Here are the steps Opera users need to follow to edit cookies.

• Open www.google.com (or any other Google property).
• Right click on any empty spot in the page and select Edit Site Preferences.
• Navigate to the Cookies tab.
• Opera users also need to perform the additional task of masking browser agent as Firefox (from the Network tab), since Google unfairly blocks Opera from having access to the new navigation bar.

Firefox, and Chrome users can use Cookies Manager+ and Edit This Cookie extensions respectively. Once you have figured out how to edit cookies in your browser, change the following cookies to the specified values and refresh the page to see the new Google Bar in action.

• Cookie Name: PREF Value: ID=c72428966817e8fe:U=0247a1d2e28446ef:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1322682576:LM=1322682591:S=T5G5rNwHMa3DgMyR



• Cookie Name: NID Value: 53=V2nPJ9pLZAt-hYsRLus7W3U4dlBY8HoXbAWgvVeTwg31Our1k1bgCphflivpX21wsKVV3K62La_Qo9qWr-CvRz__HppNYqCjFf03JsFz81zcc0TLXT6I0Kj9LlE_AcsA

If you want to do this without using any extension, you use the alternate method specified below. First you will need to open your browser’s developer console. Fire up Opera Dragonfly (Ctrl+Shift+I), Firefox Web Console (Ctrl+Shift+K), Internet Explorer Developer Tools (F12), or Chrome JavaScript console (Ctrl+Shift+J), and type the following code into the console.
document.cookie=”PREF=ID=03fd476a699d6487:U=88e8716486ff1e5d:FF=0:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1322688084:LM=1322688085:S=McEsyvcXKMiVfGds; path=/; domain=.google.com”;window.location.reload();

Ensure that the domain value correctly represents the page that you are currently surfing (example domain=mail.google.com for Gmail). Refresh the page to see the new navigation bar in action.

via PureInfoTech and GoogleSystem

As we reported earlier today, Facebook has made some changes to the Account Settings dashboard. The option to export (or backup) your profile is now in the center of the screen making it more visible. While going through the dashboard, I decided to give the export option a try.

Clicking on the Export account option will initiate the backup which once completed will be available to download. (An email notification will be sent.) The size of the backup generated in my case was 130MB, not surprising given the number of images I’ve uploaded since 2007. The Facebook backup is essentially an offline version of your profile. It has all your Messages, Notes, Wall posts, Pictures, Videos, Friend list and even the events. All of this information is presented as an offline HTML website, screenshot:

(You can export your Facebook Profile from the “Download a copy” link in your Account Settings.)

The archive has 3 folders, with your albums in their own sub folders. Launching the index.html file one can browse through his profile. I came across my first wall post that dates back to April 2007!

Google has been making a lot of noise about your data being your datawith Google+ so I decided to test the option. My Google+ profile is a meager 3MB. (I am not a Picasa user.) However, Google+ creates .vcf files of your circles. The .vcf file can be imported into Outlook, Gmail or any contact management application. This is much better than the static friend list prepared by Facebook. Besides this, the backup option is Google+ isn’t nearly half as good as the one from Facebook. Here’s a screenshot of Google+ backup folder:

The folder segregation is pretty good but inside plus_one is a HTML file of the links you +1-ed. The Buzz and Stream folders have several HTML files of the links and posts you shared. This representation is pretty useless offline. The Google+ backup does not create an offline HTML version of your profile. And here’s where I realized Facebook is much better.

(To get a backup of your Google+ profile, head over to Google Takeout.)

Every so often, you   might want to disable something on your PC. However, you’ll need to dig deep down in the Control Panel settings to make that happen. Here are five apps that let you disable everything from your Aero Glass effects to your keyboard at the click of a button.

1. Disable the touchpad with TouchFreeze

Changing specific settings to automatically disable the touchpad when typing could be cumbersome, so TouchFreeze comes to the rescue. You needn’t fiddle with the Control Panel settings anymore – just install the utility and you’re done – the touchpad will not be active during typing if TouchFreeze is running.

2. Disable Aero Effects with Aerofoil

Aerofoil is a simple utility that runs from the system tray and lets you disable all snazzy Aero Glass effects in Windows 7 with a single click. You can also use it to switch between multiple power plans you’ve created.

3. Disable the keyboard with Kid Key Lock

Kid Lock disables standard and special keys on your keyboard and mouse buttons. Pretty useful when you’re going to clean your keyboard or if you have kids or pets in your home. The program runs from the system tray.

4. Disable the CapsLock key with Handicapslock

If you find yourself hitting the Caps Lock key often when you shouldn’t, chances are you want to disable it. A Lifehacker reader created an AutoHotkey script that activates the Caps Lock key only when it’s pressed twice, and you can download the same as an .exe from here.

We haven’t tried this ourselves, but give it a go and let us know.

5. Disable UAC Prompts with TweakUAC

If you never want to get annoyed by those User Account Control notifications that often pop up, download TweakUAC and just hit Leave UAC off. The UAC is completely disabled, so you’ll never get to see those again.

=== About the Author ===

Shankar writes at Killer Tech Tips, on everything ranging from keyboard shortcuts that make you productive to advanced Google search operators you may not know about. Check out his blog!

Nobody likes having a slow computer. But even though some don’t mind waiting a while for the computer to boot, everybody hates dealing with a slow freezing-up browser. Even if you have a fast Internet plan, your browser can be the bottleneck.
Web browsers can slow down for a number of reasons, from memory leaks to bloated cache and buggy add-ons. Luckily, there are some simple ways to speed things up.

1. Set your homepage to blank

Do you always like to go to the same Web page when you launch your browser? If yes, then skip this tip. But if not, then it’s best to set your homepage to blank, as it will make your browser open a lot quicker. To change your homepage to blank, simply go to your browser’s Tools or Settings menu, find the entry that refers to homepage, and set your homepage to blank.

2. Delete temporary Internet files

Every time you visit a website, your browser saves images and other info and stores it in the cache. In theory, this is great because it speeds up opening the website the next time you visit it. Unfortunately, there is a downside to it as well the more files get stored in the cache, the more bloated it becomes. As a result, your browser needs more time to open and your hard drive becomes cluttered. Moreover, deleting temporary Internet files will help you protect your privacy.
To clear the cache in Internet Explorer, go to Tools Delete Browsing History. Click Delete All, then click Close. You’re done.
Firefox users need to go to Tools Clear Private Data. Don’t forget to check the checkboxes for the things you want cleaned up, like Cache, Cookies, Search History, etc. Then click Clear Private Data Now.

3. Use pipelining

Firefox users are in luck, because their browser has a way to boost page loading time. Pipelining lets Firefox send multiple request to a single socket without having to wait for the corresponding responses, which makes all the difference.
To enable pipelining, do the following:

1. Open Firefox and type about:config into the address bar and hit Enter
2. Find network.http.pipelining, set it to True to enable pipelining
3. Check that network.http.proxy.pipelining is set to True
4. Double-click network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set the number of requests to 8

There are many other ways to boost your Web browser’s speed and productivity. But these quick tips really do make a difference. Enjoy faster browsing!

==== About the Author ====

Andrew Breen is the Marketing Director of Auslogics Software, an Australian developer and publisher of computer maintenance and optimization software for Microsoft Windows. Auslogics software is used by over 10 million people worldwide to help defragment and speed up their slow computers
.

A challenging undiagnosed illness benched me from my corporate job seven years ago. With little warning, I had to discover my inner entrepreneur. I had always had a goal of someday working from home full-time – but, like the rest of my career up to that point, the decision was pretty much made for me. It took a change in mindset and some creative risk-taking to keep myself afloat.

When I heard that I was going to be laid off from my last job, I decided it was time to take the hint. In my mind, I was entirely capable of continuing my work as an art director, webmaster, or technical writer at another company, but my body couldn’t take the corporate environment. Whether I liked it or not, I was about to be my own boss.

Writing my business plan was dismal. I was used to working for Fortune 500 companies with teams of the best and brightest accomplishing initiatives with massive impact. I had no idea how to set goals for a company of one. My network consisted mostly of people who already had their hands full with work and family – I couldn’t count on them to come through for me if a project became more than I could handle on my own. My office was the living room of my small apartment, and my sole asset was a computer. Exit strategy? Non-existent.

I did have two things going for me – a unique combination of skills, and a history of being laid off. My background was in Web development, marketing, graphic design, project coordination, business analysis, and technical writing – all skills that are easily outsourced (especially in Boulder, Colorado in the ’90s). Little did I know that being laid off as often as I was would give me exactly what I needed to succeed as a consultant.

During my time in Boulder, temp agencies quickly became the most convenient way to find the next job between lay-offs, and eventually my primary form of employment. I became a quick study. I could walk into a client’s project and hit the ground running. Projects usually lasted for six months to a year, and then I’d have a month or two before the next job came along, so I started looking for side projects that filled in the gaps between temp jobs. At the time, I was just looking for a way to keep the momentum going, but looking back, I was starting to approach my career as though I was self-employed.

As I faced for the first time the "big plunge" into full-time business ownership, however, I had a confidence problem. I didn’t think of myself as an entrepreneur. Reading books, magazines and websites on entrepreneurship helped, but it took a solid year for me to realize that being my own boss was a familiar feeling – it wasn’t that different than playing an active role in my career management.

Because I could wear so many hats, and needed opportunities to build up my creative consulting portfolio, small businesses – especially startups – were my most likely clients. I started out by spreading the word and following up with former colleagues, but my saving grace was discovering small business networking groups. There I found other starting entrepreneurs who were eager to exchange complementary services, willing to partner on projects, also actively marketing for projects from which we could both benefit, and equally grateful to have allies.

That summer, as I started my business in Tampa, Florida, five hurricanes came through the region. For three months everyone was glued to the TV, deciding whether to pack up or stay put. Paying a measly invoice to a lowly consultant was the last thing on my clients’ minds. I had plenty of time to question how I was going to make being self-employed work, but I stuck with it because I really didn’t have a choice.

Over the following seven years, I learned the hard way how to pick and choose clients, and when to fire them. I learned to properly value my time (and convince clients to value it as well). When business was slow, I would donate my services to worthy causes to build business connections, demonstrate my abilities, and enhance my portfolio.

Eventually I established some reliable long-term clients who keep the wheels turning, and trustworthy collaborative partners who I count on daily to take over where I’m lacking. My business hasn’t grown much – that was never my goal. But I did end up accomplishing my "someday" dream of working from home full-time, and in the process discovered an array of hidden personal potential. Most importantly, I learned how to take control of my career.

Here are some important tips I learned along the way:

• Start considering yourself as your own boss – If you are getting yourself to work each day and doing your best to pay your bills, you’re acting as your own boss already. There really isn’t that much difference between working for an employer or a client – it’s more about mindset. Consider becoming a sole proprietor, which is the easiest form of self-employment. Check out your state’s small business website – it may be that you don’t need to do anything other than make up your mind that you’re in business for yourself, and just like that you’re your own boss (at least for a few hours a month).
• Work with what you have now – It’s easy to say, "I should have a great business idea, or a solid plan, or a reliable team before I take the leap." Instead, look with new eyes at what you have now, and take it up on the opportunity. For example, you may have bought a book three years ago on event planning that has been sitting on your shelf – taking it out and reading it seriously may be all you need to get your momentum going.
• Find great collaborative partners – Look around you for like-minded colleagues who have strengths where you are weak, and are equally motivated to generate new business. Take a night course in starting a small business, or join a small business networking group, to meet others with similar passions.
• Choose clients carefully – When it comes to doing consulting work, for the most part corporate clients are more likely to understand costs involved with doing the work you do, as well as refer other corporate clients. Small businesses are often more personally attached to their business, and take setbacks personally. They are reluctant to part with money if they can’t truly value the work you do. However, they are eternally grateful when they see the benefits of what you do, and will come to you faithfully for years, where corporate clients can drop you with one word from their manager.
• Use a contract – Find a template for a clear, user-friendly contract with realistic pricing for every business agreement to prevent overcommitting yourself. This will help you keep your head about you when in negotiations on price, time and terms, and it will weed out the clients who don’t value your work enough to pay your rates. This will also prevent you from getting too many clients to manage.
• Create your own microcosm – You may have a grand vision for a unique product or service that you believe requires big action, or perhaps you want to create a business that’s going to grow fast in capabilities and in profit. If you’re putting together a business plan that requires substantial upfront investment, it’s best to start small. Consider creating a mini version of your plan in a pilot program that is manageable and requires less investment. This will provide the documentation you need to create a more persuasive business plan that you can present to investors. In the meantime, take some classes in the legal, corporate, financial and planning aspects of developing a business.

==== About the Author ====

As a member of the BrainTrack.com writing team, Ellen Berry offers sage advice to those interested in a career in business management, among other careers fields.

You just wrote an Excel formula and it isn’t producing the result you expected?  Have no fear – this article will introduce you to the Evaluate Formula’ tool which you can use to discover why your formula isn’t working. The Evaluate Formula tool achieves this by showing you the steps Excel takes to calculate your formula.  This is very useful when you need to find a problem with a formula, or to understand the calculation process.

Finding the wrong value

Let’s look how the Evaluate formula’ tool can be used to trace a problem, by looking at the following sample:

You can see that something is amiss with the formula in cell C3. The formula adds 1+2+3 (cells A2, A3 and A4) and then divides the result by 3 (cell B3); this should evaluate to 2 (6 divided by 3). But we got 2.4. By opening the Evaluate Formula tool (from the Formula Auditing area of the Formula ribbon), we can work the calculation of this value step by step (click the Evaluate button in the Evaluate Formula dialog to advance):

Listed are the evaluation steps for the formula above:

• (A2+A3+A4)/B3
• (1+A3+A4)/B3
• (1+2+A4)/B3
• (3+A4)/B3
• (3+3)/B3
• (6)/B3
• 6/B3
• 6/2.5
• 2.4

First we’ll examine the mechanics of the display. The underlined part of the formula in each step is the part that will be evaluated in the next step. The italic part of the formula in each step is the part that was evaluated in the previous step.

In this case, the one-but-last step seems off: we expected B3 to contain 3, but it seems to contain 2.5. The problem is probably that the cell’s display is set to show zero decimal places:
And there you have it – we’ve found the problem. Changing the cell’s formatting to show decimal places will show that cell B3 contains 2.5.

Summary

This article provides a little taste of how the Formula Evaluation tool can be used to help us fix problems in our formulas. It’s also a great tool for helping us write formulas, but that discussion can wait for another time.  Can you think of ways this tool can serve you? Please share with us in the comments…

==== About the Author ====

Joseph Reese is the founder of Excel-Formulas.com an Excel consulting firm. Head over to his website if you want to improve your performance with Excel.