cool habbits for the information age

• use collaboration tools like wiki - http://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2018/10/social-prestige-of-wiki-collaboration.html
• throw away your movies, software, music cds and dvds. use netflix, itunes, etc ... or for immoral people (wink wink) google and install bittorrent, and search any software, movie, tv show or music you want in http://torrentz.eu/  (just keep the OS software like windows 7 or XP or the sytem re-install disks) 
• try to watch all great movies you missed. for a list of top movies by year go to http://www.imdb.com/search/title,  enter the year twice in the release date (from and to), and for "sorted by" choose "US Box Office Descending. Example to list all movies of 1950 sorted according to popularity enter "1950" to "1950" in the release date. Start  with all the top 5's of each year then top 10, etc ... immediately delete a movie after watching.
• don't miss the best rated tv shows - http://www.tvtango.com/ is the best tv archive. tvguide.com does not even have schedules that are more than 2 days old.
• mix it up with the best episodes of the top sitcoms or tv series of all time. just google them to create the list. you will always have high quality of entertainment right at your fingertips while lining up at the bank or dmv or long trips.
• the best way to download free music is youtube. use a free video downloader and then convert it to mp3.
• no need to spend thousands for an entertainment system. in ebay you can get a good 6 speaker system for your PC for $60, a 6 channel sound card for $10 and an lcd monitor for $40. even just watching on your laptop with a $10 high quality stereo headphone can give you an amazingly immersive movie experience if you are the only one watching. a 15" lcd monitor in front of your face is not much different from a 50" plasma tv 12 feet away.
• google and install "total video converter" to convert downloaded movie and tv shows for your ipad, ipod or iphone so you can enjoy them on the go 
• throw away all books. any info can now be googled and ebooks can be downloaded from bittorrent. you can read pdf ebooks in your iphone by emailing to yourself (create a separate email account, e.g. ianebooks@yahoo.com to avoid new emails kicking out from memory the current book you are reading).
• during long drives or heavy traffic vary your entertainment with music, audio books, stand up comedy (david spade, seinfeld, chapelle, louis ck, kat williams, gabrielle iglesias, sarah silverman, margaret cho), audio magazines like businessweek, radio or tv talk shows (pod cast or bittorrent), skyping on the iphone, or language learning lessons. for sports i recommend jim rome radio show. 
• scan old pictures, transfer all personal videos from vhs to dvd (google for advice). 
• create a music video of your favorite pictures and video clips and upload them to youtube for safe storage or sharing with others. I recommend the free windows movie maker for windows users. Go to "help" menu to learn it (all softwares have "help"). i now have 4,124 channel views on my youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/scratchrider260/videos  i put those that got music blocked in http://blip.tv/iancrystal
• put all personal hardcopies in 1 compact suitcase - greeting cards, letters, old pictures and negatives, personal videos (in dvd), medals, awards, etc ...
• throw away all bank statements and old bills, use automatic payment or at least online billing and payment
• the only paper files i have (only a 3 inch stack) are school records, birth certificate, latest insurance statement, receipts that are still in warranty, titles, deed of sale, property tax receipts, car title, closing statement of property purchase and taxes. since 2001 my tax return is in a pdf file so i just keep the w-2, 1099s, receipts etc ... (you could request a copy of your tax return online)
• organize your computer files under 1 personal root folder for easy access and backup. example i have: audio books, small programs, contacts, ebooks, finance, taxes, iphone backup, music, notes,pictures, projects, personal music videos. mine is just 12GB. delete all movies you already watched in your computer.
• weekly backup your personal files into a flash drive (you can buy a 16GB flash drive for $17). also backup your files to another computer at home then keep your flash drive in your car in case your house burns down. if you don't have another computer make sure your laptop and flash drive are never at the same place.  example if your car gets car napped with both your laptop and flash drive in the car you are toast. if you don't have a second computer keep your backup flash drive in your parent's house or friend's house.
• learn and use quicken. link all online accounts. i can display my networth in a single click, display graphs, etc ...  for real estate assets just create an asset account and manually update the estimated value or equity. this makes it easier to make strategic decisions or react to or take advantage of economic events.
• regularly backup your iphone to your computer. i do it once a week so if you lose your iphone you can easily recover all the data and contacts. so if your iphone breaks or gets stolen just go to ebay to get a $100 3Gs and reload your data. there is now a $50 service to easily jail break old iphones. just google it.
• your iphone backup folder should be under your main personal folder for easy backup to your flash drive. go to itunes settings to relocate your iphone backup to be under your personal root. 
• put the large full personal videos in dvd's, NOT under your personal root folder. make copies and keep them together with your backup flash drive. the other backup copies should be in your compact personal suitcase. 
• when travelling never put your flash drive backup and laptop in the same bag. keep the flash drive in your pocket. 
• for windows users, use  microsoft security essentials
• don't miss imax 3d movies (http://ian-crystal.blogspot.com/2018/09/how-to-live-longer.html)
• you can use photoshop to compact your fav pix into collage themes. here's mine: http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/11543529 
• hang your pants by your bed side. you don't need to get up to answer or use your smartphone. if you take your phone out of your pants you might forget it when you leave the house.
• don't leave your garage door opener and gps in the car. someone who steals your car can easily use the gps to go to your house and get in using the garage door opener.
• delete duplicate photos in facebook. i notice some people have 20 pictures of their selfie that is very similar.

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12/17/18 fb post

youtubing can be more fun if you know the right diversity of search phrases. each of these items have a lot of very entertaining videos in youtube:

- real military battles/encounters, npa/abu sayaf/milf/taliban/al qaeda encounter/battle, taking fire,  green berets

- shark attacks

- close calls, near death experiences

- tosh.o

- orcas

- animals in the wild

- ellen degenerous

- bitag  (social justice warrior without the agenda baggage)

- (lightweights:) raechel maddow, greg gutfeld, joe rogan

- (heavyweight:) chomsky, shapiro

- stand up comedy

- native tribes in africa (unstaged daily lives)

- comedy central roast

- caught on tape

- (google for list of old sitcoms, and search in youtube your favorites)

- nature documentaries - oceans, rain forests

- accidents

- science, cosmos documentaries

- guitar and drum covers by beautiful girls

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10/9/18 facebook post

you see a sweet promo deal and buy the $700 round trip ticket manila to los angeles. then you realize your passport is about to expire and the ticket is non refundable. you forgot to renew your passport. goodbye $700.

you get stopped for a traffic violation. turns out your car registration is expired. you forgot to renew your car registration. you get penalized and when you register your car you pay P5k extra because of penalties.

you arrive at the gate of an airforce base on the way to a golf tournament. you have to leave your driver's license at the gate but turns out your license is already expired. you forgot to renew your license. they won't let you in. 

the property tax on your condo is P9k a year if paid on time. but you end up paying P16k because many years have past and you forgot all about it.

your townhouse burns down. at first you think no problem just claim the insurance. then you realize your insurance is already expired because you forgot to renew your insurance. goodbye P3 million.

your beloved car is starting to have problems after only 5 years because you always forget to change oil on schedule.

your house is damaged by termites because you forgot to have it inspected for termites every 3 years.

finally, you decide to start using the "reminder" app on your smart phone. but your phone got stolen. unfortunately your smartphone was an android which does not automatically sync your reminders with the cloud. and you forgot to re-enter the reminders again. so you forgot to renew your passport again. you forgot to renew your license again. you forgot to pay the property taxes on time again, etc ... etc ...

so you buy a $50 iphone 5c on ebay, enter all your reminders, and since that time, you never forgot to do an important task. when you upgraded to iphone 6s, the reminders automatically synced from the cloud so you never have to remind yourself to update the reminders when you get a new phone.

(for more of my knowledge bombs, click the "ian's knowledge bombs" banner at the top of this article and choose any article in the table of contents that piques your interest)