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Useful Services

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This page is under-construction, but I've found that if you know something exists, you're much more likely to find it/figure it out, so I didn't want to remove that value while we wait for me to have time to post all the details.

Misc Tools

Borrowing & Books

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Library cards/Libraries

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Hoopla for digital library books (audio books in particular)

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Libby for digital library books

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Curated modern book recommender

Music

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A way to listen to radio stations all over the world

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A map of zillions of musical genres that you can sample

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Spotify

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A way to identify a song you hear

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A way to identify a song you hum

“Entertainment”

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Rotten tomatoes for the best movie ratings

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Reelgood app and website for tracking what’s streaming where

Learning

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Wikipedia

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See AI assistants below

Research/Looking stuff up

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AI assistants? ChatGPT and similar things like Claude

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2 ways to look up old versions of websites

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A way to identify a bird you hear (or see)

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A way to identify plants

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A way to identify bugs

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NOLO legal guides

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Cochrane (evidence-based health recommendations)

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Be alerted to local wildfires

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Monitor outdoor air quality

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A guide to sustainable seafood choices

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Visual search engine

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Find out where stuff comes from

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Find out how much energy particular devices use

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General forecasting: The Good Judgement Project

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Best election forecasting: FiveThirtyEight

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Prediction market

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Economists’ perspectives: US and European Economic Experts Panels

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A map for estimating the elevation of any point on earth

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A way to figure out where to go/exactly where you are

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A good place to start for “how to”

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Cosmetics forum/reviews

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Tracking your website (this was originally under 🖥️Tech tips — there’s some overlap between these sections)

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Exploratory web surfing

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Apps for scanning docs

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Online fax service

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Blocking telemarketers

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Twitter feed mgmt tool

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Online publishing/blogging

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Photos (default Apple app for photo editing — surprisingly powerful)

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Miro (collaboration board)

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Figma (diagrams)

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SketchUp (3D modeling, e.g. of your garden or kitchen remodel)

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Generating video

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Communication tools (mostly asynchronous)

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Translation tools

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Transcription tools

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Emoji library

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Printing services (photos, fridge magnets, business cards, etc.)

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The best place for installing car tires

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Report a power outage

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Report an invasive species

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Manipedia for nail painting resources

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Guide for carrying keys

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Archival storage for slides/photos

Finances 🚧

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PayPal

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Vanguard Target Date Retirement Accounts (for your ROTH)

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Credit Karma (free credit score monitoring)

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See also the section on Finances on the Living Life Well page.

Purchasing

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📋 Consumer Reports

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📋 Wirecutter

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👩🏻‍🍳 America's Test Kitchen (tested tools, techniques, recipes, food products)

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🥸 Amazon/ebay/Walmart/Best Buy fake reviews analysis

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📈 CamelCamelCamel (Amazon price history & monitoring/alerts)

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🔁 Sold out? Consider using a service to notify you of changes to the item’s webpage

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🤑 Deals

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💻 MacRumors Buyer's Guide (for timing Apple purchases)

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🛒 Trader Joe’s

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🌍 Cost Plus World Market

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🛋️ IKEA

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🍫 Ferrero

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🌐 International shipping/gifting

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🎁 Gifting (which you can also do for yourself!)

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🛒 Thrive (specialty food online store)

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🫘 Eden Foods

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🛒Shopping List of Things I Recommend by Vendor

Coordination/Teams 🚧

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Scheduling

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Google Drive

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Slack

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Asana

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Notion

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Airtable

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Discord

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Zoom (can do video calls with more people than Discord)

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Loom asynchronous video messaging

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Voxer (asynchronous walkie-talkie — great for running events)

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Slido live-polling for remote team meetings

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Polis - debate tool

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Dropbox (integrated file storage and sharing)

Business 🚧

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Opolis (freelancer tax withholding & benefits)

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Gusto (payroll)

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Xero (accounting/bookkeeping)

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Wise (formerly Transferwise) (fast and cheap international transfers)

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Mercury (banking with virtual debit cards and different levels of permissions)

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Worldwide tax summaries

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Moo (business cards)

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Podcast studios & support

Crypto-specific:

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Rabby (best MetaMask alternative)

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[I’m more skeptical of this recommendation at the moment, but don’t have something obviously better to offer; Cryptio is maybe in the top slot, but expensive and involved, kind of like jumping from Xero to NetSuite] Tres (DeFi crypto accounting/bookkeeping)

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SafePal (cross-chain crypto: USDT on TRON)

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Ways to track ethereum gas prices (e.g. for being more strategic while defi minting)

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Payroll outsourcing if you need/want to include tokens