Raise your hand if you have logged in to any website at least 3 times today.  If you didn’t raise your hand, it’s probably because you are sore from all that typing.  You probably have access to tens - if not hundreds - of password protected sites, you shop online, fill out online surveys and do all sort of form-filling activities online.  Well, I want to help you out by making your form-filling activities more productive and efficient.  In the process, you will save your wrist and possibly avoid carpel tunnel.  This will hopefully extend your coding career a few more years or at least until they come up with a decent voice recognition or thought-reading computers.

There are several ways to automate this process, but my favorite and in my opinion best way to do this is to use RoboForm.  This awesome, cannot-live-without utility will remember all your passwords, credit cards, addresses and information and with one click it will fill out any form.  It works with Internet Explorer and Firefox but does not work on the Mac :(.

How I do it?

First thing I did was downloaded and installed RoboForm.  Since I use firefox, I also downloaded and installed the RoboForm extension from here.

Once it is installed, I setup a master password for my account and then customized the options.  I turned on Auto Fill and Auto Save which makes it easy to fill out forms.

Then, I customized my security settings to encrypt RoboForm files.

I usually don’t like toolbars in my browser, so I went ahead and got rid of all toolbars.  I can still access RoboForm from the context menu and because I turned on Auto Fill, it will automatically show when I get to a site that has been saved.  For example, when I go to Facebook, this Auto Fill window pops up and all I have to do is double click the Passcard named Facebook the click submit on Facebook.  Or even easier just click Fill & Submit which will fill the form and log you in automatically.  That’s ONE freaking click to get in and NO typing.  You are welcome.

Once I had everything customized the way I wanted, I created an identity.  An identity is basically all the information you use for a specific online identity.  For example, I have different identities setup for different credit cards.  Identities are extremely helpful, because you can create an identity for work, home or even a fake identity to use for filling out sites that you don’t trust.  Identities are very handy when you are registering for a new site, since that is the basically the same information.  Now you don’t have to type your address, email, phone number, credit card information every freaking time.  Just click "Fill Forms".  Tip: If the popup window doesn’t show up, just right-click on the web page and click "Fill Forms".

Next thing I did was just use my computer.  Now when I go to a new site that RobForm doesn’t have an associated pass card, I login by hand.  When I click the login button, RoboForm will prompt me to save the pass card.  If you save the pass card, the next time you come to this site, you will be able to login automatically using RoboForm.

 

Super Tip: I synchronize my RoboForm data folder across multiple machines using FolderShare, which gives me access to all my passwords on all my machines.

What you should do?

Go ahead and download the free trial version for RoboForm and install it.  Customize to suit your needs or just set it up as mentioned above.

Create your identities.  Save pass cards as you travel through the Internets.  Thank me for saving your wrist and making you more productive.

Not convinced?

If you are not convinced that this will make you productive.  Let’s do a little comparison.  Let’s say you login 3 to 4 times a day or 25 logins a week.  If you have an 8 character username and password that is 16 keystrokes per login, 400 keystrokes per week and 1600 keystrokes per month.  Let’s also say you sign up for some online service twice a week and say each signup is 125 keystrokes (250 per week/1000 per month).  Let’s also assume you fill out some sort of form once a week which requires basic information such as contact, email and address information; say 300 keystrokes (1200 per month).  Without going into calculation details, look at this table:

Action	Keystrokes Per Month
Login	1600
Signup for new site	1000
Fill Survey	1200
Shop twice a month with credit card	500
Total	4300

Let’s say we average 1.5 seconds per character (rough estimate), by using RoboForm, we save 4300 x 1.5 seconds per month or 107 minutes per month.  That’s almost 2 hours a month or 24 hours a year.  I have just saved you a WHOLE DAY and 51 Thousands Keystrokes a year. That’s not bad.

How much is 24 hours and your wrist worth to you?  RoboForm is only $29.95 but you can try it for free.

Videos

Also check out this RoboForm tutorial from You Tube.

Resources

1. RoboForm
2. RoboForm Tutorials
3. RoboForm Reviews

Nothing reduces productivity more than a slow computer.  Not to mention, it is extremely frustrating. 

You buy a new computer or install a fresh version of windows and things are running great.  A couple of weeks and 20 applications later, things are starting to slow down.  Does that sound familiar?

Well, there is a neat solution to this problem - PortableApps.com.  It’s a simple way to access a bunch of really useful tools and applications without installing them.  The best part is that you can keep all the applications and related documents on any USB drive (even your iPod) and use them on any computer.

How I do it?

Since I use multiple machines and don’t want to install the same applications over and over on each machine, I carry around a USB drive that contains a working set of my data and the PortableApps I use most.

I created a folder on my USB drive called PortableApps then I downloaded the PortableApps.com Suite and ran it.  I entered the L:\PortableApps as my "installation" folder.  This doesn’t install anything; all it does is create the PortableApps folder with all the necessary files.  Tip: If you install it to the root folder of your drive then it will auto start when you plug it in.

If you run the StartPortableApps.exe, it adds a taskbar icon which is just a launcher to your portable apps

I use this menu to launch my applications, back them up and change settings.  All the changes I make are saved within the PortableApps folder I specified, so nothing gets written to the registry, start menu or anything else i.e. zero impact on my windows installation.  So, all I have to do to back up my PortableApps is just make a copy the folder.  Tip: I use SyncToy to sync my PortableApps folder on the portable drive back to my computer - this way if I ever forget the portable drive, I will still have my applications.

What you should do?

First of all go ahead and download PortableApps and "install" it to any location you like - ideally a thumb drive.  Run StartPortableApps.exe to run the launcher. 

Try out the applications that come packaged with the initial install and remove the ones you don’t like.  To remove an app, just open up the launcher and click Options > Remove an App.  All this does is take you to the folder where the apps are installed and all you have to do is delete the folder for the application you want to remove.

To install new apps, just download them from www.portableapps.com.  Downloaded applications filenames end paf.exe.  After they are downloaded, click Options > Install a New App in the launcher.  Then browse to the downloaded file and that’s it.  All that happens is a folder gets created for the application under your PortableApps folder.  Nothing gets installed per se, so no start menu entry or registry modification

Here are some applications you should try out:

1. Notepad ++ (link)
2. 7-Zip Portable (link)
3. WinDirStat Portable (link)
4. WinMerge Portable - (link)
5. VLC Media Player - (link)
6. FileZill Portable - (link)
7. Firefox Portable - (link)
8. Miranda IM Portable - (link)
9. Sudoku Portable - (link) WARNING - PRODCUTIVE KILLER
10. WinSCP Portable - (link)

Videos

A very quick tour of PortableApps (~2 minutes)

A quick how-to for PortableApps (7 minutes)

Resources

1. PortableApps - www.portableapps.com
2. Tech Tip 128 - Computing on the Go with PortableApps
3. PortableApps Review
4. What is a portable app?