Save Time With The Google Web Accelerator

This free download from Google actually makes your pages load faster on a broadband connection. Check out how this web accelerator will save you time online.

See the time management article on TimeJar.com.

The Time Jar Experiment

This is an excellent video that displays what some call the Pickle Jar theory. Set to dramatic music, it demonstrates how important the order in which you do things affects your daily life:

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Time Jar is one of the most useful time management systems online.

Please Wait While Windows Configures Photogallery

We kept getting this error when we would load pictures on our Windows XP system. We also got the problem when running Camtasia screen recording software.

Everyone told us it was a problem with Microsoft Office but when we researched it we found that it was a problem with HP Image Suite which was installed with our HP driver CD for our Officejet 7310xi.

We went to Control Panel -- Add/Remove programs and deleted this program without deleting our drivers and it removed the problem.

Jury Duty Scam

Scammers pretending to work for local courts are calling potential victims with the news that they have failed to report for jury duty and a warrant has been issued for their arrest.

The victim unaware and caught off guard will claim they never received the jury duty notification. At this point the scammer will ask the victim for personal confidential information, including Social Security number, birth date and credit card information for “verification” purposes.This scam has been verified on Snopes.com

Find Scams Quickly

www.Snopes.com is generally referred to as the authority on Urban Legends. If you hear of an email going around that says Bill Gates is giving away cash to people who forward emails, or the Osama Bin Laden virus, or parking lot carjackers that put flyers on rear car windows -- go to www.Snopes.com to see if it is true.

We found a great story regarding the Dust Off product (the can that you use to spray down your computer). There were stories going around that kids were dying when inhaling this product. Snopes did the research and showed that this was true.

This site will really save you time and give you the edge on a lot of the false information that circulates around the web.

Save Money & Time On Computers & Accessories

I needed to get some DVI cables for my monitors and they had a poor selection at Best Buy. A friend told me to go to www.newegg.com because they had the best prices. Those cables at Best Buy were almost $50 because they were rare and they were long. I found the same exact cables on New Egg for only $12!

They shipped them in one day and I got them immediately. This site is great to buy computers or hard to find accessories and it has saved us a lot of time and money.

The people on the 800 number don't know much so you have to know what you are looking for, but they ship items fast.

How Roboform Saves Us TONS of Time!

Check out this video we put together to show you how Roboform can make logging into multiple sites a breeze. We use it for logging into to our ALLStarProjects.com accounts and it works great.

And it is free!

http://timejar.com/videos/roboform/roboform.html

TimeJar.com -- The Next Generation In Time Management

How To Clean Out Internet Explorer To Solve Problems

If you are having problems with ANY web site, here is the first thing you should do:

Internet Explorer starts acting weird when you haven't cleared your cache in a long time. Have you ever tried to save a picture online and your system tries to save it as a .bmp instead of a jpg? It is probably because you need to clear your temporary files in IE. If you are experiencing problems or "bugs" in ALLStarProjects.com, you can solve most of the problem by clearing your cache.

Check out the quick video we made on clearing your cache to see exactly how to do it:

http://timejar.com/videos/cache/cache.html

TimeJar.com -- The Next Generation In Time Management

How To Get To An Operator On Customer Service Numbers

Check out this great time saving site that tells you the FASTEST way to get to an operator when you call American Express, Discover, Aetna and other big companies. Most of you know how frustrating it is when you call a customer service number and they send you on a 10 minute maze trying to get to a live person.

Enjoy!

http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/

Why You Should Buy Electronics At Costco

Did you know that Costco has the best return policy of any retail store in the US? They will take items back sometimes years after you purchase them -- most times without a receipt! We buy ALL possible electronics from them because if something happens you don't have to mess with a silly warranty, you just take it back and they give you cash or Costco credit!

Why mess around with Best Buy and their costly warranties? You can buy it at Costco and have no worries about something happening. For example, I purchased a video camera at Costco. I took it home and didn't like it (it was one of those cameras that write directly to a DVD). I took it back and got a different model. Do you think I could have done that at Best Buy? NO WAY!

Costco's laptops and computers aren't the best but if you are looking to get a digital camera, phones, or any other device, buy it at a place that won't hassle you if there are problems later.

Another example, we purchased wireless phones at Costco almost 2 years ago and they stopped working. Phones should last longer than two years. I took it back to Costco with NO RECEIPT and they gave me all of the money I paid 2 years ago on a Costco card!

Costco is a great company and they take care of their customers. They are smart, they sell more things because they take care of their customers and put the risk on themselves and their vendors instead of the customer.

ALLStarProjects.com To Be Named TimeJar.com

Our revolutionary time management solution ALLStarProjects.com will be renamed shortly to TimeJar.com. Find out more about this amazing new online project manager at www.timejar.com

Don't Use Yahoo Bill Pay!

I have used Yahoo Bill Pay for almost 5 years and it has worked ok. Until this month. I was unable to login to my account for over 3 WEEKS! I sent email after email to the Yahoo "support" and all they could say is that they were having problems with logins and that they were resolving it.

This is Yahoo. They must have the top IT people in the US watching their programs and it took them three weeks to fix my login?

Before this, their server was consistently down so you would schedule a payment and it would say "sorry we are having problems please try again later". I got a late payment on American Express because of this because I thought it scheduled it and I didn't read the error message (the error message usually comes after it thinks for a minute).

It just seems unbelievable to me that a company like Yahoo would have this level of poor service and the inability to fix a major problem with a major program like Bill Pay. Sure doesn't make me want to buy any Yahoo stock!

New Google SMS Service

Google just launched a new SMS service for cell phones. All you do is send a text message from your phone to Google (46645) and put something like "pizza 92508". In about a second, Google will send you back a message with all of the address and phone numbers for all of the pizza places in that zip code.

Pretty cool, huh?

You can also get driving directions, movie showtimes, weather, stocks, and a lot more. Go to their page to find out more.

Get authentic sports memorabilia at ALLAuthentic.com!

Send up to 1GB file for free through YouSendIt.com

This site is great, we use it all the time. Most times when you are trying to email large files they either don't leave your email box or they don't get accepted by the person you are trying to send to.

www.YouSendIt.com has a free service that allows you to send up to 1gb at a time! Just upload your file, enter the person's email address you want to send to, then hit SEND IT and you are done!

The person will get an email with a download link so they can get the file.

This is a great time saver for sending big files online!

Maxthon Browser: Beyond IE

We just started using this browser which pretty much is the same thing as Internet Explorer but is a lot easier to use.

We think the best feature is the ability to have tabbed windows inside one browser. We always have at least 10-15 IE browsers up at any given time which is a drain on resources. With Maxthon, you have one open browser and each separate page is on its own tab so it is easy to go back and forth.

The browser is also compatible with Roboform, which we love.

It does have some problems integrating the Google toolbar, but we really haven't experimented with that yet.

The bottom line is the browser does 99% of what IE does but it is more efficient and it saves time. Check it out for yourself at their site www.maxthon.com

Copernic Desktop Search Better Than Google!

We found a desktop search that is even better than Google's desktop search! It is FREE and available at the Copernic site. It is easier to access than the Google search and it finds pictures, music, emails, and everything else that Google does. It is extremely fast. For some reason, Google's desktop search doesn't let you search for pictures on your computer.

This desktop search is great because lets say you remember writing someone an email a year ago but you can't remember their email address. Just type in their name in your toolbar (Copernic mounts the search bar right into the toolbar at the bottom of your screen) and you will find all related results in seconds.

This will save you TONS of time looking through email folders (the Microsoft searches on your computer are horribly slow), files, music, etc.

Let us know how you like it!

Free HTML Generator, Great Tool

We found a great, free HTML editor that you can download to your desktop by clicking here. All you do is fill in the blanks and it creates instant HTML code for you with lots of extras. This utility usually sells for $34! Enjoy, let us know how it works for you.

Roboform Auto Login Is The Best!

Roboform is the best form filler, password manager, auto login toolbar program on the net! We just started using this and it keeps track of the sites we go to that require login info. Roboform saves the login info on these sites so all you do is click once and you go to the site and login, all with one click! This saves a lot of time especially if you have a lot of sites that require login information.

It also keeps secure notes, auto fills forms with several identities, generates passwords, and so much more. The best part is that it is free. This program will definitely save you a ton of time online. CLICK HERE to go to their download page.

Free Sample Contracts From Big Companies

We found this site that has tons of free sample contracts from huge companies, these aren't templates but real contracts from real companies. We found Articles of Incorporation for California Pizza Kitchen, Amazon.com, Jet Blue. Licensing agreements with AOL, Aramark, Ask Jeeves, and more. These contracts are very interesting and can be used in your own business. You can even see lease contracts for Abercrombie & Fitch, 8X8 Inc., Dave & Busters Inc. and more! Good stuff! http://www.onecle.com/

Find Anything On Your Computer With Google's Desktop Search

This is a great tool for finding things on your computer. As you probably already know, the Microsoft search tools are horrible and it takes forever to find anything on your computer. The Outlook search is bad too, it takes forever to find something. All you do is download the software from Google free http://desktop.google.com/ and it then indexes everything on your computer which takes a few hours. After it is done indexing, you can get instant search access (it takes less than a second to return all results) for everything in Microsoft Outlook/Express, AOL Instant Messenger, Internet Explorer, text, files, images, and anything else stored on your computer. It will even pull up web sites you visited, even when you are offline so if you remember being on a page, type in the keyword, and it will show you the pages you visited that have that keyword.

This is a phenomenal time saving tool, especially if you are on the computer all day long!

Business Owner's Toolkit

We found a great site for business owners called the Business Owners Tookit. It has tons of great, free info for business owners including free business forms like Balance Sheet Templates, Cash Flow Worksheets, Human Resources Forms, Asset Protection Forms, Employee Management Forms. You can download these forms for free and then manipulate them in Excel.

The site has tons of other useful information and they give it out for free! Most sites charge for forms, and these aren't cheesy forms, they are very useful and we use them when starting a new business and doing proposals.

Getting Things Done

We learned so much by reading David Allen's book Getting Things Done as he breaks time management down into simple concepts. Probably the best recommendation he gives is to group your tasks into easy to manage projects. By grouping your tasks into projects, they are easy to reference, easy to work on, and easy to complete.

If you haven't read his book, definitely get a copy or listen to one of his seminars on CD. You can go to his site at http://gettingthingsdone.com

Welcome to the ALLStarProjects.com Efficiency Blog

Are you confused during the day with so many menial tasks you don't know where to start? Are you a small business owner? Do you feel like you are busy, but you aren't getting anything done?

If so you are like most people. The good news is, there are simple things you can do to make your life more productive, have a greater peace of mind, increase the profit in your business, and more!

The goal is to be 100% effective when you are at work, so when you go home, you are 100% at home and you are not thinking all night about your job or business.

This is an open blog so when we post ideas, we want to know your thoughts too! We will also post several different tools we use to make our lives easier.