One Useful Thing is a weekly newsletter of well-designed and helpful things.
Recomendo One Useful Thing to your friends! (See what I did there?)
Reader Jed writes:
“Glad to stumble upon your newsletter! It reminds me of Recomendo and I love Recomendo!”
Well, I agree, Jed. Recomendo is one of my favorite newsletters. So, dear reader, if you like this newsletter, I think you’ll like Recomendo.
(That’s right, I’m recommending another newsletter.)
Every week the editors of Recomendo recommend six things they’ve personally found useful for travel, tech, media, workflow and wellness.
Some recent selections:
Cheapest Lightning Cables
Lightning charging cables are expensive and seem to fray quickly. Micro USB cables, on the other hand, are dirt cheap and seem to last forever. I bought a 10-pack of adapters that convert a Micro USB plug into a Lighting plug. The price for all 10 was $7, about half the price of a single Lightning Cable. I tested them, and there were no duds in the pack. — Mark Frauenfelder, Author, Research Director, Former Editor for Wired and Make Magazine, founder of BoingBoing.
Translate this, always
I am finding the new Google Translate mobile app to be indispensable when traveling. About 100 languages are available, including Kazakh, Igbo, Maori, etc. About 60 of those languages can be downloaded to your phone so you can translate offline when your phone is off, not working in the country, or out of cell range. The offline translation is text only, but surprisingly smart enough for touring needs. Having a language downloaded offline (about 40MB) also seems to help when translation is online as well (like using your phone camera to read menus and signs.) It’s all free and one of the best bargains in the world. — Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick at Wired, author of bestselling book, The Inevitable. Founder of Cool Tools.
Give advice to your younger self
I love the concept of Hey, From the Future, a website that lets you share advice you wish you had at specific ages. I encourage everyone to contribute. I read all the advice that is posted from age 35 and up, and from what I gathered I need to spend more money traveling and more time with my parents and the people I really like. Also, it’s not too late to [fill in the blank]. Whatever you’ve always wanted to do. You can still do it. — Claudia Dawson, Cool Tools, producer of Recomendo.
You can browse individual recommendations from the newsletter on the Recomendo website.
There is even a Recommendo book full of 500 of the team’s best recommendations available on Amazon as a paperback or PDF.
Oh, and you can check out reader Jed’s book Get Afraid Journal here. Thanks Jed!
Previously from One Useful Thing: Reelgood:
Browse, search and play Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Prime Video and more.
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Keith Monaghan writes the One Useful Thing newsletter and is a researcher who works with creative teams on projects for companies like Nike, The CW Network and Upworthy. He can be reached at useful@keithmonaghan.com or follow him on Twitter @keithmonaghan