How To Paste Without Formatting, on OSX and Windows

One thing that used to really grind my gears was having to paste into Notepad or Text Wrangler every time I wanted to remove formatting from copied text. It's such a tedious and seemingly unnecessary process.

So... how do I avoid this now?

In Windows

There's a simple and excellent program that one of my work colleagues got me onto named PureText. 

1. Download PureText.
2. Set it to load on startup (or don't, this will simply save you the effort)
3. Copy text as per usual with CTRL + C (or right click etc.)
4. To paste without formatting you simply press Windows Key + V, instead of CTRL + V.

In Mac OS X

OS X has a built-in shortcut, albeit not that short: 

Command + Shift + Option + V

This performs a command called Paste and Match Style which doesn't so much remove formatting as matches the formatting of your destination. 

You can re-map this to a simpler shortcut following the instructions on this Lifehacker post. For your purposes you'll want to select All Applications in the shortcut menu, Menu Title = "Paste and Match Style" (no quotes) and choose whatever shortcut you want.

I hope that helps you save a few seconds, a few hundred times!

Simple In-Site Search Using Google Chrome

Okay, I don't know about you, but as soon as I placed my grubby little mitts on that beautiful little thing called Google Chrome, there wasn't a ActiveX site or Firefox plug-in alive that would tempt me back to those other dinosaurs.

Now that I've pissed off any non-Chrome users around, I'll share with you a neat little tip I stumbled upon this morning by accident...

In the Chrome url/search bar, if you type in a popular website, then press Space, then enter a search term, it will perform an in-site search for you.

In fact, if you start typing the name of a popular website, then press Tab, it will complete the site AND allow you to perform an in-site search.

Detailed instructions below...

How to Max Out your Dropbox, Twice! for a Fiverr

I love Dropbox.

I think it's one of those neat, simple apps that works so well you barely even notice it.
It's great for sharing files between the office and home, sharing stuff with friends, synchronising between dual-booted operation systems and even as a totally painless backup for all your important documents.

I use it so much, in fact, that I completely maxed out my existing account last week. However, a friend of mine from work showed me a totally simple (and legal!) way to get a tonne of extra free space for dirt cheap using fiverr.com, a site where people will do a whole stack of things for you for the miserly sum of five bucks!

I've read a number of other guides on how to max out your Dropbox account but they all involve more time and effort than I care to invest. This one involves basically no effort on your behalf and you'll only need to wait a couple of hours before you get the extra space.

Read on to find out how...