I was supposed to finish this piece last Friday to cap off productivity, but, in fact, I was traveling. That’s right. I couldn’t do a piece on travel productivity because I was traveling.

Trust me: it wasn’t for wont of gear that I didn’t turn in my piece. It was because we just weren’t prepared for the strain travel takes on communications. You can carry your favorite laptop, cellphone, and power converter and still be as disconnected as if you were on the surface of Mars.

My advice is simple: make the most important thing in the information economy — connectivity — the least distracting. When Peter and I were traveling through Europe for CeBIT (Motto: It’s sucks! Don’t ever come back!) we had four cameras between us, two laptops, enough adapters to start a Radio Shack. What we lacked was connectivity. One afternoon we spent about $80 and four hours of searching for two hours of Internet connectivity. Here, then, is my advice for staying connected on the road.

My first recommendation is to scout out wireless access at your destinations. Never trust hotels when they tell you they have “free wireless.” Free wireless, like the continental breakfast, often ends up being sub par at best and non-existant at worst. Begin by talking to your cellular carrier about international Wi-Fi. T-Mobile has contracts all over the world with hotels and hotspots, so they might be your best bet. You obviously should have a GSM carrier if you travel at all, ensuring you can swap out SIM cards on the road, but don’t depend on cellular data networks if you want to save money and your sanity.

The best place to start is by visiting a few wireless providers and buying a monthly subscription for the duration of your trip. Here are a few:

• The Cloud – Focused on the UK, the Cloud is available almost everywhere in Europe.
• Boingo – Fairly popular in the U.S. A bit 100,000 hotspots. As low as $7.95 a month.
• Fon – Popular in Europe, this service lets you share your own Wi-Fi connection and get free Internet around the world. Not for the non-technical. A la carte pricing.
• Whisher – This service piggy-backs on other providers. Special plugins show you pricing for Wisher compatible hotspots. Enabling your router as Whisher access point gets you free wireless around the world.

The geeks in us recommend both Whisher and Fon, although Boingo might be a way to go for those who aren’t footing the bill.

With Wi-Fi sewn up, let’s talk about voice. Skype and Skype-out will work in most cases, but if you have Wi-Fi, why not use it? T-Mobiles Hotspot@Home is one of the best ways to make voice calls overseas I’ve ever found. Because it acts as your “home phone” when connected to a Wi-Fi network, T-Mo’s UMA plan is excellent for making and taking calls just as if you were in your U.S. office. You can use a Blackberry Curve or Blackberry Pearl to get your message on, as well.

Another choice is MaxRoam. This service lets you add multiple phone numbers to a single SIM card and make and take calls using a main U.S. based number. It is especially convenient if you want it to appear that you have a local number wherever you are.

Sadly, even all these best laid plans can fall through. Be prepared to hit the local cyber-cafe for some last ditch connectivity. A little prior planning, however, and you’ll be online in no time.

Before I write this gem of a post, let me attempt to absolve myself of all legal responsibility: I’m merely doing what I was told to do. That should hold up in court, no?

My second charge this fine Productivity Week is to teach y’all how to pirate movies, music, video games, etc. more efficiently. On what planet is this type of advice is both approved of and encouraged I don’t know, but here we are.

I’ll divide this into two parts: helping make the most of your BitTorrent experience, and doing that Usenet thing as painlessly as possible… while you still can! Oh, man. The fun, it never stops here.

BitTorrent is for poor people or jerks who either cannot afford to pay for Hollywood works of art like that hilarious Zohan movie, or who think they’re being righteous and thumbing their nose at The Man by downloading. I fall into the first category. I’m not about to pay $30 for the Blu-ray version of Rambo, but I’ll sure as hell download it, watch it and then delete it, then forget I ever watched it.

But how to use it smarter? That’s what everybody (nobody?) wants to know.

You guys want the quickest, least responsible way to BitTorrent like your life depends on it? If you’re using a router, put your computer in the DMZ and make sure any and all firewalls are turned off. Or, if you’re directly plugged into your modem (like me!), just turn off the firewall(s). This 100 percent irresponsible action, for both you and the greater Internet community, will prevent you from having to search esoteric networking forums because you keep getting “ports are closed” errors. What this does is expose your computer to the Internet with nothing getting in between your computer and the computer you’re downloading from. (Oh man, ended a sentence with a preposition!) It’s a sure-fire way to get a virus or trojan or all sorts of malware, but if you want the absolute easiest way to get your torrents up and running, that’s the way to go.

But let’s say that you’re a little more responsible than that, that you can deal with a little port forwarding nonsense. If that’s the case, then check out this site, Port Forward. It’s got tutorials for all makes and models of popular routers on how to open which ports and when. That way, you only open the ports that are necessary for BitTorrent to run smoothly and don’t leave your entire system vulnerable to Internet nasties.

You can also maximize your BitTorrent download speeds by using private trackers like What.cd. I grabbed the new Disturbed album last night in, say, three minutes, and was getting speeds of around 800 kbps. Theoretically, you’re also safe from the likes of the **AA, but with OiNK’s closure (and the subsequent arrests) and the recent threats against What.cd, I wouldn’t feel too confident that The Man isn’t watching your every move on private trackers. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

Moving on, let’s talk Usenet, whose days could also be numbered. It’s got a bit of a learning curve, but I explained most of it, including exactly what it is and how to gain access to it, a few months ago. It’s actually a pretty decent post, very thorough, so check it out before you head out of the office today. That said, he’s a brief little recap for how to use Usenet as painlessly as possible. That way, you spend less time trolling strange binary groups and more time downloading The Fifth Element in 1080p. (I’ll be watching that tonight, methinks.)

The way to download Usenet files using zero brain power is to obtain NZB files. Think of them, if you will, as .torrent files. That is, they don’t contain any data per se, but rather “point” to where this data can be found. NZBs tell your news reader—I’ve used Unison for several years now, and it’s one of my favorite Mac apps—where to go to grab the files you’re looking for.

Now, where to get these NZBs? The best location is Newzbin, but as I mentioned a minute ago, its days may be numbered. Right now, you have to be invited to even join the site, which then charges a couple dollars a month to access its NZB index. Seeing as though we’re already in the pirating mindset, I doubt you’re in the mood to pay for anything.

There’s a few free alternatives to Newzbin, that, while not as easy to use, work the same way. I occasionally use NZBIndex.nl. Try it out now. Search for “Weeds,” for example, and up will pop a list of recent posts made to a binary group dedicated to HD. All you have to do is tick the little button and click “create NZB” and the site will make an NZB file. Now, you double click that and, if everything is configured correctly, it’ll start to download all the parts of the rar archive. That’s it. So, literally, in like 10 seconds, you can go to NZBIndex.nl, search for your content, and create the NZB and away you go. It’ll pretty cool, and quite literally shocked Biggs when I showed it to him. He was able to download 27 Dresses—for his wife, he claims—it no time.

Using the Usenet server that’s part of my broadband subscription, I can usually download up to four files simultaneously at around 250kbps each; you’ll max out your connection if you go with a commercial provider. That’s a wonderful, wonderful thing.

I’ve never had any issues with ports being closed or anything when trying to download from Usenet, either with or without a router, or when hooked up to NYU’s campus network, which I miss dearly.

So there, how to pirate stuff as easily and quickly as possible. Enjoy your weekend. I won’t.

Our ground-breaking series on productivity continues today with a quick look at making your car as fuel-efficient as possible, or just how to save yourself some money while driving around town. For whatever reason, be it merely supply and demand or the sinister result of speculators speculating wildly, fuel prices are at an all-time high. Right now, oil trades for $130, up more than 100 percent since the same time last year. In other words, in just one year fuel prices have doubled, which, combined with other dismal economic factors here in the U.S., stretches the family budget as thin as it’s ever been in recent years. And since our country simply doesn’t have a well-developed mass transportation system in place, save for some of the larger cities—have you considered moving?—owning and driving a car is a necessity for most Americans.

So if you’re forced to drive a car, heed the following advice, most of which comes from old men screaming on CNN about how consumers are getting screwed. A little bit of money saved here, a little bit there, it adds up quickly.

First, and most obvious: drive a fuel-efficient car. Why so many people still insist on driving SUVs, then complain about the lousy gas mileage they get, I’ll never know. It’s 2008 and you don’t look cool—you’re not Jay-Z—and you don’t need that much space to take your son to T-ball practice. Get yourself a smart sedan, or maybe even a hybrid if you’re willing to spend a little more upfront.

Don’t drive like a teenage maniac, even if your cars gets 50 mpg on the highway. Don’t peel away from the intersection when the stoplight turns green, and don’t careen into a red light; the harder you press the gas pedal, the more gas is consumed. Funny, that. On a related note, coast more. Driving down a hill? Get you foot off the gas pedal and let good ol’ momentum propel your car forward. That’s gas saved, and money earned. It’s like Poor Richard’s Almanack.

Speaking of driving like a maniac, don’t tailgate. Like CNN notes, not only is it reckless, and a wonderful way to get into an accident, but every time the driver ahead of you breaks, you have to break even harder. Then you have to accelerate just to get back to your pre-break speed. So chill out and don’t tailgate.

Don’t buy premium gas unless you absolutely have to. That saves a few ducats right there. Premium gas, unless you’re driving a Shelby or other high-end car—your Honda Accord doesn’t count—is a complete waste of money. Then again, if you’re of the mindset looking to shave a little bit off your weekly gas bill, odds are you aren’t driving a car that benefits all that much from premium gas. No disrespect.

Flickr’d

Drive the speed limit. I know that’s probably crazy talk for a lot of you (all of my friends, past and present, for example) but not only is it safer, you also burn less gas driving slowly than you do driving fast. This is pure physics. As you drive faster, that’s more air your vehicle has to push out of the way, which leads to more resistance, increased drag and the force pulling your car backward and decreased fuel efficiency. It’s a flowchart of waste, and that’s something you don’t want.

Keep engine idling to a minimum. If you’ve pulled into a store’s parking lot and send your friend inside to get some snacks or whatever, don’t leave the engine running. Edmunds found that turning your car off rather than let it idle for more than one minute saves a handsome amount of gas (a 19 percent savings compared to cars that didn’t turn their engine off).

Try to minimize excess weight. Hit the gym. Get rid of any junk you’ve got tied to your roof—roof racks do wonders to increase the drag on your car, thereby reducing fuel efficiency—and search the interior for unnecessary weight, like, say, a whole collection of bowling balls.

I could recommend that you try to carpool to work, but that seems like one of those non-suggestion suggestions that only serve to upset people. People’s schedules are hectic and having to rely on your neighbor’s wheels is just asking for trouble. What if his kid gets sick and he needs to leave work for the day? Then what? Bother someone else for a ride home? Not likely.

So those are just a few ways to keep your gas bill as low as possible. I’ve heard that some folks now resort to paying with a credit card every time they fill up their tank simply to defer payment to not-as-lean times. Any other tips are, of course, encouraged.

We all love our gadgets, but that love can sometimes lead to a mess of wires and lost time looking for chargers. If you find yourself with this dilemma, it might be a good idea to buy docking stations for the devices you use often.

This should solve two problems. The first one is obvious. Your device should always be charged and ready to go, since it will be sitting in the base station on your desk. The second is you should always know where your charger is, and you will spend less time looking around for it. You could also keep one at home and one at work, so you don’t have to worry about leaving it at one or the other.

Most devices have base stations available. I recently wrote about one for the Nintendo DS. Nicholas did this post about a Transformers one for an iPod. So it shouldn’t be too hard to find one for your favorite gadget.

Have a productivity tip? Drop us a line at tips@crunchgear.com.

Since this is Productivity Week, I was told to come up with some short and sweet tips for you to enjoy. So I quickly started to brainstorm. At first I was using my computer to try and find tips, but I found myself getting distracted. So I moved to a piece of paper I had lying around.

As soon as I put my pen to the paper I thought, “Wow this could be my first productivity tip.”

If you are trying to think of ideas or start a project, sometimes just working it out on paper is a good first step. Even thought technology makes out life easier, it can also make things more complicated. I find brainstorming on the computer difficult, since the internet just leads to wasting time. If you plan on paper, before you get to the computer, you will be more focused and less likely to be distracted.

If you are an eco nut and can’t stand the thought of using paper you could also use a tablet PC with an Internet blocker on it. PCs (and Macs) come with parental tools now, so it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how to do that.

Let’s start with the basics here for CrunchGear’s Productivity Week; your workspace. Everyone’s work area should be an exercise in functionality and each one will undoubtedly be as unique as a fallen snowflake or the DNA test results that cleared you of all those murders back in ‘99.

That being said, let’s take a look at my personal workspace as I share some tips with you that may or may not help you get more work done, faster.

Okay, so here’s the my work area with some handy numeric info bubbles. Let’s start with the four arrows you see. The four boards that the arrows are pointing to are actually a really simple, cheap shelving system I built to hold multiple unimportant boxes, baubles, and trinkets.

Create a lot of shelf space for under $100

The boards come from two bi-fold door units, generally used for closet doors, that I bought from Home Depot. I just removed the hinges from the doors and used the two boards as shelves. One set was a 24-inch bi-fold door, which yielded two 12-inch boards, used as the top and bottom shelves on the left there and the other set was a 36-inch bi-fold door, which gave me two 18-inch boards to use as the middle shelf on the left and the raised, darker shelf (I stained that one) going across the back wall.

The shelves on the left are held up on either end by L-brackets screwed into 12-inch by 48-inch MDF boards. There are also brackets screwed into the wall in various places so as to create a kind of floating effect. Total cost of all the materials came in at just under $100; the closets were $30 and $40, I believe, and the brackets, MDF, and miscellaneous posts that you see in the middle of the left shelf and the far right of the back-wall shelf made up about $25. The whole thing took about 4 hours to complete.

Create even more shelf space for around $200

If you find that you still need shelving, I might recommend this extra large Expedit unit from Ikea. Assemble it in the room it’s going to be used, not your kitchen. Trust me.

Okay, so, back to the main picture.

1. Multiple Monitors

Simply put, more monitors equal more screen real estate, which equals more windows that you can have open at one time. This isn’t for everyone, as some people could get overwhelmed, but it suits me just fine.

My main setup includes the two big monitors in the middle there (a 19-inch Acer and a 19-inch Gateway) fed into my laptop. The Gateway, on the right, goes into a USB Displaylink adapter (awesome, by the way) and the Acer, on the left, goes directly into the laptop. The white monitor on the far left is hooked up to a desktop PC hidden in the cupboard underneath it and I use Synergy to manipulate stuff on that machine using the mouse and keyboard hooked up to my laptop. The smaller monitor on the far right is hooked up to my Nintendo Wii using a TVBox adapter.

2. Raised Monitor Shelf

After years of fighting with wall-mounting LCD monitors and trying to figure out how to hide the mess of cables that seem to never go away, I finally decided to build a raised platform about six inches above my desk. The monitors all go on top, and there’s a small colony of cables on top of my actual desk, which fits underneath the shelf.

There’s a large surge protector, a USB hub, a second keyboard and mouse for my desktop PC, the Displaylink adapter, the TVBox, the Wii, and more under there. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s worked well enough that nobody else notices all the cables unless they’re sitting at the desk with the chair lowered down as far as it can go.

3. Filing Cabinet

You can’t see it, but I have a drawer built into my desk with files in it. I try to keep things simple and broad, so my files are labeled as follows;

Monthly Bills, House and Home, Banking/Credit Cards, Health, Gadgets and Tech, and Legal Bullshit. The Monthly Bills and House and Home folders could probably be combined. Maybe even the Banking/Credit Cards folder, too. The Gadgets and Tech folder contains mostly user manuals and Legal Bullshit contains receipts and stuff so I don’t get arrested come tax time.

4. Second Computer

I’ve tried to shrink everything down so that I’m only using one laptop, but having a second computer has been a real time saver. I have a small form factor HP s3100n tucked in my desk cabinet that I use mostly for processor-intensive tasks like rendering video or for downloading big files so I can keep working off my laptop with minimal slowdown.

5. Pirate Figurines and Energy Drinks

The pirates look wonderfully stupid and the 24-ounce energy drink that I purchase every day makes everything seem like it’s moving in slow-motion for about four hours.

6. Ergonomic Keyboard

I had a hard time getting used to a split keyboard, but it’s been wonderful for the unavoidable repetitive strain injury that comes with typing all day, every day. I currently use a Microsoft 4000 but I’m hoping to someday switch to a keyboard that’s made of warm butter.

7. Globe and Window

If at all possible, I always try to set up my desk so that I’m facing a window. My view is pretty boring but at least I can tell if it’s raining or sunny or whatnot. The globe is just a little reminder that there’s a big world out there and I’m not getting any younger.

I mean, what the hell am I doing sitting around here all day?! I should be traveling. This workspace sucks. That’s the real lesson here; work to live, don’t live to work. If you have a window, climb out of it and run down the street while ripping your shirt off.

Final Thoughts

I’m sorry I got so bent out of shape. Work isn’t that bad. I should be so lucky to have the job I have now. Anyone else have any cool workspace tips?

We feel bad that many of you sit at your desks or in your cubicles and read our silly gadget blog instead of getting real work done. Sure, you do enough to get by, but you’re never going to get the raise and then be able to afford the new car or Rock Band accessories, are you? You need to work smarter, not harder.

We’re here to help. We’ve taken this week as Productivity Week, where the CrunchGear staff has prepared a collection of how-tos and tips that should help you get that corner office without having to do more than you’re doing now.

We’ll also help with getting your personal life organized, from home theaters to inboxes and everything in between.

So enjoy this package as our way of saying thanks for reading. We hope this keeps you from getting fired.