I’m very lukewarm (or, in all-consuming vernacular, “wishy washy”) on this book. Her tone is well-intentioned and she does a good job breaking out the complexity of the suggestions by “level,” “platform” and “cost.” What would help is a metric for “who would benefit most” or “why you’d do this.”

For example, one of the Hack #38 explains how one could use a cell phone to shift money around via paypal. My first question was ”why would anyone want to do this?” Wouldn’t cash be easier (and with fewer fees)?

As with the web site, for every genuinely useful trick, there are fifty of marginal utility. For example, hack #2, “manage a todo.txt from the command line,” requires a lot of effort for those who don’t deal with computers at this level. Those who would most benefit are command-line geeks.. who are already doing this.

The book makes for a fine bathroom read, from which you’ll find a couple of good ideas; however, it’s not life-changing.