BLOG | Lifehacker already has made its name online for dispensing fantastic and sometimes amazingly useful advice. From app reviews to IKEA hacks to productivity advice, the site (and its active community of commenters) can help you figure out just about anything. Now, Lifehacker has launched Two Cents, a new blog all about personal finance. Financial advice — in terms we commoners can understand — can be hard to come by. The blog already appears to be filling that gap. Among its first posts: How to painlessly switch and how to lower your electric bill with fixed rates.
PROFILE | What's that? You thought the Rob Ford saga was over? Wrong. But you might be glad it's not when you read "His Worship," Chris Jones' profile of the shamed Toronto mayor in the February issue of Esquire. The piece gives a glimpse of Ford we've never seen. Somewhere — surrounded by the media circus that comes with a politician who admits he's smoked crack and talks about oral sex to a group of reporters — is the Rob Ford who gives his cellphone number out to citizens and is preparing to, he believes, win reelection. As he tells Jones, "I'll never back down."
APP | You know this story. You order pizza. You pay, everyone benefits, and then everyone says, "I'll pay you back later." That's probably never going to happen. Enter Square Cash. The app (from the same people who run the Square iPad register system) lets you send cash from one bank account to another, for free, with just your account info and an email address. Your friend opens the app, types in the amount he owes you and your email address, and the money makes its way from his account to yours in just a couple of days. You'll never wait for actual cash again.