yeah, I'm fortunate compared to my northern folks. we had our annual snow day this past sunday (a whopping 1 or 2 inches). we're suppose to have 70+ degrees this weekend.
the fact that my garage is heated (since it's part of my basement) helps too.
as far as tips are concerned:
really check out the websites for DIY guides. that helped me out as I don't have any service manuals. if you want to go the service manual route, I would get the bentley. I had one for my e36 bmw and it was great, nicely written, good pix, etc.
also, the old adage, "the right tool for the right job" definitely applies. I've got a host of tools, so working on the boxster has been straightforward (so far, at least
). this car seems to like 10mm fasteners, allen head bolts, and torx bits, so make sure you've got a good assortment of those. I get most of my tools at sears.
The biggest improvement I did, driveability wise, was cleaning the throttle body. when I got the car, it had a very bad vibration at idle as the tach hunted (fluctuated) by a few hundred RPM. cleaning the TB w/a good TB cleaner did wonders. I didn't even remove the TB (like some folks did), but simply removed the plastic intake. btw, it's a lot easier to remove the intake and reinstall it while the engine is still warm. that simple cleaning removed about 90k worth of black carbon gunk.
I also flushed and filled the coolant. I suspect the coolant was original (is the orig green?); either way, the coolant that i drained looked pretty clean. it's suppose to be lifetime, but that's probably not realistic. I refilled with havoline extended life.
I did need to fashion a special tool to remove the spark plug tubes (a tip I got from speaking to my local porsche service dept) since the other tricks on the net didn't work for me. changing out the plugs was very easy (a lot easier than my flat 4 wrx motor!)