Over at the CNET News blog, Steve Tobak poses a question that’s probably occurred to anyone stuck on hold: Would you pay a little bit extra for tech and customer support if you knew it would be, well, better? Tobak bases his question on outsourced vs. U.S.-based support, but I’d say there are other factors I’d be willing to pay for—like reaching representatives who won’t treat you like a total newbie, or being able to skip the serial number/account authorization step entirely. How about yourself? What kind of tech support annoyances would you pay a small bit more to avoid? Share your thoughts in the comments. More »
Flash application Pviewr offers a simple interface for generating sleek-looking slideshows from your Flickr or Picasa accounts, or from Flickr keyword searches. While both photo sharing sites have built-in slideshow functions, Pviewr seems to move a bit quicker, and offers helpful download links and presentation options that set it apart and could make it a helpful demonstration tool. For online slideshows using custom uploaded pictures, check out Slidez.
Pviewr – Photo Gallery Viewer [via Digital Inspiration]The New York Times’ Shifting Careers blog offers up five time management tricks, including Inbox Zero and unnecessary meetings, and strikes upon a truth of effective scheduling: Knowing your time-wasting weaknesses and laying down a firm policy against them.
Meeting people for lunch always derails me, yet for a while, I regularly met people for lunch. Then I got smart and instituted a fairly strong no lunch policy. Friends and colleagues teased me at first when I announced this. But they soon got used to my new approach, warming up to the idea of afternoon coffees … Observe your schedule and notice the patterns you follow on your productive days. Then build a schedule around those patterns.
What kinds of meetings, activities or projects destroy your productivity (other than games, obviously), and how do you avoid them? Tell your stoic story in the comments.
5 Time-Management Tricks [via LH Australia]Unless your friend happens to carry the exact mobile phone you’re looking to buy, getting a hands-on demonstration isn’t always easy. Provider stores are often stocked with non-functioning dummies, or lack the exact model you’re eyeing. New web site TryPhone aims to help phone buyers go beyond looks and see how a phone operates when you, say, pull up recent calls or start typing a new text message. The site only carries four popular models at the moment—the iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, Verizon Juke and Sprint Muziq—but claims it will be adding phones weekly. If you’re wavering between two phones, TryPhone’s interface preview could help make the decision.
TryPhone [via CNET News]Social money management webapp Wesabe has just added a mobile interface, eliminating the memory gap between purchases and spending records. Along with entering in purchases and withdrawals, Wesabe Mobile lets you see your recent transactions and balances from your cell phone, PDA or Blackberry—a helpful willpower tool for anyone trying to break a once-a-day Starbucks habit (or Tim Hortons, for you northerners). Those with SSL-enabled mobile browsers and an existing Wesabe account can head to m.wesabe.com.
Introducing Wesabe Mobile [Wesabe blog]So you’ve just un-boxed your new laptop, and you’ve been intrigued by all this talk of Gutsy and Werewolf and the like—but how do you know if a Linux installation will be a revelation or headache? Free Linux guide TuxMobil has more than 7,000 installation stories and guides, covering the tricks and tweaks necessary to get nearly any laptop, PDA or even cell phone up and running with an open source operating system. Between this site and Linux on Laptops, you should be able to find an open source operating system that works on any portable hardware, and save yourself some serious headaches digging through user forums and tech support sites.
TuxMobilFeeling burnt out? Can’t seem to get yourself motivated? Two years ago, we suggested ways to motivate yourself. More »
Our buds over at Gizmodo have just posted a very interesting writeup of using Leopard’s ‘invisible backup’ tool Time Machine to assist you in a hard drive swap/upgrade. It worked just fine for them, but it does void the warranty and they say there’s a trick to it…The Secret of the Time Machine-assisted Hard Drive Swap [Gizmodo] More »
We already told you that Dymock’s had added downloadable audio books and ebooks to their website in November, and now it has launched its promised ebook reader, the iLiad. iLiad is about the size of an A5 piece of paper, and weighs in at 389 grams. It has 128mb of memory available to be used, and you can add memory capacity in the form of compact flash or MMC card.You can also read from USB devices.You can upload books to the iLiad from a computer wirelessly, via USB cable or from a memory card. You can make notes on docuements using its stylus.It supports a range of formats – PDF, HTML, TXT, JPG, BMP, PNG and PRC (Mobipocket – the format used for ebooks in the Dymocks store).I haven’t gotten to see an iLiad yet, but they’ve got them on display at the George Street store in Sydney. They’re also selling them on their online store.The SMH points out that the $899 iLiad failed to gain market share when it was launched in the US about a year ago. But probably the most high profile ebook reader currently on the market, Amazon’s Kindle, is unlikely to be sold here.Unlike the Kindle, iLiad doesn’t allow you to use ‘always on’ wireless to buy books on the go. The SMH story quoted Dymocks as saying iLiad’s internet connectivity is mainly for uploading software updates.And if the $900 pricetag doesn’t phase you, you probably won’t mind paying an extra $90 for the leather carry case either.
Earlier today we handed out 10 gold stars to the best desktop and web apps of 2007; now it’s time for some less conventional recognitions. Who had the Most Obnoxious Icon, Best Splash Screen, and Best Easter Egg of the Year? Find out after the jump, where we’ll also hand out our Most Likely to Make You Downgrade and Most Likely to Turn Completely Evil honors. Then, add your own in the comments. Photo by milesgehm.Without further ado, Lifehacker’s First Annual Software Superlatives. More »
