The Wired HOWTO wiki offers advice on how to look like you’re at the office when you’re actually working at home. First tip: make your Blackberry email signature match the one you use at the office. More »
Webapp TransferBigFiles sends huge files—up to 2GB—to any recipient at any time. This service, like previously mentioned offerings MailBigFile and YouSendIt, makes transfers easier without FTP or adhering to strict mail server storage requirements. Simply upload a file, send it to a recipient, and they’ll get a download link where they can retrieve those files. Files are stored on the TransferBigFiles server for at least 5 days or up to 30 days if you’re a registered user. Of the three services, this one allows the most upload space for the least amount of money (they’re all free). TransferBigFiles [via DownloadSquad]
Next week we’ll join kids and geeks around the country in celebrating the release of Pixar’s new movie, Ratatouille. To give you a sneak preview of what we’re planning – we’ll be running our first Lifehacker AU interview with an Aussie expat who works at Pixar, and we’ll be running our first Lifehacker AU competition. We have a hardcover, limited edition “Art of Ratatouille” book and Ratatouille prize packs to give away to the best tipsters – so stay tuned to Lifehacker to find out how to win. More »
Dan Warne at APC reports that VoIP provider GoTalk has launched Australia’s first VoIP package which involves unlimited calls to mobiles. The $14.95 “Aussie pack” includes unlimited calls to landlines and Australian mobiles on any network. Dan does mention that they may be achieving the cost savings by routing calls outside of Australia – so poorer call quality might be an issue. There’s also a fair use policy, but he says the call caps are generous.
The other day we told you how to Resize Firefox with a Bookmarklet.
Reader Dave came back with this tip:
The Web Developer toolbar has this functionality built in. It’s quite handy for seeing what things will display when building a new site.
The Web Developer add-on for Firefox can be found here.
We love breaking news, so I’m pleased to tell you about the launch of a new Australian website, Diabetic Days.
Founder Raj Deut gave us the scoop:
It’s a website & service that allows diabetics anywhere at anytime submit their data (via website, text message or email) to be recorded online. The data is graphed and displayed in a format diabetics are familiar with, as it mimics an insulin diary.
We thought it looked like a useful tool, but though we’d get an insulin-dependent friend to check it out for us. Arwen O’Connor came back with this feedback:
It actually looks surprisingly useful. Now that I’ve managed to find their privacy policy, I’ll be setting up an account for the next time I’m due to visit my endocrinologist; seems a lot easier to use than a diary.
Arwen also suggested that the diary would probably be most useful for Type 1′s (juvenile-onset diabetics), since most adult onsets don’t need to track things to the same level of detail.
A reader got in touch with us about yesterday’s tip on How to Quickly Remove Backgrounds with GIMP and I thought we should share why he prefers his method for removing backgrounds.
No! Bad Lifehacker/ThemBid! Destructive editing is naughty!
This should be done by creating a Layer Mask (Layer -> Mask -> Add Layer Mask), initialise to white (full opacity). After making and invert your selection on the Layer Mask in the same way described in the article fill it with black using Edit -> Fill with FG color.
Now, if you find an error in your masking after hours of other work on the image you can easily fix it in the Layer Mask because the original picture is still in the underlying layer.
Thanks, Dave! More »
Yesterday we told you about new social music website Contrastream, which was set to go live next week. We’ve just received an email from Contrastream founder Dan McGrady letting us know the site went live overnight. Dan says they went early “due to the wonderful feedback we’ve received.” More »
Photoshop users: Create your own Mac-themed wallpaper with the instructions provided by PSDTuts.com. The process is very beginner friendly and only requires rudimentary Photoshop skills (like working with gradients and layers). Even the absolute Photoshop newcomer should be able to knock out a slick-looking background in under 10 minutes. I’ve always been a sucker for a clean-looking wallpaper, and who isn’t a sucker for a simple DIY project.
Creating a Mac-type Background [PSDTuts.com]
