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New flybuys Earns Discounts Faster (But They're Not Good Discounts) Windows/Mac: Embed your favorite web widgets into the desktop with freeware app Hypercube. Hypercube supports several widget platforms including iGoogle, Pageflakes, Google Video, and YouTube. (Netvibes modules are not currently supported.) All you need to do is select which widgets you’d like added to the desktop and Hypercube takes care of the rest. Hypercube is a free alpha download (so expect a few kinks) for Mac OS X and Windows.
Hypercube [Amnesty Widgets]Keep your pockets lined with the AARP’s guide to avoiding money traps. Not just for the 50+ set, these tips can be applied broadly to all working folk. The AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) simplifies commonly misunderstand financial concepts like the 401K match, variable annuities, investment fees and home equity. AU – some of this is US-centric, like the 401K stuff, but there are other more general pieces of advice suitable for Aussies too. Avoid These Money Traps [AARP]
In a welcome but long-overdue change, you can now edit the layout of your iGoogle tabs directly from the edit menu to display anywhere from one to four columns with varying widths. (Of course, the one-column option gives you the equivalent layout of no columns.) In order to edit your tab layout, select the tab and choose the “Edit this tab” option from the drop-down.
Edit iGoogle Tab Layout [Google Blogoscoped]Windows only: Freeware application Switcher 2 is a Mac Exposé clone and then some, like switching windows via the numpad, live window filtering, and windows hiding all at your fingertips. If you’ve always been a little jealous of Exposé but never happy with the Windows clones, Switcher actually offers several useful improvements to the Exposé template. Check out the video above from CyberNet to get a close look at some of Switcher 2′s more worthwhile features.
Switcher 2 [via CyberNet]Feel like you’ve got too much on your plate to start a new book? Web site LazyLibrary aggregates books available from Amazon that clock in under 200 pages to help you find something you can fit into your schedule. This site may scream travesty to the diehard literati, but if you want to get back in the habit of reading but need a light point of entry, LazyLibrary might be for you.
LazyLibrary [via Mashable]While there’s no magic solution to instantly improve your grades and improve your brain overnight, you can learn more and study less by improving the way you work and the way you study, and weblog Zen Habits pulls together several tips from student and blogger Scott Young for doing just that. The beginning of the post reads like a bad infomercial, but the actual meat of the article—which discusses ideas like holistic learning and highlights worthwhile study tips—offers a lot of good advice for the back to school crowd.
How to Learn More and Study Less [Zen Habits]Want to make a quick and dirty Karaoke track from an MP3 or make a new instrumental-only ringtone for your newly-hacked iPhone? Prolific YouTube how-to video maker jimmycron steps through how to remove the vocal track from some MP3s using the free, open source Audacity. Getting rid of the vocals won’t work on all songs (it should work best on stereo tracks with the vocals centered), but if you just need a quick vocal removed, this method is worth a try.
Remove Vocals from Mp3s using audacity (Win/Mac/Linux) Free [YouTube]Don’t want up-to-the-second updates for all of your Twitter friends? Get all of your Twitter updates in a more manageable, once-daily Twitter digest.
In less than two-months time, a persistent and merry band of iPhone hackers have been pushing out application after killer application for the iPhone, and hacking your iPhone to install those applications has become dead simple. Today I’ll show you how to download, install, and manage third-party software on your iPhone, and I’ll highlight a few of the best available right now.
Windows only: Free, open source application Remove Empty Directories (RED) searches your computer for empty folders and deletes the ones you don’t want around anymore. Just point RED at the drive or directory you want to scan and it lists every empty folder in that directory. You can then either delete every empty folder or selectively protect the empty folders you don’t want to lose. While in general it’s a bad idea to run this on an entire drive—especially if that drive houses all of your applications and operating system—RED could come in particularly handy cleaning up a media folder or something along those lines. RED is free to download, Windows only.
Remove Empty Directories [via Inspect My Gadget via Download Squad]
