Thursday, September 20, 2007
Field Notes Memo Books
11:30PM Gina Trapani | Designer notebooks Field Notes are soft-cover, pocket-sized memo books for jotting ideas, making lists and sketching. Each 3.5×5.5″ Field Notes book contains 48 pages of graph paper and from all appearances, will survive your back pocket a lot better than the stiffer Moleskine. Practical applications of the notebooks are listed inside (like “Shoddy Sketches,” “Treasure Maps,” “Gambling Debts” and “Shady Transactions”) and you designer types will appreciate the Futura type and printing details also included inside. A pack of three will set you back 10 bucks. Photo by Dan Cederholm used with permission. UPDATE: Don’t miss the Lifehacker reader Field Notes discount offer. Thanks, Jim! AU – I’m assuming these are unavailable here – at least, I haven’t seen them. Anyone seen them (or something similar?) Field Notes Brand [via simplebitsdan via missrogue] More »
Best Firefox userchrome.css Tweaks?
11:00PM Gina Trapani | Just as extensions add functionality and about:config tweaks change behaviour, you can style Firefox’s “chrome” using the userchrome.css file. The chrome includes menus, toolbars, tabs, and the address bar—all the outer control area in Firefox—and web developers know that CSS sets colors, sizes, visibility and more. We’ve already covered how to consolidate Firefox’s chrome with style tweaks, but there are still lots of possible ways to change the fox’s appearance with userchrome.css. Here’s a compilation of my favourite userchrome.css tweaks—add yours in the comments. More »Information addiction
10:49PM Gina Trapani | A recent survey shows most Americans are uncomfortable going more than a day without the internet; online activity also lessens the amount of time people spend having sex and socialising with friends face-to-face. More »Quick Fixes for Minor Health Problems
10:30PM Gina Trapani | Natural medicine expert Candace McNaughton offers some easy fixes for common ailments, like the post-lunch afternoon slump, migraine headaches, fatigue, anxiety and quitting smoking. Hit the play button to hear her five minute talk, or hit the link below for a text transcript. Health Hacks in a Readable Form [Ignite Seattle!] More »
Manage Group Projects with TaskBin
10:00PM Lifehacker US Edition | Collaboration webapp Taskbin shares and manages to-do lists among groups. Flag tasks in order of urgency to prioritise, and write notes for yourself or share them with group members. What separates TaskBin from other tools is that it doesn’t force you to enter deadlines; it’s a simple list manager that gives an unlimited amount of users a lot of flexibility for getting things done. A great choice if you want to get items off your mind without feeling overwhelmed. TaskBin [via WorkHappy.net] More »
When to take photos using manual focus
12:38PM Sarah Stokely | A lot of people (myself included) love digital cameras because they’re getting smarter and better at taking photos for us. But this article points out that in some situations, manual focus can give better results.
5 Situations When Manual Focus is Better than Auto Focus [Digital Photography School] More » Bittorrent 6.0 is released
12:30PM Sarah Stokely | WIndows only – Wired’s Compiler blog has written up the release of BitTorrent 6.0, describing it as a “significant upgrade.”
The new release is the first to incorporate the uTorrent client which BitTorrent acquired last year. So far only available for Windows XP and Vista users – Mac and Linux versions are on the way. More » 
Gnome 2.20 released
12:16PM Sarah Stokely | Gnome 2.20 has been released and the (expansive! easy to read!) release notes say it includes:
“Improved support for right-to-left languages; desktop search integrated into the file chooser dialog; convenient new features in the Evolution email and calendar client; enhanced browsing of image collections; simplified system preferences; efficient power management and incredibly accurate laptop battery monitoring. Developers receive more help with application development thanks to a new version of the GTK+ toolkit, improved tools, and a great new documentation web site.”
More » Get the most out of Flickr
11:37AM Sarah Stokely | Wired Wiki has a nice writeup of how to maximise your Flickr usage. They’ve thrown in some basic tips as well as a number of alternative apps or plugins for customising tasks like uploading photos. Nice to see them offering some Linux alternatives and Python gets a mention too.
It also rounds up some tools for uploading pictures to Flickr using mobile devices and email:
“Not many people know this, but you can also use Google’s free Picasa application to send photos to Flickr via GMail. As of version 2.0, you can e-mail directly to Flickr from the Picasa app, which will even automatically resize your photos before sending them. Just use the aforementioned Flickr e-mail address and send your pics from GMail.”
If you’re a dinosaur like me who’s still using Photobucket, this might kick you along to try out Flickr. :)
Get the Most Out of Flickr
More » Does Telstra have the Edge in getting iPhone?
11:30AM Sarah Stokely | So Apple’s confirmed the iPhone will be available in the UK in November. Meanwhile in Australia everyone’s atwitter about which carrier will get the contract here.
From all the iPhone unlocking hacks that have already come out of the US, it seems somewhat fruitless to try to lock iPhone users to just one carrier, but that’s what Apple is doing with the UK launch too. Gizmodo UK said O2 will be the exclusive carrier when iPhone launches there in November.
So, readers, if the Fin Review is correct and Telstra has the edge in race for Apple’s iPhone, does that change your buying plans for iPhone? I must admit it gives me pause for thought. :) More » 