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New flybuys Earns Discounts Faster (But They're Not Good Discounts) Google Maps has quietly added a sweet new feature which has greatly improved its “get directions” function. You can now easily alter the route it’s planned for you with a simple drag and drop – which is great if you can see that it hasn’t generated the optimal route for you. I discovered this by accident yesterday when I was planning my trip across town from St Kilda to the RRR studios at Nicholson St, Brunswick East. Google Maps plotted a route straight through the city for me, which seemed crazy at peak hour. To change the route, all I had to do was put the cursor over the blue line which shows the route, and drag it to where I’d prefer to drive – in this case, via Punt Road to skirt the city centre. You can click on certain sections of the route to change it on a point to point basis, handy for planning a trip with multiple stops. Google put up a little video tutorial which you can see here. Looks like the ability to check the traffic conditions isn’t available in Australia yet though.
Blogger Jacob Grier discovers what Wikipedia calls “the least known stapling method”: pinning. If you rotate the plate on the bottom of your stapler, it will bend staples outward instead of inward to fasten things temporarily. Easily remove a pinned staple by pulling it along the plane of the document. Many modern staplers don’t have this feature any more, so pick up an old-school model to try it out.
The stapler’s secret [Eternal Recurrence]US-centric: Check Google Maps mashup RottenNeighbors before you move to a new neighbourhood to get a heads-up on the potentially noisy folks next door. Just go to the site and search by your zip code. If you want to add your rotten neighbour to the database and help out future potential tenants, go to the appropriate neighbourhood and click the Contribute to This Map link. It’s tough to tell which complaints are valid and which are frivolous whining since anyone can contribute to the site with just a couple of clicks, but it still might be worth checking out before you move.
RottenNeighbor [via AppScout]If you’ve been plagued by wrinkled and creased clothes in your suitcase no matter how much care you’ve taken packing, previously mentioned packing web site OneBag suggests using the bundle wrapping method. As the name suggests, bundle wrapping involves the careful wrapping of clothes around a central core object, avoiding the folds that result in creases. Furthermore, the tension created in the fabric by the wrapping process significantly reduces the chances of wrinkling.
The instructions are fairly wordy, so be sure to check out the bundle wrapping diagram for a visual step-by-step.
Bundle Wrapping [OneBag]US-centric: Free cell phone service Dial DIR-ECT-IONS (347-328-4667) sends driving directions to your phone via SMS. Just call their number and step through the voice-activated menus, telling it where you want to go and where you’re starting from. You should receive a text message on your phone a few seconds after you hang up detailing turn-by-turn directions from your start point to your end point. It’s no substitute for a fancy Google Maps application or GPS, but if you have neither it’s a simple and useful way to get quick directions on the go. The service currently only works in these nine cities with more on the way.
Dial DIR-ECT-IONS [via jkOnTheRun]Convert documents, images, audio and video files, or even units of measure to virtually any format with web site You Convert It. Similar to previously mentioned Zamzar, all you need to do is upload the file and provide the site with your email address so it knows where to send the download link for the new file once the conversion is complete.
Unlike Zamzar, You Convert It doesn’t currently appear to have a filesize limit (Zamzar caps filesizes at 100MB)—I uploaded a 300+MB file in testing. It also works as a file sharing service like YouSendIt and its contemporaries, meaning you can enter a friend’s email address and just upload the file without converting it. Last, You Convert It has the kitchen-sink addition of unit conversions, which isn’t that useful since you can already use Google for currency conversions and just about any other quick conversions.
You Convert It is the perfect web application for anyone who’s got a device—like an iPod—that requires specific filetypes. There are desktop options for these kind of conversions (like iSquint or Videora), but it really doesn’t get any easier than these web-based conversion tools.
You Convert It [via AppScout]Windows only: Freeware Microsoft Word add-in Word Hyperlink Checker manages hyperlinks in Word documents and checks for suspicious or broken links. While the internet has progressively become a more viable source of cited information in documents, Word doesn’t manage links all that well by default. The add-in scans your document for links that appear broken or “suspicious” (it’s unclear what that entails), then aggregates and marks them as suspicious. Word Hyperlink Checker is a free download, Windows only, Word 2000 and up.
Document Hyperlink Checker for Microsoft Word [AbleBits via Web Worker Daily]If Firefox hasn’t taken care of it already, go grab your update to Firefox 2.0.0.7 to patch a security hole in Firefox and QuickTime.
Sure we love our Tab Mix Plus, but there’s a ton of tabbed browsing features baked right into Firefox that don’t necessitate the extra baggage of an extension. Power web surfers need close control of the dozens of tabs they chew through in a day. From extensive keyboard shortcuts to configuration tweaks to mouse manipulation, today we’ve got our top 10 favourite Firefox extension-free tabbed browsing tips.
