The Best Ways To De-Stink Your Stuff 
In Memoriam: Our Favourite Apps And Services That Have Gone Belly Up 
How To Prepare For A Move Overseas 
From Saucy Pics To Passwords: How To Share Sensitive Information 
How Do IKEA's Prices In Australia Compare? 
New flybuys Earns Discounts Faster (But They're Not Good Discounts) Keep an online list of every item stored in your house, dorm, or office—whether in your filing cabinets or attic—with web site Pack and Find and you’ll never have trouble finding your old documents or yearbooks ever again. Using Pack and Find’s online tool, it’s easy to specify the location of your box and add items to the box complete with their approximate monetary value. If you’ve misplaced something later down the road, use the site’s Find function to ferret it out. You could certainly use a pen and paper to list all the items you’ve stored in the boxes throughout your home, but if you’re the type to misplace that list, too, this one’s definitely a timesaver.
Pack And FindIf you liked the previously mentioned DIY IKEA charging station but wanted a more energy-efficient solution, another user at howto web site Instructables details how to add individual switches to each charging unit. When you’re done, you’ve got a clean, self-contained charging station that saves energy by selectively switching on and off each charger so you’re only sucking up power when you need it. For a quick glimpse at the original, check out the video after the jump.
Pore over self-study language lessons and practice chatting with other language enthusiasts at web site LiveMocha. If you need more individual instruction, LiveMocha even lets benevolent members act as tutors. LiveMocha comes hot on the heels of language-learning web site Mango, but since one of the most important aspects of learning a new language is practicing with other speakers, the LiveMocha’s chat feature could prove very effective. The site’s still in beta and could use some interface improvement, but so far it looks very promising. If you’re looking to pick up a second language and you try it out, let us know how LiveMocha works for you in the comments.
LiveMocha [via Webware]Writing tasks for our to-do lists, we often err in one of two directions: either your tasks are too scarce on details or they’re chock-full of way too much information. Blogger Ethan Schoonover suggests writing down tasks as though you’re delegating them to someone you know in order to write succinct but complete tasks. The secret to all this is that, when you are writing down your deferred tasks “normally,” in truth you’re actually delegating but you just don’t realise it. You are simply delegating to your future self. The problem is that, in our present-self state of mind when planning tasks, we are filling in the gaps in our writing with present-knowledge.
This knowledge fades quickly and by the time our future-self picks up the work, the mortar of that transient information has dissolved, turning what seemed to be a solid, actionable task into an unclear jumble of words.
If you’ve ever come back to a to-do list full of three to four-word tasks you wrote down a week or so ago that mean absolutely nothing to you now, you understand why writing tasks as though you’re delegating to a future self can really help you put together a more useful to-do list. If you’ve got your own tricks for writing brief-yet-complete tasks, let’s hear them in the comments.
Dear Me: Get to work [43 Folders]The Unclutterer weblog cleans up their home theater’s mess of cords with a cheap multi-hook rack. Gina and I used similar methods to create our own cordless workspaces, but Unclutterer is taking it to the living room. Looking good!
Cable Clutter [Unclutterer]Windows only: Customise or clean out your cluttered right-click shell menu with freeware application ShellExView. Once you run the lightweight executable, you can edit any existing entry in your right-click menu spanning contexts from normal Windows Explorer menus to Internet Explorer-specific menus. The program could be more user-friendly, but it’s very effective. For example, if you’ve got a heavy right-click menu from apps you don’t need access to from your right-click, just run ShellExView, do a Ctrl-F search for the name of the program or entry, and disable it. Right-click again and it’s no longer there. ShellExView is an effective freeware utility, Windows only. For a more user-friendly alternative, check out FileMenu Tools. Thanks Yoav!
ShellExView [Nirsoft]Decentralised online identification system OpenID can log you into thousands of social networking sites (and counting) using a single username and password. OpenID asserts who you are by proving you own a URL—not an email address, not a password, not your mother’s maiden name, just a URL that must be confirmed by both the accepting site and OpenID host. No more filling out web site registration forms! Now that sounds wonderful to those of us sick of tracking the login details for all the web services we use. However, while OpenID is terrific in theory, it’s real-world usage still has a way to go. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of OpenID.
Stranded in the wilderness with an empty canteen? Outdoors expert Keith Hanshaw demonstrates how to make a puddle of muddy water safe to drink with a plastic bottle, a piece of string, and a lighter. Submerge the bottle into the puddle to fill it up and start a small fire with the lighter. Hold your water bottle directly over the flame to bring it to a boil, which will kill all the germs within the bottle. Surely this isn’t the tastiest water you’ll ever drink, but it’s safe, says Keith, and it can save your life.
MacGyver Style DIY Tip [Metacafe]Workspace voyeurs, rejoice: The Guardian Unlimited photographs over 35 authors’ writing rooms. My favourite so far is Graham Swift’s; what’s yours? Tx, engtech!
