Windows only: Freeware file defragmentation utility Defraggler analyses your hard drive for fragmented files and can selectively defrag the ones you choose. The graphical interface is darn sweet: like the standard Windows Defragger, it shows you the different phases of fragment discovery as the drive is being analysed. Right now, the application may be buggy as it’s in beta, but it successfully delivers single-fragment files out of files that are heavily fragmented. Defraggler is a freeware application, Windows only. Thanks, Steven!
DefragglerI’m thrilled to announce that Lifehacker US is participating in a 30-day blogger challenge called LitLiberation with an ambitious goal (cue Dr. Evil pinky, please): to raise 1 meeeellion dollars for education. Organised by author of The Four Hour Workweek, Tim Ferris, the idea is simple—to use the Power of the Blog to get ordinary people behind a single cause in the span of 30 days this October. I’ve personally donated $500 of my very own blogging dollars to the cause, and I hope you’ll follow me with a $10 or $20 or larger tax deductible donation. Head on over to the Lifehacker DonorsChoose.org challenge page to pitch in on a project that touches you and get LH high up on the leaderboard in the LitLiberation campaign. Thanks in advance for anything you can do.
DonorsChoose.org: LifehackerRecently we’ve run a couple of Lifehacker Interviews and I’m keen to make this an ongoing feature of Lifehacker AU. It gives us a chance to pick some techy savvy, interesting people and find out what tech tips and tricks they use to get the most out of their work and playtime.
If you missed our recent interviews, here’s one Gina did with Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu, and here’s one I did with Aussie expat turned Pixar image mastering engineer, Dominic Glynn.
So I thought I’d throw it open to the readership to give some ideas of who you’d like us to interview next. So who are the Australians who you would like to tell you more about the tech and productivity tools they use to stay focused and successful? Nominations in comments please.
Meg Tsiamis of Blogpond has written a couple of posts about StumbleUpon which I just happened to, well, stumble upon today.
People who’ve already used StumbleUpon will probably find her post on different ways to discover stuff to be useful, it talks about finding things randomly, through your friends network, and through keyword searches. The post ends with some tips on how to be a good user by making your Stumbles and discoveries count by accurately tagging them. There are also some helpful links to other articles.
She’s also written a Beginners Guide to StumbleUpon.
Fans of Crikey and its founder Stephen Mayne will be interested to know that he’s one of the founders of new website Kwoff, along with Dan Walsh and Greg Barns. I had a chat with Dan today and he said their plan is to do for Australian news what Digg does for tech news – with a view to being a central aggregator for political, business and current affairs news. He’s been on the road talking to both mainstream publishers and more niche players like Lifehacker and New Matilda with a view to drawing a wide range of online news fans to Kwoff. Like other aggregators, you can browse the site freely, or register to be able to submit or vote on stories. Their guide to Qwoffing is here or there’s a cute animated walkthrough here. It was nice to see a Lifehacker story on their “Top Today’ list, but admittedly the number of tech stories which have been “qwoffed” so far is low. It’s early days for Kwoff and aggregators are only as good as the people submitting and voting on stories, so consider yourself encouraged to check it out, and let’s submit some tech stories. :) Hit the jump to see a nice visual snapshot of the kinds of stories which Kwoff readers have been interested in so far (gotta love tag clouds!) More »
Eagle eyed tipster Korian spotted a new Apple store at Myer Brisbane – Level 4, 91 Queen St. As part of the opening they’re running demonstration sessions every day Wedneday til Sunday on the following timetable: 10am – making Hollywood-style movies (15 minutes) 12.30pm – It just works. Getting started on a Mac (30 minutes) 4pm – more fun with photos (15 minutes) I spoke with one of the Apple guys from the Brisbane store who said the demos will be an ongoing thing, so if you have questions for an Apple Expert, here’s your chance. Thanks for the tip, Korian! More »
Lifehack.org had a really nice guide for surviving if you’re the family tech support guru. As someone who’s been the household IT go-to person for several sharehouses and fielded my fair share of phone calls from my (interstate dwelling) parents, it certainly rang true for me. The final tip is perhaps the most useful one, too – install Logmein on their computers so next time they call you for tech support, you can log in and diagnose the problem yourself, and as a bonus they get to *watch* what you’re doing onscreen so next time they’ll hopefully be able to help themselves.
How to Survive as the Family Tech Support Guy (or Gal) [Lifehack.org] More »
Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): The Writer’s Tools extension adds a useful new menu to the popular, open source office suite OpenOffice.org that bakes convenient tools like Google Translate, an online dictionary lookup tool, email backup, remote backup to an FTP server and more directly into OO.org. To install, just download the extension, then open OO.org and go to Tools -> Extension Manager and click the Add button in the My Extensions section. Then just navigate to the downloaded extension to finish the job. If you’re using OO.org as your main word processor, the Writer’s Tools extension is a must-have. Writer’s Tools is free, works wherever OpenOffice.org does.
Writer’s Tools extension for OpenOffice.org [Google Code via No Thick Manuals]Reader Peggy has posted a few tips for curbing the snacking habit. I already have a few of these up and running (having healthy snacks on hand for example – bananas, low fat fruit yoghurt and raw cashews are my everyday snacks) but a couple of these look like they’ll be handy. Number 6 – ‘just buy what you need and no more’ is a biggie for me – I find it much easier to exercise will power while grocery shopping than when there’s an open block of chocolate in the pantry! I also need to remind the staff at Monarch’s bakery in St Kilda that when I say a small piece of chocolate Kugelhopf, I really only want a small piece. Damn it. :) Thanks for the tips, Peggy!
If you’re rocking a Windows Mobile Smartphone but have yet to set up your Gmail account with the device, the Hackszine weblog offers a simple step-by-step for setting up your Windows Mobile phone with Gmail. Keep in mind that your Gmail account can only be accessed through POP and not IMAP using this method, meaning that your read mail status won’t be reflected in your Gmail account. If you really want tighter integration between Gmail and your smartphone, I’d suggest setting up a Java Virtual Machine on your Windows Mobile phone and then installing Gmail Mobile. Whichever method you choose, both should give you excellent on-the-go access to your Gmail account.
HOWTO – use Gmail with your Windows Mobile Smartphone [Hackszine]
