Thursday, October 11, 2007
How to Get Out of Traffic Tickets
11:30PM Gina Trapani | AOL users share stories on how they got out of a traffic ticket after being pulled over on the road. Not surprisingly, honesty and respect for the cop worked wonders. One reader says she was pulled over after she knew she’d made an illegal turn twice: The officer asked if I realised I was admitting to having done the illegal turn twice. I said yes. He said they weren’t giving out warnings; they were ticketing people. I said I realised that and knew I deserved the ticket. He reiterated the point about not giving out warnings. I said I understood. He stared at me for a long time, and then told me no one ever tells them the truth. And because of that he was giving me a warning. While nothing will guarantee you’ll get out of a ticket after a cop sees a violation, there are things you can do to better your chances. For more check out our controversial previously-posted howto on getting out of a speeding ticket. How they got out of traffic tickets [CNN] More »
In brief
11:25PM Gina Trapani | We’re still looking for some great green life hacks to feature on Blog Action Day this coming Monday, so send in yours today! More »
Flickr Set Manager Creates Dynamic Photo Sets
11:00PM Gina Trapani | Flickr users: Want to automatically include all your most “interesting” Flickr photos in a set? Using the web-based Flickr Set Manager, create a new photo set based on certain criteria, like most interesting, least interesting, earliest photo first, most recent or random, and the set manager will update the set photos on a regular basis. Sort of like Smart Playlists for iTunes, Flickr would do well to include this feature inside Flickr itself. Here are Lifehacker’s most interesting Flickr photos. Flickr Set Manager [via George Ruiz's photostream] More »Search engines
10:57PM Tamar Weinberg | Seventy-two percent of online users report experiencing “search engine fatigue,” impatience and frustration at not being able to find information they need. More »
A First Look at eBay Desktop
10:30PM Tamar Weinberg | The popular eBay auction site is now accessible from a desktop application. With eBay Desktop, you can interact with the auction site normally with the added benefit of having powerful tools on hand in a very lightweight application. Most significantly, eBay Desktop updates listing data and the time remaining for auctions in real time. After the jump, let’s take a look at some of the new features of eBay Desktop. More »
Add Tabs To IE Mobile With Web Viewer
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows Mobile: Open web pages in tabs, remember closed tabs and URLs and get full-screen browsing with Web View, a free add-on for Internet Explorer Mobile (formerly Pocket IE). In addition to standard tab functions, Web View also adds common navigation buttons (back, forward, refresh and stop) and allows for page source viewing. For those not willing to part with their hard-earned cash for Opera Mobile, this plus pRSS Reader can make browsing in Windows Mobile more tolerable. Web View is a free download that requires Windows Mobile 5.0 and Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0. Web Viewer for WM5 [via Download Squad via Experience Mobility] More »Winamp launches 10th anniversary edition
3:17PM Sarah Stokely | Before there was iTunes, there was Winamp. A lot of people still prefer to use this freeware music player (and a lot of people still have opinions on when Winamp jumped the shark into bloatville, but don’t let’s get started on that). Wired’s just written up a detailed review of Winamp’s 10th anniversary edition, AOL Winamp 5.5, which boasts a revamped interface, iPod syncing, remote music access and other advanced features:
“Best of all, Winamp makes it far easier than iTunes or Windows Media Player to discover new music online and incorporate it into your library without having to download MP3s through a browser and import them into your media player manually.”
After I stop feeling really, really old, I think I’ll download it and give it another whirl.
Winamp Packs on Features for 10th-Anniversary Edition [Wired]
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Grow your own salad sprouts
2:58PM Sarah Stokely | Often city-dwellers forget just how much gardening and food growing options we have, even without a proper garden. Even if you just have a courtyard or balcony, you can save some money and enjoy having your own fresh foods on tap. I once grew lettuce and tomatoes in a large pot plant on my balcony!
Pot planters with mini-herb gardens are a nice idea, as is this one from The Age’s foodie blog – growing your own salad sprouts. I haven’t done this in years! You can start from seeds, or buy freshly sprouted seeds and beans from your local nursery or organic shop, or sometimes even your supermarket.
Now all we need are some recipes for delicious sandwiches and meals to use our home grown sprouts!
Photo credit: Princess_of_llyr under Creative Commons
Live from the kitchen – DIY salad sprouts [Chew on This]
More » How to use Windows Vista Speech Recognition
1:43PM Sarah Stokely | Speech recognition software can be a great solution for people with keyboard-related RSI, or those who like to capture their thoughts with a voice recorder. As Lifehack.org points out, commercial software (like Dragon Natually Speaking) can be expensive. But he offers a free solution - Windows Vista has in-built speech recognition software.
This post runs you through how to set up Vista’s SR program and train it to accurately transcribe your voice into text. He also includes some general tips for using speech recognition.
How to Use Windows Vista Speech Recognition [Lifehack.org]
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Improve your OpenOffice presentations with Impress templates
12:59PM Sarah Stokely | Via Pia Waugh - yet another reason to ditch that PowerPoint addiction. Long-time OpenOffice user Chih-Hao Tsai created a range of templates for its Impress presentation software, including the one to the left, which uses a NASA photo of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons.
”… unlike Microsoft PowerPoint, OpenOffice.org Impress does not come with a set of good templates. Even the ones coming with StarOffice are not polished enough… Therefore, I decided to design my own Impress templates and make them available to the public.”
OpenOffice.org Impress Templates [Chih-Hao Tsai]
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