Sunday, November 4, 2007

Edit Your Images Online With Splashup

7:00AM Wendy Boswell | Edit your images on the fly online with Splashup, a web-based image editor that integrates with Flickr, Facebook, and Picasa. Splashup offers up a surprising array of image editing tools, far beyond the usual crop of resize and contrast— you can also edit multiple images, play with filters and layers, use a variety of brushes, and more. Splashup is one of the best image editors in a long line of image editors; i.e., Picnik, Pixoh, and Resizr, to name just a few. What’s your favourite online image editor? Let’s hear in the comments. Splashup [via eHub] More »

Find More Torrents with CompleTorrent

6:00AM Wendy Boswell | Search through over a hundred different BitTorrent sites with CompleTorrent, a torrent metasearch engine. All the big BitTorrent sites are included here (Demonoid, Isohunt, Mininova, etc.) along with many smaller sites. This is a great jumping off point for all those educational documentaries you’ve been meaning to watch. Not sure about this whole BitTorrent thing? Try out the beginner’s guide to BitTorrent and you’ll be a pro in no time at all. Completorrent More »

Share Starred Items

5:00AM Wendy Boswell | Easily share starred items in Google Reader with this simple how-to from Tech-Recipes: From Google Reader, click the Settings Link in the upper right hand corner. Click the Tags tab. Click the Private link beside your starred items. The text will change to public and links will appear that allow you to share your starred items feed link. If you find yourself sharing a lot of one kind of starred item, you might want to track your Google Reader trends or increase your Google Reader shortcut skills. Google Reader: How To Share Starred Items [Tech-Recipes.com] More »

Get City Information with ZipSkinny

4:00AM Wendy Boswell | US-centric: Get detailed city demographics for any zip code in the United States with ZipSkinny, a site that serves up information based on the last U.S. census data. Just type in your zip, and you’ll get back general info, social and economic indicators, and how your town compares with neighbouring boroughs. Want more? Try checking for bad >> neighbours or finding out the neighbourhood walkability. ZipSkinny More »

Turn Off Windows Defender

3:00AM Wendy Boswell | If you’d like to disable Windows Defender in Vista—perhaps you’ve got another spyware system that works better— tech blog Nuts and Milk has a dead simple tutorial on how to accomplish this. Here we go: get into Windows Defender, click on Tools->Options, select Administrator Options, and uncheck the Use Windows Defender box. Confirm that you do indeed want to do this, click Close, and you’re all set. Wait, you don’t have any spyware protection? Never fear— the handy-dandy Lifehacker Pack is here, with plenty of anti-spyware goodness. Disable Windows Defender in Vista [Nuts and Milk] More »

Specify A Time To Return and Make Phone Calls

2:00AM Wendy Boswell | Constant phone interruptions can break up even the most dedicated workflow. However, you can solve this by setting aside a specific time each day to return and make your calls. Productivity blogger John Cox has more: Folks will leave you messages. Return those messages at a set time. Try to say between 10AM and 11AM in the morning and 2PM and 3PM in the afternoon is the time that I call people back. Not before, not after. I suppose there could always be exceptions to the rule due to emergencies, but to be honest with you, I haven’t had to make the exception. The only reason that folks expect an immediate return call is because we train them into that behavior. I’ve had to do this since I started working exclusively from home, and it’s cut my distractions down pretty drastically. If you’ve set aside a specific phone time, please share in the comments how this is working (or not working) for you. 7 Habits [John Cox] More »

How to Argue Productively

1:00AM Wendy Boswell | The BBC Relationship channel has an intriguing article on how to argue productively by sticking to predetermined guidelines. For instance, it’s not a good idea to bring up absolutes: Don’t use absolutes – never say “never”, “always”, “should” or “shouldn’t”. They’re irritating and often inaccurate. For example, “You never wash up” will almost certainly get a response of “What about when…?” Arguments are never fun, but at least with these guidelines, you can hash out what you need to hash out without walking away with hurt feelings (hopefully!). What are your best tips for a productive argument? Let’s hear in the comments. Productive arguing [BBC] More »