Saturday, November 10, 2007
This Week’s Best Posts
11:00AM Gina Trapani | This week’s best posts include: 10 tips for finding rental accommodation easily Even in a competitive rental market you can make househunting a lot easier for yourself by following a few simple steps. I just rented a lovely house in a popular inner city suburb of Sydney for less than I expected to pay – and it only took me two days of looking at houses. Here’s how I did it. Make the Most of Your Dual Monitors “Now that you’ve added another monitor to your computer setup, you’ve got double the screen real estate to get things done—but are you putting all that space to good use?” Turn Your Old PC into a Webapp Monster with gOS “As more and more full-featured web applications look to replace traditional desktop apps, the concept of a web-based operating system has gained a lot of momentum.” Stream Digital Music to Your Stereo with Squeezebox “If you’ve got gigabytes of music you want to play from a central server in your living room—without keeping a big ugly PC there—the Squeezebox network music player’s for you.” Better YouTube Firefox Extension “Watch YouTube videos more efficiently with Better YouTube, a brand new Firefox extension that compiles our favourite YouTube Greasemonkey scripts into a single convenient package.” First Look at Firefox 3.0 “With the release of the much anticipated Firefox 3 looming just around the corner, we got our hands on the latest beta build of your favourite browser to get a closer look.” Find Full Episodes Online with Find Internet TV “Search for and find episodes of your favourite missed television shows or web-based video content with web site Find Internet TV. In essence, the site is a search portal that knows where to look for current shows and can quickly tell you where to find what you’re looking for.” Where to Search for Low Airfares Online “If you haven’t booked your ticket home for the holidays yet, the Productivity Portfolio weblog test-drove some top travel search engines you may want to hit up.” Ten Ways to Defeat Brain Drain “Those of us who are busy all the time can experience burnout, exhaustion, and fatigue from spending long periods of time in focused concentration. I call this syndrome ‘Brain Drain.’” More »
Add Double-Click Actions to Your Right Mouse Button with ClickZap
10:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: For anyone who’s ever wondered why double-clicking the left mouse button gets special status but the right button can only single-click, freeware application ClickZap adds double right-click actions to your mouse. ClickZap does everything from locking your computer to muting your system volume, but the minimise active window action seems like a real champ (even though I prefer minimising windows from my keyboard with the Capslock key). ClickZap is freeware, Windows only; you’ll have to hunt for it a little on the download page. ClickZap [via CyberNet] More »Google Earth
9:05AM Wendy Boswell | Google Earth’s newest update includes a nifty Tourism Layer: you can get destination suggestions and 3D models of well-known landmarks. New layers in Google Earth [Google Earth Blog] More »
Add Movies to Your Netflix Queue from IMDB or Amazon with Movie Dude
9:00AM Adam Pash | Firefox with Greasemonkey: The Movie Dude Greasemonkey script links popular movie sites to one another so that—for example—you can quickly add a movie to your Netflix queue after you’ve read about it on the popular movie web site IMDB, or after you came this close to buying it on Amazon. Likewise, say you’re thinking about adding a movie to your Netflix queue but you want to read some reviews on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes first—just click through with The Movie Dude. While the link list is a little large and a bit on the ugly side, the interlinking of all of these sites is actually very handy. The Movie Dude [AdamV via BrentEvans] More »
Change a Broken Bulb with a Potato
8:00AM Adam Pash | Weblog DIY Life offers a simple but effective solution for changing a lightbulb if the bulb’s been broken: use a potato. In short, you just cut a potato in half and stick the flat end of one of the halves into the socket and unscrew. It’s quick, it’s clever, and it’s likely to save you from much more dangerous attempts you may have considered making had you not known about the potato trick. I’ve used this trick in the past and it works like a charm. How to Change a Broken Light Bulb with a Potato [Associated Content via DIY Life] More »
Exercise Your Brain by Exercising Your Body
7:00AM Adam Pash | The New York Times says that while so-called brain exercises (like Sudoku or computer applications claiming to work out your brain) can improve your skills at those very specific tasks, they’re not terribly effective overall. So what is a successful form of brain exercise? Apparently, physical exercise. In humans, exercise improves what scientists call “executive function,” the set of abilities that allows you to select behaviour that’s appropriate to the situation, inhibit inappropriate behaviour and focus on the job at hand in spite of distractions. Executive function includes basic functions like processing speed, response speed, and working memory, the type used to remember a house number while walking from the car to a party. In addition to reducing the risk of dementia, sounds like you’ve got even more motivation to restart your exercise habit. Photo by Gabu-chan. Exercise on the Brain [NYT] More »
De-Pixelise Your Images with VectorMagic
6:00AM Adam Pash | Web site VectorMagic turns virtually any image into vector art that can be resized as much as you want without any nasty pixelation—perfect for creating your scanned signature, for example. The site is free and simple to use, but for a bit more detail check out their howto introductory video. Whether you are trying to perfect your scanned signature or you’ve got a logo or design you want to be able to resize indefinitely, VectorMagic will do the trick. VectorMagic can be used on photographs to interesting effect, but count on losing some detail. Thanks Torley! VectorMagic More »
Set Up a Self-Cleaning Mac with Hazel
4:30AM Gina Trapani | Just like in the physical world, it’s easy to let digital clutter accumulate on your Mac: in fact, right now your Downloads Stack is filled with no-longer relevant files and your Desktop is covered in documents you finished with last week. The Windows Janitor cleans out files of a certain age from a given folder on PCs, but Mac users have an even more robust, graphical alternative: the automated, rules-based file manager Hazel. Let’s take a closer look at how Hazel can keep your Mac’s hard drive free of files you don’t need anymore. More »Firefox
3:45AM Adam Pash | Today marks the third birthday of Firefox 1.0, first released on November 9, 2004. But rather than looking to the past, what better way to celebrate than taking in a preview of where Firefox is going. More »
