Thursday, November 22, 2007
The Hearty Thanksgiving Roundup
10:00PM Adam Pash | The fourth Thursday of every November is Thanksgiving here in the US of A, meaning rather than posting to Lifehacker your diligent US editors are taking a break to gorge on turkey and stuffing. If you’re looking for that one special Thanksgiving tip to ease your holiday, we’ve got you covered. Carve Your Thanksgiving Turkey Like a Butcher Learn to to carve the perfect turkey from a New York butcher. Make the Perfect Mashed Potatoes this Thanksgiving Make your gravy proud! Eat Less at Thanksgiving by Eating Earlier But then again, who wants to eat less? Master the Art of Cooking Turkey Hopefully you’re already defrosting. The Thanksgiving Cheat Sheet So how many hours does the bird need to sit in the oven? Make the Most of Your Travel Delay with Sleeping in Airports Catch some Zzzs when you’re not catching your plane. Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes Turkey isn’t the only thing on the menu. How to fix Mom and Dad’s computer The perennial favorite! How to plan a Thanksgiving meal The one thing you can control when your family gets together. More »
Local ebook reader on the way from Dymocks
1:41PM Sarah Stokely | Amazon’s new ebook reader the Kindle may have gotten some buzz when it launched this week, but we’re about to get a local ebook reader from Dymocks, according to a report in today’s Age. We already reported on Dymock’s recent move into selling digital ebooks and audio books. Will be interesting to see how it goes, once they sort out the overexpensive pricing.
More » Geek gifts
1:35PM Sarah Stokely | It’s beginning to look a lot like… that time of year when magazines run big glossy features on what Christmas gifts to buy. But I guess when Wired breaks it down into Gifts for Every Geek: Shutterbugs, Empty Nesters, Foodies and Urban Commandos, it might actually be fun and helpful to read. More »Snack on food which will power your brain
12:48PM Sarah Stokely | Here’s a few snack foods to add to your shopping list if you’re out to combat the mid-afternoon brain slump. Edamame (I had to look it up too!), green beans, boiled peanuts and cold salmon are the recommendations from Grant at the 43 Folders blog today.
It’s all too easy to reach for high sugar, high fat snacks while you go about your day, but if you want your brain functioning at its best, those are exactly the snacks to avoid, he says.
My healthy snack foods are raw cashews, fruit or yoghurt. What are yours?
Food for Thought [43 Folders]
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Access Any Web Site (Like Wikipedia) Offline with GearsMonkey
9:00AM Adam Pash | Firefox with Greasemonkey and Google Gears: The Wikipedia Offline Greasemonkey script plugs Greasemonkey into Google Gears (the offline web access extension that works with Google Reader and other sites) to provide offline access and syncing with Wikipedia. Once you’ve installed the script, head to Wikipedia and enable Gears. Now, when browsing any page on Wikipedia, you’ll notice a small frame that contains links to cache the current page or access other pages you’ve already cached. Even better, the author of the script provides a howto guide for taking virtually any web site offline with Gears and Greasemonkey, so anyone with some javascript chops should be able to start building Gears access for their favourite sites (here’s hoping we see a lot more of these). The Wikipedia Offline script is free, requires Greasemonkey and Google Gears. GearsMonkey: Google Gears + Greasemonkey to take Wikipedia offline [Google Code] More »
Create Global Folder Bookmarks with Dirkey
8:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Create custom folder bookmarks accessible from your keyboard in any Explorer window or save or open file dialog with freeware system tray application Dirkey. You can set any folder as a bookmark on-the-fly by pressing Ctrl-Alt-0..9, then quickly jump to any of your bookmarks by pressing Ctrl-0..9 for the corresponding bookmark (e.g., if you set a folder as a bookmark with Ctrl-Alt-1, you can access that folder any time by pressing Ctrl-1). Dirkey does the work of previously mentioned applications like FindeXer, PlacesBar Editor, and FinderStyle but offers the quickest access to both creating new bookmarks and jumping to your most frequently used folders. Dirkey is freeware, Windows only. Dirkey [via gHacks] More »Mobile broadband put to the test
7:39AM Sarah Stokely | If you’re looking beyond traditional DSL broadband, naked DSL isn’t your only option – loads of mobile providers are now offering mobile broadband. APC magazine put Telstra, Vodafone and 3’s offerings through their paces in a range of Sydney locations to see how they stack up for speed, performance and value. Telstra got the tick for data performance, but 3 won for overall value. I’m curious as to why Optus was excluded from the trial, but it’s still an interesting read.
Internet Anywhere 2007 [APC]
More » Tweak Vista’s User Access Control
7:11AM Sarah Stokely | Anything that makes Microsoft Vista less annoying to use is OK by me, and today Online Tech Tips gets the nod for writing about TweakUAC, a freeware app which lets you get Vista’s User Access Control feature under control.
UAC is a nervous nancy security feature which, in its default setting, pops up warnings any time you try to run new software, or do just about anything. Disabling it completely is an option, or you can put a leash on it using TweakUAC. You can use it to set UAC to “quiet mode” which means it doesn’t display the elevation warnings for administrators, but standard users will get the security prompts.
Tweak, disable or turn off UAC (User Account Control) in Windows Vista [Online Tech Tips]
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Add a Stack of Recent Things to Your Dock
7:00AM Adam Pash | Web site Mac OS X Hints highlights a simple Terminal command that will tweak your Dock to add a “recent things” Stack capable of showing you recent apps, docs, servers, or favourite volumes and items. Just open Terminal and type (one line): defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }' Follow that with killall Dock and you should notice the new Stack in your Dock. If you want multiple recent Stacks, just run the command multiple times and right-click each Stack to set which recent Stack you want. While you’re already customising your Stacks in Leopard, the “recent things” Stack—particularly recent docs Stack—looks like an indispensable addition to your Dock. 10.5: Add a ‘recent things’ stack to the Dock [Mac OS X Hints] More »
Visit ASIMO the robot
6:20AM Sarah Stokely | If you, I mean your kids, love robots then Sydneysiders and Brisbanites should look out for the ASIMO robot tour which is on at the moment. ASIMO is a very cool robot designed by Honda who can walk, run at speeds of nearly 6km/hour and use stairs (so it’s better than a Dalek!). It also has voice and face recognition.
Not as cute as Sony’s QURO robot which visited here in 2004, ASIMO is closer to human size. It looks like a short spaceman wearing a helmet and rocket pack on its back. The videos on the website show it carrying trays of drinks (take that, R2D2).
ASIMO will be appearing in shows throughout the day while on tour – they’re set to music and include him dancing and performing soccer moves (!). Tickets are free and first come first serve. In Sydney’s Darling Harbour til Sunday (25 November) ASIMO then heads up to Brisbane. More details here.
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