Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Two years ago on Lifehacker, Adam showed …
11:30PM Tamar Weinberg | Two years ago on Lifehacker, Adam showed you how you can control Firefox entirely from the keyboard using shortcuts. More »
Get Step-by-Step Video Cooking Guides at FoodTube
11:00AM Adam Pash | Web site FoodTube aggregates cooking videos from sites like YouTube and Google Video by recipe to give you visual step-by-step instructions for preparing a dish. Some of the videos are user-generated while others appear to be cooking shows uploaded to YouTube, but most of them are very detailed and extremely useful for on-demand instructions when you’re ready to make a new dish (like the sweet sticky rice with mango guide featured on FoodTube above). FoodTube.net More »
Disable Facebook Beacon
9:55AM Sarah Stokely | Privacy and social networking may be mutually exclusive but there are measures you can take to protect your personal information. Lately Facebook’s been under the spotlight for the privacy implications of its Beacon tool which can link up advertisers and third parties to report things on Facebook, like your purchasing habits. (there was a TechCrunch story on it here). How to Split an Atom has written up the easy instructions for blocking Beacon, and they are: Download and install the BlockSite plugin for Firefox After restarting Firefox select Add-ons from the Tools menu Click the Options button on the BlockSite extension Click the Add button Enter http://www.facebook.com/beacon/* into the input box Click ‘OK’, then click OK again and you’re done. Tips for the Privacy Minded [How to Split an Atom] More »How do you manage your RSS reading?
9:31AM Sarah Stokely | At a conference recently I was stunned when Ben Barren of Gnoos admitted to reading something like 800 RSS feeds a day. It brought home to me how important RSS triage is if you’re going to stay on top of your reading without letting it take over your day! I’m a lightweight, with about 60 feeds in my reader, split into 3 groups – work, fun and blogging tools. Admittedly I do tend to add one or two new feeds a day, but that’s about the extent of my RSS management plan.43 Folders today had a post about RSS management which suggests taking a different approach completely, and grouping feeds according to how you read them, rather than by subject. Basically feeds are grouped according to urgency – so the ‘Can’t Miss’ group is for feeds that need to be read daily, while stories in ‘Skip ‘em’ can be left for a quieter time. Another category suggested was for blogs you definitely want to keep track of, but that aren’t urgent, such as friend’s blogs.Since I’m still back in the dark ages with Bloglines and my simple division of RSS feeds into work and fun, I thought I’d throw this question to the readers to get some tips: How do you manage your RSS reading? Do you have a system for “RSS triage”? Please share in comments.
Sink or Swim: Managing RSS Feed with Better Groups [43 Folders] More » First upload charges, now excess charges for broadband?
9:20AM Sarah Stokely | Is Broadband in Australia going backwards rather than forwards? First we pointed out that iiNet had jumped on Telstra’s bandwagon by tacking upload charges onto its Naked DSL offering, and now it looks like Optus is toying with excess charges for its Fusion home phone and broadband bundles. Yuck. More » 
DIY Window De-Icer On-the-Cheap
9:00AM Adam Pash | For many of us, along with winter comes an endless expanse of mornings spent freezing our fingers off scraping ice from our windshields. Rather than walking that chilly road again this winter, the Dollar Stretcher web site suggests several DIY solutions for keeping your windshield ice-free this winter. For example: To prevent your car’s windows/mirrors from icing up… treat the windows before you go to bed each night. The window treatment can be made up of 3 parts vinegar to 1 part water and placed in a spray bottle… [and] will prevent ice from forming. From other posts in the thread, it sounds like rubbing alcohol can be substituted for vinegar, and the solution can be applied either before or after the ice has formed. Photo by DJ Curly. Homemade Window De-Icer [Dollar Stretcher via DIY Life] More »
Use Linkedin to Get Work
8:56AM Sarah Stokely | Facebook seems to have taken off as the grownups networking app du jour in Australia, but I’ve had a couple of people mention Linkedin to me recently – one who was headhunted by a company who found her via her public profile, another who was appraising a job candidate via the person’s Linkedin profile.The Freelance Switch blog has published a guide for getting the most out of your Linkedin profile, which includes tips on creating your profile, building a network and using your profile to get work. They advise being thorough in filling out your public profile as the site carries a lot of search engine weight and a search for your name on Google is likely to return your Linked in profile on the first page of results.Linkedin also has a tool which helps you build an email signature to promote your Linkedin profile. I have found my way onto Facebook but not Linkedin as yet. Have you had any good, bad or indifferent results from using professional social networking sites? Please share your experiences in comments.
8 Things You Can Do to Get Work through Linkedin [Freelance Switch] More » 
Turn your iPod Nano case into a Speaker Kit
8:43AM Sarah Stokely | Our pals at Gizmodo pointed us to a kit you can buy which turns the plastic case that new iPod Nano’s come in into a nice looking speaker kit. Kudos to Bird Electron, the Japanese website selling the kit (sorry, I don’t know if they ship overseas, I can’t read Japanese) for this hack. Way to reduce landfill and come up with a cool gadget. :)
It could be a lack of caffeine making me woozy, but I reckon if you check out the photo on the website selling these babies, the speaker looks a little like a white ORLY owl with big manga eyes. If you’re the kind of person who anthropomorphises speakers that is. Not that I’d ever do that.
Bird Electron [via Gizmodo] More » 
Manage your Secret Santa online
8:06AM Sarah Stokely | If you’re one of those people who always gets stuck organising social events for work or family, you will like this little tool for organising Secret Santa online.
Once you register, you can compile a list of people to invite, and either email them directly or send them a link to invite them to sign up. (You can publish the link to your Facebook profile, blog or other online forum as well). On the deadline date, Elfster does the “draw” to match people to the person they’re buying a present for (you can even set blocks to make sure that you don’t draw your own spouse or mortal enemy).
Elfster [via Web Worker Daily] More » 
