Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Organise
Daily Routines Details The Productivity Habits Of Famous Folks
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Daily Routines is a blog that does nice work of compiling accounts of how famous minds—great, inspired, slothful, procrastination-prone, and otherwise—set about their tasks. All the quotes and anecdotes come from linked interviews, biographies, or other accounts, and while the workers covered tend toward the creative side, there’s a few mathematicians, architects, and other left-brainers. Definitely worth a read if you feel like your own work routine could use a reboot, or you just need reassurance that even Kafka—okay, especially Kafka—found it hard to just sit down and write. Daily Routines More »
Fix
Reassign Caps Lock To Mute Windows Sounds
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: The Digital Inspiration blog posts a tiny AutoHotKey script that takes away the email-ruining power of the most useless key on your deck, Caps Lock, and converts it into an instant-muting tool. Really helpful for anyone using a stand-alone keyboard without multimedia keys, or whose left pinky finger is just irrascible sometimes. The script is available as both an AHK script and stand-alone executable to tuck away into your system tray. For another approach to re-assign Caps Lock, try one reader’s Handicapslock tool. Photo by AV8TER. Mute your Speakers with the Caps Lock Key [Digital Inspiration] More »
Communicate
Spam Already On The Rebound
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | After enjoying a roughly 66% decline in worldwide spam following the early November shut-down of a Northern California hosting company, net security firms are already seeing a 60 percent gain toward the old levels—that’s about 94.6 billion messages on Monday alone. Will herbal supplements always be with us, or will a greater solution be found? [via PC World] More »
Money
4:30PM Angus Kidman | There’s been a healthy stream of entries in our exclusive Lifehacker competition to win $500 towards your credit card bill from Mozo, but there’s still plenty of time for you to have a crack at the money. Check the original post for terms and conditions and to submit your entry. More »
$500 From Mozo Is Still Up For Grabs
4:30PM Angus Kidman | There’s been a healthy stream of entries in our exclusive Lifehacker competition to win $500 towards your credit card bill from Mozo, but there’s still plenty of time for you to have a crack at the money. Check the original post for terms and conditions and to submit your entry. More »
Communicate
Win A BRAVIA Z Series LCD TV Valued At $3,399
3:00PM Kym Weathersten | As any publication can tell you, the key to success is in knowing your greatest asset; the reader. This is why we have a small favour to ask of you. We’d be pleased and extremely grateful if you could take a few moments to complete a small site survey. It’s quite straightforward, and all completed surveys will go into the draw to win a BRAVIA Z Series LCD TV from Sony (Model no. KDL40Z4500), valued at $3,399, or one of five $100 gift vouchers to your choice of DJs, Coles/Myer, Harvey Norman, Bunnings. [Survey] [Terms and Conditions] More »
Travel
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Planning a trip and feeling cheap? I Want That Flight lets you enter a domestic destination, date and target price, and emails you when it finds a flight matching those specifications. In truth, I’m not convinced that this is particularly useful: if you know you need to fly somewhere on a particular day, you’re better off getting in and searching the relevant airlines as soon as possible, because it’s rare these days for domestic flights to get cheaper closer to the date. However, there’s some potential value in the hot flights list of deals found by other users if you’re scouring for bargains.
I Want That Flight [via OzBargain]
More »
I Want That Flight Tries To Match Your Price And Date
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Planning a trip and feeling cheap? I Want That Flight lets you enter a domestic destination, date and target price, and emails you when it finds a flight matching those specifications. In truth, I’m not convinced that this is particularly useful: if you know you need to fly somewhere on a particular day, you’re better off getting in and searching the relevant airlines as soon as possible, because it’s rare these days for domestic flights to get cheaper closer to the date. However, there’s some potential value in the hot flights list of deals found by other users if you’re scouring for bargains.
I Want That Flight [via OzBargain]
More »
Organise
1:30PM Angus Kidman | YTPodcaster performs a simple function for iPod owners: creating a podcast feed of videos from a YouTube user so that you can watch them on your portable device. Lifehacker reader Craig explains why he built the site:
The reason I created the site is because I really wanted to watch my favourite YouTuber’s latest videos on my iPod on my way to work and sites like vixy.net would only let me subscribe to YouTube search results, and not a user’s actual videos. As well as that feature, I also added the ability to subscribe to YouTube’s standard feeds (e.g. Most Discussed This Week or Most Viewed Today) in a format that is playable on my iPod.
There’s also options for building Zune and general RSS feeds for particular YouTube video streams, and a handy “download this YouTube video as MP4″ option. One note: if your cookies are set so your YouTube links start with a country link (such as au) rather than www, you may need to edit the URLs to get them to work with the site.
YTPodcaster
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YTPodcaster Makes YouTube Podcast Feeds For Your iPod
1:30PM Angus Kidman | YTPodcaster performs a simple function for iPod owners: creating a podcast feed of videos from a YouTube user so that you can watch them on your portable device. Lifehacker reader Craig explains why he built the site:
The reason I created the site is because I really wanted to watch my favourite YouTuber’s latest videos on my iPod on my way to work and sites like vixy.net would only let me subscribe to YouTube search results, and not a user’s actual videos. As well as that feature, I also added the ability to subscribe to YouTube’s standard feeds (e.g. Most Discussed This Week or Most Viewed Today) in a format that is playable on my iPod.
There’s also options for building Zune and general RSS feeds for particular YouTube video streams, and a handy “download this YouTube video as MP4″ option. One note: if your cookies are set so your YouTube links start with a country link (such as au) rather than www, you may need to edit the URLs to get them to work with the site.
YTPodcaster
More »
Money
12:00PM Angus Kidman | The Commonwealth Bank is previewing a forthcoming update of its NetBank service on its site. Promised features in the update include the ability to add shortcuts for commonly used features to the home page, integration with other Commonwealth services like CommSec and home insurance, and pre-filled forms for applying for term deposits and home loans. I like the sound of the shortcuts feature, but I’m wondering: what features would you like to see added to your current online banking service? I wish the online statements went back further (it’s something of a joke to suggest people should opt out of paper statements when there’s only two months history available anyway). More »
NetBank Update Includes Customisation Options
12:00PM Angus Kidman | The Commonwealth Bank is previewing a forthcoming update of its NetBank service on its site. Promised features in the update include the ability to add shortcuts for commonly used features to the home page, integration with other Commonwealth services like CommSec and home insurance, and pre-filled forms for applying for term deposits and home loans. I like the sound of the shortcuts feature, but I’m wondering: what features would you like to see added to your current online banking service? I wish the online statements went back further (it’s something of a joke to suggest people should opt out of paper statements when there’s only two months history available anyway). More »
Communicate
10:30AM Angus Kidman | Telstra’s Trading Post auction and classified site has launched a mobile-optimised version, allowing searching, bidding and buying via Internet-enabled phones. Trading Post content has long been free to browse on NextG handsets, but this should make shopping life a little less painful for users of other networks.
Trading Post Mobile
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Trading Post Launches Mobile Site
10:30AM Angus Kidman | Telstra’s Trading Post auction and classified site has launched a mobile-optimised version, allowing searching, bidding and buying via Internet-enabled phones. Trading Post content has long been free to browse on NextG handsets, but this should make shopping life a little less painful for users of other networks.
Trading Post Mobile
More »
Communicate
