Thursday, December 11, 2008
Work
TinyResMeter Monitors Your System Stats
11:30PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows only: TinyResMeter is an ultra-lightweight and spartan resource metre. While nowhere near as flashy or configurable as Rainmeter, it does run with a much smaller footprint and as a portable application. You can display dozens of variables ranging from system up time to hard disk capacity to the number of processes and threads you have. You can change the colour of the interface and have it displayed in a vertical block or a horizontal band. For another alternative, check out Moo0 SystemMonitor. TinyResMeter is a free portable application, Windows only. Thanks Beldar! TinyResMeter More »
Organise
Thumbtack Stores Text And Web Pages On A Drag-and-Drop Platform
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Microsoft’s latest release from its Live Labs, Thumbtack, aims at some of the same bookmarking territory covered by Delicious, Google Bookmarks, and other store-and-check-later services. It’s not quite as fleshed out as those services in terms of functionality (or bug testing), but its JavaScript-heavy interface makes for easier, mouse-driven organisation and relatively useful page storage. Select text and hit Thumbtack’s bookmarklet, and everything seems to work fine. Hit the bookmarklet on a fresh web page, however, and any JavaScript or coding on the page seems to confuse the pop-up box, though the page stores in stripped-down text form. The box/”gadget” view of your bookmarks is a nice change from the standard vertical list of links, but dragging and dropping between collections can be a bit problematic. Thumbtacks looks like it will be worth checking out later when it’s had a bit more time in the oven. The service is free to use, requires just a username to get started (so, fair warning, your bookmarks may be public). Thumbtack [Microsoft Live Labs via ReadWriteWeb] More »
Communicate
Social Media Netiquette
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Social media maven (and Lifehacker alumnus) Tamar Weinberg has written up “The Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handbook” over at her Techipedia blog, and, based on the breadth of advice and coverage of networking apps, it’s not an inaccurate title. Learn what not to do to benefit from LinkedIn, Twitter, FriendFeed, and other communities from someone who really knows. More »
Work
Is Your Workplace Throwing A Christmas Party This Year?
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | The Job Bored blog points out that one year ago, media outlets and blogs were awash with write-ups on how to “get the most out of your office holiday party” and the like. This year, well, not so much. Still, while many presume that employers make their first cuts to extras like liquor-stocked gatherings, some take a long view of employee morale and team-building and haven’t cut their festivities. We thought we’d ask our readers, in their multitude of workplaces: What’s your workplace doing this year to celebrate the holidays? Is the belt tightening around your festivities, or are you partying like it’s, uh, 2007? Photo by Squish_E. More »
Work
Amarok 2 Released, Windows And Mac Versions In Beta
9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Linux only: Amarok 2, the open source media centre we’d previously toured while it was in beta, is now available in a release version for Linux systems, and in pre-released beta for Windows and OS X. There aren’t a ton of new features between the later beta release and this “final” (that will still get a lot of development focus), but a lot of interface and navigation quirks have been cleaned out. Amarok 2 has been pre-built for most major Linux distributions (with KDE dependencies), while the Windows installation (which ran pretty darned laggy on my XP desktop) can be had through the KDE on Windows installer. Lifehacker East lacks a Mac system, so anyone who’s tried out that beta (PPC and Intel available) can tell us how it runs in the comments. Amarok 2 is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Amarok 2.0 More »
Design
Redesigned Skin Graduates From Better Gmail 2 Extension
8:30PM Gina Trapani | Hey, Gmail Redesigned fans! Your favourite skin is no longer included in the latest version of the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension—to get it, download and install the official Google Redesigned extension instead. It makes more sense to get the goods straight from the horse’s mouth. Special thanks to Redesigned makers Globex Designs for their generosity for letting us keep the style in our extension for this long. Better Gmail users, a new version is now available with updates and fixes and Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 compatibility. Download the latest version of Better Gmail 2 now. More »
Money
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Shopping online already offers many advantages — no crowds, a wider range of products, and the ability to hunt down the best price if you’re after a particular item. It also has another advantage that isn’t easily replicated in real-world shops: the ability to use promotional discount codes to reward regular shoppers or attract new buyers. Bargain codes can be a great way to save money, but a little caution is often sensible.
More »
Getting The Most From Online Store Discount Codes
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Shopping online already offers many advantages — no crowds, a wider range of products, and the ability to hunt down the best price if you’re after a particular item. It also has another advantage that isn’t easily replicated in real-world shops: the ability to use promotional discount codes to reward regular shoppers or attract new buyers. Bargain codes can be a great way to save money, but a little caution is often sensible.
More »
Communicate
1:00PM Angus Kidman | The ABC has begun beta testing a mobile-specific version of its web site, offering access to some of its most popular content including news, sport, weather (with a handy search by postcode feature), ABC TV listings, information from numerous ABC radio stations and the presumably inevitable ABC Shop. The ABC says that the service should work on the iPhone and the BlackBerry, but recommends installing Opera for the latter, which is sound advice; on my BlackBerry Bold, the site was completely unable to render in the regular browser, which is something the ABC should probably look to fix before the final release (the beta test runs until the end of January). Despite that, it’s a welcome addition to the still fairly-sparse ranks of major local sites that have sensible portable device rendering.
ABC Mobile
More »
ABC Beta Testing Mobile Web Site
1:00PM Angus Kidman | The ABC has begun beta testing a mobile-specific version of its web site, offering access to some of its most popular content including news, sport, weather (with a handy search by postcode feature), ABC TV listings, information from numerous ABC radio stations and the presumably inevitable ABC Shop. The ABC says that the service should work on the iPhone and the BlackBerry, but recommends installing Opera for the latter, which is sound advice; on my BlackBerry Bold, the site was completely unable to render in the regular browser, which is something the ABC should probably look to fix before the final release (the beta test runs until the end of January). Despite that, it’s a welcome addition to the still fairly-sparse ranks of major local sites that have sensible portable device rendering.
ABC Mobile
More »
Communicate
11:47AM Angus Kidman | As was rumoured earlier today, iPrimus has joined iiNet and Internode in offering umetered access to the ABC’s iView service to all its broadband customers (the press release just landed in my inbox). Wouldn’t be nice if, in a year’s time, we could look back and say “Remember when only three ISPs offered free access to iView?” More »
iPrimus Joins Unmetered iView Gang
11:47AM Angus Kidman | As was rumoured earlier today, iPrimus has joined iiNet and Internode in offering umetered access to the ABC’s iView service to all its broadband customers (the press release just landed in my inbox). Wouldn’t be nice if, in a year’s time, we could look back and say “Remember when only three ISPs offered free access to iView?” More »
Organise
11:00AM Angus Kidman | Synchronised mobile devices notwithstanding, sometimes you need a hard copy of your calendar for planning meetings and other events. Outlook 2007 offers a handful of printout styles and lets you customise them, but if the options don’t meet your needs, then the Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 might be worth a look. The free Office add-in offers dozens of basic styles and paper types to meet all kinds of printing needs. One other useful option for office workers: the ability to print multiple shared calendars at once. Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 is a free download for Windows users, requires Outlook 2007 and .NET Framework 3.0.
Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 [via Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog]
More »
Outlook 2007 Calendar Printing Assistant Adds Pizzazz To Your Printouts
11:00AM Angus Kidman | Synchronised mobile devices notwithstanding, sometimes you need a hard copy of your calendar for planning meetings and other events. Outlook 2007 offers a handful of printout styles and lets you customise them, but if the options don’t meet your needs, then the Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 might be worth a look. The free Office add-in offers dozens of basic styles and paper types to meet all kinds of printing needs. One other useful option for office workers: the ability to print multiple shared calendars at once. Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 is a free download for Windows users, requires Outlook 2007 and .NET Framework 3.0.
Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 [via Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog]
More » 