Thursday, January 17, 2008
Get offline for a day to recharge your brain
5:21PM Sarah Stokely | The balance between staying connected and being able to work free of distractions is often a difficult one to manage. Lifehack.org advocates taking a day a month as a “communications blackout day” – saying it will return some peace and perspective to your life, give you back some time for other work and free up one of your most precious commodities – your mental processing power:
If you’re one of those people that answer e-mails and phone calls as
soon as you get them (no matter what you’re doing) the first big boost
you’ll probably notice is increased room to think. Tim Ferriss in the
4-Hour Workweek points to a study that showed participants mental
ability was slowed more from a Blackberry than marijuana use.
Suggestions for your monthly blackout include unplugging your modem, TV and mobile phone. Empty your inbox the afternoon before, so the longest your new messages will have to wait is 24 hours.
When I’m tight on deadline I’ve found that closing my browser and email and turning off my mobile phone does wonders for my concentration. How do you get into a distraction-free zone? Share in comments please.
Save Your Sanity – Have a Communications Blackout Day [Lifehack.org]
More » 
Songbeat Like (Old-School) Napster for One-Off Music Downloads
3:00PM Adam Pash | Windows only: Freeware application Songbeat scours previously mentioned music streaming service Seeqpod for tunes, then streams or downloads the music directly to your desktop. Just install the app (the installer asks for your email address, but I was able to install without entering anything), fire it up, and start searching. You can choose to either stream or download any of the search results, but downloading will automatically save the MP3 to your default music folder or to any other folder of your choice (though streaming is handy to check the quality before you download). You can play back any of the downloaded files in the My Music section of the player or—you know—in your media player of preference. Songbeat grabs results from Seeqpod fast, and the downloads are generally very quick. Songbeat is freeware, Windows only (a “Pro” version is available and a Mac version is coming in 2-4 weeks). Put this one at the top of the ever-growing list of ways you can download and listen to free music from the web. More »
Find the Nearest ATM with the ATM Locator
2:00PM Adam Pash | Visa’s ATM Locator finds and lists ATMs in your area and displays them on a Microsoft Virtual Earth mashup. The site could be a bit more user-friendly, but the results are fast and could come in particularly handy if you’re in unfamiliar territory (it covers ATMs globally, as we’ve mentioned before). Give it a try for your neighborhood and let us know how accurate the results look—or if you’re aware of a better alternative—in the comments. ATM Locator [via MakeUseOf] More »NoMovie
1:59PM Sarah Stokely | Apple Australia has confirmed that we won’t be getting a piece of the
iTunes movie rental action which was announced at Macworld in San
Francisco this week. The local iTunes store has always lagged behind the US store – we still can’t download TV episodes, for example, so it wasn’t a big surprise. More » Stay Functional on Two Hours of Sleep a Night
1:00PM Gina Trapani | The latest issue of Wired magazine describes how people with round-the-clock gigs (like astronauts and sailors) manage to get by on two hours of sleep total per day. Studies by the Chronobiology Research Institute recommend getting your Z’s in short bursts: The most time-efficient strategy, dubbed the überman (what else?), calls for a 20-minute nap every four hours… The first seven days of deprivation will be sheer misery, but stay on track. Once you start dreaming during naps — a sign you’ve hit REM — you’ll begin to feel better. Yikes! A hardier blogger who didn’t love to sleep as much as I do might actually try this out. I love you people, but seven days of misery is too much. (Wired warns that this isn’t intended to be a permanent lifestyle change, and long-term effects of this schedule are unknown.) See also our top 10 ways to sleep smarter and better. Cheat on the Need to Sleep [Wired How To's] More »Photo bonanza
12:27PM Gina Trapani | The Library of Congress has added 3,000 copyright-free, public domain photos to Flickr. The catch? It’s up to us to tag them all. [via] More »
Translate Text in Microsoft Word 2007
12:00PM Adam Pash | The How-To Geek weblog highlights a translation feature new to Microsoft Word 2007 that—obviously enough—translates highlighted text directly in Word. To use it, highlight your to-be-translated text, head your the Review ribbon, and click the Translate button. Word can translate either the entire document or just your selection, and it does it through an online translation service. The number of available languages is impressive, so you should be able to translate virtually anything you need. If browser-based translation is more your speed, check out the best translation services on the net. Translate Selected Text in Microsoft Word 2007 [the How-To Geek] More »Australian guide to recycling
11:41AM Sarah Stokely | A poster to the eco-australia blog has put together a helpful guide for maximising your recycling mojo and reducing the amount you put into landfill.
Local resources for rehoming your old stuff include Freecycle Today and e-Cycled. The Australian Giving Centre lists organisations that will accept donated blankets, clothes, computers, mobile phones, furniture, bikes and more.
Along with some useful links to places you can recycle stuff, it also
has a checklist you can use to work out if you can find a home for your
old stuff before putting it in the bin:
Can it be recycled?
Can it be composted?
Can it be donated?
Can it be sold/traded?
Can it be given away free to a friend or neighbour?
Can I use it for something else?
Can I make it into something else
Where is the best/safest place to dispose of it (if it is dangerous to the environment eg. paints)?
I would also highly recommend calling your local council or checking their website for a guide to what you can recycle through their rubbish collection service – the Port Phillip Council in Melbourne has a very useful 1 page guide which said what kind of household items can be recycled and which can’t – along with translations of the different recycling codes you find on plastic bottles and the like. Stick it on your fridge!
So how’s your recycling mojo? If you have tricks for reducing, reusing or repurposing things, please share in comments.
Recycling Links [eco_australia]
More » Why you should make a will
11:27AM Sarah Stokely | Most of us have enough to do filing tax forms and getting our day to day paperwork under control, let along thinking about future events like writing a will. But preparing a legally sound will now will save your loved ones from having to deal with the tidying up your affairs after you’re gone. The Wise Bread blog gives a sad example of the toll this burden took on a widow who spent years trying to finalise the will and estate of her late husband:
“After three years of toiling to resolve his estate (which appeared uncomplicated at the onset) and paying off the ensuing bills which ended up being over $100,000, my friend wanted a divorce from her late husband.“
If you’re interested in finding out more about how and why to prepare a will, the Law Society of NSW has some information here. There are also some cheapie, do it yourself will kits which you can buy for around $30 – I’ve even seen them at the Post Office.
Estate Planning – Why Me? [Wise Bread] More » 
