Saturday, January 19, 2008
Turn Your Rock Band Drums into a Real Synth Set
2:00PM Adam Pash | Windows only: You’ve already honed your Rock Band chops, so now it’s time to use video game Rock Band’s drum set as a real synth set that you can play connected to your PC with freeware application Drum Machine. As you can see from the video, the application works allows all the freestyling you always wished you could do in Rock Band, record your playing, or change the kit’s sounds. It required a little effort getting it all set up—Windows automatically recognised and installed the necessary drivers when I plugged it in, but I was missing a DLL file that prevented the app from running off the bat. But I found the DLL here, copied it to my C:\Windows\system directory, and the app ran without a hitch. Drum Machine is freeware, Windows only. It’s performance will likely depend on the speed of your computer. Drum Machine [AndrewRudson] More »
Listen to Pandora Outside the U.S. with GlobalPandora
12:00PM Adam Pash | Web site globalPandora unlocks the popular web-based music discovery service, Pandora, for users outside of the United States. We’ve highlighted how to access Pandora by using web proxies, but globalPandora handles all the nitty- gritty for you so that all you need to do is point your browser to the globalPandora web site and start listening. Already a heavy Pandora listener? Check out 15 ways to get more from Pandora. globalPandora [via UneasySilence] More »How Do You Save on Heating Bills (and Keep Warm)?
11:00AM Gina Trapani | ‘Tis the season for nippy weather and high heating bills. If you’re sick of seeing your cash fly out the window into the cold, Real Simple magazine offers some tips for lowering your bill in the lower temperatures, like turning on the ceiling fan to blow down hot air, turning down the temperature on the water heater, and closing off unused rooms. How do you save a few bucks on the heating bill? Tell us your tricks in the comments. Save on Home Heating This Winter [Real Simple] More »
Turn Your Browser into a TelePrompTer with CuePrompter
10:00AM Adam Pash | Web site CuePrompter takes any chunk of text (up to 2000 characters at a time) and displays it TelePrompTer-style in an auto-scrolling, high-contrast window. You can adjust the TelePrompTer speed, text size, and display mode (normal or mirrored, if you are actually going to set it up with a reflective glass for full-on TelePrompTer duties. The web app does exactly what it says, and though you may not regularly emcee large events or hand out Academy awards, it could at the very least come in handy next time you’re practicing up for a presentation. CuePrompter claims to be Windows and IE only, but I had no problem using it on a Mac in Firefox (display mirroring was the only feature that was IE-only). CuePrompter [via eHub] More »Tour
9:30AM Tamar Weinberg | One year ago, you explored beyond iTunes, VLC, and Winamp with a screenshot tour of Jajuk music player. More »
Recycle Old Skis into a DIY Sled
9:10AM Gina Trapani | If you’ve got an old pair of skis gathering dust in the garage, turn them into a killer sled with an easy mod. The Out Your Backdoor blog explains: What you do is take a plastic tub sled ($10 hardware store) and screw a pair of XC skis to the bottom of it—if it’s a sled for kids—or a pair of metal-edge downhill skis if adults might use it. Use stout, short screws and big washers to avoid pull-thru. Then you glue foam-padding to the inside of the tub. Apparently the resulting sled goes superfast, straight and far, but good luck turning with it. Looks like a fun project with the kids when hitting the slopes isn’t possible. Project: Homemade World’s Best Sled! [Out Your Backdoor via Make] More »Ouch
8:48AM Adam Pash | It ain’t pretty, but if you’re desperate to increase the volume of your iPhone’s speaker, weblog Engadget says poking holes in the speaker cover with a needle can yield a 40% increase in volume. More »Add Public Holidays to Your Outlook 2003 Calendar
8:00AM Adam Pash | Windows with Office/Outlook 2003: If you’re neck-deep in Outlook but you haven’t made the jump to Office 2007 yet, you may have noticed that Outlook doesn’t display public holidays past 2007 (seems a bit too convenient to be a coincidence, doesn’t it?). But out of the kindness of its heart, Microsoft is offering an update for Outlook and Office 2003 to provide holidays up to 2012—at which point we’ll all obviously be running Office 2011. Outlook and Office 2003 Public Calendar Update [Microsoft via One Tip A Day] More »Track Goal Progress and To-Do’s on Google Calendar
7:07AM Gina Trapani | After trying Remember the Milk, Todoist, Sandy, and Basecamp, blogger Zee found his best solution for tracking goals and tasks in Google Calendar. He created five-year, one-year, and then quarterly goals. For each three-month goal, he creates a new, different-coloured calendar, and schedules tasks along the road to completion. By the end of it you should have a calendar full of your tasks, appointments and all of them focused on achieving goals which you set yourself. The important thing to remember is always think when you’re about to add a task: “Which three month goal is this helping me achieve?” If the answer is none, dump it. I use Google Calendar to schedule milestones along the way to goals (like saving money) as well, and with email reminders, it’s an effective way at least to keep your finish line in your mind as the year progresses. Google Calendar as a Todo List [Creative Thoughts] More »
