Thursday, February 7, 2008
Defrag
11:30PM Tamar Weinberg | Two years ago, you learned how to schedule a defrag of your harddrive with Windows. More »
Unobfusticate the Australian Financial Review
6:50PM Sarah Stokely | If you follow Australian news online news, you probably know that the Australian Financial Review locks up most of its online content to paid subscribers only. Recently they’ve been loosening up this policy somewhat – so you’ll sometimes see AFR content posted over at the website of sister magazine, MIS.But the AFR seems pretty attached to its online copy. So much so that recently it’s begun “obfuscating” its pages so that if you select text in the browser (or view source), it litters the text with “ ” converting it to unreadable gibberish – presumably to stop people cutting and pasting their content.This is bizarre – often people like to cut and paste to read later, or to email to a friend to tell them about the article, or to quote in their blog. Enter the Deobfusticator - a website created by Lindsay Evans which lets you enter an AFR URL and get a page of readable text in return. Thanks for helping us keep the Fin somewhat user friendly, Lindsay. :) More » 
Coming up on Lifehacker: We review the OLPC XO laptop!
6:35PM Sarah Stokely | I’m pleased to say that while I was at the OLPC love-fest that was Linux.conf.au last week, I managed to snag one of their XO mini-laptops to review. We have two in the household so we’ll be able to test out some of their cool mesh networking capabilities. I’m also keen to see how it stacks up as a mini-laptop compared to the *other* geek toy du jour, the ASUS Eee PC.Watch this space for the full review plus pictures. :) More » 
What are your favourite tips for tab control in Firefox
3:45PM Sarah Stokely | We here at Lifehacker love rocking the ‘fox, and we love our browser extensions too. Every time my computer or browser crashes and Firefox offers to reopen all the tabs I had open before the crash, I’m reminded of what a fan I am of tabbed browsing.I’ve been exploring some tab control addons which were suggested by the MakeUseOf blog – and while there are some suggestions there I liked (colouring your tabs, using Vertigo to create a tabs column down the left hand side of your browser), there’s one functionality I’m searching for, and I’m hoping Lifehacker readers might have the answer.I often end up with 10-15 open tabs that I want to save for later reading. Right now I manually bookmark each one, which means closing my browser takes way too long. I’d love a way to mass bookmark and close my open tabs (preferably to del.icio.us, but just in Firefox’s onboard bookmarks if that’s not an option). Is there a tool to let me single click save all those tabs?Any tips welcome. More » Reduce kitchen clutter by buying multi-purpose tools
3:15PM Sarah Stokely | If you love cooking but you have a small kitchen (or budget) you can reduce the number of appliances you need by buying only multi-purpose tools – and devising new ways to use the ones you have.Once you’re in the mindset of adapting the tools you have at hand, you’ll surprise yourself with what you can do. When I was growing up my mother used a wok for just about all the cooking – she could even bake cakes in it!The Wise Bread blog has some great suggestions – like getting your strainer to pull triple duty as a strainer, sifter and colander: The trick with sifting? Tape the strainer over the bowl.There were a couple of nice cooking techniques which, once mastered, will let you get rid of single purpose items like a garlic press (just use the flat blade of a wide knife) or a potato masher (make them in your mixer).Got a favourite suggestion for equipment that can do double duty in the kitchen? Please share in comments.
Cooking without crepe pans and other expensive kitchen tools [Wise Bread] More » 
Prioritise Your Next Actions with the Priority Planning Worksheet
3:00PM Adam Pash | To help prioritise his projects and next actions, blogger Ian McKenzie put together a free Priority Planning Worksheet available as a PDF download. The worksheet uses a simple calculus for determining the best order of tackling your next actions by assigning importance and urgency factors to each item. Once you’ve ordered your actions, the worksheet asks you to list and describe each item and the steps required to complete them. If your personal productivity benefits from structured systems, McKenzie’s worksheet might be just the ticket for you. Priority Planning Model and Worksheet [Ian's Messy Desk] More »
Turn Your Nokia Phone into a Wi-Fi Hotspot with JoikuSpot
2:00PM Adam Pash | Nokia S60 phones only: Freeware mobile application JoikuSpot Light turns your phone into a wireless hotspot that you can use, for example, to connect your laptop to the internet anywhere you’ve got your phone. JoikuSpot does what previously mentioned WMWiFiRouter does for Windows Mobile phones (though WMWiFiRouter seems to have gone MIA). Granted, there are plenty of ways to share your phone or even iPhone for wireless access, but apps like JoikuSpot and WMWiFiRouter make the process impressively simple. JoikuSpot is freeware, Nokia S60 phones only. I wasn’t able to test it, so if you give it a try let’s hear how it worked for you in the comments. JoikuSpot [via Gizmodo] More »
7 Habits of Highly Effective… Spaceship Captains
1:50PM Sarah Stokely | If you’re on the sci-fi nerd end of the geek spectrum, you may already have seen Gawker’s new sci-fi blog, IO9. Today they offer up a taste of “GTD in Space” with some tongue in cheek pointers we can take from the great leaders of sci-fi.For example, Han Solo’s bucket of bolts ship the Millennium Falcon taught us that just because you have a crappy ship doesn’t make you a loser – which in geek lingo translates to: “Every crappy PC is a lean, mean Linux box waiting to be born”. :)I offered my own suggestion too – Captain Mal Reynolds from Firefly taught us that even if your project gets cancelled (*sob*) if it’s great code your users will stick with you. :)
Seven Habits of Highly Effective Spaceship Captains [IO9]
More » iPhoto
1:33PM Sarah Stokely | Apple has finally brought iPhoto photo albums to Australia. Prices start at 29c for an individual photo, or $39.99 plus postage for an album. Other products like calendars are also available – but you’ll need iLife ‘08 and iPhoto version 7.1.2 to play. More » 
