Saturday, February 16, 2008
Stream Music from Your Home Computer to Any Browser with JukeFly
12:00PM Adam Pash | Windows only: Listen to your home music library from anywhere through your browser with web site JukeFly. Similar to previously mentioned streaming application Orb, JukeFly runs a small server on your desktop that scans any music folders you add to it and makes all of that music available through their slick web interface. With its extensive social features, JukeFly is actually a little more reminiscent of Anywhere.fm, the main difference being that Anywhere.FM actually stores your music on their servers, whereas JukeFly streams the music from your computer. Either way, add JukeFly to the list of worthwhile methods for getting to your music library no matter where you are. JukeFly More »
Better YouTube Firefox Extension Back on Its Feet
11:18AM Gina Trapani | Just released an updated version of the Better YouTube Firefox extension, with fixes to the alternate video player and international support. Download Better YouTube fresh here; current users can hit Update in Firefox’s Add-ons dialog. More »
Fix Stuck Pixels on Your Monitor with Killdeadpixel
10:00AM Adam Pash | Fix stuck pixels on your LCD monitor with web site Killdeadpixel. Like previously mentioned JScreenFix, Killdeadpixel unsticks pixels by displaying a quickly changing, high-contrast graphic over the pixel—but Killdeadpixel does it with a neat little draggable graphic, so you can just place the unobtrusive graphic over your stuck pixel and let it do its work. Despite the site’s name (which is a misnomer), a stuck pixel is normally stuck showing red, green, blue, or a combination of those colors, and that is what this site can help with. A dead pixel, on the other hand, will display only black. Luckily dead pixels can be fixed with another method. Killdeadpixel [via UneasySilence] More »
Best Gear for Winter Cycling
9:00AM Gina Trapani | Cyclist Matt Haughey is logging some serious miles despite the Oregon winter, and describes what gear keeps him from freezing his tuckus off in the saddle (and hanging his bike up in the fall): The thing holding me back and hanging up my bike each fall was simply being too cold when riding. While I could handle cold temps on my legs, it was mostly my ears and hands freezing from lack of coverage. Also, I avoided riding in the rain, which in Oregon can be the majority of winter days. This winter I decided to spend a few weeks and a few hundred dollars testing out everything I could find to try and get some comfort when temps got cold and the weather turned wet. Like Matt says, this gear ain’t cheap, but it might be as expensive as an indoor gym membership. Any winter cyclists or runners have gear you love and would freeze without? Tell us about it in the comments. Winter riding tips for your road bike [A Whole Lotta Nothing] More »
DIY Laptop Stand for the Bed
8:00AM Adam Pash | DIY web site Instructables steps through how to build a laptop stand for your supine computing needs for about $15. Once you’ve bought all the necessary materials, the actual stand won’t take more than about 30 minutes to put together, and the end product is virtually the same as the $140 Laptop Laidback stand pictured here. A better laptop stand for bed [Instructables via Make] More »
Calculate Your 2008 Tax Rebate
7:00AM Gina Trapani | US-centric: Thanks to the economic stimulus package President Bush just signed into law, eligible U.S. taxpayers will receive a tax rebate—and the Consumerism Commentary blog put together a handy calculator to figure out exactly how much. Plug your income and other tax info from your 2007 return into the calculator and get back the rebate amount (if you qualify). Apparently this rebate doesn’t affect your 2007 taxes; instead you’ll get it this coming summer 2008. Economic Stimulus Tax Rebate Calculator [Consumerism Commentary via Get Rich Slowly] More »
Speed Up Your Monthly Bill Pay with Firefox
6:00AM Adam Pash | Reader Adam speeds up his monthly bill-paying process by setting up a bills folder in Firefox, then bookmarking all of his online bill pay homepages. When it’s time to pay bills, he just middle-clicks his Bills folder (or selects the Open All in Tabs option) to open all of the homepages in Firefox. Then, starting from the first tab, he pays the bill, closes the tab, and moves forward to the next one. That way not only does he not have to hunt down his merchants’ homepages every month when it’s time to pay bills, but this also ensures that he doesn’t forget to pay any of his monthly bills. If you’re not using your bank’s automatic bill pay feature, this method seems like a great way to stay on top of your monthly bills. Got a better method? Let’s hear it in the comments. More »
Reclaim Memory by Mastering Windows’ Task Manager
4:00AM Kevin Purdy | The best way to speed up your PC is to give it more available memory—but freeing up as much of the memory you already have is cheaper and easier than cracking open your case to install a new stick of RAM. It takes a lot of memory to get a modern Windows system up and … well, not doing anything in particular, really. Between cryptic system processes, confusing “helper” applications, and background utilities, a whole lot of who-knows-what gobbles up memory and slows down your work. While a lot of programs claim to optimse memory use and pare down processes, Windows’ built-in Task Manager can do the job just fine, given the right tools and know-how. Today you’ll extend and empower Windows’ Task Manager to speed up your system by cutting out unnecessary memory hogs. More »
