Thursday, February 21, 2008
DIY Remote Camera Trigger
3:00PM Adam Pash | DIY web site Instructables details how to turn a $3 hands-free phone headset into a remote shutter trigger for your digital camera. The trigger described in the tutorial should work with most digital cameras with a 2.5mm plug for remote triggering (including the popular Canon Rebel). From start to finish the project takes about five minutes, and you can’t beat the price. We’ve highlighted a much more involved remote trigger in the past, so if for some reason this method won’t work for you and you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, you might want to give that a look. Remote shutter trigger for Digital Cameras [Instructables] More »
Disable the Right Mouse Button?
2:00PM Adam Pash | Dear Lifehacker, I’ve been searching around for a solution to disabling the right mouse button for my son, Xander (4), who gets very frustrated when he inadvertently mashes the right button. There’s a shareware program out there that fits the bill, but I’m hoping that there is a freeware program, or some other solution that will completely disable the right button for when he is logged in. Yours, Too-Many-Buttons Dear Buttons, Whipping together a script and simple program to disable the right-click button on your mouse is a breeze using AutoHotkey. Hit the jump to see how and to download the KillRightClick script and executable. More »
Turn Your Favorite RSS Feeds into a Newspaper with FeedJournal
12:00PM Adam Pash | Web application FeedJournal turns your RSS feed(s) of choice into a newspaper-formatted PDF. You can either enjoy the newspaper-ness of the electronic PDF on your computer, or you can print out the paper for some offline, dead-tree reading. FeedJournal probably isn’t the best solution for feeds that generally have shorter items (like the main Lifehacker feed), but longer articles fit really well in the FeedJournal layout. FeedJournal is free to use, requires registration with the site. FeedJournal [via Download Squad] More »Boycott
11:01AM Sarah Stokely | A week-long boycott of eBay has been announced via YouTube. The boycott is protesting against recent changes – including fee increases and the removal of the seller’s ability to leave negative feedback on buyers. It’s not known how many eBayers are participating in the boycott, although eBay has responded to some of their claims in a CNET article. More »
Getting Dinner Done with a Weekly Meal Plan
11:00AM Gina Trapani | The organised bloggers over at Unclutterer say that answering the question “What’s for dinner?” is a lot easier if you’ve got a plan—a weekly meal plan, that is. Map out your “utilitarian meals” on a simple grid where you list recipes for each day of the week and compile your grocery list in the sidebar. Put together your plan on Sundays before your grocery store visit, and take all the work out of figuring out what to eat next. Unclutterer offers a PDF or Excel spreadsheet weekly meal plan worksheet for download, too. Creating a weekly meal plan [Unclutterer] More »Improve your networking skills with a good follow up email
10:36AM Sarah Stokely | Whether you’re a freelancer or working for a business, you can improve your networking skills by actively following up after you meet new contacts. Dumping a business card into a pile and then forgetting about it doesn’t help – but a good follow up email could help you turn that contact into a lead for a freelance assignment, some business for your company, or even a new job for you.The Freelance Switch blog advises that a generic ‘nice to meet you’ email won’t cut it – you need to send an email which is personal, follows up on the particular conversation you had with the person, and is asking for (or offering) something useful.
“Follow this simple formula — state what you can do with confidence,
list 3 or more things they’ll get and the benefits of each, then close
with a testimonial and a way to keep in touch — and your networking
efforts will be the foundation for a healthy business that brings you
more work and more clients than you ever imagined.”
Got any tips for how to follow up with a new business contact? Please share in comments.
A Simple Follow Up Formula [Freelance Switch] More » More ideas on handling the death of HD-DVD
10:20AM Sarah Stokely | Yesterday we pointed you to Gizmodo US’s take on how to handle the death of HD-DVD (their tip: sell off your player on eBay before the rest of the world realises it’s a dead format). But Nick over at Giz AU has come up with a pretty good alternative – he says there’s around 1,000 movies out there on HD-DVD, and you’ll be able to scoop them up pretty cheaply, so why not hang onto your player and get your money’s worth. Makes sense to me.He’s also got some tips on how to best get into Blu-ray (PS3!) – remembering that you need an HD TV and surround sound to get the most out of it.
So Blu-ray won the format war – now what? [Gizmodo AU] More » Retrieve Any File on Your Home Computer via Email, Windows Edition
10:00AM Adam Pash | In response to our recent post on retrieving files on your Mac via email, Lifehacker reader and blogger Shantanu Goel built a Microsoft Outlook macro to perform the same function for the Windows crowd. Like the original AppleScript, Shantanu’s macro requires a “magic word” in the subject of the email to trigger the macro; then you need to know the full path to the file you want to retrieve. If you’re not that familiar with your filesystem, it’s probably not the solution for you. If you are familiar with the paths to your important files, though, this macro offers a great way to retrieve the file you forgot, and you can retrieve it anywhere you have email access. Remote File Access Through E-Mail [My Technophilic Musings via Shantanu.Goel] More »Windows Update
9:09AM Gina Trapani | Microsoft makes the second release candidate of Windows XP Service Pack 3 publicly available for testing purposes. If you’re feeling like giving your XP some early adopter love, run a registry modification program to install SP3 RC1 via Windows Update. But be warned the release notes are kinda “eh.” More »
