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The Stupid Things You Do On Facebook (And How To Fix Them) Here’s a tip to help you avoid a parking fine if you’re a Sydney driver – moving your car just a few spots (or even around the corner) before the expiry of a timed parking restriction may not be enough to avoid getting a parking ticket.The SMH reported yesterday that a woman lost her appeal against a $79 parking fine she was given even though she moved her car before the 2-hour parking limit expired, into a spot around the corner.To avoid a parking fine, you need to leave the “parking sector” – and it looks like that’s a bit of a grey area:
“A parking sector… is usually an area between two [sign-posted]one-directional arrows, unless indicated otherwise. Generally a zone would not extend beyond one street, but we’d have to check with [the]council if this is the case here.”
The woman who was fined was parked in One Island Drive, Pyrmont. It sounds like enforcement is at the discretion of the council involved – so you may want to check with your local council about how they define “parking sectors” or play it safe and drive a decent distance away if you have to move your car.
Google has just souped up its ability to ‘teleport’ you to the exact website you want, even if you just type in its generic name without the appropriate .com or .net ending. Now it has added a supplementary search box which will crop up in the search results for the site you’re looking for.
The writeup on the Official Google Blog gives the example of searching for “NASA” when you’re looking for information about the Hubble telescope. The search result for NASA pops up a few NASA specific links, followed by the “search within the site” search box (as pictured above).
This secondary search box won’t appear for every search, however. Google hasn’t said which sites will get the ‘search withiin the site’ box – it’s down to Google’s secret algorithymic sauce, apparently. “This feature will now occur when we detect a high probability that a user wants more refined search results within a specific site,” reads the blog post.
Search within a site – a tale of teleportation [Official Google Blog]
If you’ve been following along with the long-running Hacker vs. iPhone saga that’s been dragging out since the iPhone’s release late last June, your days of jailbreaking may finally be coming to an end. Today, Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple have announced their official support for third-party applications along with Enterprise support for push email and calendars, Activesync and Exchange support. Hit the jump for more details and what this means for your and your iPhone or iPod touch.
We’ve got IMAP for email, iCal and other syncing options for calendars, but what about our address books? Most likely you use a combination of proprietary services like Facebook and other social networks, desktop address books, cell phone and webmail contact lists to keep track of who’s who in your life, but there’s still no easy way to maintain and sync your digital Rolodex wherever you need it.
Dear Lifehacker,
I’ve found myself many times en route to the airport to pick up someone wanting to check if the flight is on time. I typically have to call a friend to check this online. Are there any services that offer flight arrival info by phone?
Signed, Airport Pickup
Firefox with Greasemonkey only: The YouTube H.264 user script adds a link to view and download the higher-quality version of YouTube videos in page. You already know how to hack YouTube URLs to access a higher resolution and audio quality version of a clip, and this script makes downloading the HQ version easy. (See the difference between regular and HQ videos.) Be warned: This script can take time to render the links (sometimes it hangs indefinitely), and the HQ version isn’t available for all videos. Once the kinks get ironed out, I’ll add it to the Better YouTube extension. The YouTube H.264 user script is a free download that works with Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension. YouTube H.264 [Userscripts.org]
Most of our readers, savvy searchers that they are, likely know all about Google’s “site:whatever.com” function, which lets you search for a term inside a specific web site. Now the search engine has made it possible to do this-site-only searches from a search box underneath certain top results (based on, the company says, “metrics that measure how useful the search box is to users”). It might be convenient if you stumble upon a site you didn’t know about in your own searching, but it’s also an easy way to help your less web-savvy Uncle Bif and Aunt Marge find what they’re looking for, rather than explaining the semantics of search to them. Search within a site: A tale of teleportation [via ArsGeek]
A slow or error-prone Outlook might mean your Personal Folders—the place where all your appointments, messages, and other data are kept—are corrupt and in need of some fixin’. The How-To Geek shows you the ins and outs of using a built-in Outlook tool to back up and repair your data, and hopefully get Outlook moving a little swifter once again. The Geek’s tutorial should work for most any running version of Outlook. For a backup-only solution, try another free Microsoft tool. Fix Your Broken Outlook Personal Folders (PST) File [The How-To Geek]
Want to keep an ever-present eye on an item you just know is going to go discount at any moment? Price!pinx offers a price-watching service that doesn’t require searching (like PriceAmbush) or limit itself only to Amazon, eBay, or any other big-name site. You provide your email address to Price!pinx, then add their bookmarklet to your browser’s links bar. When you see a price you think/hope will go lower, highlight it and then hit the “!pinx” link. The site will then email you when it notices a drop in the digits. Looks like pretty handy stuff, although I haven’t had the good fortune to see an item go on sale in the last 30 minutes. Let us know if you’ve used this service, or prefer another, in the comments. Price!pinx [via The Red Ferret Journal]
