Sunday, April 27, 2008
Photograph Your Vegetable Garden
11:00PM Gina Trapani | Document your green thumb’s handiwork this growing season by taking photos of the flowers and vegetables in your garden. Photographer and gardener Joel Heffner has some tips for getting the best snaps of your garden, like filling the frame and getting an interesting angle. Most people take garden pictures by aiming the camera downward, because it’s easier than bending down or crawling in the dirt. The problem is our eye level may not be the best angle from which to take a photo. Try to move around and look for interesting angles—front, back, side, top and bottom views. Also, Heffner says that cloudy days are better than sunny ones for getting good pics without harsh shadows. How’s your garden doing? Post your photos in the comments. Even the vegetable garden can yield beautiful photos [SI Live] More »
TotalTunes Control Swallows the Best iTunes Add-Ons
11:00AM Adam Pash | Mac OS X only: Freeware application TotalTunes Control is an all-in-one iTunes controller and add-on that rolls track notifications, Last.fm integration, Growl notifications, keyboard shortcuts into one beautiful, fun to use package. When we recently featured free alternatives to the MacHeist bundle, we included handful of freeware iTunes controllers that could take the place of CoverSutra, but TotalTunes Control blows the whole bunch out of the water. It’s got loads of worthwhile functionality, it’s very attractive, and best of all, it’s freeware. If you’re looking for more ways to make the most of iTunes, check out our top 23 iTunes add-ons. More »Fill a Used Print Cartridge with Invisible Ink
9:30AM Kevin Purdy | If you’ve got a spare printer ink cartridge and a document you only want one person to see—or just some free time and a cloak-and-dagger kick—one helpful Metacafe post has a project for you. The tutorial requires a utility knife, some invisible ink pens and a syringe, and an empty ink cartridge, with black seeming to be an easier solution that the yellow-only solution the creator recommends. It’s a fun way to cover up sensitive documents, and a guaranteed friend impresser as well. How Make Invisible Printer Ink [Metacafe via Instructables] More »
Should Microsoft Extend XP’s Life?
8:00AM Adam Pash | Both Windows users in love with XP and those in hate with Vista continue to cry out to Microsoft for clemency, hoping that XP might be spared from the chopping block come June 30th (the last day XP will be sold in stores). Vista’s been out in the wild for a solid year now, but even so, more users than Microsoft could ever have intended still aren’t ready or willing to trade in XP for the shinier, debatably improved upgrade to the Windows line. We consider Lifehacker readers to be very willing adopters when an upgrade is worth it, so we want to know where you stand on the issue. More »
Print Your Own Ruled Paper
6:30AM Kevin Purdy | Need some lined paper for note-taking, graph paper for drawing, or bi-colour paper for budgets? Printable Paper has you covered, assuming you’ve got access to a printer. All of the many, many templates are free and available in PDF format, and go far beyond 8.5 x 11 sheets to business cards, receipts and invoices, and beyond. Good starting point for making your own templates, or a good bookmark for those moments where one sheet can hold you over. Printable Paper [via MakeUseOf.com] More »
De-Clump Sugar with a Slice of Bread
5:00AM Gina Trapani | You’re about to do some weekend baking and pull out the container of brown sugar only to find it’s dried into a collection of hard clumps. The LifeSpy blog says you can use a slice of bread to soften it up again. Place the sugar in a microwavable container and place a slice of bread in the container on the sugar. Seal the container tightly and microwave for 15 seconds. The moisture from the bread will raise the pressure in the container and the steam will soften the sugar and you can now easily work on the clumps. A slice of bread can also keep cookies fresh, too. Thanks, Jason! How to Soften Brown Sugar Clumps [LifeSpy] More »
Master the Excel IF Function
3:30AM Gina Trapani | The spreadsheet formula experts at the Productivity Portfolio blog offer an introduction to Excel’s crazy-useful IF function. In short, IF sets the contents of a spreadsheet cell conditionally, based on a test. A formula like =IF(A1>90, "A", "Less than an A") would set the cell to equal A if A1’s value was greater than 90, and Less than an A if A1’s value was 90 or lower. This works in all modern spreadsheet proggies, not just Excel—including Google Spreadsheets. If you haven’t used IF, go check out the tutorial which has an example sheet to download and try it yourself. Excel IF Function Tutorial [Productivity Portfolio] More »Speed Up Ubuntu Updates with a Mirror Server
2:00AM Kevin Purdy | As anyone trying to download or upgrade the latest version of Ubuntu likely found, the servers at Ubuntu can get pretty overwhelmed, especially on new release days. The (unofficial) Ubuntu Blog points out a list of mirror sites you can use to speed up your software updates and avoid strained servers. Look through the “Mirror-Mirrors” list for a location near you, copy the “http://” or “ftp://” line, and then head to your system’s sources list, found in /etc/apt/sources.list. Make a backup copy, and then replace all instances of http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu with your mirror server line, and you should notice faster response times when updating or downloading new packages. 22x Faster Upgrade [Ubuntu Blog] More »
