Create your own web site with the free what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) web site builder Webon. Webon provides a simple solution for people with no experience with web publishing. That’s not to say that you can’t insert your own custom HTML or stylesheets, but if you don’t have experience with any of that, Webon will take care of it for you. Likewise, when you’re done Webon publishes your site to a custom subdomain, like http://lifehacker.webonsites.com (though you can get a custom domain for a fee). It’s got several templates to get started, from blogs to photo albums, as well as several one-click add-ons to spice up your site. Be sure to check out the video demo on the homepage to get a better idea of how it works. If you’re interested in starting up a simple web site with virtually no learning curve, Webon looks like a good choice. Webon
Last night here in San Diego Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer showed off Windows 7′s biggest new feature—multi-touch integration—and today Google demo’ed their touch-enabled Android phone software. Judging from the iPhone’s popularity, and the previews of these major software apps, it looks like actual keyboards and mice are on their way towards becoming obsolete. Impressed? Not so much? Hit the play button on the video above to see the multi-touch Windows 7 demo. Then tell us what you think of everything heading towards touch interfaces after the jump.
Windows only: The freeware Google Earth plug-in integrates Google Earth with your web browser, embedding the 3-D glory of Earth in Firefox or Internet Explorer. The results, which you can see in the video above, are impressive. There isn’t a ton of Google Earth plug-in integration on the web yet, but check out the samples to understand the possibilities, like switching between Google Maps and Earth on-the-fly. The Google Earth plug-in is Windows only, supports Firefox and Internet Explorer. Google Earth API [Google Code via Google Blogoscoped]
Mac OS X Leopard only: Today’s release of Mac OS 10.5.3 added a juicy little tidbit to Address Book: the ability to automatically sync your Google contacts. After you’ve run Software Update and gotten 10.5.3 (and restarted your Mac), hit up Address Book’s Preferences pane. At the button of the General tab, check off the “Synchronize with Google” box to get started. Be sure to back up your address book before you sync, and see the FAQ for more info. Update: Several commenters rightly point out that this capability only exists for iPhone owners, which is quite possibly a crappier move than forcing Safari onto Windows users on Apple’s part. Time to switch to Linux.
Just posted an update to the Better GCal Firefox extension, which adds Firefox 3 support, and an updated current timeline. Download it here.
Erin from organisation weblog Unclutterer loves taking notes in books, so whenever she checks a book out from the library or borrows a book from a friend, she buys a stack of sheer colour Post-it notes. The notes are see-through, which means that whenever you want to circle a passage or make notes, you can just plop one down on top of the page and make your notes just like you normally would. If you’ve been reprimanded a time or two for your highlighting and notes-in-the-margin habits, these sheer Post-its look like a perfect compromise. How to write in books that aren’t yours [Unclutterer]
One of the best side effects of using Facebook is knowing when your contacts’ birthdays are—but you only see them if you log in. The Facebook application fbCal is out to fix that. Once you install it on Facebook, fbCal creates an iCal file for your Facebook contacts’ birthdays as well as Facebook events. Subscribe to the feed in your iCal-enabled calendar app of choice, like Mac’s iCal or Google Calendar. When I tried fbCal last night, I subscribed to the resulting birthday .ICS file in Google Calendar, and nothing showed up. This morning, however, all my friends’ birthdays were lighting up my schedule, so give it some time to get working. Actually-useful Facebook applications are few and far between, but fbCal is definitely one of them. Thanks, Sam! fbCal.com – Facebook Calendar Generator
iPhone/iPod touch only: Freeware application iSlsk is a Soulseek peer-to-peer client for the iPhone and iPod touch which can download MP3s from the Soulseek network directly to your device. Once you’ve downloaded a song, iSlsk imports the MP3 directly to your iPod so you can play it alongside all the rest of your music. Sounds too good to be true, right? It almost is. The video after the jump demonstrates just how incredible iSlsk is, and the catch:
Audiophile blogger Santi needed solid speaker stands that wouldn’t break the bank, and wound up using cinder blocks to get the job done. Santi writes: I know most of you out there probably just stick your speakers on a desk, or shelf, and mostly likely the speaker is pushed all the way back against the wall. Well, let me tell you that this is NOT optimal. Speakers should be at least one foot away from the wall, and placed on sturdy structures that will not resonate with the speaker, which can colour the sound.
With some epoxy, cinder blocks, wood circles, and concrete paint, Santi painted and glued together a few cinder blocks to mount his speakers on, and the result is surprisingly good-looking (if unconventional)—plus there are built-in shelves inside the blocks. Maybe cinder blocks aren’t just for college dorms any more. DIY: cinder block speaker stands [Velvetron via Make]
Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): If you’ve ever arrived late to an overly-popular web page just to get a 404 or similar error, you’ll know how CacheIt, a free Firefox extension, can save you time trying to locate a pre-crash page image. From any page, jump to CacheIt’s right-click menu, and it will try to link you to cached pages served up by Google, Coral CDN, MSN, Dot Cache, and the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It probably won’t work for every server every time, but you’ve got a fighting chance at seeing the last captured image of a page, whether it’s down or not. CacheIt is a free download, works wherever Firefox (2, at the moment) does. CacheIt! [via gHacks]
