Wednesday, June 11, 2008
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Lingro Bookmarklets Define, Translate Any Web Page Word
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Find yourself facing a web page loaded with words you’re a little uncertain about, whether they’re another language or a bit obscure? Web tool lingro offers two bookmarklet tools that make every word on a page able to pop up a definition or translation window when clicked on. There’s two flavors of bookmarkleta, quick (one tooltip at a time, no toolbar) and full-featured, and users can contribute their own definitions and translations if lingro’s Creative Commons-licensed sources can’t fine one. A good tool to keep tucked away for those over-wrought essays friends link you to. lingro: bookmarklet [via Download Squad] More »
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Banshee 1.0 Available for Linux
10:45PM Kevin Purdy | Banshee 1.0, the open source media manager we spotted in beta last month, is available for download as a final release for Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux distributions. More »
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GNOME Do 0.5 Adds Easy Configuration, Tons of Handy Plug-ins
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Linux only: GNOME Do, a favourite application launcher of Linux-using readers and Lifehacker editors, has released a 0.5 version that hugely expands its reach and functionality. Most apparent are a built-in configuration tool, re-enabling of the simple-but-powerful “Open With” dialog, and the wealth of both official and “community” plug-ins. Upload pictures to Flickr, add and search Google Calendar events, start Skype calls, get live stock quotes—there’s a lot to look into here. GNOME Do is a free download for Linux systems only; Ubutnu users can upgrade from the Launchpad PPA, while other distro users can find a source here. Thanks, Dušan! Announcing GNOME Do 0.5: “The Fighting 0.5″ [David Siegel] More »
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Load Up on Carbs and Vitamins to Prevent Hangovers
10:00PM Kevin Purdy | The Dumb Little Man blog adds to steps a smart drinker can take to minimise their next-morning misery. In addition to drinking lots of water before, during, and after your big night, try to fit in some bananas, whole grains, or anything with soy in it, because: Alcohol is, at its heart, a poison. Your body does a lot of work to remove that poison … That work, mainly done by your liver, uses a lot of vitamins like vitamin B and Potassium that aren’t available to you later. This can cause queasiness, tiredness and muscle cramps. That’s just one part of the cure, of course. For more hangover help, check out our readers’ tips and mix a little ginseng into your pre-game ritual. Photo by Cia de Foto. How to Severely Decrease the Chances of a Hangover [Dumb Little Man] More »
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Power Tweak Your Mac’s Stacks
9:00PM Gina Trapani | Before Mac OS X Leopard got released, if you’d told me Stacks—a convenient way to access Finder locations on the Dock—would be one of my favourite, most-used features, I would’ve said you were trapped in the reality distortion field. Turns out Stacks is super-useful, and highly configurable to boot. Let’s take a look at some power tweaks and uses for Stacks. More »
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3:26PM Angus Kidman | Travel fiends and security hounds take note: AirAsia X has become the first locally active airline to accept PayPal as a direct means of payment for air tickets. The airline operates flights between Perth/the Gold Coast and Kuala Lumpur. While we remain sceptical about the benefits of forcing PayPal on eBay users with no alternatives even for low-value purchases, for high-value items like air tickets the extra insurance and security can be welcome.
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AirAsia X gets with PayPal
3:26PM Angus Kidman | Travel fiends and security hounds take note: AirAsia X has become the first locally active airline to accept PayPal as a direct means of payment for air tickets. The airline operates flights between Perth/the Gold Coast and Kuala Lumpur. While we remain sceptical about the benefits of forcing PayPal on eBay users with no alternatives even for low-value purchases, for high-value items like air tickets the extra insurance and security can be welcome.
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Work
3:11PM Angus Kidman | Our second Upgrade Your Life contest winner comes from Shane P, who went slightly overboard and submitted his entire site filled with tips, techwhimsy.com. Of these, the one that really caught our interest was the in-depth guide to installing popular blogging engine Movable Type on your local machine (handy for development and testing on the go). Check it out for a Flash-based tutorial covering all you need to know.How to install Movable Type 4 on your local machine
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Upgrade Your Life winner #2: Movable Type on your local machine
3:11PM Angus Kidman | Our second Upgrade Your Life contest winner comes from Shane P, who went slightly overboard and submitted his entire site filled with tips, techwhimsy.com. Of these, the one that really caught our interest was the in-depth guide to installing popular blogging engine Movable Type on your local machine (handy for development and testing on the go). Check it out for a Flash-based tutorial covering all you need to know.How to install Movable Type 4 on your local machine
More »
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3:01PM Angus Kidman | Hot on the heels of our contest-winning tip on adding Gmail to your browser search box, reader Matthew B wrote in with an alternative technique for fast email composition. This one uses Firefox 3’s Smart Bookmarks feature. More »
More Firefox 3 shortcuts for quick Gmail
3:01PM Angus Kidman | Hot on the heels of our contest-winning tip on adding Gmail to your browser search box, reader Matthew B wrote in with an alternative technique for fast email composition. This one uses Firefox 3’s Smart Bookmarks feature. More »
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2:49PM Angus Kidman | The threat of a minor change in mortgage rates tends to send everybody into paroxysms of panic, but it seems we aren’t so fussed when it comes to interest rates in general. Two recent surveys by Citibank suggest that most of us would use a credit card for a major purchase even though a personal loan would have a much lower rate, and that we have no idea what interest rate is paid on our savings accounts or term deposits. Colour us apathetic, it appears.Turning a technological bent to the problem, it seems to me that finance companies could make this task easier by offering an RSS feed of all their rates, making it easy to keep track of changes. Any other thoughts on how tech might get us to actually track the money we make from our money?
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Why aren’t we interested in interest rates?
2:49PM Angus Kidman | The threat of a minor change in mortgage rates tends to send everybody into paroxysms of panic, but it seems we aren’t so fussed when it comes to interest rates in general. Two recent surveys by Citibank suggest that most of us would use a credit card for a major purchase even though a personal loan would have a much lower rate, and that we have no idea what interest rate is paid on our savings accounts or term deposits. Colour us apathetic, it appears.Turning a technological bent to the problem, it seems to me that finance companies could make this task easier by offering an RSS feed of all their rates, making it easy to keep track of changes. Any other thoughts on how tech might get us to actually track the money we make from our money?
More »
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1:47PM Angus Kidman | The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is currently assessing whether to allow Westpac’s takeover of St George to go through, and is running a consumer survey as part of the process. (You can participate, via a slightly clunky PDF, whether you’re a customer of either bank or not.)It’s interesting to note that while the survey does let you list Internet banking as a key reason for selecting a personal bank (I know it was for me — who wants branches?), it doesn’t offer that as an option when specifying why you might change banks in the future. Methinks the ACCC ought to pay more attention to that factor. Whatever you think, it’s probably worth five minutes of your time to let them know.
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Get the ACCC a clue train ticket for Internet banking
1:47PM Angus Kidman | The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is currently assessing whether to allow Westpac’s takeover of St George to go through, and is running a consumer survey as part of the process. (You can participate, via a slightly clunky PDF, whether you’re a customer of either bank or not.)It’s interesting to note that while the survey does let you list Internet banking as a key reason for selecting a personal bank (I know it was for me — who wants branches?), it doesn’t offer that as an option when specifying why you might change banks in the future. Methinks the ACCC ought to pay more attention to that factor. Whatever you think, it’s probably worth five minutes of your time to let them know.
More » 
