International lifehackers, unite! Dutch speakers, our life hacking friends in the Netherlands have released an ebook compilation of their best posts and are offering it as a free download here. Nice work, lifehacking.nl!
Windows only: Free thumb drive utility Portable Start Menu is a handy, multi-function tool for anyone who uses a USB drive to launch portable applications. The program can search out and find any self-running .exe file on a thumb drive and add it to a start menu that sits in the Windows system tray while the USB drive is plugged in. The app also has a “Quick Start” function that you can access with a shortcut to launch any program, and Portable Start Menu can create its own AutoRun file to have it launch once it’s plugged in. Portable Start Menu is a free download for Windows systems only. Portable Start Menu [via The Red Ferret Journal]
Veteran Lifehacker reader Scott writes in with a tip for anyone who regularly renames groups of pictures, documents, or other files, but doesn’t need a bulk renaming utility to get it done. Just start renaming the first file in a folder or list (by hitting F2, right-clicking or “long clicking” on the name), but instead of hitting enter or clicking to finish, hit “Tab,” and Vista will instantly head over to the next file for renaming. XP users don’t have this ability, but they can get Vista’s ability to select just the file name for renaming. Thanks, Scott!
Photoshop enthusiast and frantic video editor Deke McClelland fits 101 tips for Adobe’s premiere product into five minutes of video, and the results are surprisingly watchable. Granted, a lot of the tips are simply shortcuts you may or may not have discovered, but McClelland fits a good bit of real advice—such as which tools to just stay away from entirely—into his frantic run. Worth a listen to catch shortcuts you might not have known, and real advice from a serious Photoshop enthusiast. 101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes [DekeOnline via Digital Inspiration]
Editor: We asked Mark Hurst, author of the book Bit Literacy (our review) and developer of the web-based task manager Gootodo, to tell us why he built Gootodo and how it fits into what he calls “bit literacy.” Here’s what he said.
eBay Australia is holding one of its periodic discounted sales, not charging insertion fees for listings under $9.99 between June 26 and June 29. (Regular insertion fees for that kind of price range between 30 cents and 50 cents.)Now, whether this is a standard end of financial year sale or an attempt to boost traffic in the face of everyone getting annoyed by its klutzy handling of the compulsory PayPal debacle is open to speculation. But we will point out that any auction listed during this period will be allowed to accept a range of payment methods, so it could be a good chance to offload that heap of semi-usable stuff you’ve been meaning to get rid of and save a little into the bargain.
On a recent trip to Perth, a constant topic amongst everyone I met was the difficulty in getting staff to do basic entry-level jobs in the face of demand from remote mining sites. As one bloke put it to me: “I can’t get someone to work for me for $60,000 when they can get $100,000 to wash dishes at the mines.”It seems Queensland is suffering from a similar problem, with reports that McDonald’s and KFC franchises in Mt Isa and Mackay are having to look overseas for managers . It doesn’t seem that this is the kind of “kids don’t want to work” story so beloved of tabloids, since those locations are still hiring teenagers; instead it’s the simple fact that rapidly growing remote locations have trouble getting the employees they need to manage the stores. Is there any solution to this apart from importing workers — or shutting fast food restaurants? Could a Maccas be managed remotely? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. (McDonald’s pic from PR Newswire. We don’t imagine Justin Timberlake is actually available for any of these vacancies.)Fast food shops recruit foreign workers [The Australian]
Steve Ruiz wanted to be able to enter URLs or searches into Firefox on his Mac and have them open in a new tab simply by hitting Command-Enter (Option-Enter is the default). With no obvious solution in site, he wrote a simple extension to accomplish the task, which you can download from his site. For more Mac Firefox keyboard tweaking, remember you can also ensure that the Home and End keys work like Windows.Firefox 3 – Opening a URL in new tab using command-enter [Ruizs Place]
If public humiliation via Twitter isn’t your preferred weight loss strategy, how about gaming? Blogger Mickey DeLorenzo lost 6.8kg in simply 41 days by adding regular use of the Wii Fit to his daily routine. This isn’t exactly surprising — any conscious increase in physical activity should peel off some of the pork — but it might be more appealing than taking up jogging in mid-winter.
With the recent launch of the Foxtel IQ2, the imminent (and much-delayed) appearance of Tivo in Australia next month, and Sony promising its own PlayTV personal video recorder (PVR) option before the year is out, there are more big-name PVR choices for Aussies than ever before. Getting your favourite TV programs automatically recorded for playback at a time that suits you is an obviously appealing concept, but despite the arrival of these new entrants, you still have two basic choices: a fairly pricey system that works well but is hard to customise, or a much cheaper and more flexible option that may not deliver on the simplicity and reliability front.
