Thursday, June 26, 2008
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What Books Have Changed Your Life?
11:30PM Gina Trapani | Technologist and well-read fellow Kevin Kelly lists the books that have changed his life. Life-changing books are not just your favourite books, he explains, but “books that altered your behaviour, changed your mind, redirected the course of your life. Books as levers.” His list is a great one, and has at least one overlap with my own (Leaves of Grass, baby—English majors, unite!). Other books he lists include Gandhi’s autobiography, the Bible, and The Fountainhead. What books have been levers for you, and changed your life and way of thinking? Please share in the comments, so we can all load up our libraries. br /> Books That Changed My Life [Cool Tools] More »
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Wirewize Explains How to Connect Your Entertainment Gear
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Free A/V website Wirewize takes most of the guesswork out of hooking together your television, DVD player, stereo speakers, and other gear. After a free sign-up, enter in the model and make of each component, and Wirewize will offer up which cables are needed, and diagram how they should run. Not every bit of equipment will be listed, especially those no longer sold, but the site has PDF manuals for some of the goods it does have. For A/V neophytes and those trying to troubleshoot friends’ systems over the phone, it’s pretty helpful. Wirewize [via Webware] More »
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Web Forum Reader Offers Feed-Reader-Like Browsing
10:12PM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: Browse web forum threads and posts like RSS feeds with Web Forum Reader, a free Windows application. Adding forums you frequent to the app is done through an easy-to-grok wizard, and the program parses through the topics you haven’t looked at with better speed than you’d find on often ad-loaded forum pages. You can also have the program track and alert you to changes in certain threads, and load your forums into tabs for quicker navigation. Web Forum Reader is a free download for Windows systems only. Web Forum Reader [via gHacks] More »
Fix
Magnets Kill the Mobile Phone Speaker Buzz
9:00PM Lifehacker US Edition | Update: Several readers point out the ferrite beads are not necessarily magnets—just hunks of iron. Our apologies! Do your speakers buzz and crackle whenever a new text message or call is about to come in on your nearby phone? What has come to be known as “GSM Buzz” happens because the wire in poorly shielded speakers acts as an antenna for the frequency the phone operates on. Rather than shell out a lot of money for better shielded speakers, you cancel out the speaker buzz with pieces of metal—the tube-shaped ferrite beads commonly found on USB cables. Harvest them from the round block at the end of an old USB cable with a pair of scissors, or just buy a few on the cheap from an electronic supply store. Tape the ferrite bead to the cable of the offending speaker, and the magnet should provide enough passive frequency suppression to do away with the horrible buzzing and popping. iPhone Buzz Kill [Mac Life] More »
Communicate
4:59PM Angus Kidman | Despite persistent rumours, 3 maintains that it has no current plans to sell the iPhone — but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t like to. The company will roll out a site on July 27 at www.three.com.au/iphone where customers can petition Apple to provide the iPhone through the carrier. “While we’ve been engaging with Apple to secure the iPhone for 3, we don’t know whether we can range it,” 3 sales director Noel Hammil said in a statement announcing the site. “We want Apple to see just how much our customers want the iPhone.” 3 customers can also text the word iPhone to 333 000 to receive a phone-based feedback form. If you’re already a 3 customer, your contract is current and you’re tempted by the iPhone, sending in a petition couldn’t do any harm.
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Petition Apple to get the iPhone on 3
4:59PM Angus Kidman | Despite persistent rumours, 3 maintains that it has no current plans to sell the iPhone — but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t like to. The company will roll out a site on July 27 at www.three.com.au/iphone where customers can petition Apple to provide the iPhone through the carrier. “While we’ve been engaging with Apple to secure the iPhone for 3, we don’t know whether we can range it,” 3 sales director Noel Hammil said in a statement announcing the site. “We want Apple to see just how much our customers want the iPhone.” 3 customers can also text the word iPhone to 333 000 to receive a phone-based feedback form. If you’re already a 3 customer, your contract is current and you’re tempted by the iPhone, sending in a petition couldn’t do any harm.
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Work
2:07PM Angus Kidman | There’s a useful thread at Whirlpool today discussing how to get hold of a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium without paying over the odds. If you are in the market for a standalone copy, there’s good advice on how to go about getting the academic or OEM editions without messing with the licence conditions. Vista pricing was lowered at the start of the year, making it one of the most quickly discounted versions of Windows, but there’s still no reason not to try and get the best price.Buying Vista home premium problems [Whirlpool]
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Ways to get Vista at bargain prices
2:07PM Angus Kidman | There’s a useful thread at Whirlpool today discussing how to get hold of a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium without paying over the odds. If you are in the market for a standalone copy, there’s good advice on how to go about getting the academic or OEM editions without messing with the licence conditions. Vista pricing was lowered at the start of the year, making it one of the most quickly discounted versions of Windows, but there’s still no reason not to try and get the best price.Buying Vista home premium problems [Whirlpool]
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Fix
1:48PM Angus Kidman | The BBC has compiled a list of 10 suggestions to help cure insomnia, based on suggestions from site visitors. Some are familiar (counting backwards, not using computers close to bedtime) but others are more esoteric:
Eat a sandwich, thickly filled with lettuce, about half an hour before going to bed. You should sleep like a log.
Let us know any other good sleep-inducing tricks you use in the comments.10 tips to help relieve insomnia [BBC]
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Ten ways to cure insomnia
1:48PM Angus Kidman | The BBC has compiled a list of 10 suggestions to help cure insomnia, based on suggestions from site visitors. Some are familiar (counting backwards, not using computers close to bedtime) but others are more esoteric:
Eat a sandwich, thickly filled with lettuce, about half an hour before going to bed. You should sleep like a log.
Let us know any other good sleep-inducing tricks you use in the comments.10 tips to help relieve insomnia [BBC]
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Communicate
12:47PM Angus Kidman | The news earlier this week that Apple was finally selling TV shows through the Australian iTunes Store was welcome for people keen to legally purchase and download television using the familiar and well-regarded iTunes interface. But as several readers have pointed out in emails, downloading shows will use up much more bandwidth than music. With virtually all Australian ISPs enforcing some sort of bandwidth cap, what tactics can you use to minimise the impact of a spate of TV downloading? See our suggestions after the jump.
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How not to blow your download limit at the iTunes Store
12:47PM Angus Kidman | The news earlier this week that Apple was finally selling TV shows through the Australian iTunes Store was welcome for people keen to legally purchase and download television using the familiar and well-regarded iTunes interface. But as several readers have pointed out in emails, downloading shows will use up much more bandwidth than music. With virtually all Australian ISPs enforcing some sort of bandwidth cap, what tactics can you use to minimise the impact of a spate of TV downloading? See our suggestions after the jump.
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12:15PM Angus Kidman | Nintendo is releasing Cooking Guide: Can’t decide what to eat?, a cookbook application for its DS handheld, on July 3. The 250-recipe package can be browsed by ingredients, country of origin, number of calories or degree of difficulty, and there’s a shopping list feature to track the ingredients you’ll need. While you could of course download recipe documents onto any number of portable devices, the package has one neat trick: you can advance through the stages of the recipe using voice commands, ensuring you don’t get sauce all over the screens. If you’ve got another high-tech tactic for accessing recipes in the kitchen, tell us about it in the comments.
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Use your Nintendo DS as a recipe book
12:15PM Angus Kidman | Nintendo is releasing Cooking Guide: Can’t decide what to eat?, a cookbook application for its DS handheld, on July 3. The 250-recipe package can be browsed by ingredients, country of origin, number of calories or degree of difficulty, and there’s a shopping list feature to track the ingredients you’ll need. While you could of course download recipe documents onto any number of portable devices, the package has one neat trick: you can advance through the stages of the recipe using voice commands, ensuring you don’t get sauce all over the screens. If you’ve got another high-tech tactic for accessing recipes in the kitchen, tell us about it in the comments.
More »
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