DIY web site Instructables details how to transform your favourite set of earbuds into retractable headphones. The guide requires your headphones of choice and some sort of retractable cable, like a USB sync cable or something of the sort. Retractable headphones are certainly available to buy, but as the author points out, if you’ve got a favourite or specialised set of headphones—like iPhone headphones with a built-in speaker—the DIY route is the best option. Overall the guide is detailed and is simple to follow along with, so it may be worth a go if you’re sick of tangled headphone cords. On the other head, you may also just want to use our favourite headphone-wrapping technique. iRecoil – iPhone Retractable Headphones [Instructables]
Gmail appears to be slowly rolling out a new feature in their Contacts application that allows the user to selectively determine whether or not you want to automatically add everyone you email to your contact list. You’re likely to send and receive a lot of email in the course of a day, but if you would prefer to keep the people in your contacts list limited only to the people you add—which means a much cleaner, more streamlined list of real contacts as opposed to all 5000 you’ve accumulated with the old system—looks like you can now do that through the My Contacts pane. Like most things Gmail-related, Google appears to be rolling this out slowly. If you’re seeing this new functionality in your account (we aren’t yet), let’s hear more about it in the comments. Thanks Matthew!
Blogger Erin Doland wanted to cut down work time on the computer over the weekend without going cold turkey, so she did it by limiting herself to only as much time as her laptop battery lasted. The self-imposed limitation forced her to only do the stuff on the computer she absolutely had to, and had her checking the battery charge throughout, and closing the lid as soon as she was done. (The editor at Lifehacker AU had a similar experience recently.) If you’re a laptop user who finds yourself getting sucked into checking email or mindlessly working on days you’re supposed to be off, hiding the cord might be a good way to trick yourself into stepping away faster. Photo by airgap. Work life creeping into personal life? Try a battery-only weekend [Unclutterer]
Windows only: Free application CRP (Control Running Programs) performs two related but separate functions: First, it keeps important applications running no matter what, so if a program unexpectedly shuts down, CRP fires it back up. Second, it sets a user-defined limit on the number of running instances of an application. If you’ve ever unknowingly shut down your IM application, for example, but you need to always be available for your job, the automatic relaunching of specified apps can come in really handy. The second bit of functionality—limiting instances of an application—can be useful when you launch an application intending to restore the currently running instance but you get another instance instead. CRP is freeware, Windows only, requires .NET 2.0.
CRP [via FreewareGenius]One of the coolest features available in the new iPhone 2.0 software update is the ability to get new email messages, contacts, and calendar events pushed to your device automatically. The catch: If you don’t want to shell out $US100 for MobileMe and you don’t have a Microsoft Exchange server lying around, you’re stuck pulling data or manually syncing it to your computer. But, if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves, you can set up push email and wireless contact and calendar syncing using the free Microsoft Exchange service Mail2Web.
All platforms with Firefox: Even though Firefox 3 has decent file and FTP browsing built-in, the Firefly extension aims to turn the ‘fox into a robust file manager. Browse your local drives and folders in Firefox using Firefly, which offers tabs, can split your screen to view several folders, preview images, open, rename, copy, and delete files, and display a hierarchical folder tree in the sidebar. Not sure Firefly is quite as polished as it could be, but if you’re dying for a Windows Explorer alternative and Xplorer 2 and others like it aren’t cutting it, Firefly is an option. See this Firefly tutorial for more of what it can do. Firefly is a free download which works (almost) wherever Firefox does—the developer says definitely Windows and Linux, but less testing’s been done on the Mac.
Firefly [via gHacks]
