Monday, August 4, 2008
Organise
iTunes as PDF Organiser
11:30PM Gina Trapani | Radiologists in Shanghai are reportedley using iTunes to organize medical papers published as PDFs. It’s not as crazy as it sounds—we ran down how to organize your PDF library with iTunes over a year ago. [via] More »
Fix
Microsoft’s Advice on How to Speed Up Vista
11:00PM Gina Trapani | If your Vista PC isn’t as speedy as you’d like, straight from the horse’s mouth comes a 14-page PDF document on Vista Performance and Tuning. Microsoft’s suggestions include customising Vista’s power plan, sleeping the machine instead of shutting down, turning off search indexing in folders you don’t need it, disabling visual effects, using ReadyBoost to add extra memory with a thumb drive, and disabling unneeded startup programs and services. All of these tips are old hat to seasoned Windows tweakers, but this PDF is a nicely-laid out and detailed package you can easily email to your brother-in-law. Windows Vista Performance and Tuning [Microsoft Download Centre via gHacks] More »
Design
New Icons to Spruce Up Your Linux Desktop
10:30PM Gina Trapani | Tech site CatsWhoCode.com offer 10 good-looking icon sets to customise your GNU/Linux desktop. More »
Work
9:07PM Angus Kidman | Lifehacker readers range from the complete newbie to the most seasoned techie, but where do the Lifehacker editors stand? We polled our own editors for the computer hardware and applications they swear by and we’re breaking it down for you here. This post is categorised into the software each editor (US and Oz) uses on a daily basis, the operating systems we live in, the hardware we rely on, the peripherals we utilise on a regular basis, and webapps we need. Then we tell you exactly what kind of user we think we are.
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The Lifehacker Editors’ Favourite Software and Hardware
9:07PM Angus Kidman | Lifehacker readers range from the complete newbie to the most seasoned techie, but where do the Lifehacker editors stand? We polled our own editors for the computer hardware and applications they swear by and we’re breaking it down for you here. This post is categorised into the software each editor (US and Oz) uses on a daily basis, the operating systems we live in, the hardware we rely on, the peripherals we utilise on a regular basis, and webapps we need. Then we tell you exactly what kind of user we think we are.
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Organise
Smart and Easy Ways to Reduce Printing Costs
9:00PM Lifehacker US Edition | If you print a lot of documents on your inkjet printer at home, you’ve probably noticed that the costs of ink and paper over time are simply ridiculous—in some cases, they can exceed the price of your entire computer. After spending a weekend printing receipts for the accountant and completely depleting my $YS14.99 black ink cartridge, I’ve compiled the best ways to save money on printing costs (and compute greener at the same time). More »
Fix
Better Gmail 2 Version 0.6 Out
9:33AM Gina Trapani | Just posted an update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension, which reinstates secure connections, adds a skin, and updates the macros script. See the changelog for full details on what’s changed and download it here. More »
Organise
How to Back Up Your Web Server
9:00AM Gina Trapani | You’ve got backup religion on your computer, but how about on your web server? Your hosting plan may offer some sort of backup, but to be sure, you might as well take matters into your own hands. Tech site Webmonkey runs down how to back up your web server using command line tools like tar and pg_dump to archive your HTML files and export your database, then schedule the whole shebang to happen automatically with cron. Personally I use a combination of a daily MySQL dump (for my database) and a weekly rsync job. If these UNIX commands leave you cold and you just want to back up your hosted blog, here are a few tools to do so. Back Up a Web Server [Webmonkey] More »
Work
How to Move On From Life-Changing Mistakes
8:00AM Gina Trapani | Former CEO of famously failed internet company Pets.com Julie Wainwright publishes a brutally honest inventory of the life-changing mistakes she’s made and how she’s moved on from them. After her company and her marriage collapsed (in the same week!) and Pets.com’s mascot became a symbol for the dot com bust, Wainwright says: I would like to tell you that I was down but not out. That I just brushed myself off and got on with life. I didn’t. At first, I kept myself hyper-busy. That lasted for about three months. Then, I sank into a depression. I’m sure I was in shock for a long time. It was a very dark, confused time in my life. I kept pushing myself to get back to normal. That didn’t happen. I never got back to myself. I became better than I was. (Emphasis mine.) This one’s a must-read. As for Wainwright? She’s started a new company. Hit the link to check it out. The Five Big Mistakes That Changed My Life and How I Moved Past Them [SmartNow.com via timoreilly] More »
Design
BgPatterns Generates Tiled Desktop or Web Site Backgrounds
7:00AM Kevin Purdy | Free online design tool BgPatterns gives you a full range of options to make your own tiled/repeating backgrounds, whether for your computer desktop or to fill in the background space on a blog or web site. The transparency, foreground/background colours, rotation of the patterns, and canvas texture are all up for tweaking, and there’s a gallery of designs you can stroll through and vote on. In other words, it’s reminiscent of the tiled background options from earlier versions of Windows, just a lot more appealing. BgBackgrounds is free to use and download images from; signing up lets you store your patterns online. BgPatterns [via Demo Girl] More »
Fix
