Saturday, August 23, 2008
Communicate
1:43PM Angus Kidman | Looks like the legal action against Scrabulous by the owners of the Scrabble trademark has finally kicked in worldwide. I’d previously reported on how to work around the block for US players, but now accessing Scrabulous in Australia results in a “this application is not available to you” message. All references to the Facebook version have also been removed from the main Scrabulous site (where the game remains playable). If you want a Scrabble-style wordgame within Facebook itself, your options are the official version (which annoyingly doesn’t let you play anyone in the States) or the Scrabulous successor Wordscraper. If there’s other word games on Facebook you’d recommend for leisure and vocabulary extension, share them in the comments.
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Scrabulous now totally gone from Facebook
1:43PM Angus Kidman | Looks like the legal action against Scrabulous by the owners of the Scrabble trademark has finally kicked in worldwide. I’d previously reported on how to work around the block for US players, but now accessing Scrabulous in Australia results in a “this application is not available to you” message. All references to the Facebook version have also been removed from the main Scrabulous site (where the game remains playable). If you want a Scrabble-style wordgame within Facebook itself, your options are the official version (which annoyingly doesn’t let you play anyone in the States) or the Scrabulous successor Wordscraper. If there’s other word games on Facebook you’d recommend for leisure and vocabulary extension, share them in the comments.
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Organise
This Week’s Best Posts
10:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | This week’s most popular posts include: How often do you change over your mobile phone?“What’s your preferred phone replacement cycle? And what drives you to change over — a sexy new design, enhanced features, or a dead battery in your old phone?” Is digital television a boon or a disaster?“Although you may not have noticed if your main television viewing approach is YouTube or Channel BT, Australia is due to switch off its analogue TV network and move to an all-digital model in 2013.” Reassessing mobile broadband options for the Eee PC “For Windows or Mac users, not having the cable is a definite advantage. However, if you want to add mobile broadband to the Eee PC, the older E220 model is a better choice, because you can make it work out of the box.” Hack Your Wii for Homebrew Apps and DVD Playback“Despite the fact that it ships with a DVD drive, for whatever godforsaken reason, the Nintendo Wii doesn’t support DVD playback–until last week, that is, when a homebrew hacker released a tool that enables DVD playback on your Wii.” Top 10 YouTube Hacks“Summer’s ending, and with it goes a certain sense of taking it easier, relaxing a bit at the office–you know, caching up on all that YouTube browsing you skip when there’s real work to be done.” Five Best FTP Clients“Whether you do you work on the web, run a home FTP server, or you just prefer a quick download from time to time, a solid, full-featured FTP client can be lifesaver.” Email Innovations You Want in Your Inbox“The basics of how email works hasn’t changed much since its invention, but even forty years later, there are still tiny features and enhancements that can make dealing with large volumes of email easier.” Back Up and Sync Your Cell Phone with BitPim“The multi-tool of phone data, BitPim, is a free, open-source, cross-platform solution that can back up all or most of your phone’s data, put your home-baked ringtones on your phone for free, and sync calendars and contacts between your apps and your vanilla phone.” Gmail Superstars and Quick Links Make a Killer To-Do List“We’ve already shown you how to use Gmail Superstars and Gmail Quick Links–both exclusive features of previously mentioned Gmail Labs–and now reader Alex McRoberts details how he uses the two excellent features to turn his Gmail account into a killer to-do list manager.” Executor Is Impressive, Full-Featured App Launcher“Windows only: Free application Executor is an application launcher very similar in look and feel to Lifehacker reader’s favourite application launcher, Launchy. In fact, after a bit of testing Executor might have just snagged Launchy’s place as the app launcher of choice on my Windows machine.” Drink Delicious Water with a Reverse Osmosis Filter“After years of tap water, I’d finally had enough of drinking water that tasted like it had been skimmed from the pool of the local YMCA.” CircleDock Surrounds Your Mouse with Files, Folders, and Shortcuts“Windows only: Free application CircleDock automatically puts files, folders, and shortcuts within a few pixels of your mouse when you invoke it for quick action. CircleDock is completely customisable, from the skin and hotkey to the items you place in the dock.” Rotate Desktop Backgrounds in Ubuntu“I get bored with my desktop wallpaper pretty easily, especially in Ubuntu Linux, where it’s nearly the only thing on my desktop.” Mozilla Crowns Best Firefox 3 Extensions“Mozilla Labs announces the winners of their official Extend Firefox 3 Contest, and they’re an impressive crop of new and updated extensions for your favourite browser.” More »
Fix
DIY PowerMate Scroll Wheel and Volume Control
9:00AM Adam Pash | DIY web site Instructables steps through how to build your own scroll wheel—like the Griffin PowerMate—with an old mouse, remote control car wheel (or similarly sized wheel that fits your hand), and a fair amount of elbow greese. The guide is detailed and the results, as you can see in the video above, are very impressive. The author even uses previously mentioned Volumouse to take his scroll wheel to the next level of usefulness. If you’ve got the skills to follow along, this looks like an excellent weekend project. Desktop Scroll Wheel and Volume Control! [Instructables via Make] More »
Design
D-Color Customises Your Desktop Icons
7:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Free Windows utility D-Shell customises your Windows desktop icons, allowing you to switch your icon’s text colour, background colour, and icon layout styles. It’s a very simple, lightweight app that does just a few things, but if you’re a desktop tweaker, it’s a great little tool. Try swapping your icons to “Tile Icons” for a nice tweak that gives your icons a more organised stack look. D-Color is freeware, Windows only. D-Color [Freshell.org] More »
Organise
Roll Your Own Launcher with the Run Dialog
6:00AM Adam Pash | We’re huge fans of application launchers around these parts, but if your computer’s running on fumes and you can’t spare 15 or so extra megabytes of RAM to an app launcher, the Download Squad weblog details how to roll your own app launcher with the Windows Run dialog. Keep in mind that this method doesn’t provide any of the advanced indexing or other features you get from other app launchers—you have to configure all your shortcuts manually. However, this has been a tried and true technique for lots of folks before the current crop of app launchers hit the scene, and if those app launchers feel like overkill, the classic Win-R method might be for you. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a good app launcher, look no further than the five best application launchers—or my new favorite: previously mentioned Executor. Forget Launchers, Just Do It With Windows! – How To [Download Squad] More »
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DivXLand Media Subtitler Embeds Subtitles into Movie Files
5:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | Windows only: While many media players happily play subtitles that are separate from a video, you can still embed subtitles directly into a ripped or downloaded movie file with free utility DivXLand Media Subtitler. With support for over 30 different subtitle formats and 15 different video formats including MPEG, DIVX, and XVID, you’ll rarely come across a combination of subtitle and video you can’t combine. Subtitler made short work of applying English subtitles to the nearly 60 years’ worth of Godzilla movies I threw at it. If it can handle a lifetime of a man in a rubber lizard suit it can definitely handle your foreign film collection. If you find yourself with a big pile of foreign films but a short stack of subtitles, check out recently reviewed Subdownloader to find subtitles for your media. For a solution that adds the subtitles as you are creating a DVD of the movie file, check out this tutorial for DVD Flick. DivXLand Media Subtitler is a free download for Windows only. More »
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