Saturday, August 30, 2008
Organise
This Week’s Best Posts
7:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | Get a load of this week’s most-trafficked posts: How to switch off Google Suggest “Google’s addition of Suggest auto-complete suggestions to its main search box isn’t going to be universally popular. If you don’t want suggestions for what you’re looking for, relief is at hand.” Primus offers shaping for mobile broadband “One of the big disincentives to signing up to mobile broadband services — especially as your main means of Internet access — is the excess data charges you face when you go over the limit.” The Best Free Apps for Your Windows Mobile Device“Despite the flurry of attention surrounding the iPhone and other new mobile phone platforms, Windows Mobile still has a widespread distribution and capacity for customization.” Soup Up Your Homebrew-Hacked Wii“You’ve hacked your Wii to run homebrew apps and play back DVDs without any difficult hardware hacking and now you want to dive into more of your homebrew options.” Top 10 Calendar Tricks“Software and webapps rock at being calendars: You can update them from any computer or your phone, they don’t have to triple-check when Columbus Day is, and they never get coffee stains on them.” Five Best Password Managers“You’ve got enough to keep track of in your day-to-day life without filling your head with the countless logins and passwords you’ve racked up over the years, and the Post-It note on your monitor just isn’t an option.” More »
Organise
GMDesk Puts Google Webapps into a Single Desktop Application
6:00AM Adam Pash | All platforms with Adobe AIR: Free desktop application GMDesk provides quick access to Google services in a standalone window separate from your browser. GMDesk separates Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Maps from the rest of your web browsing, and provides keyboard shortcuts to switch between them (Ctrl+ or Cmd+1 through 6). You can’t install browser add-ons like Better Gmail or Better GReader in GMDesk, and currently it displays too-small text in Gmail (though the developer is working on a fix for that). Ultimately GMDesk doesn’t offer many features that make it worth using (or much better than apps like Prism or Fluid), but it raises the question: If Google released native desktop apps like Picasa for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, and Google Docs, would you use them? Until they do (which may be never), GMDesk is a free download and requires Adobe AIR to run. GMDesk [via CyberNet] More »
Fix
Operate Your Computer with Wii Controllers
2:00AM Kevin Purdy | Nintendo doesn’t exactly advertise it, but the remotes for the Wii gaming console—including the balance board that comes with Wii Fit—have Bluetooth capabilities. That means you can connect your Wii peripherals to your computer to operate the media centre hooked up to your TV, play emulated games with a Nunchuk, Classic Controller, or even a Balance Board, and pretty much have them do anything you can do with a keyboard. Let’s walk through linking up your Wii peripherals and putting them in control of your Mac, PC, or Linux box. More »
Work
Offer Small Discounts to Get Freelance Pay On Time
1:00AM Kevin Purdy | Web Worker Daily highlights some sound tactics for the spare-time or full-time freelancer trying to get their paychecks to arrive in orderly fashion. The advice runs the gamut from common-sense-but-sound (get a signed contract) to a few ideas that may spark an idea. Such as this idea: Find a way to make early payments beneficial to the client. One of the things we’ve decided to implement is to give a client a 5% discount if they pay the invoice within 24 hours from the time it was sent. Another alternative you might want to try is giving a discount or promo coupon for the client’s next order. More »
Fix
Game Key Revealer Finds the Keys for Your Games
1:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | Windows only: If you have a game installed on your computer but have lost the original documents that came with it, you can still retrieve the product keys for safekeeping. Game Key Revealer is a small portable application that can help you recover your lost game keys. More »
Fix
