Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Fix
Turn Unwanted Books into Vases and Furniture
11:30PM Lifehacker US Edition | Designer Laura Cahill turns old books into gorgeous and unique vases and coffee tables. Cahill says: My idea of using second hand books came around after doing research into common unwanted objects. One of the most common unwanted objects that can be found at either charity shops, car boot sales and sometimes on the streets are books. I discovered that the glue in old books make them extremely difficult to recycle. Aware of this I challenged myself to turn the second hand books that I had been collecting, into desirable objects such as furniture, lighting and ornaments. Her exact methods aren’t clear, but it appears she takes the covers off the books, then cuts out the shape on two or more books, then fans them around a pipe or existing glass flower vase. Finally, some glue and clamps and about 12 hours to dry should finish off the project. See more photos of her book vase creations and even a small table over at the Dezeen design magazine. Book Vases by Laura Cahill [Dezeen via Boing Boing] More »
Work
VirtualBox 2.0 Adds 64-bit Support, Updated Interface
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): Free and open-source virtualisation tool VirtualBox recently released a 2.0 version that includes a few major upgrades. Most importantly, 2.0 supports running 64-bit operating systems, like Windows Vista and certain Linux distributions, on a 64-bit computer. Windows, Mac, and Linux clients have all gotten an upgrade in the looks department, and networking support has been boosted for Macs (improving its standing as a free alternative to Parallels and VMWare). Performance improvements for AMD chips is also baked in, so most users can find a good reason to upgrade. VirtualBox is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. VirtualBox [via Tombuntu] More »
Communicate
Gmail Adds Three Interface Features
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | The Gmail team added three new features to the experimental “Labs” offerings: Custom label colours (as in, way more than 24 available), drag-and-drop reordering of your left-hand navigation bar, and a keyboard shortcut to quickly pull up a label. What interface features are you still waiting on? [via] More »
Design
7:31PM Angus Kidman |
If there’s a concept I personally find weirder than chook rental, it’s the notion that you would rent an outfit for anything other than a wedding or a very formal awards dinner (and even those are marginal). Then again, everyone who knows me will confirm I’m no fashion junkie. If you do fall into that category, Dressed Up might appeal. You choose clothes from a list of designers famous enough that even I’ve heard of some of them (Wayne Cooper, Nicola Finetti), and then get them sent to you, complete with return courier bag. Payment is by the week, and you can keep the outfit as long as you want. With the sampling of outfits I checked priced at between one-quarter and one-fifth the sales cost, hanging on to them for a long time wouldn’t make sense, but for a short-term solution, this could work out cheaper than just buying a new outfit every time you need to impress the boss.
[Dressed Up]
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Dressed Up rents designer outfits by the week
7:31PM Angus Kidman |
If there’s a concept I personally find weirder than chook rental, it’s the notion that you would rent an outfit for anything other than a wedding or a very formal awards dinner (and even those are marginal). Then again, everyone who knows me will confirm I’m no fashion junkie. If you do fall into that category, Dressed Up might appeal. You choose clothes from a list of designers famous enough that even I’ve heard of some of them (Wayne Cooper, Nicola Finetti), and then get them sent to you, complete with return courier bag. Payment is by the week, and you can keep the outfit as long as you want. With the sampling of outfits I checked priced at between one-quarter and one-fifth the sales cost, hanging on to them for a long time wouldn’t make sense, but for a short-term solution, this could work out cheaper than just buying a new outfit every time you need to impress the boss.
[Dressed Up]
More »
Communicate
7:20PM Angus Kidman | The Australian radio industry has been talking up the potential of digital radio — better signal, multiple channels, on-screen information such as who’s talking or what track is playing — for years, but never seems to progress much beyond limited trials. The situation doesn’t seem to be improving. Neil Shoebridge reports in today’s Australian Financial Review (the paper that doesn’t put its articles online, so no link, sorry) that a previous plan for full-scale capital city digital radio broadcasts to commence in January next year has now been entirely abandoned. May looks like the earliest possible starting point, and with a government deadline of July 1, further delays wouldn’t really surprise me.
When I’ve played with digital radios before, I’ve been impressed with the sound and liked the extra info, but it seems to me that until we’ve actually got channels up and running with content you can’t get on conventional radio, no-one’s going to get that excited. Even then, the massive growth in online radio might have killed digital radio before it even began. Do you find the concept of digital radio tempting? Is your current car radio good enough for you? Have you abandoned conventional radio for podcast nirvana? Broadcast your thoughts in the comments. More »
Digital radio for Australia even further away
7:20PM Angus Kidman | The Australian radio industry has been talking up the potential of digital radio — better signal, multiple channels, on-screen information such as who’s talking or what track is playing — for years, but never seems to progress much beyond limited trials. The situation doesn’t seem to be improving. Neil Shoebridge reports in today’s Australian Financial Review (the paper that doesn’t put its articles online, so no link, sorry) that a previous plan for full-scale capital city digital radio broadcasts to commence in January next year has now been entirely abandoned. May looks like the earliest possible starting point, and with a government deadline of July 1, further delays wouldn’t really surprise me.
When I’ve played with digital radios before, I’ve been impressed with the sound and liked the extra info, but it seems to me that until we’ve actually got channels up and running with content you can’t get on conventional radio, no-one’s going to get that excited. Even then, the massive growth in online radio might have killed digital radio before it even began. Do you find the concept of digital radio tempting? Is your current car radio good enough for you? Have you abandoned conventional radio for podcast nirvana? Broadcast your thoughts in the comments. More »
Work
7:01PM Angus Kidman |
Huge numbers of individuals and companies rely on Google’s AdWords program to place advertising on their site, and many more use them to promote their businesses, but that doesn’t stop the Big G from occasionally tweaking its approach. Google Australia has revamped its Content partner page, claiming this will make it easier for advertisers to select relevant sites from their network using its placement tools. More ads equals higher costs, of course, but in a relevant environment that should also translate into more sales. Do Google AdWords work for you? Share your experience in the comments.
[Google Content Network Partner Sites via Official Google Australia blog]
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Google tweaks Australian partner AdWords site
7:01PM Angus Kidman |
Huge numbers of individuals and companies rely on Google’s AdWords program to place advertising on their site, and many more use them to promote their businesses, but that doesn’t stop the Big G from occasionally tweaking its approach. Google Australia has revamped its Content partner page, claiming this will make it easier for advertisers to select relevant sites from their network using its placement tools. More ads equals higher costs, of course, but in a relevant environment that should also translate into more sales. Do Google AdWords work for you? Share your experience in the comments.
[Google Content Network Partner Sites via Official Google Australia blog]
More »
Communicate
9:28AM Angus Kidman |
While Australian users can download iTunes 8 right now and start placing their orders for new iPods, there’s one heavily-discussed feature that won’t be of much practical use: the ability to download and watch HD TV content on your PC. While the US iTunes Store is offering a range of HD TV shows, an Apple Australia spokesperson confirmed that the feature is US only for the moment. (And yes, that was the words “Apple Australia spokesperson confirmed” all next to each other in a sentence.) If you’ve jumped through the hoops to set up a US iTunes account, getting those HD shows is possible, but with the massive file sizes involved, it could chew right through your download limit. iiNet subscribers, who get unmetered access to the iTunes store, can probably feel self-satisified here. More »
No HD TV for now on Aussie iTunes Store
9:28AM Angus Kidman |
While Australian users can download iTunes 8 right now and start placing their orders for new iPods, there’s one heavily-discussed feature that won’t be of much practical use: the ability to download and watch HD TV content on your PC. While the US iTunes Store is offering a range of HD TV shows, an Apple Australia spokesperson confirmed that the feature is US only for the moment. (And yes, that was the words “Apple Australia spokesperson confirmed” all next to each other in a sentence.) If you’ve jumped through the hoops to set up a US iTunes account, getting those HD shows is possible, but with the massive file sizes involved, it could chew right through your download limit. iiNet subscribers, who get unmetered access to the iTunes store, can probably feel self-satisified here. More »
Design
Chrome Package Makes Firefox Look Even More Like Chrome
8:00AM Adam Pash | The Chome Package Firefox extension makes Firefox look almost exactly like Google Chrome for those of you who prefer Chrome’s tabs-on-top style. (Chromifox wasn’t quite there.) You’ve enabled the rest of Chrome’s best features in Firefox—now if Mozilla would implement separate processes we’d really be getting somewhere. [via] More »
Organise
MediaJoin Combines Several Media Files into One
6:00AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Free application MediaJoin—as its name suggests—combines several media files into one long file. Say, for example, you wanted to a three-part video or a live album into one long playable file. Just fire up MediaJoin, select the files you want to combine, and let the application do its work. MediaJoin can even string together files of different types, but be aware: doing so means transcoding files, which means you’ll see some loss in quality. I converted a live album of MP3s, though, and it ran through the files so quickly I don’t see how it could have been transcoding. (Sticking with the same filetype and bit rate would probably make a difference.) If you’ve ever wanted a simple tool to combine any piece of media with another, the freeware MediaJoin looks like a winner. MedaiJoin [via Download Squad] More »
Organise
