All platforms with Firefox: The WiseStamp beta Firefox add-on edits, saves, and applies rich HTML signatures to your web-based email accounts, including Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and AOL mail. With WiseStamp installed, you get a rich HTML editor that lets you create signatures with links, colours, images, and formatting, plus links to your favourite social network profiles. You can make more than one signature, too—like personal and business. Once you’re in your webmail account, WiseStamp adds a signature drop-down so you can choose which sig to use with the current email, or it can insert it automatically. Take a look at some screenshots of WiseStamp in action.
Windows only: Freeware application Wallpapers from MSN adds several customisation and management options to your desktop wallpaper. When you first install Wallpapers, it downloads around 125 high quality wallpapers from Microsoft to get you started, but you aren’t limited to those images by any means—you can add any of your own wallpapers to the application any time you want. Once you choose a wallpaper, you can use the app’s simple editing tools to crop, rotate, resize, and add text, speech bubbles, or foreground images to the wallpaper. Probably its best feature, Wallpapers can rotate your wallpaper as a slideshow or by time of day. Wallpapers is freeware, Windows only.
MSN Wallpaper [via gHacks]Leopard’s virtual desktop tool Spaces is great, but sometimes the app breaks, leaving you with windows on desktops you just can’t get to. Luckily there’s an easy solution: Open Terminal and enter killall Dock. When your Dock restarts, Spaces will be back in operation.
By default, the latest version of Ubuntu comes with the Tracker search and indexing tool installed, enabled, and, as the How-To Geek points out, occasionally eating up some serious CPU cycles. Over at his blog, the Geek shows newcomers to Ubuntu (and other Linux distros with Tracker installed) how to scale back Tracker’s needs, limit where it searches, or just uninstall the thing entirely. Ubuntu users, are you finding Tracker useful on your desktop, or do you hope to see it downgraded to an optional installation in the next release (which is right around the corner)? Let us know in the comments. What is trackerd and Why Is It Running? [The How-To Geek]
Reader gizak shares how he created a DIY iPhone/iPod touch dock using an assortment of small, medium, and large binder clips. Yesterday we shared a simple DIY guide for rolling your own iPhone or iPod touch paper clip stand, but if you’re less concerned with watching videos and more concerned with docking your iPhone without shelling out $59 for a dock from Apple, the video makes this look like a sturdy, easy-to-make DIY dock.
Mac OS X only: Heavy iCal users who want to add a new event or new task at the press of a key combination want FlexCal. The System Preferences pane lets you set a hotkey that invokes a new to-do or new event entry prompt. Type in the details, press Enter, and FlexCal adds the item to iCal without launching the program. Here’s what the entry form and preferences pane look like.
Mac only (for now): The ATV USB Loader, a free tool to boot third-party software on an Apple TV unit, has updated to include the slick media centre Boxee amongst the booting options. We liked Boxee’s new looks and social flair when it was available for Macs (and, later, Linux), and the Apple TV implementation looks just as crisp. By loading Boxee, Apple TV users get access to nearly any kind of unrestricted video or audio files, can send recommendations to friends and stream Last.fm tunes, and do nearly anything else in the (currently invitation-required) Boxee. Of course, ATV also maintains support for Xbox Media Centre. If you’ve grabbed Boxee and tried it out on Apple TV, share your likes and wants in the comments. ATV USB Creator [Google Code via Wired]
A minor tweak here and there to your laundry and clothing storage routine can yield big savings over time. Over at the financial blog WiseBread, they have some great ideas for cheaply extending the life of your clothes and keeping them nice in the process. The tips cover the basics like washing your clothes in cold water to extend the life to reinforcing the hems of pants when you first buy them to stave off problems later. One of the tips I’m particularly guilty of is not wearing appropriate clothes for the task at hand: It can be tempting to simply get messy chores done while wearing whatever it is we wore at work, but that’s a fast way to ruin work clothes. There’s a reason why mums frequently make a distinction between their kids’ ‘play clothes’ and ‘school clothes’. If tacking a potentially dirty project, don’t do it in a dress shirt and slacks.
I’ve fixed many a messy problem right after getting home from work without getting out of a nice pair of dress slacks, only to have to spend a ton of time getting a stain out for my lack of foresight. What tips and tricks do you have for keeping your clothes sale day fresh week after week? Share in the comments below. Photo by foxtwo. Make Your Clothes Last Longer (without spending big) [WiseBread]
The Digital Inspiration blog points out that one can get ulimited access to the Video Training Company, a site with more than 70,000 video tutorials focused on software, programming, and other technology, with a three-letter promotional code. If you’re determined not to have to bother anyone in accounting for advanced Excel tricks (or learn any software package or OS, really), enter rtm as a promotional code at the sign-up page below. The offer goes for one week, and may not last, so now’s your chance to grab Quicktime or Flash-based how-to videos. Found an instructional vid worth sharing? Tell us about it in the comments. VTC FileMaker Promotional Offer [Video Training Company via
