Thursday, October 9, 2008
Fix
StripMail Cleans Email Formatting
11:30PM Lifehacker US Edition | Windows only: Anyone who uses email can dig up a popular forwarded message or deep conversation thread rendered nearly unreadable by formatting along the way. StripMail is a free program that not only strips the > characters out, no matter how many layers deep, but it can format the resulting text back into paragraphs. More »
Design
Theme XP In Dark Blue, No Hacking Required
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | The Ask VG blog points us to a dark blue, modern-looking “Embedded” theme for Windows XP, designed and signed by Microsoft. That means no file hacking—just install the package and switch your theme in your desktop preferences. Here are two direct download links. To use other, non-signed themes, check out our guide to using custom visual styles in XP and Vista. [via] More »
Organise
ExtraOutlook Runs Two Instances Of Outlook
10:00PM Lifehacker US Edition | Windows only: If you want to connect to multiple Exchange servers with Microsoft Outlook simultaneously, a handy program called ExtraOutlook can run Outlook with two distinct profiles at the same time. On the downside, with ExtraOutlook you chew up twice as much memory and resources as you would with a single instance out Outlook. On the upside, you’re freed from having to switch between profiles to stay up to date on each Exchange server you need. ExtraOutlook is a free download for Windows only. Open Two Different Instances Of Outlook With ExtraOutlook [Make Use Of] More »
Organise
Clean Your Workspace–And Keep It That Way
9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Whether your workspace is miles from your home or right there amongst your books and Battlestar Galactica figurines, it probably has something in common with at least a few other Lifehackers’ (and mine)—the ability to attract clutter, make important documents and objects hard to find, and, over time, become time an actual impediment to getting things done. Some of us are able to work in a way that doesn’t leave things a mess and clean as you go, but for those of us who can’t trust our instincts, a system that corrects itself is needed. Today I’ve rounded up a few of our best tips for getting your workspace in order and keeping it that way without a cerebral transplant. Take one last look at your paper piles and empty coffee cups and read on for inspiration. Photo by frischmilch. More »
Communicate
4:00PM Angus Kidman | Rickrolling — tricking an Internet user into watching a clip of Rick Astley’s classic 80s hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ — has become an established part of Internet culture. Reflecting that, the RickVoter tool automatically votes repeatedly for Astley as Best Act Ever in the MTV Europe awards. No doubt MTV will eventually block the script, but for now it’s an amusing reminder that online polls have their limitations.
RickVoter [via LA Times]
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Rickroll Rick Astley To Best Artist Ever
4:00PM Angus Kidman | Rickrolling — tricking an Internet user into watching a clip of Rick Astley’s classic 80s hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ — has become an established part of Internet culture. Reflecting that, the RickVoter tool automatically votes repeatedly for Astley as Best Act Ever in the MTV Europe awards. No doubt MTV will eventually block the script, but for now it’s an amusing reminder that online polls have their limitations.
RickVoter [via LA Times]
More »
Fix
1:30PM Angus Kidman |
Much of the discussion around Windows 7 has centred around how the interface will change and what features will be removed. But there’s another area Microsoft could improve — the often cryptic and unhelpful error messages Windows produces — and it doesn’t need a brand-new development team to do it. Here’s some of the most embarrassing examples from Vista, which ideally will get improved or eradicated when Windows 7 finally appears. More »
Why Microsoft Should Fix Its Error Messages In Windows 7
1:30PM Angus Kidman |
Much of the discussion around Windows 7 has centred around how the interface will change and what features will be removed. But there’s another area Microsoft could improve — the often cryptic and unhelpful error messages Windows produces — and it doesn’t need a brand-new development team to do it. Here’s some of the most embarrassing examples from Vista, which ideally will get improved or eradicated when Windows 7 finally appears. More »
Organise
11:30AM Angus Kidman | I’ve long been a fan of using Irfanview as a replacement image viewer and basic editor for Windows, due to its compact size and huge range of options. One disadvantage of that small code base though is that it doesn’t automatically check for updates, so I failed to notice that it had upgraded to version 4.20 quite some time ago. Aside from enhanced image editing tools, version 4.20 also adds some useful new keyboard shortcuts to change the way it handles big images (such as hi-res photos). Shift+F sets the ‘fit only big images to desktop’ option, Shift+W fits the current image to the window, 5 fits the image to the screen width in fullscreen view, and 6 does the same for screen height.
Irfanview
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Irfanview Update Adds Useful Keyboard Shortcuts
11:30AM Angus Kidman | I’ve long been a fan of using Irfanview as a replacement image viewer and basic editor for Windows, due to its compact size and huge range of options. One disadvantage of that small code base though is that it doesn’t automatically check for updates, so I failed to notice that it had upgraded to version 4.20 quite some time ago. Aside from enhanced image editing tools, version 4.20 also adds some useful new keyboard shortcuts to change the way it handles big images (such as hi-res photos). Shift+F sets the ‘fit only big images to desktop’ option, Shift+W fits the current image to the window, 5 fits the image to the screen width in fullscreen view, and 6 does the same for screen height.
Irfanview
More »
Fix
10:00AM Angus Kidman | In a discussion on the Engineering Windows 7 blog about moving and resizing windows, Microsoft engineering honcho Steven Sinofsky offers a useful reminder of how to make sure that a pop-up window that’s smaller than usual doesn’t accidentally become your new default window size the next time IE launches:
When you see the small window open don’t close it until you first open up another copy of the application with the “normal” window size. Then close the small one and then the normal one. Of course this is a pain and close to impossible for anyone to find, but likely a better solution than adding a fourth UI affordance on the title bar.
Other solutions, of course, are using a pop-up blocker (or just dumping IE and using Firefox). For mine, I just want Windows 7 to consistently remember standard Explorer windows sizes and settings — it refuses to let you always launch Explorer maximised, and it never seems to consistently remember the settings you’ve applied to folders, despite this supposedly being a “feature” of Vista.
Engineering Windows 7
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How To Stop IE Messing Up Your Window Sizes
10:00AM Angus Kidman | In a discussion on the Engineering Windows 7 blog about moving and resizing windows, Microsoft engineering honcho Steven Sinofsky offers a useful reminder of how to make sure that a pop-up window that’s smaller than usual doesn’t accidentally become your new default window size the next time IE launches:
When you see the small window open don’t close it until you first open up another copy of the application with the “normal” window size. Then close the small one and then the normal one. Of course this is a pain and close to impossible for anyone to find, but likely a better solution than adding a fourth UI affordance on the title bar.
Other solutions, of course, are using a pop-up blocker (or just dumping IE and using Firefox). For mine, I just want Windows 7 to consistently remember standard Explorer windows sizes and settings — it refuses to let you always launch Explorer maximised, and it never seems to consistently remember the settings you’ve applied to folders, despite this supposedly being a “feature” of Vista.
Engineering Windows 7
More »
Organise
9:00AM Angus Kidman | I’m going to be on a plane for a fair chunk of the day, so comments might take longer to get approved than normal. Normal service will resume late Thursday! More »
Lifehacker Hits The Road
9:00AM Angus Kidman | I’m going to be on a plane for a fair chunk of the day, so comments might take longer to get approved than normal. Normal service will resume late Thursday! More »
Fix
