Monday, October 13, 2008
Work
Start Your Own Business, $20 At A Time
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Personal finance blogger Ramit Sethi guest-posts on the Get Rich Slowly site about his best advice for those looking to start a business, no matter the scale: Take a successful entrepreneur out to lunch. Sethi says successful types usually want to see others succeed on their advice, and in these tough economic times, a sandwich and chips can be a lot cheaper than a business consultant. [photo] More »
Work
Make A Steady Background Income From Selling Stock Work
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Freelancer Collis Ta’eed makes about $US200 each month from work she mostly did years ago and hasn’t touched. From putting his (admittedly clumsy) illustrations up for sale on stock photo sites, she steadies her freelance income and makes better use of her time between projects: With the holiday season coming up, work usually slows down and it’s a good time to do some side work to build for the future. So that years down the road you also are watching residual royalties accumulating every month. Have you regularly sold work through stock media sites? How do you ensure your work gets actual use? Tell us what works and what doesn’t in the comments. How I Make $2,000 Every Year Without Doing Very Much [Freelance Switch] More »
Communicate
5:36PM Angus Kidman | Mobile broadband services — using 3G spectrum to deliver the Internet to your PC or notebook — are getting more popular, with almost a million Australians already using them. Whether you want to use them at home, in a hotel room or even in a train, there’s a wide range of plans to choose from, and recent price changes from Optus, Telstra, 3 and Vodafone have further muddied the waters. Read on for Lifehacker’s guide to the best current deals in the mobile broadband space. More »
Finding The Best 3G Mobile Broadband Deal
5:36PM Angus Kidman | Mobile broadband services — using 3G spectrum to deliver the Internet to your PC or notebook — are getting more popular, with almost a million Australians already using them. Whether you want to use them at home, in a hotel room or even in a train, there’s a wide range of plans to choose from, and recent price changes from Optus, Telstra, 3 and Vodafone have further muddied the waters. Read on for Lifehacker’s guide to the best current deals in the mobile broadband space. More »
Organise
4:00PM Angus Kidman | Google Operating System points out a useful parameter for YouTube: &start=, which lets you specify the point out which a video should begin playing. Check out the embedded code in the video above, which kicks in 90 seconds after starting; you need to add the &start code to both the movie and embed sections of the link. If YouTube Hot Spots suggests that people are only interested in a small segment of your videos, this is one way for getting to the good bits without needing to edit the original upload. For another method of linking to a specific segment of a YouTube video, check out previously mentioned Splicd.
Embed a Part of a YouTube Video [Google Operating System]
More »
Start A Linked YouTube Video At A Specific Point
4:00PM Angus Kidman | Google Operating System points out a useful parameter for YouTube: &start=, which lets you specify the point out which a video should begin playing. Check out the embedded code in the video above, which kicks in 90 seconds after starting; you need to add the &start code to both the movie and embed sections of the link. If YouTube Hot Spots suggests that people are only interested in a small segment of your videos, this is one way for getting to the good bits without needing to edit the original upload. For another method of linking to a specific segment of a YouTube video, check out previously mentioned Splicd.
Embed a Part of a YouTube Video [Google Operating System]
More »
Fix
11:33AM Angus Kidman | Storing multiple PCs is always a tricky challenge, but coder Janne came up with an unusual solution for his six-core Linux cluster: popping everything into an IKEA six-drawer Helmer cabinet. This admittedly might work better in Sweden than in high-temperature Australia, but it’s still a neat approach. If you’ve come up with another novel solution for storing your servers, let’s hear about it in the comments.
Helmer [via IKEA Hacker]
More »
Build A Linux Server Rack From IKEA Drawers
11:33AM Angus Kidman | Storing multiple PCs is always a tricky challenge, but coder Janne came up with an unusual solution for his six-core Linux cluster: popping everything into an IKEA six-drawer Helmer cabinet. This admittedly might work better in Sweden than in high-temperature Australia, but it’s still a neat approach. If you’ve come up with another novel solution for storing your servers, let’s hear about it in the comments.
Helmer [via IKEA Hacker]
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The Web. Now Made By Hand
You can get handmade suits. Handmade cars. There’s even handmade Japanese marble mazes. Now, thanks to the new Nokia N96, the web can now be handmade, as well. More »
Fix
10:00AM Angus Kidman | Following its recent one cent photo printing offer, Snapfish is running a similar deal: enter the checkout code 1CENTHPAU and get up to 50 shots for 1 cent per print. In practice, it costs 7 cents a print once you include postage, but that’s still a good deal.
[via OzBargain]
More »
One Cent Digital Photos Get Another Run
10:00AM Angus Kidman | Following its recent one cent photo printing offer, Snapfish is running a similar deal: enter the checkout code 1CENTHPAU and get up to 50 shots for 1 cent per print. In practice, it costs 7 cents a print once you include postage, but that’s still a good deal.
[via OzBargain]
More »
Organise
8:32AM Angus Kidman | Kick off your Lifehacker Monday by making sure you didn’t miss any of the biggest posts from last week:
Why Microsoft Should Fix Its Error Messages In Windows 7“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.”
Top 10 Easy Ways To Look Sharp“Coming across as an unkempt schlub won’t do anything good for your career, your social life, or your luck with that cute guy or gal from marketing.”
Six Slick Windows Themes to Dress Up Your Desktop (Windows)“While fiddling with the look and feel of your computer desktop isn’t technically productive, making your workspace something you’re proud of and happy to look at makes you more likely to want to get things done.”
Can You Access Your Bank On Your Mobile Browser?“Our recent discussion of mobile banking sites for the iPhone highlighted the fact that many people can’t access their banking applications on their mobile device, whatever flavour.”
Clean Your Workspace–And Keep It That Way“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 readers’ (and my own)–the ability to attract clutter and make important documents and objects hard to find.”
Make Skype Calls with Fring on Your iPhone (iPhone)“Free application Fring puts popular chat applications on your iPhone, including Skype–and the ability to make Skype voice over IP calls when your phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network.”
Instant Eyedropper Identifies Pixel Colours For Faster Design (Windows)“Instant Eyedropper is a simple system tray tool that can identify the colour of any pixel on screen — a useful trick if you’re designing a web site or performing other graphics-related tasks.”
First Look at Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” Beta“The next version of Ubuntu’s free Linux operating system, dubbed “Intrepid Ibex,” is due out Oct. 30, but the beta release is up for grabs.”
Picasa 3 Beta’s New Features (Windows and Linux)“Picasa, Google’s photo management tool, has quietly announced a new beta that adds basic movie editing, fuller syncing to Web Albums, and many other features and changes.”
Tab Mix Plus Updates for Firefox 3 (Firefox)“Popular Firefox extension Tab Mix Plus has finally released an update supporting Firefox 3, meaning that the tabbed browsing enhancements you’d come to know and love with TMP in Firefox 2 are now ready for your updated Firefox install.”
Geode Brings Location Awareness to Firefox (Firefox)“Firefox extension Geode adds experimental geolocation features to your browser.”
Opera Updates to Version 9.6, Gets Faster, Adds Features (All platforms)“Popular web browser Opera just pushed out a new stable release featuring overall speed improvements, several cool feature updates, and a laundry list of bug fixes.”
InSSIDer Detects Wireless Networks (Windows)“Free application inSSIDer scans networks within reach of your computer’s Wi-Fi antenna, tracks signal strength over time, and determines their security settings (including whether or not they’re password-protected).”
More »
Last Week’s Best Posts
8:32AM Angus Kidman | Kick off your Lifehacker Monday by making sure you didn’t miss any of the biggest posts from last week:
Why Microsoft Should Fix Its Error Messages In Windows 7“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.”
Top 10 Easy Ways To Look Sharp“Coming across as an unkempt schlub won’t do anything good for your career, your social life, or your luck with that cute guy or gal from marketing.”
Six Slick Windows Themes to Dress Up Your Desktop (Windows)“While fiddling with the look and feel of your computer desktop isn’t technically productive, making your workspace something you’re proud of and happy to look at makes you more likely to want to get things done.”
Can You Access Your Bank On Your Mobile Browser?“Our recent discussion of mobile banking sites for the iPhone highlighted the fact that many people can’t access their banking applications on their mobile device, whatever flavour.”
Clean Your Workspace–And Keep It That Way“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 readers’ (and my own)–the ability to attract clutter and make important documents and objects hard to find.”
Make Skype Calls with Fring on Your iPhone (iPhone)“Free application Fring puts popular chat applications on your iPhone, including Skype–and the ability to make Skype voice over IP calls when your phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network.”
Instant Eyedropper Identifies Pixel Colours For Faster Design (Windows)“Instant Eyedropper is a simple system tray tool that can identify the colour of any pixel on screen — a useful trick if you’re designing a web site or performing other graphics-related tasks.”
First Look at Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” Beta“The next version of Ubuntu’s free Linux operating system, dubbed “Intrepid Ibex,” is due out Oct. 30, but the beta release is up for grabs.”
Picasa 3 Beta’s New Features (Windows and Linux)“Picasa, Google’s photo management tool, has quietly announced a new beta that adds basic movie editing, fuller syncing to Web Albums, and many other features and changes.”
Tab Mix Plus Updates for Firefox 3 (Firefox)“Popular Firefox extension Tab Mix Plus has finally released an update supporting Firefox 3, meaning that the tabbed browsing enhancements you’d come to know and love with TMP in Firefox 2 are now ready for your updated Firefox install.”
Geode Brings Location Awareness to Firefox (Firefox)“Firefox extension Geode adds experimental geolocation features to your browser.”
Opera Updates to Version 9.6, Gets Faster, Adds Features (All platforms)“Popular web browser Opera just pushed out a new stable release featuring overall speed improvements, several cool feature updates, and a laundry list of bug fixes.”
InSSIDer Detects Wireless Networks (Windows)“Free application inSSIDer scans networks within reach of your computer’s Wi-Fi antenna, tracks signal strength over time, and determines their security settings (including whether or not they’re password-protected).”
More »
Communicate
Share Links And Videos At Internet Is Fun
7:00AM Gina Trapani | When keeping a blog is too much work but you want to share goofy internet video clips, pictures, and links with your friends easily, webapp Internet is Fun might be the ticket. Sign up for a free account at Internet is Fun to forward links onto friends and see the most popular items overall, and how they traveled between users. Warning: cruising through the most viral items at Internet is Fun will be way more entertaining than productive. More »
Fix
