Tuesday, October 21, 2008

RSS Use May Be Peaking At 11 Percent

11:45PM Kevin Purdy | A new report shows use of RSS feeds growing from two to 11 percent in the past three years. The key finding, though, is only 17 percent of the 89 percent who don’t use RSS are interested in learning how, indicating a possible peak. What do you see as RSS’ main barrier to popularity, and how could it be fixed (or replaced)? [via] More »

Pective Uses Life-Size Images For Gadget Comparison

11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Free size-comparison site Pective scales product images for your LCD screen to full size, allowing you to make a side-by-side comparison of your current clunker to that hot new phone you’ve been eyeing. You’ll first be prompted for your diagonal screen size, then you simply browse and click to pull up full-size pictures. You can vote an image larger or smaller if it looks a little off, and add your own product images. There are a few handy reference points already there—nickels, compact discs, and the like—but the site would seriously benefit from a search function (which is supposedly in the works). Pective is a free web site that requires no sign-up; for geekier, you-type-the-dimensions comparison, try Sizeasy. Pective [via Webware] More »

Wheelie Spins Through Apps (And Image Searches) With Your Mouse Wheel

10:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows Vista (with Aero running) only: Wheelie, a free beta app, can be used solely as a pretty neat application switcher at this point, but its developers seem to have much grander plans for the little utility. Once installed, you can flip through active window thumbnails with your mouse wheel by touching the top edge of the screen. Park the cursor there, however, type in a word or phrase, and your screen fills with results from (apparently) Google Image Search. It’s important to note that Wheelie takes up a serious chunk of memory in its current beta state, but it’s an intriguing experiment that at least offers an alternative to Alt-and-Tab-ing at this point. Wheelie is a free download for Windows Vista systems running Aero only. Wheelie [LectroMagnetic] More »

Veency Offers Remote Control Of Your Jailbroken iPhone

9:00PM Kevin Purdy | On its face, a tool that gives you remote control over your jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch seems kind of pointless. If you’re sitting at a computer already, why would you need to use your tiny touch screen computer? But take a moment to think of the things you could save time typing out—like built-up text messages and frustratingly non-syncing notes—as well as the ability to charge or play music while still using the software. Now it’s a safer bet that some curious hackers will want to tunnel into their gadgets. Let’s take a look at how to set up Veency, along with a few good uses for it. More »

3 Revamps Planet 3 Design

4:45PM Angus Kidman | Mobile phone network provider 3 has revamped the design for the Planet 3 interface used to access Internet content from its mobile phones, splitting the content into four main tabs (new, find, mine and fun) and adding one-click icons for popular sites such as Facebook and YouTube. The site also apparently “include icons that change every day depending on what’s hot and new”, which doesn’t sound like a recipe for productivity — but then again, surfing the Net on your phone is often about anything but productivity. If you’re a 3 customer who’s tested out the new interface, let us know your thoughts in the comments. More »

NICTA Preps P2P Engine For Game Developers

3:00PM Angus Kidman | Australian research institute NICTA is working on the development of Badumna, a peer-to-peer system specifically designed to make it easier to players in massively multiplayer environments to communicate. NICTA has released a beta version of the technology to games developers, who typically have to spend millions building reliable infrastructure for multiplayer communication. It might be a while before this technology hits the average consumer, but it’s a timely reminder that the need for P2P development didn’t die when BitTorrent appeared. Badumna More »

Mimic Application Features For Best Spreadsheet Macro Performance

1:00PM Angus Kidman | If you regularly work with complex macros and code spreadsheets for them, then you probably pride yourself on your ability to write neat pieces of code to solve problems like supporting. However, a post on the official Excel blog points out that in many cases, you can get better results by emulating how you would solve the problem manually in a specific spreadsheet, and then generalising that for use in your macro. Hit the post for full details and code samples. Don’t forget about the ‘A’ in ‘VBA’! [Microsoft Excel Blog] More »

Qantas Chief Predicts Flight Prices Will Fall

11:30AM Angus Kidman | At the launch of its first A380 flight, outgoing Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon has predicted that tough economic times won’t necessarily send prices flying, the Herald Sun reports. As Dixon explained: If the economic crisis does have a major impact on travel, the only way you’ll be able to encourage people is to have discounts. I don’t believe any economic crisis would result in a lessening of discount fares. That genie is out of the bottle now. As someone who flies Qantas regularly, I’ve always found it just as cheap as its local rivals provided you book a little way in advance — and that’s without mentioning the routes it covers that other airlines don’t. How have you fared when seeking cheap Qantas fares? Share your experiences in the comments. Cut-price fares to stay, says Qantas [Herald Sun] More »

Tweet What You Spend Tracks Size Of Hole In Your Pocket

10:35AM Lifehacker US Edition | While online banking and money management tools can help you get a handle on tracking expenses, keeping track of cash expenses can be more difficult. But if you set up a Twitter account (and I’d recommend making it a private one) you can use Tweet What You Spend to send notes on what and how much you’ve spent on purchases from your mobile phone. The updates are cataloged on a spending journal, and you can download the information as a spreadsheet so that you can import it into another personal finance application. After the jump, an introductory video from the creators offers a step-by-step video to getting the service set up. More »