Sunday, November 16, 2008
Fix
Turn A Scanner Into A Camera
10:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | If you have an old flatbed scanner laying around or you’ve decided your scanner is a useless gadget, repurpose it weekend. The industrious tinkers at Make magazine have put up a tutorial on turning your scanner into a primitive camera. The results have a distinctly spooky appearance, almost reminiscent of vintage daguerreotype photographs. The project doesn’t require taking apart the scanner or permanently altering it in anyway, so you can experiment freely without actually sacrificing your scanner to the tinkering gods. You’ll need some inexpensive parts like black foamcore board, a magnifying glass and razor. For an overview of the process and a list of necessary parts check out the video below: More »
Fix
How To Fold A Handkerchief
9:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | You may not wear the kind of clothing on a daily basis that requires the Dapper Dan look of a properly-folded handkerchief tucked in the breast pocket, but knowing how to fold and tuck one away will save you from looking like the chump that just shoved it in there and fished out a lump of silk. The writers at the tips and tricks blog TipNut dug up a vintage guide from the 1950s to help you fold and place your handkerchief like a proper modern gentleman. More worried about not being able to tie a tie than fold a handkerchief? Check out how to perfectly tie a tie and learn to tie a tie in under ten seconds. Have your own clothing trick or wish you had a Dapper Dan trick of your own? Sound off in the comments below. How to Fold a Pocket Handkerchief More »
Organise
Merlin Mann On Maximising Your Time
8:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | Google asked productivity blogger Merlin Mann to visit their campus and share some insights into getting things done. His presentation covers several interesting aspects of time management and productivity including renegotiating your commitments, controlling who has access to your limited resources like time and output, and qualifying how your commit yourself to tasks to create a more sane work environment. The video is thirty five minutes and worth the watch for a solid set of productivity principles to help you start this week on the right foot. More »
Fix
Open A Beer Bottle With A Ring
8:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | Don’t let a misplaced bottle opener stand between you and a delicious beverage. If you find yourself with well-chilled bottle of beer but painfully without a proper bottle opener, don’t despair. Bottled beverage-lovers at wikiHow have put together a detailed guide for getting that cap off with nothing more than a ring and your gritty determination. Check out the following video to see the magic in action: More »
Communicate
Take In A New Point Of View At Big Think
7:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | If You Tube had an overly-intellectual kid brother who preferred Noam Chomsky to Naruto, that brother would be Big Think. Big Think is a web site built around interviews with prominent scientific and political figures about a broad range of topics. [Big Think's] shorts are studio-shot, first-person interviews. Each clip features the interviewee answering a single question or waxing on a single topic: for example, UCLA law professor Kal Raustiala explaining his “piracy paradox,” the puzzle that intellectual property protection may be inhibiting creative progress in culture and industry. Big Think can be searched by keyword or browsed by the various topics such as Identify, Truth & Wisdom, and more concrete topics like History or Science & Technology. The clips are well lit, professionally done, and full of interesting ideas and viewpoints you may not have come across otherwise. Big Think [via The Boston Globe] More »
Work
ISODisk Mounts Up To Twenty Disk Images
6:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | Windows only: You don’t have a single .iso file to open, you have a pile you need to go through. ISODisk will help you cut through the pile and find the files you’re looking for. ISODisk is a free application which allows you to mount a disk image and browse it like a regular drive. ISODisk won’t mount other disk image formats like .nrg, .mdf, or .dmg files but shines at mounting up to twenty .iso images with unique drive letters. ISODisk will also create disk images from non-encrypted disks. ISODisk is freeware, Windows only. ISODisk [via gHacks] More »
Communicate
Liberate Yourself From Old Email Addresses
5:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | If you’ve been on the internet for any substantial amount of time you’ve likely accumulated your fair share of email addresses. Old school addresses, an assortment of free web-based addresses from Hotmail and Yahoo, and so on all contribute to you having too many addresses and little desire to keep checking the old ones. What can you do to cut down on your email excess? Wired Magazine has a how-to guide to help you consolidate your past email addresses without simply abandoning them into the digital void. In other words, you are a slave to an e-mail address that you don’t want or which makes you use an interface that sucks. You can’t give it up because thousands of your close personal friends only know you as ClassOf92@aol.com or ILoveNKOTB@hotmail.com. A blind switch to a new e-mail address is out of the question — you probably don’t even know everyone who has the old one, and grandma wouldn’t understand anyway. More »
Fix
Craft A Lamp From Traffic Cones
5:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | If you’re looking for a cheap mood lighting— and you really love orange— then you’re only a few traffic cones away from all the modernist day-glo orange ambiance you can handle. Henrique of the design group Lets Evo has a step by step tutorial on his group’s website detailing how a pile of traffic cones, zip ties, and a lamp assembly morph into a jumping-jack’esque room light. If you have any ideas on alternative building materials, perhaps less orange, sound off in the comments below. For other DIY lighting solutions check out how to make an origami paper lamp or build a CD stack lamp. Light DIYstrict [via Make] More »
Fix
Top 10 Ways To Speed Up Your Web Browsing
2:00AM Kevin Purdy | Even in a world where high-speed internet is increasingly common, anyone can get stuck with a slow or uncertain connection at home, in the office, or at the worst possible time while travelling. There are, however, measures anyone can take to ensure they’re getting the most information and functionality they can when crunched for time or pressed for bandwidth—or if you just don’t like waiting for things while online. We’re offering up today 10 tweaks, downloads, and work-arounds for slow connections, slow computers, or just fast-minded people. Read on for the tips that might just save your life some night when 4 Kb/s is all you can muster. Photo by laffy4k. More »
Communicate
