When OzBargain highlighted an astonishingly cheap deal on condoms — around $6 for 50, including postage — my Scottish miserliness immediately came into conflict with my natural pessimism. As the deal page emphasises, latex is a common material, but images of a condom filled with water still don’t entirely fill me with confidence. Is it worth spending more money on a recognised brand to ensure you don’t help spread sexually transmitted diseases and/or get someone pregnant unexpectedly? Or is this a case of longstanding consumer prejudice blocking a possible bargain? Share your thoughts in the comments. DealExtreme [via OzBargain]
My colleague Amber at babblebaby waxes eloquent about the delights of dry shampoo, effectively a means of washing your hair without actually putting it under water. As a bloke with deliberately short hair, I’ve never found hair washing that much of a chore, but if you’re sporting a Michael Bolton or a Leona Lewis, this is definitely a tip worth noting (check the original post for the gory details and Amber’s product recommendations). Dry Shampoo For Busy Mums [babblebaby]
Baresite is a simple web-based application which strips images and formatting from a web site to display just the bare bones. The above image shows how Baresite displays Google News on the left, and how the site looks during normal browsing on the right. If there is a news feed available on the site Baresite defaults to that, otherwise it strips down the HTML to a simpler form. While not every site I tested worked like a charm with Baresite, it’s worth using on a mobile device for faster and cleaner loading pages or when you’d like a distraction free interface. For another site stripper, check out Finch.
BareSite [via MakeUseOf]Kick off your Lifehacker Monday by making sure you didn’t miss any of the biggest posts from last week:
Do You Find A Chill Mat Helpful?“You can tell that summer’s rapidly approaching when accessories vendors start pushing “chill mats” — laptop stands with built-in USB-powered fans designed to help air circulate and stop your machine overheating.” How To Burn Any Video File To A Playable Video DVD“With your BitTorrent addiction in full swing, you’ve filled hard drives with media but can’t seem to figure out how to burn any of the videos you downloaded to a DVD.” 19 SMS Tracks Down Costly SMS Services“Got a bill for a pricey premium SMS service on your mobile phone but not sure what it is, or how to get it stopped?” Is Your Printer Wasting Your Ink And Money?“You just bought an expensive ink cartridge for your printer, you use it for a while, and then suddenly–much sooner than seems reasonable–your printer tells you that you’re either low on or out of ink.” Best Android Apps To Boost Your Mobile Productivity (So Far) (Android)“The first phone running Android has been out in the wild for two weeks now, and every day new applications have appeared in the Android Market that add fun and functionality to your handset.” Keep Formatting Consistent With Word’s Styles Pane“When Word documents get edited by multiple people, the end result is often an unholy mess, since most people still tend to make direct formatting changes (such as adding bold and italics) rather than using Word’s Styles feature for consistency.” Why TraceMonkey Is Going To Blow Your Web Browsing Mind“Perhaps the greatest promise in Firefox 3.1 is the one most users won’t see at all–a serious overhaul of the browser’s JavaScript engine, newly christened as TraceMonkey.” Project Euler Exercises Your Mind With Mathematical Problems“Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems that will require more than just mathematical insights to solve.” Gmail Backup Archives Your Email Account (All platforms)“Gmail Backup saves and restores complete archives of your Gmail email account using Gmail’s built-in IMAP capability.” Sharepod Frees Your iPod From iTunes (Windows)“You don’t have administrative rights or iTunes at work, but you want to be sure you can beat box along to your favourite Kenny G album blasting from the Dell OEM speakers in your cubicle?” AlwaysVPN Takes US-Only Sites International (All platforms)“AlwaysVPN, a free virtual private networking service, is promoted as a safer way for anyone to browse the web or trading files over a public net connection. It works for that purpose, sure, but it also lets anyone on the disappointing side of a US-only service like Hulu, Pandora, or Fancast get around that often arbitrary restriction.” Parallels 4 Released, 50% Faster Than Parallels 3 (Mac)“The original Windows-on-Mac virtualisation software Parallels–which we’ve used to run Windows and Mac apps side-by-side, set Windows programs as defaults on a Mac, and boot our Boot Camp partition from inside OS X–has just updated to Parallels 4.” Go-oo Takes the Bloat Out of OpenOffice.org (Windows, Linux)“Free application Go-oo is a fork of the popular Microsoft Office alternative OpenOffice.org with a focus on improved speed and performance.” WinAudit Creates Seriously Extensive System Profiles (Windows)“Free system profiler WinAudit is similar in some ways to the previously mentioned System Information for Windows, being a no-install-needed executable and offering exhaustive amounts of data on your system.” WinWget Makes Automated Downloads A Breeze (Windows)“Any Unix-friendly dude or lady will tell you that Wget packs a ton of power for such a small terminal command.” MiniTask Is A Lightweight To-Do Tracker (All platfroms with Adobe AIR)“Free Adobe AIR application MiniTask is a lightweight task manager with a surprising number of features.”Cut down on holiday stress this year by setting up a station for gift wrapping and holiday mailing. Last year was the first year in my life I didn’t wrap a single present the week of Christmas, let alone on Christmas Eve, and I chalk that up entirely to having a gift wrapping station. Over at the holiday-loving blog Organized Christmas they have a guide to setting up a wrapping and mailing centre in your home whether you have an entire room to dedicate to it or a temporary space on half a kitchen table. Many of the tips centre on temporarily repurposing household objects for double duty as wrapping aides: Long, low molded plastic boxes with storage for bows and gift cards slide easily under beds or on a linen closet shelf. An over-the-door shoe bag will keep scissors, bows, tags and ribbons visible as you work.
Even if you live in a studio apartment, it’s still possible to convert a bed into a temporary gift wrapping station by placing a heavy sheet of cardboard on the bed to protect it from your fast and furious wrapping paper cutting. Photo by Compromised Exposure. Set up a Wrap and Mail Center! [Organized Christmas]
When you really want to stay in touch over a long distance, a simple phone call or voice chat pales in comparison to a face-to-face video chat. You can look your long-distance significant other in the eyes while you talk; your parents can watch their grandkid grow up; and under the right circumstances, video chat can also be an excellent tool for work-related calls and collaboration. The question is, what tools should you be using to get the most out of your calls?
