Windows only: Create and mix your own file and media playlists with Freepath. Users can create file playlists from a variety of sources: files from their own computers, video files found on YouTube, photos from Flickr, nearly anything you can drag and drop from the web or your own computer can be dumped into Freepath. Once the files are placed within a playlist, users can opt to keep the list as spartan or create a slideshow complete with transitions and extra effects. One of the more unique features of Freepath is that files remain editable once they are embedded into the playlist.
Web PR worker Steve Rubel has a great post at his Micro Persuasion blog detailing how he adapted Gmail to serve as his ideal start page for nearly anything he needs to get done. Lots of stuff is built into Gmail by default—like web or mail search and RSS web clips—but Rubel goes into detail on using Google Talk to update IM-friendly social services, Labs tools like Quick Links and the new gadgets to access his calendar, documents, and vital services, and start his writing in an auto-saving Gmail box, to be mailed to other writing apps. It’s a neat primer for creating a manageable, inter-connected workflow in the webapp cloud, if you’re down for that sort of thing. Got your own Gmail-centric system, or another app that’s a smarter start page? Tell us in the comments. Making Gmail Your Gateway to the Web [Micro Persuasion]
Windows only: Service Pack 3 for Windows XP removed the ability of that operating system’s users to keep a quick-launching address box on their taskbar session after session. MuvEnum Address Bar aims to address that shortfall, but also adds a few neat conveniences to the package. There’s a customizable global hot key (Ctrl + Shift + A by default), bookmarks and history pulled from Internet Explorer, Firefox, and/or Google Chrome, auto-complete convenience, and a key to clear out MuvEnum’s history without wiping out your browser’s. While Vista has its own address bar option on its taskbar, MuvEnum installs on Vista and adds the same conveniences. MuvEnum is a free download for Windows systems only. Check out its single, helpful options screen below.
Etherpad, a collaborative-minded text editor forged by a group of ex-Google employees, focuses on making documents live and easy to collaborate on. That means that, at this point, the interface is pretty much straight text on numbered lines, but two or more people can work on a document in real time using a single URL to share, with different colours highlighting their work, a chat function for explanation, and revision-minded saving. For JavaScript coders and teams, there’s also a syntax highlighting function, and, well, that’s about it. If you, like many Lifehacker readers, dig the advanced but back-to-basics style of Notepad++, Etherpad might be right up your alley. No sign-up required.
Etherpad [via TechCrunch]Well, that was quick. Google has killed off Lively, the 3D avatar environment it launched with some fanfare back in June. The service will be switched off by the end of the year, a post on Google’s blog confirmed. It’s useful proof that even the Google branding can’t make a 3-legged dog — which is how most 3D online environments still come across — an attractive proposition. More »
The 2008 Weblog Awards, which acknowledge blogs across the globe in a range of categories, close their nominations this Friday. Of particular note for Lifehacker readers is the category for Australian and New Zealand blogs; if you want to nominate your favourite blog, or your own work, get in quick. (Of course, if you want to nominate Lifehacker Australia as well, I’d be pleased and grateful.) The 2008 Weblog Awards
Twitter aggregator Kvetch collects humorous complaints from Twitter users, displays them at random, and lets site visitors vote on how funny they are. Higher-rated comments are supposed to appear more often, though when I checked in the volume of tweets being drawn upon didn’t seem large enough for that to make much difference. Obviously, this is a huge potential time sink, but it’s also a useful way of coming up with new complaints and insults to share among your friends and colleagues. Kvetch [via Twitter Blog]
Helen Bradley’s Project Woman blog highlights a useful Photoshop hint: if you’ve created a grid using the vanishing point filter in Photoshop but no longer want it, just click on the relevant panel and hit the backspace key. Like many a Photoshop trick, this is rather obvious when you know it but hard to discern if you don’t.
Vamoose the Grid – Photoshop Vanishing Point Filter [Project Woman]In many countries, a small levy is added to the price of all electronic goods to cover the cost of manufacturers reclaiming them at the end of their life and ensuring their components are recycled. In Australia, just 4% of electronic items are properly recycled, and the rest end up at the local tip, Karen Dearne reports at AustralianIT. Despite that poor record, however, the Federal Government doesn’t want to commit to a similar scheme, with environment minister Peter Garrett rejecting suggestions effectively dodging the question:
I want to develop a national waste policy which maximises our opportunities to increase recycling, working closely with state and local jurisdictions to consider the best options for reducing the amount of waste going to landfill. I am not ruling anything in or out at this stage.
Given the current poor record, it seems to me that a financial incentive is the best chance to stop people dumping old electronics. If you’ve got suggestions for other tactics, let’s hear them in the comments.
Garrett rules out electronic waste tax [AustralianIT]If you’re manager tracks your time based on when you log in and out of your machine at work, then are you missing out on pay for the time you’re waiting for your machine to boot up and shut down? That’s what a series of lawsuits by employees from the likes of AT&T, UnitedHealth and Cigna demand. Add those minutes up over a week, and hourly employees are losing some serious pay, argues plaintiffs’ lawyer Mark Thierman, a Las Vegas solo practitioner who has filed a handful of computer-booting lawsuits in recent years.
In other words, does the clock start when you show up at the office or when the computer first logs you into the company network? A lawyer representing the defence on one of the cases argues that the time is generally spent doing personal activities like taking a coffee break or going out for a smoke. Are you getting stiffed time at your desk waiting for your operating system to startup? Photo by Andy Melton Does Your Boss Have to Pay You While You Wait for Vista to Boot Up? [via Slashdot]
