Many people are passionate about having a live Christmas tree, but topping off the tiny water dish in the stand is a pain. Avoid getting poked in the eye with a handy stealth watering system. Over at the DIY site Instructables, user Ricky Spears got sick of wrestling with his tree every time he wanted to top off the quickly depleted reserve of water under his tree. His solution is both cheap and a great time saver. You’d never guess it by just the photo above, but the large gold present under the Christmas tree houses a gallon of water to help top off the pan under the tree.
iPhone/iPod touch only: Microsoft has made a surprising leap into the iPhone app realm, releasing a mobile viewer for its super-high-resolution Photosynthservice. Unless you’re familiar enough with the previously mentioned Photosynth tool to create your own in-depth, virtual-tour-ish images, you’d likely use Seadragon as a kind of low-lag image viewer, which it seems to work quite well at. Seadragon comes pre-loaded with some pretty eye-widening images from NASA, the Library of Congress, maps, and intriguing shots from Photosynth, but you can also add your own RSS image feeds—such as those from Flickr, and get similar super-zoom features, up to a point. It’s also worth noting that while Photosynth previously required a Windows-only plug-in, it’s recently opened up a Silverlight-based viewer that should work for Mac clients as well. Seadragon is a free download for iPhones and iPod touches running at least the 2.0 firmware. Seadragon Free [Example Source via Example]
The Get Rich Slowly blog rounds up 18 tips for buying used clothing, something that’s becoming increasingly palatable to many looking to stretch their monthly budgets. Photo by brooklyn.
Human-powered search site Mahalo launches a familiar-seeming group Q&A forum, Mahalo Answers, with a Google-like twist—having the best answer might just earn you a few bucks from the question-asker. In other words, it’s intended to be a cross between the pay-for-answers seriousness of Google’s now-shuttered Answers tool, which tilted toward researchers and super-specific questions, and Yahoo’s own wide-open Answers. Mahalo is seeding a few hundred thousand “Mahalo Bucks” (worth $0.75 in real dollars, cash-able after accumulating $40) to current Mahalo members and testers for spending on answers. And to prevent fraud and cheap-skating, askers will have four days to pick an answer before other users choose it for them, and rating systems are intended to kill off spammers and griefers. If Yahoo just isn’t cutting it for you, or you’re looking for a semi-serious answer to a question you’re willing to spend a few on, Mahalo Answers might be the place to sound off. Mahalo Answers [via Wired]
Maybe it was the recent roll-out of Gmail’s task manager, but Google Apps developers have finally opened up “Labs” features to domain-based Google Mail users. It should be noted that, as with most Google releases, it might be a gradual roll-out, but readers tipped us to Labs showing up on Sunday night. I count the same number of lab items in our Lifehacker Google Apps account as a standard Gmail account, which means Apps users have access to all the productivity-boosting tweaks in Labs, like Superstars and Quick Links, Signature Tweaks, Advanced IMAP Controls, and many more.
Qantas announced on Friday that it’s planning to pair up with supermarket giant Woolworths in mid-2009, offering frequent flyer points for everyday shopping transactions. That’s potentially a very useful way of accumulating a few free flights, though much will depend on how many points are offered per dollar on the transactions, which won’t be clear for some months. In the meantime, check out our guide to how to make the most of Qantas’ scheme. Another useful recent Qantas development you can take advantage of right now (as seen in the picture): the airline has finally integrated its carbon offset payment scheme into its main ticket buying site, so you don’t need to perform a totally separate transaction to help compensate for the effects of your travelling. More »
Windows only: IndexYourFiles is a lightweight and completely portable file-indexer that leaves behind no trace and requires nothing more than the executable. After unzipping the application, all you need to do is run it and give a folder, local drive, or network drive to begin indexing. You can save profiles from within the program allowing you to keep a separate index for home, work, or even individual drives to limit your searches to drives you use for the task at hand. Indexing is snappy, as is the search engine itself. During my test run it indexed 110GB of data in a matter of seconds. If you’re in a position where you can’t install a desktop search engine at work but would benefit from using one, IndexYourFiles is a stealthy option. For another portable-friendly file indexer, check out Locate32. Thanks Joelena! IndexYourFiles
KidZui is a child-safe internet front end that calls upon an enormous whitelist of websites, pictures, videos, and games that have all been reviewed by a group of volunteers composed of parents and educators. The KidZui experience is available in two forms: a stand alone browser on Windows based machines or as a Firefox extension on any system that can run Firefox. The experience with both is very similar. The installation process is kid friendly, with children able to directly participate in the process if the parents desire. Kids can create an avatar for the social network side of KidZui, which is like a slightly more detailed incarnation of the Mii avatars found on the Nintendo Wii video game console. Interaction between the child’s avatar however is very limited, from a safety standpoint. No personal information is ever or can be shared, children are limited to exchanging information already approved within the KidZui network. For instance a child could send a link to a funny Sponge Bob video or article on trains to a friend, but couldn’t send them their home address.
Where are thou perfectly enormous desktop wallpapers? Our inbox is frequently stuffed with demands for beautiful high-res multi-monitor wallpaper, but the multi-monitor segment of users seems largely ignored. Where can we send our readers? We’ve covered sites over the years that offer beautiful high resolution wallpaper. When confronted with spiffing up a spread of 3000+ pixels however, there seems to be very little love to go around. Where do you find your multi-monitor wallpaper? No matter how well known or obscure your sources, we want to hear how you put a sparkle on your enormous bank of screen space!
The credit crunch might be doing nasty things to your job prospects, but it has one potential upside for travellers: hotel room prices are falling across the globe. However, last-minute discount deals won’t always represent the best value. More »
