Thursday, January 15, 2009
Work
Xinorbis Analyses Your Disk Usage
11:30PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows only: Xinorbis is a portable and quite powerful disk analyzer. Graphs, tables, trees, and report generation ensure you know what is going on with your data. After scanning your disks—the results can be viewed individually for each drive or merged together to provide a system overview of all your storage—you can drill down into your data. Data can be sorted and graphed by file type, biggest folders, date of creation, 101 biggest and smallest files, and data distribution by user. Results can be saved with the Report function and compared to future scans. Additionally there is a basic file navigator that places a handy bar beside each folder indicating how much of the drive it takes up. Xinorbis is freeware, Windows only. Thanks SanwariCethegus! Xinorbis More »
Fix
Fix ‘Corked’ Wine With A Bowl And Plastic Wrap
10:30PM Kevin Purdy | Dinner’s cooked, the guests are arriving, so you pop open that nice bottle of red and—ugh, what is that? If you’re stuck with a “corked” bottle, here’s how you can minimize the dankness. In a New York Times article on wine’s flavorful reactions to just about everything, out comes a tip from Andrew Waterhouse, a professor of wine chemistry at the University of California, Davis, on dealing with the effects of a tainted cork: Mr. Waterhouse said that the obnoxious, dank flavor of a “corked” wine, which usually renders it unusable even in cooking, can be removed by pouring the wine into a bowl with a sheet of plastic wrap. “It’s kind of messy, but very effective in just a few minutes,” he said. The culprit molecule in infected corks, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, is chemically similar to polyethylene and sticks to the plastic. I’m not enough of an oenologist to be sure, but for any wine that seems a little off, a bit of oxygen exposure outside the bottle before serving seems to have helped. Got a better wine-saver? Spill it in the comments. For a Tastier Wine, the Next Trick Involves … [New York Times] More »
Fix
Get The Old ‘Show Desktop’ Back In Windows 7–Kinda
9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows 7 gives users better ways to clear most everything but the desktop—namley Aero Shake and Aero Peek. But if you still cling to “Show Desktop,” however, you can kind of get it back. Pinning a Show Desktop icon to the taskbar in Windows 7 won’t work the way it did in pretty much every earlier version of Windows. While you can still create the “Show Desktop.scf” script, it just won’t pin itself correctly. The Tweaking with Vishal blog offers a kind of work-around that makes use of Windows 7’s utterly transparent toolbars. The short version: Create a folder, place a “Show Desktop.scf” file in there (either your standard Google-found kind or the script available at the bottom link), then right-click your taskbar to create a “New Toolbar” that points to that folder. Turn off the text and titles on that new toolbar, change the icons to large size, and then put your new one-button toolbar where you’d like. The drawback: If you pin it too close to the right of your standard tasks and pinned items, you’ll compress them and require an extra click to get to them. If you don’t mind having your desktop button on the left, though, or have a totally re-tweaked taskbar altogether, you’re good to go. (Lifehacker AU editor adds: for my money, the still-functional Windows key-M shortcut beats all these options for getting to the desktop in a hurry.) How to Get the Good Old “Show Desktop” Feature Back in Windows 7? [Tweaking with Vishal] More »
Work
5:32PM Angus Kidman | Having just finished installing Build 7000 of Windows 7 on my PC this week (being at CES in Vegas got in the way of an earlier setup), one of the first things I tested was the search function — and it didn’t do well. In the most telling example, it totally failed to find text files that matched a given search term, even when that term was part of the file name. Indexing Options (under Control Panel) includes a troubleshooter, but it reported that everything was working fine. Since that clearly wasn’t the case, I chose to rebuild the index (another choice under Indexing Options). That took a few hours, but the results were good, and Windows Search now appears to be working properly. Of course, Windows 7 is still in beta, and your mileage might vary, but if you’re not finding search works well, a rebuild is probably indicated. Ideally, the release candidate will automatically handle this kind of problem without requiring manual intervention, especially for users upgrading from Vista, which does already include search functionality. More »
Rebuild Your Index In Windows 7 To Make Sure Everything’s Visible
5:32PM Angus Kidman | Having just finished installing Build 7000 of Windows 7 on my PC this week (being at CES in Vegas got in the way of an earlier setup), one of the first things I tested was the search function — and it didn’t do well. In the most telling example, it totally failed to find text files that matched a given search term, even when that term was part of the file name. Indexing Options (under Control Panel) includes a troubleshooter, but it reported that everything was working fine. Since that clearly wasn’t the case, I chose to rebuild the index (another choice under Indexing Options). That took a few hours, but the results were good, and Windows Search now appears to be working properly. Of course, Windows 7 is still in beta, and your mileage might vary, but if you’re not finding search works well, a rebuild is probably indicated. Ideally, the release candidate will automatically handle this kind of problem without requiring manual intervention, especially for users upgrading from Vista, which does already include search functionality. More »
Communicate
5:12PM Angus Kidman | It’s no great shock to learn that when it comes to interrupting your dinner with an unwanted phone call, telecommunications companies are at the top of the list. According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, 55% of complaints regarding violations of the Do Not Call register relate to phone products and services. And it turns out that the usual “few bad apples” principle applies:
ACMA estimates that 5 per cent of the businesses complained about are responsible for about 70 per cent of the total complaints received
Have you found being on the Do Not Call register has helped cut down telemarketing calls? More »
Telcos Worst Offenders For Ignoring Do Not Call Register
5:12PM Angus Kidman | It’s no great shock to learn that when it comes to interrupting your dinner with an unwanted phone call, telecommunications companies are at the top of the list. According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, 55% of complaints regarding violations of the Do Not Call register relate to phone products and services. And it turns out that the usual “few bad apples” principle applies:
ACMA estimates that 5 per cent of the businesses complained about are responsible for about 70 per cent of the total complaints received
Have you found being on the Do Not Call register has helped cut down telemarketing calls? More »
Communicate
2:27PM Angus Kidman | You’re probably familiar with AutoCorrect, Microsoft’s technology for fixing common errors and letting you create shortcuts for frequently used text, from Word and Excel, but it can also be helpful in Outlook (which uses Word as its editing environment). The Microsoft Outlook Team Blog offers a guide on how to set up AutoCorrect options. Its most useful insight is in how to set up acronym expansions in AutoCorrect that don’t drive you nuts:
Since I might not want the acronym expanded every time I type it I’ve added a symbol at the end of the acronym: “>”. Only acronyms that I’ve defined with that symbol will get automatically expanded. This way I am be able to type DCFS or DCFS>, depending on what I want to happen.
That’s a simple but very handy idea (and a similar concept to our recent suggestion of how to tag work-in-progress writing.)
Living in Outlook: Making AutoCorrect Work for You [Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog]
More »
Make AutoCorrect Acronym Expansions Useful In Outlook
2:27PM Angus Kidman | You’re probably familiar with AutoCorrect, Microsoft’s technology for fixing common errors and letting you create shortcuts for frequently used text, from Word and Excel, but it can also be helpful in Outlook (which uses Word as its editing environment). The Microsoft Outlook Team Blog offers a guide on how to set up AutoCorrect options. Its most useful insight is in how to set up acronym expansions in AutoCorrect that don’t drive you nuts:
Since I might not want the acronym expanded every time I type it I’ve added a symbol at the end of the acronym: “>”. Only acronyms that I’ve defined with that symbol will get automatically expanded. This way I am be able to type DCFS or DCFS>, depending on what I want to happen.
That’s a simple but very handy idea (and a similar concept to our recent suggestion of how to tag work-in-progress writing.)
Living in Outlook: Making AutoCorrect Work for You [Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog]
More »
Communicate
12:30PM Angus Kidman | One of the minor annoyances in Skype 4.0 (which will soon be the default release) is that its determination to promote new features like video calls means that it makes some everyday tasks harder. For instance, where double-clicking on a contact name used to automatically start a voice call, now it brings up the contact card and you have to separately click on “Call phone” to make a call. Frankly, it’s an idiotic design, because single-clicking also brings up the contact card. Fortunately, there is a setting to make Skype behave more sensibly. Choose Tools, Options and then select “When I double-click on a contact start a call”.
While it would make far more sense to make this as the default behaviour, at least there’s still a choice.
More »
How To Reinstate Skype’s Double-Click To Call Function
12:30PM Angus Kidman | One of the minor annoyances in Skype 4.0 (which will soon be the default release) is that its determination to promote new features like video calls means that it makes some everyday tasks harder. For instance, where double-clicking on a contact name used to automatically start a voice call, now it brings up the contact card and you have to separately click on “Call phone” to make a call. Frankly, it’s an idiotic design, because single-clicking also brings up the contact card. Fortunately, there is a setting to make Skype behave more sensibly. Choose Tools, Options and then select “When I double-click on a contact start a call”.
While it would make far more sense to make this as the default behaviour, at least there’s still a choice.
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Why New Film Valkyrie Makes Goal Setting Look Good
Readers of Lifehacker will understand the importance of persistence and goal setting. For the makers of the new World War II film Valkyrie, out now in cinemas, that may not have always seemed the case- the film was marred by constant controversy since the 2007 casting of Tom Cruise as the lead character. Written and directed by the team behind cult classic The Usual Suspects, the WWII drama recounts the July 20, 1944 plot by high-ranking German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Cruise’s casting as Claus von Stauffenberg, the leader behind one of the (relatively) more successful and famous attempts on the Fuhrer’s life, was quickly disputed both by the German government and von Stauffenberg’s family, due to the actor’s adherence to Scientology. The filmmakers had difficulty securing filming locations as a result of the furor and, in turn, the release date was pushed six months behind schedule. However despite the seemingly endless delays, which also included the rejection of the original trailer by test audiences, the end result has been generally well accepted by critics and surprised box office analysts with its US performance over the Christmas break. Described by Nick over at Giz as something between Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbour, Valkyrie not only demonstrates the importance of persistence and planning in the face of criticism, but is an entertaining two hours for war buffs and goal-setters alike. Hit the jump for the film trailer. More »
Fix
11:00AM Angus Kidman | Firefox 3.0’s history of sites via the AwesomeBar is one of its most useful features, save a small design flaw: the title of the page it retains isn’t always very accurate. For instance, Google Maps generally shows up with the last address you searched, even though accessing the link gets you the entry page rather than search. Similarly, for quite some time my own blog link had a completely inaccurate title in my Firefox history, giving the name of the ISP that failed to find the connection rather than the blog itself. So far, the only solution I’ve found is to delete the whole entry (just highlight and hit the Delete key), but that’s not very sophisticated, and a real nuisance for fiddly addresses you don’t want to re-enter. Is there some hidden method or extension for editing just the page title in your existing history? Share any useful knowledge in the comments. More »
Is There Any Way To Edit Titles In Your Firefox History?
11:00AM Angus Kidman | Firefox 3.0’s history of sites via the AwesomeBar is one of its most useful features, save a small design flaw: the title of the page it retains isn’t always very accurate. For instance, Google Maps generally shows up with the last address you searched, even though accessing the link gets you the entry page rather than search. Similarly, for quite some time my own blog link had a completely inaccurate title in my Firefox history, giving the name of the ISP that failed to find the connection rather than the blog itself. So far, the only solution I’ve found is to delete the whole entry (just highlight and hit the Delete key), but that’s not very sophisticated, and a real nuisance for fiddly addresses you don’t want to re-enter. Is there some hidden method or extension for editing just the page title in your existing history? Share any useful knowledge in the comments. More »
Design
