Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Eye Relax Reminds You to Stop Burning Your Eyes Out

11:30PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows only: Eye Relax is a small Windows application that reminds you to take a break from the computer and give your eyes a much needed break. Many programs designed as break reminders are simply timers under a different name, but Eyes Relax has a host of unique features that put it one step beyond. In addition to the basic setup, where you plug in your work period and break time lengths, you can also customise how Eyes Relax shows up to enforce eyeball rest: a balloon tip in the system tray, a screen blank-out, or a pre-selected image pop-in. There’s also a “parent mode” where you can set a password to lock the reminder screen—which would certainly put an end to dinner-time calls of “Just five more minutes!” One of the handiest features by far however is the ability to save the settings as profiles. When you’re poring over minute edits and restoration in Photoshop, for example, it fatigues your eyes much quicker than casual web browsing. Eye Relax is freeware, Windows only. Eye Relax [via gHacks] More »

Floola Syncs Music, Google Calendars To iPods Without iTunes

11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows/Mac/Linux (all platforms): Floola, the go-anywhere, no-iTunes-required iPod manager, has updated with some nifty new features, including the ability to natively sync your Google Calendars to your iPod. We’ve been into Floola for some time now, ever since discovering that it was the ultimate solution for adding music and movies to your iPod from any computer, whether or not you were down with iTunes. The latest versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux (GTK2 required) add Google Calendar importing, plus a few bug fixes and optimisations sprinkled throughout. As with previous versions, Floola 4.7 is a stand-alone app, and its best used by stashing it in the disk storage of your iPod to be run from any system. It doesn’t support iPhones or iPod touch models, however. It’s free to download. Floola [via Avanishtech] More »

Save Synaptic Markings To Speed Up Ubuntu Reinstallation

10:30PM Kevin Purdy | If you’re about to start over with an Ubuntu installation, you don’t have to spend time selecting and reinstalling all your chosen apps and packages. Synaptic offers a convenient solution for auto-installing your favourites. An Ubuntu Forums user points to an option in the default package manager for Ubuntu (and Debian, and a few other distros as well) that your Linux-using editors hadn’t noticed. “Save Markings” in the File menu creates a file that notes all the package names—everything—you have installed in your current setup, and can be loaded easily into Synaptic on your next install for automated re-installation. It’s a nifty time saver, but it likely works best on re-installations of the same OS version—package names can sometimes change across upgrades, though the worst that would likely happen would be an error message and some manual searching/downloading after that. HOWTO Reinstall all of your current packages if you do a fresh Ubuntu install [Ubuntu Forums] More »

Google Maps Finds Your Nearby Friends With Latitude

9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Google Maps has added a friend-finding, location-aware feature for mobile phones and iGoogle that tells selected friends and contacts where you are, updates through Google Talk, and claims lots of privacy features. Head to google.com/latitude from your Android, Blackberry, Symbian S60, or Windows Mobile phone, or in your desktop browser, to activate Latitude (iPhone support is on the way, the big G says). Both mobile phones running the Latitude app and browser with Google Gears installed can automatically update your location using Maps’ My Location feature, but you can set up, contact-by-contact, who sees your live updates, who doesn’t, and even set up status messages for individuals—so, perhaps, the boss only sees that you’re at your desk, nowhere else, not even thinking about sneaking out for coffee. The app and iGoogle gadget launch today with availability in 27 countries and 42 languages. Check out an overview of how Latitude works, and its privacy features, in this video: More »

Add A Google News Feed To Your Web Site With NewsShow

4:30PM Angus Kidman | Fancy adding a topic-specific headline feed to your blog or site? Google has just added the ability to generate an automatic Google News box (which it brands as a NewsShow), either covering broad topics or specific keywords. If you’re programming-friendly, you can work directly with the News API, but most users will probably just settle for the wizard that automatically creates code to paste into your blog or site template. It’d be nice to see a wider range of formats, but it’s still an easy way to put some topical links on your site. NewsShow Wizard[via The Official Google Blog] More »

DIY Cloth Cubicle Transformation

3:00PM Angus Kidman | Office cubicles generally look as drab as gets out, and there’s only so much you can do with plants and family photos. Graphic designer Maria stocked up on a bunch of cheap fabric at IKEA and transformed her cubicle into a much more colourful space by using a picnic table cover to brighten up the walls. Of course, this isn’t an IKEA-specific transformation; any useful source of fabric (Spotlight, the local charity shop) could match the task. Just make sure you check that you’re not violating some obscure company policy before you start redecorating. IKEA Hacker More »

3 Fattens Mobile Offering With The Biggest Loser Content

1:30PM Angus Kidman | 3’s latest shot in the endless battle of what-free-content-can-we-offer? amongst mobile providers is providing free video content from Ten’s dieting reality show The Biggest Loser to 3 subscribers. While you might not fancy catching the on-screen shenanigans as 10 couples battle to peel off the pork, the mobile offering also includes fitness training clips from resident sadist The Commando and “lifestyle tips” from trainers Shannan and Michelle — a potentially useful source of information if you’re looking to mix up your fitness routine. And at least you don’t have to pay extra for the material, emulating Telstra’s approach with Australian Idol last year. Three More »

How Does Your Facebook Friends Total Compare To The Average?

12:00PM Angus Kidman | Facebook is making a bit of noise about the fact that it is now five years old, during which time it has attracted a total of 150 million users (of whom 15 million bother to update their status daily or more often). The statistic which stuck out for me is that the average user now has a total of 120 friends. Facebook originally eschewed the MySpace “whoever has the most friends wins” ethos, but 120 still seems to me a fairly big number (though admittedly my own total is even higher). Where do you find yourself on that scale? Have you befriended every former classmate, or kept yourself to a more restricted group of people you might actually recognise if you passed them in the street? More »

GNOME Do’s Smart Dock Takes App Launching To Another Level

11:00AM Kevin Purdy | A new version of the quick-firing Linux keyboard launcher GNOME Do landed last week, bringing with it a “theme” that acts as a whole new desktop interface. Let’s check out how it works. More »

Skype 4.0 Beta Testers Must Manually Upgrade

10:30AM Angus Kidman | If you’ve been beta testing version 4.0 of Skype for Windows, using the ‘Check for updates’ feature likely won’t let you access the final version released this week. On my system (running version 4.0.0.176), using that option reports that the newest version is installed, even though the latest release is (at this writing) 4.0.0.206. While there aren’t any substantial interface changes in the final version, the audio and video codecs have been updated, so upgrading via a manual download makes sense (even if Skype doesn’t want to reward your patience as a beta tester by making the process straightforward). More »