This week was supposed to mark eBay Australia’s switching off its old My eBay interface for buyers and sellers in favour of a new, more customised design, but at the last minute, eBay appears to have changed its mind, delaying the compulsory rollout to the ever-present and unspecified “soon” and letting users continue to use the old version. Perhaps the auction giant has learned something from last year’s botched search rollout.
Windows only: Desktop icon organiser Fences arranges your cluttered desktop icons into containers so you can clean up the mess into useful groups of shortcuts—or optionally hides them altogether. Once installed, Fences will run through a couple of first-time beginner screens asking if you’d like to use one of the built-in layouts, and will attempt to auto-detect which icons should be placed inside each fence. You can modify any of the fences by simply moving or resizing them around the screen, and then use the Lock item on the desktop context menu to fix them into place when you are done.
The IKEA Lack table is a common fixture for first renters and homebuyers, but it can serve as more than just a surface to eat off. Mikael built himself a lounge room computer by attaching the relevant parts under one of the ubiquitous $25 tables, then adding an extra protective layer to keep out dust. Neat. HTPC table [via IKEA Hacker]
HP has an Ubuntu-based netbook, the Mini 1000 Mi Edition, that brings a whole new look to Linux laptops. Luckily, regular ol’ Ubuntu users can put some of the Mini’s black-and-blue looks on their desktop. Unless you’re rocking a netbook compiled for LPIA (Low Power on Intel Architecture), you can’t get the slick looks of HP’s custom launcher or other hardware-specific tools. But since everything’s based on Ubuntu 8.04, any updated Ubuntu user can grab the basic theme, colours, and backgrounds from HP’s remix. As described by an Ubuntu Forums poster, those keen on a dark theme can head to the universe section of the Hardy-HPMini site, and grab three pre-compiled packages: glassy-bleu-browser-skin_0.5_all.deb, glassy-bleu-theme_21_all.deb, and gnome-backgrounds-hp_0.4_all.deb (or the updated versions of those packages). Download, double-click to run the package manager on them, and open the Appearance tool to change your theme and background. Your next launch of Firefox will bring up a new theme installed, which you can select to mesh with your new black and blue theme.
Web-based application i like b-sides takes a peek at your uploaded iTunes library and, based on your listening habits and collection, suggests new tracks to check out. To use i like b-sides (their non-capitalisation, not ours), browse your computer to find the XML file that contains your iTunes database—and consequently all of your music information, most frequently played songs, rated songs, etc.—zip it up and upload it on the webapp’s main page. Once you’ve uploaded your musical fingerprint, i like b-sides analyses your library and suggests new music that you may be unaware of, as well as songs in your collection that you may have overlooked. It’s basically a more automated way of building a “lost songs” playlist. The site suggests a few dozen songs at a time, with audio previews and purchase links for the iTunes store and Amazon. If the suggestions seem a bit off, you can always hit the shuffle button and get a whole new list of suggestions. For more ways to discover new music, check out our feature on downloading and listening to free music on the web.
i like b-sides [via Webware]Windows only: Free space analysis utility SpaceMonger visualises hard drive usage with a drill-down treemap view of your file system so you can quickly identify wasted space. Using the application is easy—launch the executable, pick a drive to analyse, and then drill down through the treemap to identify the files that are wasting space. If this concept seems familiar to you, it’s because we’ve featured many of these applications before. Previously mentioned apps like DriveSpacio, Windirstat, and Free Disk Analyzer all do the same thing with slightly different interfaces. This application is lightweight and contained in a single executable file, making it worth a look as another addition to your flash drive toolkit. SpaceMonger 1.4 is a free download for Windows only. The latest version isn’t free, but you can still download the freeware version from their downloads page. Thanks, Nik Coley!
SpaceMongerWindows only: Hailing from the camp of “do one thing exceedingly well”,” Batch Image Resizer is a small utility for speedily batch processing your image files. Bulk Image Resizer supports popular image formats like JPG, PNG, BMP, and GIF among others without any limitation on file size. The documentation for the program describes the resizing method as a “high quality distortion-less image resizing.” While “high quality” isn’t exactly a scientific measure, during testing, our resizing results were comparable to other resizing applications, and reasonable upscaling had good results. If you have a multi-core processor, the application is optimised to use it for speedier processing. One small but handy feature is the ability to pull source images from multiple directories at once, rather than demanding a folder-by-folder run. Batch Image Resizer is freeware, Windows only.
Bulk Image Resizer [via Freeware Home]Location awareness makes a lot of sense on phones, and now it seems it’s shifting to the Mac desktop. According to AppleInsider, developers who’ve been playing around with early builds of Snow Leopard report that OS X 10.6 includes the same CoreLocation framework that the iPhone used to triangulate your location using surrounding Wi-Fi networks. As Gizmodo points out:
Given that CoreLocation requires no special, costly hardware, I say why not? It’s sad that, even from my couch, I close my notebook to use my iPhone whenever I want to look up directions.
Agreed.
Apple’s Snow Leopard to include location, multi-touch tools [AppleInsider via Gizmodo]Windows only: Screen capture utility Screen2exe records video of your desktop and outputs an executable file that runs anywhere, free of codec requirements—useful for carrying on a flash drive.If this idea sounds familiar, you’re probably remembering previously mentioned MakeInstantPlayer, an app that converts any video file to an EXE—it doesn’t actually help you make any screencasts, though.
The TipNut blog occasionally digs up advice from really old cookbooks, and tips like this result: Spreading a thin layer of butter on a block of opened cheese keeps it soft, and prevents mould. The key is to get the butter lightly spread on the cheese you aren’t serving yet, and to cover the end you exposed by cutting. It’s a tip backed up by both recent how-to articles and really, really old cookbooks. If you don’t like the idea of plebian butter infecting the taste of your aristocratic cheese choices, simply shave off the borders of your block before serving. Got your own advice for keeping the expensive fromage fresh? Tell us in the comments, and visit the link below for 25 more old-timey tips. Photo by cwbuecheler. 26 Kitchen Tips: Timeless Wisdom Collection [TipNut.com]
