Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): LinkExtend consolidates a host of web site info services into a single Firefox extension, giving you quick data on page rank, company ethics, malware checks, and much more. LinkExtend harnesses the data from multiple ranking tools in order to give you relevant information about the web pages you visit. To ensure your safety sites you visit are checked against databases at Web of Trust, McAfee SiteAdvisor, and Google Safe Browsing, among others. The Web of Trust website is also used to check if a site is kid safe, along with the lists at Alexa and ICRA. There is even, where available, information about the corporate ethics of the websites you visit provided by Scryve, Knowmore, and Corporate Critic. Do you like seeing thumbnails of sites you visit before leaping to them? The LinkExtend toolbar employs thumbs from five sources to serve them up. The toolbar and context menus provide page rank and site traffic data, show the last time you visited, and alert on whether or not the site has been flagged for malware, spam, or other unsavory activity. The pictures below show the options you can activate, as seen during the initial installation of the extension, and the toolbar in action: More »
Cc:Betty, a new email “assistant,” is like the dearly departed Sandy in how you call her up, but has a different mission—namely, helping you organize the text, attachments, events, and other data from any long email thread. Gmail and Outlook users are likely to scoff a bit at Betty’s “features,” at least at first blush. So it lets you take a threaded view of a back-and-forth conversation? Pah! And it separates all the multimedia in your inbox? Big deal! Didn’t I read about tools like Xoopit and Xobni that do just the same thing? Kind of, but not really. More »
Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): One of our favourite Firefox extensions dropped two letters and added a few neat features. Xmarks, Foxmarks’ successor, is Firefox only right now, but plans to soon be your go-anywhere hive brain for bookmarks. Launching from the DEMO ’09 conference today, Xmarks is, from the users’ viewpoint, just a re-branding and incremental upgrade for Firefox users. In fact, existing Foxmarks users don’t have to install anything new, as Xmarks appears as just an upgrade to their existing add-on. But the Fox/Xmarks team has thrown in a few neat new features to its already-great system for keeping your bookmarks (and, on Firefox, passwords) synchronised across browsers and computers. If I’m reading the releases right, the big goal is to get most, if not all, of this functionality into Internet Explorer and Safari, and soon. That’d be a major step toward the never-ending dilemma of syncing bookmarks across all browsers. Xmarks is a free download, works wherever Firefox does. IE and Safari users (on Windows), check out the cross-platform Foxmarks for a mostly-similar tool. Digging the new Xmarks name, look, and search features? Annoyed at having another tool glom onto your Google results? Sound off in the comments.
XmarksConventional eBay thinking holds that listing items with cheap opening prices should get you more attention and a better finishing price, so from that point of view eBay’s offer to waive insertion fees for items starting at 99 cents or less between March 2 and 22 sounds pretty good. On the other hand, the normal insertion fee for that price is only 30 cents, and if you’d rather list something with a minimum starter of $10, that’s only going to cost 50 cent. So do the sums and research carefully before diving in. eBay
Windows 7 includes new technology that might elevate mobile broadband software from its current status as (quite literally) a pile of garbage. But will telcos take advantage of it? More »
Producing a chart in Excel in Office 2007 doesn’t require much more than selecting a suitable set of numbers and clicking on the appropriate chart icon (on the Insert tab if you’re ribbon-phobic). However, making that chart look presentable can be a bit more work. On the official Excel blog, developer Robin Wakefield discusses some of the techniques available for making charts look more professional, serving as a useful reminder that under the automated processes there’s some serious tweaking possible if you have the time and inclination. (There’s also a very non-MS admission of how the introduction of Themes in Office 2007 might have created as many problems as it solved.)
How to Create a Professional Chart using Excel 2007 [Microsoft Excel Blog]Good news for travel bargain hunters — it doesn’t look like discount fares are disappearing any time soon. Jetstar’s latest offer is 2-for-1 tickets for journeys from most of its domestic destinations between October 21 and December 9 this year (a useful reinforcement of the principle that the early travel booker still gets the bargains). Unsurprisingly, availability over public holiday weekends is limited, but if you’re planning to fly at that time (or just looking for a way to make your next general holiday with your other half cheaper), this is worth checking out (before the sale ends on March 4).
Jetstar 2 For 1 [via OzBargain]Kick off your Lifehacker Monday by making sure you didn’t miss any of the biggest posts from last week:
How I Cleaned 1328 Emails Out Of My Inbox In An Hour“I suddenly had 1328 emails in my inbox, and 401 of them hadn’t even been read. Sounds like a nightmare, but in reality it only took me an hour to get my inbox back under control.” A Hands On Look At Safari 4′s (Crashy) Eye Candy If Apple knows how to do anything, it’s take tech you’ve already seen and make it flashier and more fun to use. The new Safari 4 public beta is no exception. Starbucks Offers Free Wi-Fi To iiNet Customers“At Lifehacker we’re suckers for any kind of free Wi-Fi, so the news that iiNet customers can now get free Wi-Fi access in Starbucks stores was pretty much guaranteed to bring a smile to our faces.” Create Your Own Minimalist Storage With Hungarian ShelvesIf you’re looking for sturdy wall-hugging shelving that doesn’t require fancy custom braces or brackets, check out the industrious design of these Hungarian shelves. How Frequently Can You Nag Your Communications Bills Down?“How often can you squeeze a better deal out of your phone company or ISP? “ PDF-to-Word Converter Pulls Readable Text From Scanned ImagesFree web-based converter PDF-to-Word turns static PDF files into edit-friendly Word documents with surprising, reliable accuracy. It’s in closed beta right now, but Lifehacker readers can get in early. DoubleTwist May Be The Coolest Universal Media Manager Ever (Mac)doubleTwist simplifies media management, whether you want to sync to your mobile device, share it with friends, or upload it to YouTube, Flickr, or Facebook. It’s so easy your grandparents could use it. Maxto Divides And Conquers Your Screen Real Estate (Windows)If you’re looking for a lightweight tool for compartmentalising space on your monitor and need support for multiple screens, MaxTo lets you subdivide to your heart’s content. F.lux Changes Your Screen Brightness By Time Of Day (Windows/Mac/Linux)If you spend your entire day staring into the pit of an eye-burning LCD, free application F.lux may be right up your alley. Little Registry Cleaner Dumps Your Registry Junk (Windows)If a lot of un- and re-installs left your system a bit messy, Little Registry Cleaner can clean it up, along with startup items and other system utilities. Install Google Toolbar 6, Get Quick Search Box (Windows)Remember Quick Search Box, Google’s new search-and-launch application built by the same guy who developed Quicksilver? Well, now it’s available for Windows-you’ve just got to install Google Toolbar in IE to get it.It turns out that your daydreaming doodles of infinite awesomeness not only help with long meetings, but can also help you remember what goes on during the meeting. In a study, scientists asked subjects to recall what they’d just heard in recordings—with some having doodled throughout, others not. The doodlers demonstrated significantly higher recall than the non-doodlers. “People may doodle as a strategy to help themselves concentrate,” said study co-author Jackie Andrade, a University of Plymouth psychologist. “We might not be aware that we’re doing it, but it could be a trick that people develop because it helps them from wandering off into a daydream.”
How does it work? The scientists hypothesize the mental load it takes to absentmindedly draw is significantly smaller than the demands of a full-on fantasy, which leads your mind entirely away from the event you’re supposed to be engaged in. That trickle of attention devoted to doodling appears to keep you focused in the present time, while giving you a release valve from a frustratingly over-long group session.
It should be noted that the doodling test subjects were doing some light doodling, like shading in boxes. So while abstract or simple shapes might be okay for your focus, try to scale it back if you find yourself crafting elaborate panoramas of medieval battle fields and epic space operas. Then again, your inspired re-imagining of the Sistine Chapel during the report on last quarter’s profits per share might suggest a larger career assessment is in order. Photo by Bigbadvoo. A Sketchy Brain Booster: Doodling [Wired]
Windows/Mac: PolarClock is a novel screen saver that displays the passage of time in a series of shrinking concentric circles. Each division of time is represented as a separate circle, with circles for the month, calendar day, day of the week, hour, minute and second. As time passes, each circle grows incrementally and proportionately larger to show the passage of time. The level of detail and customisation is impressive for such as simple concept: you can arrange the order of the circles designating various divisions of time, change the colours, widths and fonts, and get deeper still, if you’d like. In addition to a screen saver for Windows and Mac OS X, PolarClock is also available as a dash board widget for Mac OS X and an iPhone app. If you have a novel or unique time-focused screen saver or widget you’re dying to share, sound off in the comments below so your fellow readers can partake in the visual goodness. Thanks laurion! PolarClick [Pixel Breaker]
