Monday, March 9, 2009
Organise
Teridon’s iTunes Scripts Lets You Batch Edit Your iTunes Collection
11:30PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows only: If you’re facing the monumental task of editing your iTunes metadata and files, and there’s no easy way to pull it all off, check out Teridon’s iTunes Scripts before giving up your free time. Teridon’s iTunes Scripts is a collection of small scripts available as both PERL and EXE applications covering a wide range of iTunes-related tasks. With the small scripts, you can do all manner of things: create playlists of all your one-off single tracks, bulk add M3U playlists, embed iTunes album art right into the ID3 data of the songs, remove duplicates, and import your song ratings from MediaMonkey. Before spending hours tinkering with your iTunes library, it’s worth checking to see if one of Teridon’s dozens of iTunes Scripts will turn your Saturday of data-entry Hell into a five minute automated task. Teridon’s iTune Scripts are free, open-source, and Windows only. Teridon’s iTunes Scripts [via gHacks] More »
Work
Translate Entire Documents And PDF Files With Google
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | No need to copy all the text of that Dutch document or Portugese PDF and paste it into Google Translate. The free service can now translate entire files if you give it the URL. Whether a file has been indexed by Google’s search servers or not, paste in the link to the document, and Google Translate will convert it to HTML, translate it, and present you with the page in a handy viewer. You usually have to know the original language to help Translate get started, and Google Operating System’s Alex noted that it only gave back the first nine pages of a PDF he gave it. For technical documents and other works you need a quick, mostly-legible read on, though, Google Translate’s document tool is a killer app. Google Translate – Text and Web [via Google Operating System] More »
Fix
Keep A House Plant Alive
9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Instructables user growerman knows you’ve got good intentions, but understands why all those plants in your home or office died. His seven-step guide to maintaining indoor plants will save you from your own gardening gaffes. The step titles might feel a little elementary school, but growerman gives just enough depth on sunlight, watering, soil, containers, and other necessities that you’ll probably walk away a bit smarter. To find that illusive balance between proper watering and drowning your plants, for instance, try his simple soil gauge: A good way to accurately and efficiently find out when your plant needs more water is to keep an eye on the soil. When the soil looks dry, just stick you finger in it. If the soil is dry in the first couple centimeters, is it probably time to give the plant more water. If your finger comes up with a little water on it, your plant is probably fine. I water my plants every Sunday, unless they need water earlier…. Inspired to start picking out some plants? Consider three plants that give you better indoor air and, as growerman suggests, supplement any plants that don’t get South-facing sunlight with LED light spikes. How to keep a house plant alive [Instructables] More »
Design
Spoof Magazine Covers And More At WriteOnIt
5:00PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Your mother always told you you’d never sell enough gold records, or fall hard enough from a high enough office, to make the cover of a magazine. Prove her wrong with spoof site WriteOnIt. WriteOnIt it is a web-based application that allows you to make spoof magazine covers, insert captions into photographs, and put your picture into other State-Fair-esque fake backgrounds, like billboards and in art galleries. There isn’t any interface for tweaking font sizes or special effects, so you’re stuck messing around with the length of sentences with trial and error. Still, for making some silly pictures without having to hone your Photoshop skills, it’s a fun site. For more fun creating photo mashups, check out PhotoFunia to paste your picture into more scenes and situations, and MorphThing to blend your face with a celebrity’s. Photo by HiggySTFC. WriteOnIt [via WebWare] More »
Spacious Charging Station With Automatic Lighting
4:45PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Rob was sick of misplaced chargers, scattered electronics, and the hunt for outlets to plug his gear in. Inspired by the charging stations he’d seen on Lifehacker, he built a spacious one for himself by turning a computer cabinet into a spacious charging station. After doing a little spring cleaning to get the clutter out of the cabinet, he secured several charging strips along the back of it to provide adequate power for all his gadgets. A small sheet of foam made for a soft surface to put his gadgets on, without them sliding or getting scratched up. The real geek cred, however, comes from the automatic lights. He already had the cabinet, so the additional outlay was minimal. More »
Organise
4:00PM Angus Kidman | If an on-PC or on-Web calendar just doesn’t cut it for getting organised, CalendarLabs’ range of customisable might just meet your needs. CalendarLabs offers a wide range of calendars complete with holiday dates for major countries (including Australia, though it doesn’t drill down as far as state-by-state school holidays). You can build a calendar for specific dates (though the holiday look-up on this version is variable), and access calendars in PDF format for printing if you don’t like the clutter-free printable versions supplied. For a similar but smaller approach, check out Compact Calendar Creator. If you’d rather make your existing calendar printer-friendly, check out options for Outlook and Google Calendar.
CalendarLabs
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CalendarLabs Offers Dozens Of Printable Calendars
4:00PM Angus Kidman | If an on-PC or on-Web calendar just doesn’t cut it for getting organised, CalendarLabs’ range of customisable might just meet your needs. CalendarLabs offers a wide range of calendars complete with holiday dates for major countries (including Australia, though it doesn’t drill down as far as state-by-state school holidays). You can build a calendar for specific dates (though the holiday look-up on this version is variable), and access calendars in PDF format for printing if you don’t like the clutter-free printable versions supplied. For a similar but smaller approach, check out Compact Calendar Creator. If you’d rather make your existing calendar printer-friendly, check out options for Outlook and Google Calendar.
CalendarLabs
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Communicate
2:00PM Angus Kidman | It’s not surprising, but it’s interesting to see it backed up by a study: people are no longer bothering to sign up for a landline when they move out of home, preferring instead the greater flexibility of a mobile phone. According to research by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, there’s a clear pattern: older people stick to landlines, but younger people (especially those aged 24-35) are largely driven by mobile phone use. While I don’t fall into that age bracket, I must admit the only reason I haven’t got naked DSL at my place yet and dumped the landline is a combination of laziness and some problems with the DSL part of the equation. Have you dumped your landline — and did you get a barrage of relatives complaining you were too expensive to contact? Share your experiences in the comments. Pic by Holger.Ellgaard from Wikimedia Commons
ACMA [via AustralianIT]
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Landlines Officially Going The Way Of The Dinosaur
2:00PM Angus Kidman | It’s not surprising, but it’s interesting to see it backed up by a study: people are no longer bothering to sign up for a landline when they move out of home, preferring instead the greater flexibility of a mobile phone. According to research by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, there’s a clear pattern: older people stick to landlines, but younger people (especially those aged 24-35) are largely driven by mobile phone use. While I don’t fall into that age bracket, I must admit the only reason I haven’t got naked DSL at my place yet and dumped the landline is a combination of laziness and some problems with the DSL part of the equation. Have you dumped your landline — and did you get a barrage of relatives complaining you were too expensive to contact? Share your experiences in the comments. Pic by Holger.Ellgaard from Wikimedia Commons
ACMA [via AustralianIT]
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Travel
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Australia’s different capital city public transport systems don’t have much in common — but many of them do offer free bus services in their CBD areas (along with the occasional no-cost tram or train). Check out our comprehensive listing to save money (and traffic jams) the next time you’re in an unfamiliar city. Picture from Adelaide Metro More »
Find Free Transport In Most Australian Capital Cities
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Australia’s different capital city public transport systems don’t have much in common — but many of them do offer free bus services in their CBD areas (along with the occasional no-cost tram or train). Check out our comprehensive listing to save money (and traffic jams) the next time you’re in an unfamiliar city. Picture from Adelaide Metro More »
Communicate
10:00AM Angus Kidman | The biggest roadblock to legal movie and TV downloads remains the huge amounts of bandwidth they consume, which can punch a huge hole in your monthly download cap (even without taking HD into consideration). The ideal solution would be cap-free ISP accounts, but since that’s never going to happen deals between ISPs and content providers are the next best thing. Lara Sinclair at The Australian reports that Seven and Internode have done a deal which will see Tivo downloads excluded from the total for customers who sign up for a new Internode/Tivo bundle. No word yet on whether Internode’s existing customers will also get similar benefits if they purchase a Tivo, but that would seem a likely outcome. The nature of the deal (which apparently kicks off in late March) suggests other ISPs aren’t likely to get a bite at the Tivo cherry. But there are other cap-free content options. If you favour iTunes for movies, iiNet remains your best bet, while there are now plenty of cap-free choices for the ABC’s iView, and BigPond Movies for Telstra customers.
Seven leading in race to deliver movie downloads [The Australian]
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Internode To Offer Cap-Free Access To Tivo
10:00AM Angus Kidman | The biggest roadblock to legal movie and TV downloads remains the huge amounts of bandwidth they consume, which can punch a huge hole in your monthly download cap (even without taking HD into consideration). The ideal solution would be cap-free ISP accounts, but since that’s never going to happen deals between ISPs and content providers are the next best thing. Lara Sinclair at The Australian reports that Seven and Internode have done a deal which will see Tivo downloads excluded from the total for customers who sign up for a new Internode/Tivo bundle. No word yet on whether Internode’s existing customers will also get similar benefits if they purchase a Tivo, but that would seem a likely outcome. The nature of the deal (which apparently kicks off in late March) suggests other ISPs aren’t likely to get a bite at the Tivo cherry. But there are other cap-free content options. If you favour iTunes for movies, iiNet remains your best bet, while there are now plenty of cap-free choices for the ABC’s iView, and BigPond Movies for Telstra customers.
Seven leading in race to deliver movie downloads [The Australian]
More »
Organise
8:30AM Angus Kidman | Kick off your Lifehacker Monday by making sure you didn’t miss any of the biggest posts from last week:
Laptopfriendlycafes.com Helps You Get Wi-Fi, Power, Coffee“Laptopfriendlycafes.jpg Corporate coffee chains often strike Wi-Fi deals with a particular provider, but if you want genuinely free Wi-Fi, you’re going to need to stick to independent cafés.”
Custom Wire Management For Multi-Monitor BlissBrian Connolly was tired of cramped desks and messy wiring, so he built his own desk and wire management system to have the spacious and tidy spread he desired.
DeskHedron Adds 3D Virtual Desktop Eye-Candy To Windows (Windows)Free application DeskHedron brings multiple virtual desktops to Windows, complete with an impressive spinning 3D animation that switches between your desktops.
Strip Word’s Interface Back For More Effective Writing“Microsoft’s Word blog outlines techniques for getting rid of on-screen junk by minimising the ribbon, switch to Web layout and disabling other elements of the Windows interface.”
Gmail Dark Theme Makes Gmail Easy On The EyesLifehacker reader haute negro took advantage of Gmail’s new user-defined custom themes to create an attractive, easy-on-the-eyes Gmail Dark theme.
DisplayFusion 3.0 Manages Everything Across Multi-Monitor Setups (Windows)If you’re looking to manage windows and wallpapers on multiple monitors, it’s tough to go wrong with the reasonably priced, and recently updated, DisplayFusion.
Are Tech Support Departments Getting Worse?“The recession gets blamed for everything these days, so I’m wondering if it’s also an excuse for new slackness in tech support departments.”
Prevent Firefox From Hogging Memory When MinimisedIn our latest browser speed tests, I half-heartedly complained that Firefox eats up memory over long periods of use. Our lovely, helpful commenters pointed out that there is, indeed, a tweak to help with that.
PolarClock Tracks The Time With Concentric Circles (Windows/Mac)PolarClock is a novel screen saver that displays the passage of time in a series of shrinking concentric circles.
Google Has A Semi-Secret Stand-Alone Task ManagerGoogle Blogoscoped found a strangely unguarded task manager lurking on Google’s servers, similar to Gmail’s task widget but with a more keyboard-friendly, single-focus design.
IKEA Planner Visualises Your Dream Rooms in 3DWindows only: IKEA has released its own 3D room design tool to help you plan the modernist, clean-lined kitchen, bedroom, or workspace of your dreams.
Foxmarks Becomes Xmarks, Adds Search And Suggestion Features (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.
Vista SP2 Release Candidate Now Available (Windows Vista)Everything but the last few bug fixes on Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista is now available for your upgrading pleasure. Grab it if you want better search, Bluetooth, Blu-Ray, and all the system fixes.
Better Gmail 2 Gets Unread Message Favicon (And Cleaned Up) (Greasemonkey)Minutes ago I posted an update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension, adding a new feature and cleaning out the redundant items that are available in Gmail Labs.
Procrastination Killer Times Your Short-Burst Work Dashes (Windows)Software developer Elie really digs Merlin Mann’s (10+2)*5 dash, which breaks hours into 10-minute bursts of plugging away at one thing with two-minute breaks. Elie’s Procrastination Killer app helps you time and controls those dashes.
More »
Last Week’s Best Posts
8:30AM Angus Kidman | Kick off your Lifehacker Monday by making sure you didn’t miss any of the biggest posts from last week:
Laptopfriendlycafes.com Helps You Get Wi-Fi, Power, Coffee“Laptopfriendlycafes.jpg Corporate coffee chains often strike Wi-Fi deals with a particular provider, but if you want genuinely free Wi-Fi, you’re going to need to stick to independent cafés.”
Custom Wire Management For Multi-Monitor BlissBrian Connolly was tired of cramped desks and messy wiring, so he built his own desk and wire management system to have the spacious and tidy spread he desired.
DeskHedron Adds 3D Virtual Desktop Eye-Candy To Windows (Windows)Free application DeskHedron brings multiple virtual desktops to Windows, complete with an impressive spinning 3D animation that switches between your desktops.
Strip Word’s Interface Back For More Effective Writing“Microsoft’s Word blog outlines techniques for getting rid of on-screen junk by minimising the ribbon, switch to Web layout and disabling other elements of the Windows interface.”
Gmail Dark Theme Makes Gmail Easy On The EyesLifehacker reader haute negro took advantage of Gmail’s new user-defined custom themes to create an attractive, easy-on-the-eyes Gmail Dark theme.
DisplayFusion 3.0 Manages Everything Across Multi-Monitor Setups (Windows)If you’re looking to manage windows and wallpapers on multiple monitors, it’s tough to go wrong with the reasonably priced, and recently updated, DisplayFusion.
Are Tech Support Departments Getting Worse?“The recession gets blamed for everything these days, so I’m wondering if it’s also an excuse for new slackness in tech support departments.”
Prevent Firefox From Hogging Memory When MinimisedIn our latest browser speed tests, I half-heartedly complained that Firefox eats up memory over long periods of use. Our lovely, helpful commenters pointed out that there is, indeed, a tweak to help with that.
PolarClock Tracks The Time With Concentric Circles (Windows/Mac)PolarClock is a novel screen saver that displays the passage of time in a series of shrinking concentric circles.
Google Has A Semi-Secret Stand-Alone Task ManagerGoogle Blogoscoped found a strangely unguarded task manager lurking on Google’s servers, similar to Gmail’s task widget but with a more keyboard-friendly, single-focus design.
IKEA Planner Visualises Your Dream Rooms in 3DWindows only: IKEA has released its own 3D room design tool to help you plan the modernist, clean-lined kitchen, bedroom, or workspace of your dreams.
Foxmarks Becomes Xmarks, Adds Search And Suggestion Features (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.
Vista SP2 Release Candidate Now Available (Windows Vista)Everything but the last few bug fixes on Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista is now available for your upgrading pleasure. Grab it if you want better search, Bluetooth, Blu-Ray, and all the system fixes.
Better Gmail 2 Gets Unread Message Favicon (And Cleaned Up) (Greasemonkey)Minutes ago I posted an update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension, adding a new feature and cleaning out the redundant items that are available in Gmail Labs.
Procrastination Killer Times Your Short-Burst Work Dashes (Windows)Software developer Elie really digs Merlin Mann’s (10+2)*5 dash, which breaks hours into 10-minute bursts of plugging away at one thing with two-minute breaks. Elie’s Procrastination Killer app helps you time and controls those dashes.
More » 
