Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Work
Tinyarro.ws: Because TinyURLS Just Aren’t Tiny Enough
11:30PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Someone must have heard your complaints about TinyURLs not being tiny enough. Through the magic of Unicode, Tinywarro.ws makes your URLs even more minuscule. How tiny? Tinyarro.ws turned Lifehacker AU’s URL into http://➡.ws/ᘬⓨ, TinyURL by comparison turned our URL into —12 characters longer. What is this URL shrinking witchcraft? Tinyarro.ws replaces the alpha-numeric string used by other URL shrinking services with a single Unicode character. Unicode was developed as a way of representing symbols from world writing systems in a consistent way across computing platforms. Thanks to systems not based on the Latin alphabet, there are around 100,000 unique characters and symbols. The downside of that is you may end up with a symbol that means “horny turtle”, or other cryptographs of various hilarities or embarassments. When you click on a URL created with the service, you are directed to a splash page that shows the real URL you’re being forwarded to, which is a nice touch for those committed to work-safe browsing. Tinyarro.ws is free to use, doesn’t require a sign-up. Tinnyarro.ws [via Download Squad] More »
Fix
Jailbreak iPod Touch 2Gs, No Awkward Tethering Required
11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Owners of second-generation (2G) iPod Touch models who wanted to jailbreak their device had to go through quite a hack job and actually keep their devices connected to their computers to start them up. No longer, with the arrival of a proper iPod touch 2G jailbreak, which, while still not quite like the grace of a QuickPWN/WinPWN session, doesn’t put your precious device on a USB umbilical cord. [via Gizmodo] More »
Work
Keep A Career Log To Motivate And Track Progress
10:40PM Kevin Purdy | It might be a bit dweeby, but tracking your career progress can give you licence to make that next big leap, or remind you of what your younger, less tied-in self wants you to tackle next. Crowd-sourced DIY compendium wikiHow offers a get-started guide that helps make hunkering down with a pen and paper (remember those?) a sensible proposition, and one that will pay off down the line, as you look back at what’s happened and what you promised yourself. The site also suggests a novel use of the journal—plotting out what you’re doing each day, each week, or over whatever stretch of time: Flowchart your job(s). This will help you to ’see’ what exactly you do from day to day. What’s the first thing you do in the morning? And depending upon your result, what do you do after that? And after that? Doing this will give you a clearer picture of what you accomplish daily, and it is useful in staying focused through the day. If your daily routine doesn’t really fit into a flowchart, you could also write a paragraph or more about what you do, draw a mind map, or write notes or an outline. Do you keep your own career journal/log? What do you wish you could track over the length of your working life (other than caffeine intake)? Share your success secrets in the comments. How to Keep a Career Log [wikiHow] More »
Work
OpenWith.org Tells Your Mum How To Open That File (For Free)
9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Windows only: The built-in tool for dealing with unknown file types in Windows simply doesn’t work. Openwith.org does, and it points you, or your less free-software-savvy friends, to downloads that fit the bill. If you’ve ever received an urgent email reply (or phone call, or text message) from a parent, friend, co-worker, or anyone else who needs “HELP!” because “this file won’t open when I double-click!”—you’ve turned to the right download. Openwith.org installs an option on the right-click menu for files without an icon and associated program, reading “Openwith.org – How do I open this?” Choose that option, and the Openwith app launches, showing a brief file type description at the top and offering links to download free applications to handle that file. If one is already installed on the system, but maybe not the default handler, Openwith.org knows that and offers to open the file with it. More »
Communicate
Mobile Signature Makes One-Line Email Socially Acceptable
4:50PM Adam Pash | In the depths of email overload desperation, I wished email had a 140-character limit like Twitter updates. In response, two people recommended doing what Kevin Rose does: Set your email signature to “Sent from my mobile phone.” It’s a white lie that makes you look less rude for being short. It’s annoying to have to fib (and embarrassing if you get caught somehow-of course all of Kevin’s friends now know his “secret”). But for someone who gets more than 100 messages per day, this technique may be a matter of survival versus just saving time. Haven’t set this up myself yet, but if I wind up at the bottom of another email mountain getting ready for a processing marathon, I just might. Mobile Signature Makes One-Line Email Socially Acceptable [Smarterware] More »
Organise
Google Quick Search Box For Mac Updates
4:40PM Adam Pash | Mac OS X only: Previously mentioned Google Quick Search Box—the Mac and Windows app we’re hoping will someday have the chops to outshine Quicksilver—has updated the Mac version. QSB is available for Mac users from the QSB Google Code page; the update sports mostly a handful of bug fixes, but you’ll definitely want to update if you’ve been using it. Windows users, you may remember that Quick Search Box for Windows is
Fix
4:30PM Angus Kidman | You can spend a lot of money buying a laptop bag (I got scared off when I priced them earlier this year), but for economy and uniqueness, why not try sewing your own? Craft blog Yoonie At Home walks through the steps to sewing a laptop bag from some fabric scraps and a few tea towels. I agree with the commenters who suggest that the magnetic clasp might be a bit risky, but if you’re not scared of the needle, this could be an interesting project. Thanks Di!
My Laptop Bag: IKEA Fabrics
More »
Sew Your Own Laptop Bag
4:30PM Angus Kidman | You can spend a lot of money buying a laptop bag (I got scared off when I priced them earlier this year), but for economy and uniqueness, why not try sewing your own? Craft blog Yoonie At Home walks through the steps to sewing a laptop bag from some fabric scraps and a few tea towels. I agree with the commenters who suggest that the magnetic clasp might be a bit risky, but if you’re not scared of the needle, this could be an interesting project. Thanks Di!
My Laptop Bag: IKEA Fabrics
More »
Communicate
NutshellMail Updates, Can Reply To Twitter By Email
4:00PM Lifehacker US Edition | Email consolidating web application NutshellMail adds a reply feature to their Twitter-by-email messages—so you can update your Twitter status from anywhere you can access email. The new feature is simple—just click the Reply, Retweet, or Direct Message links under any of the Twitter replies, and your default mail client will open a new message to a specially formatted email address. Type in your message, and your Twitter status will be updated immediately—you can also update the status without replying by clicking Update underneath your current status in the email. We’ve mentioned this webapp before for its email consolidating features from Facebook or MySpace, but this new feature makes it worth a look if you want a quick way to update your status through email. If all these social media sites are giving you a headache, be sure to read our feature on getting productive with social media (and staying sane)—or you could take it the other direction and add Twitter results to Google search. NutshellMail More »
Design
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Prolific Photoshop expert Helen Bradley (who last featured at Lifehacker explaining how to touch up photographs taken from planes) offers up another useful tutorial, this time on how to check what different paint colours look like on your house before committing. On-screen testing isn’t a complete substitute for using a test pot or two, of course, but at least you can narrow down the possibilities before you hit the hardware store.
Photoshop – change the colour of your house [Projectwoman]
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Check How Paint Will Look On Your House With Photoshop
3:00PM Angus Kidman | Prolific Photoshop expert Helen Bradley (who last featured at Lifehacker explaining how to touch up photographs taken from planes) offers up another useful tutorial, this time on how to check what different paint colours look like on your house before committing. On-screen testing isn’t a complete substitute for using a test pot or two, of course, but at least you can narrow down the possibilities before you hit the hardware store.
Photoshop – change the colour of your house [Projectwoman]
More »
Organise
1:00PM Angus Kidman | Google Reader is an essential element of my daily workflow (even if I forgot to mention it when I summed up my favourite software, and there’s a lot I like about it: no need for extra software, a well-designed mobile version, and plenty of keyboard shortcuts. But in recent weeks I’ve noticed that it’s become somewhat buggier. Here’s a few lingering issues that I think the reader development team would do well to address. More »
When Google Reader Goes Bad
1:00PM Angus Kidman | Google Reader is an essential element of my daily workflow (even if I forgot to mention it when I summed up my favourite software, and there’s a lot I like about it: no need for extra software, a well-designed mobile version, and plenty of keyboard shortcuts. But in recent weeks I’ve noticed that it’s become somewhat buggier. Here’s a few lingering issues that I think the reader development team would do well to address. More » 