Even Google is finding it harder to make money in the current crisis, so it’s no surprise that the big G is pushing a new program that lets customers specify the kinds of advertisements they want to see served up by Google. You can specify which categories interest you (or opt out of the program altogether) using the Google Ads Preferences Manager. Touring through the whole list will take some time, but if you really do want to see more ads for “Nails Screws & Fasteners” or “MySpace Codes & Graphics”, that’s the way to go. Interestingly, while most of the categories are fairly geographically neutral, Australia is one of just seven specific destinations you can specify as a preference under the Travel category. The settings are based on browser cookies rather than any existing Google logins.
Google Ads Preferences ManagerThe LinDesk weblog runs down the process of customising the shell prompt to trim the current path down to a reasonable character limit—making typing long commands much simpler while under deeply nested folders. The guide includes a number of options for customising your prompt to include more information about the current path without overloading your screen with characters—one of the more interesting tweaks is this script that removes characters from the middle of the path, which will cut down the size while clearly identifying the current folder.
Mac OS X only: Our favourite free non-paper note-taking app Evernote has updated its Mac version, adding support for Growl, Safari, note merging, and gobs of performance and usability improvements.The Safari support adds a button to Safari 3 and 4 for quick web clipping from Safari, including a cool print-to-PDF-and-upload feature to preserve formatting when you Shift-Click the Evernote elephant button. Growl support notifies you of new syncs and clippings, and the app has seen tons of small improvements.
Big Evernote for Mac Update [Evernote Blog via 43 Folders] EvernoteNostalgic for the good old days when a cardboard box, a pinhole, and some film meant you had a camera? The DIY junkies at weblog Make update the pinhole camera to work with your standard digital camera.For your digital version of the pinhole camera, you’ll need some black paper, aluminium foil, a rubber band, and tape. Ah right, and the digital camera. From there, the essence of the pinhole camera remains the same. You block out all the light around your camera, make a pinhole, and then set your camera to an ultra-long exposure. It may seem silly to turn your digital camera into a pinhole camera, considering that it already is a camera, but it’s a fun project. If you give it a try, be sure to read through the comments for a few helpful tips on optimal pinhole size.
$0 digital pinhole camera [Make]Reader YoungGuy’s desktop blends a car dashboard layout with system monitoring applications that makes a unique desktop geared toward anybody with a need for speed.
Firefox with Greasemonkey: Page Scroll is an old-fashioned but practical user script that keeps your place when reading through long pages. Whenever you scroll up or down via the scrollbar, mouse scroll wheel, or using the page keys, a pink band is placed across the top or bottom of the screen, depending on the direction in which you scroll. The bar marks the edge of the visible text and gives you a visual placeholder when moving through documents. If you frequently read through lengthy pages, Page Scroll makes sure you don’t waste time scanning for the “page break” to keep your place. If you’re an Opera user, the functionality of Page Scroll is built in as of version 9.6—look for an option called Scroll Marker under the advanced browsing options. In this Firefox form, you’ll probably want to hit “Manage User Scripts” and change Page Scroll’s included pages from every page to just the ones with longer reads. Page Scroll is a Greasemonkey script and works wherever Firefox does.
Page Scroll [via gHacks]Windows only: Microsoft’s Creative Commons Add-in for Office licenses your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents with an easy drop-drop menu—so you can set the appropriate licence in a couple of clicks. Once installed, the add-on is extremely easy to use—just check the new Creative Commons tab on the Ribbon if you are using Office 2007 (or the File menu for earlier versions), select New Licence, and then follow the wizard to specify your licensing terms—the appropriate Creative Commons licence will be available on the menu to insert. The Creative Commons Add-in for Office is a free download (and even open source) for Windows systems only.
Creative Commons Add-in for Microsoft Office 2007 v1.01 [Microsoft Download Center] Creative Commons Add-in for Microsoft Office 2003 & Office XP v1.2 [Microsoft Download Center]The recession got you cooking more than usual but you’re not great at sizing up portions? The Portions Calculator measures perfect portions for unfamiliar and familiar foods, like pasta, that are notoriously difficult to portion correctly. There’s not much you need to know beyond that. Just pick the type of food you’d like to measure, select how many adults and children you’re cooking for, and let the Portion Calculator tell you how much you should make. I’ve always found it really difficult to get the portions right when cooking for two, but this seems like the perfect compliment for home cookers looking to put together a meal for any sized crowd. Got your own tricks and shortcuts for getting the portions right? Let’s hear ‘em in the comments.
Perfect Portions [Love Food Hate Waste]Now that you can export and import email filters with Gmail, we’ve decided to compile some of our favourite filters for organizing your inbox into a single, handy download. Come and get it!
Windows/Mac/Linux: Previously mentioned Thunderbird extension Send Later rolls some time-saving buttons into a neck-saving extension. Now you can pre-set delays—30 minutes, 2 hours, tomorrow—for emails you want to hold off on. Just as before, you activate Send Later (or SL8R) by hitting Ctrl+Shift+Enter, a slight variation on Thunderbird’s Ctrl+Enter shortcut. When you get the prompt above, you can activate any of the pre-set delay times (chosen in the add-on’s options dialog) by hitting Alt and a number 1-3, giving you a cooling off period or letting you disguise your late-night email checking. Version 1.2 of Send Later incorporates a few other fixes and goodies, including a toolbar and draft folder presence and reduced memory use. It’s a free download, works wherever Thunderbird does. Note: Screenshot from developer’s blog; this editor’s Thunderbird loaded the extension fine, but he forgot to snap it inside a different partition.
Send Later Extension [SL8TR] [The Unsigned Byte]
