A good set of headphones is a key requirement for your home office, but keeping them untangled and out of the way can be a nuisance. Wiretap at IKEA Hacker details how to build your own stand using some basic IKEA parts. A quick calculation suggests the parts will cost around $56 at your local branch.

When people contemplate Internet and telephone access on planes, the normal issues that get raised are the cost, and whether this will lead to an increase in noise levels as everyone makes "I'm on the plane" calls. An article at AVN (a very NSFW link) raises another issue which comes up less often but is equally hard to solve: should airline staff also be responsible for ensuring that passengers don't access wildly inappropriate content such as porn movies while flying? While it might be hard to imagine someone paying a fee for Internet access and then using that time to view some adult action, the near-universal recognition of the "mile high club" concept suggests it's not totally out of the question. In fact, the problem already exists insofar as people can watch DVDs on their laptops when on board. Is it OK to watch Snakes On A Plane (in either version) during a flight? In the absence of an industrial relations ruling, we'll throw this one over to readers as a weekend contemplation issue. Should airline staff be authorised to tell people what sites they visit, or can we rely on the social contract? Share your thoughts in the comments.

If you're planning on buying something expensive, a typical bout of online research starts with a Google search, a bunch of tabs and an eventual decision-making process. Aussie webapp My Perfect reverses the process, using a series of questions to guide you towards some possible candidates and then offering links where you can buy them. The approach wasn't foolproof when I tested it in the phone categories -- partly because it ran out of options before getting answers to all the questions I'd want answered -- but it definitely gave me some good ideas on the beer front. Currently the site offers searches for phones, cameras, beer and jobs; further categories are planned. [My Perfect via ZDNet Australia]

Having mentioned one useful browser keyboard shortcut for the BlackBerry Bold recently, here's another couple of options that may not be self-evident in the online help system. To switch the phone between vibrate and ringing modes, hold down Q; to lock the keypad, hold down A. This won't work in an application (like the browser) where those shortcuts have other meanings, obviously, but it still gives you the option of taking those functions off the two side keys (which is the default setting) and remapping them to other common applications, since you can always get back to the main screen by hitting the red phone button. Thanks David Flynn!

Having reported on the new beta of IE8, I was keen to get it installed, but soon confronted an error message telling me I had to dump beta 1. That looked tricky, since it didn't appear in the Vista uninstall programs dialogue, and Microsoft's own knowledge base article wasn't any help. However, as this handy blog post points out, Internet Explorer 8 is viewed by Vista as an update, not a program, so you need to click on 'View installed updates' in the program uninstall screen to locate and get rid of it. (And yes, of course you have to reboot.)

Microsoft has released the second beta of Internet Explorer 8, promising "anyone who browses or works on the web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2." There wasn't anything in the first beta that would make me switch from Firefox 3 for my day-to-day browsing needs, but I'll be curious to see if they've improved on the sluggish performance of that initial build and how the rather obvious AwesomeBar clone plays in practice.

The recent death of Dave Freeman, author of 100 Things to Do Before You Die, has prompted much discussion of the 'things to do before you die' publishing phenomenon, including this interesting overview from the BBC News site. While list-making is, unsurprisingly, popular here at Lifehacker, I've never been personally convinced of the virtues of the 'deathlist' approach, whether that's listing places to visit, extreme sports to test or even career goals. For one thing, stuff on a list of things to do 'before you die' is rather easy to defer in favour of more urgent tasks. For another, as the BBC article points out, you can easily get into micro-management, creating endless lists of films to see, books to read and places to visit at the expense of doing anything. Have you created a 'before you die' list? Do you enjoy reading the books even if you've got no intention of following up? Let us know in the comments.

One of the big disincentives to signing up to mobile broadband services -- especially as your main means of Internet access -- is the excess data charges you face when you go over the limit. Primus has just introduced two plans that eliminate data limits in favour of 'shaping' your connection down to a 64Kbps speed. That's a familiar model in ADSL, but hasn't been much used in wireless broadband before. Primus is offering a $49.95 a month plan which is shaped after 6GB and a $79.95 plan which drops after 12GB; for both, you need to sign up for two years and get an access speed of up to 3.6Mbps (via the Optus network). Would a shaped wireless broadband plan appeal to you, or would the lack of speed drive you mad at the end of each month? Share your thoughts in the comments.

In the UK, Apple has just been busted by an advertising standards body for claiming that the iPhone offers "all the parts of the Internet", despite the conspicuous absence of support for widely-used technologies such as Java and Flash. Advertising regulations aside, the Safari browser on the iPhone is a major selling point, but there's no doubt it doesn't render everything perfectly. How have you found the iPhone browsing experiences? Do you find yourself cursing the absence of Flash, or is a Wi-Fi screen in your pocket more than ample compensation? Share your thoughts in the comments. (I prefer a browser that more actively reformats for mobile screen sizes rather than relying on a zoom feature, but that's probably a question of taste.)

You may well have encountered Lasoo, the Australian site which offers digitised versions of junk mail catalogues, before, but the operation just underwent a major update with the launch of u.Lasoo, which essentially adds social networking and shopping comparison . You can enter your own posts which link to Lasoo deals or other shopping bargains, and rate posts from other users. The big difference from similar sites such as OzBargain is that you can also run Google AdSense ads on your posts, using an existing AdSense account. While in practice this might not earn you a lot of money -- I suspect posts without extra ads might end up rated higher and attract more users -- it's an interesting twist on a familiar model.