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The crafty bloggers at the Geeky Gadgets web site don't want to pay an extra $35 for an iPhone 3G dock, so they fashioned one out of cardboard—and are now offering the cut-out template as a free downloadable PDF. You'll need a printer, some adhesive, a craft knife, and some light cardboard to cut this out and fold on your own. Check out a video clip of the construction.
If you're tired of hearing about Windows 7's upcoming features while you sit and stare at your aging XP or Vista desktop, take solace in a few free apps and themes that can give you a taste right now. While it's true that Windows 7 isn't much different from Windows Vista (inside and out), a few neat features are worth trying out, and you can do it without installing the Windows 7 Preview. Here are a few free apps and alternatives that simulate Windows 7's built-in features.
Mac OS X only: Free application Dock Dodger removes any running application from your Dock, decluttering your Dock for apps that you want to keep there and ditching the rest. When might something like Dock Dodger come in handy? Let's say, for example, you downloaded the very cool system monitoring application XRG when we mentioned it recently. The app's great, but it has a useless Dock icon. To get rid of its icon, just drag XRG to the Dock Dodger window; next time you restart the app, its icon is nowhere to be found. If you decide you want an icon back in the Dock later, just rinse and repeat the same process. Dock Dodger is donationware, Mac OS X only.
Windows only: Free application CircleDock automatically puts files, folders, and shortcuts within a few pixels of your mouse when you invoke it for quick action. CircleDock is completely customisable, from the skin and hotkey to the items you place in the dock. You can rotate the items in the circular dock with your scrollwheel, which is cool despite its questionable usefulness. The app is portable, so you can toss it on your thumb drive and take it with you. CircleDock is free and open source, requires .NET 3.5. A more attractive and improved update is expected within the month. If you give it a try, let's hear what you think in the comments.
Reader pr0vid3nc3 didn't feel like spending $50 on a dock for his iPod touch, so he converted his iPod touch box into a DIY dock, Moleskine stand, and headphone holder. There's not much to the setup apart from affixing the parts together with some sort of adhesive, and—though you may not be able to tell from the photo—a lot of thought went into this portable GTD station.
Now everything I take with me every day is in place: iPod touch, Moleskine for offline GTD, Shure in-ears (in the black case), and plug power adaptor from my MacBook Pro.If you're looking for a more traditional setup for a DIY using the same materials, check out our previously posted DIY iPod touch dock. Naturally, either should work for iPhones, too.
Mac only: When you want to keep your Desktop clear but still get easy access to disks and network drives, you want Volumizer. This simple utility adds your Mac's hard drive and other drives—disk images or external drives—to the Dock and/or your menubar. That way if you want to hide the Hard Drive icon from the Desktop, you can still get to your disks in one click. Volumizer is a free download for Mac only. Thanks, AlaskaJack!
Linux only: We're big fans of application dock and launcher Avant Window Navigator around here, but free utility Cairo-Dock makes a strong showing as well, not least for its highly-configurable and slick appearance, as well as a good range of plug-ins and third-party applets. Changing Cairo-Dock's appearance with transparencies, two-bar-splitting, and other tweaks is a bit easier than with AWN, and, while not offered in as many official repositories, it's easily installed on Ubuntu and Debian-based systems, and not too hard to compile for other distributions as well. Cairo-Dock is a free download for Linux systems only. Hit the via link for help on an Ubuntu installation and configuration.
Mac OS X only: Back in the non-Stacks days of Tiger, you could add a folder to the Dock and expand it into a hierarchical menu. Now with Stacks you can't easily navigate subfolders from a folder on the Dock, but small utility AppMenuBoy aims to change that—for your Applications folder, that is. Start up AppMenuBoy and expand your Applications folder into a Tiger-style hierarchical menu, as shown after the jump.
Among all the projects available at the Mozilla Foundation, one little application, Prism (formerly known as WebRunner), hasn't gotten much attention. Understandable, in a way, because Prism seems like just a stripped-down Firefox window in which to view web sites—which it is, but that can be a great thing. With the help of a few utilities, web applications in Prism can be just as convenient to launch and use as your standard-installation desktop programs. Let's take a look at where Prism really works and how to get more out of it after the jump.
Mac OS X only: Yesterday's software update added several subtle options all over Leopard for Mac users, especially for Stacks—to see them, simply Cmd+click on a Stack. We've posted before how to overlay icons on your Dock's Stacks for easy visual identification, but now under "Display as" you can choose "Folder" instead to see the folder icon. (Easier, but I still like the drawer icons better.) Instead of your Mac deciding how the Stack should be viewed (as a grid or list), you can choose under "Display as." Even more exciting, the "List" view isn't that arcing fan any more—it's a throwback to Tiger's hierarchical file list which lets you navigate down into subfolders.
