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Fix
‘Flickr Bikes’ Photo-Map Locales Across the Globe
2:00AM Gina Trapani | For their new “Purple Pedals” campaign, Yahoo has dispatched a handful of GPS-enabled bicycles equipped with cameraphones that automatically shoot and upload photos to Flickr to riders in cities all over the world, from San Francisco to New York and soon, to Singapore, Denmark and the U.K.. The bikes come with solar panels which power the camera, and special software that uses the phone’s accelerometer to snap photos every 60 seconds automatically when the bike is in motion. I was one of the lucky folks to get my hands on one of these bikes, and I’ve been riding it all over San Diego for over a week now. Let’s take a look at how the bike works, how it was made, and how you can turn your handlebars into a tripod and photo-map your neighbourhood in similar fashion. More »
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The Power User’s Guide to Google Chrome
2:00AM Gina Trapani | Now that you’ve been enjoying Google Chrome’s headliner features and speed for almost a week now, it’s time to dig into the less obvious functionality and options you don’t already know about. Become a keyboard shortcut master, take a peek under the hood, and customise its behaviour and skin with some of the best shortcuts, bookmarklets, themes, add-ons, and subtle functionality in Google Chrome. More »
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Email Innovations You Want in Your Inbox
2:02AM Gina Trapani | The basics of how email works hasn’t changed much since its invention, but even forty years later, there are still tiny features and enhancements that can make dealing with large volumes of email easier. Your email client already provides message attachments, filtering, HTML email, auto-fill contacts, spell-checking, folders or labels, keyboard shortcuts, search, and an advanced spam filter. What else do you need? Well, as people rely on email as a primary means of communication, and everyday users deal with a mounting level of new messages per day, even more advanced features can help all of us keep our inbox under control. In honour of Mozilla Thunderbird 3’s latest alpha release, let’s take a look at some email innovations—some concept, some already available in various clients and plug-ins—that you want in your inbox. More »
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Miro is Your TiVo for Internet Video
2:00AM Gina Trapani | In the mid-year slump when there’s absolutely nothing new on television (except the Olympics), it’s time to start watching the web—and you need the right tool to do just that. The free, cross-platform internet video player Miro can automatically download online video series via RSS feed or BitTorrent, play almost any format you throw at it, and keep track of what you’ve watched and what’s new and queued up for you. More and more independent producers are putting out fabulous video content on the web, but keeping up with it by visiting your favourite video hosting web site or in your regular feed reader can be almost impossible—but setting up Miro is like getting TiVo for web video. Let’s take a look at how to subscribe to free internet television with Miro. More »
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Power Up Windows Explorer with Free Add-ons
2:00AM Gina Trapani | When moving, copying, pasting, browsing, and getting information about your files feels like tedious work—and it can in the feature-sparse Windows Explorer—you need some power add-ons that can help. Instead of completely replacing Windows Explorer with an alternative file manager, you can pick and choose the extra features you want and add them piecemeal. Let’s take a look at some free power add-ons for Windows Explorer that make dealing with your growing file collection faster and easier. More »
Fix
Jailbreak iPhone 2.0 with PwnageTool
2:00AM Gina Trapani | When you don’t want to depend solely on the official App Store to get your iPhone 2.0 applications, you want to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod touch—and less than two weeks after the iPhone 2.0 launch, it’s easier than ever to do with your new device. The hard-working iPhone Dev Team released the jailbreak utility PwnageTool version 2.0.1 this weekend, and while it’s not as one-step as ZiPhone, it still offers an easy GUI interface for the job. Let’s take a look at the step by step for jailbreaking your iPhone 2.0 device with PwnageTool. More »
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Boost Your Brainstorming Session with MindMeister
2:00AM Gina Trapani | Jotting a simple list is a great way to brainstorm, but when you want to visualise, organise, and untangle a deep set of ideas, you want a mind map. Web-based mind mapping tool MindMeister offers a simple interface to create mind maps collaboratively or on the go. We’ve mentioned a few mind mapping apps in the past, and showed you how to mind map meetings as an alternative to linear note-taking. But if you haven’t tried mind mapping yet, MindMeister is a great place to start. Let’s dive into MindMeister to give mind mapping a go without downloading a thing. More »
Design
Functional Firefox User Styles
2:00AM Gina Trapani | Now that you’ve been running Firefox 3 for almost a week, it’s time to customise its interface to your liking with a few great user styles. Just like you can add user scripts (JavaScript) to web pages with the Greasemonkey extension, you can also add user styles (CSS) to Firefox’s interface with the Stylish extension. While lots of user styles just skin specific web sites with a new look, many can actually improve the browser itself by changing the look and behaviour of menus, tabs, dialogs, and buttons—Firefox’s “chrome.” Let’s take a look at some of the best user styles which tweak, customise, enhance, and streamline Firefox’s chrome. More »
Fix
Recover Lost Passwords with Free Tools
2:00AM Gina Trapani | ACCESS DENIED. Those two bone-chilling words are the last thing you want to see when you’re trying to log into a system or open a file, but they’re not necessarily a dead end. Several free tools can help you find lost passwords you can’t remember or that your computer has saved but obscured. Let’s take a look at a few free remedies for lost password panic when you’re trying to log onto a computer, network, or just figure out what’s behind that string of asterisks. More »
