holidays
Travel
VRBO Finds Economical Rentals For Your Next Vacation
10:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Looking to holiday on the cheap with space to spare? Check out VRBO to find thousands of vacation rentals at great prices. More »
Travel
Travel Etiquette Site Explains How To Behave In Different Countries
10:00AM Azadeh Ensha | Every culture has its distinct customs and traditions. Web site Travel Etiquette breaks them down by country to help teach you how to behave before you head off on your trip so that you can represent yourself and your home country well. More »
Travel
Google City Tours Builds Itineraries For Multi-Day Trips
4:30AM Azadeh Ensha | Not one to be outdone by the myriad other net travel guides, Google today rolls out City Tours for planning and navigating itineraries. More »
Travel
12:00PM Angus Kidman | The Las Vegas Strip is an experience that everyone should have once in their lives, but with dozens of mega-casinos on offer, it can be difficult to choose one that suits your preferred combination of price, casino games, food, shopping and location. The Casinovac Las Vegas Casino Finder site lets you set seven simple options, from how much you want to spend to your preferred evening activities, and then offers venue recommendations. The results aren’t perfect — it didn’t manage to single out my already-preferred Vegas venue despite several attempts — but if you’re weighing up a trip to Sin City, it might help you come to a decision.
Casinovac
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Casinovac Picks A Vegas Venue That Matches Your Needs
12:00PM Angus Kidman | The Las Vegas Strip is an experience that everyone should have once in their lives, but with dozens of mega-casinos on offer, it can be difficult to choose one that suits your preferred combination of price, casino games, food, shopping and location. The Casinovac Las Vegas Casino Finder site lets you set seven simple options, from how much you want to spend to your preferred evening activities, and then offers venue recommendations. The results aren’t perfect — it didn’t manage to single out my already-preferred Vegas venue despite several attempts — but if you’re weighing up a trip to Sin City, it might help you come to a decision.
Casinovac
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Work
2:30PM Angus Kidman | When you encounter a headline like ‘Aussies working world’s longest hours’, you’re likely to pay attention — especially if, like me, you’ve just come off a week with several 14-hour workdays. However, it turns out that what’s actually being discussed is the unwillingness of Australians to take holidays. According to a Tourism Australia survey, one-third of us won’t take official leave this year. Leaving aside the likely possibility that the whole thing is designed to encourage domestic travel now that Australia the movie hasn’t given inbound tourism much of a fillip, I’m wondering: why aren’t people taking holidays? Is it a lack of other people to fill in while you’re away? Fear of being fired? A desire to have an insurance policy if you do get fired? Being self-employed and hence having no options? Share your non-vacation aspirations in the comments. More »
Do Aussie Workers Need To Take More Holidays?
2:30PM Angus Kidman | When you encounter a headline like ‘Aussies working world’s longest hours’, you’re likely to pay attention — especially if, like me, you’ve just come off a week with several 14-hour workdays. However, it turns out that what’s actually being discussed is the unwillingness of Australians to take holidays. According to a Tourism Australia survey, one-third of us won’t take official leave this year. Leaving aside the likely possibility that the whole thing is designed to encourage domestic travel now that Australia the movie hasn’t given inbound tourism much of a fillip, I’m wondering: why aren’t people taking holidays? Is it a lack of other people to fill in while you’re away? Fear of being fired? A desire to have an insurance policy if you do get fired? Being self-employed and hence having no options? Share your non-vacation aspirations in the comments. More »
Organise
1:30PM Angus Kidman | No matter how carefully you plan, there’s almost always a point on Christmas morning when little Jared’s shiny new toy won’t work because you forget the batteries or some other implementation disaster. As a card-carrying geek, I’m all for giving the kids tech presents, but after a few minor incidents of this kind over Christmas, I’ve made a few notes on what to do better next time around. More »
Christmas Kids Toys And Gadget Checklist
1:30PM Angus Kidman | No matter how carefully you plan, there’s almost always a point on Christmas morning when little Jared’s shiny new toy won’t work because you forget the batteries or some other implementation disaster. As a card-carrying geek, I’m all for giving the kids tech presents, but after a few minor incidents of this kind over Christmas, I’ve made a few notes on what to do better next time around. More »
Fix
Help Clueless Relatives With Their Computer Problems
6:00AM Gina Trapani | “Can you take a look at my computer?” is the dreaded question your clueless family member will ask when you’re home for the holidays. Let’s review some common computer complaints and the easiest solutions. More »
Travel
12:00PM Angus Kidman | If you’re looking for some online distractions for the kids in the run-up to the big day, then check out Airservices Australia’s Santa-tracking site, which includes the warning issued to all pilots to watch out for rogue sleighs.
Santa 08 At Airservices Australia
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Track Santa With Airservices Australia
12:00PM Angus Kidman | If you’re looking for some online distractions for the kids in the run-up to the big day, then check out Airservices Australia’s Santa-tracking site, which includes the warning issued to all pilots to watch out for rogue sleighs.
Santa 08 At Airservices Australia
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Communicate
Download Free Computer-Generated Christmas MP3s
5:33AM Gina Trapani | Load up your iTunes playlist with some holiday cheer but save a few bucks in the process with almost 20 classic holiday recordings that are available as a free download from the Garritan music community. The Garritan Community Christmas album includes tunes from Oh Holy Night to Auld Lang Syne. Even more interesting is how they were recorded: A community of musicians from all over the world met on the Garritan community forum and agreed to submit their own recordings of holiday music, to be freely distributed. Each of these orchestral recordings were made not with large live orchestras in vast recording studios at huge expense, but rather were created by a single person working on their own desktop or laptop computer. What they have in common is the use of Garritan libraries representing software musical instruments based on samples of real instruments. Preview the tunes on-site before you download, then grab the entire album (with art) to add to your collection for free. Garritan Christmas Music Player [via Pogue's Posts] More »
Fix
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Sarah at IKEA Hacker manufactured some last-minute gift tags by slicing up a festive-looking biscuit box. You could perform a similar trick with any suitable packaging, though there’s part of me that thinks the prevalence of $2 shops with stick-on tags makes it kind of unnecessary even for cheapskates.
Last minute Christmas hacks [IKEA Hacker]
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Cheap Christmas Tags From A Biscuit Box
12:00PM Angus Kidman | Sarah at IKEA Hacker manufactured some last-minute gift tags by slicing up a festive-looking biscuit box. You could perform a similar trick with any suitable packaging, though there’s part of me that thinks the prevalence of $2 shops with stick-on tags makes it kind of unnecessary even for cheapskates.
Last minute Christmas hacks [IKEA Hacker]
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