One of the things I like about Friday afternoons is getting to ask people what their weekend plans are, and wishing them a good weekend. Today I realised it's kind of silly to still do this - given that I'm one of the many people who works odd days and hours and usually works on one or both days of the weekend.

With the changes to retail opening hours and the move towards online business being 24/7, the barrier between the work week and weekend has fallen down, if not disappeared altogether. So it made me wonder - how many of us actually get a full weekend these days? Do you take work home with you, or do you work on your own sideline projects? Or maybe you have your 'weekend' during the week due to shiftwork. It's all too easy to lose your leisure time this way. If you have any strategies for protecting your weekend time, please share in comments.

If tennis - of the real or Wii Sport variety - is your bag then you'll want to get along to the Nintendo Wii Lounge at the Australian Open tennis from next week. They'll be running daily Wii Tennis championships where you can win a Wii and have a chance at winning tickets to the Men's Final and a match against homegrown tennis champion Mark Philippoussis

The Open starts on Monday and runs until 27 January. The two highest ranking daily champions will playoff on the big screen in Garden Square at Melbourne Park, and the winner gets tickets to see the Men's Final and a playoff against Mark Philippoussis. I'm betting the 'pou will lose this one - unless he's also an airchair athlete, I reckon any console-jockey geek who plays him will have the upper hand. :)

Security expert Bruce Schneier discusses why he runs an open wireless network, stressing that he sees no good reason not to let others leech his wireless access point. For example, in reference to the common argument that you may be sued by the RIAA for copyright infringement by others using your Wi-Fi, Shneier explains:

The RIAA has conducted about 26,000 lawsuits, and there are more than 15 million music downloaders. Mark Mulligan of Jupiter Research said it best: "If you're a file sharer, you know that the likelihood of you being caught is very similar to that of being hit by an asteroid."

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Windows only: Freeware application HFS (HTTP File Server) makes it dead simple to run a server to share files from your computer over the web. All you have to do is run the application on the computer with files you want to share, then selectively pick files or directories you want to allow access to. In addition, you can even upload files to your HFS server from elsewhere. You'll need to set up port forwarding for port 80 on the computer running HFS and then either remember your public IP address (which may change) or assign a name to your home server (for free) so it's easy to remember. HFS is freeware, Windows only, and weighs in at a svelte 550KB. HFS Advanced mode even supports user accounts.

Automated phone bots keep interrupting your dinner with their pre-recorded marketing messages? Play the U.S. Special Information Tone signal for "vacant circuit" when you pick up the phone. Our brother site Consumerist says a reader who kept getting automated debt collection calls added the tone to the beginning of his voicemail greeting:

The next time the robot called, it thought it was getting a dead line and dutifully erased the number from its system. Voila, automatons be gone. Some places have autodialers that don't (or have been tweaked) to respond to SIT tones, but if you've got a persistent unwanted robot caller, it's worth a shot.

Online PDF editor PDFHammer reorders, deletes, and combines PDFs from the comfort of any web browser. That means you don't need to install anything to do a bit of simple PDF editing, and when you're done you can simply download the finished product to your desktop. Granted, you may not be comfortable uploading sensitive material to their servers (despite their privacy policy), but if all you need is to make a quick edit to a PDF and you don't want to pull out the big guns, PDFHammer is worth a bookmark. The site is currently in beta with promises of page rotation and watermarking in the future, but the features already implemented are impressive.

While most of us have a system capturing stray ideas as they come up over the course of the day, it can pay off to put aside some dedicated 'thinking' time, according to the Lifehack.org blog.
Unlike daydreaming or brainstorming, this 'directed' thinking means putting aside time for focusing on one thing. You could use this time to mull over new business ideas, for solving personal or professional challenges you're facing, or even just planning the year ahead.
You'll need to put aside time to be alone, somewhere quiet, with pen or keyboard close to hand to take notes.
There were a couple of particularly useful tips  - one being to go for a walk, the other being to drive and park your car somewhere quiet. I can personally vouch for the walking idea - I go for regular walks and often I'll come up with an idea or an answer to a problem I'm working on, even if I'm not actively thinking about the problem at hand.
11 Tips to Carve Out More Time to Think [Lifehack.org]

Victoria, NSW and WA will this year trial speed limiting devices which can automatically slow a car when its detected to be speeding. A Yahoo report says the Australasian Intelligent Speed Adaptation initiative is expected to be trialled in Melbourne first.

The device uses satellite technology to detect if you're breaking the speed limit - and it can automatically slow down your car. It has different settings ranging from beeping when you're above the speed limit, to actually slowing the car down.

My GPS can beep to alert me if I'm approaching an intersection with a red light camera, so presumably it wouldn't be hard for a GPS device to also beep to alert you if you're speeding (the one under discussion uses a database to identify speed limits in the area you're driving in). This might be a nice optional service. But I have to admit I'd be a bit worried about a device which can take over driving my car. I'd rather trust my own judgement than leave it in the hands of a GPS device. What do you think?
[via Techdirt]

A new study shows that a midday nap can help you retain information, as well as learn new skills:

The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, found participants allowed a 90-minute nap between learning the first task and the second task, did not show much improvement in the evening, but did show a marked performance improvement on the following morning.

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Mac OS X tip: Nothing's more heartbreaking to a keyboard lover than discovering that a common application action is lacking a keyboard shortcut. Luckily OS X makes it wildly simple to add new shortcuts for any action available in the menu bar. Here's how it works:

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Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Firefox extension Copy All Urls copies the URLs of every open tab in the current window to your clipboard so you can quickly round up a list of links from your current browsing session. Let's say, for example, you've been browsing Lifehacker and opening posts you like in separate windows. Then you decide you want to email those posts to a friend. With Copy All Urls installed, just go to Edit -> Copy All Urls... -> Copy (or use the Ctrl-Alt-C keyboard shortcut) and that list will be copied straight to your clipboard. What's more, you can determine if you want to include the page title, use TinyURL for long addresses, or copy the links in markup formats (like HTML, Wikimedia Markup, or your own markup). Copy All Urls is free, works wherever Firefox does.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog runs down 10 ways to use Quick Look in Leopard, including one we hadn't tried before for browsing fonts:

Open a Finder window, select Cover Flow view and navigate to the font you're interested in. Click the space bar and presto! Instant preview.

Web site Can You Run It determines whether or not your PC can run any of a number of popular video games by checking your computer's specs against the minimum and recommended requirements of said games. Just browse to the... Read More »

Hey, I know you. RIAA lawsuits have scared you off P2P, but the iTunes DRM is both too expensive and too restrictive for your tastes, right? Then it's time you head to the web. In the past year the number of web sites linking to free downloads and streaming music has exploded, meaning there are more ways than ever to get your music fix. Today I'll highlight the best web sites—and best search kung-fu—for finding free music online. Photo by MarS.

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Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is now available for pre-order at the Apple Store. Check out Adam's Office 2008 screenshot tour for a taste of what you get in that yellow box.

Mac OS X only: Much-anticipated task manager for Mac, OmniFocus, has come out of beta and the final release is now shipping. This full-strength to-do manager has a mind-boggling list of features that we're just starting to get our heads around, but it looks designed for and with Getting Things Done practitioners in mind. OmniFocus is tightly integrated into your Mac with iCal, Mail, and Spotlight hooks, and it's what our trusted pal Merlin Mann over at 43 Folders uses (and had a hand in creating). The main downside to OmniFocus? Its price tag: a hefty $80 for a license. But you can test drive it for free for a couple of weeks. The 14-day trial is a free download for Mac only.

• How do I make a linkys WRT-54G router act like a wireless card?
• How can I get crisp, reheated food from the microwave?
• How do I aggregate multiple RSS feeds to a single web page, but filter which articles are displayed?
• Where are the music/MP3 blogs for music spanning the 1920s-1960s?
• What's the best way to get a divorce without a lawyer?
• Is there a fast and easy way, in Windows XP, to open a file in another than the default application?

Ubuntu Linux only: Ubuntu Tweak is a small customisation tool that gives you a single access point to some of the interface and file browsing options tucked away in Ubuntu's advanced preferences or text configuration files. Along with a few of the more common Compiz Fusion and interface preferences, Ubuntu Tweak lets you enable useful functions for CD burning, easily enable and change splash screens, make advanced power management changes, and even lock down certain tools for security reasons. Experienced users may know how to change a lot of things in this app, but for new installs, and new users, it's a time saver. Ubuntu Tweak is a free download for Ubuntu Linux systems.

Are you a carpet bomber when it comes to job hunting, sending out reams of resumes and praying you'll see responses? The Job Bored career blog recommends instead sticking to a "Rule of Thirds"—sending out three resumes each to jobs you're slightly underqualified for, jobs you're sure you can pull, and random jobs you find in your search. In addition to narrowing your search, you force yourself into a better position to be hired:

By forcing my clients to wait, I found that they'd done more research on each company/position in the intervening time. They were often better prepared, and sometimes had even taken the time to find other avenues of applying, such as walking in and applying in person.

Windows only: When it comes to finding, manipulating and browsing files, everybody has their preferences—which is just one reason why Windows, Mac and Linux handle the job quite differently. So while Gina's shown us how to replace Windows' built-in Explorer with Xplorer2, some may find a better fit with FreeCommander, a free file browser and Explorer replacement. The first thing one notices is the two-pane browsing, which certainly comes in handy, but FreeCommander can also change almost any file attribute (including timestamps for sorting problems), compare and synchronize directories, securely wipe files off a drive and basically treat .ZIP and other archives like real folders. It's also a fairly non-intrusive installation, so you can try it out without shoving Explorer out of the way. FreeCommander is a free download for Windows only. Thanks Kenny!

If you've found yourself hitting DNS errors or 404 pages in your browser but you know your net connection is working fine, it might be time to flush and restart Windows' DNS cache. The How-To Geek shows how to do this in three command line entries, although you might only need the first to see results. After launching a command prompt as an administrator and closing down Firefox (which has its own DNS cache), enter the following:

ipconfig /flushdns
net stop dnscache
net start dnscache

The Google Operating System blog has a helpful, quick guide on how to enable Google Web History for more than just Google searches without having to make the usual Google Toolbar installation, using JavaScript-based tools like Greasemonkey for Firefox, Trixie for Internet Explorer, and Safari, Opera, and Konquerer (KDE Linux) also. You still need to be logged into a Google account to enable history tracking, but it could be a real help to those using alternative browsers for which the Toolbar isn't offered. And while many users certainly still have their privacy concerns about Google knowing everywhere you've been browsing, disabling the non-Google portion is as simple as turning off the script.

The BBC takes on the topic of power naps, detailing many of the benefits and basic techniques we've touched on before—like tensing your muscles and saying "the and sticking to the 20 minute nap. One sleep expert notes one of the best ways to ease yourself into relaxation—listening to albums and mixes you've heard many times before:

He suggests dusting down old and familiar CDs - new music is no good as you end up concentrating on the lyrics.

"You know old albums inside out and don't have to concentrate. They become pleasant background music."