Blogger extraordinaire and tech evangelist Robert Scoble offers a handful of excellent tips for finding work in the midst of a recession. The main takeaway: Make yourself as visible as you possibly can. Scoble suggests blogging your knowledge and finding ways to highlight your skills, whether that's through volunteer work or by creating something that exemplifies your skills (i.e., if you're a programmer, build a web site or software). Yesterday we asked how you recession-proof your career, but if those measures don't do the trick, Scoble's advice is measured and intelligent. If you've been through it all before and have your own suggestions, let's hear them in the comments.

Read More »

There are a number of ways to manage the time you spend web browsing, amongst them trimming the number of blogs you subscribe to. I realised today that one easy way to do this would be to define your 'Must Read' blogs. I'm considering creating a new folder in my RSS reader (Bloglines, still) called "Must Read".
Every morning when I open my RSS reader, I skim through the full list of my subscriptions looking out for the handful of blogs I always want to read first. These blogs will go into my "Must Read" folder. The others in my list will need to impress me in order to make the "Must" list - and if I can go a while without checking in on them, they can be deleted.
So what's on your "Must Read" list? Mine includes Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist. One of the reasons I like it is that it's low volume (usually a post every couple of days, from what I've observed) and I feel like none of it is 'filler' - every post feels worth reading. And while I don't always agree with the points she makes, I often want to reread her posts, or share them, or follow some or all of the links she includes. To me, these are all signs of a blog worth subscribing to. In fact, I've gotten so much out of her blog that I'm picking up a copy of her book today, and I'm really looking forward to reading it.
So how do you choose your "Must Read" blogs? Care to share a few of them?

Social news site Reddit has announced a new feature which will let users create their own individual 'Reddits'. According to the Reddit blog they're going to keep this feature - which lets you create public, restricted or private Reddits  - in private beta for a week or so before making it public. If you're a Reddit user keen to get in on the beta, email feedback@reddit with the subject, "omg me please".
They've also added language translation support for English and German.

New Features [Reddit blog] [via Wired Compiler blog]

A new community website has been launched this week to provide a meeting place for Australian bloggers. The Aussie Bloggers sites features a group blog as well as user forums.

The aim of the site is to "empower, encourage, support and promote Aussie Bloggers and the Australian blogosphere in general" - so if you'd like to get some help honing your blogging chops - or you think you could lend a hand to newer bloggers, check it out.

Congratulations on the launch, guys. :)

Build your own attractive business cards online with free webapp Deyey. The site's built-in templates are attractive, simple to use, and easy to customize (just check out their demo to see how easy), and when you're finished you can save the card at Deyey or download it to your computer to print off there. If you've always needed a good business card but didn't feel like shelling out for professionally designed or printed cards, Deyey's a nice alternative. For another free business card alternative, check out previously mentioned Businesscardland.

Read More »

The plunge in the stock market on Tuesday took its toll on online share trading brokers - the increased traffic flooded the sites and created access issues. The Australian reports that leading site CommSec was offline for half an hour. That's a huge no-no in stock trading, where up to the minute information and accessibility is a must.
I don't trade stocks online, but I'm curious to hear from readers who do - which online share trading broker do you use and trust? And did you notice how it performed under the strain on Tuesday?

Just uploaded a minor update to the Better Gmail 2 Firefox extension that adds composing email links in Gmail back into the mix. Download it now or update in Firefox's Add-ons dialog box.

Read More »

Inventory all of your home or office furnishings and bolster your theft or disaster recovery plan with web site StuffSafe. The obvious idea behind the service is that any on-site inventory is no good, since you'll very likely lose the inventory materials in the event of a disaster or theft. StuffSafe asks for pictures, descriptions, serial numbers, and even allows read-only access to your account for your insurance agent or other third parties. Finally, you can create a backup of your account and cancel it at any time. I can't say how acceptable a method like StuffSafe would be to your insurance agent, but it seems like a wonderful way to document your stuff in case of theft. If you know more about it or have your own preferred methods, let's hear about it in the comments.

Read More »

Never want to hear Windows' command line window scold you with that awful error beep again? Microsoft MVP Aaron Tiensivu has two one liners that will silence the speaker beep: net stop beep will disable the beep for your current session, and sc config beep start= disabled will silence the beep for good. (You've got to be logged in as an administrator to run these commands.) Of course if you're serious about the command line on Windows, give Cygwin a try, which, by default, doesn't beep at you.

Read More »

Webapp Pingie takes any RSS feed and alerts you of new items in that feed via SMS message. It would be a bit ridiculous to subscribe to the full Lifehacker feed (or other frequently updating sites) with Pingie, because no one really wants 20-plus text messages a day. However, for lower volume sites, services like Pingie or previously mentioned Web-alerts could come in very handy. Pingie is free to use, requires an email address to set up your account.

Read More »

Tech help site Of Zen and Computing points out the crucial icon on the fax machine, printer, and copier you need to know before you feed the paper—the ones shown here. If the lines are showing on the front of the paper icon, feed your paper in face up (like letterhead into the printer). If the lines are on the corner fold? Put it in face down. Call this post a salute from Captain Obvious if you want, but the slower ones in the group need a little extra help sometimes. This tip reminds me of that oft unnoticed arrow on your car's gas gauge that tells you which side the cap is on.

Read More »

Windows only: Share a single keyboard, mouse, and clipboard between multiple Windows computers with freeware application Input Director. Similar to the cross-platform keyboard sharing app, Synergy, Input Manager offers an easier setup and a handful of really useful features—including the ability to copy and paste files and folders between systems (a feature that never seems to work correctly in Synergy). While Synergy is the best available solution for a multi-platform setup, if you're only running multiple Windows machines, Input Director looks like the best solution. If you happen to have an all-Mac setup, check out previously mentioned Teleport. Input Director is freeware, Windows only.

Read More »

Our favourite way to keep your email inbox empty is a simple, three-folder system we call The Trusted Trio. However, if you're using Gmail and want to keep a clear inbox, it's actually a duo. Here's how to use two simple labels to consistently empty your Gmail inbox.

Read More »

Streaming radio and music recommendation service Last.fm now streams full length tracks and even albums on-demand, making it the largest completely legal souce of free, on-demand streaming music on the web. Any single track can be played up to three times before you're prompted to join their yet-to-be-released subscription service, which will offer unlimited plays of any song. Currently the service is available to the US, UK, and Germany, but Last.fm is working to expand to other countries. If the new service has piqued you interest in Last.fm, check out these 15 Last.fm power tweaks for more ways to take advantage of the excellent music service.

Read More »

Whether you do your downloading via BitTorrent, FTP, or plain old
HTTP, efficiently sucking files down from the cloud onto your hard
drive takes the right tools. Whether you're a web video addict,
constant software downloader, MP3 freak, or BitTorrent junkie,
we've got some power downloading tools for you. Step inside for our
picks of the best free download managers that get you the files you
want fast and easy.

Read More »

You may have noticed that standard Google searches put the search terms right in the URL—as in google.com/search?q=tech+jobs+portland. That's fine in most cases, but what if you have the sneaking suspicion your boss or IT guy is looking through your Google searches, or you don't want your searching history sold by your ISP to marketers? Tech blog Digital Inspiration ferrets out 10 Google-mirroring URLs hosted by Google on its own servers, seemingly created for the purpose of offering a little shielding from prying eyes. See the full list after the jump.

Read More »

Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): CookieSwap performs a simple function, but it's a serious help for those who manage multiple log-ins on any site, be it Gmail, Flickr, a Google account, or anything else. Simply click on the extension in the status bar to choose a cookie profile while you're browsing, and log in wherever you want to keep accounts saved under that profile. If you arrive at a site you want to switch accounts for, simply switch to a different profile and head to the site's login page. Those needing only a solution for Google or Gmail can get by with the Greasemonkey-based Google Account Multi-Login or the Gmail Manager Firefox extension, but for computers without multiple accounts or web-based workers with a lot of different usernames, CookieSwap could prove pretty helpful. CookieSwap is a free download and works wherever Firefox does.

Read More »

Weblog Lifehack.org rounds up a number of foods that make for far better snacking than chips or candy, and can also help bolster your productivity, health, and mood in some cases. Included in the list are these aids for those long shifts of staring at monitors:

• Strawberries. As with carrots and flaxseeds, strawberries surprisingly aid in better eyesight. Eating strawberries has also been linked to preventing cancer.
• Flaxseeds. If you've been working hard all day, have some flaxseeds. They are great for your eyes to stop them feeling a little dried out, and allowing you to feel fresh even after a hard day.

Read More »

Working with the command line can save time, but most of us non-programmers know only a few key commands to use. Using the apropos command, however, anyone can search for commands and programs that relate to whatever keyword you search for. If, for instance, you knew you had a video encoder handy but didn't quite know how to get at it, type in apropos mpeg and you'll get a list of commands and programs that have the words "mpeg" in their man, or manual, files. Great tip for beginners and terminal hackers alike, and apropos is installed on a wide number of Linux distros and other terminals. For more beginner help, check out Unix resources for newbies.

Read More »

Ever get the feeling after an hour spent cleaning that your place still doesn't quite look spic and span? The Curbly blog uses a bit of wisdom from one writer's work as a housekeeper to offer a few methods of ensuring a room looks presentable and less cluttered. For instance:

The mantra of the company I worked for was top to bottom, left to right. This way you could easily walk into any room and know exactly where to get started. The work was divided into "wet rooms" (bathrooms and kitchens) and "dry rooms" (living room, dining room, bedrooms) ... I (now) try to clean on a weekly schedule, and "deep clean" on a rotating basis. I start with the "wet rooms" first, as I hate cleaning them the most.

Read More »

The Tombuntu blog offers a tip that more than one reader was asking after in last week's screenshot tour of KDE 4, the latest desktop manager release for Linux—how to get rid of the Windows-style bottom taskbar. I pulled it off somewhat by accident, but the actual tweak requires removing one section from a configuration file. You can still get all the taskbar's functionality embedded onto your desktop, including app launchers, desktop and program switchers, a clock, and even a battery monitor. Those seeking a 100% complete, stable system, however, are still advised to hold off until KDE 4 goes through a few more revisions.

Read More »