As the amount of memory in Mac notebooks has grown, it takes longer to put them to sleep because OS X defaults to writing the entire contents of memory to disk before going to sleep. APC magazine Web Editor Dan Warne offers up two ideas for solving the slow-to-sleep problem:

You can disable the safe sleep mode by opening the terminal and typing:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

And to get safe sleep mode back, change the "0" to a "3".

Another option is to use freeware app Smartsleep, a preference pane which gives you the option of letting your notebook just sleep when the battery is close to fully charged, or if the battery level drops below a certain point it will switch to sleep and hibernate. As Dan says, if you usually work with your Macbook plugged into a powerpoint, this is ideal.

How to turn off slow sleep/hibernate mode on a Macbook Pro [Dan Warne]

Most columnists writing about how to get out of credit card debt advocate asking your credit card company to reduce the interest rate you're paying. Ever wondered how you'd go about actually making that request?
CBCNews in the US approached 10 shoppers and asked them to ask for a reduction by following a simple script - and six of the 10 got a yes from their credit card company.
The script was pretty simple: "I think I've been a good customer. I'd like to stay with you, but I really want you to lower the rate on my card. Can you help me?" If the operator said they couldn't help, the callers were advised to ask for a supervisor, and repeat their request.
Sounds like if you have the moxey, it might work. If you try it, let us know how you get on. Worst that can happen is you get a no, right?

Skeptics surprised after negotiating lower credit card rate [CBCNews via Consumerist]

The new Early Bird Metcard ticket will let Melbourne commuters travel free on Connex trains if they arrive before 7am. The new scheme starts on 31 March.

The ticket is valid for travel between any 2 stations, not just travel into the CBD, but doesn't cover your travel home in the afternoon.

Connex said commuters travelling in zones 1 and 2 could save up to $47.20 a fortnight if they use the new scheme.
For more info check out the Early Bird FAQ.

If you want to eat well while keeping within a budget, the Simple Dollar offers a few tips for making sure you shop well and don't let any of your food purchases go to waste.
Buying in bulk, getting fresh produce from farmer's markets and cooking meals that work as leftovers are all good moves, but there are some traps to avoid too:

• Don't buy ingredients that only work for one dish - especially if they're perishable.
• Double check the value of sale items or coupons - home brand items may still be cheaper
• Make one big supermarket trip a month, supplemented by small shops at markets for fresh produce. This will force you to get creative and use what you have on hand.

Windows only: Free, open source application Blue Lock monitors the proximity of your Bluetooth phone or device and automatically locks your computer whenever it's out of range (e.g., you've walked away from your computer). The usefulness will depend on the strength of your Bluetooth devices, since it's not really going to do its job if you've got a strong signal and receiver that keeps a connection from across the office. But if it works well with your Bluetooth devices, Blue Lock provides a simple way to keep your computer secure when you step away for a few seconds but forget to hit Win-L to lock your workstation. Blue Lock is free, Windows only. For an even more robust alternative, Mac users should check out how to automate tons of actions based on Bluetooth proximity.

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The Consumerist has published a thought provoking interview with American "customer service avenger" Ron Burley about his book "Unscrewed: The Guide to Getting What You Paid For". He says modern customer service attitudes treat the consumer as the enemy, so you need to be prepared for a battle.

One tip which he mentioned which I know from personal experience works is that you should take your problem to sales, not customer service. Burley says you shouldn't sit on hold for customer service for more than 5 minutes - it's a waste of your time. Call the sales number - you can guarantee that line is answered fast, by people who want to help you. As a plus, it's likely that even if the customer service line is outsourced to people outside the company (and country) the sales line is probably staffed by company employees who care more about resolving customer issues.
Another point he makes is that you should make a judgement call about how long it will take to resolve the issue, and if it's worth your time:

"The quick thumbnail is figure out what you get paid per hour, double it, and that's how much your free time is worth... If you get paid $30 an hour, your free time is worth $60 an hour. If you're talking about a $100 dispute, you can pretty well figure out that if you have to spend more than 45 minutes resolving it, it isn't worth your time."

You may be wildly successful in your work life, but in the midst of that unbridled productivity, it's easy to push your personal goals to the back seat. To combat this common problem, weblog Zen Habits suggests several tips to make time for your personal goals. For example:

Make it your most important appointment. There are appointments we take seriously — a doctor's appointment, or an important meeting — and we will do everything we can to ensure that we make those appointments and are not late for them. But when it comes to our time for working on our personal goal, we will often push it back because of other pressing things. Don't let that happen.

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Finance blogger FrugalTrader started strategically saving money back in 2003, and went from being $40,000 in debt to being $285,000 in the black. There's no get-rich-quick scheme here; he just used age-old saving strategies, like aggressively paying down debt and automatically transferring cash to savings, living well below his means, and renting out part of his property to pay the mortgage. Pretty amazing results in such a short time.

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Webapp the Awesome Highlighter aims to give context to shared links by allowing users to highlight text in a webpage before they send it out. Very similar to previously mentioned web site Jump Knowledge, the Awesome Highlighter creates a special URL that saves your highlighting schemes and displays them when you click through to the link. It's good to give quick context to a link, but if you want to heavier annotation, Jump Knowledge is a lot more feature-rich.

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Tutorial site wikiHow runs down instructions for turning a pair of cords into a nifty shoulder bag. This project reminds me of a DIY jeans bag I saw live and in person at SXSW this weekend. The jeans bag—which involves no sewing at all—holds together with only duct tape and love. Neat!

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Windows only: Simple, freeware application Windows Hidie can hide any porn window on your desktop from view with a simple keystroke or through its slightly more advanced interface. When Windows Hidie hides a window, it disappears from your taskbar and from the Alt-Tab switcher, so essentially it's completely gone from the casual onlooker's view. You can hide the active window with a quick stroke of Win-Z, show all hidden windows with Win-S, or toggle the display of the graphical interface to the program with Win-A. It's simple, does one thing, and does it well. Aside from what some might consider seedy uses, an app like this could also come in handy to keep apps running in the background that don't minimise to the tray. Windows Hidie is freeware, Windows only, requires .NET 2.0. For a similar, more robust alternative, check out previously mentioned Magic Boss Key.

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Yesterday the ABC announced a swag of new digital services including online TV channels and the addition of digital downloads to the ABC store - but unfortunately it has confirmed that ABC Shop video downloads will have DRM, and they'll be confined to the Windows Media Format.
While its downloadable audio books and music will be in Mp3 format, with no DRM attached, a PR person for the ABC has confirmed it's a different story for the ABC Shop's video downloads. Video will be in Windows Media format, playable either through the ABC's Media Player or in normal versions of Windows Media Player.
Video will also have DRM, she confirmed:

"The DRM license will vary according to what the customer purchases but for launch we are 'renting' download titles for a period of 7 days after which they will not be playable."

The second edition of the Lifehacker book, Upgrade Your Life, is a compilation of the best 116 hacks and downloads from Lifehacker's archives. This dead tree version of the web site transforms dozens of blog posts into comprehensive, edited tutorials, which will be familiar to longtime readers. While an official electronic version of Upgrade Your Life isn't available, today I've pulled together links to all the past posts that informed each book chapter to give you a one-stop preview of what's inside that cover. Consider this post the unedited web version of the book. After the jump, get a ginormous roundup of all the posts that created Upgrade Your Life by chapter. And shhhh, don't tell my book publisher I'm giving this all away.

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Brilliant new file sharing web site EatLime expedites online file sharing by allowing your friends to begin downloading the file as soon as you start uploading it, meaning you don't have to wait for the file to finish uploading before they begin downloading. You can share files up to 1GB with a free registration or up to 100MB with no registration. In testing EatLime, I found that eventually—once my download caught up with my upload—I was essentially downloading in real-time from the upload, which is fantastic. If you've ever shared large files online, you know what a pain it can be in terms of time. EatLime could cut a significant chunk out of the time it takes to share files online.

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Reader Ryan writes to ask:

I loved your column about setting up Back to My Mac for free, but I've got a Mac at home and a Windows PC at work, so what I really want is to get Back to My Mac from a Windows PC. Is it possible to get Back to My Mac from Windows?

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You don't need a URL hack or Firefox extension to force YouTube to send you videos in the highest quality that's available: in your Account settings, you can tell YouTube to default to the higher-res, better audio version of clips when they're available. Apparently YouTube automatically detects your connection speed and chooses which video to feed you by default, but if you're always on a fast connection, changing this setting will hook you up straight away.

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Finance blogger Nickel tracks receipts and other scraps of tax-related paperwork throughout the year in two places: a basket at home, and an envelope in the car. Any time a business or medical expense comes up, in the basket or envelope the receipt goes. Same goes for charitable contributions. Every once in a while, Nickel transfers the contents of the envelope on-the-go to the basket. (Once that's done, you can easily digitise that paperwork with the right scanner.) How do you capture receipts and other tax documents as you go? Let us know in the comments.

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Writer Jonathan Fields wants to exercise while he blogs, and he does it with the previously mentioned treadputer: a treadmill with a computer on its dashboard.

That picture below is little old me walking 1 mile per hour while blogging...at my desk. I'm there from 8:30am t 12:30pm, five day a week now. And, here's the amazing thing...It doesn't even feel like exercise! One mile per hour is the equivalent of a very slow walk. It's slower than the pace I usually follow whenever I am on the phone (I have to move when I talk or feel like I'm gonna die). You don't really get tired, you don't sweat and, at my weight... By lunchtime, I've already burned around 600 friggin' calories!

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Need to find out what grub your co-workers prefer for an office potluck? Trying to find out your friends' preferences on music? For simple data-gathering, building a linked spreadsheet and database can be overkill, and plain ol' Microsoft Office has a decent set of form-creating and data-gathering tools built in. CNET's Workers' Edge blog shows you how to create a form from scratch, distribute it to those you're polling, and gather all the data in a Comma Separated Value file that's readable in most any data-management program you choose. The tools used in the guide require Office 2003 or 2007.

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The bavatuesdays blog points out a publish-to-blog feature that seems to have quietly crept into Google Documents. Not much to crow about if you're perfectly happy with your blogging platform's built-in editor, but Google Docs can seemingly publish to most any blog, even those on hosted servers. Combined with linked tools like Google Notebook, it could make for a nicer thought-compiling and drafting experience for anyone who's an avid online writer. The feature can be found in the "Publish" tab on the right-hand side of a Docs page.

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The Tipnut mailbag pulls in an idea for avoiding a problem that drives some people (including a certain wife of mine) insane: Keeping the sponges and clothes used for really dirty work separate from those you run over your eating implements—especially if you buy same-colour sponges in bulk. To do so, use a knife or scissors to nick a corner off the grimy ones (presumably when they're dry). This could also prevent getting counter/surface-cleaning chemicals and grime into the same sink as your dishes, though perhaps disinfecting your sponges in the microwave could prevent that as well. Photo by Conor Lawless.

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Ever wish you didn't have to click through two or three pages to do an "Advanced search" at photo sharing site Flickr, and then click around further to find the right size and photo options? Compfight, an AJAX-powered search site utilising Flickr's API, is a super-streamlined interface for finding search terms in either tags or descriptions, choosing between Creative Commons and more traditional licenses, and popping up original sizes or choosing to head to a photo's default photo/comments page. Better still, mouse over a photo with a blue bottom border, and you'll see what size the original is available in. We've seen specialised search tools for Flickr before, but Compfight simply takes Flickr's built-in search tools and puts all the results on one super-thumbnailed page.

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Twiddla, a free whiteboarding service that doesn't require sign-ups to start using, turns any web site, photo or graphic file into a canvas for marking and discussion. Winner of this year's Technical Achievement award at the SXSW festival, Twiddla isn't the only
whiteboard service, for sure, but its ease of use and quick setup and extra features—including live conference-call-style audio chat—make it a stand-out. You can check out Twiddla's features without even launching a "guest" account by trying out its live "sandbox" mode. For web workers, design types, and anyone needing to draw out or discuss an idea, it's a worthy tool to keep bookmarked.

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It's been hyped, dissed, and privately tested for five months, but now you can check out Hulu, a streaming video site created by NBC Universal and News Corp., for yourself. The U.S.-only site features a few (generally financially under-performing) full-length movies, including The Big Lebowski, The Usual Suspects, and Sideways, and a good number of clips and full episodes of shows like Family Guy, The Office, Babylon 5, and even the (dearly) departed likes of Arrested Development. No sign-up required, but, then again, you also can't upload or share clips—this is a sit-down-and-watch affair. Add it to the list of ways you can catch your favourite shows outside their air times.