From The Tips Box: Online Accounts, Search And Replace

Readers offer their best tips for keeping up on the online services you use, searching and replacing text in certain programs, and distracting your dog.

About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons — maybe they’re a bit too niche, maybe we couldn’t find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn’t fit it in — the tip didn’t make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favourites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Email it to tips at lifehacker.com.au.

Use Your Birthday to Catalogue Your Online Accounts

Photo by Will Clayton.

Jryan727 discovers an easy way to take stock of the online services you’re signed up for:

So, today’s my birthday, and many of the services, forums, and other miscellaneous websites I belong to are sending me Happy Birthday e-mails, which made me realise that your birthday is a great day to take an accounting of what services you belong to. If you were planning on compiling a list, or spreadsheet, your birthday is a great day to start! I’ve already gotten e-mails from more than a few that I had long forgotten I even had accounts with.

You probably won’t get emails from all those services, but you’ll probably get a few from ones you had forgotten about. This is also probably a great time to unsubscribe or remove your account from a few of these services if you don’t use them anymore.

Search and Replace Text in Any Program with AutoHotkey

Slpk shares an AutoHotkey script perfect for bloggers and other writers:

I created this Autohotkey script for those situations when you need to work with text on applications that lack a basic search&replace function.

Use it to have Ctrl+Alt+R give you a search&replace wherever you need.

^!R::

Gui:

Gui Destroy

Gui, Add, Text,, Search:

Gui, Add, Edit, r1 w210 vSearch

Gui, Add, Text,, Replace:

Gui, Add, Edit, r1 w210 vReplace

Gui, Add, Button, x+-50 y+5 gReplace Default, Replace

Gui, Show, W230 H130, Ctrl+R Everywhere

return

GuiEscape:

Gui Destroy

return

Replace:

Gui Submit

previous := % clipboard

Sleep 100

Send ^a

Sleep 100

Send ^c

newtext := RegExReplace(clipboard, Search, Replace, count)

MsgBox, 4, %count% occurrencies., %count% occurrencies. Continue?

IfMsgBox Yes

clipboard := % newtext

Sleep 100

Send ^a

Sleep 100

Send ^v

clipboard := % previous

IfMsgBox No

Gosub Gui

return

return

Distract Runaway Dogs with a Squeak Toy Instead of Treats

Photo by Ali Milteer.

Pinecone99 lets us know a foolproof method for getting your dog’s attention:

Dog owners – if your dog runs off and won’t come when you call even if you try luring him/her with treats, try a squeaky toy.

My dog occasionally escapes from the yard and decided early on that it was more fun to explore the neighbourhood than listen to my voice calling him. The squeaky toy catches his attention and he comes running toward me. Of course he’ll gladly accept treats at that point too.

Strangely, I never though to try this, but it makes sense: your dog is probably more excited about a squeaky toy than your own voice, and it can actually tell you have one from far away, unlike treats.