Recycle Political Yard Signs into Bird Houses [Howtos]
What to do with the lawn sign for that local judge or sheriff you supported in the last election? Some artsy neighbors to the north in Montreal who call themselves Les Fourmis answered that question last month in the wake of their local political season, by creating bird houses from the common corrugated-plastic signage distributed by campaigns and some cable ties — producing a colorful, recycled cottage for high-flying candidates to take office in. A basic template like the one pictured is provided, however exact dimensions aren't. But they'd probably be in metric anyway, so why not just wing it?
Safari 3.2 Released, Bolsters Security [Safari]
Apple's default web browser Safari saw a new release this afternoon to version 3.2. It doesn't look like there's anything exciting to report for this Windows and OS X release, though, as it appears to be strictly a security-related version bump. Still, if you use Safari regularly, do yourself a favor and download the latest. Thanks Sameer!
WideMail Adds a Three-Pane Widescreen View to Mail.app [Featured Mac Download]
Mac OS X only: Free Mail.app plug-in WideMail adds a new three-paned display and customization options to OS X's default email client. Similar to previously mentioned Letterbox, WideMail offers more advanced settings for tweaking how Mail.app displays and formats your email. If you've got a widescreen monitor and you prefer the way the three vertical pane interface lays out your email, WideMail is just the ticket. Thanks Jason!
Tweak YouTube Embeds for Higher Quality [Digital Video]
Now that you know how to find higher quality videos on YouTube (and save them), you can also embed the video elsewhere in higher quality. Add &ap=%2526fmt%3D18 to the "value" of the object's movie parameter and the embed "src" paramater. You may have to adjust the final number 18 up or down to find the best value — originally format 6 was the way to go, though apparently 22 is now the best possible format. Why watch gameplay videos from the new World of Warcraft expansion any other way?
Taglocity Brings Gmail-like Tagging to Outlook [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: Microsoft Outlook plug-in Taglocity brings Gmail-style tagging to your Outlook email. Getting started with Taglocity takes a little figuring out, but once you understand what the app is capable of, it's got all kinds of potential. Each time you tag an email (hit Ctrl+Shift+t for a quick shortcut), Taglocity can perform actions based on user-defined rules, so it can move the email to a folder, assign other tags based on the root tag, remove tags, create a task or appointment, and more. The app also has an online compenent, so you can sync your tags or join a group with which you can share tags and email. Other offline features include searching by tags and creating smart folders. When it comes to supercharging your Outlook email, we've always been big fans of previously mentioned Xobni, but Taglocity is worth checking out. The app comes in a Professional flavor for $99 that offers more advanced settings, but the Standard version is free and offers most of the same features. Taglocity is Windows only, requires Microsoft Office and .NET 2.0.
Living Wage Calculator Tabulates American Cost of Living [Budgeting]
For those of you who wonder how the other half lives, or are the other half, then compare the cost of living and what wage you'll need to earn to keep up with the Living Wage Calculator from Dr. Amy K. Glasmeier at Pennsylvania State University. Above are the numbers for a single adult or single adult and single child in San Francisco, and let me tell you, getting by on that little would not be easy. I'm also skeptical that $10,475 a month in take-home pay in Austin is pretty unrealistic, but it certainly suggests I should move. How does the data for your locality match with your reality?
FreeRinger Makes Free PC-to-Phone Calls To Over 30 Countries [Telephony]
Webapp FreeRinger makes free PC-to-phone calls from your browser to over 30 different countries across the globe—or at least that's the idea. FreeRinger is powered by another free international calling service, Talkster. The calls are ad-supported, so you never have to pay anything, and since the app runs from your browser as a Flash application, you don't have to install anything to use it. Unfortunately FreeRinger, I wasn't able to successfully log in when testing FreeRinger (even after forwarding port 1935, as the troubleshooting page recommended), so I wasn't able to verify the quality. If you give it a try and have better luck, let's hear how it worked in the comments.
USB 3.0 to Transfer 25GB in 70 Seconds [Hardware]
USB 3.0 will be unveiled next Monday, and so far the new specs for the protocol look incredible, promising 25GB transfers in a mere 70 seconds. To put that in perspective, the same transfer would take 13.9 minutes with the current USB 2.0 protocol and 9.3 hours on USB 1.0. Looks like the future of wired syncs and backups is bright and blazing. [via]
Windows 7 Is Exactly Like Vista Under the Hood [Windows 7]
If you've been counting on Windows 7 as your salvation from Vista, think again. According to PC World tests, Windows 7 appears to be essentially a repackaging of Vista, running the same basic processes and sporting similar performance and memory usage. On the plus side, Windows 7 does deliver several new features, and it isn't shipping until mid-year 2009, so Microsoft still has time to make plenty of adjustments. UPDATE: As many commenters point out (and as I mentioned above), there's still a lot of development possibility between now and next year, and many users have still found Windows 7 capable of running on lighter-spec machines. Check out this article from OSNews for a counterpoint to the PC World article.
MailOnFeed Pushes Email to Your Newsreader [Email]
Web application MailOnFeed fetches email from an email account of your choosing, then converts the contents to an RSS feed you can subscribe to in your feed reader. Granted, if you're a Gmail user you can already subscribe to feeds of your inbox or labels provided you're using a newsreader with support for authentication. On the other hand, if you're newsreader doesn't support authentication (like Google Reader), you're not using Gmail, or you've got some old junk email account that you want to keep track of using your newsreader, the free-to-use MailOnFeed could come in very handy.
Google Chrome Working "Crudely" on Linux [Google Chrome]
CNET reports that Google Chrome is now working on Linux, albeit in a very raw fashion. Both Mac and Linux users interested in Chrome are eager to try the new web browser from Google, but until Google releases a more stable version of Chrome for those platforms, there's always previously mentioned CrossOver Chromium.
Notify.me Delivers RSS Items to Your Inbox, Cellphone, or IM Client [Notifications]
When you want the latest update to an important RSS feed sent to you wherever you are, the moment it's published, give the Notify.me notification web service a try. Set up source feeds in Notify.me and have new items sent to you via instant message, SMS, or email. I signed up for Notify.me two days ago and got no new items from my feeds for a day; then yesterday afternoon the IM bot kicked in and I was getting notifications of new feed updates faster than my check-every-15-minutes desktop feed reader. Suggested uses for Notify.me include job listings, social network updates, and search feeds.
AeroSnap Brings the Windows 7 Snap Feature to XP, Vista [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: Free application AeroSnap brings the new Windows 7 drag-and-snap-to-size feature to your pre-Windows 7 machine. With AeroSnap installed and running, pulling a window to the right edge of your screen resizes it to half of the screen on the right side; pulling it to the left resizes the window to your left half. Finally, pulling a window to the top of your monitor will maximize it. Handy! To get more Windows 7 features now, check out previously mentioned EnhanceMyVista or Aero Shake. AeroSnap is a free download, requires Windows and .NET 2.0.
Google Tracks U.S. Flu Trends Using Search Data [Health]
Google's now tracking flu activity across the U.S. by aggregating flu-related searches by area; Google Flu Trends purportedly can predict flu outbreaks in your state two weeks faster than traditional systems. Give a search on your zip code to get your flu shot before you're doing one of those searches.
AwayFind Gets Urgent Email Through When You're Offline [Autoresponders]
Just-launched webapp AwayFind provides a custom form that people can use to contact you via SMS when you're not checking email. In short, it acts like a filter that shields you from email you don't need to see when you're not checking your inbox constantly—but lets the urgent messages get through. Here's how it works: You set up your contact page at AwayFind, and add a link to it in your vacation autoresponder. If someone urgently needs to reach you, they click the link, fill out the form and AwayFind pipes the message straight to your cellphone—without requiring you to publish your phone number. Here's what the AwayFind workflow looks like.
First, you sign up for an AwayFind account (free plan available), and edit the text that appears on your contact form. You can set AwayFind to ask for the sender's email address and or phone number, their contact preferences, category of message, and even set a custom verification question, like "What's my last name spelled backwards?". Also in your AwayFind account settings (but not pictured), you enter your phone number and test to make sure AwayFind can send you text messages successfully. Click on the image on to the left to see the full AwayFind edit form.
Then, when you're going to take an email vacation, you add a link to your AwayFind contact page in your vacation autoresponder. While you're not checking email, your autoresponder goes out to anyone who writes you. When Mr. HolyCrapINeedYouRightNow gets the auto-response, he clicks on the contact form.
Here's what the contact form might look like. Note the area where your sender has to prove s/he is human using a CAPTCHA; you can also set up a custom verification question. Also, the form limits the sender's message length so it's fit for a text message.
Then you get the text message on your phone, without giving out your phone number.
AwayFind is made by our pal and guest writer Jared Goralnick, and offers a basic plan for free and paid plans with all the trimmings. (A 30-day free trial is available for the pay-for Pro version, here's the plan feature comparison).
AltDrag Rescues Unreachable Windows with the Alt Key [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: Whether through using dual monitors, awkward resizing, or other dumb Windows tricks, application and document windows can often end up with their title bars unreachable, meaning a user can't grab them to put them right again. AltDrag, a free, tiny Windows utility, enables an ability Linux desktop users have long had to hold down the Alt key, grab anywhere on a window and drag it back to a manageable location. AltDrag used a little under 800KB on my Vista system, and since it can hide its tray icon, it's useful for both auto-start functionality or quick-search launching when a window goes AWOL. AltDrag is a free download, compressed in .7z format. For a no-install window rescue, try this mouse/keyboard trick.
You received this email because you are subscribed to the real_time feed for http://feeds.gawker.com/lifehacker/full. To change your subscription settings, please log into RSSFWD.
No comments:
Post a Comment