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Archive: Life

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March 1, 2007

Browse Craigslist Photos with Listpic

Listpic

Over at Parent Hacks, Asha Dornfest points to Listpic, a "visual Craigslist browser" that lets you search your city's Craigslist listings by keyword or category and display the results as image thumbnails. Price and location are included with the photo, mousing over reveals some details on the item, and clicking the image opens a pop-up of the detailed listing. This view helps weed out the listings with generic promotional photos, getting right to items that appear to be real, and becomes a big help for those of us who have a "no photo, no interest" policy for online bargain hunting.

February 28, 2007

Hacking Sale Prices

The Consumerist had an interesting article last month about certain retailers using a price coding scheme to indicate different discount classes. For instance, if you are at Sears and see something priced ending with .95, it means it's an out of production, clearance product. At Office Depot, prices not ending with 0,9, or 5 are final markdowns, and supposedly the same holds true at Target for prices ending in 4.

This got me to thinking about other stores which do not use a price coding scheme. Is there a way to tell how much an item has been discounted if it's not quoted on the tag? Many places will price their products at *.99 initially and then discount items at 10, 15, 30, 50 or 75 percent. How far they go depends on the initial markup and how badly the item needs to move.

If you take a look at the possible prices at those typical discounts, you can see a few patterns. I've included a third decimal digit where it could affect the outcome when the number is rounded up instead of chopped at 2 digits.

10% 99(1) 09(1) 19(1) 29(1) 39(1) 49(1) 59(1) 69(1) 79(1) 89(1)
15% 99(1) 14(1) 29(1) 44(1) 59(1) 74(1) 89(1) 04(1) 19(1) 34(1)
30% 99(1) 29(1) 59(1) 89(1) 19(1) 49(1) 79(1) 09(1) 39(1) 69(1)
50% 995(5) 495(5)
75% 497(3) 747(3) 247(2) 997(2)

Assuming the prices would be rounded to the nearest cent (instead of floored), you get something like this:

Number after decimal Likely percentage off

00 or 50 75% or 50%

75 or 25 75%

99 or 19 10%, 15%, 30%

other *9 10% or 30%

*4 15%

So while a Target price ending in 4 might be clearance, chances are good that at a non price-coded store, this would only represent a 15% discount. Furthermore, assuming there is no price coding, if you find something that seems discounted and its price ends with 00, 50, 75 or 25, it's likely been priced at %50 or 75% off!

References:

February 27, 2007

Find and Share Toy Instructions, Mods, and Hacks

toyinstructions

Jeremiah of Z Recommends has just launched a promising new site for hacking parents called toyinstructions:

a collaborative wiki of deep links to instructions, user manuals, and building guides for toys and children's games. This site also offers links to blog searches, photos, and Yahoo user groups for toy brands, and a moderated list of top fan sites.

As detailed in the project announcement, search results for specific brands and toys (currently limited to products included at launch, but open for anyone to contribute) link to relevant photo searches (Flickr), blog posts (Technorati), user groups (Yahoo Groups), and DIY project ideas (a Google custom search that currently searches Instructables and the Make: blog).

Here's what the page for the Super Soaker looks like, with its custom DIY link:

Super Soaker on toyinstructions

As Jeremiah points out, the site will only be as good as its contributions, so if you have hard-to-find toy instructions to share, I do recommend you help him build what could be a very useful site.

February 26, 2007

Send Company Email From Gmail

Customized From Address

When my access to O'Reilly's email server went out today, I still managed to send a message to tech support from my O'Reilly email address. Since I'd already added my other address to Gmail, here's all I needed to do:

Log in to your Gmail account at mail.google.com.
Click Compose.
Use the drop-down menu in the From field to select the address you'd like to use to send the message.
Compose and send!

Sure, it's more of a tip than a hack, since it's built into Gmail, but it sure saved me in a pinch today, so I thought it qualified for a Hackszine mention.

Related:

Google Hacks, 3E

February 24, 2007

Stop receiving junk mail, almost

Junkmail
KXAN.com has a list of address and some tips on getting rid of junk mail - (pictured here, another option, from Redpac.com - use their business reply mails to send them back their own junk mail...) -

This is the Postal Service Statement:
The Postal Service must deliver all properly posted mail. You can, however, reduce the amount of advertising mail you receive by contacting the following organizations to request removal of your name from mailing lists:

Mail Preference Service
Direct Marketing Association
P.O. Box 282
Carmel, NY 10512-0282

Trans Union LLC
Name Removal Option
P.O. Box 505
Woodlyn, PA 19094-0505

Experian Consumer Services
901 W. Bond Street
Lincoln, NE 68521-3694

Equifax Inc.
Name Removal Option
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374-0241

Up to 90 percent of mailing lists are accessed by this process. Registrants generally note a decrease of unsolicited mail one to three months after their names are listed. Since some customers may receive mail under various names, include alternative names or spellings to ensure that the advertiser's mail is stopped.

In summary, by law we must deliver ALL mail that has been paid for - including your private personal mail and that of businesses and organizations.

Sick Of Junk Mail? We Can Help - [via] Link.

More:
U.S. Laws on Direct Mail - Link.

Intelligent Snooze Button Agent

Have you ever gotten to work early due to light traffic and wished you'd slept in a bit later? Or maybe you've left on time, but arrived late because of a traffic jam? Greg McCarroll is working on the second iteration of a wired alarm clock that adjusts your wake-up time depending on traffic conditions.

Greg writes,

The original idea was simply to take the data I could access via the live departure boards feature of our railway network's website, which contained information about train departure times and all too often delays and apply it to the wake-up time of an "alarm clock".

Ever since, I've been wondering how I could apply my alarm clock hack to my daily drive and when I recently discovered the TFL Traffic Alerts Service I knew how to reawaken the project. Basically I intend to build a journey time predictor based on the following data,

The amount, proximity and severity of traffic alerts to my daily route.
Wheter or not it's a school holiday or not.
The day of the week (I have a pet theory that people start earlier on a Monday and slowly get later towards the friday).

A screen scraping agent, LEGO snooze button interface, airport express wake-up tunes, getting to sleep in, and never being late to work again. I love it.

Links:

February 23, 2007

Unclutter Your Desk

Here's a great way to rid your desk of device clutter. Take everything but the monitor, keyboard, and mouse and zip-tie it all to the underside. - Link.

February 22, 2007

AirPower - find places to plug in when you travel

261068080 B421586105
Jeff has a great power Wiki for when you travel and need to juice up your laptop -

This wiki is dedicated to helping you find power while travelling at airports around the globe. We also have a Flickr group to share photos - http://www.flickr.com/groups/airpower/ please link back to this Wiki if you post a photo.

AirPower Home - [via] Link.

Pictured here, power @ the N gate in SETAC by Travelin' Librarian.

Bootstrap Education

I received an email today from an electrical engineering student who is looking for resources that could help expedite a hacker's education, especially with regard to computer science and operating systems. I know I've been on the other side of that email on several occasions. Strangely enough, it's usually been in search of E.E. resources.

To answer the immediate question, it seems that the greatest network and operating systems education must begin with a copy of Slackware, a three day weekend, and a bunch of Mountain Dew. Who can say where it ends, but I'm pretty sure it begins there.

This got me to thinking about bootstrap education in general, though. Of course, there's MIT's Open Courseware project, which has produced a wealth of publicly accessible course material on almost every imaginable topic. I'm definately excited for a world that can foster armchair astrophysicists and bioengineers, but I don't know that we're there yet.

What do you think? Are there particular fields of study that tend to be compatible with a bootstrap, self-guided education? What are the ideal study paths for tomorrow's hackers? Please share your thoughts and resources in the comments!

February 17, 2007

Howto: Remove Eyeglasses Coating With Sunscreen

The lenses in my favorite pair of glasses are getting to be about a year or two old, and it's getting to the point where I can barely see through them. My prescription hasn't changed much - the problem is that the UV filter coating is starting to wear off, giving the entire lense surface a rough, partially-opaque finish.

I spent last evening trying to remove the coating and restore my lenses to a like-new condition, and I'm happy to say I can see again, thanks to a little polishing effort. You don't want to do this if your glasses are in reasonable condition, but if you're to the point where it's between this and buying a new pair, it may be worth your while to give it a shot.

Sunscreen To The Rescue
It's ironic, but I found that oil-free, SPF 45 sunscreen does a fantastic job at removing the thin coating from polycarbonate lenses. I believe this is because sunscreen has extremely fine aluminum powder in its composition, which is course enough to work away the coating, but fine enough to not leave visibly deep scratches in the soft plastic.

First, clean your glasses as best as you can. Using an old (but clean) sock or cotton rag, polish both sides of the lense, reapplying sunscreen as needed. You will feel the surface becoming noticably rougher as the coating is removed and becomes more patchy. It takes a long time, but eventually the last of the tiny patches of coating will be worked through and you'll be left with a really smooth finish. As a last step, you should clean the lenses off and then polish them again with another clean rag.

It's hard to photograph, but you can see the difference it made in my glasses (above). I haven't yet tried, but this should also be a good way of removing the scratched up reflective coatings from cheap sunglasses. Your mileage may vary, so only try this as a last option, but let us know in the comments how it works out.

February 14, 2007

Yahoo! Wheel of Food

Wheel of Food

Can't decide where to eat today? Flickr Hacks coauthor Jim Bumgardner (who now works at Yahoo!) has created a great Yahoo! Local mashup to make the decision for you. Just plug in your ZIP code and a query, and give the Wheel of Food a spin:

Wheel of Food Query

Cambridge has so many great Indian joints, it's often tough for me to pick one. I didn't think it was possible, but the Wheel of Food actually uncovered a few places I didn't even know about, making it a great way to find new restaurants, in addition to providing a random decision maker for the indecisive.

(via Paul Bausch)

Related:

Yahoo! Hacks

February 9, 2007

IMify to Stikkit

IMify Stikkit

IMified and Stikkit seem to have heard my request. You can now post to Stikkit via IM.

Scripts for Escaping Cell Contracts

Cingular Escape

The Consumerist has a couple step-by-step scripts for getting out of your Cingular or Verizon contracts without paying an early-termination fee, based on the former's new arbitration clause and the latter's recent raise in basic text-messaging rates. It looks tedious and a lot of work, but it doesn't look nearly as difficult as my attempt to cancel Cingular service when my actual contract had already expired (in the end, I had to mail a copy of my 1-year contract to Cingular to prove it wasn't a 2-year agreement, because they apparently don't keep contracts on file, just database records).

We'd be remiss in our duty if we didn't point out that attempts to follow these scripts have been hit-and-miss (a number of folks have posted interesting comments, and it seems like it really is the luck of the draw as to whether you get a CSR who will go along with what you're trying to do), but it's still worth a shot and you gotta love the ingenuity here.

Now, all we need are Sprint and T-Mobile scripts (well, except people don't seem to loathe those two the way they do Cingular and Verizon). Anyone have experience here?

Call for Hacks: Help the Hacks Team Collaborate

Google Docs

We at Hackszine are all about collaboration, and lately our geographically distributed team has been working on web-based and decidedly non-MS Office ways of doing so. We've been paying particular attention to the Google suite made up of Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Gmail, and Google Calendar (and rumored to soon include a PowerPoint alternative), which have generally worked well but have caused some significant hitches as well. Once we all get together on the same document, things have moved smoothly, but it usually takes many failed invitations, foiled uploads, and redirects before we get there.

Ever since Google acquired Writely, the "Email to Google Docs" feature has consistently failed for me when sent from my work email address, requiring me to upload everything from the web interface instead of copying Google Docs with a message that I send to our group with a Word attachment, which would really speed things up for us. So, just getting a document started has been a tedious hassle. But the hassle hasn't ended once the document is online.

This week, Dale Dougherty sent this Google Docs/Calendar request to our group, which I've decided to share with our competent Hackszine readers, since I've been unable to find a workable solution myself:

I've been trying to share a Google Doc with the two Brians. When I use their O'Reilly email, they don't get the message. So I have to use their Gmail addresses. Should I be able to invite anyone with an email address to view or edit a Google doc? Bre sent me an invitation to his calendar using my O'Reilly address and it didn't work--it complained that it couldn't link his calendar to mine. My Google account is set up with my Gmail address. Can someone explain this set of problems--using a non-Gmail email address and your Gmail address interchangeably?

Gcal

Dale's message highlights a problem we've encountered with all of Google's services--namely, that when you're invited to join a document at one email address (that is, when the message actually makes it through spam filters), but the rest of your life is attached to another, you're out of luck. Since I maintain a Google Calendar (shared with others and including others' calendars) associated with my Gmail account, I'm not going to maintain an entirely separate calendar (is that even possible, or wouldn't that still require another Google account?) for collaborations with people who use my @oreilly.com address as their primary means of contact, and there doesn't appear to be any way to merge online identities within the Google system.

Tim O'Reilly puts a finer point on this issue:

The only hack I've been able to figure out is to get people to send me the invitation to both accounts. (I forward all my *****@oreilly.com mail to Gmail, but not the other way around, as that would create a loop, yet I use *****@gmail.com for calendar et al. The alternative would be to make *****@gmail.com my primary email address and forward to *****@oreilly.com.) Seems to me that this is a hidden (maybe even unconscious) power play by Google. There's a race on to get your sticky identity from one site to become your default identity.

This is a good point. Is Google attempting to keep their system closed, locking us into a single online identity associated with their services? If that's the case, it wouldn't be that much better for collaboration than being locked into the MS Office suite, the unfortunate de facto standard for most professional collaboration right now.

So, does anyone have any solutions to this tangled nest of questions? Any specific hacks to help out the Hacks team? In addition to these specific concerns, we'd also love to see any general hacks that help get you use other tools to get things done that would normally require MS Office. This is a hot space on our radar (especially with the launch of Google Apps for Your Domain), both behind the scenes and in terms of what we'd like to cover.

Everyday Stoicism or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy the Show

Everyday Stoicism

Contrary to what you might think, based on the focus of most of the posts on this site, we don't necessarily believe there's always a technological solution to every problem. In fact, for many areas in life, I've often found the right life hack for my particular need may be discovered at perhaps the opposite end of the spectrum: philosophy.

In particular, the Ancients really knew how to live well and started hacking great ways to deal with the effects of technology from the moment Prometheus gave us fire. For example, I don't make it to the theater as much as I'd like anymore, but whenever I do, I take a page from Epictetus:

When you are going about any action, remind yourself what nature the action is. If you are going to bathe, picture to yourself the things which usually happen in the bath: some people splash the water, some push, some use abusive language, and others steal. Thus you will more safely go about this action if you say to yourself, "I will now go bathe, and keep my own mind in a state conformable to nature." And in the same manner with regard to every other action. For thus, if any hindrance arises in bathing, you will have it ready to say, "It was not only to bathe that I desired, but to keep my mind in a state conformable to nature; and I will not keep it if I am bothered at things that happen."

Okay, so we don't have public baths anymore, but this technique works well in movie theaters, lines at amusement parks, restaurants, or pretty much anywhere you intend to enjoy yourself around other people. Seriously, I consider this passage with many deep breaths at almost every movie I attend. It works.

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