Hackszine.com: Life Archives

Archive: Life

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February 8, 2007

Reply with Commenter Name at Lifehacker

Lifehacker Comments

Inspired by our post about personalizing your Flickr replies, the ever-resourceful and reader-focused Gina Trapani just whipped up her own code to add similar functionality to Lifehacker comments. Her Lifehacker Reply with Commenter Name Greasemonkey script adds a "[reply by name]" link to each comment on Lifehacker.com and inserts the commenter's name (prepended with an @ in v 0.2) into your response when you click that link.

Taking it one step further (thanks to the GNU Public License assigned to Gina's original code), Lifehacker reader Ali Karbassi modified the script to include links to the actual comment boxes you're replying to.

Nice work all around. It adds a nice personal touch to the comments thread, and it's great to see community improvements to the site's innovation. I know it makes my reader experience more enjoyable, both functionally and emotionally.

Links to Lifehacker Greasemonkey Scripts:

February 6, 2007

IMify Your Web Apps

Thanks to Lifehacker for tipping us off to IMified:

an instant messenger buddy that works accross all major IM networks and offers access to a growing number of web applications, as well as productivity tools like notes, reminders, and todo's. Imified helps you get things done faster.

To get started, just send a message in AIM/iChat/Yahoo! Messenger to the IMified buddy (imified@imified.com for MSN or imified@gmail.com on Google Talk/Jabber). Following a few prompts will soon allow you to IM your favorite web apps, including Google Calendar, Backpack, Remember the Milk, Blogger, and more (here's hoping Stikkit is next).

I can confirm that it works seamlessly and easily with WordPress (though I couldn't get it to work with Blogger). Setup was easy and I composed and posted this test message in just a minute or so entirely through iChat:

IMified Wordpress

February 1, 2007

Stikkit: Open for Hacking

Stikkit API News

Apropos of my previous post today, in which I mentioned that Stikkit would "likely be the source of great productivity hacks in the future," I'm happy to report that the future begins in earnest now. Just in from Stikkit HQ, Rael tips us off to the brand-new Stikkit API:

As much as we believe in how Stikkit "thinks" about your data, only you know how to best organize your notes so they work for you. The Stikkit API lets you "get at" your Stikkit data so you can shape it, direct it, and mash it up with other applications.

Remember, you heard it here first. Now, get hacking and report back with the ways you're extending, tweaking, or enhancing Stikkit to suit your personal organizational needs.

Related:

Life Hacking News: Mann to Stikkit

Merlin Mann

In life hacking news, I just learned that Merlin Mann (life hacking pioneer and one-person productivity guru behind 43 Folders) is now an adviser for Values of n (founded by former Hacks series editor Rael Dornfest), the company behind the impressive new Stikkit productivity app. I'm looking forward to seeing some great results from this collaboration between two of my favorite life hackers. If you haven't tried out Stikkit yet, do so now. It's a great life hack in itself, which is just getting better and better as it develops, but will also likely be the source of great productivity hacks in the future (note: some power users are already hacking it).

As a bit of an aside, there's a hack to be found in the links from the Values of n announcement too, a hack in which I have some personal involvement in the telling. Though Merlin was kind enough to leave my name out of his 43 Folders podcast on "the perfect apostrophe," I am, in fact, the "very nice man whose life [he] temporarily ruined." While he overstates the damage done by just a tad, his depiction of me as "a character out a 30s screwball comedy" is uncanny:

The link to Merlin's hilarious podcast isn't simply gratuitous or intended to feed my own vanity. If you listen carefully, you'll find a valuable life hack in there, a perhaps more nuanced and intereresting way to "not sweat the small stuff" or, more accurately, to recognize the right stuff to sweat and just get it done. Beyond my obvious involvement as a character in his story, it resonated with me on a number of other levels as well, which I explained in a bit more detail a while back on my personal blog (note: this link, unlike the previous links, is indeed intentionally gratuitous).

January 29, 2007

10 Government Hacks

Be Government

U.S. government data is some of the most important open source information in the world. And, if you paid taxes in the U.S., you helped pay for this data. For his talk at OSCON last July, Carl Malamud explained a few hacks that provide the extra shove the government sometimes needs to make this information available. He's since posted his slides and notes for his presentation. Hack #1 is "Be Media":

Often, if you want to record audio or video or even just get in the door to some official function, you have to present your bona fides ahead of time. The trick to this hack is that they will always say no and you have to just keep asking until they realize you won't go away.

I've long had an interest in Internet [and] Governance, so when I heard the United Nations was throwing a big party called WSIS on the topic, I figured I'd go see how the pros did it. I'm not really a journalist, but I've played one on the Internet, so I got O'Reilly & Associates to name me their international tech reporter and applied for credentials. O'Reilly didn't make the cut as "bona fide media," so I reapplied as a stringer for the second-largest English-language newspaper in Bangkok.

I made it to Tunisia and covered the summit. It was not a pretty picture, as I reported for the Bangkok Post. A few months later, I was invited to give a talk on 10 ways to hack government at O'Reilly's OSCON conference, so I brought some footage of Tunisia with me to illustrate this hack, the moral of which was that they could easily have cancelled the whole summit and just given Nick the money to buy some laptops.

It's too bad to see that O'Reilly didn't qualify as bona fide media, but it's inspiring to see such detailed hacks for aspiring citizen journalists and grass-roots activists. Here's the whole list of hacks from Carl's talk:

Hack #1: Be Media (Internet Governance in Nutshell
Hack #2: Get Standing (Somebody Stole the Attic)
Hack #3: Be Government
Hack #4: Adopt the FCC
Hack #5: Enforce ODF by Proxy
Hack #6: Audit the Feds
Hack #7: Link Check the Feds (Link Check the Mayor)
Hack #8: Annotate Hearings
Hack #9: Hold Hearings
Hack #10: Map Spectrum (Summation)

(Thanks, Gordon!)

UPDATE

Over on the O'Reilly Radar, Tim O'Reilly provides great synopses of each hack, as well as pointing to Carl's summation:

The hacks all have a point, and that point is that government should be less about private interests and more about the public interest. The skills we use in the open source world are tools of civic engagement, tools of citizenship. And, if we apply those skills of engagement to our government, it is possible, at least sometimes, to drag the political system (kicking and screaming perhaps) towards the common good.

January 25, 2007

Access Gmail Behind a Firewall

Without getting into the ethics of employers blocking access to certain sites on company machines (and without comment on the ethics of subverting those filters), if you need to access your personal Gmail account from an office that restricts access, engtech has a number of solutions for getting around the firewall. Check out the linked post for details, but here's a quick rundown of your options (the last of which I hope is entirely tongue-in-cheek, which might save it from being offensive):

Use different web addresses.
Configure your mail program to access Gmail (through POP).
Access Gmail through Google Desktop.
Use a web server with Gmail Lite installed.
Bribe the IT guys at your work.

If nothing else, this hack would help on days when the company email fails and you still need to reach someone urgently on professional business.

Related:

NetFlix "Instant Watching" in Firefox

NetFlix Instant Watching in Firefox.jpg

For all lucky NetFlix users who see the "Watch Now" tab at NetFlix.com (indicating early access to the new Instant Watching feature) but are disappointed that the feature is IE only, Hacking NetFlix has uncovered a fix for watching NetFlix streaming movies within Firefox:

Install the IE Tab Add-on, and in the IE Tab options (Tools menu, IE Tab Options) add "http://www.netflix.com" to the sites filter.

As noted at the end of the post, all we need now is a hack for Mac support (actually, more of us still need the Instant Watching feature too). ... Well, anyone?

Related:

Breaking: Netflix Launches "Watch Now" Downloads (Hacking NetFlix)
Demo: Netflix "Watch Now" Movie Downloads (Hacking NetFlix)
NetFlix Offers Subscribers the Option of Instantly Watching Movies on their PCs (NetFlix Press Release)

Shopping Sniper: Score a PS3 or Wii Online

Xbox 360_Tracker.jpg

Posted before the holidays, Sean Alexander's article on how-to snipe a PS3 or Wii online (or, originally, an Xbox 360) should still be valuable for gamers who have yet to get their hands on the out-of-stock console of their choice:

Here's a fool-proof way to get notified when PS3/Wii/etc are available for online ordering--no online auctions required. I've tested it personally--and received my premium system in time for Christmas.

His method relies on configuring URLyWarning to notify you of status changes with retailer-tracking sites specific to the console you're still drooling over.

January 24, 2007

Chart Your Route with Virtual Pedometers

WalkRunJog

To prepare routes of varying lengths while training for her first marathon, The Marathon Mama (a.k.a. Kristina Pinto, my wife) used to simply drive from the house and clock distances using her car's trip odometer. But training for her second marathon, this time as a mother, she began to realize:

It can get tedious to drive around with a toddler in the back seat asking, "Where we going?" as we pass our house several times to measure various routes. Besides, I often forget the mileage of my routes.

In the past, she'd used a rolling "pen" to calculate mileage on a printed map (the roller increments as it rolls along the route, with calculations needing to be made for scale), but she always doubted its accuracy. Thankfully, her training partners (she'll be running the Boston Marathon for charity, as part of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge) turned her on to some much more efficient and practical solutions, provided by third-party Google Maps mashups:

For city runners who jog on a lot of one-way streets, or any of you who walk or run and are looking to chart out the mileage on a new route: you don't need to get in your car to clock the miles anymore. There are several free websites that will help you out and determine the miles of a path anywhere in the country.
You can calculate your own route or check out other people's preferred paths at WalkJogRun.

Another DFMC runner recommended Gmaps Pedometer, which offers similar services.

She concludes, "Now you don't have to get off your seat to count your miles, but you still have to get off the chair to actually run them."

Related:

January 23, 2007

Build a Fire with a Coke Can and Chocolate Bar

Coke Can Fire.jpg

As featured later on Mythbusters (and mentioned on the Make blog awhile back), Wildwood Survival shows how to make a fire without tools, using just a can of coke, a chocolate bar, and some tinder. A follow-up post provides some alternative methods for "people who would like to make a solar reflector from the bottom of a can, but don't want to put in too much muscle."

For more food hacking ideas, check out Slashfood's roundup of top 25 food hacks or the Food Hacks Instructables group. For more on survival and hacking the great outdoors, outdoorhacks.com is worth a look.

Skeleton Barcode Card

Skeleton Barcode Card.jpg

In the Hacks Instructables pool, tracydanger provides a great life hack for downsizing your wallet:

I got sick and tired of having a dozen little "bonus" cards to carry around, so I made this simple fix. Basically, I just scanned in all my barcodes, fit them nicely into a row in photoshop and then printed them out onto a card.

Check out the Instructable for detailed instructions and troubleshooting tips.

UPDATE: jeff_1868 comments:

Someone has come up with an online service. Simply, go to http://www.justoneclubcard.com/ and enter in the barcode numbers for 8 of your club cards. The service generates a card, front & back, with the barcodes for those 8 cards. It's free and you can create as many as you would like. If you cannot find a store listed, just e-mail him photocopies of your card & he will add it to the service.

January 17, 2007

Babyproof a Banister Without Breaking the Bank

Babyproofing Banister

Jim writes in to tell us about a great parent hack at Baby Toolkit::

This is a great way to make an open banister safe for babies and toddlers. Instead of paying through the nose for commercial child proofing solutions, my wife came up this great hack using materials from a local awning and commercial tent manufacturer and a whole bunch of zip ties. She even lists the contact information so that you can do the same.

And now, if you don't mind, I've got a banister to babyproof.

Traveling Toy "Safety Net"

Toy Safety Net

When riding in the car, my toddler is always dropping his toys (sometimes by accident and other times, I'm convinced, on purpose) and saying, "Uh oh!," which isn't quite as cute as it is frustrating after having to reach back dangerously or stop the car safely to return his toys to him several times in a row (not returning them isn't really an option for a reasonably peaceful drive). For the long drive home from my in-laws last summer, my father-in-law hacked a solution to the problem. He attached a net-mesh bag with an elastic strap to the back of the passenger seat and attached the base to the car seat, creating a "safety net" for fallen toys, making it much easier to just keep on driving.

If this and much more innovative parenting solutions interest you, check out Asha Dornfest's Parent Hacks, our favorite "collaborative weblog of practical parenting wisdom."

January 10, 2007

See Better with Pinhole Eyes

Pinhole Eyes

Bre Pettis, Make: Blog's resident Media Maker, adds this photo and description to the Hacks Flickr pool:

If you wear glasses like me, you'll forget them at some point or you won't have them on and you'll need to read a street sign. The magic of a pinhole can help. By looking through the hole you make with your pointy finger, middle finger, and thumb, you will be able to see, in focus, things both close and far away.

He adds the obvious caveat that this hack doesn't work in the dark, but as a woefully bespectacled hacker myself, I've already found this tip helpful in broad daylight.

Related:

September 17, 2006

Marriage Proposal Hacks

Looks like the Hacks series is bringing people together in more personal ways that I'd ever expected. I worked on PayPal Hacks, but I passed the book off before Dave Neilsen worked this bit into the acknowledgments:

I'd like to thank ... Erika, my inspiration, who makes me smile every day. Erika, I feel so lucky to have found you. With you, every day is beautiful and new. Nothing would make me happier than to spend the rest of my life with you...Erika Anderson, will you marry me?

Rael blogs the update here: she accepted!

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