Hackszine.com: Lifehacker Archives

Archive: Lifehacker

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May 8, 2007

Send a Mother's Day GeoGreeting

Fans of Jesse Vig's GeoGreeting (profiled here for Valentine's Day) might want to check back in to send a Mother's Day greeting on Sunday. Jesse wrote in to let us know that

somebody found a building with a really cool flower design, so I added a temporary flower emoticon in honor of Mother's Day.

A sweet touch for geeky moms (or loving mothers of geeky offspring) anywhere.

Here's that building in its geographical context, San Antonio, Texas:

May 7, 2007

Gmaps pedometer - keep track where you run

Make 618
To track running/jogging distances I've tried all the wrist based GPS units and I'm not really that interested in the iTunes Nike product yet - So for now, I'm using the (free) Gmaps pedometer. You usually know where you start and where you turn around, so it's as accurate as it needs to be for now, but it of course doesn't do pace/heart rate. Here's a sample, oh - it also does calories burned calculations - Link.

April 18, 2007

HOW TO - Organizing a collection using flickr

463524583 C8Ce344A6A
Here's how to organize a collection of things using Flickr, in this example an impressive 20 year collection of superballs. Lenore writes -

Flickr is a great tool for organizing a collection. You can upload your photos and apply titles, tags and descriptions, which is a sneaky way of cramming a lot of indexed data into an invisible database. (You probably do that already, so why not reap the benefits?) The great thing about it is that you can use the indexing metadata to easily search and sort your collection by a variety of criteria. Naturally, because it's flickr, you can also share information about your collection as well as visually share the collection itself.

Organizing a collection using flickr - Link.

April 11, 2007

Skitch Screencast

Click To Play

A couple months ago, I mentioned the new (Mac-only) Skitch screen-capture and annotation app from Plasq. At the time, I wasn't able to register for their mailing list (the captcha issue is fixed now, so do head over to sign up), but I just got a sneak peak at the private beta, and it's everything I'd hoped it would be. Check out the screencast for a quick walkthrough and my initial impressions. In brief, I can think of many productive uses for it, but the time I waste playing with it will likely negate all of them.- Link to video download.

April 4, 2007

Delete Cached Files in Google Desktop for the Mac?

morerandomgobbledygook in Google Desktop cache

As frustrated as I've been with Spotlight and all that I think it should be able to do but just doesn't quite get right, I was interested in today's news that Google Desktop is finally available for the Mac. Finally, I can search my Gmail account from my desktop and use some more sophisticated search syntax. This could be quite handy and should really put the pressure on Apple to beef up Spotlight in its Leopard release.

But, as is usual with every useful new tool Google releases, this one comes with something that gets me a little nervous (beyond the anxiety associated with the fact that I've become increasingly reliant on Google for so much of my information storage and retrieval). I'm talking about this "feature," pointed out by The Unofficial Apple Weblog:

Thanks to the way that Google Desktop works, it can even search files that you have deleted from your system. Google Desktop creates a cache on your machine that holds information about the various files that it has indexed.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I delete a file, I generally want to delete it. There may be a few occasions when I accidentally or thoughtlessly delete something I'll actually need later, but I'm more concerned with others searching for sensitive material on my computer that I've already decided I want gone, and I'm sure others will find plenty of other reasons for not wanting Google Desktop keeping a cache of their entire file history.

That's why I was happy to find that the TUAW article goes on to suggest that you can actually turn off caching:

Luckily, you can tell Google Desktop not to keep cached copies of deleted files.

That would be great news, if it were true, but it turns out that what I assumed was insider information (based, perhaps, on communication with Google during prerelease evaluation) turned out to be just an ungrounded assumption. I decided to put this preference change to the test, going just just beyond where TUAW ended their own trial.

First, I did everything TUAW did, substituting "randomgobbledygook" (a word I was pretty sure didn't appear anywhere on my computer) for "tuawrocks" in their scenario:

I created a test document that simply said 'tuawrocks,' a phrase that was no where on my computer before I created this file. Both Google Desktop and Spotlight immediately found the file when I searched for the phrase 'tuawrocks.' I then deleted the file, emptied my Trash, and searched for 'tuawrocks' once more. As you would expect Spotlight informed me that there were no files that met my criteria, but Google Desktop had a cached version of the file that I was able to look at (much like Google's web cache that allows you to look at websites that have gone offline for whatever reason).

Looking at the "Search Results" area of the Preferences pane, I questioned the name of the "Display results for deleted documents" (emphasis mine) setting, which suggests that this preference is actually a display issue only, not an indexing or caching change. So, I unchecked the setting:

Don't Display Cached Results

Then, I ran the test again with a file called "morerandomgobbledygook," deleting it after I created it and confirmed that Google Desktop had indexed it. As you would expect, after I emptied the trash, it didn't show up in my search results. But all I had to do was go back into the Preference pane and re-enable "Display results for deleted documents":

Display Cached Results

Then, by gosh, running that search for "morerandomgobbledygook" brought that cached file right up:

morerandomgobbledygook in Google Desktop cache

Clicking on the search result opens the entire file (in this case, a text file) in your default browser, like so:

So, if all you're trying to do is unclutter your search results by getting rid of distracting cached files, you can certainly do that. But beware that you're not actually keeping Google Desktop from creating, keeping, and indexing those (deleted) cached files. I'm looking forward to that ability in a future release ... unless some enterprising hacker out there can give it to me first.

April 3, 2007

Apple TV: State of the Hacks

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Phil @ Make writes: Erica Sadun has been hacking away on the new Apple TV and presents this "State of the Hacks" roundup of what people are doing with their Apple TV boxes. Discover what kinds of mods are out there and whether they're the right fit for your needs and abilities.

MacDevCenter.com -- Apple TV: State of the Hacks - Link.

Related:
AppleTV hacking weekend @ Hackzine - Link.

March 16, 2007

Twitter Your Home

Smart Home Hacks author Gordon Meyer has been experimenting with using Twitter for automated notifications and has hacked it to monitor his home. Check out how he gets a Twitter alert to let him know someone's at his front door.

Related:

Smart Home Hacks

March 14, 2007

Google for Music

Google Napster DJ Danger Mouse

The Amazon Web Services Blog reveals a simple search syntax to turn Google into your own personal (free) Napster:

-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "Nirvana"

Just replace Nirvana with a song or artist of your choice to display a results page of indexes that contain downloadable MP3s.

P.S. Don't steal music.

Update:

In the comments, JLOCK84 adds:

The folks from I-hacked made a little site that does this for you, G2P.org. Finds music files, as well as ebooks, and can also work as a proxy.

Related:

Google Hacks, 2E

March 7, 2007

Simplify Blogging Tasks with TextExpander

TextExpander for Amazon Affiliate Links

Over at the SmileOnMyMac Blog, Gordon Meyer (author of Smart Home Hacks) offers a great tip for speeding up tedious blogging tasks with TextExpander (Mac only):

Here's a great tip for bloggers and the like. I use TextExpander to create a handy macro for creating Amazon Affiliate links. It's much easier than using Amazon's web interface.

After defining a shortcut in TextExpander, adding an Amazon product link to his blog with his unique Amazon Affiliate information is as easy as copying the product's ISBN or ASIN the clipboard and activating the defined trigger, a task that could be repurposed for a variety of other repetitive processes.

Related:

Merlin Mann's TextExpander video tutorial for MacBreak

March 6, 2007

Three Solid Gmail Productivity Tips

Gmail Productivity

Matt Cutts shares three solid Gmail productivity tips to help keep your inbox under control, including keeping mailing lists out of there (using filters), prioritizing messages (using Greasemonkey and persistent searches), and excluding messages from certain accounts (using filters and labels).

Teach via IM with One-Way Video Chat

Click To Play

Over at O'Reilly's Mac DevCenter, Erica Sadun points out a little-known (at least to me) feature in the current version of iChat:

By control-clicking (right-clicking) a buddy's name, a contextual menu pops up offering the option to invite that person to a one-way video chat. This means that they can watch your video but will not send video back to you in return.

How have I missed this option for so long? Though Erica wants to use this feature to iPodcast (stream via IM) movies and TV shows to her friends, I see this as a great opportunity for "hands-on" instruction you normally don't have access to when you're not physically in the same room with someone.

For example, crafts like knitting are notoriously hard to teach without visual cues, and even the most detailed books often suffer from their lack of moving pictures. When I learned to knit, I used books as a crutch, but actually learning required sitting next to my mother-in-law to see how it was done. Even now, when I hit a roadblock with a new technique, I need to wait till the next time we're together. But if we had a feature like this, we likely wouldn't have to wait. I could just "look over her shoulder" as she described what she was doing.

The most obvious benefit of one-way video is that it doesn't require the recipient to have a video camera on their end, but as Erica notes, for instructional content as with streaming movies, one-way video has another notable advantage over two-way video conferencing:

you don't have to watch the other person watching your video. You don't have to see them adjusting their hair, performing nasal maintenance, or any of the other unconscious things people do when they get involved in watching TV as opposed to engaging actively in a social situation.

The pedagogical opportunities for this feature are virtually limitless, and it will add a whole new dimension to tech support with the release of Mac OS X Leopard, when we finally get iChat Screen Sharing. - Link to video download.

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 22, 2007

OUTDRA.WS - The most useful DIY post-it note

Overnote
P1010459
Christopher writes -

I came up with this self-organizing post-it note that you can print on your home computer. It's helped me immensely, and I've received so many compliments, that I decided to make it available for free online.
If you're like me, you live your life on post-its. Everything from grocery lists, to new ideas, to super important phone numbers that I should never, ever lose. It means that when I'm looking for that super important number, I have to look through every other post-it to find the one I want.

ENTER THE OVERnote

The OVERnote is something I came up with to help me navigate this paper sea. Now my notes are self-catagorizing and I can find things at a glance.

OUTDRA.WS - Link.

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.

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