Lifehacker

Cure Poison Ivy and Jellyfish Stings with Vodka [Clever Uses]

Adam Pash — Sun, 11 May 2008 15:00:00 PDT

Next time you stumble into a patch of poison ivy at a picnic, The Daily Green web site suggests pouring a little vodka on the affected area to cure what ails you. In fact, the article offers a total of 10 unusual uses for the popular beverage, from flower preservation and insect repellent to toothache reliever and jellyfish-sting soother. This is completely unverified, but I've also heard it mixes well and can get you really drunk, so be careful!

Twitterverse Screensaver Visualizes Your Twitter Activity [Mac OS X Tip]

Adam Pash — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:30:00 PDT

An adventurous Flickr user dug up a file in Leopard's example developer documents called Twitterverse, a screensaver that displays your Twitter world in a circle of thumbnailed activity. To use Twitterverse, find the file (a quick Spotlight search for Twitterverse should do the trick), open your Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane, and then simply drag the Twitterverse.qtz file into the preview window of the Screen Saver preference pane. To get it downloading your friends' tweets, click the Options button, enter your username and password, and try it out. I had trouble seeing results (just a blank screen), but if you have more luck, the screensaver is eye-tastic!

Michael Pollan Speaks In Defense Of Food [Food]

Gina Trapani — Sun, 11 May 2008 12:00:00 PDT

Author of In Defense of Food Michael Pollan explained his "eater's manifesto" at Google last month. Watch the video to hear Pollan discuss his seven word philosopy ("Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.")—or download the hour-long clip to your iPod to watch later.

Digitize Your VHS Home Movies [Weekend Project]

Gina Trapani — Sun, 11 May 2008 10:30:00 PDT

When it's time to finally clear out that dusty trunk full of home movies on VHS tapes, you have a couple of options: pay someone to transfer all that precious video to DVD, or do it yourself. For several hours of tape, having it done can get expensive, so the Unclutterer blog runs down the steps for capturing and burning VHS videos to disk the DIY way. You'll need a video capture card or external capture device (a camcorder will work), and to import it to a video application like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. From there you can edit the clips, add titles, music, and burn the whole shebang to DVD. The whole process isn't a quick one, depending on how much tape you have and how fast a system and large a hard drive you've got. Have you digitized old VHS tapes? Got any gear or tricks that made it faster or easier? Let us know in the comments.

DExposE2 Like Mac Expose but Better [Featured Windows Download]

Adam Pash — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:00:00 PDT

Windows only: Freeware application DExposE2 is a clone of Mac OS X's Expose feature for Windows XP and Vista. Aside from the basic Expose features, which we've seen from a lot of clones in the past, DExpose2 features a handful of extra features like interactive previews, hot corners, multi-monitor support, and more. If you like the look and feel of Expose but have never found a good substitute for your Windows PC, the freeware DExpose2 may be the best available. DExposE2 comes in portable and installable flavors, so you can check it out with a quick download and no install. Hit the jump for a video of DExposE2 in action.

This Week's Top Downloads [Download Roundup]

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:30:00 PDT

AVG Free Anti-Virus 2008 Released, Much Improved (Windows)
"Aside from a general interface overhaul and faster performance, the updated anti-virus scanner has added several new features with a focus on web security."
Harmony Downloads Album Art for Fullscreen Coverflow (Windows)
"Freeware application Harmony integrates with your iTunes library to provide an attractive, Coverflow-like interface of your albums."
Xobni Beta Now Open to the Public (Windows)
"Xobni adds email analytics, better contact cards, fast search, threaded conversations, and more to your Outlook inbox."
Cairo-Dock Adds Slick, Custom App-Launching to Linux (Linux)
"Free utility Cairo-Dock makes a strong showing, not least for its highly-configurable and slick appearance, as well as a good range of plug-ins and third-party applets."
OpenOffice 3.0 Beta Now Available, Adds Native OS X Support (All)
"OpenOffice.org, the free office application suite, has released a beta of its 3.0 version to the public with a few key features rolled in."
PandoraBoy Brings Streaming Radio to Your Desktop (Mac)
"Free, open source application PandoraBoy pulls the popular streaming internet radio site Pandora out of your browser and integrates it with your Mac desktop."

Get Your Party On with the Emergency Party Button [Weekend Project]

Adam Pash — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:00:00 PDT

You're a busy person, with a button-up career gig that takes up most of your waking hours. So when you clock out, you don't have time to put in all the work to get into party mode. What you need is a button—a party button—to take you from straight-laced to party in a matter of seconds. The emergency party button, activated by turning a key and pressing a big red button, does exactly that. After dimming the overhead lights, the party button turns on the party lights, turns up the music, and fires up the fog machine. Hit the jump for a video of the party button in action.

Turn Gmail in an Always-On Baby Book [Parent Hacks]

Kevin Purdy — Sat, 10 May 2008 13:30:00 PDT

Blogger Rafe Needleman uses Gmail to record memories of his young son's life. With the hefty storage, easy accessibility and robust filter and search tools, it's a neat way to be able to quickly pull up that time when your little one met Santa Claus—or yanked your laptop off the table. Of course, with stuff this precious, it's always a good idea to back it up.

How to Water Your Lawn Efficiently [Outdoors]

Adam Pash — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:00:00 PDT

Spring is upon us, and with a little know-how, you can water your lawn more smarter this year. Tutorial site wikiHow offers strategies to reduce your water usage while maintaining a healthy, hearty lawn. For example:

Water deeply to encourage deep root growth. Frequent shallow waterings encourage weed germination, and they also cause the grass plants' roots to grow shallow, leaving the plant more susceptible to drought and to certain diseases. Watering only when your grass really needs it encourages the roots to grow deeper

The article is full of other smart watering tips—like watering early to avoid evaporation—that are worth a read before you put out the sprinklers. Photo by Finstr.

Sew an Old Sweater into a Cat Bed [Weekend Project]

Gina Trapani — Sat, 10 May 2008 10:30:00 PDT

Give your cat a comfy place to snooze and save some money by turning an old sweater into a cat bed. Step-by-step tutorial site wikiHow runs down how. The result can even be a dog bed (for small dogs) and your pet will love cuddling up in something that smells like you, too.

TimeTube Takes You Back in Video Time [YouTube]

Gina Trapani — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:00:00 PDT

YouTube search webapp TimeTube creates a timeline of video clips for a certain search. Search for something (like "American Idol") and you'll get back a timeline (or "tubeline") of video clips. Pan, zoom and watch the clips right on page. Fun way to catch up on old clips of interest you haven't seen in years.

This Week's Best Posts [Highlights]

Fri, 09 May 2008 17:00:00 PDT

Too busy for Lifehacker this week? We forgive you. Have a recap of this week's most popular posts:

Turn Your Point-and-Shoot into a Super-Camera
"If you're using a consumer grade point-and-shoot Canon digital camera, you've got hardware in hand that can support advanced features way beyond what shipped in the box."
Make Windows More Productive Without Installing a Thing
"The most common complaint we get from Lifehacker readers in Windows IT lockdown is that the majority of our tips require installing third-party applications—which you can't do if you don't have the right permissions on your PC."
Best Online File Sharing Services
"Whether you're trying to share megabytes worth of music with a friend or send an important document to a coworker, nothing outshines a fast, easy-to-use file-sharing service."
Determine If Your ISP is Throttling Your BitTorrent Traffic
"Web application Glasnost simulates BitTorrent downloads on your computer to determine whether or not your internet service provider (ISP) is throttling your BitTorrent transfers."
Top 10 Tools to Get Blogging Done
"Writing your blog should be a fun way to stretch your mind and stay connected to trends, friends, and the greater world, not another computer task that takes far too long to get done."
How Wil Wheaton Gets Things Done
"In 1988, if you'd told my Star Trek-loving 12-year-old self that someday I'd get to meet Wil Wheaton—and that he'd know my name—my preteen head would have exploded."
How to Buy a Digital Camera and Ignore Expensive Hype
"Wired's How-To Wiki takes a group-edited look at the digital camera market and how a newcomer (or, more likely at this point, a buyer replacing their first, outdated model) can parse all the features and statistics to come out with a reasonable bargain."
Creative Ways to Reuse "Disposable" Items
"We asked earlier this week what disposable items you had found clever re-uses for, and the answers are in. Not surprisingly, some of you have some pretty crafty uses for household goods that usually end up at the curb."
Get 91% Off Microsoft Office Ultimate
"A Microsoft student promotion that slashes 91% off a copy of Office Ultimate applies to anyone with a .edu email address—and most universities offer .edu addresses to their alumni for free."
Slipstream Service Pack 3 into Your Windows XP Installation CD
"Next time you wipe your PC's hard drive clean and reinstall Windows with that old installation disc, you don't want to connect your fresh, unpatched and vulnerable system to the internet only to download 176 new updates from Microsoft."

View and Edit iPhone Notes in Your Browser with RemoteNote [IPhone]

Adam Pash — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:00:00 PDT

iPhone/iPod touch only: The lamest omission in the whole of iPhone development is the lack of sync for Notes. Let's be honest—the iPhone keyboard is nice, but you don't want to have to use it for all your notes. That's where RemoteNote comes in, a donationware iPhone application available through Installer.app. Whenever you run it, you can view, edit, create, delete, back up, and even print your notes through your web browser. Similar shareware tools have been available, but RemoteNote is the first no-cost option I've seen. RemoteNote works with both the iPhone and iPod touch, requires installation of the Jiggy Runtime (also from Installer) and a jailbroken iPhone. Thanks Lee!

Photoshop Express Adds Flickr Support [Photoshop]

Gina Trapani — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:55:50 PDT

Web-based image editor Photoshop Express adds Flickr to its list of importable sources. Now you can grab images from your Flickr account, edit them in PS Express, and put them back all prettified without downloading a thing. It's not full-on Photoshop, but still a great web-based editor for your Flickr photos.

Convert Any Text to an iTunes-Compatible Audiobook [Audiobooks]

Adam Pash — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:00:00 PDT

Web site Mac OS X Hints details how to create an iTunes audiobook (i.e., an M4B audio file) from any text in just a couple of clicks. The process involves installing a new service to your Services menu, then selecting your to-be-audiobooked text and choosing AppName -> Services -> Speak to iTunes Audiobook. When the conversion is complete, the resulting audio file is automatically imported to iTunes in the Audiobooks section. The service uses the new Alex voice in Leopard, and the results are actually very listenable.

Tobu Organizes Notes and Lists Like Nobody's Business [Featured Download]

Adam Pash — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:00:00 PDT

Windows/Linux only: Freeware application Tobu is a tag-based note-taking tool with an emphasis on efficiency and keyboard shortcuts. Like most capture applications of this kind, Tobu may take some time to fully understand and integrate into your workflow, but you'll likely be rewarded once you do. I haven't spent enough of that time with Tobu, but after FreewareGenius' rave review, it looks like a strong alternative to shareware-only, previously mentioned Evernote (though it's lacking the multimedia element). Tobu is freeware, currently in beta, Windows and Linux only.

OrbLive Streams Live TV to Your iPhone or iPod Touch [Featured IPhone Download]

Adam Pash — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:00:00 PDT

iPhone/iPod touch only: You may be familiar with Orb for its music or TV-streaming abilities (it can even turn your Wii into a media center), but now the folks at Orb have taken on the iPhone and iPod touch with a new application called OrbLive. You can now stream live television to your device, in addition to music, videos, photos, and everything else Orb is known for. Hit the jump for a look at Orb's live streaming in action and a guide for installing OrbLive on your iPhone or iPod touch.

After giving OrbLive a good try, I'm happy to say it's been impressive so far. Live TV was a little glitchy, but watching my already-recorded TV went off without a hitch. You won't get great results over EDGE, especially for video streaming—but it's a really nice implementation, even if you're only going to watch a little TV from another room on your home network. OrbLive is freeware, and as you can see in the video, requires a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch. Not jailbroken yet? Freedom is just 45 seconds away.

The Pilot's Pen Lights and Writes [Office Supplies Fetish]

Gina Trapani — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:00:00 PDT

Whether you're flying a jumbo jet at night or working on a crossword puzzle in the dark, the Pilot's Pen is a nifty solution. The LED-powered penlight illuminates the page while you write, or you can retract the ink and just use it as a mini flashlight—useful for checking a map or locating something in the night driver's glove compartment. The Pilot's Pen will set you back 20 bucks, and it's available at Amazon.

YouTube Comment Snob Filters Stupid Comments [Featured Firefox Extension]

Adam Pash — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:00:00 PDT

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Firefox extension YouTube Comment Snob filters comments on YouTube videos that don't meet your snobbish standards. It does so using a combination of criteria, like a user-defined threshold of spelling errors (using Firefox's spell-checker), excessive punctuation, and excessive capitalization. You can enable or disable any of the filter options if you don't mind capital letters, for example, and you can view any hidden comment by simply clicking Show. It's a pretty saucy little extension, but now it's hard not to want a full-on Internet Comment Snob.

Sync Your iPhone Wirelessly in Linux [IPhone]

Kevin Purdy — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:00:00 PDT

Apple may open up its iPhone and iPod touch devices to third-party apps next month, but the chances that Linux users will get invited to the party are slim at best. That hasn't stopped some intrepid hackers from coming up with a better music-syncing solution than the one Mac and Windows users have—a two-way wireless transfer, from almost any music organizing app you like, no wait for iTunes or USB cable required. Linux users, let's take a look at how to set up your iPhone or iPod touch for any-time wireless access after the jump.

Note: I'm using Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) to access an iPod Touch, but the software and steps should be much the same for other distributions and an iPhone.

Set up your iPhone/iPod touch

First things first, you'll need to jailbreak your Apple device. You can easily jailbreak any model using the Windows/Mac application ZiPhone. When your device is up and running again, head to Settings->General->Auto-Lock, and set to "Never" (to prevent the unit from disconnecting while performing longer file syncs; you can turn this on when not syncing to save battery life). ZiPhone automatically installs two third-party apps—BSD Subsystem and OpenSSH—that we'll need going foward; if you're using a non-ZiPhone-opened device, install those from the Installer.app link.

You've got two quick things to do on your newly-jailbroken iPod touch/iPhone. First, head to "Settings" from the main menu. Connect to the same Wi-Fi point as your computer, then hit the little blue arrow next to it. You'll see your IP address in the top line; note this somewhere, and hit the "static" button to have your device always connect at that address. Head back to the "Settings" menu, choose "General," then set "Auto-Lock" to "Never." This prevents the device from locking itself after a period of inactivity and losing its Wi-Fi connection, which would disrupt large file syncs.

Prepare your Linux system

If you're running Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04), you only have to install the ipod-convenience package in Synaptic or through a terminal line, and make sure that libgpod3 was installed by default. If you're running Gutsy (7.10), you'll need to add the following line to your repositories. Open Synaptic, head to Settings->Repositories, then the "Third-Party Software" tab, hit "Add," and paste in this line:

http://ppa.launchpad.net/ipod-touch/ubuntu gutsy main

Hit "Reload" when prompted, then install the ipod-convenience package. While ipod-convenience is installing, you'll be asked for your iPhone/iPod's IP address and mount point. Enter the IP address you collected into the first field, and accept the default mount point in the second. Once that's done, we'll make the connection to our device.

Plug your iPhone or iPod touch into your computer with its USB cord. (You'll only need to do this once, to initiate your SSH access.) From a terminal, or from the Alt+F2 prompt, enter one of two commands:

iphone-mount

for iPhones, or, for iPod touches:

ipod-touch-mount

Nothing will happen for a good 30-45 seconds or a little longer. When it's done connecting, it will prompt you for the password for "root@". Almost all firmwares use "alpine" as their password, but "dottie" should work in the others. You've now mounted your iPod touch or iPhone like any other filesystem, although you won't get very far digging through its files. Use iphone-umount or ipod-touch-umount to unmount it. Now your root password can be guessed by a quick Google of "Jailbreaking," but we'll tighten that soon. For now, let's connect and sync files from some Linux apps.

Trade Music and Podcasts with Amarok

Setting up a connection between Amarok and your Apple wireless device is pretty straightforward. Make sure your device is unmounted, then head to Settings->Configure Amarok. Click the "Media Devices" button in the left-hand pane, then click the "Add Device" button. Choose "Apple iPod Device" for the plugin, give your device a name in the next field, then provide the same mount point as you previously used. When you arrive back at the "Media Devices" window, hit the (admittedly tiny) "Configure" button to the right of the plugin you just created. Enter your mount and unmount commands (iphone-mount/iphone-unmount, for example) in the two fields, then hit "OK." Back at the main window, select the "Devices" tab, click "iPod" and choose your model (don't worry about iPod touch's "Read only" label), then hit "Connect," and you'll be asked for that "alpine" password—twice (which we'll be fixing soon!).

Now you can stream music from your device, along with sending songs and podcasts back and forth, but Amarok's just an example. Rhythmbox, Exaile, Songbird, and any other music player that can mount a standard iPod should be able to access your iPhone or iPod touch now, provided you've mounted it using the two magic commands. With SSH credentials, you can sneak inside your device to grab notes, store files or just see what a tiny OS X computer's guts look like.

There are, unfortunately, two niggling problems with Linux-to-iPhone/touch transfers. On my iPod touch, Amarok wiped out a lot of album art on its first connection, but every transfer since then has ferried album covers safely across the Wi-Fi waters. The other small problem is that music transfers won't show up right away on your device—you can either put it to sleep with the top button and wake it up, or use the third-party Respring app to quickly refresh the "Springboard" main launcher page, which does the trick.

What about video and pictures?

That's where gtkpod comes in—sort of, anyways. Videos that you've converted to iPod/iPhone-friendly format using HandBrake or another tool can be moved to your device, but photos tend to be very hit-or-miss—as in, I got a picture up once, but not on a second go-round. As gtkpod's iPhone/iPod touch support improves, I'll update this post.

Make syncing easier and safe

Now we'll stop your device from asking for passwords twice on connection, while making sure every tech-savvy prankster can't get into your iPhone. Changing the root password on the most recent firmware is the same as on the earliest iPhones. Luckily, Jason at Gizmodo has posted a short and sweet guide to changing your iPhone/iPod touch password. Hit that link and skip down to the "Copying files" section to see how it's done—but a stern warning: Do not use the "passwd" command, or you'll end up with an endlessly resetting device that has to be painfully restored.

As for you, you're going to prove to your Apple device that you're trustworthy. Pulling from the fsckin w/linux blog's guide, here's the basic terminal steps, with the parts you'll substitute in bold. They look daunting, but they're easy to copy and paste:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

ssh root@iphone.IP.address (Enter the password you changed above)

mkdir ~/.ssh

chmod go-w / ~

cp /etc/ssh_config /etc/ssh_config.bak

echo AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys >> /etc/sshd_config

exit

(Back at computer prompt):
scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub root@iiphone.IP.address:.ssh/authorized_keys

Now log in again from SSH or your music app, and you should notice a pleasing lack of password prompt.

I just covered the basics of getting your iPhone/iPod touch talking wirelessly to your music, but there's far more that can and already has been done with a jailbroken Apple device and a wide-open Linux system. Got any tricks you've been dying to try out? Hacks of your own to show off? Calendar sync solutions, anybody? Let's hear about all of them in the comments.

Kevin Purdy, associate editor at Lifehacker, is already bossing his iPod touch around from another room. His weekly feature, Open Sourcery, appears weekly on Lifehacker.

Your Gmail Feature Wishlist? [Ask The Readers]

Gina Trapani — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:30:00 PDT

Once upon a time, gigabytes of storage space and message labels and IMAP access in web-based email was unheard of—until Gmail raised the industry bar and user expectations of what you get with your free webmail account. But now that we're all used to Gmail's goodness, it's time to cast a critical eye at the little niggly things that are missing from Gmail's web client. This week I spent two hours wrestling two Gmail accounts to the ground trying to hack together a filtered auto-response that only goes to certain annoying senders. (The approach worked for Adam back in the day, but it was a no-go for me.) The futile exercise made me think of just a few features I wish Gmail had built-in, but doesn't. Namely:

A filtered auto-response that only goes out to incoming email that meets certain criteria (from certain senders, etc.)
A vacation auto-responder that responds to every incoming message, whether it's to the main Gmail address you set up or others you mapped to it.
Outgoing email filters.
A way to control whether every person you ever send mail to goes into your Contacts list. (And better contact management overall.)
A way to see each messages' size and search on that.

A good email client like Thunderbird (or even Outlook!) has all these features. Because I love Gmail, I want it to have them, too. What are your most wished-for, gaping holes in Gmail's feature set? Post 'em up in the comments.

Prevent Windows from Making Copies While Control-Clicking [Annoyances]

Kevin Purdy — Fri, 09 May 2008 08:15:00 PDT

You've just finished carefully control-selecting all those files you need to move off your desktop and into a container folder, and then, one hand slip later, you have twice as many to deal with. The How-To Geek finds the fix, both inside Microsoft's Swiss-Army-Fixer, TweakUI, and in two registry values you can find inside the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop key. Change DragHeight and DragWidth to somewhere North of 10, and you'll get far fewer accidental copies. Hit the link for a pre-compiled fix and detailed instructions.

Love and Money [Sponsors]

Fri, 09 May 2008 07:33:04 PDT

Thanks to this week's sponsors for the May flowers: Chevy Fuel Solutions, Jet Blue, Kicker, MS Office Small Business, NCTA, Nokia, Symantec, TiVo, Toshiba, Toyota, Unscrew America, VW, and Zune. You too can advertise on Lifehacker.

mytvrss is Won't-Miss-Again Feed For Your Favorite Shows [TV]

Kevin Purdy — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:00:00 PDT

No matter how meticulous your programming, or how smart you might think your TiVo is, random scheduling changes can cause you to miss an episode of your favorite series and not realize it until your co-workers give away the plot. mytvrss, a free no-subscribe RSS generator, provides an aggregate feed of air date announcements for the shows you choose, which can be edited later. It's not for those suffering from an acute case of feed overload, but it could make for a pretty helpful iGoogle gadget or other embeddable feed.

Keep IE7 Removable [In Brief]

Kevin Purdy — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:45:00 PDT

Microsoft warns Internet Explorer 6 ~~stragglers~~ users that upgrading to Service Pack 3 with IE7 installed eliminates the ability to uninstall IE7, so wait until after SP3 installs to put it on. (Phew.) [via]

Yahoo Debuts Beta "Glue Page" All-In-One Search Results [Beta Beat]

Gina Trapani — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:30:00 PDT

Yahoo's testing out a new kind of search page layout: when you search for broad-reaching terms (like Einstein, and happily, Lifehacker), you may arrive on their beta "Glue Page," which groups web page results, images, Wikipedia, news, blogs, and video clips into separate areas on the page. See it for yourself.

Take the Triage Approach to Information Overload [Coping]

Kevin Purdy — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:10:00 PDT

Philipp Lenssen, who's normally blogging about Google products and developments, sent a single question to workers at some of the country's top tech firms on how they deal with all the email, feeds, voicemail, and other clatter clamoring for their attention. The answers are informative and, in some cases, pretty surprising. Elinor Mills, reporter at CNET, talks about her reasonable "triage" approach:

I scan email and see what needs immediate attention, set aside things that can wait and then go back to them in order of importance, hoping that none of them expires in the meantime ... I scan the RSS and iGoogle headlines several times a day. It is overwhelming the amount of information that gets thrust at you every day all day, especially in the daily news business. I also make a lot of lists of ideas to pursue and stories I'm working on to try to stay on top of it.

The point Lenssen pulls out of that: There are times when information will absolutely overwhelm us, like patients flooding a hospital, and we'd do well to scale our attention spans and reactions to cover as much ground as possible. Whose info-handling styles do you agree with, and whose sound amazing, considering where they sit? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Track Your Domino's Pizza Order from a Terminal [Friday Fun]

Kevin Purdy — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:00:00 PDT

Now you can truly see why our commenters dubbed Python the programming language that "can do anything." One intrepid (and hungry) hacker, possibly named Nick Jensen, put together a small script that tracks Domino's Pizza orders from phone call to doorbell ring. Download and launch the script (with instructions at the link), plug in your phone number, and you don't have to get up until that cheese-covered saucer is at the door. It's just another true sign of how life-changing the command line can really be. Thanks, HowToGeek!

Track Phone Calls with Outlook's Journal [Microsoft Outlook]

Gina Trapani — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:00:00 PDT

Windows only: Microsoft's lesser-known Journal feature can attach transaction details to contacts—which makes it perfect for storing notes about phone calls. When you want to keep careful track of who you called when and what you talked about and decided, the Productivity Portfolio says the Journal's the way to go. Hit the link to get a step-by-step Journal tutorial, or just press Ctrl+Shift+J to get started on a new Journal entry in Outlook now.

PandoraBoy Brings Streaming Radio to Your Desktop [Featured Mac Download]

Adam Pash — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:00:00 PDT

Mac OS X only: Free, open source application PandoraBoy pulls the popular streaming internet radio site Pandora out of your browser and integrates it with your Mac desktop. With features like global hotkeys, support for your Apple Remote, and even integration with Growl, PandoraBoy looks to be the ultimate Pandora companion for OS X. PandoraBoy is free, Mac OS X only. Windows users looking for a similar solution, check out PandoraBrowse or our bevy of other ways to get more from Pandora.

Identify Telemarketers at CallerComplaints [Telemarketers]

Adam Pash — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:00:00 PDT

Next time you miss a call from an unknown number, check if it's a telemarketer on the CallerComplaints web site. CallerComplaints maintains a user-submitted database of telemarketer phone numbers and even rounds up the worst offenders. Registering with the Do Not Call list is your best defense against unsolicited calls, but for those telemarketers still pushing through, CallerComplaints could come in handy.

Advanced Run Opens Programs as Another User [Featured Windows Download]

Adam Pash — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:00:00 PDT

Windows only: Freeware application Advanced Run is a replacement for the traditional Windows Run dialog that can run any program as another user without logging you out of your account. Aside from that, Advanced Run does all the same things your regular Run dialog does, and Advanced Run will launch in place of it whenever you hit Windows-R or Start -> Run. It also adds a Run As option to your right-click dialog, so you can launch any program on your desktop as another user. Advanced Run is freeware, Windows only (go to the Downloads tab to download).

Free Wi-Fi at 17,000 AT&T Hotspots Official [Free Wi-Fi]

Adam Pash — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:00:00 PDT

MacRumors is reporting that AT&T's web site has officially confirmed free access to over 17,000 Wi-Fi hotspots for iPhone users, including Starbucks and Barnes and Noble. That means that with a little know-how, anyone can get free Wi-Fi access at any AT&T hotspot from your laptop, no iPhone needed. If you've been using this trick since we first posted it, let's hear how it's working in the comments.

Get 91% Off Microsoft Office Ultimate [Deals]

Gina Trapani — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:00:00 PDT

A Microsoft student promotion that slashes 91% off a copy of Office Ultimate applies to anyone with a .edu email address—and most universities offer .edu addresses to their alumni for free. Microsoft Office Ultimate, which retails for $680, is available to students for only $60 until May 16th. But if you can snag a .edu address, you too can cash in on the deal—all you have to do is get yourself an alumni email address at your alma mater. The promotion's web site says you have to prove you're enrolled in coursework, but the New York Times reports that a senior VP at Microsoft confirmed all you need is an .edu email address. Let us know if you snag the deal and how it goes in the comments.