Month: March 2013

By Dan Arrigo, Lifehacker – May 11, 2010 at 09:30AM

Cables are everywhere. Cables for your camera, your speakers, this peripheral and that, and you need every one of them for some part of your workstation and workflow. This clever tip turns a pants hanger into a cable manager for lengthy cables.

Reader Dan Arrigo shared a clever hack that repurposes pants hangers—the kind, as seen in the picture above, with little tension clips on each end—to wrangle cables. He writes:

Between credit cards, paper towel rolls, and daisy chains, you’ve got plenty of ways to tackle cable clutter, but for a 30 foot RCA cord, those techniques can get tricky. I concocted this after reading your article on using IKEA hangers to keep a desk tidy, and it works like a charm.

Find yourself a plastic pants hanger and cut the hook off. Wrap one end around one of the clips a few times (in case you’ll need just a few inches of slack) then wrap it up along the hanger. When you get to the end, wrap it once around the hook to anchor your progress and go back the way you came. Repeat until clutter free. Success!

Have a clever tip of your own to share? Sound off in the comments or submit it to our #tips page and you might see it highlighted here on Lifehacker.

By udijw, DIYPhotography.net -DIY Photography and Studio Lighting – May 10, 2010 at 01:21PM

So we had a Portrait Lighting Cheat Sheet that was designed to help placing the light in space around the model. While I called it portrait lighting cheat sheet card, I was only telling half of the truth.

The half that I did not include in that card was how different modifiers will change the light falling on your subject.

It is time to correct this wrong, so this lighting modifiers cheat sheet completes this gap.

There are some new things on this sheet, like a perfectly still model, dark walls to control reflections and a few beers that you can not spot in the actual card. But they were there. Trust me.

You can download a “super size” here.

Again, we tried to keep it simple. We usually ask a wife or a boss to model for those kinda things, but since the differences between the modifiers can be subtle we wanted to keep everything constant but the light. So… We asked Lady Plastic to come to our aid on this one. She kindly agreed or at least did not mind.

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By Steven Campbell, MakeUseOf – May 10, 2010 at 12:31PM

Geo-location technology is a hot topic as of late. We now have the ability to utilize the power of GPS right from the palm of our hand using our mobile device. We can view maps, points of interest, play games, and even spend time finding your friends via GPS with smart applications.

Being able to locate your friends without having to call them is a major bonus. And since we’ve become so adept at using social networks anyway, this is just one more tool added to the toolbox. Want to be able to find your friends even if you can’t hear them? If you want to locate their position (or give them yours) these 9 applications should help.

Before we get into the apps I would like to mention that we have written a few great articles in the past on this subject. For some more great location apps that won’t be covered here, I suggest you check out Beth’s article, The 9 Best iPhone GPS Apps, and Ryan’s 5 Mobile Social Networks That Know When Your Friend Is Near and How To Trace a Mobile Phone Location with Google Latitude.

LOCiMOBILE [iPhone & Android]

LOCiMOBILE has a few great GPS tracking apps out at the moment. The two that I would like to feature are the free/lite versions of the software.

GPS Tracking Lite

This app supports up to 6 users (paid version is unlimited) and integrates with Twitter and Facebook. GPS Tracking populates your phone’s built-in Google Maps with the locations of people in your private opt-in buddy list. You can let users know where you are or request their location, and you can post your information to your social profiles.

iLOCi2 Lite

iLOCi2 is the “Interactive GPS People Finder.” Add people to your contact list and you can receive their location through notification alerts.

The app seems like a simpler version of GPS Tracking that is focused more on keeping your contact information organized. This app works in the background as well.

Loopt [iPhone, Blackberry, Android & More]

We’ve covered Loopt briefly in the past through a directory listing. Loopt is perfect for finding your friends via GPS and to learn what they’re doing. You can discover events or places around you or your friends with Loopt Pulse, as well as check in to places and share directions.

Loopt runs on over 100 phones.

Mobcast [iPhone & Web Browser]

Mobcast is a Facebook application that lets you meet up with your friends without calling back and forth. View your friends’ locations on a map and post “mobcasts” which update your Facebook status with your location and push notifications to your friends.

Since the app is integrated with Facebook, there is no need to add your friends. You can also use this application from any web browser simply by signing in.

Friends Around Me [iPhone & iPad]

Use Friends Around Me to interact with friends across social networks and meet new friends based on a location-based search. Features include a free group chat, open profiles with alerts, integration with social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and a rewards system.

HeyWAY [iPhone]

HeyWAY stands for Hey Where Are You. HeyWAY emphasizes privacy by making you individually authorize others to see your location. You can also choose when you want to receive updates. The app also logs location updates so you can refer back to your friends’ locations whenever you want.

Find My Friend [iPhone]

Find My Friend is a Facebook app, which means it cannot be used if you don’t have a Facebook account. The main purpose of the app is to be able to meet up with your friends without having to tell each other where you are. It is integrated with Facebook and you have the ability to accept/reject requests. Privacy is taken into account with this app.

Friend Mapper Free [iPhone]

Friend Mapper updates your position live every 15 seconds. You can hide your position at any time. One-touch call or text your friends and view their locations. The time of their last update is noted.

The free version of this app only allows you to view one friend’s location, however. The paid version (99 cents) allows up to 23 streams simultaneously.

GeoTwitts [iPhone]

GeoTwitts posts your GPS location to Twitter. It also reads your friends GeoTwitts and gives you their location, along with directions to them if you would like to meet up. The app uses Google Maps to monitor/display directions and navigation.

Conclusion

With these apps installed on your mobile device, finding your friends via GPS should be easy.

Have you used any of these apps before? Are there any geo-location apps you use that I didn’t cover? Leave your thoughts, ideas, and comments below!

Image Credit: Rotorhead

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By Jay Hathaway, Download Squad – May 09, 2010 at 03:30PM

Filed under: Macintosh, Open Source, Browsers

I’m a longtime fan of Fluid, a Mac app that lets you easily set up site-specific browsers for your favorite webapp. In fact, I like it so much that I posted 10 web apps that work amazingly well as Fluid SSBs. Fluid may have just become even cooler, though, because developer Todd Ditchendorf has released all of the code for Fluid and announced that it’s going entirely open source.

If you’re a developer, you can grab the code on GitHub and have at it.

I’m excited to see what comes out of this, especially in terms of Finder integration to make Fluid browsers behave even more like desktop apps. Our newest member of the DLS team, Matthew Rogers, pointed out that Fluid is a straightforward enough app that open source might not make a difference.

What do you think, readers? Is there anything you’d like to see added to Fluid?

Fluid, the site-specific browser creator, goes entirely open source originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 09 May 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Open source – Fluid – Site-specific browser – Matthew Rogers – Macintosh

By Jason Fitzpatrick, Lifehacker – May 08, 2010 at 04:00PM

If you’ve been experimenting with macro and closeup photography and been hesitant to shell out for an expensive ring flash, this cheap and simple ring light setup is worth checking out.

Most of the time DIY LED camera hacks involve circuit boards, soldering, and lots of electronic DIY know how. We love this hack for its simplicity. The two LED rings seen in the picture above are actually meant to be put on car head lamps by car modders. You can pick them up for under $5 each and the only wiring you’ll have to do is to simply wire them to a switch clipped onto a 9v battery. Check out the sample image below, the image on the left is from the ring flash and the image on the right is from the LED ring light.

Check out the link below for more photos and a build guide that details how to select the right LED rings for your camera and attaching them to an inexpensive lens hood. Have a favorite camera hack you want to share? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

By Matt Mets, MAKE – May 07, 2010 at 02:00PM

The folks over at OSnano are working to make nanotechnology to the home laboratory. Their first project is a guide to fabricating your own Magnetite Nanocrystals:

Why? Magnetite Nanocrystals are good for removing arsenic from water. Based on recent advances in nanotechnology, it’s now possible to make regular magnetite nanocrystals as small as 20-100nm, and to remove them from solution using a handheld magnet. Arsenic poisoning is a huge problem in Southeast Asia, especially in Bangladesh, and in various other parts of the world. Our project opens up the process for making magnetite and encourages you to experiment with it, contribute to it, and improve it.

Looks pretty excellent, however it requires a TEM to verify the results. Anyone have a homebrew one of those (it should be totally possible…)? [thanks, Heath!]

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By Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo – Friday May 07, 2010

Gene Roddenberry wasn’t a scientist, but he saw the future. From teleportation to tablets to warp drives, Star Trek inspired kids worldwide to invent amazing technologies. One of those kids was Dr. Marc Rayman, Chief Propulsion Engineer at NASA’s JPL. More »





StarTrek – GeneRoddenberry – Television movie – Games – Science fiction

By Justin Pot, MakeUseOf – May 06, 2010 at 05:31PM

No one likes a slow computer; that’s why we offer so many guides to speeding it up here. Angelina showed you 8 programs that can make your computer run faster and Karl taught you about getting your startup programs under control with Autoruns. Autoruns is a particularly effective tool if you’re looking to increase your boot time.

You can run all these programs and you’ll probably notice the difference, but how can you be objectively sure they’re making a difference? For most people the general feel of quickness is enough to justify the effort, but if you’re looking for scientific evidence of speediness a lot of people like take a look at their measured boot times; that is, the time it takes from switching the computer on to having a usable desktop.

And if you want to measure your boot time on a Windows XP machine, you should really check out BootTimer. This portable application does one thing and does it well: measure how long it takes to boot. If you’re looking for scientific evidence that what you’re doing is speeding up your boot it’s really worth a look.

Note: this application does not work on Windows Vista or 7 at this time.

The Process

So, first thing first: download BootTimer over at Planetsoft or if you prefer, at Download.com. You’ll have a single executable file to work with; BootTimer is a portable application and is perfect for throwing onto the thumb drive that contains your geeky arsenal.

When you’re ready to restart your computer, go ahead and open BootTimer. You’ll see this message:

Click “Yes” and your computer will restart. Nothing unusual about that, right? When it gets into Windows you’ll be told not to touch your mouse or keyboard, so don’t; BootTimer is waiting until your desktop is usable to finish timing. When it is you’ll receive a notice like this, containing the information you’re looking for:

Wasn’t that easy? Be sure to write this time down.

Self-Cleaning

Want to remove every trace that this program ever ran? No problem. Just click “OK” and the program will go about removing itself completely from your system.

There’s one catch: BootTimer will open up its webpage and encourage you to click an ad. This is annoying, but considering how useful the program is and that it’s free I suppose it’s a harmless way to support the app.

How It Works

BootTimer doesn’t install a stopwatch on your machine and time everything; rather it check the various logs the Windows system creates in order to judge when Windows started booting and when it finished.

So why not use a standard stopwatch to determine your measured boot times? You could, but it wouldn’t necessarily be standardized in terms of when the time begins and end. Use this program and the results will be comparable.

Conclusion

Here’s how I suggest you use this program: before you go about speeding up your computer, run the program once. This will give you the slow rate to compare your end results with. Go ahead and do your usual speed-up routine. Once you’re done, go ahead and run a second test. This will give you empirical evidence that what you’re doing to speed up your machine is useful.

What do you think? Is measuring your boot time useful at all, or is it just a useless measurement geeks use so they can brag about something? Could you see yourself using a tool like this? Or do you have an alternative tool to recommend? The Internet is in need of more content, so please do your part by speaking your mind below.

Image Credit: Casey Marshall

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By Robin Wauters, TechCrunch – May 06, 2010 at 01:31PM

I’ve spent 4 full days here in Israel meeting tons of entrepreneurs and startup folks, but if I had to pick one company that made the biggest impression on me it would definitely be Omek Interactive.

The company, which unveiled itself to the public for the first time at the Techonomy 2010 conference held in Tel Aviv earlier this week, was co-founded by a couple over 3.5 years ago. Nevertheless, chances are you’ve never heard that name before.

Chances are you’ve heard of Microsoft’s Project Natal though, the fascinating controller-free gaming and entertainment product Microsoft showcased at E3 2009 in June 2009 and is reportedly set to make its genuine debut at the end of this year.

Well, Omek is a tiny startup that aims to take on the Redmond software giant, their product is ready for market today, and they’re only now starting to talk to press about their well thought-out strategy and demoing their amazing technology.

I was lucky enough to be here in Israel now that the company is finally coming out of the woodworks, so I headed down to their offices near Jerusalem to interview co-founder and CEO Janine Kutliroff (a very impressive woman, to say the least) and record some demos.

In short: they’re developing technology that is nothing short of groundbreaking, and has the potential to change the way we interact with on-screen games and applications. Minority Report-style interactions are much closer to reality than most people think, as you’ll see.

I’ll let you watch the video interview to get an idea of Omek Interactive’s vision (hint: being platform-agnostic and as open to third-party developers as possible is something they’re betting the farm on), and to see the technology in action – the actual demos start around the 6:25 minute mark if you feel like skipping the conversation.

Microsoft, take note. Venture capitalists, you too.

Update: here’s a bonus video, made by Robert Scoble at the Techonomy event:

By Mansoor Khan, University of Connecticut, iBridge Network Innovations – May 05, 2010 at 11:14PM

This technology relates to providing secure communications in ad-hoc wireless communication systems.

The broadcast nature of a wireless link provides a natural eavesdropping and intervention capability to an adversary. Thus, securing a wireless link is essential to the security of a wireless network, and key generation algorithms are necessary for securing wireless links.

However, traditional key agreement algorithms can be very costly in many settings, e.g. in wireless ad-hoc networks, since they consume scarce resources such as bandwidth and battery power.

This invention presents a novel approach that couples the physical layer characteristics of wireless networks with key generation algorithms. It is based on the wireless communication phenomenon known as the principle of reciprocity which states that in the absence of interference both transmitter and receiver
experience the same signal envelope.

The key-observation here is that the signal envelope information can provide to the two transceivers two correlated random sources that provide sufficient amounts of entropy which can be used to extract a cryptographic key.

In contrast, it is virtually impossible for a third party, which is not located at one of the transceiver’s position, to obtain or predict the exact envelope; thus retrieve the key.

Since in the presence of interference strict reciprocity property
can not be maintained; our methodology is based on detecting deep fades to extract correlated bitstrings.

In particular, we show how a pair of transceivers can reconcile such bitstrings and finally flatten their distribution to reach key agreement.