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Set Firefox 3 to launch GMail for mailto links

IMO getting the handler set up properly shouldn't be nearly this fussy, but it does work; I use it myself.

HTH...

If you're using leopard, Address Book syncs with your gmail account for free.

See: this article on Lifehacker.

http://lifehacker.com/355973/make-your-extensions-work-with-the-firefox-3-beta

I've done this and nothing complains about compatibility any more. Of course, there's a huge downside: nothing guarantees compatibility any more, either!

So far, I've found that old themes do not work very well (I miss Pinball!) In my case, they caused the scrollbar on the right side to disappear. On the positive side, all of my extensions seem to work fine, and I run a lot of them. (13 of my extensions claim to not be Firefox 3.0 compatible, but still work.)

It's "may the fleas of a thousand camels infest their genitals."

The underlying problem is just as you described though - unless they come up with a DAMN GOOD tool to show you how much bandwidth you've used, how will the normal consumer know? Any app that phones home uses bandwidth. Updating your virus scanner or patching your OS (doesn't matter windows, mac, or linux) uses bandwidth. Xbox360, Wii, PS3 all use bandwidth. Instant messaging uses bandwidth.

Only a VERY select few people actually know how much bandwidth each of these uses. Training your average user to use something like Freemeter is going to be pretty tough, and even then, that only covers their PC. It still misses the rest of whatever network devices you may have.

Setting a cap up is a grab to try to stick people with extra fees, nothing more. Welcome to the U$A, home of the hidden fee - now bend over, spread the cheeks, and take it.

How to remove "impossible-to-remove" toolbars: http://lifehacker.com/software/firefox/geek-to-live--consolidate-firefoxs-chrome-210542.php

Or, to get more space: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/307

Make Your Own Ubuntu Live CD/DVD or Distro with Remastersys

I'm surprised this isn't more well known, Ubuntu + Remastersys is very nice and easy:

http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/

Official Remastersys forum, here's where you ask and learn:
http://loscompanion.com/forums/index.php?board=58.0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remastersys
http://lifehacker.com/software/linux-tip/make-an-ubuntu-backup-live-cddvd-with-remastersys-330181.php
http://klikit.pbwiki.com/Remastersys
http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2007/09/remaster-and-clone-your-ubuntu-install.html
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/creating-custom-ubuntu-live-cd-with-remastersys.html
http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu-linux-mint-livecd-with-remastersys

For those that don't already have it handy, here is the repo info for you /etc/apt/sources.list file.

# Remastersys
deb http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository remastersys/

Please MOD this up if you find it useful, I think it is, but it gets buried with time and people don't see it because I'm posting as anonymous coward, thanks!

In short, I don't need Windows, it failed me long ago and fails me now, no reason to expect or care for it (or the convicted monopoly) to improve.

Make Your Own Ubuntu Live CD/DVD or Distro with Remastersys

I'm surprised this isn't more well known, Ubuntu + Remastersys is very nice and easy:

http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/

Official Remastersys forum, here's where you ask and learn:
http://loscompanion.com/forums/index.php?board=58.0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remastersys
http://lifehacker.com/software/linux-tip/make-an-ubuntu-backup-live-cddvd-with-remastersys-330181.php
http://klikit.pbwiki.com/Remastersys
http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2007/09/remaster-and-clone-your-ubuntu-install.html
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/creating-custom-ubuntu-live-cd-with-remastersys.html
http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu-linux-mint-livecd-with-remastersys

For those that don't already have it handy, here is the repo info for you /etc/apt/sources.list file.

# Remastersys
deb http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository remastersys/

Please MOD this up if you find it useful, I think it is, but it gets buried with time and people don't see it because I'm posting as anonymous coward, thanks!

here

Google Translate just added 10 new languages.

(Too lazy to lower my comment threshold) but if you're interested in setting up Back to My Mac without a .Mac subscription, check our this article.

We had a disk drive on a mac go

You can even have it on an iPod (w/disk mode)... small, light, and just like a dongle on a laptop... totally usable for a day.

PCs really suck in comparison for losing drives.

How to turn a flashlight into a handheld burning laser...

Previously covered on /. here: How To Turn a Mini Maglite Into a Laser.

Turn a flashlight into a handheld burning laser

I call bullshit. The so-called "sad dearth" of free software on the Pocket PC includes a vast amount of free software than will never run on the iPhone. And there's an enormous market of commercial software for the Pocket PC. The iPhone doesn't even have a GPS, so it's useless for running apps like TomTom Navigator (which is the reason I got my iPAQ phone), even if it was theoretically possible for TomTom to support Apple's closed platform.

-Don

Some free software on the PocketPC: apache, vim, X11 server, kaffe, gcc, openssh http://www.wince-devel.org/ http://ppc.palmopensource.com/ http://www.freewareppc.com/ http://lifehacker.com/software/pocket-pc/11-killer-freebies-for-your-pocket-pc-209413.php http://www.tuxtops.com/?q=node/188

they are very happy that people all over the world use (unlocked) iPhones, and Apple executives have probably spent a lot of time thinking about how they could have played the game differently with AT&T to still get the contract with them (which you'll remember took a major infrastructural investment on AT&T's part to bring the iPhone -- and only the iPhone -- visual voicemail)

I'm always impressed at how some people can apparently divine altruistic motives from Apple's management decisions. Every unlocked phone deprives Apple of a large chunk of potential revenue from the sale of its device in the form of monthly cash payments. Several reports last year estimated the cost to Apple of so many unlocked phones as ranging from $500m to well over $1 billion (the difference comes about depending on whether you account for the "missing" devices as languishing in the supply chain or reshipped to Asia).

But critically, apparently believing Apple's propaganda regarding the "difficulty" of implementing visual voicemail functionality leads me to lose trust in any of your assertions. Visual voicemail is not hard to do - it was around for several years before Apple's version, and if it's so difficult, how is it that companies like GrandCentral/Google can retrofit visual voicemail onto basically any phone with either a WAP browser or SMS facility? Add in a 3G+ network and a real web browser and it really shines. Given enough network neutral bandwidth, many things are possible. Microsoft can add Visual VOIP to phones with Portrait. Apple's continued invocation of the Herculean nature of its visual voicemail is a marketing smokescreen designed to convince its more fannish customers that bedding down with the telcos comes from necessity, not avarice.

http://lifehacker.com/software/ipod/hack-attack-add-music-and-movies-to-your-ipod-from-any-computer-without-itunes-237986.php

For low-tech home users there would be no difference in usability btwn XP and linux. I recommend linux for the grandma-grandpa users, and for anything that is basically a 'netPliance. Linux is stable, requires minimal equipment, and does not get corrupted like XP does. It is perfect for those things. Once virtualization becomes more accessible I think there will be even more subsets of users who can ditch XP as the primary install. I just read an article on Lifehacker where they were doing neat things with virtualbox. http://lifehacker.com/367714/run-windows-apps-seamlessly-inside-linux

For those people who us geeks are "responsible for" like my in-laws, my neighbor, my pastors, etc, those machines I've fixed and/or set up from scratch, I would like to be able to put linux on there so that it's harder for it to get screwed up. Some day.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

People have been making apps for the iPhone without Apple's help so far, so no, you are not entitled to use Apple's SDK.

Maybe someone will be at least be able to create a good webkit-based browser? If nothing else, I'd love to have the ability to "right-click" (press-and-hold, like on a PocketPC) on a link and open in a new window, or save a file (assuming they give you some kind of local file storage.) Plus a button to force it to render minimally-formatted pages at 100% (maybe insert a 'viewport' tag into the document?) instead of having to pan-and-zoom. (It renders them OK in landscape, but I'd like to force that behavior in portrait mode as well.) That would make it great for reading documentation.

Also, it should be able to use a custom /etc/hosts file to block ads or some other adblocking scheme. I block ads on my desktop, so not only do I hate seeing them on my iPhone, I really hate seeing them on my iPhone since they take longer to download and render and take up precious screen real estate. (Plus I pay for Yahoo mail so I don't see ads--but they serve ads to me on the mobile version anyway! No, I don't want to use the iPhone's mail app for my Yahoo mail.)

And if anyone reading is/plans to be an iPhone app dev, I'd also like an app that lets me determine which way is south based on the time of day--that would make a great addition to Google Maps. Just draw an analog clock face (adjusted for DST if needed) with 12 at the top and two lines: one says "point at sun" and the other says "south is that way."

That's strange, I thought it was fairly easy to replace the battery in all modern iPod models. What's your aunt doing buying you a 1G iPod, anyway?

They have an initiative already with StopBadware, there's a quick article here.

I consider myself to have a reasonable technical knowledge (e.g. I've just written a telnet client from scratch in c++) and I don't use a virus scanner when online banking or at any other time; they're a complete waste of space.

For now you can get by without a virus scanner if you're using OS X or another of the Unices but one is needed for online banking using Windows, even Vista with it's nagware notices. Many will turn off the "Need your permission to continue" prompts. And with today's hdds approaching terabyte sizes space isn't nearly as much of a concern as it used to be. I've got a 500 GB external hdd I can stick in one of my pants' or shorts' pockets. And I used to use a cassette tape for storage.

May I suggest walking them through turning on Remote Desktop. Might save you (and them) some frustration. Or maybe try this if setting up Terminal Services is too much trouble. Works for me.

iPhone can be tethered

the built-in s.r. works great for this...lifehacker.com has a good how2 on creating app.specific voice cmds.

the other issue is microphones: only built-in or hardwired work...i tried a bluetooth headset, and while i could successfully pair & tx/rx, the s.r. setup wouldn't calibrate:-(min.level was 1/2 scale)-:

then i read that b.t. is too noisy...

Can't wait to make one of these with a blu-ray laser. ;-)

http://lifehacker.com/software/diy/turn-a-flashlight-into-a-handheld-burning-laser-287252.php

This is a problem with the "Blogosphere" in general. The vast majority (not all but certainly most) just echo news from other sources, or worse other blogs. They do not offer any insight, commentary or additional information on top of their source information. It's a crapshoot whether or not they actually write ANYTHING original rather than copy+paste.

The worst is when you have a blog linking to a blog linking to the original info. FFS people...

The net effect is old news gets constantly recycled and real news gets diluted. How many times have you seen a new blog post about something that actually happened months ago? The "9V battery contains AAAA cells" thing stands out as the most recent example for me: here (2 Jan 2008), here (9 Jan 2007), here (3 Jan 2007), here (23 Dec 2006). You have a "story" at LEAST a year old that has been copied verbatim at least four times!

Original here (No date) as far as I can tell, since all of the above blogs link to it.

Plus, all of these blogs have comment sections, which make them twice as redundant because the comments themselves also fail to add anything most of the time. If they do you'll never find them because there are so many other palces that run the same "story."

Fight the watering down of information! NEVER link to a blog unless it provides something EXTRA to the news! ALWAYS take a few minutes to get as close to the original source as possible! If you run a blog yourself, work to ADD to articles you link to - personal thoughts, additional information, insightful discussion on the topic at hand - be UNIQUE. That's how you get a readership... by having something worth reading.
=Smidge=

http://lifehacker.com/338970/twenty-top-10s-of-2007

http://lifehacker.com/337684/wrap-your-holiday-lights-tangle+free

Also, Apple has tried several times to block users wanting to put in their own home-made ringtones.

And now? Create Custom iPhone Ringtones the Free and Apple Way

The IP laws around ringtones are complicated. Apple is no fan of DRM. Happy now?

Searchq is ignored by Google. The next few things are obfuscation too.

I use filtered DNS. When these pesky links show up, and still require a DNS lookup, the filtered DNS takes care of it for me. It is good for most stuff that is NSFW. As a bonus, it filteres most phishing and malware servers. I love these guys.

http://lifehacker.com/software/security/block-porn-and-more-with-scrubit-240213.php
http://www.scrubit.com/

Isn't this what multiple profiles are for? Super fast switching would be nice this works well enough I think.

Sera

Actually, Lifehacker's Better Youtube extension works like a charm for this, or you could use the Greasemonkey scripts it was based off.

yes it will

http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php

As I understand it, qOS is Ubuntu with Enlightment as the default window manager.

It is also set up for a load of WebApps by default.

It's designed to run on low-level PCs. LifeHacker had a nice article about using it to revitalize your old PC.

I found this link (with tutorial video) on how to replace the memory on your MacBook Pro.

A booklet I got with the Mac that Apple includes shows how to add RAM, installing it then making sure the Mac recognizes the RAM.

Capsaicin also works great for sore throats.

First of all, a quick glance at the economics: The bargain basement MacBook Pro from Apple will set you back $1,999.00 with 512MB of RAM (hardly enough for a system running OS X, in my opinion). To really boost the power, I grabbed 2 x 1GB sticks of RAM from Newegg, which cost around $170. Had I ordered the 2GB RAM upgrade from Apple, the price of my MBP would have jumped $500.