Slim Down Your Wallet with Your Phone

Lifehacker:

“Blogger Albert Alberts loves a slim wallet, and after reading over some of our wallet-slimming tips,
he realized he had a powerful wallet-slimming tool in his pocket all
the time: his iPhone. His idea? Rather than reducing his membership
cards to just one club card,
he scanned his membership cards to his computer, then synced them to
his iPhone as an album called WalletCards. According to the post, his
phone-friendly cards even scan successfully. You’re still going to be
at the mercy of whether or not the workers are willing to accept your
scanned cards, but if they are, you can carry around all the membership
cards you want without adding any bulk to your wallet.”

WalletCards on my iPhone ['t Is Goud]

Convert Any Text to an iTunes-Compatible Audiobook

Lifehacker:

“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.”

10.5: Convert text to iTunes audio book via Services item [Mac OS X Hints]

Track Your Domino’s Pizza Order from a Terminal

Lifehacker:

“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 door bell 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.”

dominos.py

Slipstream Service Pack 3 into Your Windows XP Installation CD

Lifehacker:

“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. If your XP installation CD is older than
2004, once your system is online, you’ll have to wait for hefty service
packs to download, chained to your mouse while pushing the Next button,
watching progress bars, and rebooting multiple times. Wouldn’t it be
better to start your installation, head out to run errands or grab
coffee, and come back to an up-to-date system before your
system gets online? It’s possible, using some free software and a blank
disc. After the jump, I’ll show you how to create an automated,
customized XP installation CD or DVD, that includes Microsoft’s
official-but-not-released Service Pack 3 for Windows XP.”

LINK TO ARTICLE

Mac Laptop Power Cord Tip

Cool Tools:

“Every Mac comes with a long, bulky power cord and a small 2-prong
nub. You can interchange them, but both are far from optimal for travel
and field work (i.e. conference/convention blogging).
Here’s my fix: use a power cord from a Sony PlayStation. There are
other cords that will also fit into the Mac power brick, but the
PlayStation cord is easy to find. Where the Mac power cord is too thick
to easily coil or toss in a bag — and has a ground prong so it’s
limited to those types of AC outlets — the PlayStation cord is
ostensibly perfect. It fits into the Mac power brick, coils up nice and
small and has two prongs. Plus, you can leave your giant Mac cord at
your desk back home and don’t have to deal with dust bunnies every time
you get ready to go out the door. I always keep one PlayStation cable
stashed in my bag, so I only have to transfer the brick to the bag.
This trick’s good for any Mac laptop from the last 4-5 years, I’d
guess, if not longer. In the last four years, I’ve used it on a 12 inch
PowerBook, 13 inch MacBook, MacBook air and 2 MacBook pros. There used
to be a video game where you had to fit shapes into brackets before an
entire rig blows up. Can’t remember what it’s called, but that mindset
is kind of how I first recognized the shape on the Mac plug.”

Lock Down Your Mac

Lifehacker:

Apple
often boasts the security of OS X, but tech web site Ars Technica
suggests that your Mac is no more secure than you make it, rounding up
a handful of security features you should set on your Mac to bolster
its security. Off the bat, for example, the article recommends setting a firmware password for your Mac that prevents anyone from booting your Mac at all without entering the password. Why?

If
someone can get to your computer, the chances of them acquiring your
data just skyrocketed. Physical security is the critical first step in
keeping your Mac safe. A firmware password prevents a user with
physical access to the computer from starting up from an optical disk,
a network boot volume, a separate drive connected in Target Disk Mode,
or into single-user mode.

The article also examines
several other OS X security features that aren’t enabled by default
that can do a lot to enhance your Mac’s security. Got a favorite Mac
security tweak of your own? Let’s hear about it in the comments.”

Keeping your Mac locked down: a Mac OS X security primer [Ars Technica]

Control your columns in Open & Save

Leopard Tips and Tricks: “The columns in the Open & Save dialogues never seem to be the right size, so how do you do something about it?

• Well, if you double click the little symbol with two vertical lines
  at the bottom of the columns in an Open/Save dialogue box, then it will
  fit that columns items into the view so you can see file names in their
  entirety.
• If you hold down the option key when you do that it will do it to every column you see.
• And finally, control-clicking or right-clicking brings up this little choice of things to do to the views:
  

Calibrate Your HDTV?

Lifehacker:

As
the HDTV continues its march into living rooms, the New York Times
points out that most new HDTVs need to be calibrated if you want to the
best picture. The article points out several options for how you can go
about calibrating your HDTV, from paying your electronics store to do
it for you (the expensive way) to DIY calibration using the THX
Optimizer, a tool built into many DVD menus. Since many of you have
probably gone done this road already, let’s hear how you calibrated
your HDTV—including what tools you used and how you feel about the
results—in the comments. For a more granular approach to fixing
specific picture problems, check out how to troubleshoot your HDTV picture.”

This Is Not a Test: Calibrate Your HDTV [NYT]

Let Water for Green or White Tea Cool Before Pouring

Lifehacker:

“Portfolio
magazine has a great guide to the realm of higher-end teas, with an
introduction to different varieties and age-old wisdom (along with some
new-age connoisseur-style advice) on how to best prepare and enjoy the
lower-caffeine pick-me-up. I was surprised to see this tip amongst the
offerings:

Experts say that you should use boiling water
for black tea. For more delicate green or white tea, Sebastian
Beckwith, co-founder of the Connecticut-based specialty-tea seller In
Pursuit of Tea, suggests letting the water cool for a few minutes. “You
lose a lot of flavor if you put boiling water on white or green tea,”
he says.

We’re obviously not big fans of making simple
things more complicated around here, but if it improves your morning
ritual, all the better.”

Gourmet Tea Guide [Portfolio]

Laser-Focus Your Spotlight Queries

Lifehacker:

“When you just can’t seem to hunt down that file you know
you’ve got stowed away somewhere on your Mac, it’s time to break out
the Spotlight big guns—advanced search operators, that is. Macworld
runs down advanced Spotlight operators which will be familiar to power
Google searchers. Here’s a sampling:

• Enclose phrases in quotes, like "time machine"
• Use AND, OR, and NOT to narrow or widen your search, like java NOT coffee or invoice OR bonus
• Search by document attributes using operators like author:authorname, kind:pdf (for PDF files), and date:today

What’s your favorite Spotlight operator? Give it up in the comments.”

Create good queries in Spotlight [Macworld]