Chanpory Rith
May 9, 2008

Comment

Sleep Like A Baby

I’ve been up to the wee hours designing, coding, and writing. The result? Two weeks of terrible, awful sleep. So if you’re in the same boat, this week’s roundup for you. Here’s 10 tips to help you sleep like a baby:

Click to continue

Chanpory Rith
May 7, 2008

Comment

I was just browsing iTunes for poignant Morrissey covers when I discovered nearly a thousand free language courses on iTunes. 926 courses to be exact. Holy Moleskine, Batman!

The extensive library of courses span over 35 languages, from Arabic to Yiddish. Each course comes as a convenient podcast which you can subscribe and put on your iPod or iPhone.

To get the entire list of language learning podcasts, hit the browse button on the lower-right corner of your iTunes window—it’s the icon that looks like an eye. Then browse to the Podcasts/Education/Language Courses directory.

Or you can simply do a search for the language you’re interested in.

Here’s a sample list of available languages (with links to iTunes):

Click to continue

Chanpory Rith
May 5, 2008

Comment

For everyone who’s been picked last for kickball and first for lab, your time has come. I just went to my first Maker Faire in San Mateo last Saturday and was totally blown away. I’m declaring it the most exciting event for geeks in the world.

The vast array of geekerie included everything from laser harps to tesla coils to computer-driven embroidery to finger puppets to robots that fight to the death. There were tons of hands-on workshops for all ages and, of course, the usual high-calorie foods. I even got a sick eating a banana split funnel cake.

All this took place in 10 expo areas, each with it’s own theme. It’s impossible to see everything, because you could spend all day in just one area.

If you missed this last weekend’s Maker Faire, check out the next one in Austin, Texas on Oct 18th and 19th.

I’m still exhausted, and since pictures are worth a thousand words, here are some photos:

Maker Faire 2008

Click to continue

Chanpory Rith
May 2, 2008

Comment

This week’s roundup is about screenshots, screenshots, and screenshots:

6 Screenshot Utilities You Should Know About
“I use different screen capture utilities depending on the type of screen I’m trying to grab. Some are great for a quick and dirty capture of a page I want to send someone. Others are good for annotating an interface I want to post to a web page. And still others are best for archival screen capture or for interfaces with video.”

Mac OS X Screenshot Secrets
“Since 2003, though, new developments have made capturing the Mac screen easier and more flexible. In this article, I’ll look at several free programs that will pump up any screenshooter’s utility belt. I’ll also share a hack I developed for capturing OS X windows with custom shadows.”

Paparazzi!
“Paparazzi! is a small utility for Mac OS X that makes screenshots of webpages.”

Browsershots
“Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.”

NetRenderer
“IE NetRenderer allows you to check how a website is rendered by Internet Explorer 7, 6 or 5.5, as seen from a high speed datacenter located in Germany. Just type in a URL in the field above and try it out - it’s free!”

Screen Capture Utilities for Windows
“Windows tools and utilities for making screen shots and capturing portions of the desktop and application windows. Most of these screen capture tools offer extended features beyond the standard print screen key capture built in to Windows and many include image editing and batch processing tools for modifying the screen shots after they have been taken.”

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Chanpory Rith
May 1, 2008

Comment

Some of us in the office are fed up with beautiful, distracting desktop backgrounds. So we’ve changed them to a medium grey:

The solid grey reduces distractions and creates a nice neutral backdrop for design work. But it’s boring. So boring, it makes you want to spend less time mesmerized in front of the computer. That’s a good thing.

For extra geekerie, check out my previous desktop background hack.

Chanpory Rith
Apr 30, 2008

Comment

9rules

Hey everyone, just a quick note: 9rules has invited me to join their community of blogs. So as of today, LifeClever is now an official member of the 9rules network. I’m honored to be in the company of fantabulous blogs including ones I’ve been following regularly:

Don’t forget, to check out all the other 9rules members.

LifeClever helps you design, work, and live better. We'll bring you the best design advice, productivity tips, and life hacks. Go ahead, grab our RSS feed and send us a love letter. ;-)