Customise the Dictionary app in OSX Lion
An unsung app it might be, but the Dictionary that comes with Lion is still a bloody useful tool. There have been a number of small changes to the application in Apple’s latest OSX release and many users may not realise is that it’s also configurable according to individual requirements.
The first big change in the application is that when you search for a word you now see a list of alternative words in the pane on the left. This enables you to drill down your search much faster than the old search > define > redefine method. You can also tweak font size of definitions directly from the toolbar.
In the preferences for the app you’ll find a number of alternative dictionaries available for search. By default the Oxford American Dictionary is installed, but if you prefer British-English spellings then simply click the ‘On’ button next tot he Oxford Dictionary of English and Oxford Thesaurus of English and deselect the American versions. You can also drag dictionaries within this window to set your preference for initial search.
Read MoreBe the King of Ping
Looking to finetune your ping-pong skills before the next big tournament? You’ll be needing the iPong, sir. This “portable table tennis practice partner” enables you to practice without requiring the services of another human at the other end of the table to knock the balls back.
The iPong can take 100 balls in its silo and can be controlled by remote, enabling you to choose from backspin, topspin or heavy topspin shots. By all accounts it’s very easy to assemble and portable design only extends as far as the nearest electrical wall outlet as it does not run on batteries. It’s yours for $149.95.
Read MoreZombie Sandals
Looking for something a bit different for the beach this year? Why not invest in a fetching pair of zombie sandals. These funky rubber sandals can be yours for just $19.99, although we note from the Amazon reseller that there’s no sizing information available so it might well be a case of one-size-fits-all-zombies.
[Via GeekAlerts]
Read MoreAlan Turing, Hand-Drawn Monopoly Board and Silver Ingots
Interesting article about one of the great unsung heroes of WWII – Alan Turing over at Boing Boing. Apparently the Bletchley Trust have recently acquired Turing’s papers courtesy of a grant from Google. Amongst those papers was a Monopoly board hand-drawn by Turing himself to help pass the time when he and the cryptographers at Bletchley weren’t cracking the German Enigma machine.
Turing was treated incredibly badly by the British authorities after the second world war because he was homosexual and prior to about ten years ago, about the only testament to this incredible man and the amazing work he did was having a roundabout named after him.
[Via BoingBoing]
Read MoreThe TFI Friday Time-Waster – Week 1 August 2011
Little something to get you through your Friday lunch-break, train journey or trip to the chiropodist. YouTube have rather handily begun listing the top ten trending videos on the site, which means you can see them all first on the site before they get posted to Reddit (eight times), aired in the ‘and finally’ slot on your local TV channel and finally, emailed to you by your 75 year old aunt in two years time. You can find the top ten, here.
Like Grooveshark? Get Groovedown
Grooveshark is the unsung hero of the streaming music world, serving up a huge catalogue of tracks for free to anyone with a web browser and an active Internet connection. But what if you’d like to take the music you hear online with you? If you’re a smartphone user you can pony up $9 for the Grooveshark Anywhere package, which is a very reasonable price for access to such a collosal library.
Groovedown(currently version 0.66) is a Windows application that enables you to download the tracks you hear. It’s a fairly spartan bit of software but it gets the job done and it will undoubtedly improve over time. This latest version improves speed and stability, fixes a number of bugs and adds a Playlist Download facility.
Read MoreNews Readers for Mac – Five of the Best Rated and Reviewed
It might be under assault from services like Twitter and Facebook, but the humble RSS feed remains one of the most compellingly useful ways of extracting useful content from sites and displaying it in a readable format. The majority of websites have RSS capabilities, thanks to default integration in services like WordPress and Blogger and most web publishers understand that it’s a useful way of getting your content out there.
The RSS feed received a welcome revitalisation when Google created their own web based Reader and enabled users to add predefined feeds from a large selection of user-created content or to just add feeds from your favourite websites on an ad-hoc basis. Google Reader quickly became a de facto standard and is the preferred method by which many news feed readers manage their subscriptions.
There has of course been a long history of good application-based news readers for the Mac, though most people will only have encountered RSS feeds in Mail, with Apple’s own obligatory news updates. In recent years terrific applications have evolved and you have plenty of choice when it comes to getting your news fix. We’ve taken a look at five of the best applications – free and commercial.
Read MoreGame of Thrones – Special Effects Showreel
We thoroughly enjoyed the first season of Game of Thrones and are eagerly anticipating the second in the hope that the brat king Joffrey gets what’s coming to him. In the mean time, have a look at the special effects video below that showcases the work of BlueBolt who were in charge of the CGI for the show. It’s interesting to note how they utilised small portions of real buildings and landscapes to build up much larger vistas.
Five Star Wall – Week 1 – August 2011
Tilt-shift photography can produce some amazing effects. If you fancy trying it yourself, you can either invest in an expensive tilt-shift lens for your camera or ‘cheat’ with a Photoshop action or even just use a tilt-shift iPhone app. This week’s featured wallpaper utilises ideal source material for that true tilt-shift look – the city at night. You can get it, right here.
Incredible ‘Kinetic Sculpture’ Evokes Big City Life
We were very taken by this amazing sculpture which was four years in the making and utilises over 1100 specially die-cast models. If you’re lucky enough to live in L.A. you can go and see it in real life at the County Museum of Art.
[Via Metafilter]
Read MoreGarmin GTU 10 GPS locator – Track Your Dog, Sprog or Jog
We’ve all become well used to having GPS navigation units in our cars and, more recently, GPS units in our phones, but what we haven’t seen too much of so far is a bespoke GPS tracker. This is a device that you fit to an item that belongs to you or slip into the briefcase of your cheating spouse and then track its movements on a constantly updating map.
The GTU 10 is a slim and functional unit that comes with a funky little case and a carabiner and weighs just 4grams (which we feel justifies its ‘lightweight’ classification). It’s fully waterproof and once placed and activated, can be tracked via the special Garmin Tracker website or via an iPhone app.
In addition, the device enables you to create up to 10 geofences (virtual boundaries) for your device. If it is tracked entering or exiting a geofenced area, Garmin send you an email or text message to you or any other authorized user. Garmind reckon that the built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery can last up to four weeks between charges, and low battery/powered off notifications through the tracking service let you know when it’s time to recharge or when the device has been turned off. It’s available now, for $199.99
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Minimalist Desktop Wallpaper Collection – August
Back once again with ten tasteful and minimalist images for your desktop. This month we’ve picked through the archives of DeviantArt picking out the best looking walls – this is no mean feat as by any standards the word minimalism (according to most DeviantArt users) seems to involve rainbows, cats and hardcore porn – though not necessarily all three at the same time. Anyway – on with the show.
Read MoreTurbo-charge your paper aeroplane
Whether you’re teaching your kid your tried-and-tested design, or just relieving a bit of boredom in the workplace, paper aeroplanes are great. Everyone has their favoured planes and will make bold claims for how long they can stay in the air. However you’ll never exceed a few seconds flight time unless you add a little juice under the hood and that’s where the Electric Paper Airplane Conversion Kit comes in.
This modestly priced kit enables you to add a battery powered propeller to your aeroplane which is good for 90 seconds of flight and which recharges in seconds. The assembly slots into the recess in the middle of the plan and then a clip holds the front end securely and adds the all important counterweight to balance the prop at the rear. It’s yours for $19.99.
[Via Uncrate]
Read MoreGarage Buy – eBay Search, Track and Bid Simplified
Here’s a rare and wonderful thing – a truly useful bit of software that’s completely free, no strings attached. Garage Buy (just updated to version 2.1) is a front-end for the otherwise rotten eBay auction website. It enables you to do all things you do on the eBay site, within the cosy confines of a well coded Mac application.
Once you’ve authorised the application to access your eBay account you can begin searching for products. The display window can be configured to show just images (ideal for clothes browsing), a list form text only view (perfect for price scanning) and a combination view that shows a summary of an item and an image. Image size can be scaled on-the-fly so you can zoom in for a closer look if you wish.
Once an item has caught your eye, you can add it to your watch list, track it in iCal or get an alert when it goes over a certain price threshold. You can quickly configure what sort of sale you wish to view by toggling the Auction, Fixed Price, Buy it Now and Classified Ads buttons. Similarly you can select any combination of New, Used, New with Defects etc as per eBay’s unique way of classifying items. You can also flick between the different national auction sites if you don’t find what you’re looking for in your country.
When you find an item you’re interested in, you can place a bid and then track its progress entirely within the app. Once an auction gets close to its finishing time, Garage Buy will automatically update the price and current highest bidder every few seconds, which saves you having to mash the refresh button.
Garage Buy is a useable and comprehensive application that takes a lot of the pain out of using the eBay sites worldwide. The iCal integration and Growl notifications are extremely useful tools for reminding you about an item you were interested in. Above all, it works well – and you can’t argue with the price. A+++++++++++ would use again.
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Over-protective parents targetted with ZoneAlarm’s SocialGuard
Kids have access to technologies that their parents probably couldn’t even have dreamed of. Which is great up to a point, but it also opens up a social can of worms if that technology is used for nefarious purposes. However there is a thin line between looking out for your child’s best interests and being over-protective and we wonder which side of the line this software falls.
In the promotional video (below), ZoneAlarm make a big deal out of not monitoring every move your child makes online, but the simple fact is that this software snoops on their interactions between online ‘friends’ and uses a specially created algorithm to detect ‘dangerous’ links and incidences of cyber bullying. It also does its own little background checks on new friends to ensure that Josh, aged 12, is not actually Brian, aged 42.
SocialGuard is good for monitoring five Facebook accounts at once and will immediately begin monitoring your sprog’s Facebook wall for “sex, violence, drugs, and more.” It’s only available for Windows at the moment, but as ZoneAlarm point out, it doesn’t matter what platform your children use as only the monitoring software needs to run on Windows. It costs $19.99 a year and can be downloaded here.
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