Home Made Christmas Gifts…

You Can’t Buy Happiness, Luckily You Can Make It.

Christmas is getting pretty close, even if it doesn’t feel like it, I’ve still yet to see the Coca Cola Christmas ad on TV. Who knew advertising was when so many would consider themselves in the season.

With what many would consider the most expensive time of year looming its pricey head again, and many of us running around with empty pockets for one reason or another, mine being I’m the broke out of work student with no paid writing work currently coming in, there is no better time of year to start learning the art of home made presents. And Luckily for many of us with no creative talent, there’s the internet, a wondrous host to all sorts of lovely personalised easy to make presents that show that extra special person you put thought into this “unique” gift.

One of the best if not the greatest websites online for how to guides on making anything is Instructables particularly when it comes to gift making, having a specially designated area for suggested Christmas gifts from the simplest of Book Bookshelves to the more elaborate home made clothes, regardless of experience this site had ideas for everyone from the clumsiest of handymen to home made aficionado.

Check out Instructables by clicking here, and in the coming days I'll gather some of the better and easier gift ideas and put them up. I’d personally love the speakers shown above.

RockMelt Web Browser…

Ok, so simply put RockMelt is another Web Browser, but it’s not just any Web Browser, in its own little ways, its unique. Based upon the Google Chromium Source (it looks like Google Chrome), RockMelt is what Social Networking addicts have been looking for.
It seamlessly integrates with Twitter and Facebook, allowing you to shout to the world your every status, update and tweet simply. It even hosts your Facebook chat list on the left hand side at all times allowing you to keep in constant contact with your friends no matter what site you’re on.
Here’s a quick intro to the Browser by its founder:

You definitely get the Google Chrome feel off of its interface, but this isn’t in anyway a bad thing, especially considering Chromes growing popularity. Good news: RockMelt is also available on Mac’s, [sorry Linux user, not your chance yet.] RockMelt has all the Google chrome features allowing you use extensions plus its own Facebook and twitter components.
The sad part, RockMelt is only available under invitation as its still in Beta testing, but you can get an invite off someone that already uses RockMelt, I have 3 to give away at the moment, or you can connect via Facebook and wait for your invite there.

That being said, I consider this a negative, RockMelt should think about growing its social networking experience and growing beyond just Facebook and Twitter.
But apart from that, RockMelt is pretty fantastic if not ridiculously distracting, building itself upon one of my favourite browsers and then adding extensions that just make things that little bit easier, particularly if you find yourself signing up to a lot of RSS feeds too.
I don’t know if RockMelt will become one of my more prominent browsers but I’m willing to give it a try, it is still in Beta testing after all. Given the chance to grow this could become huge, so give it a go, see how it suits your Social Networking Addiction.

RockMelt does so much more than I mentioned, the full tutorial can be found on the browser after you’ve installed it, Enjoy testing it out and it can be found here:
If you want me to Hook you up with a invitation, comment below or else connect and sign up to receive and invite view Facebook from their Website: I’d like to thank Brian W. for pointing towards this browser and for his invite into the world of RockMelt.

Right Click a YouTube Video to Copy the Current Time…

 

This is a simple trick you may or may not know about but it certainly makes things that little bit easier when you’re linking people to a clip and you want them to see a specific point in the video.

The video explains it all really, just thought I’d share this video…

lifehacker

Get Ge.tt for Real Time File Sharing…

 

Ge.tt is a clever, instant file-sharing web-app that makes sharing files simple and fast. You can share a link to your file(s) immediately, without waiting for the upload to complete, and it doesn't use Flash, Java applets, or any other plug-ins.

Ge.tt is simple to use and doesn’t even require you to have an account (but theres extra benefits if you do sign up). Go to Ge.tt, select the files button, choose the files you want to share (or drag and drop in supported browsers) and there you go. Ge.tt will begin uploading your files instantly and then generate a unique URL for you to share so others might download your file.

You can share the link before the upload is finished—files will update on the download page in real-time, as they're uploaded, and the user on the other end can start downloading a file while you're still uploading it.

You can also add files after you’ve shared the link and any files you upload will show up automatically without without anyone having to reload the page.

For quick file sharing Ge.tt is fantastic and although the terms page doesn’t give you a lot of information regarding file size limits, they look to be pretty light on the limitations for the moment.

Get over to Ge.tt

Frequently Remove “Friends” for Clutter-Free Social Networking…

 

For most of us, Facebook and Twitter are an unmanageable mess of status updates, random questionnaires, and all round pointless posts, but what if you actually wanted to use social networking without getting information overload, here are a few tips.

Jimmy Kimmel suggested a National Unfriend Day that was to take place on November 17th, but just because that's come and gone, doesn’t mean your social media doesn’t need some winter cleaning.

Less is a hell of a lot more when it comes to social networking, particularly when you’re trying to find the right mixture of personal and open communication between friends, family, followers and just plain old strangers. By cutting down the number of people you’re following through Facebook and Twitter along with many other sites you can help distil the information you’re getting, making everything easier to read.

To make it easier on you, Facebook has simplified the process of quickly removing friends. Under for the Friends tab, clicking "Edit" will show you a small list of recently updated friends. Using the drop down you can filter out friends by "All Friends", "Recent", etc. Having a broad look across your social graph, you can quickly setup filters to defriend people you've lost contact with.

Here are a few simple mental filters to help you figure out who you should be unfriending.

• Do you wish this person a Happy Birthday?
• Have you seen this person in the last year?
• Does this person update constantly?
• Does this person post an original thought or is everything recycled form somewhere or something else, e.g. links, quotes, lyrics?

Facebook may limit its third party apps for getting stats on the people you follow but Twitter is open to everyone from ManageFlitter, Nest Unclutterer to SocialToo.

Just a few methods for filtering out a lot of the unwarranted, unwanted information from your social networking sites. But if you want something to help you organise them all, check out Digsby as mentioned in a previous post.

Simple Desktops…

Simple desktops springs from a simple idea, easy on the eye designs that are distraction free but still appealing to look at.



Do you want less, but not boring? Then you want Simple Desktops.



Simple Desktops: a collection of bling, drop shadow, and gradient free desktops to help keep you stay focused but also provide just enough eye candy to not be bored. It's here because finding these around the web is just too hard.



Simple Desktops is a collection of minimal distraction desktop wallpapers curated by Tom Watson.
http://simpledesktops.com