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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/google_accessible_search_upgrade.jpg” align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ width=”494″ height=”234″ style=”display:block;float:none;” /br Google has upgraded the optional Accessible Search feature available from Google Labs. Now, individual results pop up in bright, blue boxes with large text you can choose to make larger. You can navigate results with the keyboard, with alert sounds, and a screenreader will read back the highlighted entry. Just visit the a href=”http://www.google.com/experimental/”Experimental Search page/a, scroll down to Accessible View and click the Join this Experiment button. Anyone else find it quicker to scan and less cluttered than the regular search results page? [a href="http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-10-30-n76.html"via/a]/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/airline.png” width=”305″ height=”162″ align=”right” align=”right” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ /The holiday travel season is just around the corner, ticket prices are sky high, and airlines now charge an extra fee for everything from checking your bags to delivering your pretzels. So this holiday season, you want to pinch every penny for travel that you can. Lucky for you, the internet is filled to the brim with budget travel sites aiming to give you the best deal for your dollar. For this week’s Hive Five, we want you to share your favorite web site for booking your travel. Keep reading for more details, then nominate the site you load when you’re looking for a good ticket at a reasonable price. iPhoto by a href=”http://flickr.com/photos/bcorreira/2539507245/in/photostream/”Cubbie n Vegas/a/i./p pHive Five nominations take place in the comments, where you post your favorite tool for the job. We get hundreds of comments, so to make your nomination clear, please include it at the top of your comment like so: bcodeVOTE: Travel Web Site Goes Here/code/b. emNEW RULE/em: Please don’t include your vote in a reply to another commenter. Instead, make your vote and reply separate comments. If you don’t follow this format, we may not count your vote. To prevent tampering with the results, votes from first-time commenters may not be counted. After you’ve made your nomination, let us know what makes it stand out from the competition./p piAbout the Hive Five/i: The a href=”http://lifehacker.com/tag/hive-five/”Hive Five/a feature series asks readers to answer the most frequently asked question we get—”Which tool is the best?” Once a week we’ll put out a call for contenders looking for the best solution to a certain problem, then YOU tell us your favorite tools to get the job done. Every weekend, we’ll report back with the top five recommendations and give you a chance to vote on which is best. For an example, check out last week’s a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5068945/five-best-url-shrinkers”Hive Five Best URL Shrinkers/a./p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/readercalembedthumb.png” align=”right” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ align=”right” / The developer responsible for the a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5066544/add-google-calendar-and-reader-to-your-gmail”user script that integrates Calendar and Reader into your Gmail/a has updated his script to do a few key things: collapse your inbox for easy calendar and feed browsing, and work with Google Apps accounts. Unlike the a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5069708/gmail-labs-adds-google-calendar-other-gadgets-to-sidebar”Gmail Labs gadget/a which adds your agenda to the sidebar, this script gives you full calendar access below your inbox. Here’s where you can get the latest version, called a href=”http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/36028″Gmail with Collapsible Minimalist Inbox plus Google Calendar, Reader, Notebook, etc/a. The user script requires Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension installed to run. iThanks, Michael!/i/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pIf you want to try out a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5062699/openofficeorg-30-officially-available”the new release of open-source office application OpenOffice 3/a without having to install it, you can check it out in your browser thanks to a href=”http://www.ulteo.com/home/en/onlinedesktop?autolang=en”Ulteo Onine Desktop/a. Sign up for free to access a full-feature version of the software in your browser, and try it out for up to 25 minutes a session (paid accounts start at $6.50 a month). ArsTechnica has a href=”http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081030-hands-on-openoffice-org-3-in-the-cloud-with-ulteo.html”an updated review of OpenOffice 3 via Ulteo/a, and say the new version running is a tad snappier than the previous one./p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/gmaildowntime.png” width=”320″ height=”211″ align=”right” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ align=”right” / Besides data privacy, the big consideration around moving your data to the “cloud” is what happens if servers go down. However, in a big toot for cloud computing (and their own products and interest), Google says that a href=”http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-we-learned-from-1-million.html”Gmail is more reliable than Exchange, Groupwise, and Lotus/amdash;a total of 10-15 minutes of downtime per month over the last year./p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/capslock_small.jpg” width=”140″ height=”75″ align=”right” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ align=”right”/CNET’s Workers’ Edge blog shares a few a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-10078878-68.html”fixes for Windows irritations/a, including one non-obvious trick for avoiding Caps Lock slipsmdash;having Windows turn it off when you hit Shift, just like an old Selectric. You could also subdue Old Mr. Scream Voice by a href=”http://lifehacker.com/5067438/celebrate-international-caps-lock-day-by-remapping-the-key”remapping or neutering it/a. [a href="http://flickr.com/photos/16138624@N00/2387842423/"photo/a]/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/poladroid_creates_polaroids_from_your_snapshots.jpg” align=”left” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ width=”494″ height=”239″ style=”display:block;float:none;” /Mac only: Want your candid photos to look a little more retro chic but don’t want to spend a fortune tracking down a href=”http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/08/polaroid-no-longer-does-polaroids/”whats left of the world’s Polaroid film stock/a and lug the signature boxy, plastic cameras around? Then try a href=”http://www.poladroid.net/”Poladroid/a, a seemingly pointless but actually useful mdash; and really fun mdash; application./p pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/smuggler_cove_pacifica_polarized.jpg” class=”center” width=”494″ height=”600″ style=”display:block;float:none;” /br While the instant-developing pictures became a pop art icon, they also had a primary place in the world of high-end photography. Professionals would shoot dozens of images on Polaroid stock to make sure the lighting and scene were just right before committing images to negative./p pThe application actually adds the signature color saturation and edge-shading typical of the medium, and playfully attentuates the exposure development so you can see the images come to life (and even “a href=”http://www.mtvmusic.com/video/?id=24027″Shake it like a Polaroid picture/a,” though with real Polaroid film, don’t do that mdash; it messes with the proper distribution of chemicals and therefore exposure)./p pSo it could actually make for creatively spontaneous, and thoughfully slow, photo editing experience. Or just make something from your cell phone look a little more authentic (the crappy, low-light shot of Smuggler’s Cove in Pacifica above is now outsider art, I swear). You can also export your results into JPEGs for posterity. Poladroid is a free download for Mac OS X./p div class=”related”a href=”http://www.poladroid.net/”Poladroid/a/div br style=”clear: both;”/
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pimg src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/10/mind_mappging.jpg” width=”221″ height=”150″ align=”right” hspace=”4″ vspace=”2″ align=”right”/For freelancers or anyone juggling multiple tasksmdash;not necessarily multiple emprojects/emmdash;Raj Dash at the FreelanceSwitch blog recommends using mind-mapping software to create a weekly organizational planner that can be crafted to fit your exact needs. In his case, that’s a Sunday-to-Saturday diagram, with each day stacked with colored tasks (green for billable work, pink for research for another task, etc.) and each day exported to a spreadsheet to total up the day’s billables and work output. Raj’s example is do-able with most mind-mapping (or design) programs, including the multi-platform, no-cost a href=”http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page”FreeMind/a, and makes what you’re doing and what you’ve done a visual affair. Got your own task-scheduling map to share? Post it in the comments. div class=”related”a href=”http://freelanceswitch.com/working/managing-multiple-freelance-gigs-with-mind-maps/”Managing Multiple Freelance Gigs With Mind Maps/a [FreelanceSwitch]/div/p br style=”clear: both;”/
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pWindows only: The latest hard drives from LaCie will come packaged with an installer CD that includes a href=”http://www.macworld.com/article/136452/2008/10/lacie.html?lsrc=rss_main”a year of free backups with Carbonite/a mdash; which normally costs $49.95. I’ve been a fan of LaCie’s inexpensive drives for years, and can say from experience that Carbonite is painless and reliable (a href=”http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-faceoff/online-backup-final-round-mozy-vs-carbonite-302597.php”most Lifehacker readers agree/a). If you were looking to pick up a hard drive to back up your files, this is a great chance to kill two birds with one stone and get remote backup as well. Both companies promise that a Mac version is forthcoming./p br style=”clear: both;”/
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