Doc Ott's Life Hack Blog

Record .mp3 files from your phone

admin — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:23:08 +0000

Cinch is a really easy phone based .mp3 recorder. All you do is call a phone number and record a message.You can then Immediately) go to a website (or subscribe to the rss feed for that number) to hear the file. As described here, if you actually sent out the rss subscription to the ‘web’ your phone number would be out there, but this is still a cool little tool for recording long messages to yourself if you want the .mp3 file later.

Jott, your personal secretary

admin — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 01:04:30 +0000

Ok, Jott is just plain cool.

The idea is simple, you call a toll free number and record a message (just like any other voice mail service). A REAL human being listens to it and will do any number of things including
- send you an email with the text of what you say
- post a calendar entry on your google calandar account
- post a blog entry

I have been using it for several months now, and it works great.

You can use it to send a note to Sandy, who can also remind you to do things, which is cool.

Free Program Alternatives

admin — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 23:13:41 +0000

Lots of sites like this exist, a page that give free versions of popular Windows apps.

Forty Free Windows alternatives

And here are lifehackers best of 2007

Sew a Collapsible Bucket

admin — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 23:10:18 +0000

I have started sewing again (Thanx Candice!) and have gotten back inshape making hats, scarves, and bags. Now, I can move up to collapsible canvas bag.

Easy Bar Tricks

admin — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 04:10:54 +0000

You’ll never guess the website address…
www.easybartricks.com complete with video instructions.
Some of these look cool, especially the bill and two bottle trick.

Dice games

admin — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 03:45:20 +0000

Ahhh, Christmas…
My Dad got a REALLY simple game today for Christmas, Pocket Farkel, and it got me thinking, I bet I could teach my daughter some simple dice games we could play when we have some free time and I found this:
Games of the International Bone Rollers Guild
Some of them are pretty simple, some more complex. All fun!

Bubbl.us online mindmap software

admin — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:44:40 +0000

When going through this 11 top new web apps of 2007 post over at lifehack.org and found Bubbl.us, a cool online mind map app that is ridicoulously simple to use, you can save, share and even export to a image file.

Windows keyboard shortcut launcher

admin — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:13:16 +0000

Ok, this is so cool. Launchy is a simple (windows) app that finds files and applications and opens them easily with you having to go through the 15 clicks to get a specific document or folder.
It takes a few minutes to setup to look everywhere you want to go, but it is seriously cool.
From the website:
Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.
Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

Introduction to batch files

admin — Mon, 14 May 2007 21:39:19 +0000

Batch files are essentially computer task lists that do a series of events when commanded. Good for when you need to to the same thing over and over again. I am not very good at them and have little use for them, usually, but….

Batch file introduction (with video) at Instructables

Here is another nice post on setting up batch files at InspectMyGadget

Soupcan safe

admin — Mon, 14 May 2007 21:37:07 +0000

Ok, so you can buy little ’safes’ that look like beer cans and what not for $15, but why not build your own?

Soup can safe at instructables