Got a gadget that needs fixed, a handle that’s rubbing you the wrong way, or just an urge to play with the adult equivalent of Play-doh? Get yourself some Sugru ($10-$20). This modeling clay/super glue/alien symbiote forms a lasting bond between a variety of materials, and cures to a tough silicone overnight, making it weatherproof, flexible, and generally indestructible. If only we could say the same about our gadgets.
When an auction on eBay ends, the buyer enters a contract with the seller, promising to pay for the item. This doesn’t always happen. Here’s one creative (and questionably ethical) solution for how to handle this overly common problem.
Photo by Toni Dachis
Reddit user “BadgerMatt” (we’ll call him Matt for short) recently posted a story about how he tried to sell tickets to a sporting event on eBay, but when the auction was won the winning bidder backed out of the deal. In some cases this is mainly an inconvenience and you can re-list the item, but Matt was selling tickets to a sporting event and no longer had the time to do that. With the losing bidders uninterested in the tickets, he was going to end up stuck with tickets he couldn’t use and a deadbeat bidder who was unwilling to honor their contract. Rather than give up, Matt decided to trick her into paying:
I created a new eBay account, “Payback” we’ll call it, and sent her a message: “Hi there, I noticed you won an auction for 4 [sporting event] tickets. I meant to bid on these but couldn’t get to a computer. I wanted to take my son and dad and would be willing to give you $1,000 for the tickets. I imagine that you’ve already made plans to attend, but I figured it was worth a shot.”
The woman agreed, but for $1,100. She paid for the auction, received the tickets, and then Matt (of course) never re-purchased them. Needless to say, the woman was angry. Perhaps it was the wrong thing for the right reasons, but I’m mostly jealous I never thought of it back when I still sold things on eBay.
How I got an uncooperative eBay buyer to pay for her purchase. Was it unethical? | Reddit via The Consumerist
Send an email to Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com.
iPhoto is a good thing. Pre-installed on every new computer cranked out by Cupertino, millions of Mac users have come to rely upon the application’s user-friendly functionality to collect, edit and share their photos, as these are all tasks that iPhoto does very well.
That said, I think we can agree that the software flounders in a sea of fail when it comes to finding and deleting duplicate photos that–by way of editing or import–have found their way into your photo collection. Sure, you could root through your iPhoto collection and delete each and everyone of the duplicates you stumble across manually, but if you’re anything like us, you’ve got so many photos crammed into your Mac that the thought of doing is daunting, to say the least. Fortunately, there’s a far easier way to rid your iPhoto collection of those darned duplicates.
Yep, it’s just that easy. This is a Monday morning how-to, and as such, no black magic of quantum physics are involved. Bratoo Propaganda Software‘s Duplicate Annihilator is a one stop shop of a plug-in that will bring almost instant sanity to your iPhoto collection. In fact, depending on the size of your iPhoto gallery, it could very well take you longer to type the developer’s name than it does for Duplicate Annihilatorto track down and destroy all of your photographic duplicates.
Once the program’s .DMG file is safely nestled away in your download folder, open it and drag the Duplicate Annihilator to the Application Folder shortcut built into the installation window.
Locate the program in your Applications folder and open it. For your efforts, you’ll be rewarded with a bare bones user interface that will let you get right down to business. By default, the interface opens to a tab named Find duplicates, which is good, because that’s what this tutorial is all about.
Make sure that the options on this tab are set to move duplicates to trash–which will ensure that the program cloisters off your duplicates to the Trash folder–and Classic mode: a setting that forces the program to abide by your choices you make in the applications other tabs.
Speaking of which, click on the tab marked Preferences. Make sure that the options “MD5 checksum” and “Set duplicates’ comments to duplicate” are selected. Doing so will ensure that Duplicate Annihilator will spot the duplicates in your iPhoto collection based upon their content, and mark any suspected duplicates as–you guessed it–duplicate.
Return to the Find duplicates tab and click “Find and annihilate duplicates”. If you downloaded the free version of the application, it will scan a maximum of 500 images in your iPhoto gallery. Let the application do its thing.
While you wait for your duplicates to be hunted out, be sure not to open up iPhoto for any reason. Doing so could at worst, damage your library and at least mess with Duplicate Annihilator’s cleaning of said library.Once the program has completed its work, it will inform you of how many duplicates it found. As soon as you recieve that message, you can open up iPhoto and finish cleaning up your library.
Open up your Mac’s Trash folder. You’ll find that Duplicate Annihilator has moved all of the image files it believes to be duplicates there. You can choose to either chuck them out or, alternately, send them back to iPhoto if you want to keep it. We’re sure that you’ll agree that the trial edition of Duplicate Annihilator makes locating and nuking duplicates in your iPhoto gallery so easy that it’s easy to justfy paying $7.99 to score the full version.
Follow this article’s author, Seamus Bellamy on Twitter
3. Hermès Orion suitcase
For those who love to travel in style, the Hermès Orion suitcase makes for a great gift. The stylish luggage flaunts a brushed anodised aluminum shell, with the interior surface reinforced with carbon and Kevlar, which provides unparalleled resistance to wear and tear. The Hermès Orion suitcase is priced at a cool $13,000.
11. Rolls-Royce picnic set
This complete Rolls-Royce picnic set gives you yet another lavish reason to travel more often. It fits in the floorboard of the car and doubles as a foot rest. The box opens to reveal a picnic service for four, and is designed for sandwiches, tea, coffee and cocktails. The items include two leather-wrapped stainless thermoses, four dishes with recesses for teacups, a matchbox and utensils, including spoons, forks, mustard and butter spoons and bone-handles knives by Joseph Fenton & Sons of Sheffield. The Rolls-Royce picnic set is priced at $14,850.
2. Full carbon Backgammon Case by Carbofan
A perfect Christmas gift for the gaming fan, geek or a collector who happens to travel a lot, the full carbon Backgammon Case by Carbofan is finished with the finest details, including interiors with a combination of different tissue types, color and Carbon Texalium elements. The play stones are made of high-quality stainless steel which are 24 carat gilded and silvered. The backgammon set is available in a limited edition of 99 pieces for about $25,250 each.
1. Ultimate Gift: book a ticket to space
If you plan to surprise someone very close to you this season, why not gift him or her a ticket to space? You can book a seat aboard the Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo for a whopping $200,000, with the deposits starting from $20,000. Designed to take two daily trips to space, the service might take off in 2011 or 2012.
For more options, revisit our 2009 Gift Guide for Travelers.
Read more: http://www.bornrich.org/entry/gifts-for-travelers-2010/#ixzz18x0f1h3a
If you’re living in a locale with no mosquito problem and a practically endless summer, you can throw open the windows and enjoy a sunny workspace all year long. Today we take a peek inside an architect’s airy Home office.
Today’s featured workspace is that of Los Angeles architect Jesse Bornstein. He designed his home with his home office at the forefront of his mind. The house is oriented towards the street in such a way that his home office is the first thing visitors encounter. It’s a clever design technique—he works from home and the majority of the people who come up his walk are destined for his home office. Directing them right to the office enables him to separate his business from his personal space.
Check out the full spread of home offices at the Los Angeles Times’ web site below, including the home office of the voice actor behind Bart Simpson—you’ll be shocked at how pink it is.
If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.
Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at jason@lifehacker.com.
the Gold to Go, gold-dispensing vending machine now stands proudly at a local mall in Boca Raton, Las Vegas. The machine is also its first in the U.S. The company previously made headlines when they launched their first machine at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi and since then they have popped up around Europe. According to AP, the Abu Dhabi machine is so popular it has to be restocked every couple of days. Prices are refigured every 10 minutes to reflect the price of gold (plus packaging, certification and a five per cent mark-up). The machine holds 320 pieces of different-sized bars and coins and will hold around $150,000 in cash and gold at any time.
While luxury vending machines in hotels seem ideally located, the new Gold to Go vending machine stands rather conspicuously in the Boca Raton mall, thus requiring armed bodyguards and several live security cameras.
[Luxist]
BARGAIN hunters will need to be craftier when booking a trip if they want to get the best prices this year. It’s no secret that airfares are up and added fees for everything from checked bags to exit-row seats are pushing the cost of flying higher. On top of that, hotel bargains are expected to be harder to come by as business travelers begin to return, diminishing the need for Hotels to discount rooms in major cities.
But that doesn’t mean a year in front of your television. There are still plenty of ways to cut costs. Here are 11 strategies — and some useful Web sites — to help you save on travel this year.
1. SHOP “PRIVATE sales” A growing number of Web sites, including SniqueAway.com, TabletHotels.com and Jetsetter.com have flash sales of 20 to 60 percent off hotel packages to travelers on an invitation-only basis. Jetsetter, for example, recently offered a Friday night in January at the Angler’s, a boutique hotel in Miami, for $255 a night, down from the $359 offered at the hotel’s site. Another site, TripAlertz.com, works like Groupon for travel, meaning that the more people who book a deal, the lower the rate. For example, a four-night, all-inclusive stay at the Hilton Papagayo Costa Rica Resort & Spa was initially offered to members for $1,496, or 15 percent off, last month. After 55 bookings, the price dropped to $1,220. At TripAlertz and LivingSocial.com, which offers last-minute getaways, all you have to do is create an account to access the deals. A Google search for “Snique Away invite” turned up a registration form for SniqueAway.com that got me in.
2. BUY ON TUESDAY Most airlines begin sales on Monday evenings, and by the following day other airlines have usually matched the lowered fares on the same routes, said Anne McDermott, editor at Farecompare.com, which tracks price trends. Last month, for example, Virgin America had a sale on Dec. 13, with one-way fares as low as $79 on some routes, according to Farecompare. The next day, there were sales from AirTran, Southwest and American, with one-way fares from $59. Because sales are hard to predict, travelers looking for the best deal should start their searches three to four months in advance, when airlines begin to look closely at which routes may need a sale to fill seats.
3. SEARCH FOR COUPON CODES Practically every travel site includes a box at checkout for a promotional discount code. Sites like PromotionalCodes.com or CouponWinner.com organize such codes into categories so that you can search specifically for airline, car rental or hotel deals. A recent search turned up codes for deals like $94 flights between new York and New Orleans, 15 percent discounts on Avis weekly car rentals and $75 off of three-night Westin Hotels packages.
4. ASK FOR A REFUND Many airlines will refund the difference in price if the fare drops after you purchase a ticket (minus a change fee). Yapta.com helps get you that refund by tracking the price of your ticket and sending you an e-mail or Tweet when the price drops so that you can call the airline to claim the credit. A new site, Autoslash.com, offers a similar service for car rentals.
5. AVOID ROAMING CHARGES Skype and Truphone offer free apps for making cheap international calls using Wi-Fi, with rates that start at pennies per minute. You can pay as you go or sign up for monthly plans to make unlimited calls in certain countries for a flat fee: $13.99 a month for Skype calls to land lines and mobile phones in more than 40 countries, or $12.95 a month for Tru calls in 38 countries with TruUnlimited. Another option: the Vonage Mobile app for Facebook allows travelers to make free international calls over Wi-Fi to Facebook friends who also download the app.
6. CHANGE YOUR CREDIT CARD Most American banks charge currency conversion fees, typically up to 3 percent when you use your credit or debit card outside the United States. But there are some exceptions. Capital One does not charge foreign transaction fees, and Chase recently began waiving the fees on its British Airways Visa Signature Card, its Hyatt Card and the Priority Club Select Visa.
7. SAVE ON PARKING YOUR CAR Bestparking.com steers drivers toward the cheapest parking at off-airport lots near 79 North American airports. Rates are updated frequently, and sold-out lots are highlighted. A recent search for parking near Newark Liberty International Airport offered a snapshot of rates and locations on a map. The Renaissance Hotel lot was among the cheapest at $12 for 24 hours. There is also a free app for iPhone, Android or BlackBerry users.
8. WAIT A WEEK Avoid the crowds and save by traveling the week after a major holiday. A five-night ski vacation in Breckenridge, Colo., during the last week of December was priced at $1,988 a person, including airfare from Chicago, at Orbitz.com. For the following week, the same trip was listed at $1,037 a person. Similarly, a vacation including airfare from New York and five nights at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort dropped from $821 to $580.
9. NEGOTIATE Though many hotels say that they offer their best rates online, it pays to ask the front desk for a lower rate. My colleague Seth Kugel regularly uses this tactic, as he pointed out in a column last summer: “I arrive with a solid reservation but then check out five or six other hotels and go back and forth between them in an attempt to set off a price war.” The strategy saved him $20 a night in León, Nicaragua. I have had similar success over the phone with reservation agents at New York hotels like the Ritz-Carlton New York and 60 Thompson.
10. TRAVEL LIKE A STUDENT Student travel agencies like STA Travel, StudentCity and StudentUniverse have begun to extend their low prices to nonstudents and older travelers. While some of the deepest discounts are offered only to travelers enrolled in an academic program, recent college graduates can often save 10 to 25 percent with “youth fares.” For example, a recent search for flights in March on STATravel.com, which limits certain deals to nonstudents under the age of 26, turned up seats for $926 round trip on V Australia Airlines. The best rates for the same dates on Kayak.com were $1,187. Though it is not common for older travelers to use student travel agencies, it is possible to do so. There were no age restrictions for a discounted four-day Inca Trail trek with STA Travel for $674 a person, down from $899.
11. DON’T PAY TO CHECK A bag Checking bags can quickly add up, with airlines charging between $15 and $35 a bag. Delta’s SkyMiles-branded American Express card allows you and up to eight others on the same reservation to each check a bag at no cost. And American Express introduced a travel-rewards card — the Blue Sky Preferred Credit Card — that offers travelers an annual $100 allowance to cover checked baggage, in-flight meals, entertainment or Wi-Fi purchases, and other fees, on any airline.
It doesn’t matter if you have migraines, sinus headaches, tension headaches, spend too much time at the computer, or just need a little “down time” each day, The Temple and Eye Massager ($150) is like a trip to the spa. Strap it on and you’ll feel a combination of vibration massage and air-bag massage (during which the device expands and contracts against your eye sockets). There’s also heat compression to stimulate blood flow and soothe sore muscles around the eyes. The timer can be set for 5, 10, or 15 minutes, during which you’ll hear the soothing sounds of nature as they play through and integrated speaker system. Ahhh…
Saturday Night Live has been on television since before many of our readers were born. How weird is that? You know what’s not weird (but really, really fun)? the Saturday Night Live game ($20). First of all, you get to customize the game and choose cards from the SNL era you’re most familiar with, so you don’t have to worry if David Spade is the only cast member you can recall (okay, maybe you should worry a little). The game will test your knowledge of SNL trivia, acting skills, and ability to concentrate while you’re laughing. Live, from New York…
