Make a DIY Flower-Pot Smoker [DIY]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5576506/how-to-make-a-smoker-from-flower-pots

There are few things in this world as great as slow-cooked, smoked meat, but popular smokers can cost hundreds of dollars. Luckily, you can build your own with just a few flower pots, a hot plate, a skillet and a saucepan.

Inspired by Lifehacker favorite Alton Brown's terra cotta smoker, this guide over at DIY web site Instructables details everything you need to do to build your own backyard smoker for around $60 (you could probably get it for less with savvy shopping). For the most part, it just consists of removing the handles from the cookware and stacking them on top of one another inside a flower pot (and then covering it up with a second one when you're cooking). He even adds a frying thermometer on the top to keep track of the inside temperature, which is pretty handy.

The only real tools the project requires is a drill—depending on the model hot plate you use, it should be easy enough to drill a hole in the flower pot big enough for the control knob to fit. Otherwise, you'd have no way of controlling the hot plate's temperature from the outside, which would be a big pain. Hit the link for the full guide, and share your smoke building tips (and smoke cooking tips) in the comments.

A Little Brown Egg in Maine: Terra Cotta Smoker [Instructables via Make]

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Rdio Is an Awesome Social Music Service (and We've Got Invites) [Screenshot Tour]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5575870/rdio-is-an-awesome-new-social-music-service-and-weve-got-invites

Rdio is a new social music service that helps you discover new music through your friends, listen to their playlists, and share your own. It's in closed beta, but we've got 2,000 invites to share, so come check it out.

When you first log in to Rdio, there's a good chance you're not going to know what to do. It's a little confusing, and the site doesn't offer much in the way of direction; if you don't already have friends in your network, you won't see any music in your dashboard at all. We can forgive Rdio for being a little obtuse out of the blocks, since it is so young—and because once you actually figure it out, it's got all kinds of promise. (If you've already got a pretty good idea how Rdio works and want to get your invite now, jump to the end of the post.)

Note: Rdio is a monthly subscription service after the trial, so the invite is just a good way to try it out.

You can discover new music with Rdio in a lot of ways, and it's possible to bring (some of) your own tunes into Rdio. Check out the video above to see Rdio in action, or jump straight to the screenshot tour below.

Getting Your Music in Rdio

While there are several ways you can add music to your Rdio collection (which we'll look at in a minute), the fastest way to get as much of your music into Rdio is via the Rdio desktop application. Rdio Desktop was created in Adobe AIR, so it'll work on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Once you've downloaded, installed it, and opened it up, click the "Match Collection" button on the bottom right of the window and then the big blue "Match Collection" button in the panel that appears.

Go grab a sandwich because this will take a minute. Once Rdio has analyzed your music library, it'll need to upload the results to their server. The time this takes is proportional to the size of your collection and how much of it is available on Rdio. Once the matching process has finished, you'll see a bunch of your songs appear in your Rdio collection. (Probably some you didn't even know you had.)

You can add music to your Rdio collection other ways, too. The search bar in the top right of the Rdio web site will let you search for any song on Rdio. You can also browse for new music through any of the categories in the "Browse Music" menu up top or just snag whatever your friends are listening to.

Connecting with Friends and Linking with Last.fm

You'll find your friends by choosing "People" from your menu. In my case that menu is called Adam Dachis, but in your case it will (hopefully) be your name.

If you have a song or two you like and you want to hear the rest of the album, Rdio lets you easily complete that album with just a click. Click the down arrow that appears when you hover over an album image will provide you with a contextual menu. From there you can choose to complete the album and all of that album's songs will be added to your Rdio collection.

Another way to add music is to link your account to Last.fm. You can find this option hidden in your Account Settings. To find it, go to the "Account" menu, choose "Settings," click the "External" tab and fill in your Last.fm user information. Save your changes and you'll be all set.

Creating Playlists

You'll start out with an empty playlists screen. To make it a little less lonely, all you have to do is find a song you want in your brand new playlist and click the little down arrow. That'll reveal a contextual menu where you can choose "Add to Playlist." If you haven't created a playlist before (and presumably you haven't if you're reading this), you'll be prompted to create one. Later, when you add other songs, you'll be able to choose the playlist from a drop down menu or create a new one.

Put Rdio in Your Pocket

One cool thing about Rdio is its ability to work on your mobile device. While an Android app is forthcoming, you can currently download Rdio on iPhone and Blackberry. While I couldn't test the Blackberry version, the iPhone app was pretty nice. If you've ever been in a situation where you want to listen to a song but don't have it, Rdio's mobile app is the solution (provided the song you're looking for exists in Rdio's music collection). The biggest drawback I noticed is that background listening in iOS4 has yet to be implemented. Hopefully that'll change soon.

The Rdio Dashboard

The last thing we'll take a look at is probably the first thing you'll see in Rdio: the dashboard. You can always get back to it by choosing "Dashboard" from your menu (the one that's your name). This gives a basic overview of what you, your network, or everyone's been listening to lately. It's a good way to explore new music or just enjoy what you've already been enjoying most recently.

Rdio was gracious enough to provide us with 2,000 invites to their private beta, so if you want to sign up, act quickly. Just be aware that when you do sign up you only get three days to test the service. You will have the option of extending your trial period for an additional ten days, but in order to do that you'll need to provide a credit card. It would be nice if Rdio offered some addtional, credit card-free time to test the service but you should find out pretty quickly if you feel it's worth paying for.

While I found Rdio to be a little confusing at first, it's a really good service. Hopefully this tour will clear up some of the initial confusion and you'll be able to enjoy it unencumbered.

If you want to give Rdio a try, sign up for the Rdio beta (that link is the invite).

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Chattertree Is a Private Social Network for Families [Social Networks]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5576500/chattertree-is-a-private-facebook+like-social-network-for-families

If you love the idea of using social networking to unite your far flung relatives but aren't too excited about using a wide-open network like Facebook, Chattertree offers private and feature-rich social networks for families.

You'll find all the things you expect from a larger, Facebook-like social networking tool in Chattertree. Messaging, birthday alerts, group chat, photo and video sharing, and more. You can create rooms for various family members to gather in—like a room for all the kids to chat in or a room for planning the next family reunion. Chattertree even supports multi-feed video chat so up to six families can video chat at one time.

If you're looking for a way to keep up to date with a big family without the openness of Facebook and the accompanying privacy issues, Chattertree is a solid solution. Chatterbox is a free service and requires a basic email registration for all participants. Have a preferred solution for setting up a private social network? We'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Chattertree [via MakeUseOf]

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Seven Ways to Reuse and Get Creative with Your Old iPhone [DIY]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5576310/reuse-and-get-creative-with-an-old-iphone

It's arguably Apple's greatest skill: Making your previous gear look obsolete next to their new releases. So what do you do with your devices after they've been made redundant? Here's a handful of ways to reuse that spare, older-gen iPhone.

Photo by Gonzalo Baeza Hernández.

There's nothing saying that you can't continue using your old iPhone for years to come, but whether you ended up switching network carriers, switching operating systems (say, to Android), or upgrading to an iPhone 4 and its new features, there's a good chance you've got an extra phone sitting around.

Straight off the bat, it's important to realize that if you can no longer make calls on your old iPhone the way you're used to, you've only lost one major feature. Luckily, it's not really that big of a detriment. The functionality of the iPhone is still there, much in the form of an iPod touch. You can continue to use it as a dedicated audio and video player, run most of the apps you were already using, still use your Wi-Fi access (and even something like Skype if you want to make calls), or you can get creative with it. Rather than sell it or let it collect dust, here are a few of our favorite things to you can do with an extra or spare iPhone laying around the house.

Install Android on It

Adam's been desperately eying this Android-on-iPhone project for months now, waiting for the day ready to install and use (dual-boot, mind you) on an iPhone that you still plan to use every day (and you can bet you'll see a guide here when that day comes). Until then, your old, out-of-use iPhone is a perfect playground to try running Google's Android operating system. The power management isn't up to snuff yet, so don't expect it to last too long, but the project's wiki page offers a few guides to installing iDroid on your older iPhone.

Jailbreak and Unlock Your iPhone

Jailbreaking is a process that allows you to install third-party apps that aren't available through the App Store and access the innermost software workings of your device. (It will also void your Apple warranty, but depending on what you plan to do with your iPhone, that warranty may be completely useless or expired anyways.) There are a couple of things available to your iPhone once you jailbreak it, including the power to unlock your phone. Unlocking your phone—not to be confused with jailbreaking—allows you to use the device on any GSM carrier in the world, provided the frequency bands are supported.

Photo by Gizmodo.

There are a couple of good things—and bad things—that come along with jailbreaking and unlocking an iPhone. If you unlock, you can keep on using your phone, even if you've switched carriers. You don't have to ditch your iPhone just because you're on T-Mobile, for example. Unfortunately, jailbreaking and unlocking is contingent on the iPhone's firmware and baseband: there's not always an available jailbreak or unlock for the latest software. This means you won't have the latest and greatest features all the time, and some things like notifications might not work correctly. But you're repurposing here, so it's not all that bad, and an unlocked iPhone only increase its value if you plan to sell it.

While we aren't going to cover how to jailbreak and unlock your phone, many guides are available across the internet.

Your iPhone As A Webcam: Stream Video

We've mentioned some benefits to jailbreaking your phone, but here's another reason. If you need a webcam, it's possible to turn your spare iPhone into one instead of resorting to purchase one at the nearest store. This procedure requires a jailbroken phone, and utilizes video-sharing service Qik.

Use Your iPhone as a Remote Control

The iPhone, as we mentioned earlier, is an extremely functional multi-purpose device. Among its greatest assets is its ability to remotely control a number of things. Apple already has a simple app called Remote that will enable you to control iTunes and Apple TV, and your iPhone armed with Remote makes for a great multi-room wireless music remote.

Photo by brennan.v.

Controlling iTunes is only really the tip of the iceberg. Your iPhone can be used as a remote control with media center software like Boxee with the Boxee remote, or XBMC with the XBMC Remote. It's fantastic for easy home theater control access, when you're sprawled out across the couch.

The iPhone can function as a remote for many types of software, including one of our favorite video players, VLC Media Player. There's iPhone remote control app for the video player available. Also, for another little trick of iPhone magic, the DSLR Camera Remote Lite can review images and can fire the shutter on your Canon EOS or Nikon DSLR camera once it's been hooked up to your computer. And for wide-ranging remote control, take a look at the very cool HippoRemote.

Turn Your iPhone Into a Dedicated Ebook Reader

It's also possible to use the iPhone as an e-book reader, with its easy-to-use, big touchscreen. There are several jailbroken e-book apps available, along with i2Reader app found in the iTunes App Store. Still, by itself, the device lacks a tactile feel of a true e-book reader. Technology magazine Wired has a tutorial on how to encase your iPhone into a Moleskine notebook, making it easier to hold.

The Moleskine notebook, although you can really choose just about any notebook, adds a tactile element to your iPhone, while simultaneously disguising your device. The project requires a Moleskine notebook, an iPod Touch (or your extra iPhone), an X-Acto knife, and some PVA glue. The end result is that it becomes a lot easier to hold your iPhone, enhancing the overall e-book reading experience wherever you are.

Scan Documents With Your iPhone

Since the advent of cameraphones, taking quick snapshots of documents and other objects instead of writing them down have become a way of life. We've covered a DIY book scanning machine that utilizes an ordinary digital camera before, but you can also build your own scanning device for your iPhone.

Unfortunately, the specific instructions no longer seem to be free, but if you're willing to put in a little time and effort, all it requires is that the device places places the iPhone on a stand at a specific distance from the bottom surface, where the papers are scanned. That way, it's at the optimum distance, without relying on the steadiness of your hand for blur-free photos.

Use It as a Fancy Clock

Really don't think you're going to get much active use out of it? It may make a great nightstand clock. If you've still got some of your iPhone's original packaging around, it's pretty simple to turn it into a quick and effective night stand for your iPhone.

Photo by piPhotos.

Other Suggestions?

The truth is, we've only scratched the surface of what's possible to do with an old iPhone. For example, you could also turn it into and dress it up as an actual photo frame. What other things have you found to do with your old iPhone? Let us know in the comments below.

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Opera 10.6 Final Adds Built-In AVG Malware Protection to Speedy Browser [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5577194/opera-106-final-is-all-kinds-of-fast

Windows/Mac/Linux: Opera caught us by surprise by including faster JavaScript handling than Chrome in its 10.5 browser. In 10.6, there's even faster performance, plus greater HTML5 and WebM video support, a streamlined menu button, and AVG malware protection baked in.

We've been following Opera 10.6 through its fast-moving development, from alpha to latest speed tests, and while (possibly!) working on a new set, we can say that Opera remains a fast-loading, quick-moving browser. With the latest release, there's also a collaboration with anti-malware provider AVG to prevent real-time protection against phishing, nefarious software, and other security breaches, explained at Opera's site.

Opera 10.6 is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Tell us what we missed as you use it yourself in the comments.

What is faster than the fastest? [Opera]

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