Thursday, July 28, 2011

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." [Quotables]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5824923/inspiration-exists-but-it-has-to-find-you-working

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."Pablo Picasso's quote about inspiration and work reminds us that great ideas and eureka moments arise from everyday work. You have to at least be thinking about a topic or problem before you can find a creative solution.

Whether you work in a creative or other type of field, it's those long hours staring at a blank screen or piece of paper that generate opportunities for inspiration to strike. (Conversely, if you never sit down to write or draw or practice whatever your art is, you'll never give the muse a chance.) Image remixed from an original by uttam gurjar/Shutterstock.

Download large 2560x1600 version of this image.


You can follow or contact Melanie Pinola, the author of this post, on Twitter.

Read More...

Remains of the Day: Mozilla's "Boot to Gecko" Will Be Like Chrome OS for Firefox [For What Its Worth]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5824973/remains-of-the-day-mozilla-announces-latest-project-boot-to-gecko

Remains of the Day: Mozilla's "Boot to Gecko" Will Be Like Chrome OS for FirefoxThe team behind Firefox officially begins work on a new web OS, Google's latest updates include improvements to GoogleDocs, quality of sleep proven to be just as important as quantity.

Read More...

How to Set Up a New iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad [Emailable Tech Support]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5825052/how-to-set-up-a-new-iphone-ipod-touch-or-ipad

How to Set Up a New iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPadSo you've finally splurged on a new iOS device for yourself, or gotten it as a gift from the Apple lovers in your life. Sadly, you can't just open the box and start using it—it requires a bit of set up. Here's what you need to do.

If you don't already have iTunes, you'll want to head to apple.com/itunes, download it, and maybe even rip a few CDs while you're at it. When you're ready to start using your device, though:

  1. Grab your sync cable (the one that came with your device) and plug your device into your computer. If iTunes doesn't start up automatically, start it up and click on your iPhone, iPod, or iPad in the left-hand sidebar.
  2. How to Set Up a New iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPadWhen prompted, pick "Set Up as a New iPhone/iPod/iPad". From there, you'll be able to choose whether you want to automatically sync music, photos, apps, or all of the above to your device. Hit the Done button and it will start syncing your media. This will take awhile, so go get a cup or ten of coffee and wait for it to finish.
  3. When you're done, you'll be able to use your new device. If you had music in iTunes when you set it up, you should see it in the "iPod" app on your iPhone or iPad, or the "Music" app on an iPod touch (note that your music won't be in the "iTunes" app on your phone, that's only for buying new music—yes, it's a little confusing).

If you chose to sync any apps you had downloaded, those will appear on your device on the home screen. Now that you've got everything working, though, you can buy apps at any time from the blue "App Store" icon, or buy music from the purple "iTunes" icon.

How to Set Up a New iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPadIt's also worth noting that you can sync more than just music, photos, and apps to your device. If you plug it back into iTunes and click on it in the sidebar, you should see a row of categories on top of the main pane ("Summary", "Info", "Apps", etc.). If you click on "Info", you can sync contacts, calendars, and email accounts from Outlook, Apple Mail, and more. You can also sync your bookmarks from Internet Explorer or Safari.

By clicking on the Apps, Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Books, and Photos tabs, you can selectively sync certain artists, playlists, or genres to sync to your device, if you don't have enough room to sync everything. Whenever you make changes to your device's preferences, just be sure to hit the "Apply" button at the bottom of the iTunes window to sync it again using your new settings. Enjoy your new device!

Emailable Tech Support is a tri-weekly series of easy-to-share guides for the less tech savvy people in your life. Got a beginner tech support question you constantly answer? Let us know at tips@lifehacker.com. Remember, when you're just starting out computing, there's very little that's too basic to learn.


You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
 

Read More...

Enable Direct2D and DirectWrite Hardware Acceleration for Better Graphics Performance in Firefox [Firefox]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5825280/enable-direct2d-and-directwrite-hardware-acceleration-for-better-graphics-performance-in-firefox

Enable Direct2D and DirectWrite Hardware Acceleration for Better Graphics Performance in FirefoxWith a few about:config tweaks, you can turn on Firefox's built-in hardware acceleration and improve both graphical performance and the look of your fonts.

If you have a decent graphics card (DirectX 10-capable) and Windows 7 (or Windows Vista with the Vista Platform Upgrade), you can make graphics processing a bit more efficient with these tweaks:

  1. Type about:config into your address bar and promise Firefox you'll be careful.
  2. Type render in the search box, and find the following two keys:
    gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled
    mozilla.widget.render-mode
  3. Double click on the gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled entry so that it's set to true.
  4. Double-click on the mozilla.widget.render-mode entry and set the value to 6. If you can't find this key, right-click anywhere in the window, hit to New > Integer, set it's name to mozilla.widget.render-mode, and value to 6.
  5. Restart Firefox

Now, you should notice that your fonts look a little bit nicer, and certain pages (like Google Maps) move a little bit smoother. To revert back, just go back into about:config, disable gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled, and set mozilla.widget.render-mode to -1. Hit the link below to read more.

How to Enable Direct2D & DirectWrite Hardware Acceleration in Mozilla Firefox | Tweaking with Vishal


You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
 

Read More...

Enable Direct2D and DirectWrite Hardware Acceleration for Better Graphics Performance in Firefox [Firefox]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5825280/enable-direct2d-and-directwrite-hardware-acceleration-for-better-graphics-performance-in-firefox

Enable Direct2D and DirectWrite Hardware Acceleration for Better Graphics Performance in FirefoxWith a few about:config tweaks, you can turn on Firefox's built-in hardware acceleration and improve both graphical performance and the look of your fonts.

If you have a decent graphics card (DirectX 10-capable) and Windows 7 (or Windows Vista with the Vista Platform Upgrade), you can make graphics processing a bit more efficient with these tweaks:

  1. Type about:config into your address bar and promise Firefox you'll be careful.
  2. Type render in the search box, and find the following two keys:
    gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled
    mozilla.widget.render-mode
  3. Double click on the gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled entry so that it's set to true.
  4. Double-click on the mozilla.widget.render-mode entry and set the value to 6. If you can't find this key, right-click anywhere in the window, hit to New > Integer, set it's name to mozilla.widget.render-mode, and value to 6.
  5. Restart Firefox

Now, you should notice that your fonts look a little bit nicer, and certain pages (like Google Maps) move a little bit smoother. To revert back, just go back into about:config, disable gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled, and set mozilla.widget.render-mode to -1. Hit the link below to read more.

How to Enable Direct2D & DirectWrite Hardware Acceleration in Mozilla Firefox | Tweaking with Vishal


You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.
 

Read More...