Admin Toolbox

Tumblecloud is a new platform for piecing together music, videos, photos, and also websites into dynamic slideshows that you can share with others. Currently in beta, the free webapp can be used for "collaborative digital storytelling," as the founders describe it, for business or personal purposes.

If you're looking to learn some new development or design skills, Treehouse can teach your the core knowledge you need. The site offers a focused look at the basics of object oriented programming, the principals of good design, and how to make an iPhone app.

"Screencast-O-Matic is the original online screen recorder for one-click recording from your browser on Windows, Mac, or Linux."

"Rainmeter is the ultimate desktop enhancement application. With over thousands of skins available, one can style their desktop as they want to. I generally use it to monitor my gmail account, browse through RSS feeds, quickly launch apps and save notes (which is snyc-ed with Kunal using Dropbox, so we can collaborate together on posts efficiently)."

This step-by-step article describes how to disable the automatic search function for network printers and folders in Microsoft Windows XP.

"Recent sleep research finds that many adolescents are sleep-deprived because of both early school start times and changing sleep patterns during the teen years. This study identifies the causal effect of school start time on academic achievement by using two policy changes in the daily schedule at the US Air Force Academy along with the randomized placement of freshman students to courses and instructors. Results show that starting the school day 50 minutes later has a significant positive effect on student achievement, which is roughly equivalent to raising teacher quality by one standard deviation."

"Papercrop is free, simple utility that automatically restructures PDF files to fit more comfortably on small smartphone and eBook reader screens." Thanks to Lifehacker for the pointer: http://ow.ly/5Sz12 

Simple, fast, and powerful CSS editing and hosting. "WebPutty gives you a syntax-highlighting CSS editor you can use from anywhere, the power of SCSS and Compass, a side-by-side preview pane, and instant publishing with minification, compression, and automatic cache control."

Scientists have found out how a famous sunburn-healing enzyme works. The way it zaps DNA damage sounds so science fictional that it seems like something that happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

Life as a graduate student can mean hours of daily toil, little social contact and no guarantee that all that work will lead to a job. But it can also offer intellectual stimulation, independent projects that nurture a love of discovery and the development of a skill set that opens a host of science-related opportunities for a budding scientist.

Last month my electric bill was $300. That was ridiculous. Something had to be done. By using gadgets, common sense, and a constant awareness of power consumption, I've made changes that will cut my power bill by at least a third. And that's not just temporarily-that's forever. And, I'm doing it without really sacrificing anything.

"This article describes a method for creating a recurring reminder e-mail message."

World map of useless stereotypes

"A new plastic surface which overcomes the difficulties associated with growing adult stem cells has been developed, according to scientists."

If there's one thing everyone dreads, it's rebooting their computer. It may only take a minute or two, but it can seem like forever. Here are our top 10 tweaks that'll make your computer boot a little faster.

Used when helping Dr. Stone generate graphics (in the appropriate format) for a journal.

When I started developing material for this month's newsletter, How to Use Google Analytics, I knew that I wanted to include some kind of multimedia presentation showing our own analytics account as an example. I thought about using various screen capture tools to create a video, but I wanted to make sure that the analytics screens were a bit clearer and the size could be easily enlarged. At some point, Able asked our LinkedIn group about SlideShare, which prompted me to check it out. It ended up being just what I was looking for. SlideShare allows you to upload a PowerPoint presentation (I actually used Google's version) and then sync it to an audio file, which I created using my built-in microphone and Garage Band on my mac. SlideShare doesn't let you host the audio file on their servers, but they recommended Archive.org. I was able to quickly upload a 25MB file there and then have SlideShare stream it. Cool, right?

Some basic information about human blood

Thanks to Lifehacker for the pointer
(http://lifehacker.com/5813244/hideit-minimizes-any-app-to-your-windows-system-tray)

"Alan Henry - Windows: If you're tired of a taskbar cluttered with applications that you need to have open but can't be properly hidden or minimized, HideIt allows you to minimize any application to your Windows system tray by right-clicking its minimize button.

HideIt is similar to some other apps we've discussed in the past, like Trayconizer and RBTray, but is actively developed and unlike the others, was built for Windows 7. If you right-click the minimize button on any open window, you'll see the option to minimize the window to the system tray instead of the taskbar.

Similarly, if you right-click the HideIt icon in the task bar, you can select which windows or applications to restore, or restore everything at once. Best of all, it's completely free."

This is a very cool tip from Lifehacker reader David Dean: The next time you find yourself in sore need of a dry erase board that isn't one of the two boring white models in all the stores around town, hit up a supply store like Lowes and get yourself a sheet of Lexan. It costs less than $4, and you can put it just about anywhere since it's transparent.