High quality free Wordpress Themes have become harder and harder to find in the past year, with the influx of premium themes, more and more designers and developers are selling themes (and rightly so, they do amazing work). However, the quality of freely available themes has improved as well; in fact, some themes are very advanced and professional and can serve as a solid foundation for your next designs.

There are a lot of choices out there for someone wanting to choose a Wordpress theme for their blog. But, that aside, the quality is certainly there, and we are sure you will be impressed with this Wordpress theme compilation.

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• 100 Amazing Free Wordpress Themes for 2009
• 100 Excellent Free High-Quality WordPress Themes

Free High-Quality WordPress Themes

AppCloud Theme
A nice e-commerce WordPress theme with a clean and professional look. Built upon 960.gs, with an integrated slideshow, two layouts (horizontal and vertical) for app/gadget images. The theme also includes sections “Featured products” and “Top Selling” and a categorized products view.

Berita (via ThemeCloset)
Berita is a minimalist corporate theme created for companies to prominently display their logo, but the theme could be used for any type of website. It’s a feature-rich theme with a preview slider on the front page and a robust theme administration page.

Magazeen
Magazeen is a two-column theme released specifically for Smashing Magazine readers. The theme has some subtle enhancements that encourage looking at related and new posts, like a related posts drop-down effect for the category link.

Mainstream Theme (via Wootheme)
You have the option of choosing from five different theme colors with Mainstream. Thumbnails are automatically resided and the sidebar is widgetized.

Rusty Grunge
Rusty Grunge is a simple WordPress theme yet still gives you the “destroyed” look. This theme utilizes a fully-widgetized sidebar and has been downloaded over 28,000 times and is featured as a pre-installed theme on Dreamhost’s default installation of WordPress.

Obscure WordPress Theme
A dark magazine WordPress theme suitable for any site niche; also a good fit for a community-based site.

Paper Wall
Smashing Magazine released the illustrated theme Paper Wall last month. The inspiration behind the Paper Wall theme was a designer’s desk, as designers typically put things on paper. It’s a two-column theme with many elements of paper: paper boards, peeling paper and paper “menus”.

Gallery WordPress Theme
a beautiful, free, gallery-style Thematic child theme for WordPress, designed by Christopher Wallace especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. It is extremely flexible and can be used as a starting point for design galleries and portfolios.

Cool Retro
A nice, clean illustrated WordPress theme with a retro-look and nice typography.

Life Collage
Life Collage is a child theme of the Hybrid theme framework. It’s about getting back to the roots of blogging. About sharing our lives. And, about having a little fun while we do it.

Shalom Typo
This theme was designed for the typographic template contest at Smashing Magazine by the German designer David Hellmann. This WordPress theme is based upon this layout. A clean and nice typographic WordPress-theme.

Jungleland Theme (via Theme Lab)
The stylish browns give an earthy feel to this blog making it a good choice for those blogs focused on the environment and nature. It features a photo gallery and a sidebar menu

Monkeypr Theme (via Queness)
Monkeypr is a nicely designed and fun WordPress theme.

Folio Elements Theme (via Press 75)
With its black background, Folio Elements theme will surely make your images and photographs noticed. There is no sidebar, no widgets, no list of categories, no place to comment and nowhere to search. However, if you are looking for a basic carousel-type theme with absolutely no basics, bells or whistles, then Folio Elements might be the one for you.

SimpleCart(js)
SimpleCart(js) is another child of the Thematic Wordpress framework. The theme requires WP E-Commerce and is a flexible way to showcase products with the grid framework. The theme features a rich wood background and simple white content area.

Glassic
A simple clean WordPress theme with the focus on typography and simplicity. Released by Abdullah Ibrahim exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Zinepress Theme (via Well Medicatedi)
Zinepress is a two column magazine style theme. There is a nice sidebar with enough space for ads and for your widgets. It is hand coded and has valid XHTML STrict 1.0 and CSS Level 2.1. The developer has successfully tested this them with IE 6.0+, Firefox 2+, Opera 9+, Safari 3+, and Chrome 0.2+. Suggested Wordpress version is 2.7 or higher.

Futurosity Aperio Prototype
Futurosity Aperio is a clean straight-forward blog theme built on Sandbox

Futurosity Vero (via Theme Meme)
Built on Sandbox and Blueprint CSS framework, the Futurosity Vero is a minimalist theme. Near the top of your home page, your most recent and featured post will be displayed.

PolaroidPress (via Tutorial9)
PolaroidPress, as you might guess from the name, plays on the usage of “polaroids” in the theme that display your random images. It’s a simple two-column theme with an airy feel.

H5
The H5 theme is more of a proof-of-concept theme to show designers how to show theme designers how to design with HTML5 and CSS 2.1. It’s a bare-bones theme that’s perfect as a building block for creating your next Wordpress theme.

Inuit (via CSS Reflex)
Inuit makes use of a lot of whitespace and preview images for each post on the homepage. The theme also comes integrated with Twitter and Flickr.

Wu Wei
Clean, modern and minimal. The theme was based on the Taoist concept of wu wei: knowing when to act, and knowing when not to act. The theme is built on the principles of the grid system.

Modfolio
Modfolio is a child theme of Modularity, a theme framework for Wordpress. Modfolio is another portfolio theme with an extremely dark layout. The theme has 10 potential homepage layout combinations with different colors and element positions.

Cardeo Minimal
A minimal three-column theme with plenty of white space and gray text.

Album Theme (by Brian Gardner)
Album theme is one of the many beautiful templates offered by StudioPress. Some included features are SEO optimized, widget ready, automatically sizes images for thumbnails, and ad ready. This theme is not free, but they do include the PSD file.

Album Theme (by Allan Cole)
Auto-focus is a blog theme designed for photographers to showcase their work.

Mystique (by Digital Nature)
This sleek one column theme has a flexible-width, threaded comments, and an adjustable header.

Manifest
Manifest is a straight-forward one column blog. It has no widgets or sidebar, but gives you a nice clean approach that focuses on your content.

Debug Theme (by Joost de Valk)
When your WordPress installs fail and you need more information, the debug theme is perfect. On the home page, it displays the important URL’s, editor, memory setting, etc. On sub pages it shows the page type, all the query vars that are set and the SQL query for that particular page.

Calmdream WordPress Theme
A very clean and simple layout for magazine layouts.

Portfolio Theme (via WPESP)
Portfolio is a two column blog theme which can be described as a minimalist. This modifiable design will make your own portfolio look great!

Blog Theme
The Carrington Blog-style theme is filled with advanced features like widgetized sidebars, AJAX loading of content, stylish galleries, customizable headers and colors.

Mobile Theme (via Carrington Themesl)
The Carrington Mobile has a beautiful design supporting advanced touch browsers )Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Pre)./p>

Pyrmont V2 Theme (via WP)
Pyrmont V2 is a two-column theme with a black background that could very well make your photographs and designs stand out.

Destyle Theme
Destyle is a magazine-style WordPress theme. This is another theme packed with useful features such as: multi-level superfish dropdown menu, ad management, predefined CSS styles, customa page templates, Twitter and Flick badges on sidebar and automatic image resizing.

ImpreZZ
A dark, three-column theme that gives the second column a third dimension.

Would you like to see more similar lists on SM?

Your opinion is very important to us. There are literally hundreds of similar lists on various design blogs. We are trying to do our best to present you only the best of the best, collecting useful links over months. Would you like to see more similar lists in the future? Or should we drop lists altogether and focus on more original content?

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40 Free High-Quality WordPress Themes originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on November 12, 2009.

You've always wanted to learn how to build software yourself—or just whip up an occasional script—but never knew where to start. Luckily, the web is full of free resources that can turn you into a programmer in no time.

Since the invention of the internet, programmers have been using it to discuss software development techniques, publish tutorials, and share code samples for others to learn from and use online. If you’re curious about how to become a programmer, you can get off to a running start using tons of great free web-based tutorials and resources.

First Things First: Don’t Get Hung Up on Choosing a Language

A common pitfall for beginners is getting stuck figuring out which programming language is best to learn first. There are a lot of opinions out there, but there's no one "best" language. Here's the thing: In the end, language doesn't matter THAT much. Understanding data and control structures and design patterns does matter very much. Every language—even a simple scripting language—will have elements that you'll use in other languages as well and will help you learn. In classes I took to get my degree in Computer Science, I programmed in Pascal, Assembly, and C—languages I never actually got paid to program in professionally. I taught myself every language I've used in my career, reusing concepts I already knew, and referring to documentation and books to learn its syntax. So, don't get hung up on what language to learn first. Pick the kind of development you want to do, and just get started using one that works.

There are several different kinds of software development you can do for various platforms, from the web to your desktop to your smartphone to a command line. In this article, we’ll outline some of our favorite starter tutorials and resources for teaching yourself how to program for each major platform. We’re going to assume you’re a savvy user, but a newb when it comes to wrangling code snippets, so we’ll keep things at the beginner level. Even just following through a beginner programming tutorial, you’ll be happy to see how far you can get.

Desktop Scripting

The easiest way to try your hand at programming for your Windows or Mac desktop is to start with a scripting or macro program like AutoHotkey (for Windows) or Automator (for Mac). Right now hardcore coders throughout the Lifehacker readership are yelling at their monitors, saying that AHK or AppleScript are not "real" programming. That may be true—technically these types of tools just do high-level scripting. But for those new to programming who just want to get their feet wet, automating actions on their desktop, these free tools are a fantastic way to start—and you'd be surprised at how much you can do with them.

For example, Adam developed the standalone Windows application we all know and love, Texter, using AutoHotkey, so this scripting language is capable of far more than just small-scale automation projects. To get started with AutoHotkey, check out Adam’s tutorial on how to turn any action into a keyboard shortcut using AutoHotkey. (Then, check out the source code for Texter to see the innards of a full-fledged AHK-based Windows application.)

Web Development

Instead of being bound to specific programming languages and the look and feel of a particular operating system, you can put your killer application in the browser and run it in the cloud, as a webapp. Welcome to the wonderful world of web development.

HTML and CSS: The first thing you need to know to build any web site is HTML (the page markup that makes up web pages) and CSS (the style information that makes that markup look pretty). HTML and CSS are not true programming languages—they're just page structure and style information. However, you should be able to author simple HTML and CSS by hand before you begin building web applications, because a web page is the frontend to every webapp. This HTML tutorial is a good place to start.

JavaScript: Now that you can lay out a static web page with HTML and CSS, things get fun—because it's time to learn JavaScript. JavaScript is the programming language of the web browser, the magic that makes dynamic in-page effects go. JavaScript is also the stuff of bookmarklets, Greasemonkey user scripts, and Ajax, so it’s the key to making all sorts of web goodies. Start learning JavaScript here.

Server-side scripting: Once you're good at making things happen inside a web page, you're going to need to put some dynamic server action behind it—and for that, you'll need to move into a server-side scripting language, like PHP, Python, Perl, or Ruby. For example, to make a web-based contact form that sends an email somewhere based on what a user entered, a server-side script is required. Scripting languages like PHP can talk to a database on your web server as well, so if you want to make a site where users can log in and store information, that's the way to go. Excellent web development site Webmonkey is full of tutorials for various web programming languages. See their PHP Tutorial for Beginners. When you’re ready, check out how to use PHP to talk to a database in WebMonkey’s PHP and MySQL tutorial. PHP’s online documentation and function reference is the best on the web. Each entry (like this one on the strlen function) includes user comments at the bottom which are often as helpful as the documentation itself. (I happen to be partial to PHP, but there are plenty of other server-side scripting languages you might decide to go with instead.)

Web frameworks: Over the years, web developers have had to solve and resolve the same problems and rewrite similar code to build dynamic web sites. To avoid making everyone reinvent the wheel for every new web development project, some programmers have come up with development frameworks that do some repetitive work for you. The popular Ruby on Rails framework, for example, takes the Ruby programming language and offers a web-specific structure for getting common web application tasks done. In fact, Adam used Rails to build his first serious (and impressive!) web application, MixTape.me. Here’s his take on how to build a web site from scratch with no experience. Other popular web development frameworks include CakePHP (for PHP programmers), Django (for Python programmers), and jQuery (for JavaScript).

Web APIs: An API (Application programming interface) is a programmatic way for different pieces of software to talk to one another. For example, if you want to put a dynamic map on your web site, you want to use a Google Map instead of building your own custom map. The Google Maps API makes it easy to programmatically include a map in a page with JavaScript. Almost every modern web service you know and love has an API that lets you include data and widgets from it in your application, like Twitter, Facebook, Google Docs, Google Maps, and the list goes on. Integrating other webapps into your web application via API’s is the final frontier of rich web development. Every good, major web service API offers thorough documentation and some sort of quick start guide to try it out (here’s Twitter’s, for example). Go crazy.

Command Line Scripting

If you want to write a program that takes textual or file input and outputs something useful, the command line is the right place to do it. While the command line isn’t as sexy or good-looking as a webapp or desktop app, for rapid development of quick scripts that automate processes, you can’t beat it.

Several scripting languages that work on a Linux-based web server also work at the command line, like Perl, Python, and PHP—so learning one of those baddies makes you conversant in two contexts. My path never took me too far down the Perl road, but I taught myself Python using the excellent and free online book, Dive into Python.

If becoming a Unix ninja is one of your programmer goals, you absolutely must get good at shell scripting with bash. Bash is the command line scripting language of a *nix environment, and it can do everything from help you set up automated backups of your database and files to building out a full-fledged application with user interaction. Without any experience writing bash scripts beyond a dozen lines, I wound up developing a full-on personal to-do list manager in bash, Todo.txt CLI.

Add-ons

Nowadays, modern webapps and browsers are extensible with with bits of software that bolt onto them and add features. Add-on development is gaining in popularity as more developers look at existing software, like Firefox or WordPress, and think “But if only it could do THIS…”

You can do a whole lot in any web browser with just a mastery of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Bookmarklets, Greasemonkey user scripts, and Stylish user styles are created with the same bits of code that make regular web pages, so they’re worth learning even if you just want to tweak an existing site with a small snippet of code.

More advanced browser add-ons, like Firefox extensions, let you do more. Developing Firefox extensions, for example, requires that you’re conversant in JavaScript and XML (markup that’s similar to HTML, but way more strict in format). Back in 2007 I ran down how to build a Firefox extension, a skill I picked up after I stumbled upon a free tutorial.

Many free and well-loved web applications offer an extension framework as well, like WordPress and MediaWiki. Both of those apps are written in PHP, so comfort with PHP is a prerequisite for getting started. Here’s how to write a plug-in for WordPress. Developers who want to ride the cutting edge of Google Wave can get started writing gadgets and bots in HTML, JavaScript, Java, and Python. I wrote my first Wave bot following this quick start tutorial in one afternoon.

Web Development for the Desktop

The best part about getting started programming in one context is when you can take those skills and apply them elsewhere. Learning web development first is a great way to start because now there are ways to put those skills to work on desktop applications, too. For example, Adobe AIR is a cross-platform run-time environment that lets you build your app once and release it to run on the desktop for every operating system AIR runs on. AIR apps are written in HTML, Flash, or Flex, so it lets you apply your web development skills in a desktop context. AIR is a great option for deploying desktop apps like one of our top 10 apps worth installing Adobe AIR for.

Mobile App Development

Mobile applications like the ones you run on your iPhone or Android smartphone are all the rage right now, so you may have dreams of striking it rich in the iTunes App Store with the next killer app. However, for the new coder, diving headfirst into mobile development can be a rough learning curve, since it requires comfort with advanced programming languages like Java and Objective C. However, it’s worth checking out what iPhone and Android development looks like. Check out this simple iPhone application development example to get a taste of what iPhone developers do. Android apps are written in Java, and here’s a friendly video tutorial of what building a “Hello Android” application workflow looks like.

Patience, Elbow Grease, Trial and Error

Good coders are a special breed of persistent problem-solvers who are addicted to the small victories that come along a long path of trial and error. Learning how to program is very rewarding, but it can also be a frustrating and solitary experience. If you can, get a buddy to work with you along the way. Getting really good at programming, like anything else, is a matter of sticking with it, trying things out, and getting experience as you go.

This article is just one self-taught programmer’s top-of-mind recommendations for beginners. Experienced programmers: What did I miss? No matter your skill level, add your thoughts and recommendations for beginners to the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, thinks the best programmers are self-taught. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

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Programmer 101: Teach Yourself How to Code [Programming] originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on November 12, 2009.

The nightly builds of Google Chrome’s open-source foundation, Chromium, includes a feature that might mean great things for Greasemonkey fans. Click on a user script file, such as at UserScripts.org, and Chromium asks to install it as a working extension.

Judging from the developers’ discussions at the Chromium wiki, Greasemonkey, or at least some kind of user script support beyond the current, very geeky installation method has been a hot topic. The latest builds tackle user script support by re-mapping them into extensions, automatically activated at their relevant sites. You can give it a test by installing the latest Chromium build in Windows. We’ll assume this feature will make its way very soon to those keeping updated on Chromium builds for Mac and Linux.

Before you get too amped, though, it must be said that support is still rudimentary. Scripts that mostly replace one thing on a page with another seem to work fine, but those that pull off custom themes and page manipulations are touch and go. In other words, the more Greasemonkey-specific functions appear in a script, the less likely it is to work in Chromium. That said, it’s reassuring to see some of the great Grease realm opened up to the up-and-coming browser.

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Chromium Installs User Scripts as Extensions, Bodes Great Things for Chrome [User Scripts] originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on November 8, 2009.

$ flip -u <filenames>

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by David Winterbottom (codeinthehole.com)

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• Use SUSE Studio to Build a Linux OS From Scratch [Operating Systems] (0)
• Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 is a great free imaging and partitioning tool (0)

Convert Windows/DOS Text Files to Unix originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on October 21, 2009.

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Web services

I don’t know how they manage to do it, but they do. Every now and then a customer drops off a system for repair and things that a home user should ever need to monkey with – things like TCP/IP settings, registry entries, Windows services – have been mangled beyond recognition.

Services in particular can be a big pain to reset, simply because of how many their are. Fortunately, there’s an incredibly handy web app which makes the process a whole lot easier.

Serviceseditor.com supports Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Click the appropriate version, and you’re presented with a comprehensive list of radio buttons covering all the built-in services. Scroll through the list and toggle any values you don’t want set to the default Microsoft settings and press the submit button. You’ll receive a .reg file which you can then merge with the Windows registry.

It’s quite a bit faster than clicking through services.msc manually to get things back to normal and (obviously) doesn’t even require an install. Slick!

Easily restore Windows services to default settings with a web app originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Easily restore Windows services to default settings with a web app originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on September 30, 2009.

When they draw up the Complete History of Lifehacking, Angus MacGyver will certainly merit a chapter. We pay tribute to the creative can-do secret agent this week with 10 tricks that make extraordinary use of truly common objects.

Photo by PoweredByLarios™.

Note: The following snippets are works of MacGyver fan fiction (hopefully the non-cringe-inducing variety). Any resemblance to events transpiring in the seven-year run of MacGyver, or any subsequent television specials, are coincidental, if a little inevitable.

10. Diffuse a camera flash, no gear needed

MacGyver works hard, no doubt, and likes to enjoy the days and nights off as much as he can. So when professional or consumer-grade cameras threaten to wash out party photos, he’s prone to using a converted cigarette pack, reversing the lining foil to channel an SLR flash into a manageable beam. A coffee filter can also work, as can a ripped out piece of tissue or very fine piece of cloth. As a result, you’ll never see a red-eyed, washed-out MacGyver flashing a thumbs up in any Flickr stream. (Original post)

9. Pack a lunch in a CD spindle

Bagels, with their central fitting holes and wheel-like shape, are an improvisational thinker’s kind of sandwich bread. Rodrigo Piwonka’s Flickr stream shows off a CD spindle bagel holder MacGyver would totally dig, and it might just inspire you to reuse your own Memorex/FujiFilm/Kodak spindles for culinary transport purposes. Angus would probably also note that, turned upside-down, the round plastic cylinder that caps the spindle works great for holding your salad. (Original post)

8. Make an iPhone dock out of … anything

If MacGyver had access to an iPhone, you could totally see him leaning back at his desk between missions, syncing the tracks from Live Aid to his device while it rests on—just about anything, really. A dollar bill or business card, perhaps, or maybe a piece of cardboard. The iPhone case itself can work, as can a binder clip, or, if MacGyver had, say, 5 minutes, the plastic the iPhone was shipped in and a piece of wood molding. Really, though, we’d have to go with the paper clip stand as the true choice for the secret agent of Scottish ancestry—he always seemed to have one handy.

7. Relieve a bug bite with nail polish (or toothpaste)

Minutes after escaping certain death in the Pacific woodlands, MacGyver finds himself completely covered in itchy, concentration-breaking mosquito and chigger bites. This is bad, because it will take every ounce of effort and attention to rig together a makeshift rope bridge to get across the chasm four miles ahead. Digging deep into his seemingly infinite pockets, MacGyver has to decide—will the clear nail polish he uses to paint over rusted dents seal off the itches? Should he instead reach for the aspirin, vinegar, or toothpaste? All of them are slightly more non-obvious than reaching for the off-label use of Bengay for bug bites, but any of them need to be applied real quick, before Murdoc’s henchmen break through his makeshift lock jam and catch him scratching away. Photo by 416style.

6. Dry a doused cellphone

The Phoenix Foundation’s star agent successfully disarmed the bio-agents set to be released into the city’s water supply, then escaped from a third-story window using makeshift suction cups. His helicopter pick-up is only a phone call away. He reaches into his pocket and—drat! That brief dive into the reservoir killed his phone! Or so we all thought, until MacGyver noticed the Indian buffet restaurant just down the road. Using all his Richard-Dean-Anderson-like charm, he talks his way into the kitchen, borrows some rice and a bowl, and waits until the gadget-killing moisture has been sucked out. Why didn’t he just make the call from the restaurant phone, you ask? It’s a secret number! The encryption only works on a MacGyverBerry! If the All-Night Tiger hadn’t been open, Mac’s next best bet would have been to find a house with some kitty litter, or locate some rubbing alcohol, neither of which is all that difficult in the world MacGyver lives in. (Original post).

5. Boost a Wi-Fi antenna with a drinking straw

There’s a hacker with a laptop who can hack the violent dictatorship’s mainframe, but he’s been locked in a secret room that MacGyver and a fairly attractive spy can’t get to. The hacker can’t make a solid wireless connection for more than a few seconds. Luckily, MacGyver has located a small bit of copper wire, a drinking straw, a single wood screw, and a Crème brûlée torch to stand in as a soldering iron. General Tigerfang, your days are numbered. If you find yourself stuck in a similar, perhaps less dangerous scenario without access to, say, drinking straws and copper wire, try one of our top 10 Wi-Fi boost, tweaks, and apps to give Sergei, or your spouse, the network juice they need. (Original post)

4. Start a fire without matches

Out in the countryside, MacGyver and the son of an esteemed diplomat are tired, exhausted, and hungry after dismantling a tank and escaping a military prison with corrugated cardboard, vanilla extract, and a magnet-tipped screwdriver. They have no matches or fuel to start a fire, but they did ransack a few items from the galley kitchen on the way out. With a 9-volt battery or cellphone sparked against some steel wool, or a pop-top can and chocolate, they’re well on their way to getting a little flame built. (Original posts: chocolate and Coke, cellphone battery, steel wool and 9-volt).

3. Smooth a scratched CD or DVD

Wherever MacGyver goes, he’s amazed by the limitations of product marketers’ minds. When you have a product that works perfectly well at filling gaps and polishing—like toothpaste, Pledge, or Brasso—why not market them to the owners of terribly scratched CDs and DVDs? But whenever he needs to get the codes to halt a missle launch from a damaged disc while in the jungle, supermarket, or monkey cage, MacGyver simply grabs a banana and some glass cleaner and gets to work. Assuming, of course, there’s a downed plane with glass cleaner in the jungle, and that they’d happen to be cleaning the windows in the monkey cage. (Original banana post).

2. Bind paper without clips or staples

Not every single day at the Phoenix Foundation was spent at this or that reactor or helping unfortunate kidnapped souls. Somebody’s got to expense report all those hardware store purchases, after all, but MacGyver occasionally ran out of staples and paper clips. Rather than run for the supply closet, he’d creatively fold and cut the edges, keeping up to 15 sheets of paper together with their own resistance. As a result, Amos in accounts payable always knew when a certain secret agent was expensing his latest shipments of wood glue, pipe cleaners, orange juice, tinfoil, Mountain Dew, and paper towel tubes. (Original post)

1. Fix a dent with canned air and a hair dryer

Now that MacGyver’s settled into married life, he’s decided to sell the Jeep Wrangler that saw him through so many trips to and from the Department of External Services and the Phoenix Foundation. Two hours away from an interested Craigslist buyer inspection, his wife points out a dent picked up during that quick exit from a nuclear reactor. He doesn’t panic or call off the showing—he grabs a can of compressed air and a hair dryer, and uses the extreme cool of the canned air and the heat from the dryer to force the dent to return to its original shape. His wife points out that the buyer might still ask about all the duct tape hidden in various break-away pieces and hidden pockets. MacGyver smiles, slowly retracts the hair dryer cord, and remembers the day he once powered a trolley with an electric whisk, rubber bands, and a battery pack to fool an automatic weapons system. Now that was a challenge. (Original post).

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Top 10 Tricks MacGyver Would Be Proud Of [Lifehacker Top 10] originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on August 22, 2009.

$ column -t /proc/mounts

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by David Winterbottom (codeinthehole.com)

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• MetatOGGer Automatically Identifies, Tags Your MP3s and More [Downloads] (0)

currently mounted filesystems in nice layout originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on August 9, 2009.

Windows only: Free application MetatOGGer is an advanced MP3 (and OGG Vorbis, FLAC, Speex, Musepack, Windows Media, WavPack, and Monkey’s Audio) tag editor that can automatically tag your music by creating audio fingerprints and comparing them with online database, MusicBrainz.

(Click the image above for a closer look.)

And while MusicBrainz already has its own dedicated application for this (the previously mentioned Picard), we’ve always found Picard to be a little clunky. MetatOGGer, on the other hand, seems quite a bit more user friendly. Likewise, MetatOGGer can automatically search out and add lyrics to your tags from web site LyricWiki.

This one didn’t make our list of the six best MP3 tagging tools, but then again, we didn’t even know it existed. And while it may not be as efficient as something like MP3Tag (our Hive Five winner), it does show a lot of promise.

MetatOGGer is freeware, Windows only, requires .NET 3.5 SP1. If you give it a try, let’s hear how it worked for you in the comments.

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MetatOGGer Automatically Identifies, Tags Your MP3s and More [Downloads] originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on July 22, 2009.

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Two Linux apps with netbook-friendly user interfaces originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on July 17, 2009.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.There is a strong chance that you’ve been opening bananas wrong your whole life. Take a cue from our simian friends and start opening a banana with the efficiency of a hungry monkey.

It’s possible you’ve been opening bananas the most efficient way, but more likely you’ve been opening them—like we have—the completely backwards and frustrating way. Most people start by grabbing the stem of the bananas and using it like a pull tab to get the banana open. This usually works with a somewhat high degree of success, high enough to keep people doing it and writing off the occasional banana opening mishap as problem with a faulty banana and not a problem with their technique. Watch the video below to see a demonstration of how monkeys open bananas:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

If you watched the video and said “That’s how I do it!” good for you, you’re a primate most efficient. If you were amazed by the simplicity of the upside down maneuver, congratulations you’ve just learned a simple and effective way to chow down on your favorite yellow fruit. Have an unconventional technique for skinning, peeling, or otherwise getting at the delicious parts of your favorite foods? Let’s hear about it in the comments below.

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Open a Banana like a Monkey [Food Hacks] originally appeared on Shai Perednik.com on July 10, 2009.