Tim Matheson Blog - Productive Tips and More

If you love the Rubik’s cube then why not make your own? Instructables has the low down on a low budget DIY acrylic see through magnetic Rubik’s cube project.

What you need: 27 3/4″ clear acrylic cubes are drilled with 108 3/16″ holes, fitted with 108 D32 neodymium disc magnets with proper polarities facing out from each, and assembled into a size-matched magnetic version of the original Rubik’s Cube.

The article explains how to plan the polarity of your magnets to ensure proper functionality. I thought this was very cool and really want to try it out. If anyone has already made one of these please let me know in the comments or send your photos to tips@timmatheson.com

Magnetic Acrylic Rubik’s Cube DIY Project

Need a quick way to drown out distracting noise and get more work done? Then head on over to listen to a movie and select a movie from one of the various titles they have to offer. The service allows you to listen to the audio of any movie they provide for free. As an additional tip you could use some headphones to listen to movies and potentially drown out distracting co-workers, instant messages, and annoying telemarketers that can disrupt your productive day. I personally love this service and it some what takes me back to the days where books on tape were cool.

Listentoamovie.com

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Browsercam.com offers a “not-free” service to check how your site preforms on different platforms using different browsers. This is possible using several machines running different operating systems which accept VNC connections. After signing up for service you can use VNC to control virtually any operating system + browser configuration you can think of. This is a great tool for developers to use to ensure usability across different systems and a wide variety of users. The internet today is far more advanced than it was 10 years ago. The internet of today demands your site to comply with your users personal preference in operating system and browser configuration of their machine. Sites that fail to do so typically fail tremendously when deployed by severing revenue from unsupported machine configuration. As a web designer, I find this tool to be very interesting and am pondering it’s use. In the past I have just installed various browsers, ran several operating systems on one machine, or used a friends machine with a different browser and operating system. This can be a lot of work depending on your hardware configuration and access to multiple machines. I recommend at least checking out Browser.com is this sounds like something you could use.

Browsercam.com

Miniajax.com has rounded up some useful Ajax Scripts for anyone wanting a quick and easy Ajax solution for their website. There are things like ClickHeat, a tool for heat mapping your websites click traffic. There are also some great form tools and image slideshow scripts. This site is a must for anyone wanting to get started with AJAX. Check it out at miniajax.com.

I love the Windows Vista Aero Flip3D feature, but unfortunately I have to stick with Windows XP for software reasons. TopDesk is a great little tool that will give you the features of Aero Flip3D on Windows XP and more. TopDesk features several different rotate modes, flip styles, color customization, window labels, and more. There is also a feature to quickly show the desktop by placing all your windows at the bottom edge of the screen (F11). You can ALT+Tab to view a vertical view of all open windows.

Keyboard Shorcut tips

• ALT+TAB = Flip, Grid, Spatial (Depending on settings)
• F11 = Minimize your Windows (toggle) works great.
• Tip : Use the mouse wheel to scroll through windows when in tile mode.

Got a favorite piece of software you think would go great with TopDesk? Send me a Tip to tips@timmatheson.com

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If you’re a web designer or frequently use CSS in your projects then you will love typetester.com. Typetester allows you to try out different CSS typography settings on one page with a simple interface. You can adjust size, leading, word-space, color, background, font etc. all on one page. Typetester also allows you to use your own text or the predefined place holder text. This is a must for anyone who wants to compare a CSS design before deploying it on a client or personal web site. This is definitely one of my personal favorite Web 2.0 applications.

Link Typetester.com