Software and Technology in World Market

All-things-IKEA weblog IKEA Hacker details how to make an attractive headphone stand for your desk—complete with cable-wrapping posts for cord management—using roughly $15 worth of returned parts from IKEA. The outcome, which you can check out at IKEA Hacker or in the many larger pics at the original forum post, is really impressive. The headphone stand seems like a perfect addition to any desk, particularly if you do any sort of editing or you just like zoning out with headphones when you're working.

iPhone only: Inventive iPhone app Direct Line navigates automated phone systems to get you directly to an operator without having to sift through menu options yourself. To use it, just launch the app, tell it who you want to call (it supports hundreds of searchable companies), and let it take care of the rest. You can simply turn on your speakerphone and let Direct Line do its work. When the operator answers, you're ready to go. A lot of the time it appears to just stick with the old hit-zero-until-it-goes-to-a-human trick, but in most of my tests it worked really well. Aside from the convenience of going straight to the operator, it's also just a nice repository of phone numbers for your utilities. The biggest downside: Direct Line will set you back $.99 from the App Store—so it's not free, but it is definitely cool. Don't have an iPhone but still want to get to an operator with minimal effort? Try previously mentioned Dial a Human.

Editor's Note: Welcome my San Diego-based pal Kelly Abbott, founder of Dandelife and all-around good guy. His new weekend post series, Ungeek to Live, will highlight the ways you can get things done without always involving a computer or gadget.
Not all things analog can go digital, and let's face it, most things worth a hill of beans in this world are analog through and through. Life is all about people, places and things. The best life hacks should be as much about getting the most from what we can smell, touch, and taste as the things we see and hear. Today, I kick off a guest-column "Ungeek to Live" as the new kid on the block here at Lifehacker. In that vein I've got a few pointers on making the most out of one's new surroundings. Whether it's a move to a new city for a new job, a sacrifice for an old squeeze, or retirement for better surf, what we need are strategies for getting snug and staying long in our new digs. Photo by Old Yankee.

Buy Local

When you move to a new place, you need to tend to the usual matters. Move in. Check. Get a driver's license. Check. Register to vote. Check. Now what? There are a couple of things you want to do that make all the difference when establishing yourself in a new city.

First, get a local phone number. There's a tendency to ignore the importance of appearing to be from the city you're now living in. That's a bad move. I can understand the reluctance to spend money on a home land line just for the sake of appearances. Also who wants to change numbers? It's a hassle. But you don't need to do that anymore. Get a Grandcentral number. Point it to your mobile. Now everyone you meet doesn't think you're here today and gone back home tomorrow.

Photo by doviende
Second: subscribe to your local newspaper. I'm not kidding. Forget the web. Get the print edition. Fine, Sunday's only. If you have any intention of being a part of the fabric of your new locale, this is indispensable. It's amazing how in-tune your the daily rag really is. Bonus: for house guests it's a quaint sign that you're up early with coffee on the weekends and thus beyond suspicion.

Get a Map

You know, the kind that folds. Tape it to the wall next to your door. Every time you leave for the day, you'll have a look at it. Over time places will be remembered. And in idle moments serves as a reminder that there's a whole city waiting for you.

Buy Lunch

Photo by moriza
Everyone needs to eat. Please, please, please don't eat at your desk. One of the most difficult things to do when you get to town is not just meet people but meet the right people. For example, you've done your research on LinkedIn and you know who you need to add to your professional network. Great. You've contacted them directly, but you have nothing to offer because you're the new kid in town. What do you do? Buy lunch. Do this once a week and soon people will be taking you to lunch.

Play Hard

Photo by marvinkuo
Because you'll be gaining weight from all those lunches, you'll need to have good places to be social AND work out at the same time. The gym is not such a place. First of all, it stinks. Second, working out is not usually a team effort. In the gym, your iPod is your best friend and force field against unsolicited come-ons. If your aim is to be social, join a softball league. Play soccer. Kickball, dodgeball, frisbee golf. Join a team. Form a team and get new people to join. The point being, the people you see week after week will soon become your crew for BBQ's and beer. Here are two resources.

Sportsvite - Covers the major markets but as yet not as comprehensive as it could be.

FanFinder - Find fellow sports fans who live where you do and come from where you do. Go to a local sports bar and catch the game together.

Jesus and Wine

I love Meetup.com's tagline: "Use the Internet to get off the Internet!"

Meetup has all kinds of wonderful categories for finding meaningful connections with others. Be it beer or wine; darts, dirt or dreams; Mormons, Wiccans or atheists; or whether you're a Republican, Democrat, independent or Libertarian, there's little more than booze, religion and politics that can help you feel right at home again.

If you're looking for more traditional fare, try these directories for churches, temples and mosques.

Mosques

• Mosque Directory (iPhone-ready Mosque search
• iPhone-ready Halal food search

Churches

• Church-Finder at Beliefnet
• MyChurch.org

Temples, Synagogues and Chabad Centers

• Synagogues
• Chabad Centers

Coffee, Tea, Me

I love working out of the house. It's good on many levels. It gets your creative juices flowing. It also satisfies the desire we have to just be around people. If you work in public enough you will inevitably catch someone's eye. Vice versa. Coffee shops are great for lingering. If you want a tighter group, find a co-working space locally and get a desk.

Get Involved

Nothing will get you deeper in a community than volunteering. My best business contacts and most loyal friends are those whom I've met on the soccer field but who've thought enough of me to respond to my calls asking for donations. By being a dedicated volunteer in a local non-profit, you're doing the right thing all around. In addition to helping your new community directly, you're also giving yourself a shot in the arm with good cheer. Being the new kid in town can be tough and you'll need all the karma you can corral.

Try these sites for finding the right charity to dedicate yourself to:

• Charity Navigator - Animals, Arts, Culture, Humanities, Education, Environment, Human Services, Public Benefit
• Network For Good if you want to donate OR volunteer - Volunteer Match - (a service of Network for Good)

Tip: don't just volunteer. Ask to join the board or be the head of a committee. Ask to help with IT or their web site. Charities have regular everyday needs, but they have other needs that you might be a better fit for if you dig deeper.

Alternatively: How to Disappear Completely

How did you make the most of your new surroundings last time you moved? Tell us in the comments.

The whole reason why you spend time streamlining, automating, and speeding up your workflow isn't to work more—it's to make time for important things computers can't do, like thinking. Professor David Levy argues, however, that our fast-paced world doesn't allow for time to think deeply, the time when we come up with our best ideas and most important insights. Levy's talk at Google last year is a cannot-miss for any lifehacker; at almost an hour in length, you might want to load it up on your media center in the living room or on your iPod for the gym.

Weblog mental_floss rounds up 10 short and sweet words for getting rid of your tough-to-unload but point-heavy letters at your rousing weekend game of Scrabble. We're talking words like Aa, Qat, Zax, Cwm, Xu, and five others that are short enough to fit anywhere and will hold up to a dictionary inquest. Got your own favorites? Expand our vocabulary in the comments. Photo by allyrose18.

The Farhat family cut up all their credit cards except for one (which they put on ice), and found that living plastic-free saved them 24%—because they just didn't buy the things they didn't have money to afford at the moment. They cut down on time spent shopping, too. Marissa Farhat said, "I don't have enough money in my purse to go buy this new dress or this new shirt that I want, so you don't even step foot in the store." Thanks, eeefresh!

The TipNut weblog offers an illustrated guide to wrapping meat in freezer paper for an airtight seal. It's not hard to learn, as the major trick is folding and re-folding the creases to push out the air, along with keeping the fold tight while you tape it off. Once you've mastered the "drugstore wrap," you'll get better-quality reheats and a lot less guilt at freezer-cleaning time, as you end up tossing fewer arctic-frosted cuts. For another savvy freezing technique, try portioning ground meat with a chopstick.

Trying to find videos from some of your favorite video mega sites like YouTube and Daily Motion can be a pain on a phone. Web site VuClip provides a mobile-friendly search engine for a large pool of video sites, delivering those videos seamlessly to your phone. In my tests with a Windows Mobile phone and a Blackberry, watching YouTube videos via VuClip was a much more enjoyable experience than trying to use YouTube itself.

When you learned to play an instrument online, you found out that teaching yourself to read tablature was a must for the aspiring guitarist. (If you've ever tried to learn a song on the internet, you've without a doubt seen tab before.) One major problem with reading tab and translating it to your guitar is that it can be difficult to find the rhythm in the notation. Web site Songsterr solves this problem by creating tabs you can play back and play along with in real time. As the song progresses, Songsterr indicates where you should be in the tab. You can slow down the playback to half speed while you're learning, then crank it up to normal once you've got the hang of it. Looks like a great site to add to your arsenal of free instrument-learning tools.

While sprucing up our place earlier this year, we decided the wall above our mantle could use some art. Rather than pony up for frames, artwork, or blown up photographs, I decided to take advantage of the cheap albums in the dollar bin of my local record store to add beautiful artwork to my living room. With just a few bucks and about 30 minutes, I built an album art wall to display some of my favorite album art—both for albums I love and for albums that I love to look at. The best part: You can easily switch out the albums on display any time. Here's how I did it.

Before

After

What You'll Need

All you really need to buy is two of these L-shaped screws for each record you want to hang; you can easily pick up them up from any hardware store. (I got mine from The Home Depot.) I don't remember how much they cost, but it won't cost more than a few dollars for all of them.

Well Laid Plans

At this point, all you need to do is plan out your space. I set each screw four inches in from the sides of each record and spaced each record one inch apart from the next. I can't really offer any specifications beyond those, as your setup would most likely differ. Spacing the records by an inch offers some nice breathing room between albums, though, and the spacing of the screws has also worked well for me. You could certainly go wider, though I wouldn't suggest putting them much closer together.

Set It Up

I measured everything out and marked my lines and screw holes with blue painter's tape to make sure I'd end up with straight lines. Once you've done all that leg work, you're ready to go.

I actually screwed in everything by hand without a drill or anything of the sort. If you're looking to do a more professional job, you could certainly drill your guide holes beforehand, but doing it all by hand worked for me. As you can see in the picture, I didn't screw them in all the way—namely because they were short screws to begin with, and the closer the screw gets to the wall the more likely the albums are to fall forward. (Not that I've had a problem with that. The recent earthquake in Los Angeles knocked down a few, but they've been fine overall.)

That's It

Once you've screwed everything into the wall, there's not much left to do but hang your album art. It's quick, it's easy, and it's a cheap way to display rotating art on your walls. You can have a lot of fun with it, and you can always find cheap art to work into your display. There's also no reason this idea has to be limited to album, either—you could certainly make a photo wall the same way.

On the other hand, if a photo wall is what you're looking for, check out Gina's previous guide to building a wire photo wall.