What New Rules Do You Need To Know For Your 2011 Tax Return?

Each year, there are new Australian taxation rules that can decrease (or occasionally increase) how much you owe the taxman when the financial year ends. Here are the big changes that may affect you in 2011 (and beyond).
What New Rules Do You Need To Know For Your 2011 Tax Return?

How to Test your Eyes at Home using the Computer

They say that you should get your eyes checked every two years but if haven’t had the chance to see a doctor all this time, you can test your vision on your computer as well.
How to Test your Eyes at Home using the Computer

How To Plan, Organize, and Map Out Your Home Network

Whether you’re setting up a new home network or overhauling the one you’ve got, planning and mapping out your devices and intended uses can save you a lot of headaches.
How To Plan, Organize, and Map Out Your Home Network

Automatically Restart Firefox When Memory Usage Exceeds A Limit

Firefox eats RAM, we all know it and accept it as one of those things we can overlook because the browser and its library of extensions is incredible enough in itself. RAM poaching tolerance is one thing but when it gets to a point where it starts to effect your browsing you have to do something about it. Memory Restart is a Firefox extension that monitors the memory usage by the browser, it lets you set a limit to the memory usage and tells you when the limit has been exceeded. You can restart the browser using the extension to bring memory usage back to normal.
Automatically Restart Firefox When Memory Usage Exceeds A Limit

Australian Government Asked Google For User Data 345 Times In Six Months

Google has been issuing transparency reports detailing government requests to have content removed for a while now. The latest instalment promises more detail, including when governments have asked for individual user data. For Australia, the number of removal requests has dropped, but there were 345 requests for individual user information between July and December 2010, and Google coughed up in around 280 cases.
Australian Government Asked Google For User Data 345 Times In Six Months

Make a Hidden Windows Dropbox Folder

Ever since the days of DOS, every directory has a special folder in it named “nul”. You can use this to create a folder that will sync in Linux but not in Windows. This is because the folder can exist on Linux but not on Windows.
Make a Hidden Windows Dropbox Folder

This Light Switch Texts You Pics Of The Guys Robbing Your House

You’ve just arrived home from the worst business trip ever (to Cleveland, no less) only to find your back door jimmied and your valuables gone. Had you installed this spy light switch, you could have… watched it all happen, live.
This Light Switch Texts You Pics Of The Guys Robbing Your House

Pin Any File to the Windows 7 Taskbar

Robert Jasiński writes in with a clever way to pin any file you want to the task bar. By default if you drag a text document to the taskbar it will pin it to the Notepad executable—the same thing happens with any other file that has an association with an executable. What if you want to pin that specific text file to the taskbar and not to the executable (or any other file for that matter)? Robert shares his method...
Pin Any File to the Windows 7 Taskbar

The Complete Guide To Managing Your Facebook Privacy

Keeping your Facebook info private seems to be getting harder and harder all the time, since Facebook keeps trying to make it public. To help you out, we’ve created a comprehensive guide to keeping your Facebook locked down and in your control.
The Complete Guide To Managing Your Facebook Privacy

Why Red Wine Is So Good For You

We’ve all grown up hearing that red wine is sooo good for us. Was it a lie parents told us so they could drink more? Nope, they were right. So what’s red wine’s little secret?
Why Red Wine Is So Good For You

Here’s Everything Your iPhone Home Button Can Do

Your iPhone’s home button has a whole bunch of uses that vary depending on your location and how many times you press it in succession. Here’s a look at (practically) all of them.
Here’s Everything Your iPhone Home Button Can Do

Do a Security Audit of your Dropbox Account

Something really scary happened at Dropbox yesterday that should worry anyone who have trusted their important files with the service. The Dropbox system was left wide open for about 5-6 hours yesterday and anyone could sign-in to your Dropbox account if all they knew were your email address. They could just type any random characters in the password box and the system would let them in. Scary!
Do a Security Audit of your Dropbox Account

How to Opt out of Facial Recognition on Facebook

Facebook recently enabled facial recognition technology, so when your friend uploads a new photo, Facebook recognises it as you and suggests to your friend to tag you in the photo. Don't want to be tagged automatically in others' photos in Facebook? Just follow these steps to learn how to opt out.
How to Opt out of Facial Recognition on Facebook

The world is full of fake sounds

The ATM machine doesn't actually go, "whhrrrrrrrrr." The satisfying "clunk" of a car door wouldn't happen without careful engineering. Humans Invent explains the stories behind these, and three other everyday sounds that aren't as real as we've been led to believe.
The world is full of fake sounds

Ask How-To Geek: Unmountable Boot Volumes, Opening Word Files in Works, and Removing Bootloaders

Looking at unmountable Windows volumes, opening Word files in Works, and removing a haywire bootloader.
Ask How-To Geek: Unmountable Boot Volumes, Opening Word Files in Works, and Removing Bootloaders

3 Options To Analyze Past Computer Usage

Operating systems and applications often save loads and loads of information, often without the user knowing about it. This can have privacy implications, considering that it may be possible to recover files, bookmarks or visited web pages easily.
3 Options To Analyze Past Computer Usage

Top of the Flops: 10 Tech Products Ahead of Their Time [VIDEOS]

It’s a sad truth: Not every great idea translates into commercial success. Some products launch “ahead of their time,” either because the tech can’t support the concept, or because the public isn’t ready to invest in such a radical idea. From an early interactive television to Nokia’s infamous N-Gage phone, we’ve taken a look at 10 such gadgets that the market just wasn’t ripe to receive, but the principles of which have since borne fruit for other brands.
Top of the Flops: 10 Tech Products Ahead of Their Time [VIDEOS]

The CSI effect: fact vs. fiction

Some key differences between forensic science on TV and forensic science in real life.
The CSI effect: fact vs. fiction

The Coffee Lover’s Guide To Tea

Coffee is great, but even die-hard coffee lovers might want to give tea a chance. The other beloved warm beverage, tea imparts to its drinkers some formidable health benefits, an extra boost of alertness without the same caffeine slump of coffee, and more variety. Here’s how to get started enjoying the best possible tea.
The Coffee Lover’s Guide To Tea

7 Ingenious Resumes That Will Make You Rethink Your CV

After clicking through the collection of resumes, were you inspired? What works for you in your industry? Do you already use any of the tactics employed in these resumes to promote yourself and your skills?
7 Ingenious Resumes That Will Make You Rethink Your CV

RPV: Win7′s least-known data-protection system

You deleted a file yesterday; now you really need it back. Your Windows recycle bin is empty — what now? Your next-best option is the Restore Previous Versions tool — a truly great, automatic data-protection feature buried in Win7.
RPV: Win7′s least-known data-protection system

Family Friendly sites listed on Blackstump Australia Issue 12/2011

The latest issue of new Family Friendly sites listed on The Black Stump.
Family Friendly sites listed on Blackstump Australia Issue 12/2011

10 Widespread Myths about Happiness -- Do You Believe Any of These?

This Wednesday: 10 myths about happiness -- which do you believe?
10 Widespread Myths about Happiness -- Do You Believe Any of These?

How to Clean Up the Right-Click (Context) Menu in Windows

The context menu in Windows, the thing that pops-ups when you right-click anywhere on your desktop or inside Windows Explorer, is often misused by software vendors. They keep adding useless options to that menu without asking and the more programs you install on your machine, the more confusing your context menu will become. Fortunately, there are several free utilities that you may use to clean up your Windows Context Menu by removing all the unnecessary entries that you no longer need.
How to Clean Up the Right-Click (Context) Menu in Windows

Shazam Adds Lyrics -- It's Spontaneous Karaoke Time

Ever had a spirited argument over song lyrics while at a bar? Well, music recognition service Shazam aims to stop such bloodsport with a new feature called Shazam LyricPlay.
Shazam Adds Lyrics -- It's Spontaneous Karaoke Time

Overbalanced crane crushes house

If you want to see just how vindictive and horrible inanimate objects can be, and how vicious stupid physics is, just watch as this crew uses a crane to hoist a cement, prefab swimming pool over a cute, innocent bungalow, only to have it snatched out of the sky, dragging the crane arm through the roof of the aforementioned residence.
Overbalanced crane crushes house

Google Search By Image

Searching by image is a new feature of Google Search that was introduced yesterday. It basically allows the web user to upload an image to Google to search for it on Google. The search will be on all Google properties, including Google Search and Google images. A search like this can come in handy in multiple ways, from identifying people on a photo to finding out where that beautiful sunset was taken in the world to getting information about a painting that you have as your desktop background.
Google Search By Image

How to beat Australia’s ‘global roaming’ rorts

With the OECD putting Australia at number three on the list of most expensive global roaming rates for data users, at an average of $12 per megabyte, why pay ridiculous rates for your mobile broadband use when overseas?
How to beat Australia’s ‘global roaming’ rorts

10 "Handy" Photoshop foul-ups

The excellent Photoshop Disasters website prepared this freakish gallery of disembodied hands, duplicated & deleted digits, and extra arms.
10 "Handy" Photoshop foul-ups

These Are The Most Common Lockscreen PINs

iPhone developer Daniel Amitay anonymously recorded and analysed passcodes of users of his Big Brother Camera Security iPhone app, resulting in an interesting list of the 10 most common passcodes, which, in order of popularity, include 1234, 0000, 2580, 1111, 5555, 5683 (spells LOVE), 0852, 2222, 1212, 1998.
These Are The Most Common Lockscreen PINs

Square Poo

Question: I was at Wilsons Promontory last week and I saw several piles of distinctly cube-shaped poo. There were 4-5 “units” in each pile and each unit was about the size and shape of a large ice cube. Each pile was deposited on a little mound of soil; it was almost as if the depositor had placed them there in the hope that they’d be noticed. What sort of animal does square poo?
Square Poo

Horrific Le Mans Crash Goes Viral on YouTube [VIDEO]

Watching this dramatic crash that happened early in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race on Saturday, you might wonder how 41-year-old driver Allan McNish survived such violence.
Horrific Le Mans Crash Goes Viral on YouTube [VIDEO]

10 Personal Details Revealed by Bill Gates -- Including One Secret

In one of his most candid interviews ever, Microsoft founder Bill Gates (the world’s second-richest man) revealed personal details never heard before, along with a little tidbit that he was probably supposed to keep secret.
10 Personal Details Revealed by Bill Gates -- Including One Secret

AccountKiller Tells You How To Delete Your Accounts From Nearly Any Web Site

Not all web sites make it easy for users to delete their accounts, and some might actually make it so difficult that it’s nearly impossible to do without help. That’s where AccountKiller comes into play, because it not only gives clear and simple instructions for deleting accounts at all the most popular sites, but it also uses a definitive colour-coding system to rate each one’s “ease of service.”
AccountKiller Tells You How To Delete Your Accounts From Nearly Any Web Site

Cosmic Journeys: What an Astronaut’s Camera Sees

Enjoy a 1080p tour of the earth as shot by astronaut’s digital cameras in this relaxing and narrated video identifying interesting major and minor features on the Earth’s surface. Narrated by Dr. Justin Wilkinson, the above video is a compilation of HD video shot by astronauts covering everything from African deserts to the Amazon river.
Cosmic Journeys: What an Astronaut’s Camera Sees

1950s AT&T film: How to dial your phone

AT&T, playing the role of the geeky kid who teaches Mom how to use the new computer, created this film to show people how they would make their own telephone connections using a rotary dial.
1950s AT&T film: How to dial your phone

How Much Will A Single Checked Bag Cost On An Australian Airline?

How much would you pay to check a single bag onto each airline? The table below shows what you would pay to check a single bag into the hold on each of the four domestic airlines, looking at weights of 15kg, 20kg, 25kg and 30kg and assuming you have booked the cheapest available fare.
How Much Will A Single Checked Bag Cost On An Australian Airline?

2011 Hurricane Names Released

June 1 marks the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season, and the National Hurricane Center has released the list of names for potential 2011 storms.
2011 Hurricane Names Released

Down Or Just Me Confirms If Websites Are Down (Or If It’s Just You)

Tiny single-use site Down or Just Me is a quick way to find out whether a website is truly down, or if the problem lies somewhere on your end.
Down Or Just Me Confirms If Websites Are Down (Or If It’s Just You)

The Most Common Regrets People Have On Their Deathbed

There may be no better way to learn about life than by listening to people who are facing death. A palliative nurse has posted the top five regrets people have in the last few weeks of their lives — lessons for us all now.
The Most Common Regrets People Have On Their Deathbed

How To Keep People From Seeing All Your Facebook Info

Facebook is great for connecting with others, but you probably don’t want to share all your news, photos, etc. with everyone you’re connected to on Facebook. Here’s a primer for Facebook beginners on organising friends into lists for more control over what’s shared.
How To Keep People From Seeing All Your Facebook Info

Family Friendly sites listed on Blackstump Australia Issue 11/2011

The latest issue of new Family Friendly sites listed on The Black Stump.
Family Friendly sites listed on Blackstump Australia Issue 11/2011

Find Out If Your Sony Information Was Leaked Right Here

Sony’s been hacked again, with over a million SonyPictures.com accounts lifted, containing vital personal information like home addresses. Is yours included? We’ve got an exclusive, easy database to check. Just enter your email address, and see if you’ve been compromised.
Find Out If Your Sony Information Was Leaked Right Here

Convert Video Into Mp3 Files

Many programs can be used to convert videos into mp3 format, so that the audio becomes accessible in a separate file. This can be helpful to turn music videos downloaded from YouTube into audio format, or a presentation that you have no time to watch but enough time to listen to. Video 2 MP3 is a free software program by Skwire that comes without an interface.
Convert Video Into Mp3 Files

Laptop Thief Gets Exposed by Hidden Security Camera App

Joshua Kaufman didn’t just sit back and watch when his laptop was stolen — he continued to watch it being stolen, days later. Yup, thanks to Hidden, an app that collects webcam pics and screenshots when a computer is stolen, Kaufman knows just what his MacBook thief looks like.
Laptop Thief Gets Exposed by Hidden Security Camera App

Video of waterspouts off Australia

Seen here is amazing video recorded yesterday of waterspouts off Australia's New South Wales coast. Waterspouts are a columnar vortex, often in the form of a tornado, occurring over a body of water. They're sometimes thought to be responsible for Fortean "falls," such as fish or frogs dropping from the sky onto dry ground.
Video of waterspouts off Australia

The World Health Organization, cell phones, and cancer—what's actually going on

From Boing Boing - Today, I was surprised to see posts popping up on Twitter implying that the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research into Cancer had declared radiation from cell phones to be a cancer risk. As you've read here before, and as sources like the National Cancer Institute have reported, the evidence linking cell phone use and cancer risk is actually pretty slim. So I was waiting to hear about some new study or analysis. Instead, it looks like this is really a story about context.
The World Health Organization, cell phones, and cancer—what's actually going on