Happy 11th birthday to our favourite search engine: Google! Google turned 11 today, at least that’s what the doodle on the front page said. Strangely, there’s no word on the blog, but the day’s still young. Anyway, happy birthday google!

>> Google (as if you didn’t know how to get there)

It’s nice to have a PCB  for your project, but what happens when you run out of room? Double sided PCBs, of course! And, as Instructables member tinygeek points out… it’s easier than you think!

>> How to make 2-sided Printed Circuit Boards (Instructables)

Are you a fan of the site? No? Ah, well…. um… this is kind of embarassing… isn’t it?? Um.. well anyway, visit Exploring Tech’s page on facebook at http://bit.ly/et-facebook

Web giant Google announced today its new Sidewiki project. Google sidewiki is a sidebar that you can enable whilst on any page. In this sidebar, you can comment on the page, add helpful insights, add relevant links etc. Whenever someone comes along with Google Sidewiki enabled, they can open the sidebar and see your comments on the page. Seems pretty neat, but how’s Google going to control the trollers? Either way, I’m sure they’ll figure out something…

>> Google Sidewiki Blog Post (Official Google Blog)
>> Download Sidewiki
>> Official Twitter Feed

Sometimes, there’s never enough room on your screen. I mean, how can there be? If I’m running a full screen web browser, there isn’t enough space to show system stats or email notifications. Well, that’s where Intel proves me wrong. Intel’s latest prototype is a laptop with four screens. The device, recently revealed at IDF, has 3 OLED touchscreens above the keyboard, allowing widgets and other stuff to be placed in view and interacted with. Plus, you can flick them up onto the main screen for a better look (video after the break). Unfortunately, we’re not likely to see it for a while yet, Intel says they’ve got a lot of refining to do. But I can’t wait!

>> Video: Intel’s four-screen laptop prototype hands-on (Engadget, video embedded below)
Read the rest of this entry »

Contrary to what you might think, DestroyTwitter isn’t a plan to bring down microblogging. No, DestroyTwitter is a cross-platform Twitter client designed to run on the Adobe AIR platform. And run well it does. Setup is a breeze, simply enter your Twitter username and password and you are immediately presented with a home screen not dissimilar in function to that of the Twitter homepage at first glance, but way more powerful once you get under the hood, and it looks better, especially since DestroyTwitter can be customized with themes. From the home tab you can tweet by opening the tweet panel. This simple panel is quite useful;  it can shorten links using a variety of services and  include photos. Plus there is a handy feature that allows you to shorten those slightly-too-long tweets. But, (to sound like and infomercial), that’s not all. DestroyTwitter includes Search, people search, the ability to follow people. Pretty much evrything you can do at Twitter’s homepage, and more. You will never have to visit twitter.com again.

DestroyTwitter is freeware and runs on Adobe AIR under Windows, Mac or Linux.

EDIT: The developer of DestroyTwitter has halted development. It is still a great twitter client, and is still available for download. Unfortunately, development stopped before a couple of cool features could be added. Exploring Tech recommends TweetDeck as a replacement for those who need more functionality.

>> DestroyTwitter (plus official twitter)

Twitter has always had an sms update feature, for those in the us and uk, at least. But until recently, the only way for us over here in Australia to update twitter is via the international number, wich can be pretty expensive. That’s where chime comes in. Chime is a twitter SMS service for Australians, and it’s free: all you pay for is the cost of sending a local sms. We’ll road test chime after the break, but first… here’s the links:

>> Chime (via Lifehacker) Read the rest of this entry »

Does the Graffiti Research Lab’s LASERtag project appeal to you, but you don’t have a webcam or a laser? Well, if you have a wacom tablet, you can still do some pretty cool light drawing stuff.

Jon Szymaniak decided he would have a crack at it, and threw together something not unlike LASERtag, except using his wacom tablet to draw on the screen.

>> Jon’s Tablet Assisted Graffiti (via Hack a day)

Need help learning Dreamweaver? Want to get that PowerPoint novice off your back? CustomGuide is here to the rescue with simple and easy to use ‘Quick Refrences’ for popular programs from Microsoft,  Apple,  Adobe and more. These guides have a nice an simple overview of the main interface, a walk through of main features and handy keyboard shortcuts.

>> CustomGuide Quick Refrences (via Lifehacker)

Recently, we posted about the xkcd book. Today it was released and for the first 24 hours, you can buy signed copies! Click through before it’s too late.

>> XKCD Store