Sure, there’s tons of IP address sites out there. SimpIP is like the rest, except that there are no ads, no graphics, no nothing- just your IP address.

Created by editor of WireCatcher and good friend Jake Jarvis, SimpIP displays your IP address in text in the upper left hand corner. That’s it. Now that’s what I call simple.

SimpIP

One of the great features of Mac OS X is it’s Unix Terminal. One very useful command in the terminal is the “Locate” command. This will allow you to find any file on your hard drive within seconds, faster than Sherlock can find it. It is actually more like Spotlight. You can just type in any word, and it’ll find all files with that word in it. Even more, since Mac OS X is built on Linux, you can use the locate command in Linux as well.

Locate with Terminal

As I mentioned, the “Locate” command, in sense, is like Spotlight. For example, if you pull up terminal and type in “locate jake”, it lists all of the files that contain the word “jake”. Obviously, since “Jake” is my name, pretty much every file on my system will show up. If you wish to take this further you can type in “locate jake*”. This will locate all the files that start with the word “Jake”. In my case (as shown to the right), none of the files start with “Jake”.

Keep in mind you’ll want to keep this database up to date. This can be done by going to terminal and typing in “su updatedb”. This will update the database, allowing the locate command to find files within seconds.

Locator”
If you’re not the type who likes to mess with the terminal, then maybe “Locator” is for you (Screenshot at the top of the post). This Mac OS X freeware program by Sebastian Krauss is a graphical interface to the locate command. Just like you would in terminal, just enter in the word or part of the file name you are looking for, and Locator will find the files, just like in terminal, just in a graphical interface. You can even update the database from Locator as well.

The Locate Command is a useful tool that I think all Linux/Unix users should use. If you’re on Mac, Locator along with the Locate Shell Command is the thing the find any file you need, fast.

Locator 0.7.3 [Sebastian Krauss]

Just like every year, the most exciting part of Thanksgiving for some is the deals on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Last year, I came across a site that listed all of the deals from all this ads. This year, I plan to do the same.

This year’s killer deals include Panasonic 42″ Plasma TV for $999.99 from Best Buy, A Dell Laptop w/ 15.4″ Display for only $499 shipped direct from Dell, and a Panasonic MiniDV Camcorder for $268.76 from Wal-Mart.

All of these, and many more deals can be found online. And if you don’t want to get up and shop, people watching is always fun. Happy Thanksgiving!

Black Friday Ads

I’ve mentioned the Zune, I’ve seen it in Best Buy, I even despise the Zune. But I’m mentioning this hack (and this is truly the definition of a hack) of Microsoft’s Zune (iPod Knock-off) simply because I find it quite intriguing.

So if you took the plunge and bought a Zune (I pity you), there is indeed a way to set your Zune up as a hard drive. Turns out it’s just a regedit hack. Though there is no letter, it does show up in “My Computer” and you can drag and drop files.

1. Make sure your Zune is not plugged in and your Zune software isn’t running
2. open up regedit by going to the start menu and selecting “run”. Type regedt32 and hit “OK”
3. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Enum\USB\
4. Search for “PortableDeviceNameSpace”. This should be contained in the Vid_####&Pid_####\########_-_########_-_########_-_########\Device Parameters within the above …\USB\ The ##’s listed here will be numbers and letters specific to your Zune
5. Change the following values: * EnableLegacySupport to 1 * PortableDeviceNameSpaceExcludeFromShell to 0 * ShowInShell to 1
6. Plug in your Zune, and make sure the Zune Software starts up.
7. Hopefully at this point you can open up “My Computer” and browse your device, though it does NOT show up as a drive letter.

Just like that, your Zune is now worthy of an iPod (which is $.99 cheaper). Okay, not quite, but at least you can more use out of it. Hack away!

How to copy data off your Zune [Phaleux via Gizmodo]

Back in the day, I did a lot of trial and error designing with the site (when I was working with word). However, I would have to set it up, then upload it to Geocities, then go back and fix. This, however, would have been nice, had I been running OS X.

What I’ve found today, is a way to set up a .dev domain name on your Mac for local developmemt.

1. First, fire up terminal and type in: sudo pico /etc/hosts
This will give you something like this screenshot.
2. Next, you’d want to type in: 127.0.0.1 yourdomain.dev
This basically tells your browser that yourdomain.dev should point to localhost and not try to search for it elsewhere.
3. After typing in that, you’ll want to save that file (Control+X). Keep Terminal open though.
4. Now we need to edit the httpd.conf file for Apache. For me, this is located in /private/etc/httpd/ though your setup could vary. Open up the file in your favorite code editor and do a quick search for “NameVirtualHost”. Make sure it’s not commented out. If it’s comment out, uncomment it out. If it’s not there, then add it. Either way, you should have a line with this: NameVirtualHost 127.0.0.1
5.Below that, we’ll add a VirtualHost rule to tell our yourdomain.dev where to point to.

ServerName yourdomain.dev
DocumentRoot “/Users/UserName/Development/yourdomain”

The DocumentRoot needs to be set to wherever your development folder is for whatever you are working on.
6. Finally, we need to save the file and then restart Apache. Restart Apache within Terminal by typing in something like sudo apachectl graceful (depending on your setup).

After restarting Apache, you should be good to go! Fire up your browser of choice and type in your new development domain and you should see your main index file!

Cool, uhu? Of course I won’t be able to try it out until tonight, but it’s a nice, neat trick if you’re someone who works on websites a lot.

How To Setup Development Domains On OS X [The Apple Blog via Digg]

Looking for a simple way to eject your drives? Ejector can help.

Ejector adds an Eject icon to the Mac OS X menu bar. From it you can eject any disks, e.g. an iPod, a CD, a DVD, an USB Key and even a .dmg or a hard disk (including external ones). You can then safely disconnect them from your mac.

If you only need to eject one disk, dragging to the trash might be easier. But being able to selectively eject disk images or get rid of the lot of them in one swift click is nice. Ejector is free and is available for Max OS X only, perfect for my MacBook that’s going to arrive later this week.

Ejector [Jeb-Soft]

One thing that sets one computer from another is it’s desktop wallpaper. As always, Flickr is here to help you find one.

The Wallpapers (1024×768 minimum) Flickr photo group has over 11,202 photos from over 2,542 members. I’ll admit, I don’t go digging through mass collections of photos, but this collection does have some interesting ones.

So if you’re in need a refreshing your desktop, the Flickr Wallpapers group can help. And in case you’re wondering, that is my desktop shown in the pic above.

The Wallpapers (1024×768 minimum) [Flickr]

Want to charge your new 2G iPod shuffle without having to haul around the dock? iPodFun.de can help.

They recently posted a step by step tutorial on how to make your own USB cable for your iPod Shuffle. The tutorial offers a great diagram on how to wire it, which is good, considering the entire article is in German.

But regardless of whether you can speak it or not, this tutorial will help. Especially if you have the bent clip issue, as reported last week.

DIY: iPod Shuffle Cable [via TUAW]

Looking for a way to transfer files between two computers without a disk? DropB0ks may be able to help you out.

DropBoks was created by a small team of people who are passionate about making web applications that don’t suck.

Seriously. There are too many web apps out there that are bloated with features and are difficult to use. Our philosophy: SIMPLE IS BETTER. We are fanatical about usability and believe that the interface should never get in the way of what the user is trying to accomplish.

That said, DropBoks is an alternative to a flash drive, provided the school doesn’t block the site.

DropBoks

Weather plays such an important aspect on your day. It also helps to get it fast. Lifehacker reader Jay recent wrote in on shortcut he discovered to get your weather deatails in a quick manor.

The quickest way I know to get a weather forecast is this: in your address bar, just type: weather.gov/12345
where “12345″ is your zip code.

Another handy way to get weather is plug weather 11215 (or any city name will work, too) into Google or Yahoo for a 3-4 day forecast, but the National Weather Service provides a LOT more information (and more accurate info, as well).

Quickie weather URL [Lifehacker]