If there is one thing I hate more than AT&T (not joking) is dirty inkjet printer cartridges. They always dry up, and it costs over $35 to replace them. What if you cleaned them with WD-40? Blogger Bucky explains.

I got a brain-storm of an idea the other day and decided to try soaking the base of the cartridge in WD-40 to see if it would soften and clean the dried ink and holy crap – it worked!!! (I soaked it over-night and then wiped it off good before reinstalling it in the printer.)

I had to run the printer through three head cleaning cycles afterward, but it cleared the clogged nozzles and it is now working perfectly.

Given the $35+ it cost for new ink cartridges, this is a lifesaver; Especially if you’re trying to save for college. Enjoy!

Yet Another Use for WD-40 [The WVb via Lifehacker]

MAC ONLY – Okay, so it’d not that magical, but it sure is cool. Mac download MagiCal puts the calendar at your finger tips.

MagiCal is a FREE menu-based clock and calendar. It features a huge range of configuration options for how the time and date are displayed, and can operate either in conjunction with, or as a replacement for the built in system menu clock.

MagiCal is great for those times when you just want to know when the 29th of the month is, but don’t want to launch iCal. MagiCal is free and Mac OS X only.

MagiCal

Don’t you just hate it when you’re in the middle of a presentation and you need to jump a slide on the other end of the PowerPoint? Not to fear, there’s a way to do without anyone noticing that’s what you did.

You can skip to specific slides typing the number of the slide and pressing Enter. Powerpoint immediately moves to that slide without any visual disruption of the presentation.

If you think you might need to do this for your next presentation, then I recommend printing your powerpoint in slide view so you know just where to go.

MS Office Tip: Jump Within A PowerPoint Presentation [Lifehacker]

I just got an email my new iPod Touch has shipped today, September 26th – That’s two days early. Guess they’re more ready then they originally thought. Review is to come next week.

Thought I’d share. As you were…

Earlier this week, Apple said they were going to “brick” any unlocked iPhone. While I never have condoned unlocking an iPhone, I know there some who did and would like to re-lock their phone. Fortunately, MacNN has a solution.

The unlock hacks are not undone by a full software store; the re-lock process is still in flux and comes with the appropriate warnings to users until finalized, allows users to restore their phone, so Apple’s forthcoming update — due later this week — does not render it inoperable: “It is believed the above proceedure will relock your iPhone and prevent it from being made permanently unusable by the upcoming firmware update.

As always with something like this, I cannot be resonsible for any actions you take to re-lock your phone. However, I do wish the best of luck. The instructions can be found on the MacNN page.

Read

If you ask any tech guy how to use two or more computers with only one Keyboard and Mouse, they’ll tell you to get a KVM, which run around $50. Why spend that money when you do it with software for free. Synergy does just that, well almost. You can use one keyboard and mouse, but still need multiple monitors.

Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Furthermore, it synchronizes screen savers so they all start and stop together and, if screen locking is enabled, only one screen requires a password to unlock them all.

So how does it work? Synergy (though TCP/IP networking) uses one computer as a server – that’s the computer that will be sharing its keyboard and mouse. The rest of your computers – the ones you want to control – will need to be set up as Synergy clients.

What’s great is how you can customize it. For example, if you’ve got your MacBook running to the left of your Windows PC, you can set up Synergy so that moving your mouse to the left of your Windows monitor will seamlessly jump your mouse across virtual space where it lands safely on your Mac. Whichever desktop currently holds your mouse is also the desktop to which your keyboard’s keystrokes will be sent.

I’ve been using this for some time. Before I upgraded to my bigger desk, I hosted synergy on my MacBook, and, through Synergy, I used my MacBook’s trackpad and keyboard to use Windows. Now that is cool.

I highly recommend giving this a try. All you need is the Synergy installer for Windows, a program called SynergyKM for the Mac, and the platform independent version for Linux (Links at the end). It’s pretty easy to setup, but if you need help I shall forward you to Adam Pash’s in depth article on setting up Synergy.

Synergy Installer [Synergy Sourceforge Site]
SynergyKM [Installer for Mac OS X]
Platform Independent Version [For Linux]
Hack Attack: Control multiple computers with a single keyboard and mouse [Lifehacker]

Hello again – Time to get rid of some of your Monday grogginess with some news.

– The Pirate Bay sues the media companies. Talk about a flip.
– $30 Million losses from file sharing? Nope- they made that number up.
– Digg launches new features – Digg is now the coolest ever.
– USB 3.0 is coming, but how soon?
– Apple to come out with another MacBook model, possibly thinner than the rest.
– Apple has fessed up to their faulty iTouch screens.
– O2 in the UK get the iPhone. So does Orange in France and T-Mobile in Germany.
– New version of Gmail is being tested. When will it launch, nobody knows.
– And making everyone happy, Microsoft owes big time.

That’s it for this weeks news. As always, stay tunes for more great tech content to come!

Trigger GREEN Traffic Lights! – Watch more amazing videos here

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m an impatient person – I can’t stand waiting. I especially hate waiting for a green light at an intersection. While people in the past have illegally hacked the stoplight system, I’d rather beat it.

So if you’ve got some spare time this weekend, give this a try. Get some Neodymium Magnets and mount them underneath your vehicle. This will trigger the light. How, you ask? Just watch the above video. Enjoy!

[Metacafe via Digg]

Ah, yes, time for a cell phone tip. Today’s tip involves the contacts on your phone. It seems that most people have close 60 or more numbers in their phone, but, more than likely, only use 5-7 on a regular basis. What do you do? Put the ones you use at the top.

Now, before you think I’m retarded and need psychiatric care, there is a way to do that. All of your contacts have a name, I hope. What you can do is put a space in front of the name. This will put it at the top of the list. Do this to all the ones you use on a regular basis, such as what I did in the image above (I know the pic sucks; I’ll do better next time). This allows easy access to people you call the most.

If you want to take this a step further, you can put in a divider before you go to the rest of your contacts (like what I did above). To do this, just put in dashes or something for the name, and you your email address as the contact. If your phone doesn’t let you use a email, use your own phone number.

Yea, I know that why they invented speed dial, but this is way cooler.

Whether you’re looking to buy a new house or you just hate that guy next door who blasts Toby Keith full blast at 3am (bring it on, country lovers), RottenNeighbor is a site you need to check out.

It doesn’t matter if you are moving down the street or all the way across the county, we are here to help you find and discover bad neighbors no matter where you are thinking about relocating. When you are going to make one of the biggest decisions in your life we are here to help you make a choice you won’t regret later when you might discover a bad neighbor living right next door. We show you detailed maps of states, counties, cities and neighborhoods all searchable by ZIP code.

RottenNeighbor is 100% user driven, so your info counts. Keep in mind, that this is a public site, so not all complaints may be legit. That is mind, this may be useful the next time you move.

RottenNeighbor [via Lifehacker]