Hacking your way to a better life

I love how the concept of hacking has changed so much over the past few years. I'm particularly taken with Hack Zine, a site the collects some of the best hacks on the web. Like Lifehacker, Hack Zine seeks out ways to make life easier, cheaper, and generally more fun.

Here are some hacks that I particularly like.

Using Google to view any page, anywhere

Most companies and schools employ proxy servers to filter unwanted sites so employees won't waste precious company resources surfing sites that the companies deem unproductive. While the use of proxy servers to block unwanted sites may be understandable in commercial cases, there are also companies that are overdoing it, banning almost all websites and creating a lot of inconvenience to their employees.

We DO NOT RECOMMEND that you use this method to surf porn at work. Via Consumerist.

Play Windows games on a Linux box

For a lot of of Linux devotees, gaming has always been the reason for keeping an extra Windows machine, so it's pretty interesting to see this barrier crumbling.

Tivo Hacks

If you're a hardcore DVR user you've probably spent some time collecting missed episodes of your favorite shows. But pretty soon that hard drive fills up and you have to make a decision between missing new shows and dumping old ones. With a little hacking, however, you never have to dump shows again. Just convert those old shows to MPEG format and either store them on your computer or burn them onto DVD's. (TiVo Series 2 Only)

Fire! Fire!

To make fire from a can of coke and a chocolate bar is actually quite easy, and you don't need any tools.

(Picture by Greg of My Hobo Soul)