Flybridge Dock Adapter Makes Old Apple Docks Lightning-Compatible

Whether you plan on upgrading to one of the new iPhones or iPods announced tomorrow or you already have a device with a lightning cable, you don't have to buy a new dock if you've got an old one. Flybridge created a little adapter that turns your old iPod 30-pin dock into a lightning-compatible one. Simply take your existing 30-pin dock and lightning adapter, connect them, then slide on the Flybridge adapter. This will make your dock actually hold your iPhone up rather than connect it with a lot of potential wobbling. While this solution could be a bit cheaper, the Flybridge adapter saves you from buying an entirely new dock. Flybridge Dock Adapter ($15) | Flybridge

Make Your Own Dissolving Laundry Detergent Tablets

Those little detergent tablets that you toss in the wash while the machine fills are great—you always have just the right amount for a load. Problem is, they can be expensive, especially from name brands. Here's how to make your own—complete with stain remover and fabric softener—for a fraction of the cost. You'll need a few ingredients to make this one happen, but each of the ingredients serves a different purpose, from cleaning your clothes to fighting stains to softening the fabric. Grab a mixing bowl, a grater, a cookie sheet or other flat sheet pan, some parchment paper, and some measuring spoons. From there, you'll need some washing soda (about 1 1/2 cup), some Fels-Naptha or any other bar-style laundry soap (1/2 cup), some epsom salts (2 tbsp), hydrogen peroxide (3 tbsp), vinegar (1/4 cup), and a little essential oil (15-20 drops), just to add a little fragrance. Dry team first. You'll grate the bar soap into the mixing bowl, then add the washing soda and epsom salts. Then add the peroxide and stir the mixture up. Add the vinegar next, and then a few drops of essential oil. Once everything is mixed up and incorporated nicely, you should have a mixture the consistency of wet sand. Scoop it out onto the cookie sheet into dollops, and spritz it with a little water and vinegar. Then let it dry overnight. Once they're completely dry, you can store them in a jar, plastic baggie, or a small box—then pop one in the wash whenever it's time to do the laundry. If you have full containers of each of the ingredients, you could easily make dozens of these—way more than the recipe calls for—and get away without buying conventional detergent for months.

How to Burn More Calories Through the Day -Without Even Noticing-

It’s amazing to me how easy it is to forget to move. This year was the first time in about five years that I found myself gaining weight. It wasn’t a lot, just five pounds over six months or so, but it was strange for me since I didn’t think I was doing anything different. I write and think about healthy living all the time, and I absolutely love the food I eat. I no longer crave sugar, and avoiding it isn’t hard. If anything I have eaten healthier than ever during this time, since I started working at home and control 100% of my meals. I’ve been eating the same or better quality food than I always have, and have even improved on my mindful eating techniques. What Gives? I didn’t think the problem was exercise, since I still go to the gym 4-6 days a week. My workouts have actually gotten better, and I’ve noticed welcome improvements in several aspects of my physique (thank you kettlebell!). I wasn’t upset about how I looked, I had just gotten slightly larger and didn’t know why. Then about six weeks ago I figured it out: I had stopped walking. When I was still in my PhD program I had a substantial walk to work, at least a mile each way if I took the campus shuttle, and about 2.5 miles each way if I walked the whole distance (I did this rarely, but tried to squeeze it in when I could). I also worked in the lab, running back and forth between rooms and up and down stairs to get equipment. Though I came home each evening and worked on [my blog] Summer Tomato until the wee hours of the morning, I was not sedentary. Even during my brief stint in the corporate world after graduation I had a walking commute to work. But after I quit in January I just stayed at home writing. At first I had a standing desk/table I was using, but logistics and a problematic elbow forced me to move to the coffee shop across the street where most of my work gets done now. This sedentary shift correlates exactly with when I noticed my pants getting tighter. What’s crazy to me is that this amount of exercise seems so inconsequential it doesn’t even register in my brain until months after the change has occurred (did I mention I was still working out almost every day?). And it's not like I never think about this stuff, I noticed when I first started walking that I effortlessly dropped weight. How could I forget that non-exercise activity (NEAT) is so important? It’s easy to forget, but this is good news. It means that it is not a chore to burn more calories—in fact, you'll hardly notice. All you need to do is make an effort to be a little more active throughout the day, and work to build more activity into your daily routine. Get Moving To solve my problem, I turned to my puppy Toaster. He needs to get out and walk a few times a day, so I thought why not improve both of our lives by making a daily pilgrimage to the bigger, better park that’s about a mile from the house instead of the smaller, dirtier park that is closer and more convenient? He gets more exercise and behaves better, I get my walk in, and we both have more fun. Win-win. I’m happy to report that my pants are fitting better again and I’m back down to my normal weight. If you don’t have a dog, there are plenty of other ways to move more. Avoid elevators and escalators, walk to lunch or between floors in your building, do chores more enthusiastically at home, and park further away in the parking lot. Just standing up more can make a difference. These things add minuscule amounts of time to your tasks but add up significantly for your health. Unlike structured, high-intensity exercise, walking and other low-intensity movements don’t make you hungrier. There’s good evidence that increasing your daily activity can burn hundreds of extra calories each day and may be one of the most effective ways to impact your energy balance (i.e. burn more without eating more). This is not true of more formal exercise, which tends to make people hungrier. Importantly, non-exercise activity correlates with body weight in obese as well as normal weight individuals, so everyone can benefit from extra movement. Even if you already work out regularly you should still strive for additional daily activity. Amazingly, high-intensity exercise doesn’t lower your inclination toward NEAT, but raises it. In one study, scientists measured NEAT three days before and three days after overweight individuals performed either moderate or high-intensity exercise. There was no measurable change in NEAT until the third day after exercise, when it increased 17% after moderate activity and 25% after intense activity. That’s impressive. When you’re as busy as I am, it’s easy to make excuses about why extra effort is impossible. But adding a little extra movement to your normal, daily activities is far and away the easiest way to lose weight and improve your health, so why not? I’ve also found a substantial meditative value in incorporating more physical activity. Several of my most complex problems have been solved during my walks and I’ve been plowing through podcasts and audiobooks, which I swear makes me smarter (I’m currently loving The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore). Your brain truly appreciates a break from the screen. Ironically, it took noticing that I was “reading” less to make me examine what was different in my life—I realized I was listening to fewer audiobooks because I was walking less, and put 2 and 2 together. Problem solved. It’s easy to be lazy and just wait for the elevator with everyone else, even though you know the time it saves you is insignificant. But today I hope I’ve convinced you that it’s worth resisting that urge and making an effort to be more active. Try making it a game or competing with your friends using pedometers like the FitBit for extra motivation.

SimpleNote Comes to Android, Offers Fast, Syncing Text Notes on the Go

Android (4.0+): Simplenote, our favorite syncing note taking app for the iPhone, is updating all of its services, and they're starting with an official app for Android phones and tablets. The app offers the speed and simplicity you've come to expect from Simplenote, along with search and seamless sync. If you're already a Simplenote user, just log in to see your notes. If you're not, you can register from the app. If you're not familiar with the service, Simplenote's goal is to give you a way to create simple, quick, text notes that are synced across multiple devices. It's a great way to take notes in meetings, in class, or anywhere else on your Android phone, iOS device, Kindle, or on the web. You can make your notes as long or short as you like, search them by keyword, organize them by tag, filter out ones you don't want to see, and more. Up to this point, the best Simplenote client for Android has been Flick Note, which is also fast and free and incorporates Simplenote's features. Now you have the option of an official app. It's not the only app out there though—after all, you could just as easily use Google Keep, Evernote and its many competitors, or just a text file stored in Dropbox. Regardless, if you're a Simplenote fan, this is good news. Hit the link below to give it a try.

Movievisor Finds Films You Might Like, Shows Where You Can Watch Them

Most movie recommendation services are crap. There, I said it. Movievisor, however, actually does a pretty good job of giving you ideas of what to watch next based on one movie you like. And that's just the start. Movievisor recommends movies that have a decent chance of appealing to you based on thee movie you select, rather than simply returning the top rated films in roughly the same genre. As a bonus, individual movie pages aggregate ratings from Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, and Metacritic (meta Metacritic?), and list everywhere you can watch it including Amazon, Vudu, and Netflix. The service is new and the recommendation algorithms could still use some fine-tuning (Hellboy seems to show up for everything), but if you're looking for new movies to watch, it's hard to beat.

Use Paying Bills as An Opportunity to Practice Gratitude

Most of us hate paying bills. It's the worst part of our financial lives: shelling out all that hard-earned cash. However, this may be the best time to practice that incredibly difficult concept: gratitude. As finance blog Get Rich Slowly points out, every bill you have, no matter how high or how stressful, is indicative of something you either have or will receive. Sure, you earned it and it's yours by the sweat of your brow, but you still have it: a home, an education, a car, even a smartphone. They're all things that enrich your life: I don’t remember where I heard this, but I love the idea of renaming bills “Invoices for Blessings Already Received.” Any time we have debt, we’re simply repaying someone for something of value that we have already received. So instead of looking at your credit card or loan statements with dread, why not get into gratitude? Go through and list out all of the blessings that you’re still paying for. Perhaps it was a wonderful family vacation that, though you couldn’t pay for it in cash at the time, you’re still enjoying the memories from. Maybe it was your college education, medical procedures, or furniture that you’re using and enjoying today. It might sound hokey and a little bit cheesy, but gratitude should probably already be part of your daily routine. Taking a moment while paying your bills to appreciate what you have in life will do wonders not only in making the checks less miserable to write, but also in making you generally happier as a person.

"Creativity Is a Numbers Game"

For decades, reseachers have been trying to uncover how the creative mind works and how people can become more innovative. This quote from psychologist and author R. Keith Sawyer offers an answer. In a great interview with Time's Francine Russo, Sawyer reminds us that creativity isn't about luck, inherent creative genes, or special eureka moments, but, rather, hard work and habits. His advice: Take risks, and expect to make lots of mistakes, because creativity is a numbers game. Work hard, and take frequent breaks, but stay with it over time. Do what you love, because creative breakthroughs take years of hard work. Develop a network of colleagues, and schedule time for freewheeling, unstructured discussions. Most of all, forget those romantic myths that creativity is all about being artsy and gifted and not about hard work. They discourage us because we're waiting for that one full-blown moment of inspiration. And while we're waiting, we may never start working on what we might someday create. Also, remember to take breaks and the three B's—bathtub, bed, and bus—where our best ideas tend to jump out at us.