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Lighting equipment is one of those categories of gadgets that can cost as much as your budget allows. If you’d prefer not to blow your life savings on some nice kicker lights, you can build some of your own for around $15 in materials.

How-to blog Man Made DIY details how to build a simple highlight or kicker light using a simple flood light and some wiring. The project is relatively straightforward and should be doable for anyone with even minimal experience with wiring cables.

How to Build Your Own DIY Photography Light for Under $15.00 | Man Made DIY

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Build Your Own Photography Lights For Under $15

Netflix is one of the few internet services that is hard to improve upon. For a small fee you can binge watch a huge library of movies and television shows in a slick interface on just about any device you own. This won’t stop us from trying, though. Here are some of the best ways to improve on an already great Netflix experience.

Use "My List" as a Shortcuts Bar

This isn’t so much of a tip as it is a paradigm shift. In August of last year, Netflix revamped the instant queue you’ve been building over the last half-decade into a feature called "My List" that adds a custom scrolling row of titles to your regular interface. The upshot to this is that now, in addition to saving items for later, you can use My List is an easy way to jump directly to your favorite shows. While this isn’t exactly a revolution, it does warrant revisiting your list if, like certain Lifehacker authors writing this sentence, you didn’t bother touching your cluttered instant queue for the five years prior to this change.

Sort Your List with a Userscript

Netflix may have repurposed the instant queue, but behind the scenes, it still functions largely the same. Fortunately, this means that older userscripts like Netflix Queue Sorter still work just fine. Installing this script gives you buttons to sort your queue based on ratings, year of release, availability, or you can shuffle them randomly. If you don’t want to use My List as a shortcuts bar, this is an excellent way to keep your list fresh.

Get Notified of New Content with Netflix USA

One of the most frustrating aspects of Netflix’s instant streaming library is how often it changes. Netflix occasionally sends you emails for new content it thinks you might be interested in, but if you want to discover content outside of that narrow scope, the Netflix USA blog keeps up with new arrivals to the Netflix streaming library and updates daily with information and links.

Search Better with AllFlicks

Netflix’ built in search options are okay if you know the title of the film you want to watch. Outside of that, though, search is pretty limited. AllFlicks provides much more powerful search criteria. You can narrow down results by the film’s year of release, show only movies, TV shows, or both and sort by ratings. You can choose specific search terms, but it’s not necessary if you’d prefer to just browse.

Add IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes Ratings with Netflix Rate

Netflix’ five star rating system is okay for personalizing preferences, but if you want better at-a-glance information, Chrome extension Netflix Rate adds both IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes ratings to the hover-over cards while browsing the site. You can click through either of these to go the movie’s page on their respective sites.

Get Better Suggestions with the Taste Preferences Survey

When you first create a Netflix account, you get the chance to rate a few items to help build a database from which you’ll get recommendations. If your account is older than the foundations of the Earth (or if you just want better suggestions), Netflix’ deeply hidden Taste Preferences survey can help refine the results Netflix gives you.

Utilize Keyboard Shortcuts

You’re reading Lifehacker, so clearly you love keyboard shortcuts, right? Well, Netflix has plenty of its own. In addition to hitting Spacebar to play/pause like every other video player on the planet except Windows Media Player (for some reason), Netflix has a host of keyboard shortcuts built into the player including fast forward, rewind, and mute. Check out this post for even more advanced shortcuts. Including one of the most notable examples…

Access Hidden Streaming Options

As we’ve highlighted before, Netflix has some super advanced options for streaming video in a hidden menu. You can access it on the desktop by pressing Shift+Alt+Left Click, or on the Xbox 360 and PS3 with the Konami code. Both menus provide secret options with varying options based on your platform. The PS3 allows you to deauthorize your device and swap accounts, while the Xbox 360 and PC incarnations of the menu let you see a wide range of A/V stats as well as manually adjust the streaming rate.

via Lifehacker
8 Tricks and Downloads to Make Netflix Even More Awesome

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Watch a fisherman catch a fish that gets stolen by a killer whale

It’s the day of hearts! And when you play the game of love, you either get ridiculously lucky or live the rest of your life miserable and alone. (No, we’re not projecting!) Whatever the state of your love life, Game of Thrones fans will have plenty to feel happy about with these awesome Valentine’s Day […]
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Brace Yourself: Game of Thrones Valentines Print Outs Are Coming!

Everyone brainstorms a little differently, but over on the MIT Sloan Management Review they’ve put together a seven step plan that should help make the brainstorming process more fruitful.

Different groups are always going to brainstorm a little different and every project is different, but the authors at MIT Sloan Management Review have a pretty simple gameplan everyone can follow:

1. Define the problem and solutions space: Basically, create boundaries and rules for your solutions so you don’t waste time thinking of solutions that aren’t feasible.
2. Break the problem down: Make the problem easier to tackle by breaking it into smaller parts using diagrams or mind maps.
3. Make the problem personal: Think about how the problem effects you personally.
4. Seek the perspectives of outsiders: Try and find as many people as possible who might have input and see what they have to say.
5. Diverge before you converge: Breed a little conflict into the discussion when you can. One way to do this is to have everyone write down their ideas before the meeting starts so everyone doesn’t rally around the first idea just to get out of the meeting quickly.
6. Create "idea resumes": An "idea resume" is a one-page document that breaks down the basics of a solution.
7. Create a plan to learn: Start designing a way to test your ideas and write out what you hope to learn from those tests.

The above seven steps certainly aren’t the only way to brainstorm, but they do provide a pretty solid foundation for work off of.

The Discipline of Creativity | MIT Sloan Management Review via INC

Photo by opensource.

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A Seven Step Plan for Effective Brainstorming

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