Clean your grill in your oven

Reader Lochlan writes in with this end-of-summer tip:

Fall has arrived here in Madison, Wisconsin, and it’s time to clean a summer’s worth of goo from my outdoor grill. I have a propane model with a bunch of small parts, in addition to two grates. I scrape the big clumps off (otherwise when you cook it you get a lot of smoke) and then I put all the parts in my oven and set it to the magical “self-clean” setting. The oven bakes everything at a really high temperature (900 degrees on mine) until there is nothing but carbon lightly clinging to your grill parts. Let everything cool down and Voila! Clean grill (and oven).

Having done a less-than stellar job keeping my grill spick-and-span after a summer’s worth of grilling, the notion of tossing my grill’s grates into the oven now is an inviting alternative to the scraping and washing by hand I did at the beginning of this summer. — Adam Pash

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One phone number to rule them all

GrandCentral is a brilliant new web app that lets you consolidate all of your phone numbers into one number, meaning someone can call you on your GrandCentral phone number and all of your phones (cell phone, work phone, home phone) will ring. And then it gets interesting.

If you don’t want every one of your phones ringing each time someone calls your free GrandCentral number, you can set rules by friends, family, work, and others, defining where the calls should be directed. When a user leaves a message, you can listen to it online or directly on your phone. The remaining set of features on GrandCentral are a little mind-blowing, in that “I’d never thought of that, but how am I now living without it?” sort of way.

When you pick up a call that’s been forwarded with GrandCentral, you can choose to answer it, send it to voicemail (which will be done automatically if you don’t answer), or send it to voicemail and listen in on the message as it’s being left in real time (just like you’re listening to someone leave a message on an answering machine). You can interrupt a “ListenIn” message at any time and join the conversation by pressing star (*).

If you’re on a call and you decide that you want to record your conversation, just hit 4 at any time. You can also record personalized greetings based on contact groups and upload your own MP3s to be played in place of your ring.

All of this can be done with GrandCentral’s free account, though there are a few limitations to the free account (none of which severely hinders the service). As you can tell, after spending the morning playing around with it, I’m pretty impressed with this service. The only problem I’ve had with GrandCentral so far is that making calls from the online interface (which, similar to Jajah, connects to your phone, then the phone of the person you’re calling); it seems like a simple part of the functionality, but who knows – maybe I’m doing something wrong (I’m not).

I’m not ready to tell all of my contacts to start calling my GrandCentral number just yet, but I may in time. If you give it a try, let us know what you think about it in the comments. Thanks Nick! — Adam Pash

GrandCentra [via TechCrunch]

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diggNation Meets South Park

Hi all you diggNation freaks!

Using the online South Park creation tool, I whipped up Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht on the diggNation set! What beer are they drinking?!

First, I went to one of the latest video podcasts from diggNation. I stopped at frames with certain facial expressions of Alex and Kevin. Then, one by one I created the characters, background, couch (had to seem two together since it was cropped), table and laptops. I had to add a drop shadow to the characters because the bottles were blending into the background. Anyway I thought the diggNation fan base might enjoy the image. Go to the online studio and make your own South Park scenes (link to original story on digg if you want to make your own SouthPark characters). All base images created with online studio at http://www.sp-studio.de/

If you want to check out the story and comment on digg.com, click here. Not a digg user? Sign up today at digg.com

Update: The story made the front page of digg.com tonight! Also it is number one for number of hits in digg’s Design section! Thanks for all the comments and keep pushing the story so the image can appear on a diggNation podcast in the future!

ANOTHER UPDATE: The story diggNation Meets SouthPark at digg.com has made it to the diggNation 64 episode. Thanks to all of you who voted for my story!

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Apple Unveils Box Codenamed iTV

What you will not read here is a general news byte, rewriting Apple’s press release. What you will read here is why this has the potential to be the most revolutionary product from Apple. Ever.

On September 12, 2006, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced an upgraded iPod® line, iTunes® 7, and an upcoming product codenamed iTV, a first in Apple history since products are usually announced and then immediately available at the Apple Store online (or later that same day). The presentation shows the iTV to be self-powered, 802.11 wireless (no specification given yet), with options for composite video in or HDMI, the new standard for HDTVs. Steve Jobs goes on to explain the iTV’s purpose for playing media — stored on your Mac or PC — wirelessly. He presented a slide of the hardware diagram, showing the modem, 802.11 access point, Mac (or PC), iPod and now iTV. What he didn’t show was the software pieces of the puzzle. In my opinion, this will be the real story.

There is a bigger picture at work at Apple that’s not being discussed… yet. If your television can now play movies from your Mac or PC wirelessly via the iTV, then shouldn’t QuickTime on your Mac or PC now be able to play television programs wirelessly via the iTV? And if the device does work both ways, wouldn’t it make sense to have remote access to all of your media — movies, trailers, music, podcasts, etc.via the Front Row interface? And if Apple does eventually sell an iPhone that syncs to your Mac or PC, wouldn’t it also make sense to have an app on it that could call into your network and view your media, say an app called QuickTime Mobile?

Take a look at Slingbox™ from SlingMedia. Do you see any reason why the Apple’s iTV couldn’t have the same functionality, and more? QuickTime Player and QuickTime Remote on your Mac or PC? QuickTime Mobile on your iPhone?

The only hardware piece of the puzzle missing from Steve’s diagram is the iPhone. But the software diagram is what I look forward to seeing when this product finally makes it to market.

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