The Best Ways To De-Stink Your Stuff 
In Memoriam: Our Favourite Apps And Services That Have Gone Belly Up 
How To Prepare For A Move Overseas 
From Saucy Pics To Passwords: How To Share Sensitive Information 
How Do IKEA's Prices In Australia Compare? 
New flybuys Earns Discounts Faster (But They're Not Good Discounts) Be kind to the environment with Aleutia’s 4.5 inch solar powered Linux computer, E1. E1 runs on 8 watts of power, has no moving parts and is completely silent. From the picture above, E1 looks like the James Bond of low priced Linux computers. It runs Puppy Linux, comes with an optional solar panel and an optional 10.4 inch monitor. Sadly, E1 carries a $400 price tag and crappy specs (2GB hard drive, 128MB RAM, 200MHz processor). However, E1′s portability and light footprint may be an early glimpse into the future of computing.
The E1 Desktop [via Gadgettastic]Could you survive on $US35,000 a year? How about if you had 5 children between the ages of 10 and 21? Apparently, one family in Arizona, known as America’s Cheapest Family, is able to do so. By planning carefully, organising a budget, shopping wisely, making sacrifices, and communicating, the family of seven is able to live well within its means without feeling particularly pressured to make ends meet. The key is to be determined, persistent, and to prioritise frugal living, because after all, it is a lifestyle choice.
8 Lessons I Learned from the Cheapest Family in the Nation [The Digerati Life]Yahoo! News reports that the upcoming release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 will bring a 10 percent performance boost. Vista who?
Get informative statistics about the day you entered the world, such as your age (in number of days, hours, and seconds), your zodiac sign, and more with strangely useful website dayofbirth.co.uk. If you’ve ever wanted to find out how many days it was until your next birthday, you can do so easily without whipping out the calendar and starting to count. The website also takes you to other enlightening sites that teach you more about your date of birth (noteworthy events, names of famous folks who have the same birthday, and the most popular song on the charts when you entered the world, among others) which is quite fun for those of you who like random bits of trivia.
dayofbirth.co.ukDoctors claim that fasting for up to 24 hours has its health perks: a lessened dependency on sugar, a smaller chance for diabetes, and lower blood pressure. The catch is that while you’re avoiding the food, you should still consume water during this partial fast. If fasting is not for you, limiting your calorie intake might work instead. The goal is to give your digestive system a rest and to prevent the creation of byproducts that the body doesn’t need.
Retune the Body with a Partial Fast [NPR]Pedometers are a great (and increasingly cheap) way to track your daily activity and set goals for yourself. Medical and fitness blogger R.L. Bates points to some of the real evidence behind the device’s usefulness and has a few suggestions on how to meet realistic goals while using one. Amongst the advice: It takes about six months to “lock in” a new >> behaviour Aim to do what is necessary to change your exercise behaviour permanently. Be prepared to dedicate yourself to your daily goal each day for a minimum of six months. If you do that, you are much more likely to maintain this goal permanently
Bates also posts a routine to help gradually increase and stick with step counts, making that holiday gift you didn’t know you wanted much more useful. Thanks Ryan! Photo by Glutnix.
Pedometers and Physical Activity [Suture for a Living]This week’s best posts include:Rebuild Your Mac with 20 Useful Downloads “You erased your hard drive to install Leopard, and now you’ve got to load your Mac up with all your essential software…” Top 10 Free Video Rippers, Encoders, and Converters “To have your favourite clips how you want them–whether that’s on your DVR, iPod, PSP or desktop–you need the right utility to convert ‘em into the format that works for you.” Homemade Halloween Costume Photo Gallery “Last week we put out a call for the best do-it-yourself Halloween costumes lifehackers could come up with, complete with instructions and images. As usual, you did not disappoint.” Turn Thunderbird into the Ultimate Gmail IMAP Client “If IMAP’s got you curious but you’re not sure what desktop application to use with Gmail, consider the extensible, fast, cross-platform and free Mozilla Thunderbird, our beloved Firefox’s little sibling.” Gmail Speeds Up, Improves Contacts “First IMAP support, and now a new version’s rolling out which includes message pre-fetching for speedier performance, a new contacts manager, and more keyboard shortcuts.” Get A First Class Ticket For Coach Class Prices “First class airplane tickets might be less expensive than you think.” Auto-Hide Your Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar “Love the bookmarks toolbar but only want it there when you need it? Reader Andy writes in with a tweak that makes the toolbar hide automatically, unless you mouse over it (like auto-hiding your Windows taskbar or Mac Dock.)” The Simplicity of Time Machine Compels You “If you’re running Leopard and you’ve got an external hard drive, you WILL back up your data, even if that wasn’t your intention when you bought the drive or plugged it into your Mac.” Turn Any Action into a Keyboard Shortcut “The free, open source scripting language AutoHotkey may not be one of the most powerful or popular programming languages on the planet, but that’s okay–it’s not just made for programmers.”
Weblog TheJobBored suggests setting up an SMS reminder of the Daylight Savings Time change to ensure you don’t forget to roll back the clock this weekend. The post recommends a site called TextMemos to set up quick and simple future texts to yourself. Just enter your number, select your cell provider, and set the date and time you want it delivered. Then set your message text (Roll back those clocks!) and submit the reminder. Alternatively, if you’ve got a friend or family member that’s notorious for forgetting, you can just as easily set up an SMS reminder for their number. While you’re at it, don’t forget to ready your gadgets and perform a few other DST to-dos.
TextMemos [via TheJobBored]If Wal-Mart’s recently released $200 PC sounds like a potentially great deal but you’re not sure about ditching your current operating system for the inexpensive, Linux-based Ubuntu box, head over to the developer’s web site and download the bootable gOS LiveCD (or rather DVD, at 728MB). The gOS operating system sports an emphasis on web applications, with desktop shortcuts to tonnes of Google Apps, Facebook, Wikipedia, and other webapps built directly into the desktop. If you’ve given gOS a try, let’s hear how you like it in the comments.
gOS [via Download Squad]US-centric: Text any question to mobile community Mosio and get answers sent back to your phone from other Mosio members. The success of the site is built on two assumptions: 1) That users want to answer your questions and will do so shortly after you ask it, and 2) that you don’t have a data plan and would rather send a quick text and let someone else find the best answer for your question. In testing the first condition, I was impressed to get my question (What is Lifehacker?) answered (Lifehacker is an advertising-supported weblog about life hacks and software which launched on January 31, 2005) in just a couple of minutes. Mosio seems like an idea that would work best for finding answers to questions for which you wouldn’t really know where to begin looking with something like Google SMS. Mosio is free to use, requires an email address to sign up. If you give it a test, let us know how it worked for you in the comments.
Mosio [via MakeUseOf]
