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) Vinegar is more than just the soulmate of salty chips, or so the Cool Tools blog would have you believe.
In fact, I started using a spray bottle containing 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water for cleaning for several good reasons – it’s environmentally friendly, good for getting out smells like cat pee (don’t ask) and it’s also gentle on delicate fabrics.
The Cool Tools blog has reviewed a book called Vinegar: Over 400 Various, Versatile, and Very Good Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of, and the reviewer included a handy list of his own favourite users of vinegar:
Clean the microwave by boiling a 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar until it steams up. Wipe clean. Add vinegar to a hand-pump compressed-air sprayer to kill weeds and grass growing in crevices in a patio and walkways. Make tomato sauceand other condiments last longer when the bottle is almost empty by adding a little vinegar and shaking. Spread a cloth soaked in vinegar over a price tag you want to remove and leave overnight.Got any other tips for using vinegar (or other environmentally friendly substances?) – leave ‘em in comments please.
Vinegar – how to cook, clean and live via Vinegar [Cool Tools]
Adam’s Hack Attack feature which explained how to Build a Hackintosh Mac for under $800 inspired the Uneasy Silence blog to Load OSX 10.5 Leopard onto ASUS’ mini-laptop, the eeePC. [via Gizmodo AU]
For those wary of using their credit card online, our mates at Gizmodo AU have written up the new Visa Virtual Prepaid (VCARD) – which works as a virtual debit card. You buy a card of the value you want (with a $5.50 set up fee) – and if you want, you only have to use it once and then ditch it.
“You can buy these online, but of course that defeats the point for many this is targeted toward. So you can buy at your nearest Mobil/Quix and then activate the details online. You get a card number, expiry date, and three-digit security code. All smartly delivered part online, part via SMS or email, for extra security.”
A similar concept is Bopo – a prepaid Visa card which you purchase and load with credit at any Bill Express newsagency. Tipster Kirk pointed this service out to us – and said it also lets you SMS money to other Bopo cards.
Thanks for the tip, Kirk!
When you’re just out of range of your mum’s neighbour’s Wi-Fi signal this over the holiday season, you might want to have the Wi-Fire Range Extender USB signal booster on hand. We haven’t tried it ourselves, but a poster at the Cool Tools web site says: I was in a remote Alabama campground and their little access point was perhaps a few hundred feet away. With the internal Wi-Fi adaptor in my Thinkpad (it’s Mac/PC compatible), no go. With the Wi-Fire aimed carefully I got a solid, workable signal. I just rotate it around until I get the best signal.
The Wi-Fire Range Extender will set you back 80 bucks, and looks like a stocking stuffer that could make the geek in your life very happy.
Wi-Fire Range Extender [Cool Tools]The Coding Horror blog has written up the art of ‘goating’ – or pulling pranks on your co-workers when they forget to lock their computers. To hear him tell it, it’s a “for their own good” prank-cum-security-reminder. He lists a few of the more gentle “reminders” you can use such as installing the ‘bluescreen of death screensaver’, replacing the desktop with a screenshot of the desktop (and hiding all the visible items on it), switching the mouse from right to left handed, using the video driver settings to rotate the display left, right or upside down, or switching the keyboard layout from QWERTY to Dvorak.
I particularly liked the Clippy parody applet (see picture) and the embarrassing group emails sent out promising to buy the whole office doughnuts, or telling them “I like oranges!”
Some of the ”goating” pranks mentioned were downright nasty and unproductive. But I bet if the CEO of your company drops by your desk to ask you why you like oranges so much, you’ll remember to lock your computer next time.
So have you pranked in the name of security, or been pranked? Details in comments please. :)
Don’t forget to lock your computer [Coding Horror]
Back in September we told you about Google Map’s website for the Australian election 2007. They’ve just updated the “Australian 2007 Election” feature in Google Maps. You can now click on any House of Representatives candidate to see their Google search results or their YouTube channel.
You can also see the location of polling booths in your electorate – which will be very handy on polling day!
Australia’s Election Map Redrawn [Official Google Blog]
Blogger Brett Kelly says you should stop wasting your callers’ time and shorten your voicemail greeting to the bare essentials—no music, no cutesy stuff, no obvious information like “I’m not available to take your call right now.” In the end, he recommends simply saying your name and phone number. While I’m just as cranky as he is about time-wasting greetings, that seems a bit too curt. What’s in your voicemail greeting? Let us know in the comments. (If long greetings drive you nutso, there are ways to skip long greetings and get right to the beep.)
How to Make Your Outgoing Voicemail Message Not Suck [The Cranking Widgets Blog]Facebook users, there’s a new Lifehacker page up, with some old school pictures posted like our original site design, our mascot’s picture, and more.
Windows only: The Giveaway of the Day web site’s offering the full-featured EverNote 2.2 desktop notes app—normally priced at $US50—for free today. Grab the download at Giveaway of the Day, install it and follow the instructions to activate the pay-for version for free. Only 12 more hours left on this one, so get it while the gettin’s still good. Here’s more on what you get with EverNote. Thanks, Amit!
EverNote [Giveaway of the Day]Two years ago, you expanded that 20 gigabytes to 200 gigabytes using Adam’s guide on how to install a new hard drive.
