The Best Ways To De-Stink Your Stuff 
In Memoriam: Our Favourite Apps And Services That Have Gone Belly Up 
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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) Free note-taking web application Springnote offers a method of jotting down thoughts and organizing projects that require more than just a little text. Its markup-friendly text editing resembles a TiddlyWiki in some ways, but the Ajax-y interface allows you to drag and drop pictures, import and export files in nearly any handy format (HTML and Word docs included), and there’s a wealth of nice-looking templates for creating to-do lists, calendars, and the like. All the now-standard features, like 2GB of file storage and collaboration, are there, along with a growing number of mashups utilizing Twitter, Firefox, and other tools. Springnote requires a free sign-up to use, but OpenID users can log in with their existing accounts.
Springnote [via Download Squad]Real Simple has a pretty extensive guide posted for doing a better job at storing your holiday decorations—be they big, fragile or just hard to stash away. Not only do they suggest using simple household materials, one tip in particular solves two problems at once, especially for home office workers: Instead of throwing away used gift wrapping and tissue paper, run it through a paper shredder and use the fluffy strips as packing filler when you’re putting away your decorations
Neat hack, and it saves you the cost of bubble wrap. How do you pack away your decorations once the gifts are all opened? Share your storage space secrets in the comments.
Storing Holiday Decorations [Real Simple]The Workers’ Edge blog at CNET posts a handful of shortcuts and tweaks for Firefox and Internet Explorer, some of which we’ve covered here before, but the author points out a Firefox configuration tip that can be a real help to browsers of JavaScript-powered web sites. Using Firefox’s about:config dialog (by entering that into the address bar), type in the following: dom.disable_window_open_feature
From there, you can choose exactly which features show up on file uploaders, options dialogs, and other script-launched windows. For a more graphical and explanatory route into Firefox’s guts, check out the Configuration Mania extension.
Boost your productivity in Firefox, IE [CNET Blogs]The latest Mozilla Labs project, Weave, aims to sync bookmarks, passwords, and other browsing tools across systems, and even across browers. For now, Firefox 3 Beta 2 adopters can try it as an experimental extension. [via]
Windows’ “Recent Programs” list, the one that puts big shortcut icons in your Start Menu, can be helpful, but it can also be a redundant collection of links to the programs you already launch from elsewhere. But throw a few lines into the Registry Editor and you can prevent certain programs from ever showing up in that box again. After launching the Registy Editor (run “regedit” from the “Run” or “Start Search” boxes), here’s how: Browse to the ‘HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ Applications’ key on the left pane. Here, select the sub-keys for the applications that you do not want to appear on the start list. Finally, right-click anywhere on the right pane of the Registry Editor and select ‘New | String Value’. Overwrite the name suggested by Windows with ‘NoStartPage’.
After a restart, your unwanted programs don’t appear, leaving only convenient semi-used shortcuts. Might also be handy for keeping the boss from knowing about your growing FreeCell mastery. As with any registry hack, be sure to back up your entire registry and go slowly.
Preventing Specific Programs From Appearing On Start Menu’s Recent Program List [Techlicious.tv]The free cross-platorm image editor GIMP can do a whole lot with images on its own, but its extensible nature lets it do much more, from goofy transformations to custom algorithms. Technology blog techZilo offers a handy list of more than 40 free plug-ins that cover tools many photography enthusiasts (noise reduction, red eye removal) and web designers (anti-aliasing, “save for web” functionality) would especially find useful. The plug-ins should be easy to install on Linux and Mac systems, and a few offer pre-compiled Windows versions. For help getting your plug-ins working, check out the official documentation.
Top 40+ GIMP plugins [techZilo via The Linux Tutorial]Two years ago, we reviewed the top underrated apps of 2005, and many of them are now a lot more mainstream.
Sizing up a new monitor or television these days involves balancing way more than just inch counts—there are widescreen models, display ratios, and other factors that make simple size comparisons difficult. Enter Display Wars, a free web utility that lets you compare display sizes for televisions, monitors, and projection units in simple coloured rectangles and mathematical comparisons. You’ll have to know a little bit about the units you’re comparing, most importantly the aspect ratio, and it won’t tell you much about resolutions and densities, but it’s a good way point on the path to a better view.
Display Wars [via MakeUseOf.com]Rushing to finish your tasks before the workday completes? Two years ago, Lifehacker alum Keith Robinson shared his three-step guide on how to avoid “Rush Hour”.
A diet rich in garlic can have a significant positive effect on your health, according to the New York Times. It seems that garlic increases the production of hydrogen sulfide in your blood, which—in the short term—relaxes your blood vessels and increases blood flow. In the long term: The power to boost hydrogen sulfide production may help explain why a garlic-rich diet appears to protect against various cancers, including breast, prostate, and colon cancer, say the study authors. Higher hydrogen sulfide might also protect the heart, according to other experts.
The downside (if you can call it that)? Benefits from garlic consumption in studies required an equivalent of two medium-sized cloves of garlic per day, and while some countries—namley Italy, Korea, and China—average as high as eight to twelve cloves a day—it may be a lot of garlic by your standards. Then again, if two cloves a day keeps the doctor away, I can deal with the bad breath in other ways.
Unlocking the Benefits of Garlic [NYT]
