The Lifehacker Total Security Guide 
Spotify And Its Rivals: Subscription Music Services In Australia Compared 
The Stupid Things You Do On Facebook (And How To Fix Them) 
How To Kill Time Productively On Your Phone 
An Entire Overseas Trip On One Prepaid Travel Card 
Top 10 Pervasive Tech Myths That Are Only Wasting Your Time Software developer Gustavo Duarte explains exactly what your computer does while you wait, in a thorough, technical answer to the question “Why the hell is my computer taking so long to do something when I have such a fast processor?” This post isn’t for anyone who glazes over at measurements of throughput in nanoseconds at the component level of a computer. If you want to speed up your computer by giving it less to do, make sure you’re running only the stuff you need clean up your startup.
Google has added public transport directions for Adelaide to its Maps service, making it the second Australian city (after Perth) to get this useful option. Details for buses, trains and the Glenelg tram are all included. Google says it’s still working to get other Australian cities on board the program; as a dedicated public transport user, I can’t wait. Google Maps [via Google Australia Blog]
Windows only: Free text replacement application PhraseExpress updates to version 6.0, sporting a handful of new time-saving features and stability improvements. If you’re unfamiliar with text replacement apps like PhraseExpress, they’re like digital shorthand for your computer; the user defines small text snippets that expand to larger pieces of text, so when you type ,sig, for example, a text replacement app can expand that text to a full text signature. We’ve developed our own text replacement app here at Lifehacker, Texter, which was inspired by the Mac-only TextExpander, but PhraseExpress has a ton to offer in its own right. Among new features, PhraseExpress 6 supports HTML formatting, faster load times, advanced options for triggering text replacements, application-specific replacements, and autocompletion of words. As an added bonus, the new version can also run off your thumb drive, so you can take advantage of your PhraseExpress timesavers no matter what computer you’re using. I’m partial to Texter for obvious reasons, but PhraseExpress is undeniably awesome. PhraseExpress is free for non-commercial use, costs $US50 for a professional licence. PhraseExpress
Firefox with Greasmonkey (and other browsers): The Helvetireader theme for Google Reader strips away the bells and whistles and offers a minimal interface redesign for keyboard shortcut users. Install Helvetireader in Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension, Opera, a Chromium nightly build, or Safari with Greasekit. With Helvetireader enabled, GReader uses red and black Helvetica font and white background with a light grey gradient. Especially suited to work in Reader as a Fluid or Prism standalone app, Helvetireader is a free download.
Helvetireader [via Waxy]Online language translation app Frengly autodetects the source language of text and quickly translates it into your language of choice. Just paste any piece of text into Frengly, hit translate, and let Frengly take care of the rest. Frengly actually plugs into the Google Translate API to both detect the language and to translate the text, so you may wonder: Why use Frengly? Ultimately it’s about speed and ease of use. Google Translate requires you to choose the auto-detect option every time you head to the page, which means you lose a step in what should be a feature that shaves a step off translation. Likewise, it’s easier to select your destination language once from one of the many buttons rather than dig through the drop-down menu. So while Frengly isn’t all that innovative on its own, you can think of it as a nicer front-end to Google Translate.
Frengly [via Download Squad]Another small startup announces its shutdown and acquisition: previously mentioned file-sharing service Pownce has been acquired by blogging software makers Six Apart, and the service is shutting down on December 15th. Pownce users can export their messages and import them into a blogging service like WordPress, TypePad, or Vox; no word on how and if Six Apart will integrate Pownce technology into their services. [via Laughing Squid]
Google has published official documentation detailing their plans to bring extensions to their beta web browser Chrome. A previous announcement should have already satisfied some extensions needs, but if you are a dedicated Adblock crowd, you’ll be happy to know that one of the highlighted uses for Google Chrome extensions is content filtering, including “Adblock, Flashblock, Privacy control, and Parental control.” Sounds like Google’s moving in the right direction if they want to snag more early adopters. Now we just need to see more progress for the Mac and Linux crowd. Extensions (Chromium Developer Documentation) [via CNET]
Web site Notify Me When It’s Up performs a very simple but worthwhile task: It sends you an email when a downed site you want to visit returns to the internet. Similar to previously mentioned Down For Everyone or Just Me—which helps you figure out if a site you’re having trouble reaching is really down or its, well, just you—Notify Me When It’s Up takes the next logical step by monitoring a downed site and letting you know when it returns. Might be useful next time your favourite weblog is unreachable or a link you really want to check out crashes under the weight of its popularity.
Notify Me When It’s Up [via Download Squad]iPhone/iPod touch only: Television and movie streaming service Joost officially finds its way to the iPhone and iPod touch. Joost started out as a desktop application, was quickly overshadowed by online offerings, then recently moved to the web in an attempt to keep up with the competition. With its new iPhone/iPod touch application, Joost is back in the drivers seat, beating the likes of Hulu to Apple’s popular mobile devices. Joost still doesn’t offer as much popular content as Hulu (not that Australians can use that – AU ed), but its 46,000 videos—which include 400 TV series, 1,200 movies and short films, and 18,000 music videos—are a pretty good start.
The problem with many online to-do list managers is that they don’t support sub-lists for tasks that involve several steps—but outliner webapp Checkvist does just that, and with a clean interface that supports tons of keyboard shortcuts. Sign up for a free account at Checkvist to make your first list (hit Enter to add a task). Each list node can have a note attached to it, and any number of sub-nodes (Shift+Enter to enter one). Reorder your list items (Ctrl+arrow) and mark an item complete by selecting it and hitting the Spacebar. Export your lists from Checkvist to plain text, HTML, or OPML formats, and invite others to collaborate on the list with you. Here’s what the Checkvist intro list (with some additions) looks like.
