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 Download Squad reports that internet video service Joost will discontinue its desktop player effective December 19th. Joost introduced its web version in October to compete with the popularity of sites like Hulu, and now the online portal will be all that’s left. It looks like the majority of users are perfectly happy to stream video from their browsers rather than download an entirely separate app.
Popular note-taking application Evernote has added a new feature that syncs files you attach to notes to any desktop you’ve installed it. The files are limited to 25MB in size, and users with a free account can only sync images, audio files, and PDFs, but that’s not bad for free. Check out CNET’s post for a more complete rundown, then head to the download page for the update.
Further proof that 3G broadband really is the new Internet battleground: iiNet has just signed a deal with 3 to resell its 3G broadband offerings. While those will be standard 3 services at the usual prices, the announcement hints that there is “further opportunity for close collaboration between iiNet and 3 in the future”. (As much as we’d like it, we doubt that this deal will see iiNet’s free access to iTunes added onto mobile broadband services, alas.) iiNet isn’t the first ISP to make this kind of deal — Primus has a longstanding arrangement with Optus, for instance — and it probably won’t be the last. Given the lack of pricing difference, the major benefit could be in getting a single bill. If you’re looking for a 3G broadband service, be sure to check out our guide to the best deals. iiNet
Rather than reaching for the sleeping pills when you’re having trouble grabbing some shut-eye, Yahoo’s Healthy Living weblog suggests six effective all-natural herbal sleep inducers.
A couple of the suggestions probably won’t surprise you (namely chamomile and lavender, which are always among the first recommendations of this kind), but there are several you may not have seen before.
Reader Richard found a way to keep his toddler from banging on his keyboard and de-clutter his desk at the same time with three adhesive wall hooks. Richard explains:
Photo-sharing site Flickr revives their Santa Easter egg for the holidays, which adds a beard or hat to any photo with the right note text.
If you liked the idea behind the custom notecards you saw in the GTD super-notebook mind.Depositor, you’re in luck. DIYer Patrick Ng has provided printable templates for his GTD index cards, complete with checkboxes for Next Actions, Projects, Waiting for, and Someday/maybe tasks and priority stars and to-done checkboxes. The template is available in both lined and unlined versions, so you can pick whichever version best matches what you want to print to. Gotta love a guy who shares.
mind.Depositor Index Card Template [Scription]Microsoft just released the official security update for Internet Explorer to address the serious browser exploit we told you about yesterday, so if you’ve got any computer running IE, you’d best get downloading. Security experts advised users to stay off Internet Explorer due to a serious security exploit in all versions of IE, and a third-party developer even pushed out an unofficial temporary fix, but you can now go grab the official patch straight from the source. The patches are available in several different downloads depending on what version of IE you’re using and what OS you’re running, and not all of the downloads are pointing to existing pages yet, but they should hopefully all be rolled out sometime today. Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-078 – Critical [Microsoft]
All platforms: Free and open source virtualisation software VirtualBox gets a “major upgrade” to version 2.1 which is now available for download. Besides a gaggle of fixes, the changelog details new features:
CEO Tom Hoobyar publishes his 12 “laws of life,” tenets he’s cooked up based on his experience. If you can stomach a few self-help platitudes and all caps, it’s actually not a bad list. Laws include #4, “You make your habits and then your habits make you” (i.e., small daily acts create our larger lives), and #6, “Obligations are a fraud” (i.e., we don’t owe anybody anything, even though often we’re raised to think we do). Obviously some are more controversial than others, but overall it’s a decent read. Hit the link to get all 12. What would your “laws of life” look like, besides “#1. Don’t live by anyone else’s laws”? Seriously—post ‘em up in the comments. Photo by Frederik en Katleen. Thanks, Stuart! Tom’s Twelve Laws of Life [Connecting With NLP]
