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 Google Reader adds a “What’s Hot” section to the sidebar of “algorithmically generated stuff that is interesting across the web.” If you’re not seeing it just yet, here’s a direct link to it in Reader.
You can tell the last-minute Christmas sales have started (and the January tech discounts are looming) when all the telcos begin discounting their plans. Between now and February, Vodafone is offering three free months on its 24-month contracts for a range of plans, including its $40 3G broadband bundle and a bunch of its $79 caps, which include iPhone and BlackBerry Storm options. Oddly, the discounts kick in during months five, six and seven of the plans. That’s not quite as much of a markdown as 3′s current deal, but still worth looking at if you’re in the market. Having already sold out of two batches of Storms, Vodafone also says a third shipment will be available early next week. Vodafone
One of the challenges with the local release of the Chumby has been the relative lack of Australian-centric gadgets for the Wi-Fi-enabled Internet thingummy. Local distributor Internode is running a competition to encourage development, but even without that incentive Lifehacker’s technical guru Kaan has come to the party with a Lifehacker-specific widget, listing all the latest headlines from your favourite technology productivity site. If you’ve got a Chumby already (or have one on your Christmas list), be sure to check it out. Thanks Kaan! Lifehacker Chumby
Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): FilePhile is a peer-to-peer, multi-platform app for getting files of unlimited size between yourself and anyone else willing to give it a try. After registering at FilePhile’s site with an email address and password, you grab and install a copy of the Java-based app, launch it, and add email addresses to your buddy list. Sending a file is a simple right-click on someone’s name, but you can limit the bandwidth eaten up by FilePhile in its preferences. The transfers themselves are encrypted, and, as the site boasts, can be any size. That’s about it, but that’s probably all you need. FilePhile is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. It requires a Java platform version 1.5 or later to run. Thanks YadidCorvus!
FilePhileAll platforms (Windows/Mac/Linux): DIY holiday decoration-makers, The Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories cooked up software that designs paper snowflakes and prints out the outline PDF for easy cutting. Here’s how it works.
New VB scripter Troy modified a script for Outlook that lets him know when he’s forgotten an attachment on an email (not counting his company logo).
While much creative insight happens while your mind wanders, the key is being able to interrupt your daydreams in time to notice, scientists say. News site Boston.com tells the story of how Arthur Fry dreamed up the multi-million dollar idea of Post-It Notes while daydreaming in church.
Windows only: While old faithful Ad-Aware and Spybot are good to have, you can add Spyware Terminator to your arsenal of malware scanner and scrubber tools while you’re home for the holidays. Spyware Terminator does just what you’d expect: scan your system for everything from cookies to shady processes, instate “real-time” malware protection, quarantine items, and, ya know, upsell you on the pay-for commercial edition. When I ran Spyware Terminator on my presumably clean system, it turned up a bunch of web site cookies (not life-threatening, but ok) and an invalid entry in my PC’s startup. Not bad. Spyware Terminator is free for personal and commercial use, and it’s for Windows only. Thanks, jamiemartin01!
Spyware TerminatorAdobe AIR for Linux graduates out of beta and catches up to the Windows and Mac versions. The Linux AIR version 1.5 fully supports Flash 10, which means all AIR apps across all three platforms now work the same way. For more on what you can do with Adobe AIR, see our top 10 apps worth installing Adobe AIR for.
OpenSUSE is out with an 11.1 release that rolls in the latest improvements to GNOME, KDE, the Linux kernel and more, as well as packaging OpenOffice.org 3.0 (which we’ve toured) and renovating the built-in printer and partition tools. Grab an live CD image or torrent link to try it out.
