The Lifehacker Total Security Guide 
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An Entire Overseas Trip On One Prepaid Travel Card 
Top 10 Pervasive Tech Myths That Are Only Wasting Your Time You probably have your IM application set to automatically login to your different accounts as soon as it starts up, but what about when you want to chat without announcing your presence to the world. Macworld details a simple keyboard shortcut that will launch iChat or Adium without logging into any accounts. The trick: Just hold down the shift key when you launch your respective IM app. Doing so will start the app offline. From there you can log into whichever individual account you want and control your status ahead of time. I tried this trick on Pidgin and Digsby to no avail and searched for similar shortcuts without luck. (If you know the proper shortcut, let’s hear it!) It’s such a smart and simple shortcut, and having been exposed to it, you can’t help but wonder why all IM apps don’t have this option.
Start iChat without logging into accounts [Macworld via TUAW]Semi-controversial Mac software bundle site MacHeist has gone the free route this holiday season, offering up to six different shareware Mac apps for the price of a free registration with MacHeist through the Mac Giving Tree. As soon as you sign up you can download iTunes remote Synergy and video game Enigmo 2, while you’ve got to wait until Christmas day to open two others. Yet two other free but undisclosed options are unwrappable if you refer a friend. In the past we’ve suggested free alternatives to MacHeist bundles, but since this one’s free to begin with that’s not really necessary.
Web site ShareTabs is sort of like TinyURL when you want to share several links, allowing you to send one link that will open a number of links in separate tabs with one click. Here’s an example:
If I wanted to share all of the non-Lifehacker US Gawker Media sites with someone, I could simply send the following ShareTabs link: http://www.sharetabs.com/?gawker
When you follow that link, you’ll see the page below. The thumbnails display each site, and clicking a thumbnail will open that site in one of the faux tabs you see at the top of the screenshot (they may look like Firefox tabs, but they’re actually just a graphical element inside the ShareTabs site). You can either navigate the sites by clicking around the faux tabs, or you can click the Open all links link at the top of the page to actually open each link in a separate tab. If you’re looking to share a lot of links without taking a lot of space to do it, ShareTabs is a great tool.
ShareTabsReader Bryan uses remote desktop to bypass network blocks at his work sites to get to Gmail and write his blog. Bryan writes:
Popular cross-platform instant messaging application Pidgin released an update boasting a boatload of bug fixes that should improve the stability and day-to-day operation of Pidgin. If you want to see the entire list of changes in the most popular IM app on the block, you can find the entire changelog here.
Windows only: PDF Download, the previously mentioned Firefox extension that improves web-page-to-PDF saving, is out with a version for Internet Explorer. Along with the features offered in the Firefox extension, the newest version for both browsers adds control over the margins of any PDFs you create from your browser. A screenshot at the developers’ page shows Evernote functionality, but I couldn’t find the option in my installation. Firefox users have a wider range of PDF tools than Internet Explorer through the add-on community, of course, so the Internet Explorer extension is a valuable tool for anyone who feels chained to a slow-loading, multi-nagging Adobe Acrobat installation. PDF Download is a free download for Firefox (all platforms) and Internet Explorer (Windows only). PDF Download 2.1 [Nitro PDF Software]
Windows/Mac/Linux (Adobe AIR): GMDesk is a single-window frame that can hot-switch between Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and other G-apps, but it could use a few tweaks to make it truly convenient.
Sure you could probably pick up a pleather case for nearly any electronic device you own, courtesy of eBay and healthy international trade routes, but it would lack the charm of a hand crafted leather case. There is an excellent tutorial over at the DIY blog Instructables on how to make a molded leather case. The tutorial details how to make the case for an iPod, but the molding technique is valid for anything you’d like to mold a case for. The required tools are minimal and inexpensive, for their sample they bought leather scraps off eBay and made their mold out of dense chipboard and tape. For another interesting DIY case idea, check out how to make a laptop case out of floppies. Leather iPod Touch Case Using Water! [Instructables]
What happens when something that was once a special treat, slowly becomes an expected part of your daily routine? Trent, over at frugality blog The Simple Dollar, noticed that things he had previously done as a treat of sorts had become necessary components of his day much to the determent of his wallet. Describing how his enjoyment of the a local coffee shop had changed:
Over at design blog Web Design Ledger, they’ve rounded up over two dozen tutorials to teach you how to add impressive lighting effects to your photos. Whether you want to inject some sparkles, motion trails, sun flares, fire, star bursts or luminescence into your image, there is a tutorial for you. Completely new to Photoshop? Learn the basics of Photoshop in a week. No room in the budget for Photoshop? Check out GIMP, a robust freeware alternative. 28 Powerful Photoshop Lighting Effects
