What Are The Hourly Rates For IT Contractors? 
What Do You Do With Your Gadgets When You Move Overseas? 
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 The gremlins, the gremlins. We’re having trouble connecting to the US site, which is resulting in some patchy performance including blank images appearing on the site. Rest assured we’re working on getting things fixed ASAP. Thanks for your patience!
Windows only: Lifehacker readers love free image viewer and processor IrfanView, so much that whenever we mention how to rename or resize images with other programs, someone’s guaranteed to bring up IrfanView in the comments. So now that you know how to batch process images in Photoshop, ImageMagick, and Photo Drop (Mac), tech site Of Zen and Computing covers the steps in IrfanView. I admit that I use Picasa and and an old copy of ImageReady for this kind of work most of the time, but IrfanView looks more and more to be like the free image multi-tool to have on your desktop. What other kinds of image work do you automate with IrfanView? Let us know in the comments.
How to Batch Resize Images with IrfanView [Of Zen and Computing]Mac users dying to use Google’s Picasa rather than Apple’s pre-installed iPhoto may be in luck—rumour has it Picasa for Mac will be released later this year. [via]
US-centric: Firefox with Greasemonkey: Download Netflix “Watch Now” videos straight to your hard drive with the Netflix Download Links Greasemonkey script. We’ve already pointed out how to rip Netflix “Watch Now” videos to your hard drive, but fact is, the whole process is a pain in the ass. The Greasemonkey script automates a lot of the work, making it tons easier (thought it requires a bit of setup to get started)—and now that Netflix is offering unlimited “Watch Now” streaming, this script opens up a whole new world of possibility.
One year ago on Lifehacker, we covered how to bolster your browsing privacy at work so that you can get personal stuff done at your desk—without getting caught.
The Wikihow web site covers several ways to extend your cell phone battery’s life, from the obvious (turn it off when not in use, keep calls short) to the more helpful “oh I should do that’s” (reduce backlight time, disable unneeded services like Bluetooth detection). Apparently a cell phone’s vibrate function eats up more juice than a regular ring, so opt to put the tone on the softest setting instead. Lastly, re-calibrate your Li-Ion battery to reset its life-o-meter, which can get out of whack over several charge cycles.
How to Make Your Cell Phone Battery Last Longer [wikiHow]Gmail has added a spanking-new keyboard shortcut, ‘e’, which archives the current conversation in the inbox every time, whether you’re viewing the message from the inbox or not. If you’re a big Gmail shortcut user, you’re not doubt familiar that the ‘y’ key already does archive, so what’s the difference? Well, if you think of everything in Gmail as labels (including the inbox), the ‘y’ key just removes the current label from the conversation—so if you view a message from a Follow-Up label, for example, and press ‘y’, the Follow-Up label will be removed but the message will remain in your inbox, no matter where you’re viewing it. On the flip side, ‘e’ will remove the current label and only archive the message from your inbox. Handy to streamline your path to Inbox Zero.
New “e” shortcut archives every time [Official Gmail Blog]When getting things done involves making phone calls, you want to spend the least amount of time and money on the horn as possible—and several tricks and services can help you do just that. With the right tones, keypresses, phone numbers, and know-how, you can skip through or cut off long-winded automated voice systems and humans, access web services by voice, and smartly screen incoming calls. Check out our pick of the 10 best telephony techniques for getting more done in less time over the phone.
All platforms running Thunderbird: Dress Thunderbird up to look just like Mac OS X’s Mail application with the Leopard Mail T-bird theme. Download the theme (right-click and choose “Save Link As”) and install it using Thunderbird’s Add-ons dialog box. Unlike the previously posted Apple Mail Theme, this theme works in Thunderbird 2.0, but I did have trouble getting it to look just right on my Mac, so proceed with caution. The Leopard Mail theme is a free download for Thunderbird 2.0+ only. Mac OS X Leopard Mail by ~REO-2007 [deviantART via Hawk Wings]
