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 If Thunderbird’s your main email application and you’ve got thousands of messages stored on your hard drive, they may be hogging more space than you think. Writer and T-bird user Cory Doctorow says: Don’t forget to occasionally run File -> Compact Folders. I did so yesterday and reclaimed nearly 20GB of hard drive space! Comparing my mail folder to my backup, I discovered that every single email that I’d “deleted” for over a year (by putting it in the Trash and then emptying it) was still lurking on my disk.
Twenty gigabytes is a whole lot of storage to get back from a simple folder compaction. Of course, to ID more space hogs, here’s how to visualize your hard drive usage. HOWTO Get a load of hard-disk space back [Boing Boing]
Before I owned my first Mac, Quicksilver was the application that made me wish I did. Luckily, slowly but surely, Windows developers began building apps intended to successfully attain that Quicksilver-for-Windows status. They started as simple application launchers, but recently the Quicksilver-for-Windows battle has exploded with tons of new applications. The question is: Which one deserves a place on your system? Hit the jump for a closer look at your options, including the Quicksilver clone we’re most excited about (hint: it’s not Launchy).
Firefox only (Windows/Linux): Firefox extension AutoSaveTextToCookie saves everything you type in text boxes to a local browser cookie with every keystroke so that in the event of a browser crash or inadvertent tab close, you won’t lose your precious words. In my tests, it worked just as advertised, making this one of those great Firefox extension that does one simple thing and does it well. AutoSaveTextToCookie is free, works in Windows and Linux only. AutoSaveTextToCookie [Firefox Add-ons]
Like it or not, people judge you by the way you look, and how well you’re dressed matters on the job. If you want to look like a million bucks on a budget, career advice columnist Penelope Trunk says a great tailor is key. Buy a just-barely-okay suit and take it to a good tailor. The thing you pay for in an expensive suit is fabric that doesn’t wrinkle and that lays well on your body. Since you are having your cheap fabric tailored, it will lay well on your body. And if you don’t sit a lot before the interview, it won’t wrinkle: Voila, an expensive suit that wasn’t expensive.
Classically geeks are horrendous at looking sharp on the job, but let’s prove the world wrong. What are your best tips for maintaining a good look with minimal effort? Tell us in the comments. Quick fixes for image problems [Brazen Careerist]
The CyberNet weblog follows up on their previous tip for creating quick-kill shortcuts for individual programs in Windows by expanding the idea to an automated batch file that kills off a bunch of programs at once. The batch script is smart enough to skip any apps you don’t have open, and makes it easy to strip down running programs to grab the most power from your system, for Photoshop, games, or other resource-intensive apps. The basic trick is to open the Windows Task Manager, find the executable names (like firefox.exe) of the apps you want to kill, then open a simple text editor and add a line for each app, like so: taskkill /im program.exe
Replace program.exe with the ones you want to kill, save the text file with a .bat extension, and you’ve got a quick streamlining app. Ready to take the next step? Take a look at setting up working environments with batch files. Shortcut to Close Multiple Programs [CyberNet]
Leopard only: A lesser-hyped feature in Mac 10.5 is Web Clips—the ability to turn a section of any web page into a Dashboard widget. We’re not huge fans of gadgets and widgets around here, but Dashboard Web Clips can be a big timesaver, because it lets you check several pages you might otherwise manually refresh throughout the day in one keystroke, no browser required.
The How-To Geek weblog steps through how to use Word’s find and replace feature to handle formatting the same way it handles text. Click in the blank Find box, and then you can use the regular keyboard shortcuts to specify specific formatting. For instance, if you wanted to replace all bolded text with regular text, you’d use Ctrl+B in the “Find what” box, or for italics you would use Ctrl+I. You can even use multiple search criteria here.
Using this method, you can find and replace ugly headings, fonts, or just remove very simple formatting like all italics (like in the example). If you’ve ever spent hours reformatting a long Word document, this simple tip could be a lifesaver. Search and Replace Specific Formatting (fonts, styles,etc) in Microsoft Word [the How-To Geek]
One year ago, you power tweaked Windows Vista to your satisfaction.
If you like the idea of online bookmarking but don’t necessarily care about the “social” or tagging aspects of sites like del.icio.us or Digg, Instapaper is the site for you. Rather than adding browser buttons or relying on specialised icons to add web pages to your story queue, you simply click a bookmarklet to add pages, and hit “Skip” if you want to delegate a link for later reading. All your links are sorted into three categories (Unread, Recently Read, and Recently Skipped) for quick browsing, and the super-clean interface would make even del.icio.us jealous. Better still, the site has an iPhone/iPod touch friendly version. For compiling reading lists or even using as a secondary bookmarking site for projects, Instapaper might be right up your back-to-basics alley. Instapaper is a free service that requires a sign-up. Instapaper [via TechCrunch]
RealSimple has a nifty compilation of tips for cooks who like to make authentic recipes but don’t necessarily have an entire afternoon to prep a meal. Some common gourmet actions, like draining yogurt or tying off roasts and whole chickens, can be skipped or simply reduced into simple shortcuts. To avoid taking the time to clarify butter, for instance: Mix equal parts butter and refined oil—the butter still adds flavour and helps meat brown faster, but the oil raises the burning point. Or quickly clarify butter in the microwave (be sure to cover it). Melt it, wait for the milk solids to settle to the bottom, and pour off the clear liquid.
What recipe steps drive you nuts, and how do you find your way around them? Gather ’round the table in the comments. Photo by Mom the Barbarian. Skip that Step: Recipe Shortcuts [RealSimple]
