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 Web site Issuu turns any PDF into a web-friendly, embeddable Flash eBook. Just upload the PDF to Issuu and it takes care of all the heavy lifting. When it’s done, the result is a flippable page-turner like what you see above. Some PDFs will work better than others for this sort of embedding, and for those pages with text that’s too small to read, clicking on the page will zoom in. It’s not the first online PDF viewer, but it may be the best looking—perfect for online zines or just sharing documents without sending big attachments. Issuu [via Download Squad]
Google adds an interesting new feature to its online spreadsheets product: the ability to create and share an entry form with others for collecting information (versus giving them full access to the spreadsheet itself). Looks useful for surveys or any kind of easy information collection for a large number of people. Now that you don’t have to be a Gmail user to use Google Docs (and Spreadsheets), it’s open to everyone, too. To make a form for a spreadsheet, in the Share tab, check the “to fill out a form” option under “Invite people.” Stop sharing spreadsheets, start collecting information [Official Google Docs Blog]
Getting all your AC adapters and power cords plugged into a traditional power strip is normally a frustrating impossibility; in an effort to remedy this common problem, the Socket Sense Power Strip features angled plug-ins and a sliding, adjustable frame that can accomodate almost any combination of plugs. Socket Sense is a brilliant idea, but unfortunately innovation comes at a cost: $39.99. Unless you’ve got bags of money sitting next to the immobile power strip under your desk, alternatives like the PowerSquid or Power Strip Space Saver might be more your speed. Socket Sense [via Gizmodo]
Mac only: Gmail user Vic Shih has released a set of actions for controlling Gmail via remote control. Apple remote control fans may remember our previous post on freeware iRed Lite, which lets you assign actions to the various remote buttons. Vic has done just that, and offered the files for download. Setting this up is a little tricky for iRed Lite newbs, so let me walk you through it.
BitTorrent tracker SeedPeer ensures quality torrents by verifying downloads before it seeds them in its verified torrents section. That means that if you’ve ever spent hours downloading a torrent to find that you’d been duped by a fake download, you should be able to download with confidence from SeedPeer’s verified torrents. Of course, with a little know-how you can eliminate most bad torrents and avoid downloading fakes from any tracker. SeedPeer: Verified Torrents [via One Tip a Day]
New howto video site Howcast features ways you can extend your iPod’s battery life, like: using the hold button, turning off the backlight, and disabling the equaliser. Click on the dots that appear on the video’s progress bar or the back and forward buttons to skip from one tip to the next. (Neat.) Extend the Life Of Your iPod Battery [Howcast]
Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): The iGoogleBar Firefox extension beefs up the default Google menu bar, which displays links to various other Google applications, adding full-on previews for each app by clicking the Google app icon (which iGoogleBar also adds). Aside from the on-click previews, iGoogleBar also gives you your unread Gmail and Google Reader counts. For the most part the app appears to serve up previews of mobile versions of each application, so it provides a quick and useful dashboard look at all of your Google apps through the simple Google apps menu bar. iGoogleBar is free, works wherever Firefox does. iGoogleBar [via Googlified]
Your home is your castle, and what better way to outfit the palace than with some do-it-yourself ingenuity. We’ve featured dozens of DIY projects over the years, and today it’s time to shine the spotlight on the most clever, useful, and fun. You’ve already seen our top 10 DIY office projects, so today it’s time to check out some of the best creations modders, repurposers, and makers have rigged up at home.
Windows, Mac and Linux: Our favorite solution for keeping your private files safe, sound, and hidden—TrueCrypt—is now available for Mac as well as Windows and Linux. The just-released version 5.0 of TrueCrypt boasts some impressive features in addition to the Mac version, like a Linux GUI, and the: Ability to encrypt a system partition/drive (i.e. a partition/drive where Windows is installed) with pre-boot authentication. Anyone who wants to gain access and use the system, read and write files, etc., needs to enter the correct password each time before the system starts.
Since Mac’s built-in system encryption feature FileVault didn’t impress me much, TrueCrypt for Mac is very exciting. TrueCrypt is a free download for all three platforms, and if you haven’t tried it yet, here’s how to encrypt your data with TrueCrypt. Thanks, Daniel! TrueCrypt
