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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 you liked the idea of the wall-sized whiteboard calendar but weren’t keen on the price, or maybe you wanted to go even bigger, now you can—Markee dry erase paint turns any surface into a dry erase board. It’s not cheap, at $97 per gallon, but it’s cheaper than the wall calendar, and you should be able to get a lot of coverage out of a whole gallon of paint. It’s kind of like the paint-on chalkboard for the dry erase crowd. Wonder if erasing permanent marker is as simple on a Markee made white board. Markee [via Unclutterer]
You’ve turned your Windows PC into a media center powerhouse on the cheap, and everything’s great while you’re at home. You can watch live and recorded TV, schedule new recordings, or peruse your entire media library from the comfort of your couch. What if I told you that you could do the same thing from any computer, at home or away, and you didn’t have to shell out for new equipment to do it? Forgot to schedule a game you don’t want to miss? Want to catch up on last week’s episode on your laptop or even your cell phone? With the free Media Center add-on WebGuide, you can extend your Windows Media Center to any browser (including mobile browsers), so no matter where you are, you can take the convenience of Media Center with you.
Maximum PC magazine tackles how to organize that mess of PC cables under your desk—namely, with zip ties and coloured tape labels. I prefer Velcro or twist ties since they’re easily undone, and while I’ve used a label maker to ID cables, over time mine started to peel off. Back in the day Adam walked us through his “cordless” workspace, then I followed suit. (Still swear by that incredible Ikea under-desk cord tray, it makes all the difference.) What are your favorite ways to deal with the cable spaghetti under your feet? Let us know in the comments. How To: Manage your Cables [Maximum PC]
Windows only: OutSync, a free app that requires Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007, harnesses profile photos of your Facebook friends to add them to your Outlook contacts, saving you the trouble of manually adding them yourself. It’s important to note that OutSync, like any Facebook-scraping app, doesn’t grab phone numbers or emails from your contacts, since that could result in a profile take-down. But Windows Mobile users can especially benefit from OutSync’s utility, as syncing your device means pictures of your friends show up when you make or receive a call—helpful for those “Should I take this call?” moments. OutSync is a free download for Windows XP or Vista, and requires Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007. OutSync [via Office Tweaks]
Even the most organised laundry masters can fall victim to Sock Gremlins—the invisible forces that seem to whisk individual socks away, leaving an unbalanced pair. Environment-friendly blog Planet Green has a few suggestions before you think about tossing that orphaned sock, including:Protect fragile holiday ornaments when you put them away for the year Use as a whiteboard eraser Send to Operation Happy Sock, where it’ll be stuffed with polyfill and catnip for cats at the local animal shelter Protect your MP3 player
Nifty ideas, and there are ten more at the link. Of course, you could also strive to avoid orphaned socks entirely with a no-sort system. Photo by kevin. Find 14 Uses for Orphan Socks [Planet Green]
The Digital Inspiration blog offers up five email addresses that offer free file conversion for Word docs, PDFs, and even MP3s with no fuss, no muss—just attach a file, send it, and wait for the reply with the converted file attached. For mobile device users who can’t read or open certain formats or desktop users who need a little audio formatting without downloading software. The full list of addresses, after the jump.
How-to blog Tech-Recipes does the ink-saving work of figuring out how to print slide presentations in a standard nine-slides-per-page format, which isn’t as easy as one might think:Click the “Print” button Select “Individual Slides” from the left-hand menu Select “Layout” from the drop-down box in the center Change “Pages per Sheet” to 9 (or whatever number you’d prefer), then hit “Print,” “PDF” or whatever suits your needs
Handy tip, and one that prevents a lot of unnecessary wasted paper and ink. Keynote: Print Slides in Columns [Tech-Recipes.com]
Google News recently added a localisation feature to its main page, gathering stories not just from local newspapers and web outlets, but supposedly from sources across the internet: While we’re not the first news site to aggregate local news, we’re doing it a bit differently — we’re able to create a local section for any city, state or country in the world and include thousands of sources. We’re not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located.
Nifty stuff, and a good way to keep up on what’s happening in your neck of the woods. All News is Local [Google News Blog via Google Blogoscoped]
Lifehacker reader Joshua accidentally stained his white Macbook with a gel pen and, having just replaced his case, was not eager to see it discolored again. So he reached for that ultra-handy cleaner, toothpaste (Arm & Hammer Dental Care Advance Cleaning, in his case), rubbed a dab into the stain, then cleaned away the dried toothpaste with a barely-damp towel. The results, pictured above, speak for themselves, and suggest that little tube of white goo might also help fight the dark palm stains that are the bane of a Mac owner’s existence.
