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 After spending about half an hour a day on Facebook (in which Microsoft has invested), Bill Gates closes his Facebook account when his incoming number of friend requests overwhelmed him. [via]
Windows only: Rip and back up any DVD to your hard drive with DVD Rip, a freeware Windows application that automates the entire DVD-to-hard-drive backup process. All you need to do is insert your DVD, run DVD Rip, and let it take care of the rest. Why? A while back I explained why I’d soured on optical media, the gist of which was the ease with with DVDs are damaged. Sick of scratched, skippy DVDs, I put together a simple AutoHotkey script that automated DVD rips in conjunction with a freeware application called DVD Shrink. I’ve since gone back and drastically improved the original DVD Rip application complete with options and improved automation.
CNET News takes a behind-the-scenes look at data recovery service Drive Savers, and the frantic customers who come to them with fried hard drives and lost data. We’ve posted at least one DIY solution for getting your data back from an unbootable drive, but desperate times call for desperate measures. How desperate have you gotten?
Mac OS X only: Yesterday’s software update added several subtle options all over Leopard for Mac users, especially for Stacks—to see them, simply Cmd+click on a Stack. We’ve posted before how to overlay icons on your Dock’s Stacks for easy visual identification, but now under “Display as” you can choose “Folder” instead to see the folder icon. (Easier, but I still like the drawer icons better.) Instead of your Mac deciding how the Stack should be viewed (as a grid or list), you can choose under “Display as.” Even more exciting, the “List” view isn’t that arcing fan any more—it’s a throwback to Tiger’s hierarchical file list which lets you navigate down into subfolders. Getting to Know the New Stacks [MacTips.org]
Free social commuter alert service Commuter Feed harnesses the quick and brief nature of Twitter to offer commuters in major metro areas a way of avoiding train delays, subway break-downs, and other travel information in nearly-real time. The service has one of the most extensive lists of metro areas covered of its type, although each is only as useful as the number of dedicated Twitterers on their daily routes. If you know how to follow or reply on the micro-message service, you can easily join and submit to any metro area’s feed, although how you handle the surfeit of Twits in the more populous areas is up to you. For similar community-driven commuter help, check out The Clever Commute. Commuter Feed [via eHub]
AU – I checked out Commuter Feed’s website and while it’s set up to accommodate Australian users, so far only 1 tweet has been recorded in Sydney – about the fire at Broadway Shopping Centre which happened yesterday. It’s good to know that it’s there if we want to use it though!
Windows only: System optimiser and browser add-on pruner HijackThis remains a powerful tool for streamlining your Windows computer, but only if you can understand exactly what it’s telling you is running. Free utility HijackReader does the leg work of checking with trusted web databases and providing Google search links to help you understand what’s running on your system and whether you can safely get rid of it. It works by taking a HijackThis log file (by browsing or cut-and-paste) and analyzing its contents, then producing an HTML file with descriptions and relevant links to more information. Even if you don’t quite grasp every process it reports on, seeing the “OK” next to something you’re suspicious of can be a big relief. HijackReader is a free download for Windows systems only. HijackReader [via gHacks]
The Gomestic blog has a nifty idea for households where bars of soap get used up until they’re just little bits that stick around. Grab a busted pair of pantyhose, and then: Cut the legs off and use (the remainder) to keep all those odd bits of soap that tend to get left in the bathroom. Tie the end and keep it beside the sink for hand washing.
So you’re in effect making a DIY loofah for your hands. My house always seems to get hand-crafted soaps around the holiday season, and this is a great way to ensure they see actual use—and see what they all smell like together, also. For more MacGyver-type pantyhose uses, hit the link for 19 more ideas, or try buffing nicked candles and keeping onions fresh. 20 Extraordinary Uses for Old Pantyhose [Gomestic via TipNut]
When it comes to reading feeds for a job or need-to-know informatoin, it’s hard to beat the (unofficial) reigning champions of the web and desktop, Google Reader and NewsGator’s (now free!) products. But sometimes you might just want to run through a lot of content quickly, with no read/unread stress to remind you of your email inbox. For that kind of browsing, Alertle, a new AJAX-based feed reader, might be just the right thing. It comes jam-packed with pre-sets in a range of categories, and it moves nearly as quick as Reader (even with seemingly wider support for embedded video and audio). Alertle doesn’t bother marking posts as read, so it’s more a tool for seeing what’s new around the web than hitting a goal. The big drawbacks are non-support of Internet Explorer and a hard-to-grok sign-up interface (check the upper-right corner), but Alertle makes for an interesting addition to the growing stable of worthy feed readers. Alertle [via Google Blogoscoped]
Many of us Lifehackers are big fans of the StumbleUpon toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer, but what about fans of Safari, Opera, and other browsers that want to happen upon peer-approved, wicked-cool web sites? The Digital Inspiration blog points us to a “virtual toolbar” offered by the site that works in most any modern browser—including the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Safari. Simply head to the link below, and the StumbleUpon toolbar should stay at the top of your browser for that session. For an in-depth look at just what StumbleUpon does, check out this Technophilia tutorial. StumbleUpon Demo [via Digital Inspiration]
