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How To Kill Time Productively On Your Phone Webapp PDFMeNot bypasses the need to wrangle with a separate PDF reader application—instead, it opens PDFs right inside your browser. Billed as “a nicer way of linking to PDFs,” plug in the URL of a PDF and PDFMeNot will webify the document and make it viewable in-browser, as well as offer embed code to include the PDF into any web page. To see it in action, check out the Quicksilver manual PDF as rendered by PDFMeNot. After the jump, check out the embedded version.
Two years ago on Lifehacker, you gave your filing cabinet an extreme makeover, learned how to get the most out of Firefox—with your mouse, and organized your “My Documents” folder. One year ago, you encrypted your browsing session with an SSH SOCKS proxy, bypassed iTunes to add music and movies to your iPod from any computer, ran Windows XP inside Windows Vista with Virtual PC, and organized your desktop with Dexpot.
Windows only: Vista Start Menu offers an expanded, feature-rich Start menu for Windows 2000/XP or Vista, one in which program menus, power-off options, and a number of control panel items are available right from the first click, instead of requiring menu mouse-overs to unfold. Vista Start Menu runs as a system tray app and doesn’t touch a thing on your system—shut it down, and you’re back to your plain vanilla Start layout. It used a little over 7 MB of memory on my Vista Home Professional setup, which might be a steep price for the convenience for some, but for those who can’t get down with an alternative program-finder like Launchy, it definitely saves a little time. Vista Start Menu (basic) is a free download for Windows 2000/XP and Vista only. Vista Start Menu [via MakeUseOf.com]
Have the slowly-falling prices and space-saving appeal of a flatscreen TV finally broken down your money-saving instincts? Wired’s How-To Wiki has a few tips to help you mount your premium panel yourself and not have it look like, well, you did it yourself. The wiki is still young, but already contains some great guidelines and a few reader-submitted tips, including advice on how to run your cables through a mounting bracket and behind other gear: (You’ll need) a spool of nylon string, a steel washer, and a magnet taped to a pencil or a coat hanger. Tie the washer to the end of the string then drop it from the top hole and use the magnet if needed to pull it out. The string can also be used to measure your needed cable length. Put a piece of tape at the top marking how much you need, don’t cut it, pull it out the bottom till you get the tape mark.
Got any handy advice for anyone else looking to put a screen through their wall? Share your sage advice in the comments. Photo by THINKING IN ƎƧЯƎVƎЯ. Hang a Flatscreen [Wired How-To Wiki]
Windows only: Hard drive failures are like car breakdowns—we all know there’s one coming for every unit out there, but it’s possible to plan ahead with an occasional checkup. Free Windows hard drive utility HD Tune gives you a full read-out on your hard drive’s health, including live temperature, supported transfer modes, and all the standard S.M.A.R.T. data, as well as offering full scans to check for bad sectors. HD Tune didn’t know much about my non-NTFS/Windows-formatted partitions, but it’s overall a robust way to see how your main data store is running without leaving a memory-eating background app running. HD Tune is a free download for Windows systems only. HD Tune [via gHacks]
