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The Lifehacker Total Security Guide 
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The Stupid Things You Do On Facebook (And How To Fix Them) 
How To Kill Time Productively On Your Phone If you’re an early adopter who got burned by Blu-Ray’s victory over HD DVD, Wired’s How-To Wiki details how to convert your old-and-busted HD DVDs to the victorious Blu-Ray format. The catch is that the process, from start to finish, is a major pain, and you’ll need both an HD DVD drive and a Blu-Ray burner on your PC. In all the conversion is probably more of a hassle and just as expensive as re-purchasing your HD DVDs in Blu-Ray or buying a dual-format player, so if you’re really considering going through this process, you may want to take that into account that before diving in. If you were stung by the demise of the HD DVD, let’s hear how you plan to cope in the comments. Convert Your HD DVDs to Blu-Ray [Wired How-To Wiki]
The Knoppix Live Linux CD can do more than just rescue files from an unbootable hard drive—the full operating system on an optical disk has a host of software packages including multimedia apps. The Hackszine blog points out a free excerpt from O’Reilly’s new book, Knoppix Hacks, which details how to listen to and edit audio, burn CDs and DVDs, and watch video and TV with Knoppix. After the jump, preview the sample hack PDF.
Windows only: Freeware application doubleTwist converts your DRM-laden iTunes purchases to DRM-free MP3s that you can play pretty much anywhere. In addition to the DRM-stripping (which really is the marquee feature), doubleTwist is actually a full-fledged tool for sharing music with friends and syncing your iTunes library to any device—currently supporting devices like the PSP and Sony phones, Nokia N-Series phones, Windows Mobile phones, and even the Amazon Kindle. The DRM-stripping isn’t lossless (sound degradation is reportedly about 5%), but at a conversion rate of about 100 songs per half hour, it’s very fast. Brought to you by DVD Jon (the guy famous for cracking DVD encryption), this freeware, Windows-only (for now) app can free you from the shackles of Apple DRM. doubleTwist [via Gizmodo]
If you leave the office most nights feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and behind on everything you’ve got to get done at work—even though you just spent 10 hours there—you’re letting your workday get away from you. It’s too easy to let the hours you spend at the office get stolen by meetings, email, interruptions, and impromptu co-worker chats that leave you saddled with busywork and too distracted to get the important stuff done. But with a little thought, you can leave work feeling accomplished and complete instead. When it’s time to take back your workday, there are a few dead easy strategies that can help you focus on your tasks, firewall your attention, and reduce your workload so you can get out the door feeling light, free, and done. Photo by rochelle, et. al.
Productivity blogger Scott H Young says that the key to getting more done is starting with the big stuff first and moving to the little stuff. He calls this approach “top-heavy”: Being top-heavy means the bulk of the work is at the start. A top-heavy joke has a long buildup for a short punch line. A top-heavy schedule emphasizes the start, leaving more space at the end.
He says you should tackle the most difficult, important, and largest jobs first and leave the rest for later. Sounds similar to the pickle jar approach: put in the big rocks first, then the pebbles, then the sand, then the water. Make Your Time Top-Heavy [Scott H Young]
Editor Gina is getting ready to board a transpacific flight to the other side of the world this evening, but the prospect of being sealed in a tin can for 13 hours straight freaks her out. While she’ll have a laptop loaded up with movies and music, a few good books, and perhaps even some nighttime cold medicine, she wants to know: what’s the best way to deal on extended flights without going crazy? If you have any suggestions for making half a day on an airplane bearable, let us know in the comments (and she’ll stop talking about herself in the third person and shamelessly using you for her own purposes). Photo by S. Baker.
If you like to have ready-to-go access to remote machines (or a home server, perhaps) from your Linux desktop, you might have noticed that you can’t always get what you want. Many home and office routers kill “idle” connections after a certain length of time, forcing you to log in again. The FOSSwire blog points out a one-line addition to the end of the client’s SSH configuration file (found at /etc/ssh/sshd_config in many systems) to fix this: ServerAliveInterval 180
That should send a little ping out every three minutes to ensure the connection is kept alive. This tip should work on most any OpenSSH server that allows access to its sshd_config file, but, as FOSSwire points out, it means any connections you leave open are just that—open to any nefarious passer-by, so use session-closing caution when needed. Keep Your SSH Connection Open [FOSSwire]
Windows only: Copy and move files from across your system with Piky Basket, a free Windows utility that runs as an Explorer right-click extension. The basic use is a “basket” where you compile a range of files from different locations and folders through right-clicking. Head to where you want to paste or move those files, and Piky dumps them all. You can also copy all the file paths from your basket contents to the clipboard for use in other utilities, and a bonus feature lets you open a command line window pointed at any location. It’s a low-key app that does (mostly) one function well, and all the better for it. Piky Basket is a free download for Windows sysytems only. Piky Basket [via FreewareGenius.com]
Scribd’s new iPaper tool is great for embedding PDFs, Word files, and other documents on a web page you can edit, but the service can be put to use in your browser as well. Blogger Tony Hirst has patched together two JavaScript bookmarklets that transform all the document links on a page to either same-page embedded objects or links to an iPaper viewer for the document. Drag them onto your bookmarks bar, click the link, and your documents are now viewable, no plug-in or download required. As Adam noted, the embedded Flash objects can sometimes overwhelm a page, but the browsing interface is pretty advanced for a free, easy-to-use app. Scribd iPaper Bookmarklet [OUseful Info]
Windows only: There’s no shortage of sticky-note-style reminder apps out there, but Hott Notes offers a lot of handy features in one package, making it worth a try on your desktop. The notes themselves can be coloured, sized, and set at custom transparencies, of course, but the notes also come in three flavours: Standard, text-style notes, to-do notes with built-in checklists, and scribble notes that let you draw with your mouse cursor. Hott Notes also rocks a portable version, so you can bring your reminders from desktop to desktop, and an alarm can be attached to any note you create. And for fans of “zen applications” (not our phrase, we swear), Hott Notes offers a “Note Desktop” that shades over everything except your notes. Pretty handy notes, overall, in nice-looking packages. Hott Notes is a free download for Windows systems only. Hott Notes [via Digital Inspiration]
